Saturday, December 9, 2023

Book Review: Dungeons and Dragons Art and Arcana


Dungeons and Dragons is the most iconic and pervasive tabletop gaming franchise in the world. It is a seminal RPG (role-playing game) and the inspiration for video games like World of Warcraft and Zelda, fantasy art, and countless other facets of "geek culture."

This officially licensed illustrated history provides an unprecedented look at the visual evolution of the game, showing its continued influence on the worlds of pop culture and fantasy. It features more than 700 pieces of artwork--from each edition of the game's core books, supplements, and modules; decades of Dragon and Dungeon magazines; classic advertisements and merchandise; and never-before-seen sketches, large-format canvases, rare photographs, one-of-a-kind drafts, and more from the now-famous designers and artists associated with the game. This is the most comprehensive collection of D&D imagery ever assembled, making this the ultimate collectible for the game's millions of fans around the world.

Dungeons and Dragons Art and Arcana was published October 23, 2018, from Ten Speed Press.

This weighty tome was very much a trip down Memory Lane for me. I am an old-school D&D player. I played my first session in high school in 1982, followed by a weekly session every Saturday for over four years while I was in college. This was using the first edition rules, before the word "advanced" was ever applied to them. My go-to class back then was the now-revamped thief.

Flipping through Art and Arcana was like pulling out a box kept at the back of a childhood closet or, in my case, rummaging through the filing cabinet full of everything I've never thrown out. It is very much a timecapsule of the history of this game, so many images of items and art that are also accompanied by a rich text retelling of the game from its origins through the beginnings of the most recent incarnation in the 5th Edition.

For fans of the game, both old and new, this is a volume worth checking out.

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