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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 12h

I will have other interviews about Designers & Dragons: Origins in the near future! (Taping my next one in two hours!)

Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 12h

I was thrilled to talk with @newmadras.bsky.social a few days ago about Designers & Dragons: Origins for Rascal News.

Rascal News is paywalled, but well worth it if you're interested in keeping up on the news & trends of the industry. (I'm a subscriber!)

Rascal News @rascal.news · 17h

A mammoth sequel to the Designers & Dragons set of RPG histories, this new book from Shannon Appelcline and Evil Hat seems like it'll be a treasure trove of facts for fans of the first few decades of D&D.

Shannon Appelcline returns with a product-by-product history of the first decades of D&D

Designers & Dragons: Origins promises to be another essential reference.

www.rascal.news

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Reposted by Shannon Appelcline 🌮

Evil Hat @evilhat.bsky.social · 13h

Historian @shannonappelcline.bsky.social spent nearly a decade researching the history behind each and every release TSR put out for OD&D, AD&D 1e, and Basic D&D.
How many products does Designers & Dragons: Origins cover?
Answer: this many.
Follow the project here:
www.backerkit.com/call_to_acti...

A tiled mosaic of over 320 products released by TSR for OD&D, AD&D 1e, and Basic D&D. From the first copy of Chainmail to the digital release of Orc's Head.

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 22h

(I've got some future articles partly laid out discussing OD&D cover art, AD&D interior art, and other games' art but I've been fixated on other things lately. I hope to publish them after the Designers & Dragons Origins crowdfunding closes out!)

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 22h

And if you know of any AD&D 1e, AD&D 2e, or BD&D cover art homages I missed, let me know!

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 22h

The Designers & Dragons Origins books will be out for crowdfunding in less than two weeks. Sign up to be notified!

www.backerkit.com/call_to_acti...

Launching Soon - Designers & Dragons: Origins

From Evil Hat - Launching Soon - Designers & Dragons: Origins

www.backerkit.com

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 22h

I wrote the homage articles because of my work on Designers & Dragons Origins, my next history books. One of my last revisions for the books was to expand some of the discussion of cover art, which led me to exploring the huge number of homages for some of that earlier work.

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 22h

There are currently five of these homage artwork collections, all available at my Designers & Dragons blog.

www.designers-and-dragons.com/category/art...

Homaging the D&D Classics – Designers & Dragons

www.designers-and-dragons.com

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 22h

There's also this super curious piece: the Dungeon Hack computer game excerpted the warrior from the BECMI cover! It then composited it onto something Jeff Easley had drawn for the 1988 Dragonlance calendar. (The German Magier & Priester supplement also used the original piece in 1998.)

The Dungeon Hack cover shows the BECMI warrior fighting some sort of monstrous demon. This cover depicts a 3.5" disk version for the IBM.

The original art shows Raistlin fighting that demon with Fistandantilus in the background. This cover depicts its usage on the cover of Amigo's 1998 Magier & Priester for AD&D.

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 22h

A few updates to my Basic D&D rules cover homages article!

Morgue's Basic is a brand new booklet that shows the unfortunate fate of the green dragon Erol Otus drew 45 years earlier.

I also turned up an older SnarfQuest Tales ad that homages BECMI.

www.designers-and-dragons.com/2025/05/27/h...

The cover of Morgue's Basic shows a green dragon head mounted on a wall. The green dragon is clearly the one Otus drew for the BX D&D cover.

An ad for SnarQuest Tales laid out like the BECMI red-box cover. The warrior is now Snarf, hiding behind his shield rather than attacking.

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

How does Designers & Dragons Origins have an inspiration in Doctor Who?

This is a thread from earlier today, about how the I, WHO series of books about the Doctor Who Novels was an inspiration when I started collecting my Dungeons & Dragons product histories into books. (Click through for more.)

Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

(The interviews will have the whole story.)

But when I set about putting those product histories into book volumes starting in 2020, I had a new inspiration: a series of books called I, WHO.

www.madnorwegian.com/185/books/do...

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

Yep! Where the secret lore of the orange cover of B3: Palace of the Silver Princess (in Vol. 3) might be more restricted to collectors.

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

But I am starting work on updated (third) editions early next year, after I hand the "Lost Histories" off to Evil Hat.

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

Yep! I feel like those are both robust entries that really show the depth of historical coverage possible for some of the products that have been most discussed by the designers over the years ...

But not necessarily the best histories in the book!

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

Someone messaged me yesterday and said, "I just read through Secret Door, and it was great."

And I was like: what???

(There'd been an idle mention in email, but I was even more surprised!)

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

Take a look at the Designers & Dragons Origin Secret Door for more on what that all means, with a preview of the articles on Supplement I: Greyhawk and the Fiend Folio.

www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/5...

Designers & Dragons: Origins - Secret Door - Evil Hat Productions | Other Favorites | DriveThruRPG

From the birth of roleplaying to the discovery of the Forgotten Realms, from the rise of Basic D&D to the fall of Mystara, explore the history of OD&D, BD&D, and AD&D 1e in Designers &...

www.drivethrurpg.com

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

I want people to pick up Designers & Dragons Origins just like I picked up I, WHO, when some classic D&D product comes to mind and read about it and marvel over all the history and thoughts of a well-loved (or barely-remembered!) product.

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

It wasn't explicit. I didn't realize it until I started talking about Designers & Dragons Origins. But I, WHO was definitely inspirational in thinking about format. (Thanks, Lars!)

Moreso, it was inspirational for goals.

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

So when I got to putting my DnDClassics product histories into books, I, WHO was in the back of my mind. It helped me shape my somewhat chaotic online writing into a regularized look at content. Alongside the history is discussion of topics such as rules, NPCs, monsters ...

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

I read through the entire New Adventures novel series in the '10s and made it a ways into the Eighth Doctor Adventures before I fizzled out.

Religiously, I would read the I, WHO entry after each book and marvel at what author Lars Pearson had recorded about that novel.

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

The I, WHO volumes are about the rich subuniverse of Doctor Who novels, especially those that came out during the show's hiatus from 1989-2005.

Each book gets two or three pages with some freeform discussion on things like character development and also more rigid topics (like "Ass-Whuppings").

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

(The interviews will have the whole story.)

But when I set about putting those product histories into book volumes starting in 2020, I had a new inspiration: a series of books called I, WHO.

www.madnorwegian.com/185/books/do...

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

I've done a few interviews about Designers & Dragons Origins over the last few days, and some folks have asked about the origins of Origins.

There's a long-ish story about the DnDClassics site and the return of D&D PDFs to the world.

The product histories emerged organically from that.

Launching Soon - Designers & Dragons: Origins

From Evil Hat - Launching Soon - Designers & Dragons: Origins

www.backerkit.com

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

You can also sign up to be notified when the Backerkit goes live.

www.backerkit.com/call_to_acti...

Launching Soon - Designers & Dragons: Origins

From Evil Hat - Launching Soon - Designers & Dragons: Origins

www.backerkit.com

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Shannon Appelcline 🌮 @shannonappelcline.bsky.social · 1d

What's in Designers & Dragons Origins? Evil Hat has (1 in 6) discovered a secret door that offers a look at two of the product histories in the upcoming volumes: Supplement I, Greyhawk and the Fiend Folio.

www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/5...

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