Lament for a Lost Age

One of my most popular posts is "The Ages of D&D," which I wrote more than fifteen(!) years ago, on January 11, 2009. In it, I attempted to sort the history of Dungeons & Dragons into a series of "ages" – Golden, Silver, Bronze, etc. I was still fairly new to the blogging game when I wrote that post and, while I largely stand behind its conclusions, I now concede that I relied more on hazy memories and intuitions than on anything approaching "research." Perhaps one day I'll offer a more considered discussion of the Ages of D&D, complete with evidence to support my assertions, but, for the purposes of the present post, I'm going to go with the categories and timeframes I established back in 2009.

In the original post, I assert that the Golden Age of D&D lasted almost a decade, from 1974 until 1983. In retrospect, I'm not entirely sure why I chose 1983 as the end point of the Golden Age. My guess is that it I saw the arrival of Dragonlance in 1984 as marking a definitive break with the way the game had previously been marketed and played. Even so, if you read my original post, you'll see that I allow for the possibility that the Golden Age actually ended somewhere 1979 and 1981, with either the completion of AD&D or the publication of Moldvay's Basic Set being important milestones, albeit for different reasons. Even then, I think I recognized that the game had already changed by the time I first encountered it in late 1979 and indeed that I might never have encountered it at all had it not been for those changes.

I've previously discussed the foundational role played by David C. Sutherland III in giving birth to the esthetics of Dungeons & Dragons. Sutherland's grounded, vaguely historical illustrations were, for several years, the face of D&D. During the three-year period between 1975 and 1978, Sutherland and Dave Trampier were together responsible for nearly all the art that appeared in TSR products, not just Dungeons & Dragons but other games, too, like Gamma World and Boot Hill. Not bad for a couple of "talented amateurs." is it?

By now, you can probably guess where I'm going with this: the end of the Golden Age is marked by a shift in the game's esthetics away from the extraordinary ordinary artwork of Sutherland and Trampier and toward something else – just what is a different question. Nevertheless, consider that, in 1979, TSR began to expand its stable of artists, hiring Erol Otus (whose TSR artwork debuted in later printings of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide) and David "Diesel" LaForce (ditto). The next year, in 1980, TSR added Jeff Dee, Jim Roslof, and Bill Willingham as well. The cumulative effect of their artistic talents is unmistakable.

The change in the look of Dungeons & Dragons products in the aftermath of hiring these five artists cannot be denied. Pick up almost any D&D book or module published between 1979 and 1981 and compare it to its predecessors. Earlier products have a stiff, staid, "serious" look to them that, to my eyes at least, shows some continuity with the look and feel of the historical wargames out of which the hobby grew. By contrast, the D&D books and modules from the '79 to '81 period are bright, bold, and dynamic. They are clearly the work of different artists with very different esthetic sensibilities.

These sensibilities ranged from the comic book inflected art of Dee and Willingham to the more restrained heroic action of Roslof and the underground comix stylings of Otus. Whether this shift was "better" or "worse" than what preceded it is immaterial. What matters is that it happened and it denotes the beginning of a new phase in the history of Dungeons & Dragons – the mass marketing of the game to an audience beyond college age and older wargamers whose points of reference were the pulp fantasy authors and stories that I've attempted to draw attention to over the years.

I entered the hobby right smack in the middle of this period of D&D history. After my initial exposure to Dungeons & Dragons through the Holmes Basic Set and In Search of the Unknown, many of my earliest memories of the game are filtered through the artwork of Dee, Otus, Willingham, and the other newcomers to TSR. While only a few of my Top 10 Illustrations of the Golden Age – bear in mind I wrote those posts before I started to re-evaluate my thoughts on the matter – are the work of these artists, that does nothing to diminish the impact they had not just on me but on D&D's presentation to the wider world. For a large cohort of new players, the 1979–1980 hires defined Dungeons & Dragons in much the same way that Sutherland and Trampier did before them.

But, like all such periods of roiling creativity, it did not last long. By 1982, many of these artists no longer worked at TSR and those that remained, like LaForce, shifted over to cartography, doing illustrations only sporadically. New artists, like Larry Elmore and Jeff Easley, appeared on the scene around the same time, lending their considerable talents to depicting the fantastic realism of the dawning Silver Age. Lots of readers slightly younger than me no doubt have similar feelings of affection toward this next group of artists, as they should, but, for me, many of my fondest memories of Dungeons & Dragons will be forever intertwined with that first "new" generation of artists whose arrival on the scene coincided with my own.

Retrospective: Revolt on Antares

While I've briefly touched on TSR's 1981 mini-game Revolt on Antares a couple of times before, I've never done a proper Retrospective post on it. I've decided to rectify that this week, both because it's an excellent, fun-to-play little hex-and-chit wargame and because, of all TSR's mini-games, it's the one with which I had the most experience playing. Consequently, I've got a lot more to say about Revolt on Antares compared to its seven sister games published over the course of 1981 and 1982.

Before getting to the game itself, I'd briefly like to draw attention to its place within the history of TSR. Revolt on Antares came out in '81, during a time when TSR was rapidly expanding both its release schedule and its ambitions. Though Dungeons & Dragons remained the company's bestselling line of products by far, there seems to have been genuine concern that its popularity was faddish and could not be sustained forever. TSR, therefore, began to experiment with other games (and approaches to games) as a hedge against the possible collapse in interest in D&D.

Mini-games, like Revolt on Antares, were part of that experiment. Coming on a clear plastic case, the game consisted of a short, 16-page rulebook, a sheet of cardboard counters, a colored map, and a pair of dice. Tom Moldvay designed the rules, while Kevin Hendryx served as its developer. Graphically, it makes full use of TSR's stable of young artists, like Jeff Dee, Dave LaForce, Erol Otus, Jim Roslof, and Bill Willingham, all of whom I'd consider representative of this experimental period in the history of the company. Dee's cover is especially memorable to me, probably because of how I often I played Revolt on Antares with my friends at the time.

As wargames go, this one is quite simple – but that was a big part of its appeal to me. Though I knew a lot of guys into wargames in my youth, I never really devoted much effort to playing them myself, with a couple of exceptions here and there. For the most part, this was simply a matter of not being sufficiently interested in wargames to devote the time necessary to learn and play them. I'd much rather have been playing roleplaying games than the Rise and Decline of the Third Reich. 

What immediately appealed to me about Revolt on Antares was its science fiction setting. I've been a huge fan of SF since I was a young child, growing up in the immediate aftermath of the Apollo program and watching reruns of Star Trek on a grainy black-and-white TV with my aunt. And, of course, like all little boys at the time, I was a fan of Star Wars. The combination of these facts with my TSR fanboyism made it perhaps inevitable that I'd purchase Revolt on Antares almost as soon as I saw it. 

The simplicity was, as I've already noted, a plus, especially when compared to other SF wargames I attempted to play around the same time. The rulebook quickly establishes the basic scenario:

Imirrhos, ninth planet of the star Antares, lies on the edges of Earth's Imperial Terran Empire. As the Empire grows weaker, Imirrhos boils with unrest and intrigue. The seven local ruling families (or "houses") fight for power. Some want the Terrans to leave, others need Imperial support. A few know of the Silakka, an alien race that is waiting to invade ...

The rulebook then offers up three different scenarios for play. The basic scenario is for two players and concerns the revolt against Terra. One player takes the role of a house leader leading the revolt, while the other is the Imperial Terran consul, who is attempting to crush the rebellion. The second scenario is also for two players and concerns the defense of Antares against the invading Silakkans. The third – and, in my opinion, most fun – scenario is for 2 to 4 players, with each player taking on the role of one or more houses as they jockey for control of Imirrhos. 

A big part of the appeal of Revolt on Antares are its characters. Each of the houses is led by a character with both a name and a unique ability. For example, House Orsini is led by Messalina Orsini, whose power of fascination enables her to subvert the loyalty of opposing units, while House Edistyn is led by Nureb Khan Edistyn, whose precognition ability allows him to roll two dice instead of one in combat, taking the best result. In addition, there are "Galactic Heroes" whom you can recruit, like the assassin Corvus Adromeda and Dr. Death, who can animate the bodies of fallen units as zombies. These heroes act much like house leaders in their use but may be recruited by any faction. There are also ancient alien artifacts, such as the Force Cannon and Energy Drainer, whose possession and use adds yet more mayhem into the mix.

Looking back on it now, it's clear that what made Revolt on Antares so appealing to me was its world building. Though the information Moldvay provides about Imirrhos and its inhabitants are as brief as its rules, they are surprisingly evocative. Names like Black Dougal Mackenzie or Ward Serpentine possess a certain mystery that made me want to know more – and, in the absence of such information, my friends and I imagined it for ourselves. That's precisely the stuff from which good games are made and, by that standard, Revolt on Antares is a very good game.

From a purely objective perspective, it's nothing special. As I keep saying, the rules for combat and movement are very, very simple. I'm sure long-time wargamers would justifiably scoff at their lack of depth. I can't really argue against such judgments, except to say that I had a blast playing Revolt on Antares again and again, each time coming up with new ideas about the implied setting of the game – not bad for a little game published four decades ago!

A (Very) Brief Pictorial History of Halflings

For today's look at the art of TSR era Dungeons & Dragons, I've decided to step away from monsters and instead focus on something a little different: halflings. Halflings, as everyone knows, originate in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and have little or no antecedents in real world myth or legend. Despite Gary Gygax's well-known dislike of The Lord of the Rings, he was, however, a fan of The Hobbit, which introduced halflings – or, rather, hobbits – to the world. Both books were very popular among fantasy aficionados during the early 1970s, when D&D was born, so it's not at all surprising that Tolkien's diminutive creations should find their way into the game (along with several of his monsters). Of course, this usage was completely unauthorized and legally dubious. Saul Zaentz's Middle-earth Enterprises threatened legal actions against TSR for its usage of "hobbit" (and "ent" and "Nazgûl," I believe) in OD&D. Subsequent printings of the game, such as the one I own, changed "hobbit" to "halfling" and that term then became the common one in Dungeons & Dragons. 

There are no clearly identified illustrations of halflings in OD&D. However, there is this piece of Greg Bell artwork that I think is supposed to be a halfling:

As you can see, the illustration is crude and looks more like the common depiction of a leprechaun – note the hat – than what we now expect of a hobbit or halfling. However, there are no leprechauns in OD&D, playable or otherwise. Further, if you look carefully, you can see the figure above is using a sling in his right hand, a signature weapon of halflings in both OD&D and the Fantasy Supplement to Chainmail. 

The earliest unambiguous illustration of a halfling comes in the AD&D Monster Manual by David Sutherland. Sutherland's depiction is broadly consonant with Tolkien's descriptions of hobbits, including their hairy feet.

The next year, in 1978, Sutherland illustrated module B1, In Search of the Unknown. One such illustration shows a short figure I assume is meant to be a halfling. Because he has no beard, I don't think he's supposed to be a dwarf, but there's no way of knowing for certain.

Next up is Bill Willingham's take on a halfling from the 1980 reprint of White Plume Mountain – even though it actually depicts a polymorphed efreeti masquerading as a halfling. Once again, furry feet à la Tolkien are visible.

1980 also saw the release of Slave Pits of the Undercity, whose cover features this towheaded halfling by Jeff Dee.

The Tom Moldvay D&D Basic Set (1981) includes this depiction of several different character classes by Dave LaForce. In the bottom right-hand corner, you can see a halfling, armed with a bow. 

The Cook-Marsh Expert Set (1981) includes one of my favorite depictions of a D&D halfling (by Jeff Dee). 

Frank Mentzer's 1983 revisions of the Basic and Expert Sets include many illustrations of halflings, probably the most of any TSR edition of Dungeons & Dragons. For the purposes of space, I'm including only a single example (by Larry Elmore), though there are many other excellent options to choose from.

The same year saw the release of The Shady Dragon Inn, a supplement filled with artistic renderings of every conceivable D&D character type, including halflings. It also features portraits of characters based on the LJN D&D toy line, such as Figgen the Halfling Thief (whose toy, ironically, was never actually produced as far as I know). This is Timothy Truman's version of Figgen:

In the third episode of the first season of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series (also 1983), we're introduced to a character called Hector the Halfling (who's actually bad guy Venger disguised by magic). He's the only halfling to appear in the series of looks quite different than all previous depictions of the race. He lacks hairy feet, but he wears peculiar pants that cover half of his oversized feet, leaving the toes visible. He also has pointed ears, an inconsistently portrayed aspect of D&D halflings.

The Forgotten Realms Campaign Set (1987) presents us with another slightly anomalous vision of halflings. Jeff Easley's halflings are skinny, goofy-looking little people with mildly larcenous demeanors. They still have big, slightly hairy feet, but otherwise strike me as quite unique.

Jim Holloway's version of halflings from 1989's Monstrous Compendium is, in my opinion, a little creepy, with his heavy eyebrows, half-lidded eyes, and languorous pose. He also boasts a veritable mane of hair that starts at his ankles and then drapes over the tops of his feet. To my eyes, the overall effect is suggestive of a satyr rather than a hobbit and I can't say I'm keen on it.

Tony DiTerlizzi's piece from the 1993 Monstrous Manual is better, exuding a kind of scrappy heroism that works well for halflings. 

As you can see from just this small sampling of illustrations, there's never been a fully consistent conception of halflings. I wouldn't be surprised if this was driven, at least in part, by a desire to legally distinguish D&D's diminutive race from Tolkien's hobbits. At the same time, there can be no question that, at base, halflings are hobbits in all but name. The presence of hairy feet – a characteristic derived from Tolkien – in nearly all of the above pieces of artwork demonstrates that. If the intention were to avoid comparisons to the denizens of Middle-earth, you'd think removing that feature would have been at the top of the art director's list. (Interestingly, the kender of Dragonlance pointedly wear shoes – take that, Saul Zaentz!).

There's a lot more to be said on this topic, I think, but I'll leave that to another day. For now, I'm interested in your thoughts about both the art and the place of halflings in your own D&D campaigns. Do you use them? Do you, like me, replace them with another race? Or you omit them entirely? 

A (Very) Partial Pictorial History of Gnolls

There's no use in fighting it. You'll be seeing more entries in what has inadvertently become a series for a few more weeks at least, perhaps longer. After last week's post on bugbears, which are a uniquely D&D monstrous humanoid, I knew I'd have to turn to gnolls this week, as they, too, are unique to the game. Perhaps I should clarify that a little. There is no precedent, mythological or literary, for the spelling "gnoll." However, the spelling "gnole" appears in "How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles" from Lord Dunsany's 1912 short story collection, The Book of Wonder (as well as in Margaret St. Clair's "The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles"). 

There can be no doubt that Dunsany's story served as the seeds for the gnolls of D&D. In their description in Book 1 of OD&D, gnolls are described as "a cross between Gnomes and Trolls (. . . perhaps, Lord Sunsany [sic] did not really make it all that clear." The original short story contains no description of the titular creature, leaving Gygax to advance his theory of gnolls being a weird hybrid monster. Artist Greg Bell interprets them thusly:

Sometime in the three years between their first appearance in OD&D (1974) and the publication of the Monster Manual (1977), someone at TSR decided that gnolls were, in fact, "low intelligence beings like hyena-men." That's how they're described in J. Eric Holmes's Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, which is where I first encountered them, courtesy of this delightful illustration by Tom Wham:

Meanwhile, the Monster Manual itself, published the same year, gives us this illustration by Dave Sutherland.

The Monster Manual also includes another Sutherland gnoll-related piece, this time of Yeenoghu, the demon lord of gnolls. To my eyes, Yeenoghu looks a lot more hyena-like than does the illustration above, but, even so, they're still broadly similar.

Speaking of Yeenoghu, he reappears in the pages of Deities & Demigods, this time depicted by Dave LaForce. I've always found this version of the demon lord a bit goofy. I'm not sure if it's his grin or the strangeness of the arm that holds his infamous triple flail. 

The AD&D Monster Cards sets are a good source of unusual takes on many monsters and that's especially so in the case of gnolls. Artist Harry Quinn depicts them in a way that, to my eyes, looks decidedly feline. To anyone familiar with the weird phylogenetics of hyenas, that's inappropriate, but it still feels off somehow. Perhaps it's simply the weight of all the previous depictions that makes me think so. In any case, Quinn's version of the gnoll is quite distinctive.

The 2e Monstrous Compendium features what is probably the most hyena-like of all versions of the gnoll, courtesy of James Holloway.

Tony DiTerlizzi provides an even more hyena-like version of the gnoll in the Monstrous Manual, right down the spots on its fur. 

I feel like I have probably overlooked some illustrations of gnolls from the TSR era of D&D, but, if so, they must be fairly obscure, as these are the only ones I could easily find in my collection. What's most notable about the ones I did find is how closely they hew to the post-OD&D notion that gnolls are hyena-men. I'd chalk up most of the differences to artist skill and choice rather than a fundamental disagreement about this fact. In this respect, they're quite similar to bugbears, another distinctly D&D monster whose look stayed largely the same during TSR's stewardship of Dungeons & Dragons.

A (Very) Partial Pictorial History of Bugbears

Since my recent forays into the artistic evolution of both kobolds and goblins (not to mention orcs) have proved popular with readers, I thought I'd continue to look into other well-known Dungeons & Dragons monsters for a few more weeks. This time, I'm looking at the bugbear, both because it's completely unique to D&D, but also because, with one very important exception, its representation in artwork has been very consistent – far more so than any of the previous monstrous humanoids I've examined so far.

Of course, that one exception is a big one. More than that, it's the original illustration of the bugbear, as drawn by Greg Bell in OD&D's Supplement I (1975). Look upon his majesty!

I actually really like this illustration, because it's just so weird. That pumpkin head – the result of a miscommunication between Bell and Gygax – makes it quite clear that you're dealing with a wholly inhuman monster, despite its two arms, two legs, and upright stance. These days, this is how I prefer my monstrous humanoids, so I may be unduly biased toward it. Regardless, it's an oddity and an outlier that no subsequent TSR era D&D artist has ever used as inspiration for his interpretation of it – a pity!

With the AD&D Monster Manual (1977), we see the first examples of what will eventually become the iconic appearance of the bugbear – little wonder, since it's by Dave Sutherland, the artist most responsible in my opinion for the esthetic of old school D&D. 

Here's another instance of a bugbear from the Monster Manual, this time drawn by Dave Trampier. I find this second piece interesting, because it's clear that Tramp is using Sutherland's illustration above as a model. These are clearly the same monster drawn by two different artists.

Speaking of Tramp, he drew another early bugbear illustration, which appeared in 1978's Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Once again, this is clearly the same monster as those depicted in the MM, but, this time, they have a slightly more cartoonish look to them, almost like characters out of Trampier's Wormy comic. 

Next up are some Grendadier Model sculpts of bugbears from 1980. As you can see, these, too, are in keeping with the basic appearance laid down by Dave Sutherland a few years earlier – big, furry brutes with wide mouths full of sharp teeth and large ears.

1980 was also the year in which Deities & Demigods appeared. Though bugbears as such do not appear in the book, we do get a depiction of their deity, Hruggek, as drawn by Dave LaForce. I'm not fond of this illustration, which I've always found a bit goofy. Maybe it's the grin, I don't know. Still, it's broadly in keeping with what we've come to expect of bugbears up till now.

In 1982, the AD&D Monster Cards include a bugbear, its illustration done by Jim Holloway. This may be the first piece of color artwork for the monster in the history of the game. 

Second Edition's Monstrous Compendium (1989) includes this artwork, again by Jim Holloway. While still largely in keeping with its predecessors, I notice that the bugbear's face is now arranged more like that of a human being. Both its mouth and ears are smaller, for example, though its nose remains large and broad.  

Finally, there's Tony DiTerlizzi's take on bugbears from 2e's Monstrous Manual (1993). I'm not sure what to make of this illustration. While it retains the overall look of Sutherland's original, I feel like it continues down the path laid down by the Monstrous Compendium of giving bugbears human proportions, which undercuts their monstrousness, something I've come to see as a mistake in the portrayal of D&D's humanoid monsters. 

I am certain I've overlooked several other examples of bugbear illustrations from TSR era Dungeons & Dragons. Feel free to point me toward others that you've found. I'm particularly interested in any examples of bugbears that, like Greg Bell's OD&D version, deviate greatly from the model laid down by Sutherland. My suspicion is that there won't be many (or any) such examples, because, for whatever reason, most old school D&D illustrators more or less followed in the footsteps of their predecessors, something we don't see in quite the same way with many other monsters. I wonder why that is.

A (Very) Partial Pictorial History of Goblins

During the course of looking into the pictorial history of kobolds last week, I noticed that, starting in the late First Edition AD&D era and extending into early Second Edition, kobolds started looking more goblin-like in illustrations. This was particularly striking in light of Dave Sutherland's original depiction of them as short, horned, scaly dog-men, a depiction unique to old school Dungeons & Dragons. Thinking further on the matter, I began to ponder just what I meant by "goblin-like." Had my notion of a goblin in D&D been similarly influenced by the depictions of them to which I'd been first exposed during my entrance into the hobby of roleplaying? Given the popularity of my kobold post last week, I thought this a question worth investigating.

So far as I can tell, the very first depiction of a goblin in any Dungeons & Dragons product is this one from the original 1974 release of the game. Drawn by Greg Bell, this early goblin looks to me more like a deranged dwarf than a monster in the usual sense of the term:

Dave Trampier provided the illustration for goblins in the AD&D Monster Manual (1977) and I suspect this is the ultimate source for my own imagining of what they look like:

In the same year, Minifigs in the UK produced a series of Dungeons & Dragons miniatures that included goblins among them. Here's one that looks to be quite similar to Trampier's art, right down to the little horned helmet:

In 1980, Grenadier Models produced its own take on goblins, which, again, are broadly consonant with Trampier's depiction, though, to my eyes anyway, they seem slightly more feral. 

1981 is the year Tom Moldvay's D&D Basic Set is released. Though the rulebook does not include artwork for any of the game's traditional humanoid enemies, it does include this Dave LaForce – were all of TSR's early artists named Dave – piece from the alignment section in which there's a bound and gagged figure whom my childhood friends and I assumed was a goblin. He certainly matches many of the characteristics associated with goblins, though he seems to be taller and less stocky than previous depictions.

Like the Moldvay Basic Set, Frank Mentzer's 1983 revision does not include any illustrations of its monstrous humanoids. However, in its solo adventure, there is the following piece of artwork (by Jeff Easley) that, from context, would seem to depict goblins. Once again, they wear horned helmets.

The same year, the Doug Niles D&D Basic adventure, Horror on the Hill, was published. The adventure's primary antagonists are goblins and hobgoblins. Jim Holloway provides numerous illustrations throughout the module, but, aside from a couple of contextual clues, it's not at all clear (to me anyway) when he's depicting a goblin and when he's depicting a hobgoblin. A big of why that's the case is that the two races look very similar to one another. Are these two goblins or hobgoblins? Regardless, I think they're representative of Holloway's broader take on these humanoids.

In the third and final season of the D&D cartoon, there's an episode entitled "The Dungeon at the Heart of Dawn" that features a character who looks very much like Dave Trampier's original Monster Manual illustration of a goblin, though he's not explicitly called a goblin. He even has – yet again – a horned helmet, although, in this story, the horns serve to focus a magical blast that he shoots from his helmet. 

Second Edition's Monstrous Monstrous Compendium (1989) gives us a different Jim Holloway take on goblins. You can definitely see in this piece an evolution of Trampier's original, right down to his pose. He still wears a small helmet, albeit one without horns. This goblin is a bit more wizened in appearance than his 1e counterpart, which, strangely, calls to mind Greg Bell's dwarf-like OD&D version.

Finally, there's this goblin image from the 2e Monstrous Manual (1993) by an artist I can't quite identify. He's vaguely reminiscent of Holloway's goblins from Horror on the Hill, but also seems vaguely "fairy tale-ish" in his attire, particularly the oversized shoes. 

As the title of this post implies, this is an incomplete examination of the evolution of goblins in TSR era Dungeons & Dragons. I am sure there are other illustrations depicting this classic evil humanoid to be found during the period between 1974 and 2000, but I've presented here only those with which I am most familiar. If there are other examples from this period you think are particularly relevant to this discussion, please feel free to post them in the comments. This is especially true if the depiction differs radically from what we see above. My own take on goblins from the Dwimmermount and Urheim setting of Telluria owe a lot, I think, to the illustrations I saw in the TSR products of my youth, which just goes to show how important evocative artwork is in bringing a game and/or setting to life.

A (Very) Partial Pictorial History of Kobolds

One of the things I've long appreciated about early Dungeons & Dragons is the way that it took vaguely defined folkloric, mythological, and literary monsters and made them distinctive to the game. The pig-faced orcs of the Monster Manual are a good example of what I'm talking about, though there are many others, like kobolds. In folklore, kobolds don't have a clear and universally accepted description. From what I recall, they're short and vaguely dwarfish. That's probably why Holmes, in his Basic Set, calls them "evil dwarf-like beings" (and why I opted for something similar in my Dwimmermount and Urheim setting).

Within the history of D&D, however, the image immediately below is (I think) the very first time we're shown a kobold. It's from the AD&D Monster Manual (1977) and is drawn by Dave Sutherland, based on an exceptionally vague description that speaks only of their coloration, small horns, lack of hair, and red eyes. 

The MM also includes a second Sutherland kobold illustration, this one a full-page piece.

I like this second illustration a lot, because it gives a sense of how, despite having only 1–4 hit points each, kobolds could nevertheless be dangerous foes, because of their numbers. The illustration is also useful in showing the little monsters from several different angles. I suspect, more than any other, this piece is responsible for my early conception of kobolds and their physical characteristics – short, scaly dog-men with horns. Precisely why Sutherland settled on this appearance, I have no idea, since there's nothing in either folklore or the Monster Manual's own description to suggest it.

That same year (1977), Minifigs in the UK picked up the license to produce official Dungeons & Dragons miniatures. Though the company didn't produce as many figures as did Grenadier later (more on that below), it produced enough that they're often worth examining for insight into the beginnings of D&D as a product line. Take, for example, this figure of a kobold, which looks rather similar to the creatures depicted in Sutherland's illustrations, particularly the second, full-page one, right down to the harness he's wearing.

1980's Rogues Gallery features a very memorable depiction of kobolds by Jeff Dee. As you can see, Dee's kobolds look very similar to Sutherland's – almost identical, in fact. In this rendering, they're still short, scaly dog-men.

Deities & Demigods was published the same year as the Rogues Gallery, but offers up a somewhat different depiction of kobolds. The entry for Kurtulmak, the supreme deity of the kobolds, is accompanied by an illustration drawn by Erol Otus. He's described as looking like a "giant kobold (5½' tall) with scales of steel and a tail with a poisonous stinger). This suggests that what we see below is, more or less, what a kobold looks like. Though there's a very broad similarity with the Sutherland/Dee illustrations, we can see that his face has been flattened into more humanoid proportions, thereby lessening its canine associations.

Just below the Otus illustration in the DDG is another one featuring Kurtulmak, this time by Dave LaForce. As you can see, the four kobolds depicted in it look like smaller versions of their god, albeit without horns or scales. To me, LaForce's kobolds look almost simian in apperance. 

Interestingly, 1980 is also the year that Grenadier Models first started producing official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons miniatures under license from TSR. If you look carefully at this photo, what you see are three kobold miniatures whose appearance is not too dissimilar to what we see in the art of Otus and LaForce above. Pay close attention to their flat, humanoid faces and lack of horns.

The next year (1981), Otus provides a different illustration for a kobold, this time appearing in Tom Moldvay's D&D Basic Set. This illustration accompanies an entry that describes kobolds as "small, evil dog-like men ... [that] have scaly rust-brown skin and no hair."

This version has neither horns nor a tail, but its canine head is unmistakable. I find it notable that the module Keep on the Borderlands, included with the '81 Basic Set, has a rumor table that makes mention not just of "hordes of tiny dog-men" (i.e. kobolds), but also "big dog-men" or gnolls, suggesting a connection between these two monsters that I don't believe I've ever seen developed in the entire history of D&D. 

Above, we can see Jim Roslof's illustration of a kobold from 1982's AD&D Monster Cards. This illustration looks to me to be a further development of the Otus/LaForce version of kobolds – flat faces, no horns, no visible tail. In fact, they look rather like the goblins depicted in that same product, which makes for an interesting call-back to OD&D (and Chainmail before it), which seems to treat kobolds as if they were simply a species of goblin, or at least a closely related type of monster.

The first appearance of kobolds in AD&D Second Edition is in the Monstrous Compendium (1989), with this illustration by Jim Holloway:

Holloway's kobold is a kind of two-steps-forward-one-step-back version – broadly consonant with Otus/LaForce/Roslof one but regaining the horns of Sutherland/Dee. Though there's no visible tail, the description in the Monstrous Compendium suggests that they do indeed possess "non-prehensile rat-like tails." It also notes that they "sound like small dogs yapping" and smell like "a cross between damp dogs and stagnant water." This perhaps suggests that the writer (David Cook, Steve Winter, or Jon Pickens) was attempting to restore a bit of the canine connection of early 1e while retaining the overall look established by its later artists.

Lastly, there's this illustration from the 2e Monstrous Manual (1993), provided by Tony DiTerlizzi, who's probably best known for his distinctive contributions to the Planescape setting. This version restores the elongated, muzzle-like face of early AD&D, though, to my eyes, it looks more rat-like than canine. The accompanying description is the same as in the earlier Monstrous Compendium, so it's not as if any of DiTerlizzi's alterations were required by a revised text.

Despite my recent musings about Third Edition, the post-TSR editions of Dungeons & Dragons are beyond the scope of this blog, so I won't be discussing the subsequent development of kobolds. That's probably just as well, since I'm not a fan of their metamorphosis into small lizard/dragon-men. Nevertheless, looking over the pictorial history of this low-level monster has opened my eyes to just how ill-defined the kobold actually is. My own preferred version is heavily indebted to that of the first version I ever saw and I suspect that's probably true of most other D&D players. 

Do you have a default vision of kobolds? If so, what does it look like?