This is Dragonmaster (1981), a card game by Milton Bradley and yet another example of a product looking to capitalize on the boom of fantasy in pop culture consciousness.

It is a card game that…kind of reminds me of Euchre, maybe? I don’t know card games very well, so I am probably wrong. Anyway, the rules kind of baffle me and are also rather dull, so I am not going to get into them. Just know, it is essentially a fantasy themed version of some sort of regular card game, with plastic gems standing in for chips. There is very little here on a mechanical level to justify that cover copy. “The ultimate power struggle in a forgotten land?” Nah.

But oh, that fantasy theming. Would you look at that Bob Pepper art? Straight gorgeous. Pick this up, you’ve got one hell of a set of NPC portraits. I just can’t get over how pretty they all are. I love the pallets, I love the flatness and how the design elements are weaved into the compositions and that weird ass double stroke around everything. Extremely of the time, I think, especially the beautifully hideous color scheme on the box top, but also so good, good, good.