Ah, the Rogues Gallery. Page after page of NPC and monster stats. Why buy sheets for your own NPCs when you can just have TSR make the NPCs for you from whole cloth?

In fairness, this isn’t useless (I particularly approve of the pre-cooked lich stats), it’s just a bit dull, what with all the numbers (though compared to some of Chaosium’s similar early RuneQuest supplements, this is downright luxurious). Thank goodness there’s all this amazing art! Erol Otus has a solid cover (that horned helmet is groovy) and his lich/ki-rin/coutl combo on the back cover is another old school fave of mine (note the upside-down cross). Inside, he provides a great druid vs. mind flayer face-off and a ranger vs. owl bear fight. Jeff Dee also pops up to slay an impressive black dragon.

A final point of interest is the Personalities chapter, which details a collection of characters from actual D&D campaigns, including Gygax’s own (his famous mages, Bigby and Mordenkainen are included). Characters by TSR employees Zeb Cook, Erol Otus and Lawrence Schick jump out, but it’s the names I don’t recognize that I find most intriguing. Who were they? Are they still alive? What adventures did they have with these characters?