The Dungeons & Dragons Classic Collection D-F
by Anton Kromoff
Welcome to the table,
Recently I’ve been in contact with a librarian who lives clear on the other side of the continent from me. She is one of many people who are putting together Dungeons & Dragons clubs and asking for advice on the best place to start. It’s got me reflecting back on my early days when I started playing D&D.
My first adventures were using the classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons system and I’m fairly certain one of my first characters was some brooding half-elf ranger with a name like Raven Riverwind who walked through the treetops and launched arrows at all who crossed his path. All my characters were goofy back in those days. I was a kid learning how to storytell with others and picking up the legends and lore of classic creatures that these days are considered iconic.
The gang over at WizKids has been dropping some amazing throwback Classic Collections that look as good out of the box as in it. The D-F collection has some truly memorable offerings including the Displacer Beast, Doppelganger, Efreeti, Air Elemental, Earth Elemental, Fire Elemental, Water Elemental, and the two-headed tree club-wielding Ettin.
These pre-painted miniatures hearken back to the classic AD&D designs really nailing the old-school look without stepping into territory that feels cheap or pandering. I love the less humanized elemental forms with the air, fire, and water elementals having semi-transparent plastic elements that feel like they elevate the whole vibe of the mini, and the displacer beast is such a great sculpt that I could see it sized up and sold as a statue that would make most collectors super happy to have it on their shelf.
The shelf appeal of the packaging on these is also stellar as they fit alongside your gaming books so they can be easily stored and look sick alongside your new or classic books. The window box lids of the boxes have great little Velcro dots to keep the lid closed as well so I’m kinda in love with these things.
If you want to score this collection for yourself head over to this link and get them before they are gone.
Until next time, it’s widely accepted that the concept of the Displacer Beast was borrowed from A. E. van Vogt‘s 1939 science fiction story “Black Destroyer,” which described a feline-like creature called a coeurl. Van Vogt would later go on to incorporate the coeurl into the novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle in 1950.
There is also a super cool version of the coeurl on the cover of Marvel Comics Worlds Unkown #5
