In making yet another revision to the long-established lore of the popular tabletop RPG system, Wizards of the Coast has officially ‘revealed’ that despite appearances, the Warrior featured on the cover to the 1983 Dungeons & Dragons ‘Red Box’ set is not a man, but actually a woman.
One of the most iconic images in the entirety of the franchise, the ‘Red Box’ artwork made its debut in 1983, its epic scene adorning the front of the game’s third edition release.
Painted by noted fantasy artist Larry Elmore, the cover art depicts an faceless warrior, seen from behind with blade in hand and a horned helmet adorning his head, lunging into battle against a roaring, crimson dragon – all in all, the perfect piece to quickly and effectively communicate the game’s identity to any potential customer who sees it on the shelf.
Given their rippling and stocky physique, for the last forty years, an assumption has persisted among D&D players that the battle-locked warrior was a man – not that it really mattered, as it was a single image used in promotion of a game which required players to create their own characters.
However, never one to let an opportunity to virtue signal pass them by, rather than allowing this innocent assumption to continue on, Wizards of the Coast has recently confirmed that, as far as they’re now concerned, the warrior in question is canonically a woman.
Set to be released later this year, the D&D Icons of the Realms: 50th Anniversary set presents players with a total of 70 new game miniatures – 60 standard figures and 10 secret chase figures – for use in their respective tabletop campaigns.
To this end, one of the ten secret chase figures will be none other than ‘The Red Box Warrior’ themselves, their specific miniature recreating their original pose, swinging sword and all.
However, in a move the publisher themselves admitted to ComicBook.com was done “purposefully and clearly“, rather than a man, the miniature very clearly depicts the Warrior as a woman.
Notably, following this ‘gender-reveal’, Elmore himself took to his personal Facebook to clarify that, while Wizards of the Coast were free to “interepret” the Warrior as a member of the fairer sex, he had, in reality, always considered them to be male.
“I recently was asked a question about the Ancient Red painting I did for the cover of the Red Box edition,” wrote Elmore on May 7th. “‘Did you paint a male or female?’ It’s a man.”
“Gary didn’t know what he wanted, all he wanted was something simple that would jump out at you,” the artist explained. “He wanted a male warrior. If it was a woman, you would know it for I’m pretty famous for painting women. For this specific painting, while I hide the face of the warrior so it is anonymous, it was painted as a man. You can interpret it however you want, for that is the magic of art, but I am answering a question that was asked without context.”
Following a humorous conclusion of “Now the Dragon on other hand…”, Elmore clarified in a post-script, “Just to be clear, the thing that I love about D&D was that anyone can be anything in this game. Male, Female, both, neither, it does not discriminate. It’s a game of imagination and you can be and do whatever you want.”
At current, the D&D Icons of the Realms: 50th Anniversary is now available for pre-order on WizKids’ official website ahead of its July 2024 release.