The Bestiary of Dragons and Giants (Dungeons & Dragons Accessory AC10) has much more to it than the title implies.
A Bestiary in D&D parlance (to me anyway)… I’d expect a Monster Manual type book. That’s not really the case here. Dragons and Giants has much more in common with the Book of Lairs releases for AD&D (See REF series at my reference site): Short adventures featuring a particular monster type on their home turf. Which is what you have in these 14 mini-adventures.
However, AC 10 has more than adventure seeds. The nifty part of this book is the Dragon Spell Generator that you can assemble.
Bestiary of Dragons and Giants (AC10)
1987 … Deborah Christian (editor) & Larry Elmore (cover) … 64 pages + 2 covers (2-panel + 3 panel) + errata sheet … TSR 9211 … ISBN 0880384883
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The Booklet
Credits. AC10 is solidly in the BECMI/Mentzer edition of D&D.
Immortality is the end goal of Dragons and Giants alike.
Inside Front Cover: Dragon and Giant Sizes
Dragon Spell Generator
I like the Dragon Spell Generator. The various dragon types in classic D&D are often limited spell-users, making them even more formidable adversaries in the hands of a clever DM. The Spell Generator does exactly what it claims, and allows for the quick creation of a spell-using dragon, by color type. The Generator also has stat blocks of all the D&D dragons for quick reference.
The random spell generator the back cover blurb is referring to is the inner 3-panel cover (the outer cover is 2-panel). One leaf of the inner cover has lists of spells, the other two leafs having punch-outs allowing only certain spells to be revealed. An errata sheet also comes with the accessory, because TSR missed a few spots to punch-out, so the errata sheet serves as a template for DIY cutting. This dragon spell generator is frequently missing from used copies.
Bestiary of Dragons and Giants: Mock-up cover vs Final
EDIT 21 June 2021
I grabbed the left image from an ad in Dragon magazine #126 (Oct 1987). TSR often used preproduction stand-in cover art in their advertising. On the right is the final cover of course.
The title is reversed in the temp cover: “Bestiary of Giants and Dragons” but is still coded as AC10.
Jim Ward is given sole billing on the mock-up cover. By release, he had no cover credit, and penned the first 3 of the 16 sections/chapters in the Bestiary.
I prefer the preproduction cover, more impactful. Even better would have been new art featuring a giant as well as a dragon.
See also:
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