Freak Out Friday — Dungeons & Dragons Celebrates 50 Years and Finds a Home in Lucca, Italy

The first role-playing game ever created, Dungeons & Dragons, which in January 1974 gave life to a completely new way of playing using imagination and creativity, will turn 50 this year.

To celebrate the golden anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, Lucca Comics & Games has organized, in a location incredibly rich in history – the Chiesa dei Servi – an unprecedented and truly unique exhibition on D&D: “Gateway to Adventure: 50 Years of D&D Art”. The Koder Collection will be exhibited, consisting of works of art, D&D memorabilia, and original masterpieces by Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Clyde Caldwell, Keith Parkinson, Brom and Todd Lockwood.

The exhibition “Gateway to Adventure: 50 Years of D&D Art”, which will open on Saturday October 26 at 5:00 p.m CET., has been curated by Jon Peterson and Jessica Lee Patterson. Peterson is one of the game’s leading historians and author of Dungeons and Dragons – Art & Arcana and the extraordinary collection of rare documents The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977. Jessica Lee Patterson is an art historian who has been working on cataloguing the Koder collection since 2022. It will be the largest exhibition in the world dedicated to D&D.

Additionally, among the masterpieces present in the collection include a selection of the original artwork of the most iconic manuals from AD&D’s (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) 1st edition to present day. Also shown will be the first variant D&D manual cover ever created, by John Blanche, for the English edition of Dungeons & Dragons which was once published in the United Kingdom by Games Workshop.

The Lucca exhibition will see more than 100 pieces on display including original works, memorabilia, rare publications and iconic objects. A retrospective on the last fifty years of D&D art and the ways in which it has spread through society, forever influencing the worlds of gaming and literature and subsequently achieving a global impact, the famous “butterfly effect” which this year Lucca Comics & Games wants to celebrate.

Visitors will be guided on a journey from images of the first versions of the game to the most recent ones, including a series of important works by the “Four Horsemen” of D&D art: Jeff Easley , Larry Elmore , Clyde Caldwell and Keith Parkinson . Among the artists featured in the exhibition are Todd Lockwood, Tim Hildebrandt , Brom , Wayne Reynolds , Robh Ruppel , Rick Berry and many others. Alongside the works of these immortal masters, the symbolic objects of fifty years spent at the gaming table.

The extraordinary spaces of the Chiesa dei Servi will be redesigned to accommodate an editorial and artistic journey that will also leave room for the visitor’s experience. Some special games of Dungeons & Dragons will also be played on a table located in the transept of the Chiesa dei Servi. This special table will host games with VIP players from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM on October 31, November 1, and 2.

Tickets on sale here : https://www.ticketone.it/LuccaCG24