Here we are, a huge leap forward for the profile and popularity of D&D, its very own animated series! Directed to young kids, somewhere in the 8-12 year old bracket, it’s a fun and pretty successful series that would go on for 27 episodes between 1983 and 1985. We’ll be covering them all here!

In this first episode we are introduced to our party of characters and to some of the NPCs and Villains which will be recurring in the series, chief among these are the Quest giver type Dungeon Master and the two villains Venger and Tiamat. Interestingly, and this creates a different dynamic than is usual, the two villains are actually at loggerheads with each other.

With a pretty cool animation style for the early 80s, this is an American/Japanese co-production with the very experienced Toei studios (Dragonball, Sailor Moon, Transformers) coming in to help and adding a polish that was missing from contemporary stuff from Filmation, for example. A nostalgia bomb for many D&D players and where their love for the game started, it was also extremely successful outside the US, particularly Brazil where the tabletop game wasn’t even present at the time and it was known as Caverna do Dragão (Dragon’s Cave).