David A. Trampier

David A. Trampier
Trampier in The Daily Egyptian in 2002
Born	April 22, 1954 Saint Louis, Missouri, United States
Died	March 24, 2014 (aged 59) Carbondale, Illinois, United States
Nationality	American
Pseudonym(s)	Tramp, DAT
Notable works	Wormy AD&D Players Handbook Monster Manual

David A. Trampier (April 22, 1954 – March 24, 2014) was an artist and writer whose artwork for TSR, Inc. illustrated some of the earliest editions of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Many of his illustrations, such as the cover of the original Players Handbook, became iconic. Trampier was also the creator of the Wormy comic strip that ran in Dragon magazine for several years.

At the height of his career in the late 1980s, Trampier suddenly withdrew from the gaming world and life in general, becoming a social recluse. Although the reasons for this break were unclear, a disagreement with TSR is possible; it is clear that later in life, Trampier wanted nothing to do with TSR or its successor, Wizards of the Coast. For many years, Trampier's location was unknown to anyone and rumors circulated that he had died; his brother-in-law, Tom Wham denied this, although Wham admitted that even he did not know where Trampier was or what he was doing.

Trampier was rediscovered by accident, working as a taxi driver in Carbondale, Illinois, when a local reporter did a ride along and—without knowing Trampier's background—subsequently published Trampier's name and photograph. Several companies and individuals immediately approached Trampier to commission new pieces of art, re-publish some of his most iconic pieces, or have Trampier appear as a guest of honor at conventions; Trampier refused and indicated he wished to be left alone.

A decade later, when Trampier's taxi company went out of business and he discovered he had cancer, he began to entertain the idea of republishing some of his best known artwork in book form. He also agreed to end his long isolation from the gaming community by appearing as a special guest at a Carbondale gaming convention scheduled for April 2014, but he died three weeks before the convention.

In 1977, TSR, Inc. started to develop a new version of their popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D). Unlike TSR's previous rulebooks, which had been low-quality paperback booklets, the rulebooks for AD&D would be high-quality lithographed hard covers featuring full color wrap-around cover art and many interior black & white illustrations. The first book to be published was the Monster Manual in 1977, and Trampier, along with fellow artists David Sutherland and Tom Wham, provided artwork for the manual.Tim Kask, editor of Dragon magazine, stated in a review that the book's profuse illustrations were "outstanding", and that the illustrations "in themselves would warrant the cover price".