December potpourri month continues, though posts are pretty toy-centric this week. This is the very controversial Dungeons of Castlelon (1981), the cheap Hong Kong toy playset for the Dragonriders of the Styx line that got Dimensions for Children in trouble with TSR. Why? Because the snake people and the pig people toys are basically 1:1 sculpts of David C. Sutherland’s Monster Manual illustrations for the naga and the orc. There doesn’t seem to have been the subject of a formal lawsuit, but the box was eventually reissued as Demons of Castlelon and the faces, creepily, removed from the offending toys.

The box art for this is just tremendously perfect: lurid, crude, purple, crawling with monsters. I love it so much. Mark it well, we’re going to circle back to it at the end of the week!