Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is full of lore and references to the popular tabletop RPG and also happens to feature some secret Dungeons & Dragons 1983 cameos. The quest begins when Edgin (Chris Pine) rounds up a motley crew of misfits to find the Helmet of Disjunction, a magical artifact that will help them enter Neverwinter castle, defeat Forge Fitzilliam (Hugh Grant), and save Edgin’s daughter. Along the way, they brave the Underdark, battle Themberchaud the red dragon, and compete in the High Sun games, where they must master mazes and monsters in order to win.
The ’80s D&D cameos are just some of the many Easter eggs in Honor Among Thieves that fans will recognize, and whether they’ve played the game many times or not at all, the high fantasy shenanigans that Edgin and his party get up to make for a hilarious and action-packed adventure. There’s something to in it for everyone, with an attention to detail that indicates how much love the directors have for the source material. Honor Among Thieves isn’t the only time Dungeons & Dragons has been adapted, and these cameos act as a nice homage to previous media featuring the game.
Honor Among Thieves’ Games Feature Dungeons & Dragons’ Animated Show Characters
When Edgin, Holga, and the rest of the crew are in the arena for the High Sun games, the movie shows a glimpse of another group competing as well, and each of them is a character from the 1983 animated series Dungeons & Dragons. The series lasted for three seasons as part of a Saturday morning cartoon line-up on CBS and involved a group of friends getting thrown into the fantasy world of the tabletop game and forced to find their way home. With the aid of their Dungeon Master and a collection of magical weapons, they encountered many of the Dungeons & Dragons species made live-action in the movie.
The main group of children, whose ages range from 9 to 15, include Hank the Ranger, Eric the Cavalier, Diana the Acrobat, Presto the Magician, Sheila the Thief, Bobby the Barbarian, and their pal Uni the unicorn. Their main foe is Venger (voiced by Peter Cullen, who famously voiced Optimus Prime in the Transformers cartoon and films) whose only desire is to rule the realm with the magical weapons the children possess, his sister Kareena, and occasionally, Tiamat, a five-headed dragon. Only the children are featured in the Honor Among Thieves cameo, though they look a little older than their animated counterparts.
Did Honor Among Thieves Kill The 1980s Dungeons & Dragons Characters?
The characters are featured in a few scenes evading monsters and traps in the games, and the last fans see of them, they’re locked in a cage, possibly killed by Sofina’s spell in the arena while Edgin and his friends flee. “We don’t kill them off,” Honor Among Thieves’ director Jonathan Goldstein explained,“The last we see in the movie, they’re safely in the Cage of Sanctuary, and they’ve escaped from the displacer beast.” (via Polygon). However, co-director John Francis Daley thinks the Beckoning Dead spell may have killed them.
Paramount hasn’t directly addressed what happened to the kids from the ’80s cartoon, but it’s possible that they could return should Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves ever get a sequel. So far Honor Among Thieves’ box office is huge and satisfying to both fans of the game and the fantasy genre in general, so there’s a chance the kids will find their way to the next movie. Perhaps, it will even address what happened in the cliffhanger finale of season 3 after the show was canceled when the kids were presented with the choice of either leaving the realm or continuing to fight evil elsewhere.