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.

At the height of his career in the late 1980s, Trampier suddenly withdrew from the gaming world and became a social recluse.

Trampier was inducted into the AAGAD (tabletop gaming) Hall of Fame posthumously in 2024 as part of the 50th Anniversary of the HOF.

The first frame featured the title character, a cigar-chomping, pool hustling, wargaming dragon, and subsequent issues revealed the cast of trolls and ogres who were his neighbors and friends.

The stories were told from the point of view of the antagonists of the Dungeons & Dragons game; the wizards, warriors and other protagonists that players would be expected to portray were inevitably presented as unwelcome intruders.

The taxi driver was David Trampier, who told Thompson he had moved to Carbondale from Chicago about eight months previously.

Trampier rebuffed all attempts to draw him back into the fantasy gaming world and continued to drive his taxi.

[11] One of the people who reached out to him was fellow cartoonist Jolly Blackburn, who simply wanted to talk to him about a Wormy compilation that had been done a few years prior.

He suffered a mild stroke, he lost his job when the Yellow Taxi Company went out of business, and he discovered that he had cancer.

Representatives of Troll Lord Games were also scheduled to be at the convention, and Thorne hoped Trampier might talk to them about a publishing deal.

"[18] In the last issue of Dragon magazine (#359, September 2007), Burlew included in his OOTS comic a number of references to comics that had appeared in the magazine over its long run, including a Wormy-like dragon (complete with hat and cigar) fleeing before Wizards of the Coast turned the dungeon electronic.

"[19] When he died in March of that year, Taylor said that "Trampier, for all his mystery, was the bridge, but now he is gone, and a chasm is forever left behind that no one can again traverse in hopes of finding visual adventures beyond our wildest dreams.