Jennell Jaquays

Jennell Allyn Jaquays (born Paul Jaquays; October 14, 1956 – January 10, 2024) was an American game designer, video game artist, and illustrator of tabletop role-playing games (RPGs).

Her notable works include the Dungeons & Dragons modules Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia for Judges Guild; the development and design of conversions on games such as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong for Coleco's home arcade video game system; and more recent design work, including the Age of Empires series, Quake II, and Quake III Arena.

One of her best known works as a fantasy artist is the cover illustration for TSR's Dragon Mountain adventure.

Jaquays was born on October 14, 1956, in Michigan and grew up in Michigan and Indiana.

Jaquays graduated from Michigan's Jackson County Western High School in 1974 and Spring Arbor College in 1978 with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art.

While still at college, Jaquays became interested in science-fiction and fantasy gaming and the nascent role-playing game industry through the pages of The Space (gamer).

Jaquays began playing Dungeons & Dragons in 1975 and created the Fantastic Dungeoning Society with several college friends including Mark Hendricks, and they wanted to publish a fanzine to write adventures that other gamemasters could use.

Tim Kask from TSR granted Jaquays a casual license to publish this amateur fanzine, and The Dungeoneer became one of the earliest periodicals for role-playing games.

The first issue was released in the same month as Dragon #1 (June 1976).

The first issue was drawn and written primarily by Jaquays, with contributions by other memebrs of the FDS, and from 1976 to 1978 they published six issues of The Dungeoneer.

Marketed as a "dungeonmaster's publication," the magazine was noteworthy for its pioneering approach to pre-factored adventures, "F'Chelrak's Tomb" was published in June 1976, the same month as Wee Warriors' Palace of the Vampire Queen.

The publication has been an inspiration for many similarly-themed magazines in the United States and elsewhere.

In addition to these "honest efforts at quality contents to interest readers," Jaquays began submitting artwork to TSR's in-house gaming magazine, The Dragon, in 1976.

Jaquays' work appeared in the premiere issue of The Dragon, and later contributions included the cover of issue #21.

Jaquays was preparing for graduation by late 1977 which meant spending more time working in the art studio, so FDS sold The Dungeoneer to Chuck Anshell of Anshell Miniatures.

Anshell soon came to work at Judges Guild, a prolific provider of material and officially licensed products for TSR's Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) line.

Anshell brought The Dungeoneer with him, and retained a level of editorial control over it as it became one of Judges Guild's two gaming periodicals.

Jaquays also began working at Judges Guild in October 1978, spending a year there as an illustrator and designer for adventures, but refused to move to Decatur to work on-site at Judges Guild.

Instead Jaquays worked out an arrangement to work from home in Michigan.

The MicroGame Chitin: I (1978) by Metagaming Concepts included illustrations by Jaquays.

Jaquays worked on two stand-alone D&D modules for Dungeons & Dragons, Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia, which were completed before she left the company in October 1979.

She provided a variety of content on a freelance basis thereafter, particularly to The Dungeoneer.

Jaquays, Denis Loubet, and Jeff Dee produced Cardboard Heroes in the early 1980s for Steve Jackson Games.

Jaquays expanded her career to include video game design in the early 1980s, but continued to work as a freelancer for various table-top game publishers including TSR, Chaosium, West End Games, Flying Buffalo, and Iron Crown Enterprises.

She produced illustrations for Game Designers' Workshop (GDW), most notably creating all the starship illustrations in Traveller Supplement 9: Fighting Ships.

A number of these became the basis for starship models from Ad Astra Games and the deckplans found in Mongoose Traveller Supplement 3 - Fighting Ships.

In addition to many gaming artwork contributions (including artwork spread over two decades for TSR's first-line periodicals, Dragon and Dungeon), she worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for the Jackson Citizen Patriot in 1980.

During the late 1980s, Jaquays was a regular interior artist for Amazing Stories, and contributed one cover for that publication.

Michael A. Stackpole worked for Coleco from 1980-1981, and was able to help his friend and fellow role-playing game designer Jaquays get hired at Coleco as well.

After leaving Judges Guild, Jaquays worked for Coleco, first in a freelance capacity from 1980, then as a full-time employee from 1981 to 1985.

She developed and designed arcade conversions of many well-known titles such as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong for their home arcade video game system.

Jaquays eventually became director of game design.

Jaquays assembled one of the first art and design studios for video game development at Coleco to make ColecoVision games.

Jaquays and Rudy Kraft authored Adventures Beyond the Pass for Judges Guild, who never published it; instead Greg Stafford published it through Chaosium as the adventure Griffin Mountain (1981).

From 1986 to 1993, she did freelance work while running a design studio.

Jaquays worked on a series of supplements focusing on character creation called Central Casting (1988-1991) to be published by Flying Buffalo, although they were instead published by Task Force Games.

Jaquays also prepared three more supplements in the Citybook line out of house from 1990 to 1994 for Flying Buffalo.

From 1993 to 1997, she returned to full-time employment in the table-top gaming industry as an illustrator for TSR, including a six-month period as Director of Graphics.

She left TSR just before their takeover by Wizards of the Coast.

During this time, she played an active role in the creation of the Dragon Dice game, both as cover artist and icon designer.