Go directly to the AD&D Master Index
With dozens of modules and books, hundreds of magazine issues, numerous boxed sets, and various other materials (spread out over multiple editions), finding useful information can prove frustratingly difficult. I mean no disrespect to the folks at TSR, but often the indexes in the back of their published materials were little better than a table of contents. Obviously the larger the index, the more expensive were the print copies and they wanted to keep the prices reasonable (as an example, this index would exceed 700 print pages if formatted with the same font, margins, and layout of the second edition core rulebooks). But even if the provided indexes were exhaustive and error-free (which they often weren't), the fact is that they would only be useful if you knew which book to look at in the first place. Hence this index.
This is a work-in-progress. The end goal is to index all official (TSR/RPGA/Wizards of the Coast) published material related to D&D. The one exception to limiting the index to official material is that of works by Gary Gygax published outside of TSR. Since he invented the game, I included his non-TSR works of fiction here as well.
I don't have a lot of time to work on this, so it progresses slowly. If you don't find what you are looking for, give it a couple of weeks (which is how often it is updated) and see if the relevant material has been indexed. These updates include not only additional material, but ongoing corrections, clarifications, and minor reorganizations.
There are two types of entries: primary and "see other". The latter case is used for synonyms and alternate names. In these cases, the item is followed by a parenthesized reference to a primary entry in the index.
Regarding the inclusion of Dragon Magazine, I only include references to articles that are about D&D, or articles which make significant reference to D&D. Thus, this index cannot be construed as a complete index to Dragon Magazine. I'm sure such an index exists somewhere, but you won't find it here, and I have no interest in providing one. Likewise, the only articles from Dungeon Magazine that have been indexed are those which are D&D-related.
The index is fairly large. Some of this is because I try to include alternate entries to make items easier to find. I don't index things that only have passing references to them (unless that is the only reference to be found anywhere). But if there is even a little bit of information, I'll include a page reference. The reason for this is that not everyone will have all of the reference material available to them. By including references to abbreviated information, most people ought to be able to find at least some useful information among the resources they have access to. However, I don't include every reference to NPCs or monsters, even though they often have base statistics listed. But if there is further information about the monster or NPC (such as background), then I'll include a reference even if there is a more detailed description elsewhere.
In the end, what makes it into the index is sometimes a value judgment on my part. Hopefully, my judgment calls have resulted in a useful resource with a good signal-to-noise ratio.
Finally, several printings and print editions* of some books have resulted in a shifting of information between those editions in regard to page numbers. When information was available, I included the printing/edition of the book on the line after the book's name in the key at the top of the index. If the edition you have available to you differs from what is listed, the index may only get you to the general area of the book where the information is located. Most likely, the information is within a few pages, forward or backward, from what the index says. For cases where there are significant differences between printings/editions, I may have to add another set of entries. But, for now, I index what I have at hand.
* Note: "print edition" is different than "game edition".
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