Here's a shot by Eric Nieudan of one page by the French version ofMoldvay Basic.

Here's a shot by Eric Nieudan of one page by the French version of Moldvay Basic. On the page, there's a small picture by Jim Holloway of three adventurers, I believe showing a thief, elf and dwarf. I know this pic is not in the US Moldvay Basic, and I don't think it is in the Mentzer version either. So it may be unique to the French rulebook. Some of the French modules from the time (B2, B3) also have unique art as reported by Demos Sachlas

Originally shared by Eric Nieudan

Did you know that the TSR produced French rulebook of Moldvay Basic called halflings, tinigens? I've always wondered where this word came from, with its weirdly made up English roots.

On the photo below you can see that 13 year-old me put two and two together after reading The Fellowship of the Ring (my copy has a lot of little notes to 'correct' the information in it).

But for a couple years before that, we only had these paragraphs to figure out what a tinigen was. A fierce hunter? A tiny ghost of the woods? A builder of beautiful manses full of treasure? I remember how puzzling that illustration was: the archer in the middle clearly looks like an elf, but they're much shorter than the hooded figure on the left (and the book tells us elves are taller). Could that be the tinigen?

I think Tinigens need a proper write-up.