Homage: 1999
Here's Stan!'s cartoon homage to Brom's cover painting for the hardcover Council of Wyrms setting.
While talking with Sue Weinlein during Episode 27, I began working on an homage to the 1999 hardcover book Campaign Option: Council of Wyrms Setting. Quite a mouthful, eh? As Sue and I discussed, this an often overlooked product because most people who remember Council of Wyrms are thinking about the Origins Award winning boxed set from 1994 (which was also written by Bill Slavicsek).
In 1999, the team was deep in development for the upcoming 3rd Edition D&D, and that was taking up the time much of the staff. But the company still needed release new products, and ones that would be enticing (and useful) to a fan base that had its eyes eagerly on the future. Bill Slavicsek was the Director of RPGs, and was not directly involved with the writing of the new edition … so it made sense for him to expand his earlier work (which was by then out of print) and update it to a new format.
If you note the little silver logo at the top of the cover, you’ll see that this also served to help celebrate the games 25th anniversary. (So this came out more or less EXACTLY at the midpoint in the life of D&D.)
The original boxed set features a Jeff Easley painting of two dragons fighting—and I’d considered doing that as the homage to 1994. But I really adore the Brom painting on the 1999 version, and so I decided to let this week’s drawing represent both versions. (And the Larry Elmore piece I DID use for 1994 was pretty spectacular, too.)
As a subscriber to this newsletter, you’re seeing this art before it is released for general consumption. You also have the option to buy an art print of this or any of the cartoon homages (and if you’re a paid subscriber, you get a discount on those purchases).
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