Homage: 2001
Here's your exclusive early-bird look at the completed cartoon homage to Jeff Easley's cover for "The Speaker in Dreams"
While I was talking with Philip Athans during Episode 31, I started work on a cartoon homage to The Speaker in Dreams—the third of the “adventure path” modules to support the newly released 3rd Edition of D&D, written by James Wyatt.
Believe it or not, back in 2001 it was a relatively novel idea to release a series of adventures designed to take 1st-level characters and give them a “path” to follow that would carry them all the way up to 20th level. But we weren’t sure at the time how well, they’d sell … and the company didn’t want to give the impression that you HAD TO play all of the adventures. So the “path” was fairly loose—more in the realm of Easter eggs than a flowing narrative. The end result was uneven sales across the series … and some adventures greatly outselling others.
I don’t have access to sales numbers on these 20-plus-year-old products, so I’m going just from memory. But as I recall, Speaker in Dreams got excellent critical reception … but lagged a bit in sales. And it’s not one of the adventures you hear folks talking about nostalgically … which is a shame because I think it’s a GREAT module that translates well across editions.
I also really like the cover because it features a FREAKIN’ PURPLE WORM!!! (Okay, it’s actually a wyst … but really, same difference.) Jeff Easley is the first of the classic D&D cover artists to grace a cover in the new edition, and he does a predictably excellent job capturing the feeling of peril and adventure.
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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