It's certainly not clear yet that we have the budget for cover art, but I'm an optimist. Plus, whenever I think lost city, I think Stephen Daniele, who worked with me at TSR for a short while, and most recently at FASA Game Studio.

He's got a real love for Indiana Jones, lost worlds and valleys, and big stone heads. He sent me this thumbnail from his recent work when I enquired about rates.

If you have a favorite artist for lost civilizations, or links for what you think the lost city should look like, please post them in the comments.

I posted the first outline to the patron-locked section of the site this morning, sketching out the adventure parameters for the "Lost City." Today's outline was all about setting, really.

As part of my discussion of the design process, I mentioned the mythic models I use when considering place. Since any Lost City adventure is likely to be largely setting-driven, I considered riffs or combinations of places like Atlantis, El Dorado, the Anasazi cliff dwellings, Shangri-La, Mayan jungle ruins Stephens and Catherwood rediscovered, and the lost worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Each of these brings certain assumptions to the adventure.

There's a quick explanation of why I choose the setting I did, and a sketch of where the adventure might go. As with all such outlines, it's just a hint of the design work to come; it has to offer some details, but it's really just a teasing preview (kind of like this one, actually). Monsters, encounter sequences, and backstory can all wait.

In any case, it's the start of revealing the bones of the design process to the patrons. Outlines for "Steam & Brass" and "Black Forest" will be up next. One is clue/mystery/event driven design, and the other is still a mystery, even to me.

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