FASA Games, Inc.

Hah ha! I picked up the first edition because I thought the painting on the cover was beautiful. Not very metal of me.

I... rgh. Sundahk is right. Totally totally right. And Lanah, incidentally.

Looking at the initial sketches, I'd been worried that it seemed like the artist didn't know Earthdawn at all. But that was OK; whether he does or not, I could tell that was just a sampling of the sketches he'd sent, and I know how that phase works. Just a bunch of rough work to let you pick the broad `shape' you want and that's cool. And then you guys had him shape the head from 1st Edition and to me, that was, "Oh, OK, there it is!" ...But, you know, that only helps for people like me, who have been buying Earthdawn stuff since 1st Edition. ("Suckers", I think, is the marketing term. Hehe)

...The Obsiditroll needs to be squared away as one or the other, and if that Elven Archer was turned female, I can't tell. It'd actually be nice to have a female character more towards the foreground, actually. (It would actually be kind of awesome to have a female who isn't Human or Elf, actually, but.. that's pushing, I know.) Throwing in a Windling or T'skrang would make a huge difference.

I do like the Dragon. The Dragons are important, too, and, well, it's a good Dragon. Horrors... I'm not sure they belong on the cover, to be honest. True, they're a big piece of what makes Earthdawn, Earthdawn, but... they're too individual. Which Horror do you do? For all we know, that Elf on the left is Nemesis. Or the figure in the middle -- that one had struck me as somewhat Horror-like. On that note - the two Wolves actually seems the most Earthdawn-like to me. D&D does, indeed, limit anybody with an Animal Companion to just one, but Earthdawn doesn't; a Beastmaster can totally Bond with a pair of Wolves.

I agree with the majority responding, not Earthdawny enough for me

Just wanted to point out something.

While many of us have expressed our views here about this image, keep in mind that Mataxes did say: "The full-color version isn't done yet, but if the sketch (and Milivoj's other work) is any indication, it will be a beautiful piece."

This says to me, its bought, decided, and will be in all probability the covers. I put even more certainty in that thought since there has been no response from Mataxes on our thoughts. Other factors supporting this belief; 1) If the money has already been spent, using more money to fix or redo this piece will take away from production, which I think we'd agree is not something we want. 2) They will not likely redo this cover set, in order to ensure we get the books according to the stated publishing time.

But that does not mean don't post, our views here may affect the decision making process on future work.

Graymayne

They always come up with dust covers with different pic