It's Hugh the Barbarian with a foam finger and a medal around his neck! If that doesn't mean "we're #1", I don't know what does!!

Thanks everyone for a great first day. The expert prose of Stu Horvath and the delightful design of Phil Reed are producing some amazing books for all you backers. It's awesome to celebrate this 25th anniversary milestone with you all!

We'll use this project's updates to share stories and art from over the years. Some updates will be nice and structured. This one... not so much!

For this update, you get a bit of a story, and a great piece of art that's been under wraps for two decades...

One of our earliest "core fantasy" products was the Aerial Adventure Guide, written by a young d20 freelancer writer named Mike Mearls. Of course, he later went on to design D&D 5th edition, but that's a story for another day. For today, let's look back on that book. Phil Reed reminded me that the hardcover edition of Aerial Adventure Guide was one of our very first hardcovers. Look at this amazing cover art by Michael Erickson!

The Aerial Adventure Guide had printed endsheets. As far as I know, this is the first time Goodman Games did this, and probably one of the few examples of this approach in the industry at this time. Check out these airship schematics that were printed on those endsheets!

While I was digging through all these old files, I came across a cover painting that has never been published! You all may recall the campaign design contest by Wizards of the Coast during the d20 era. Eberron came out of that contest.

Goodman Games published one of the runners-up, called Morningstar. That's a story that Stu tells in the book. The author of Morningstar committed to writing a supplement, and we commissioned cover art for it. But he kind of faded away and never finished the manuscript.

However, the cover art was finished. It is this beautiful piece by Michael Erickson, who had just finished the Aerial Adventure Guide cover:

"Whispers of the Prophecy" was the proposed title for this never-to-appear Morningstar supplement. To this day, that cover from roughly 2003 still hasn't appeared in print. Now you all get to see it, for the first time!

We'll have more fun illustrations as time goes on. Going through 25 years of art has reminded me of some real gems. For now, I hope you enjoy seeing these images from the past!