Invited artist —

Thank you for taking the time to read this and consider participating in the When Autochthon Dreams project. This page aims to answer some basic questions about what we are doing and what we are asking you to do.

What is it?

This project will create an illustrated net-based book for the role-playing game Exalted, collecting magical items (known as artifacts) created by fans of the game. This will be a PDF-only project, distributed for free to any fan who wants it.

This is a project created by fans of Exalted. We are not officially affiliated with White Wolf, producers of the game, in any way.

Schedule

As a fan-based project, some latitude exists in this project’s release schedule, but we'd like to release at the end of 2008. Here is the current schedule:

26 Mar 2008	Initial proposal made
1 Apr 2008	Conceptual download made available
9 May 2008	Another conceptual download made available
15 Jul 2008	Deadline for authors to respond
25 Sep 2008	Final invitations to artists sent
15 Oct 2008	Version 0.4 made available to artists.
18 Nov 2008	Version 0.6 made available to artists, adding whatever artwork has been completed by then.
30 Nov 2008	Version 0.8 made available to artists, adding whatever artwork has been completed by then.
15 Dec 2008	Version 0.9 made available to artists, adding whatever artwork has been completed by then.
31 Dec 2008	Version 1.0 released to public.

How can you help?

Artwork in most fan-based books is usually not terribly good. We would like to significantly raise the bar for this project, making use of the best art and artists we can. This is why we contacted you. You can help out in three ways:

• Existing art: If you have existing art in your portfolio that you think would be a good fit for this book, we’d like hear about it. If we also think it is a good fit, we’d like permission to use it. Chances are, when we contacted you to send you the link to this page, we mentioned a specific piece of interest to us.
• New art: We’d love it if you’d download the PDF and see if any of the artifacts therein ignite a creative spark. We’re very interested in anything you might create based on reading it. We realize that this is a tall order, and appreciate any efforts.
• Contact: Even if you are not interested in this particular project, you may know or have contact with talented artists who might be. While we ask that the URL to this page not be broadcast or published anywhere, please feel free to send it privately to quality artists you think might be interested. If you like, you can also/instead tell us about them and let us contact them.

We, of course, reserve the right to refrain from using art submitted to us, though hopefully we won’t need to.

What’s in it for you?

As this is a free work, we cannot, alas, offer payment. We can, however, offer exposure. If you look at page three of the draft PDF (link above), you’ll see a number of 9.5cm x 4.75cm boxes. Each artist that contributes artwork used in the final product can fill one of these boxes with any information they like (sort of like a business card or advertisement, with or without art). The box as a whole can also be set up to link to any site the artist likes when clicked.

It’s not much, we know. We appreciate your generosity.

What about rights?

You retain all rights to your art. The art itself will have text next to it (probably going up one side or the other) listing both your name and attributing copyright to you (or whoever you designate). You would be, essentially, granting us a non-exclusive right to use the art for the book, but that’s all.

If you’d like some other arrangement, please contact us (see below).

Prior to release, a “beta” version of the PDF will be made available to both the artists and the authors. If unsatisfied with how your artwork has been used, you may elect to pull it from the project at that time.

What type of art is needed?

In terms of subject matter, Exalted is a game of high-fantasy, influenced by both Oriental and Western sources (Chinese mythology, ancient Rome, Mayan writing, etc.) as well as a healthy dose of anime. For reference, there is a deviantArt account that exists solely to track the artwork that has appeared in published Exalted books.

This particular book focuses exclusively on artifacts, magical items of all kinds. This includes their production, materials and use, as well as several dozen specific artifacts. Many of these artifacts are listed with distinct imagery, as this is a big part of the game. So, what we are looking for, in no particular order, is:

• Art showing off the imagery of the artifact
• Art of people using the artifacts
• Art of people posing with the artifacts
• Art snapshotting a scene related to the artifact in some way.
• Art of the artifacts themselves
• Art showing the effect of the artifact (some artifacts lend themselves to this more than others).
• Art of the artifacts being made
• Art of generic artificing activity
• Art of generic alchemical activity

Unlike a published RPG book, we are not likely to have the luxury of setting a single "artistic feel" to the collection of art, so don’t really have any stylistic guidelines. The PDF will be in color, so either color or black and white is fine. As for subject matter, the only real guideline is: no pointed ears. They don’t exist (by and large) in Exalted. There are no elves, dwarves, etc.

How do you participate?

For any and all questions, concerns, announcements, etc., send e-mail to rpg at divnull dot com, putting “Reliquary” somewhere in the subject line. Portions of the book are also tracked on the Exalted wiki. You can also contact "crop" at deviantArt.

Thank you for your consideration.