The Heart of St. Althus – Cover Progress

My upcoming adventure was formerly known by its casual campaign name, The Haunted Chapel. I didn't really need to call it anything else, as I knew what the name referred to. I wanted a more interesting title for publication, however, so I renamed it after the holy relic enshrined inside the temple: The Heart of St. Althus.

Recovering the relic may or may not be the explicit goal of the adventure, depending on how the DM running it wants to involve the party in investigating the site. They may not even be aware the relic exists at the start of the adventure, but its presence in this site will be felt almost immediately by any Good clerics who enter the area. The item is based on a real-life holy relic: The Preserved Heart of St. Camillus.

I considered several ideas for the cover. One was an image of the chapel ruins, to give players a visual reference of the site, similar to what I did for the cover of Bergummo's Tower. Another idea was an action scene of some of the monsters encountered in the undercroft, like the Aethelberd's Tomb cover.

I ultimately went with an image of the relic as it seemed like an easier (and quicker) thing to illustrate, so I drew a quick sketch:

After scanning the sketch and drawing some blue lines for perspective, I converted the sketch into the basic shapes of the illustration. I still have lots of details to incorporate, and then need to color the whole thing, but its taking shape nicely, I think.