Alternatives to the Cthulhu leaderhead, and a couple other questions

First, I want to say that I've been following these projects for a long time, and I eagerly anticipate any news on the Lost Worlds rebuild. I had been hoping for a smaller map to be an eventual side project (say, 100 x 150?), but I hope you won't need to change too much of the fundamental concepts. Both because the original sounded so cool and multifaceted, and bigger changes would probably take more time.

Second, which civs are planned to be playable? Just the British, or all, or what? A playable Atlantis sounds sweet, but a playable Cthulhu strikes me as odd for some reason.

Third, I wonder if you guys had considered another leaderhead as at least a temporary replacement for Cthulhu. Another Lovecraftian character, such as Abdul Alhazred or Nyarlathotep (in one of his Pharaonic avatars), might be easier to find, as they look human or mostly human. Almost any medieval Arab or Egyptian Pharaoh might work (although the pedia entry for N. might need to clarify that this is just a temporary mask of the Crawling Chaos, and AA would need to be some sort of lich by this point).

Also, N. is still active and running around on earth, whereas Cthulhu is slumbering (or is that changing in the Lost Worlds?). Even if he were to awaken, I think peaceful contact with mortals would be a low priority for him; he would go more directly to destroying the world. Where N. might see it as a fun game of manipulation and riddles, such as a cat might play with a mouse.

I just thought that this might be an easy solution to a longstanding setback, and (depending on the story you want to tell) might make more in-universe sense.

It depends how they're planning to integrate to Mythos Civilization. If it's based around R'Lyeh as a counter to Atlantis, it's fine to have Cthulhu as LH. If it's more global, your suggestion is sound. If they want to keep the focus on Cthulhu, a human High Priest of the Cthulhu Order might work as well.

The setbacks have had more to due with crashed hard drives and things of that ilk.

There is a pharonic looking mummy LH iirc. That could be used for N.

Keep in mind that Lost Worlds is planned to be the first of many scenarios. There is likely to be at least one or two that have more prominent Lovecraftian elements. Also , it's fun every once in a while to just stomp around. As far back as Civ2 people were posting about what they called "just testing the nuclear and pollution graphics and animations".

It's not Cthulhu but perhaps it fits better that way. Discussing with Cthulhu would just make everyone mad.