Registered User
Posts: 4217
(1/25/04 8:32 pm) Reply
Tell me about Earthdawn.
Do it!
Matheren Registered User
Posts: 1845
(1/25/04 11:02 pm) Reply
Re: Tell me about Earthdawn.
Earthdawn is the greatest fantasy game/setting ever.
basically, it's a pre-history of earth. waaaaaay back in the day, a scholar discovered that a great catastrophe was going to strike the world. so the scholar and some other elves from the land of Thera devised these things called kaers, which were basically magically-protected shelters made from true elements. these shelters were supposed to keep out the Horrors, evil uber-creatures from another astral plane that fed on pain, misery, death, fear, etc etc.
the Therans basically "sold" the kaer building method to the citizens of Barsaive. but, the elves of the dragon wood (I think that's what it was called) decided they'd rather do their own ritual, which created the cursed blood wood.
well, the Scourge (the arrival of the Horrors) happened, and they killed lots of people. then the magic levels of the world dropped sufficiently that most of the Horrors couldn't survive here, so they left.
the actual game takes place during this time, about 100 (I believe) years after the Scourge. the kingdom of Barsaive is at war with Thera (they're heavy into slavery, which Barsaive doesn't like), and lots of other stuff is going on. that's a VEEEEEEERY basic history.
as far as races, you have the standard humans, elves, dwarves. then you have the blood elves, those who come from the blood wood; elves whose whole bodies are pierced by thorns which bleed constantly. the windlings, who're basically faeries. obsidimen, who are tall men actually made from rock on the outside. the trolls are more of a nordic culture, heavily involved in skyship raids on each other and everyone else. the orcs are the bitch race of the world, but later on basically form their own nation in the south. the t'skrang are lizardmen, many who're into river pirating.
and in this game, it's actually worth it to be a human. humans get the option to pick up some *nice* abilities that nobody else can have.
what I really love about the game is the class system. every single class has some magic to them. they don't all cast spells, but they all have abilities that are tied in with their own personal magic. so the classes are all very fun, and very unique.
another aspect is the die-staging. basically, there are die steps in this game. step five might be, for example, a d6. step six would be d8. but then step 20 could be something like d20 + d12 + d10 etc. and blacksmiths are the guys that actually raise the step value of weapons, so if you have one in your party, you can start doing some MASSIVE damage.
and the coolest part of the game is the tie-in with Shadowrun, if you play that and own a lot of the books :P
Quote:and the coolest part of the game is the tie-in with Shadowrun, if you play that and own a lot of the books :P
Amen! I've hardly played any ED at all, but I am an avid SR fan and thus I know quite a bit about ED
For the unknowing:
As it has just been explained, Earthdawn is set in the past of our Earth. The Empire of Thera will actually be known as "Atlantis" for the modern world.
In Earthdawn, the magic level is declining after the high tide it had with the scourge. Several thousand years later - we now have the 21st century, the magic level rapidely rises again... Magic comes up again, as do the "old" races: dwarves, elves etc etc. Dragons awake from their century-long sleep. Immortal elves - those that have been living ever since the Age in which Earthdawn is set (was it the 3rd world? 2nd? I know Shadowrun is the 6th age, while our modern world is the 5th) - now reappear to play important roles in society, politics and commerce.
Of course, the rising magic level has another consequence - the most dangerous one of all: The barrier keeping back the demons of the scourge is getting weaker again, and demons will be able to cross over into our world again, soon...
Re: Tell me about Earthdawn.
I thought Earthdawn was the 4th world.
In the writings of Ehran about the Cycles Of Magic he states that the 6th world is a high magic area where the fifth is a low magic era. Following that logic the next back high magic would be 4th, then 3rd for a low, 2nd for a high, and 1st for a low. And probably the "begining" was a high.
You can also construe from his writings that the magic level is somewhat tied to the number of people on the earth. You can look at this where the "Mana Level" is determined by the population. But Harlquin frequently mentions that the more magic that people use the faster "The Bridge" is built. i.e. Magic Users are the ones responsible for the comming of the horrors. (Or 'inve' as he calls them)
Harliquin and Ehran were both "Blood Elves" that were in the 4th world lived through all of the 5th world and now in the sixth trying to slow the accent of magic levels.
I as well only played Earthdawn a few times but I knew a lot about its storyline because of the connection with Shadowrun. I really like how they did that, but in 3ed they seemed to gloss over it abit. In 2ed they actually played it up quite abit with the two Harliquin Campaign Settings and some of the commentry in the "Magic in the Shadows" and "Awakenings" sourcebooks. Third edition seems to just concentrate on the shadowrun world and never even mentions anything about earthdawn.
My guess, Some bible thumper had a problem with it and they decided to back off on the storyline to prevent lawsuits. Since the company was running into financial problems at the time they wouldn't have been able to stand up to one.
Matheren Registered User
Posts: 1846
(1/26/04 8:33 am) Reply
Re: Tell me about Earthdawn.
actually, the invae are something different - they're the insect spirits. in earthdawn they were the precursors to the Horrors, and it's the same thing in Shadowrun. but in SR, the "actual" horror invasion isn't going to happen anymore really. the writers basically got rid of it, so aside from a couple that've gotten in because of Aztechnology rituals and such, they've written off the whole Horror scheme and say the magic levels won't be high enough for a thousand years or so.
and Harlequin & Ehran were both Theran elves, not blood elves the only blood elves from ED that're still around in SR that I can remember are Alachia, Lugh Surehand, and Aithne Oakforest.
Edited by: Matheren at: 1/26/04 8:35 am
Re: Tell me about Earthdawn.
Thats right, those were the insect spirits. (Been awhile since I was into that storyline) I remember the part in the book when he talks about that even now.
I was guessing on Ehran, but I was fairly sure that Harlequin was one. If not then he was acting for someones benefit. I remember him going on about how painful the thorns were and how it felt to be constantly bleeding just to avoid the horrors. He was questioning if it was worth it.
I didnt expect them to actually bring horrors full force into shadowrun. (Unless a GM decides to do it for his individual game) Though there are a few that slip through they were only in storylined games. i.e. The Harlequin book, an adventure in the Aztec book and thats about it that I remember.
Something else I vaugely remember reading is that the Tir na Nog and the Tir Taringire are seperated similar to the Blood Elves and the Theran Elves. (Though only in their own politics and they still form a united front against the world) They may have changed that though.
Re: Tell me about Earthdawn.
One reason I heard about them not continueing the Cross-over storyline in 3rd Edition was the fact that too many people weren't interested in it or didn't get it... *shrug* I think it was the coolest thing about the both games
Then again I own almost all 1st, 2nd and 3rd Edition Shadowrun Sourcebooks and I read all the relevant novels
Matheren Registered User
Posts: 1847
(1/26/04 11:35 am) Reply
Re: Tell me about Earthdawn.
that's cause you suck and your country actually GOT all the sourcebooks and novels, shadow :P we didn't even get some of the books that were ORIGINALLY written in english and then translated to german! haha
anyhow, Harlequin is called "the last knight of the crying spire". I forget the original name of the spire, but it was a place of warrior/wizard type knights, and Harl is the last surviving member. Ehran was also a Theran from there, and I think it might've been Ehran who wanted to "sell" the kaer info, whereas Harl just wanted it freely given, that might've caused their age-old rivalry. they've even alluded to Harlequin being Richard the Lionheart, and possibly even Arthur.
Tir na Nog and Tir Tairngire are sort of like each other in that they're the two strongholds of elvendom in SR, but neither are really allied; sort of like Wyrm/Bloodwood and Thera in ED. but the remaining Therans, the Heavenherds, are actually in Africa. you might know some of them as the Wakyambi elves from the SR Companion
the great thing about the immortal elves is how they're all bratty children of the dragons. they were actually "created" by the dragons, and then fought for freedom. and of course, during the magic downtime, some of them hunted down and killed a great many sleeping dragons heh.
Re: Tell me about Earthdawn.
The earthdawn rules system is nothing like D&D. Hell, even shadowrun and earthdawn have different rules system.
Its a Single-Success based system where you roll a number of dice based upon your skill in something. Uses a standard D&D gambit of dice. [4/6/8/10/12/20 siders] (i.e. Roll 1d8+1d4 with a target number of 10 kind of thing)
Shadowrun is a Multi-Success based system. Uses only 6-sided dice. (i.e. Roll 4d6 and count the number of dice that make a target number of 4 kind of thing)
As far as the extra background, apperently I missed a few books. I know I have ALL the 1ed rulebooks, and I have all but the 2ed Street Sam for 2ed books. 3ed is where I started slacking. Really havent picked up any books since the Big-D Assassination Event.
Novels, I picked up quite a few but I dont have them all there either. I can say however that the ones that my gaming store does have for sale ive read all of. But they dont have a big selection.
Matheren Registered User
Posts: 1848
(1/26/04 12:45 pm) Reply
Re: Tell me about Earthdawn.
a bit more complex, not quite as simple & streamlined. but it's still pretty easy to get used to. they focus more on class abilities than on skills.
magic I never dealt with much, only ever played one spellcaster and he died in the first adventure. but you basically had raw casting, which had a chance of hurting your character, and "spell matrixes", which were sort of like prepared spells. depending on your level, you could only have a certain amount of known spells matrixed, and casting them was safe.. but if you wanted to cast one that wasn't matrixed, then you had to do it raw and deal with the astral feedback.
the magic classes were split up into wizard (sort of an overall), illusionist, nethermancer (think astral traveller/necro), elementalist, and shaman.
there was a multiclassing sort of deal, I don't really remember much about it though. I think it was sort of like d&d 2nd edition dual classing, where you started over at first circle with your new class and had to get it up to the same level as your previous class before you could use abilities from both. it's actually a tradition for elves to go through the "four wheels of life", where they go through four different classes; a warrior type, caster type, agility type, and one other.
edit:
urusai, the big D thing was pretty much what ended the Horrors in ED. what he ended up doing was having himself killed to close off the connection that the Horrors had to our plane because of Aztechnology. they talked about it in the novel trilogy, but I didn't read that heh. there haven't been too many SR novels which I've liked.
Edited by: Matheren at: 1/26/04 12:46 pm
I'll agree with others here, Earthdawn was one of the best settings ever. The dungeons even make sense due to the fact that most of them are Cairn's that were breached by horrors. There is a lot of wealth in them, but some of the horrors haven't left yet.
The big problem with Earthdawn is that there is a level gap between fighting normal critters and fighting horror types that is hard to bridge. Basically around 8th level or so the party is almost too strong for normal critters, but too weak for fighting Horrors. Horrors are disgustingly powerful, and they have some pretty potent abilities.
Magic items are relatively common, and anyone can make an item more powerful by tieing 'threads' to it. Powerful magic items are pretty rare, and you might not want to carry one around with you anyways as high magic attracts horrors, and the item might already be 'Horror Marked' (read bad curse).
Re: Tell me about Earthdawn.
The character I played in Earthdawn was rather intresting. We didnt know Squat about earthdawn so the GM told us to make whatever character we wanted in Rolemaster (The game we were playing a lot of) and we would try and convert it to Earthdawn. He let me make up my own class/magic thing.
Was a bardic type class based around a special instrument called a "Spider Harp". The concept was that each string produced a different tone and affected the flow of mana because of it. So playing a song would basiclly be "Singing a Spell". It was a major ritual to make one and the strings were all made of silver cords. Had a whole background thing written up about the history of the Spellweavers and such. Proabaly had written 20 pages of source material for it just for fun.
Mind you I knew nothing about how earthdaw magic worked when I did it. He didnt even comment anything about the system either. When he saw the stuff I wrote he really went with it. I ended up being one of the weakest players in the party but all the NPC's and such (and the gm himself) kept stating how much I was tied in with the world.
Basiclly when i casted a spell I had to succeed at a performance, then I could pull the spell off as if I had it matrixed.
When the campaign really started into his epic storyline he had it setup where the area of effect was sound based and my 'theatre' was at the top of a spire in the middle of a valley. My spells could affect anywhere in the valley and I was deemded "The Voice Of The Valley". It was really intresting.
Eventually he had to move away because he got a better job elsewhere in the country. But the last session we played we were about to go after a horror. The 'Sages' kept stating that I should be able to calm it with my song if not send it back to where it came. But we never got to play again.
Matheren Registered User
Posts: 1849
(1/26/04 8:02 pm) Reply
Re: Tell me about Earthdawn.
that was the cool thing about ED magic items. to actually open up all of their powers, you had to quest around and find out info about them. the higher circle you want opened, the harder the info to find - going from "first owner of the weapon" all the way up to "true name of the horror that the original wielder slew".
and then your own weapons could become magic items also if you started putting karma in them.
this just makes me want to play the damn game heh.
Registered User
Posts: 516
(1/28/04 2:17 am) Reply
Re: Tell me about Earthdawn.
ED is so awsome, The first 30 pages of the player handbook are nothing but the story of everything that happend up to now. Pretty much says that magic fluxes into and out of the world on a cycle. At the high times of magic the different planes are so interwoven that these monsters can pass freely between them. They come and feed untill they have to leave. People have taken refuge in places waiting for the cycle to go down and the monters to go away... but for some reason the magic level isnt going down so these monsters are still out running amuk.
Pretty cool concept.
The fighting is complex, yet simple at the same time.
Long example but... i have a defence raiting say of 9. you have to make a skill check higher than 9 to hit me. So you roll and get a 12, you hit me. Then you roll damage and the hit does 14 damage, but my defence raiting of 9 is subtracted from that so i would take only 5 damage from that hit. BUT if you had rolled double or more than my defence raiting, say you rolled a 20, you made a armor defeating hit and my defence is NOT subtracted from your damage and i would have taken the full 14. Everyone has a "wound threshold" say mine is 10. The non armor defeeting hit only damaged me Where the armor defeating hit would also wound me. For every wound you take you get a penalty on all your actions, stack up 4 wounds and you die....and they are not that easy to heal (pretty much only 1 a day).
Lots of playable races -humans, elf, dwarf, obsidiman(rock men), t'skrag(lizardmen), windlings(pretty much like a sprite) and even trolls and orcs are playable races. The DMG for ED even has "templates" for maiking any monter a player race.
Forget everything you know about casting spells from D&D because it is nothing like it at all. Way to complex to explain.
Your level or "step" of a skill determines what dice you use to make your rolls. From 1d4-2 at step 1 to 2d20+1d10+1d8+2d6 for step 40. Yes this game is dice heavy.
You gain legend points insted of exp, and those legend points do everything from raising your charector level, skill steps level or get karma points. Karma points can be used on any roll you make to add extra dice to have a better chance at maiking the roll.
Re: Tell me about Earthdawn.
The best thing about ED was the fact that bragging about what you did actually got you more Xp. I played a T'krang(sp?) blademaster who probably made more xp getting people drunk and telling them (usually false) stories of his adventures than he ever did from hacking or slashing baddies.
The worst part is when they use lots of big dice like d12s and d20s. The bigger the dice are the less reliable they are. 3d6 is a fairly accurate bellcurve, d20 is completely random. Of course I also thing the d20 thing is biggest flaw in the WOTC d20 system.
I know I have ALL the 1ed rulebooks, and I have all but the 2ed Street Sam for 2ed books. 3ed is where I started slacking. Really havent picked up any books since the Big-D Assassination Event.
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