Cpt BlackThorne
Mongoose
Having played Earthdawn back in the mid to late 90's from First Edition and sad to see the game founder when FASA closed it's doors (Finding the Content from Living Room Games and later Red Brick being a complete pain in the ass here in the Midwest), I was happy to see the game return in it's Third Edition.
A short form description of Earthdawn would go something like this, from the wiki: In Barsaive, magic, like many things in nature, goes through cycles. As the magic level rises, it allows alien creatures called Horrors to cross from their distant, otherworldly dimension into our own. The Horrors come in an almost infinite variety -- from simple eating machines that devour all they encounter, to incredibly intelligent and cunning foes that feed off the negative emotions they inspire in their prey.
In the distant past of Earthdawn's setting, an elf scholar discovered that the time of the Horrors was approaching, and founded the Eternal Library in order to discover a way to defeat them — or at the very least, survive them. The community that grew up around the library developed wards and protections against the Horrors, which they traded to other lands and eventually became the powerful Theran Empire, an extremely magically advanced civilization and the main antagonist of the Earthdawn setting.
The peoples of the world built kaers, underground towns and cities, which they sealed with the Theran wards to wait out the time of the Horrors, which was called the Scourge. Theran wizards and politicians warned many of the outlying nations around Thea of the coming of the Horrors, offering the protection of the kaers to those who would pledge their loyalty to the Empire. Most of these nations agreed at first though some became unwilling to fulfill their end of the bargain after the end of the Scourge, wanting to have nothing to do with the bureaucratic nation run on political conflict and powered by slavery. After four hundred years of hiding, the Scourge ended, and the people emerged to a world changed by the Horrors. The player characters explore this new world, discovering lost secrets of the past, and fighting Horrors that remain.
The primary setting of Earthdawn is Barsaive, a former province of the Theran Empire. Barsaive is a region of city-states, independent from the Therans since the dwarven Kingdom of Throal led a rebellion against their former overlords.
The Theran presence in Barsaive has been limited to a small part of south-western Barsaive, based around the magical fortress of Sky Point and the city of Vivane.
The setting of Earthdawn is the same world as Shadowrun, but takes place Millennia earlier.
Flavor of the Game is a combination of Epic High-Fantasy and Lovecraftian Horror, as the players adventure in Barsaive, which feels to me somewhere between Lord of the Rings and Runequest, with a large amount of high magic thrown in. The Lovecraftian Horror comes in whenever the players have to deal with The Horrors, which are perverse, strange and definitively unpleasant. A old Trope for the game is : "If the players aren't sweating an encounter with a Horror. You aren't doing it right."
The Mechanics are rather unique for Action Tests, and are designed to work with the standard D20 dice sets that have been around for the last few decades. The Test runs off what is called the Dice Step (skill or Stat level) of the Character, NPC, or Object in question VS the Target Number of the test. The Dice Step Will Determine what dice are rolled for a Task.
For Example: Tal Vilan, a human Weaponsmith has a Weaponcrafting Skill Dice Step of 8 (starting character) and is trying to forge a sword with some minor magical ability (say, doesn't rust under normal conditions). Their Action Dice Step is 2d6 in this instance. The hypothetical TN is 11 (first rank character getting ahead of themselves on the difficulty curve). The Player manages to roll 12 on their 2d6, which means they make the Average TN for the task.
Now the player has done something Nifty for the Die Mechanic. When you roll the maximum on a dices number, you get to keep that Die roll, and Roll another die of the same type. Rolling two extra dice, the player manages to get another 7 between the two dice (not chaining and more on other die), with a total result of 19. Because this result is so much higher than what was needed (Extraordinary), that certain game effects might be the result, such as a exceptionally well crafted blade that might be of perfect balance and very well suited for enchantment (that doesn't rust).
Such Extraordinary feats when characters do things in Earthdawn have a magical resonance and might cause Items to Awaken into powerful magical items or cause Resonance for the character for certain actions (increased Legend points) and have certain tasks become easier.
Of course, having higher Dice Steps for Skills, Stats, and Talents will help with Action Tests. This is the core mechanic for the system and is pretty intuitive once one wraps their head around it.
Magic is a big part of Earthdawn. Players take on the part of Adepts, which are individuals who have learned to harness their inherent magic into Disciplines (Classes) such as Warrior, Weapon Smith, Elementalist, Nethermancer (etc), to use their magic in various ways (Warriors using their magic to enhance their physical skills, soak damage etc). Each Discipline has their own ways of viewing the world, Karma Rituals, and Half-Magic (a form of magic that allows characters to make intuitive leaps about knowledge things related to they vocation).
There is a LOT of material in Earthdawn. The game itself lends itself to "What the hell are you doing?" kinds of actions which most other systems tend not to encourage for the sake of "realism" (possible exception of Exalted).
The game is considerably cleaned up from the First Edition (which I highly approve as some of the mechanics could get obtuse if not properly explained). For a fantasy system the definitely gives you something different, I highly recommend Earthdawn.
Earthdawn Players Guide:
Now on to the nuts and bolts. The 3rd Edition Players Guide is a rather nice and crisp edition with full color covers and black interior, which is a smart move as the previous colored and black and white editions had a annoying habit of the colored pages falling out after a while. The binding is also of a very high quality, which is a good thing as the Book will get abused and used a lot.
Chapter 1 is organized into the Mandatory "what is roleplaying' section, so experienced players can skim over that, then flows Chapter 2, a preface on Game Concepts and Tropes that will give the player and idea what is going on, as well as Core Game Mechanics.
Chapter 3 is on the various Namegiver Races with the racial adjustments and minor tweaks for 3rd edition.
Chapter 4 deals with Character Generation, given that this was something of a headache in earlier editions, the new edition is quite organized in this regard and every talent, skill, spell and such appears properly noted and annotated.
Chapter 5 notes the Various Disciplines (rank 1-8 for the base book). It addresses the Mindset of the various Adepts in their Disciplines, Half-Magic Tests by said Adepts, initiation and advancement, as well as other peculiarities of the various Disciplines. Of note is that the Discipline progression has been smoothed compared to previous editions, with each Discipline now attaining a form of benefit peculiar to their vocation as they advance in Discipline Rank, which is nice to see as some of the disciplines were rather lacking previously in that regard.
Chapters 6 & 7 handle the descriptions of Talents & Skills. which are relatively straightforward in organization and ease of readability.
Chapters 8 handles the Workings of Magic. Chapter 8 deals with the various concepts and tropes of Magic for Earthdawn, so is recommended reading for the player to get their head around how magic works in Earthdawn.
Chapter 9 deals with Thread Magic. Thread Magic is the process by which characters tie a magical connection to magical items (enabling use), Named Individuals or Places (providing or drawing power to themselves or others via the power of Name Magic) as well as Group Threat Magic (Translation: Group Rituals & High Magic).
Chapter 10: Blood Magic. Okay, we've all read the fantasy novel where the hero, villain, in-between dabbles in the power of Blood Magic and possibly Blood Sacrifice, with all the question being "Why would you want to do this horrible thing?" Well this chapter gives examples of Blood Magic like a Blood bound pact of Peace (Blood Peace) where in you can compel someone to swear to help you come thick or thin, else they suffer a nasty blood scar that pretty much states they are a treacherous cretin, as well as rules for Sacrificial magic, and Death Curses.
Chapter 11: Spell Magic: This chapter discusses the various methods of casting magic (safe and unsafe). Recommended for spell caster players. as casting unsafely is NOT recommended.
Chapter 12 being the largest deals with the Spell lists for the various spell casting disciplines. Fairly cut and dried chapter.
Chapter 13: Summoning. Handles the rules for summoning creatures both of the Natural World...and otherwise.
Chapter 14: Combat. This chapter is pretty inclusive on things related to combat, including initiative, various action types (I noticed the inclusion of Free Actions and Simple actions from D&D in this edition), various wound types, armor defeating hits, Effects of Injuries, Attack Types, Combat types, Situational modifiers and so forth.
Chapter 15: Building Your Legend. This part deals with getting experience to the character to improve their skills. As Earthdawn has one of the more open systems on spending character experience on various skills, talents, stats and other things to truly customize ones character, this chapter is pretty important obviously. Of note is that Legend is tracked by individual and Group, and is roughly about the same level as the majority of the Group. What I like about this is that it reinforces many fantasy tropes while giving a rational reason for it.
Chapter 16: Goods And Services: Equipment for all needs is listed from Weapons to mounts, to magical equipment.
Chapter 17: Barsive province: A travelogue for players to immerse themselves in the area of the Earthdawn game.
that's pretty much a nutshell of the players guide. working on the GM's guide. questions are welcome
A short form description of Earthdawn would go something like this, from the wiki: In Barsaive, magic, like many things in nature, goes through cycles. As the magic level rises, it allows alien creatures called Horrors to cross from their distant, otherworldly dimension into our own. The Horrors come in an almost infinite variety -- from simple eating machines that devour all they encounter, to incredibly intelligent and cunning foes that feed off the negative emotions they inspire in their prey.
In the distant past of Earthdawn's setting, an elf scholar discovered that the time of the Horrors was approaching, and founded the Eternal Library in order to discover a way to defeat them — or at the very least, survive them. The community that grew up around the library developed wards and protections against the Horrors, which they traded to other lands and eventually became the powerful Theran Empire, an extremely magically advanced civilization and the main antagonist of the Earthdawn setting.
The peoples of the world built kaers, underground towns and cities, which they sealed with the Theran wards to wait out the time of the Horrors, which was called the Scourge. Theran wizards and politicians warned many of the outlying nations around Thea of the coming of the Horrors, offering the protection of the kaers to those who would pledge their loyalty to the Empire. Most of these nations agreed at first though some became unwilling to fulfill their end of the bargain after the end of the Scourge, wanting to have nothing to do with the bureaucratic nation run on political conflict and powered by slavery. After four hundred years of hiding, the Scourge ended, and the people emerged to a world changed by the Horrors. The player characters explore this new world, discovering lost secrets of the past, and fighting Horrors that remain.
The primary setting of Earthdawn is Barsaive, a former province of the Theran Empire. Barsaive is a region of city-states, independent from the Therans since the dwarven Kingdom of Throal led a rebellion against their former overlords.
The Theran presence in Barsaive has been limited to a small part of south-western Barsaive, based around the magical fortress of Sky Point and the city of Vivane.
The setting of Earthdawn is the same world as Shadowrun, but takes place Millennia earlier.
Flavor of the Game is a combination of Epic High-Fantasy and Lovecraftian Horror, as the players adventure in Barsaive, which feels to me somewhere between Lord of the Rings and Runequest, with a large amount of high magic thrown in. The Lovecraftian Horror comes in whenever the players have to deal with The Horrors, which are perverse, strange and definitively unpleasant. A old Trope for the game is : "If the players aren't sweating an encounter with a Horror. You aren't doing it right."
The Mechanics are rather unique for Action Tests, and are designed to work with the standard D20 dice sets that have been around for the last few decades. The Test runs off what is called the Dice Step (skill or Stat level) of the Character, NPC, or Object in question VS the Target Number of the test. The Dice Step Will Determine what dice are rolled for a Task.
For Example: Tal Vilan, a human Weaponsmith has a Weaponcrafting Skill Dice Step of 8 (starting character) and is trying to forge a sword with some minor magical ability (say, doesn't rust under normal conditions). Their Action Dice Step is 2d6 in this instance. The hypothetical TN is 11 (first rank character getting ahead of themselves on the difficulty curve). The Player manages to roll 12 on their 2d6, which means they make the Average TN for the task.
Now the player has done something Nifty for the Die Mechanic. When you roll the maximum on a dices number, you get to keep that Die roll, and Roll another die of the same type. Rolling two extra dice, the player manages to get another 7 between the two dice (not chaining and more on other die), with a total result of 19. Because this result is so much higher than what was needed (Extraordinary), that certain game effects might be the result, such as a exceptionally well crafted blade that might be of perfect balance and very well suited for enchantment (that doesn't rust).
Such Extraordinary feats when characters do things in Earthdawn have a magical resonance and might cause Items to Awaken into powerful magical items or cause Resonance for the character for certain actions (increased Legend points) and have certain tasks become easier.
Of course, having higher Dice Steps for Skills, Stats, and Talents will help with Action Tests. This is the core mechanic for the system and is pretty intuitive once one wraps their head around it.
Magic is a big part of Earthdawn. Players take on the part of Adepts, which are individuals who have learned to harness their inherent magic into Disciplines (Classes) such as Warrior, Weapon Smith, Elementalist, Nethermancer (etc), to use their magic in various ways (Warriors using their magic to enhance their physical skills, soak damage etc). Each Discipline has their own ways of viewing the world, Karma Rituals, and Half-Magic (a form of magic that allows characters to make intuitive leaps about knowledge things related to they vocation).
There is a LOT of material in Earthdawn. The game itself lends itself to "What the hell are you doing?" kinds of actions which most other systems tend not to encourage for the sake of "realism" (possible exception of Exalted).
The game is considerably cleaned up from the First Edition (which I highly approve as some of the mechanics could get obtuse if not properly explained). For a fantasy system the definitely gives you something different, I highly recommend Earthdawn.
Earthdawn Players Guide:
Now on to the nuts and bolts. The 3rd Edition Players Guide is a rather nice and crisp edition with full color covers and black interior, which is a smart move as the previous colored and black and white editions had a annoying habit of the colored pages falling out after a while. The binding is also of a very high quality, which is a good thing as the Book will get abused and used a lot.
Chapter 1 is organized into the Mandatory "what is roleplaying' section, so experienced players can skim over that, then flows Chapter 2, a preface on Game Concepts and Tropes that will give the player and idea what is going on, as well as Core Game Mechanics.
Chapter 3 is on the various Namegiver Races with the racial adjustments and minor tweaks for 3rd edition.
Chapter 4 deals with Character Generation, given that this was something of a headache in earlier editions, the new edition is quite organized in this regard and every talent, skill, spell and such appears properly noted and annotated.
Chapter 5 notes the Various Disciplines (rank 1-8 for the base book). It addresses the Mindset of the various Adepts in their Disciplines, Half-Magic Tests by said Adepts, initiation and advancement, as well as other peculiarities of the various Disciplines. Of note is that the Discipline progression has been smoothed compared to previous editions, with each Discipline now attaining a form of benefit peculiar to their vocation as they advance in Discipline Rank, which is nice to see as some of the disciplines were rather lacking previously in that regard.
Chapters 6 & 7 handle the descriptions of Talents & Skills. which are relatively straightforward in organization and ease of readability.
Chapters 8 handles the Workings of Magic. Chapter 8 deals with the various concepts and tropes of Magic for Earthdawn, so is recommended reading for the player to get their head around how magic works in Earthdawn.
Chapter 9 deals with Thread Magic. Thread Magic is the process by which characters tie a magical connection to magical items (enabling use), Named Individuals or Places (providing or drawing power to themselves or others via the power of Name Magic) as well as Group Threat Magic (Translation: Group Rituals & High Magic).
Chapter 10: Blood Magic. Okay, we've all read the fantasy novel where the hero, villain, in-between dabbles in the power of Blood Magic and possibly Blood Sacrifice, with all the question being "Why would you want to do this horrible thing?" Well this chapter gives examples of Blood Magic like a Blood bound pact of Peace (Blood Peace) where in you can compel someone to swear to help you come thick or thin, else they suffer a nasty blood scar that pretty much states they are a treacherous cretin, as well as rules for Sacrificial magic, and Death Curses.
Chapter 11: Spell Magic: This chapter discusses the various methods of casting magic (safe and unsafe). Recommended for spell caster players. as casting unsafely is NOT recommended.
Chapter 12 being the largest deals with the Spell lists for the various spell casting disciplines. Fairly cut and dried chapter.
Chapter 13: Summoning. Handles the rules for summoning creatures both of the Natural World...and otherwise.
Chapter 14: Combat. This chapter is pretty inclusive on things related to combat, including initiative, various action types (I noticed the inclusion of Free Actions and Simple actions from D&D in this edition), various wound types, armor defeating hits, Effects of Injuries, Attack Types, Combat types, Situational modifiers and so forth.
Chapter 15: Building Your Legend. This part deals with getting experience to the character to improve their skills. As Earthdawn has one of the more open systems on spending character experience on various skills, talents, stats and other things to truly customize ones character, this chapter is pretty important obviously. Of note is that Legend is tracked by individual and Group, and is roughly about the same level as the majority of the Group. What I like about this is that it reinforces many fantasy tropes while giving a rational reason for it.
Chapter 16: Goods And Services: Equipment for all needs is listed from Weapons to mounts, to magical equipment.
Chapter 17: Barsive province: A travelogue for players to immerse themselves in the area of the Earthdawn game.
that's pretty much a nutshell of the players guide. working on the GM's guide. questions are welcome
