Earthdawn World Wide - France

frankreich

“Allons enfants de la Patrie le jour de gloire est arrivé…”


Besides that France got one of the most beautiful national anthems in the world, their English accent is also simply the best I’ve ever heard Smile. But you are here on the Earthdawn Blog and it isn’t my intention to talk about the French and their anthem, no I want to inform and talk about Earthdawn in France.

The best is to start with the beginnings of Earthdawn in France. The first edition Earthdawn rulebook (Earthdawn – prémière edition – livre de base) was published in France 1996 in French!!! Only 3 years after the original FASA edition rulebook was published.


The French publisher of the first edition books is “Jeux Descartes”. Some time ago I made an interview with Damien Coltice wherein he stated some critics about “Jeux Descartes”. It looks like that their decisions about which books will be translated weren’t that well chosen. When you look at the table below, you’ll notice that two essential books weren’t translated; “Denizens of Earthdawn” and “The Adept’s Way” are missing. I can’t tell you why they didn’t translate those two books, maybe some of my French readers can leave comments to tell us about that issue. Nevertheless here’s a short overview of the releases of “Jeux Descartes” since 1996: 

French
English
Published in France
Earthdawn – Livre de base
Earthdawn
01/1996
Accesoires du Maître de jeu   

01/1996
Le Compagnon   
Companion
01/1997
Barsaive
Barsaive
01/1997
Les Brumes de la Trahison   
Mists of Betrayal
01/1997
Corrompue   
Infected
01/1997
Horreurs
Horrors
01/1998
Trame brisée  
Shattered Pattern
01/1998
Parlainth
Parlainth
06/1998
Aventure à Parlainth   
Parlainth Adventures
09/1998
L’Empire Theran
Theran Empire
01/1999
Créatures de Barsaive  
Creatures of Barsaive
01/1999
Les Dagues de Cara Fahd
Blades
02/1999


In 2009 it was Black Book Éditions to start the conversion of the Red Brick’s classic edition. No not conversion, translation. Yes the French are the only ones that have the classic version translated in their language. All the Polish and German fans might get a little bit jealous. Here’s another short list of the so far accomplished “Classic” translations of Black Book Éditions:

French
English
Published in France
Kaer Tardim
Kaer Tardim
05/2009
Le Recueil du Joueur
Earthdawn Players Compendium
09/2009
Le Dossier de Personnage
“Includes players support stuff” (correct me)
09/2009
Le Recueil du Joueur – édition limitée
Earthdawn Players Compendium – Limited Edition
09/2009


But that’s not all they recently (September 2009) released the first novel in French. It is “Dark Shadows of Yesterday” (“Les Ombres noires du passé”) French players can buy for only 9,90 € !!! 

126_Les_Ombres_noires_du_passe
But the best or worst (more jealousy!!!) as you see in the table above Black Book Éditions released a “Limited Edition” of the 520 pages thick Players Compendium. Only 200 copies were sold and the hard leather cover with golden throal symbol only costs 74,90 €. Jealousy!!
110_Le_Recueil_du_Joueur__collector
I also found out that they are currently working on the translation of “Prelude to War” and announced the release for November 2009, so I guess the book is not far away.


I got no information if the Earthdawn Third Edition will be translated into French. I guess they have enough to do translating the Classic Edition and that there might be no publisher who wants to battle with Black Book Éditions at the moment.

 
But now enough of the published French Earthdawn books. I want to inform you a little bit about the places on the net, where French Earthdawn fans meet and support Earthdawn.


One of the oldest addresses on the net is the French Yahoo Mailing list for Earthdawn. It exists since 1998 and, as I was told, 28.0000 posts were made since then. And as I saw at my first visit the community is still active there.


As you might know French is a language that is spoken in various countries and that’s why the French community is supported from Canada, Belgium, Swiss and of course France. It looks like that there are 3.000 to 5.000 players in those countries but only around 20 to 300 of them are active in communities or forums. But there are several good pages that you should have a look at. Even if you’re not capable of speaking French maybe you should use these buttons of Google to quickly translate the pages into your preferred language.

 
Here are some French pages you should have a look at:

As on my previous posts of EWW I wouldn’t be able to provide those information without the help of several insiders. This time many thanks go to Scorpinou, Mahar and Fred Troll grognon.


Funny thing at the end. As I was told Mordom can be translated as “mort d’homme” which means “dead man”. Smile

1 Response to "Earthdawn World Wide - France"

  1. Maskhim says:

    Yay ! Maskhim here !
    mordom (or "mort d'homme" in french) should be translated as "death of a man " more than "dead man" but apart that, everything seems true... I started playing in 1994 in france with the english version and was really surprised when in 1996 the french version got edited ! The spellcards date from this period in fact :p I just never bothered to publish them online...

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