Pre-order German Earthdawn Player’s Guide

Ulisses Spiele

After some Polish Earthdawn news, I can report about some German news released by Ulisses Spiele too.

As the title says, the German Earthdawn Player’s Guide can now be pre-ordered at Ulisses Spiele. But Ulisses doesn’t just provide one version of the Player’s Guide. No. They offer 3 different versions!!

One regular hardcover version, one limited blue Espagra leather version(!!!) and a softcover-saving version, which comes without pictures and is almost plain text. I guess for the minimalists, who prefer plain information and rules.

The news published by Michael Mingers also adds, that Ulisses will likely use the old Earthdawn logo on the German books.

For all German speakers, head over to the news page for further information. You’ll also find a great fan work link at the news article, which provides a summary sheet for character creation made by Elidis!

Anyone who wants to translate the character creation cheat sheet for Earthdawn 4th edition?

Polish Earthdawn 4th Edition

It feels weird. To be writing this post. After such a wonderful introduction by Mordom (thanks, man!). Which I did not deserve. It also feels weird, because I kept you, the readers of this blog, so long waiting for my first post. Sorry. Most of all, it feels weird, because I would have never expected to be writing here or anywhere on the net about me being anyhow involed in translating and publishing a Polish edition of Earthdawn...

All right. Enough about me. Yes. That's right. Germany is not the only country getting a translation of the new Earthdawn 4th Edition books. Poland is also on the list. And it's official!

Fajne RPG (or Cool RPG if you translate the name into English), a Polish RPG publishing brand, created by three Polish RPG publishers (Kuźnia Gier, Gramel, Gindie) has officially announced it is planning to publish Polish Earthdawn 4th Edition books.

To accomplish this heroic task the publisher will launch a crowdfunding project. Depending on the success level (or number of successes if you prefer ED4 mechanics) two, three or more books will be published. Of course, like in every crowdfunding project there is a chance of failure. But in this case I'm full of optimism that everything is going to be all right. And Poland will have it's own Earthdawn 4th Edition...

And when I say it's own I really mean it! Fajne RPG announced that the layout of the Polish Earthdawn 4th Edition books will be different from the original. What is more the books will also have additional material, written by Polish authors.

The translation/editing team has already been assembled. The man resposible for the whole project is Piotr "Ramel" Koryś, owner of Gramel Publishing, publisher of Savage Worlds settings ("Nemezis", "Beasts & Barbarians") and Line Editor at Pinnacle Entertainment Group. Other people involved inlude names or nicknames you might know from the old EDPT and RedBrick forums or the new FASA Games forum. All Earthdawn fans. Loving the game.

The target for the Polish Earthdawn 4th Edition is first quarter of 2015. It's a big project but I hope we will make it on time. So may the Upandal be with us (other Passions are also welcomed).

And that's it for today!

Hope we meet again soon and may the Passions be with you :)

Old German Earthdawn 1st Edition PDFs available @ Ulisses Spiele

ulisses
The new German Earthdawn publisher Ulisses Spiele recently added the old German PDFs from Earthdawn 1st edition to their store at ulisses-ebooks.de. Every book for 4,99 € is in my opinion a great deal to get some inspiration out of the old material, which still can be used with some minor adjustments for the new Earthdawn 4th Edition.
The German news at Ulisses reads:

Habt ihr schon gesehen, dass die ersten PDFs zu den Büchern aus der Fanpro-Zeit bereits verfügbar sind? Alle zum schmalen Preis von 4,99 €! Weiterer Kram wird folgen, inklusive der Romane als Epub ... aber das wird Zeit brauchen, weil die bisherigen PDFs leider die einzigen waren, zu denen wir noch Daten sicherstellen konnten.

Hier noch mein kurzer Kommentar: Die alten Earthdawn Romane als Epub verfügbar zu machen ist einfach klasse, dabei hoffe ich natürlich, dass eines Tages auch die Romane zu Cathay von Hank Woon übersetzt und in Epub Form zu kaufen sein werden. Aber eins nach dem anderen, die genannten Romane (welche auch immer), sowie die angekündigten Kurzgeschichten kann ich kaum erwarten.

FASA and Ulisses interviews @ Spiel 2014

The International Gaming Days “SPIEL ‘14” took place from Oct. 16th – 19th at Essen. Like every year many RPG publishers were on site.

The German DORP-TV made various interviews with German as well as International publishers and for Earthdawn fans most interesting, with FASA (namely Ross Babcock) and Ulisses Spiele, the German publisher of Earthdawn.

Here’s the first interview with Ross from FASA:

The second interview with Michael Mingers from Ulisses Spiele was held on German. The "Earthdawn part" starts at 11:10 minute.

Wir werden erstmal warten mit eigensprachlichem Material, das nur auf Deutsch erscheinen wird, bis die Grundregelwerke rausgekommen sind. Was aber auch noch geplant ist, ist eigenes Deutsches Material, sowohl im Quellenbuch Bereich, wie auch Abenteuer, als auch NEUE ROMANE BZW. KURZGESCHICHTEN!!

 

Earthdawn 4th Edition Dice Roller

The following dice roller software was originally created by Spader as a 3rd edition dice roller. The great thing about it was the possibility to use different dice tables by simply editing the file step.mdb.
That’s what I did now to get the dice roller to use the new step system for Earthdawn 4th Edition. The download file now contains Spaders program and the new FASA Action Dice table for Earthdawn 4th Edition:
Earthdawn Dice Roller

If you prefer the old dice table using d12, simply replace original step.mdb file with this step.mdb file:

Earthdawn Miniatures Kickstarter Project

Yes Earthdawn had a lot of miniatures back at the time when Heartbreaker produced them. I think it it were 53 to be exactly! At this article over here were 101 Earthdawn miniatures introduced on the blog.

Thorn men miniature

But now back to the Kickstarter project that was initiated by Impact! Miniatures. FASA granted Impact! Miniatures permission to produce miniatures for Earthdawn. To do so, they acquired the original masters to create new molds and make new miniatures like those from Heartbreaker.

There’s one special thing to keep in mind when backing this project:

Rather than force our backers to take a specific set of miniatures that might have some they desire and some they do not.  The different reward levels give you a number of points to spend on the figurines. You select a reward with the number of points that you desire and then when you complete the pledge manager you will be able to select exactly the miniatures you want and only the miniatures you want to spend your money on

Head over to the Kickstarter page to find out more about the miniatures, their size, the stretch goals and the pledge levels that are available.

Earthdawn 4th Edition Character Sheet

Earthdawn 4th Edition is looming! But what changes with the new rules for Earthdawn Character sheets?

So I contacted Morgan Weeks to find out what needs to be changed and he was so kind to sum up the changes that are relevant to update the character sheets to Earthdawn 4th Edition rules. He mentioned for example that Karma checkboxes are no longer needed, you can now use Karma for every Discipline Talent.

All in all there are not too much changes necessary to update a 3rd Edition sheet to 4th Edition. See change log below.

I decided to update one of my favorite Character sheets to 4th Edition, the sheet Ajfel and I already provided on the blog over here.

The new PDF is still fully editable!

Mordom-Ajfel-4th-edition-sheet

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Changes:

  • New header pic
  • New dice table added
  • Renamed the spell defense to mystic defense
  • Added row for talent page
  • Changed wound penalties
  • Karma boxes are gone
  • Added phys./my. shield to defenses
  • Removed the spell sheet

The spell sheet was removed, because the spells will change too and I don’t know yet how the sheet will look like. A German translation of the sheet is already in the making. So, prepare for updates of this article.

By the way your opinions and critics are as always very welcome.

New co-author on the Earthdawn Blog

To zaszczyt!

It finally happened.

After a long process of certificating, proofing and testing his Earthdawn knowledge, I am proud to introduce Sethariel as a co-author to the Earthdawn Blog.

Sethariel 
As some of you might know, Sethariel and I already cooperated many times on several blog posts and interviews that were published on his old blog or over here at the Earthdawn Blog.

Sethariel is already contributing to the polish RPG page gry-fabularne.pl and administrates the earthdawn.com.pl community (formerly earthdawn.pl), but nevertheless I am very proud to have him on board over here.

It’s been 6 years now, just me blogging about Earthdawn and RPG stuff in general. So what can you expect from us two now?

We are planning to mainly report about Earthdawn of course, with some general RPG news. Sethariel will cover the Polish community and I will cover the German news, that surely will come up with the release of the German Earthdawn books by Ulisses Spiele.

We both will try to bring you the recent news and developments of the English community and their fan creations, and of course introduce some of our ideas as well.

I think you’ll hear or read from Seth in a few days, making his debut on the Earthdawn Blog.

Short interview @GenCon with Ross

Here’s a short interview with Ross Babcock from FASA made by Markus from Ulisses Spiele (German publisher)

 

Daten, Zahlen, Fakten

Hier noch ein kleiner Hinweis für deutsche Earthdawn fans, die oftmals mit den Konvertierungen der Amerikanischen Längemaße und Einheiten zu kämpfen haben. Ulisses hat dazu ein paar Daten, Zahlen und Fakten zusammengetragen.

Earthdawn race size comparison chart

Recently I stumbled upon the Name-giver Race Size Comparison Chart at the Earthdawn Compendium. I really like the comparison and after a short conversation with Flagg, I was allowed to add it to the blog. I added metric heights to the chart so that the rest of the world can better picture the size differences of the Earthdawn races.

EDsizechart_metric

Earthdawn news roundup

Several Earthdawn news were published during the recent weeks. So I thought it's time for a short roundup over here. 

But first a short question:
I once had a series running on the blog called "Earthdawn World Wide", where various countries with their specific Earthdawn fan community and products (be it fan or official translations) were introduced. And as I see now a "new" Earthdawn Edition rising, I wanted to ask you all, if you've heard sth. from any publisher of your country who is planning to publish the new 4th Edition material in your language?

German Earthdawn page online

Yes, you might already have heard that the German publisher Ulisses Spiele grabbed the rights to publish German Earthdawn books. The German Earthdawn page of Ulisses is now online at http://www.ulisses-spiele.de/sortiment/rollenspiele/earthdawn/.

Interview

+Morgan Weeks and +Josh Harrison gave an interview about Earthdawn 4E moderated by Jim Pinto for AetherCon:

 

Example characters by Morgan

The recent project of +Morgan Weeks is to publish several example characters for Earthdawn 4th Edition.

So far Morgan released the following example characters on his blog:

  • T’skrang swordmaster
  • Windling Swordmaster
  • Troll Skyraider
  • Elf Sky Raider
  • Elf Archer
  • Windling Archer
  • Ork Cavalryman

The characters have full stats for 8th circle chars and are designed for 4th Edition rules.

Epic character generator – new races

The epic character generator received two new races. The Anthro Cat (male and female) and Ork male packs are now available for the program.

s04

German Earthdawn 4th edition coming in 2014

earthdawn_banner

Hier mal eine “relativ” wichtige Neuigkeit für deutschsprachige Earthdawn fans, die am 28. von Ulisses Spiele veröffentlicht wurde (danke an Nico):

2014 wird Ulisses Spiele die vierte Edition von Earthdawn in deutscher Sprache veröffentlichen!

Hell yeah! Nach einer “kurzen” Periode des Stillstands, was die Veröffentlichung von deutschem Earthdawn Material betrifft, tut sich wieder etwas auf dem hiesigen Rollenspielmarkt.

Die Übersetzung der vierten Earthdawn Edition plant Ulisses Ende 2014 zu veröffentlichen.

Graphic tribute to Game of Thrones

Watching the new season of Game of Thrones?

Where have all the wildlings gone?

The superior designed page by Nigel Evan Dennis lists a huge amount of information about Game of Thrones.

GoT pic
Why?

That is probably the best question. I love design. I love 'Game of Thrones'. The story and the characters of the show fuel the outlet. The outlet being this website. I also believe it is important to step outside of your creative comfort zone and develop some new "chops".


Link Advice #22

ePic Character Generator released – Illustrate your characters easily

SaDe is a well known name in the Earthdawn community. She accomplished several projects over the years, which all represent her unique art style. Be it the iRPG app, her great drawings for Earthdawn (Earthdawn cards) or her most recent project the ePic Character Generator. I reported last year about the generator and Sade’s plans when the program was still in development (read the article here).

Since last year a lot happened including a loss of Sade’s HDD…. But against all odds, the ePic Character Generator was released a few weeks ago at http://epicgenerator.net.

So let’s see, what can you do with the generator?

There’s a free demo available at the store, which contains a free female character that can be equipped to test the features of the program.

ePic Character Generator

The interface to create the character is neatly arranged. At the bottom are categories to modify areas of the character like body, armor, weapons and background. Each category provides buttons (in the middle) for the specific sections that you want to edit. The dice button generates quick random characters.

ePic Character Generator

The main menu of the program shows the different base chars that are available for the program. The demo character is of course limited and provides for example no weapons to equip the character. I was allowed to test the ePic Generator with the Elf Male Character to show you the full features of the program. Currently are the following races available for the program, but Sade told me that an other race is already in the making:

  • Male human
  • Female human
  • Dwarf male
  • Dwarf female
  • Elf male
  • Elf female

ePic Character Generator

At the store are several packages available for each race and include male and female bodies. The dwarf and human bundles cost $8.49 and the elf bundle is available for $13.59. Currently have all the packages 15% discount. The all I one starter package includes all races, male and female and is available for $59.99 (30% off atm). The additional races and bundles can be paid via PayPal of course.

The combination options to create your character are sheer endless. For example, the elf male char offers:

  • 33 base models (face expressions)
  • 31 pants
  • 26 boots
  • 37 tops
  • 19 colorable styles of hair
  • 7 fully made set
  • 35 special add-ons
  • 51 weapons and armor pieces
  • 7 token frames

All packages include:

  • 5 animals
  • 16 background
  • 3 frames

ePic Character Generator

The generated characters can be saved as png files on your PC. At the bottom corner of each generated picture is a watermark, but the mark can be removed with the Pro Version of the program.

 ePic Character Generator

Character tokens can also be created with the ePic Character Generator. Each base character offers a number of different frames to create your character token, for example like these:

ePicGenerator2014_3_23_13_2_7

ePicGenerator2014_3_23_13_12_11

If you want to test the demo character and download the program you'll need to register and create an account. The email that you use to register at the page http://epicgenerator.net is needed again to activate the program and to add races or bundles to your account. So keep it in mind.

I would’ve been happy to have such a Character Generator when I was still playing Earthdawn because my art skills compared to Sade’s artworks creations is –1. The creation of a character or a character token would have been much easier with this tool back then.

I have to admit that it is the best portrait generator I’ve used so far. I especially like the different styles of characters you can create, even if I mainly tried to create "Earthdawnish" characters, it is also possible to generate high fantasy-, demonic- or zombie like characters.

ePicGenerator

Even though some features are missing at this early stage, Sade and the programmers LBandy and Rawbits have done a great job with the generator. I guess they are working hard to add new features to the generator. I can only suggest to have a look at the ePic Generator and spent e few bucks to add some races to the core program.

Radiorollenspiel 2. Staffel auf Detektor.fm steht an

Beware! Non Earthdawn – non English content!!

Vor ein paar Monaten habe ich über interessante Crowdfunding Projekte berichtet, darin unter anderem auch über das deutsche Projekt Radiorollenspiel von Marcus Richter und seinen Jungs. Das Projekt war erfolgreich und die erste Staffel des Radiorollenpsiels wurde finanziert und bei detektor.fm gesendet und mittlerweile auch hier veröffentlicht.

Ich will an dieser nochmal kurz festhalten, was das Konzept eines Radiorollenspiels ist:

Ein Radiorollenspiel ist eine Mischung aus Hörspiel und Rollenspiel. Beim Radiorollenspiel sollen beide Elemente miteinander vermischt werden: Ein Erzähler beschreibt eine Rahmenhandlung, die von Musik, Soundeffekten und professionellen Sprechern unterstützt wird. Die Hörer können sich per Anruf in die Sendung einschalten und selbst die Hauptrollen übernehmen. In ihrer Rolle werden die Hörer in die Geschichte integriert und bekommen einen Auftrag, den es zu lösen gilt. Die Art und Weise wie die Hörer vorgehen wollen, ist ihnen dabei selbst überlassen, Spielleiter, Soundeffekte und die Sprecher in den Nebenrollen reagieren auf die Aktionen der Hörer.

Die zweite Staffel des Radiorollenspiels steht gerade in den Startlöchern und wird vom 16. bis 20. März jeden Abend von 21.00 bis 22.00 Uhr auf detektor.fm gesendet. Der Titel des anstehenden, mitmach Hörrollenspiels kann sich für meinen Geschmack auf jeden Fall sehen lassen: “Der geplatzte Prinz & andere Kalamitäten”.

rsz_artwork-12-gelb

Also wie kann man mitmachen? Ich zitiere:

Technisch ist das ganz einfach: Ihr braucht ein Telefon oder einen Computer mit dem ihr skypen könnt. Dann einfach eine Mail mit eurer Telefonnummer oder eurem Skypenamenan an radiorollenspiel@detektor.fm schreiben und uns verraten an welchen Abenden ihr am liebsten mitspielen wollt. Wir melden uns dann bei euch um die Details abzusprechen. Ihr könnt auch jederzeit während der Sendung die detektor.fm-Hotline unter 0341 – 25 66 540 anrufen und euch einen Platz reservieren oder vielleicht sogar gleich live mit einsteigen.

Wer sich angesprochen fühlt und mehr darüber erfahren möchte warum der Prinz platzt, sollte sich den Trailer Artikel auf der Blogseite von Radiorollenspiel.de zu Gemüte führen.

German Earthdawn News – DORPCast Episode 22

To all my German readers:

Hier mal wieder einer der wenigen (1/2) deutschsprachigen Einträge auf dem Earthdawn Blog. Es geht um den kurzen Hinweis auf die DORPCast Episode 22: Earthdawn forever, in der Michael und Thomas sich anlässlich des 15 jährigen Jubiläums der DORP mit dem Rollenspiel Earthdawn und den aktuellen Entwicklungen beschäftigen.

Dazu heißt es auf die-dorp.de:

Die DORP wird heute am Tage 15 Jahre alt – und kaum ein Rollenspiel dabei so eng mit der Geschichte und Entstehung unserer Webseite verbunden wie Earthdawn. Anlass genug für Michael und Thomas einmal knietief durch die Nostalgie zu waten und sich an der Vorstellung eines ihrer beiden liebsten Systeme zu versuchen.

Schaut euch einfach mal auf der Seite zur Podcast Episode um, wo auch eine Themenübersicht und die im Podcast angesprochene Medienlinks zu finden sind.

Zitat: “Earthdawn war für uns alles, was DSA nicht war”

(via)

Earthdawn supplement “Hidden Talents” released

Nico and his brother Claus present you their translation of the original german book “Verborgene Talente” they created in september 2012. The new book is called Hidden Talents.

“Hidden Talents“ is an unofficial supplement for the Earthdawn roleplaying system, from fans for fans. This volume contains a substantial collection of more than one hundred new talent knacks across all original disciplines. As a bonus feature, a new class of magical companion will be revealed!

Hidden talents

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Earthdawn Kickstarter – Elven Nations unlocked!!

As I just saw at the Earthdawn Kickstarter page, the project funded more than $80.000.

This means that:

The Elven Nations book will be added to the reward offers and as an add-on, in both PDF and print options.

Final days of the Earthdawn Kickstarter project

The Earthdawn Kickstarter campaign has raised more than 700% of it’s original goal at the time of writing this article! The finish line is ahead and if you’re still hesitating to make your pledge, I can tell you that there are only 3 days left to support one of the best high fantasy RPG’s that are out there.

 

FASA and the developers have introduced a lot of stuff during the recent weeks since the Kickstarter project started. So I want to provide a short link overview of what information, interviews and previews concerning the Kickstarter project have been released so far. Just for the case you’re still hesitating cause of the lack of information……

Unlocked stretch goals:

  • Travar: City of Merchants sourcebook unlocked
  • Free GM Screen for pledges of physical books (softcover or hardcover!)
  • ED4 Companion

Released previews:

Interviews:

I guess these links sum it up pretty good about what information was spread during the last weeks. But I still want to add some additional information that could be interesting to you. I cite it here from various sources, be it comments of the Kickstarter campaign, G+ or forum posts.

We'll release the PDFs as soon as the layout has been through blueline, a month or so ahead of the physical books. Josh Harrison says the Players and GM's Guides are currently scheduled for release in August, Travar for October, and the Companion for December, with the usual disclaimers about risk and acts of the Passions and so forth.

The FASA Games web store has been updated with all the KS pledge levels. If you'd rather work by Paypal than credit card, you can now get all of the merch from the KS, and we'll count the sales in the web store KS category toward the KS pledge total for stretch goal unlock

All backers who pledged for softcover or hardcover editions of the books will receive a free GM screen. We'll put all the tables and charts you need on one side, and full color art on the other, on a fold-out cardstock screen. This includes a 16-page booklet of pregenerated gamemaster characters and other useful material. We will add the GM screen to our online shop and product line once the KS reward copies have shipped. Yes, we're adding a PDF version of this to the PDF Everything Bundle.

Of course the overview makes no claim of being complete. But I hope some of the info is helpful to make your decision to select a pledge and support the project.

Finally I can only recommend to have a look at the Earthdawn FASA Games Forum to read about the latest discussions and debates.

Earthdawn fanzine Mystic Bonds available for download

Nico, who also created the Poor Attack Test Tables and Barsaive’s Bestiarium, recently released his latest fanzine called Mystic Bonds.

    This booklet contains an assemblage of alternative rules for parts of the Thread Pattern System in Earthdawn, including new ideas for the:

  • Group True Pattern
  • Familiar Thread Pattern
  • Location Thread Pattern
  • Lightbearer Thread Pattern

mysticbondscover

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Earthdawn Kickstarter campaign started

The Earthdawn Kickstarter campaign is live and after a short period (1 day), already reached it’s goal of $10.000!! Hell yeah!

Now, twenty years after its initial release, a new edition is in development under the FASA Games banner. In addition to revising and polishing the game rules, this new edition of Earthdawn will update the setting, putting in place a new status quo for players to explore. The goal is to make the game more accessible and friendly to players unfamiliar with Earthdawn and its history.

The delivery dates for the pledges is set to Aug/Sep 2014. All the information about what you still can pledge for, can be found on the project’s Kickstarter page.

If you have already played some previous Earthdawn editions, you might be wondering, what changes in the new Earthdawn 4th Edition. For this reason Josh Harrison released 4 Earthdawn 4th Edition previews so far on the FASA Games Blog.

You still want to know more?

Josh Harrison, Earthdawn line developer held an ED Q&A session at rpg.net’s chat yesterday and the log of the session was released at GMshoes’s office.

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