Last article for 2015!

The German version of this Earthdawn character sheet for Earthdawn 4th Edition was made by Elidis. The sheet is a good mix of stylish design and usability. It took me some time to create an English version but finally at the end of the year, I found some time to translate it.

A pre-Christmas news was released yesterday by vagrantworkshop.com, simply saying "The Age of Legend is coming!"

Age of Legend?

Well, Earthdawn: The Age of Legend is an alternative ruleset for the existing Earthdawn material. Vagrant Workshop acquired a license from FASA to publish an alternative rules-light version of Earthdawn which is based on FU (Freeform/Universal RPG) created by Nathan Russel at Peril Planet.

At the 'Answers' section you'll find enough info what Earthdawn: The Age of Legend is about and how you can use the rules for your existing Earthdawn material. Be it 1st, 2nd, Classic, 3rd or 4th Edition of Earthdawn.

When will Earthdawn: Age of Legends be published?

If everything works out, in early 2016. We will be utilizing DriveThroughRPG, offering the game in PDF format and in several print-on-demand-options.

Behind Vagrant Workshop stand Carsten Damm and his fellows who are still playing and working on Earthdawn. For all those who don't know him, Carsten was the Earthdawn Line Developer back in the days of Red Brick when the Earthdawn Classic and the Earthdawn Third Edition were published.

Preview?

At the 'Resource' section is a small preview available. And as it looks like one fellow of Carsten is Kathy Schad which created, in my opinion, some of the most beautiful Earthdawn art that there is (except the art of Jeff Laubenstein of course).

What do you think about this news and the alternate ligh weight rule system? Will you use the Earthdawn: The Age of Legend ruleset to play Earthdawn?

Just a quick info about the Creatures Challenge Circle Table made by Razan. It provides an overview about the creatures that should challenge the players in specific circles.

Have a look:

 

The document was first published on the FASA Earthdawn forum.

Dimension of roleplaying TV steht wie immer parat, wenn die deutschen 'Großconventions', RPC oder eben die Spiel in Essen stattfinden, um uns mit Earthdawn news zu versorgen. Diesmal geht es um das kommende deutsche Spielleiter Handbuch, in knapp einer Minute ist alles aktuelle gesagt. Naja fast. Ein in geplantes VÖ-Datum ist aus Scorpios Mund zu hören:

At first I have to point out that the inspiration for this article came from Elidis and Morgan Weeks. Morgan Weeks is writing a series on his blog Panda Gaming grove called 'Anatomy of a Discipline' wherein he introduces and explains various disciplines of Earthdawn.

The series led Elidis to the idea to create an overview for all officially existing Disciplines of Earthdawn.

Well the idea was now realized in the following table which lists all Earthdawn disciplines sorted by edition. It includes 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Edition disciplines, Cathay and other official sources where Earthdawn disciplines were introduced at. And yep Questors are considered in the list as well!

The table also shows if the discipline already is or will officially be converted to ED4.

(mirror)

The list doesn't claim to be complete! So I would be happy about any comment or suggestions about errors or missing Earthdawn disciplines.

I want to point out again that all Kudos go to Elidis who gathered all the info and made up the list.

The German Earthdawn publisher Ulisses Spiele posted a preview of the soon-to-come Barsaive map at their Facebook page. The 70x100 cm map will be available at the SPIEL2015. For all the German fans that don't visit the SPIEL in Essen will later have the opportunity to buy it via the Ulisses store.

English

In a recent post at the FASA Earthdawn forum were initially the detailed stats of a Bone Spirit requested. As the discussion went on, Mataxes was so kind to released a part of the Spirits chapter from the not yet released Earthdawn 4th edition Game Master Guide.

"The linked PDF has the information necessary to create bone spirits, taken from the spirits chapter of the ED4 GM Guide."

The 5 page PDF file provides strength stats for Ally Spirits as well as descriptions of Spirit powers.

The provided statistics are guidelines and serve to form a general baseline for spirits of that type. Since each spirit is a unique entity, the gamemaster should feel free to modify these values to suit the needs of his game. The powers listed for a spirit are only the most common examples.

Deutsch

Nachdem der englischsprachige Auszug aus dem Game Masters Guide im FASA Earthdawn forum veröffentlicht wurde, kommt Ulisses mit dem deutschen Gegenstück daher und beschert damit der deutschen Community Informationen zu Geistern und ihren Kräften. Als Beispiel sind ausserdem die Statistiken für einen Knochengeist als Verbündeten enthalten.

Die angegebenen Spielwerte sind Richtlinien und dienen als allgemeine Grundlage für Geister der jeweiligen Art. Da aber jeder Geist ein einzigartiges Wesen ist, kann der Spielleiter diese Werte gerne so modifizieren, wie es zu seinem Spiel passt. Die für einen Geist angegebenen Kräfte sind nur die am häufigsten vorkommenden Beispiele.

Earthdawn was released by FASA corporation back in 1993, yes 22 years ago! The former FASA corporation may not be confused with todays FASA Games inc. the current publisher of Earthdawn 4th Edition.
At that time, during the marketing phase to publicize the RPG Earthdawn, some promotional flyers were published.

Earthdawn flyers

As a long time fan I have already heard about these flyers and already had a look at them.

But as I read a few weeks ago a post on G+ by Chris Hussey about an Earthdawn Release brochure, I was stunned.

After all these years of Earthdawn 'tracking' I hadn't even heard about this promotional release brochure. So guess how surprised I was when I started to read it.

Earthdawn Release Brochure

The Earthdawn Release Brochure was send out to game shops and publishers before Earthdawn was released to spread the word about the new upcoming roleplaying game Earthdawn.

The cover says it all:

FASA's new game is a secret......
Until next month

The 40 pages contain various basic information about the setting of Earthdawn, a timeline of historic events is included, character archetypes and a great story called 'The merchants gift' can be found in there.

But the thing is that not everything in that brochure was final, it is more like a draft preview of the development of Earthdawn.

Example?

I guess every Earthdawn fan knows about the most well known saying about the Namegivers of Barsaive. But the original paragraph is a little bit different in this historic brochure and reads as follows:

The trolls raid the dwarfs,
the dwarfs dislike the elves,
the elves have no patience with the humans,
and the humans war with each other.
- But everyone hates the Atlanteans.

Who? The Atlanteans? Well, what later became the 'enemy' called the Therans was originally called 'Atlanteans' and shows again that not everything was final and done during that time.

Another chapter of the brochure for example introduces character archetypes like 'Warlock Warrior' or 'Troll Viking', which later became the discipline named 'Sky Raider' when Earthdawn was finally published.

There are many more small finds on the history and the development of the world of Earthdawn in that brochure. So I can really recommend to read this 'ancient' document of Earthdawn history.

When looking at that small piece of history of Earthdawn I realized how long this game exists and what a journey the RPG Earthdawn went thru to be published now in its 4th Edition.

And to be honest, you can already feel the potential of the story and the world of Earthdawn to become a great RPG when reading sentences like:

You and your friends are heroes of the age, masters of this magic. Some of you are proficient in the martial schools of magic; at your will you can bend the tissues of your very flesh, forge it into a living armor able to withstand sword blows. Some of you have mastered control of natural forces and can draw fire from the air and send it hurtling at your enemies.

Earthdawn is often referred as one of the role-playing games with the greatest potential. Because of its setting, the story of the world and because of its magic system. I think you can get a small glimpse on the time of origins of Earthdawn when reading through this brochure.

When the brochure was released in 1993 I guess no one expected the game of Earthdawn to last this long and become what it is today.

Links

• Read the brochure online @Scridb
• Download the Earthdawn Flyer #3 as PDF (mirror) 
• Download the Earthdawn Release Brochure as PDF (mirror)

Disclaimer

Original Earthdawn content copyright 1993-2015 FASA Corporation, FASA Games, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission. Any use of copyrighted material or trademarks in this article should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks.

The following video shows a trick how to find out if a die is actually balanced or not. Funny thing is that the trick comes from golf, to find out if the golf ball is balanced out.

via Rollenspiel-Alamanach

Update June 14th 2015

After some feedback the PDF got updated and some errors were fixed.

Elidis, who already created some beautiful stuff for the German fan community published recently his Player support sheets for the German Earthdawn 4th Edition. When I asked him if he could provide his sheets in English too, he was so kind to translate the sheets. And how it goes, I am now able to present you his cheat sheets for Earthdawn 4th Edition: ‘Character Creation and Development’ and for Players the ‘Players guide light’ PDFs.

ED4-Character Creation and Development PDF

• Character creation step tables
• Racial modifiers and racial abilities
• Talent increasing costs
• Skill increasing costs
• Spell learning
• Everything for circle advancement

(mirror)

ED4-PG light PDF

• Situation modifiers
• Combat options
• Mounted attacks summary
• Rules summary

(mirror)

Hinweis für deutsche Earthdawn fans:

Die deutschen Fan Downloads ‘ED4-Charaktererschaffung’ und ‘Spielerhilfe’ von findet ihr bei Ulisses Spiele hier (unter ‘Als PDF bestellen’-Button – Downloads) oder hier (im Suchfilter einfach auf ‘Earthdawn’ (ganz unten) filtern). Habe gerade feststellen müssen, dass die Fan-Downloads von Elidis bei Ulisses Spiele gut versteckt sind. A propos Ulisses Spiele: einen Blick auf die deutschen Bücher (inklusive limited ESPAGRA Version!!) könnt ihr hier werfen.

The recently released official Earthdawn character sheet was not very well received by many fans. Well, experience shows that many fans prefer to design their own character sheets , as these then most likely meet their requirements. Be it optical or simply useful criteria. A criteria for me is for example to have editable PDF’s, to capture Attributes, Talents, Skills or Spells. Others prefer sheets where you can capture everything up to high circle characters and so on, but what about stylish or well designed sheets?

One fanmade Earthdawn 4th Edition character sheet was already introduced on the blog, even before the official release was made. But it’s design is rather minimalistic and focused on printability.

Do you remember the editable scroll-design-sheet that was released on the Earthdawn blog on 2013? Yes, again it is Patryk aka UglyGoblin that contacted me with another approach to publish an editable stylish Earthdawn 4th edition character sheet.

I am very proud to present you the creation by Patryk. Have a look:

Good news for our polish readers! Patryk has already created a Polish version of his sheet in addition to the English version. A German translation is in the making.

Links:

• Earthdawn 4th edition character sheet (EN) (mirror)
• Earthdawn 4th edition character sheet (PL) (mirror)

The recently announced German Earthdawn fanwork PDF by the german RPG page "Die DORP" (Dimension of roleplaying) was released yesterday:

The German info reads:

Die Schätze der Himmelsstürmer sammelt auf 16 Seiten die magischen Schätze unserer letzten Kampagne, mit Beschreibungen versehen und an die brandneuen Regeln der vierten Edition des Rollenspiels Earthdawn angeglichen.

English Google translation:

The Himmelsstürmer - a group of young adepts who was distinguished by all the virtues that you can think of: courage, kindness, curiosity and adventurousness.
Your treasures? A mirror which - a wild collection of useful, magical items, for fighter craft and sorcerers alike.

The treasures of Himmelsstürmer collects on 16 pages the magical treasures of our last campaign, provided with descriptions and aligned with the brand new rules of the fourth edition of the role-playing game Earthdawn.

Update June 14th 2015

The PDF file "Chapter 2 - What has come before" is no longer available at FASA. When the file becomes available again, it'll be linked here again.

While we're still waiting for the Earthdawn 4th Edition Gamemaster's Guide, one part of it fans were really asking about was shared by FASA Games. The part explaining the events leading to the current Earthdawn 4th Edition timeline.

Yes, that's right. If you missed the latest FASA Games update on their blog here is the link to the Chapter 2 ("What Has Come Before") from the coming Gamemaster's Guide, in which you will find the revised history chapter, covering the events of the war and how the current political situation in Barsaive came to be.

• Chapter 3: The Land and its People
• Chapter 11: Spirits
• Chapter 12: Dragons
• Chapter 13: Horrors

Looking at the cover of the new Earthdawn Fourth Edition Player's Guide and still wondering what are the changes?

Wandering through the G+ astral space (those Nethermancers, wandering in netherworlds all the time...) Mordom found a link to an interesting summary of all general changes between 3rd and 4th editions so far. The author mentions the changes and gives his opinion about them. It's short, and definitely worth reading.

Take a look!

Last year Lester Ward shared a draft of a Dungeon World hack using Earthdawn setting. It was a very interesting concept, but it still needed more work and tinkering.

Now Lester Ward came back with a new version of the hack. Using the feedback from the Dungeon World community and other people he created as he says "a form that is as complete as he ever intend to make it".

It's not a complete game. It's a seed on which you can expand your Dungeon World game in the Earthdawn setting. But it's a really fruitful seed.

If you like Dungeon World mechanic, give a try!

Lester shared two download packages: the PDF and the source files.

Visit his site DivNull Productions to download them!

Back in September 2014 we already converted a fanmade character sheet to the Earthdawn 4th edition rules with the help of Mogan Weeks.

Update June 14th 2015

The character sheet is "unfortunately" no longer available at the download section at FASA games.

Now, after the release of the Earthdawn 4th Edition Player's Guide PDF, FASA provides an official 4th edition character record sheet on their download page.

ED4 Character Record Sheet

The sheet uses the D12 dice table and it provides on 2 pages space for basic character stats. I would say for high circle characters it is not useful, but to start with Earthdawn it should be good enough. It simply provides the base stats of your char in a good overview, nothing more nothing less.

I was really happy to receive the Earthdawn 4th Edition Player's Guide PDF a few days ago and I especially like the new colored artwork of the book. Even if some people, like always, complain about the cover artwork, but that's another topic.....

Speaking of colored Earthdawn artwork:

I recently got contacted by Sade. You may know some of her projects like the ePIC Generator or the iRPG fantasy app.

Sade created some beautiful colored artwork of all Earthdawn races and she was so kind to give me the rights to publish them here on the blog. She is also planning to create some Theran images, so maybe we'll see an update of this article soon.

Your opinions and comments are as always welcome.

So let's see:

Teilzeithelden.de the German web magazine for roleplaying, LARP and fantasy recently published an interview with Michael Mingers, the German product manager for Earthdawn 4th Edition.

I consider it, as always, my duty to keep the English community up to date about the German Earthdawn developments by Ulisses. But honestly I simply can’t translate every news or interview that contains new information about the progress of the German Earthdawn 4th edition.

I simply publish the news and links about the German development most of the times on the Google+ page of the Earthdawn blog.

But this interview contains so many info and news that I want to point on it here on the blog too. Nevertheless I can only link to a "translated" version of the interview using the Google Translator and provide an overview about the main topics of the interview.

So here’s a short summary of the main, most interesting info mentioned in the interview:

• “Kaer Tardim” will be published as an introductory adventure at the same time as the Player’s Guide.
• “There will be three different versions of the player guide which all can already be pre-ordered. A regular hardcover edition, a limited edition in blue "Espagra" leatherette with embossing and an inexpensive softcover edition for purists with a simple layout and less Illus. “
• It looks like that several German Earthdawn novels are planned to be published as a German self-disclosure.
• A soundtrack is composed by X-Score for German Earthdawn.
• At some point it is planned to publish an adventure trilogy playing at the Serpent River!

The interview with Michael Mingers was held by Roger Lewin from Teilzeithelden.de. Native German speakers can read the interview in German over here.

Good news everyone! According to the new update on the Earthdawn 4th Edition kickstarter project, the official PDF release of the Player's Guide is just round the corner.

A little less than a dozen pieces of art are missing. The PDF should be released by the end of January. Once the electronic version is out, FASA will give it a week to cover some additional bugs, typos etc. Then it will be sent to the printers. The print version should be available in February.

As for the Gamemaster's Guide, unfortunately it's way behind schedule. Josh is polishing the rules section, Morgan Weeks (aka Panda) is working on the magic items chapter. The rules for thread items are not going to change, but the items will be revised, and there is going to be some additional advice on using magical treasures in campaigns and adventures.

The work is also being done on additional material concerning managing fights, and opponents stats, especially armor values. During game sessions Josh saw that because of the new Armor-Defeating Hits rules the fights with high-armored opponents tend to be much longer. So this is going to be handled, and the armor values of the opponents are probably going to be lowered, at least those which are too high.

Last, you can look at some new art preview. I really like the Laubenstein's t'skrang :)