About a week ago Sethariel posted a nice information on the Google+ Earthdawn community about a PDF of Carsten Damm aka Dammi. The post title says it all, the PDF is an Outline for the Chronicles of War project of the former Earthdawn publisher RedBrick LLC. So what about the 18 pages outline PDF?

This document was a first draft outline for the Chronicles of War project, the proposed final book in the Earthdawn Third Edition line. The core ideas were brainstormed in a larger team, and many of the details of that brainstorming would have made it into the final book if it had made it into the development queue

It would have been the first epic campaign published by RedBrick. In my opinion the original Chronicles of War campaign wasn’t/isn’'t that good at all, but an epic campaign in general was always the thing Earthdawn needed. But today …… yes today …… things are “different”.

James posted yesterday a RedBrick forum post announcing that RedBrick is retiring from publishing games. What does this mean for Earthdawn and all the other game licences that RedBrick holds?

Earthdawn, Demonworld: These licenses reverted back to FASA Corporation and have been subsequently picked up by FASA Games, Inc.

Head over to the forum to read the whole forum article.

James Sutton, managing director of RedBrick LLC, published yesterday the first State of the Brick report since the huge change at RedBrick took place. The very informative article answers  a lot of questions and provides an insight what is coming and happening with the various game lines like Dramascape, Fading Suns, Blue Planet, Demonworld and of course Earthdawn.

The new year brought changes and gifts for Earthdawn fans, but I want to take a look back at the start of 2011. I opened up the 2011 New Year Poll at the start of 2011 to find out what Earthdawn fans hope for and what would be their highlight for the upcoming year. The results of the poll were already discussed over here, but now that 2011 is over, we can look back at which expectations were fulfilled and which hopes seem to be still far far away from realization.
The three “most wanted” requests of the poll were:
1. Almost 20% of the total 127 votes selected “An official free Third Edition character generator provided by RedBrick would be my highlight” as the most wanted release/announcement for 2011. Well, to make it short: There was and still is no clue that RedBrick is even working on that, but maybe this is on RedBricks schedule and they are working on it behind the scenes. You never know. In the meantime we have to look for alternatives and in my opinion is the best choice so far, the fan project of Lortas and his crew. They are still developing the Earthdawn Character Editor. The latest 0.36 version released on 20th Dec. 2011 can be downloaded HERE. Remember that it is an alpha version, for bugs, critics and opinions have a look at the RedBrick forum.
2. 15% and with that, the second most votes received “The announcement that a "Travar" City book is being made”. I dug through several sources and announcements for upcoming products but it looks like that other city sourcebooks have a higher priority, which I’ll talk about later. So 2011 brought no announcement that a Travar book is in the making. Sorry folks.
3. Close behind followed, with 14% of the votes, “An epic campaign for Barsaive will/would be my highlight”. Hooray!! Finally we got an expectation, mentioned in the poll, which seems to become true. I cite here from an interview, held between Dammi, Drucifer and me, which you can read in full length over here:

Taken together, all these books contain the main building blocks needed to publish an epic campaign called Chronicles of War, which aimed to finally push the brewing conflict between Throal and Thera over the edge.

Remember that this epic campaign can be made after several other book releases, which means no release date or schedule is foreseeable atm.

Well these were the three most expected and hoped for entries of the poll. That’s why I tried to write about them a little bit more. The rest of the entries and their actual state, with reference to the clues and announcements, are in short collected in the following table:


The poll offered the option “Other”, which let you enter your own expectations. The following four “other responses” were entered:

When looking back I would say that 2011 was a good year, in Earthdawn matters, even ending it like this. Nevertheless, thank you for voting, hoping and especially RedBrick for producing.

The horror scenario for every blogger becomes true when suddenly most of your links don’t work anymore. That’s what happened when RedBrick LLC decided to move its online presence to US-servers. Guess how happy I am atm. But I’ll try to fix the links leading to the old RedBrick LLC homepage.
But that’s not all “good news”. RedBrick is not planning to provide an archive or sth similar of the old forum. Which means that all the questions, discussions and rule clarifications won’t be available anymore. Especially the answers and clarifications of Arma were a great resource for beginners and experienced players or gamemasters. I think that it is more than stupid to lose all these information. But I don’t know about the reasons of RedBrick to move the page, which is also not normal, cause normally the fans are mostly informed about the why. Not this time. But as I don’t know about the reasons I shouldn’t judge that hard.
The official announcement reads like this:

We’re moving
That's right folks, RedBrick is getting a facelift and moving to a new US-based server. Our new website address is http://redbrickllc.com so time to update your bookmarks.Like an old castle, we been moving pieces to the new server in the background. Brick by brick, we've been building a new place to talk, to discuss, and even to shop without leaving the website. This is your invitation to visit the new digs and reserve your favorite username. There will be more cosmetic changes as we grow into the new site and more details and items of interest added as they are developed.As we approach the year 2012 -- a year of change for those who follow the Mayan long count -- we have taken a long hard look at where we have come from and where we want to be. Over the next few months, we will be revealing our plans for the New Year in a series of News articles. So keep your eyes peeled on this site (for the short term) and the news link on the new website (for the future). You are bound to have a lot of questions and we will try to answer these as they come up. The current site at  http://redbrick-limited.com will be set to read-only in the next week or so; the site will remain available until approximately year end. The new website and online shop at http://redbrickllc.com is available now. Old forum posts will not be transferred over, so if there is something important you wish to save, now is the time to archive it. Downloads, errata, and product pages are on their way and will be available soon. Lastly, current play-by-post campaigns will not be available on the new forums. If you are running or playing in one of the games on the current site, you will need to archive that material in the next week or so.

This announcement was made on November 21st and unfortunately I didn’t make a backup of the forum cause I didn’t expect RedBrick to move their page that fast (I read “the site will remain available until approximately year end”). If any fan did a backup of the complete forum, you should contact the rights holder before publishing it.
On the other hand I have to confess that the old forum was a mess after all those years. There was no section for Talent-, Spell- or Rule-clarifications, everything was hidden in the “For Gamemasters” or “For Players” section. So we can be happy that we get to see a new fresh forum. The structure of the old forum wasn’t the best, but unfortunately is the new forum structure equal to the old one. I leave this without further comments.
Enough bashing, crying and whining about the good old times, we have to deal with the new place of RedBrick and we have to make the best out of it. So have a look at the new home for Earthdawn, Fading Suns, Demonworld, Blue Planet, Equinox (which isn’t on their mainpage), Barbarians (dito) and DramaScape (??).  Engage, discuss and argue there about the game we all love.


The new page is still in development and there is more stuff to come, like the downloads section, developer blogs and products sections. I am sure that the RedBrick crew is working on the design and the information we get there. Let’s hope for the best.

RedBrick LLC hasn’t announced it on their page yet, but Annunaki has spread the news on the pinnacle forum.

Pinnacle Entertainment Group and RedBrick LLC are both pleased to announce that RedBrick has joined the ranks of Savage Worlds licensees!
RedBrick publishes game products for FASA's Earthdawn™ and Demonworld™ fantasy games, Holistic Design's Fading Suns™ space fantasy game, and Biohazard Games' Blue Planet™ science fiction game, as well as RedBrick's forthcoming Equinox™ space fantasy game.

Well it is not only Earthdawn that will come in Savage Worlds’ shape, but what can I tell ya have a look at the things Zorhau found out as he digged deeper and asked some questions. He posted the received answers on the German Blutschwerter forum.
But these are still not all the news. Spoilers everywhere!!!

For example, when we do a Pathfinder edition of Earthdawn, we want to integrate into the Pathfinder rules with minimal fuss

Nice try Dammi to get the monthly spoiler award after telling us about the planned books of RedBrick in your blogpost “A Glimpse of the Future”. The award goes to Annunaki, it’s as simple as that.

Dammi opened a discussion thread on the RedBrick forum regarding the question if Earthdawn fans would be interested in audio files in which Earthdawn Legends are told. The files would be released in addition to the forthcoming Earthdawn Legends book (no release date yet).
At the forum you’ll find a poll, discussions and of course a detailed description by Dammi about this idea.

A sample mp3 file is available at the RedBrick download section to get an idea what this project could look like. The sample tale is called “The Legend of Rune and Sangblade” made by Markus Watt and Dan Boice. Would you want this? Would it be useful? What do you think? Discuss it at the forum.

»A man must defend his territory, slay his enemies, and lay as many women as possible.«
• • •
Utterance attributed to Kuthroc, the legendary warlord

Barbaren! or Barbarians! was yet only available in German but RedBrick announced that the English version of “The Ultimate Macho Roleplaying Game” is coming soon.

The Eye in the Sky aka Arma has published again a forum post wherein he gives us an update of the upcoming Crystal Raiders sourcebook. He talks about added stuff like new Adventure Hooks, new Goods and Services, Magical Treasures and and and. So if you’re interested about what changed and what was added so far to the upcoming “Crystal Raiders of Barsaive “ book read Arma’s easter egg hunt 2011 article.

Here’ just a short information for you all. Today RedBrick announced that the new Nations of Barsaive sourcebook about the Ork Nation Cara Fahd is available now as PDF. Shipping of softcover books is in April 2011. The book has 136 pages and can be ordered as an EBook via DrivethruRPG and RPGNow for $17.50.
So what’s the book all about? Here’s the official description:

Nations of Barsaive Volume Three offers gamemasters and players an in-depth look at the newly reborn Ork Nation of Cara Fahd, forged only shortly after the Therans' return to Barsaive. From the Twilight Peaks in the North to the forests of Landis in the South, Cara Fahd is home to Barsaive's mightiest ork tribes. This book features revised and updated content, and new material for adventures in the world of Earthdawn. Requires use of the Earthdawn Player's and Gamemaster's Guides.

Get more info via RedBrick’s Homepage

Last year, I think it was in July, RedBrick called up the fans to take part at the Earthdawn Adventure Resource Contest. I reported about it over here. The contest ended at the end of 2010, but the resource is still open for further contributions. “So don’t hesitate to send in your own contribution.”

Today RedBrick announced the winners of the contest and we get a first look at the best two contributions at the RedBrick LLC homepage. The remaining winners will be published over the next weeks and the fans will receive their long awaited resource for adventure set ups. Enjoy. Btw great work and congrats to the winners!

Update Sept 2014:

The files of the Earthdawn Adventure Resource Contest can be found at the FASA download section.

The following poll shall reveal your expectations and hopes for RedBrick's 2011 releases that are planned or should be planned. Just tell us what your highlight of the year 2011 would or will be. You are allowed to pick up to THREE choices you favor or agree most with and I also added the option to write your own expectation to the poll. May your hopes and highlights become true.

Arma aka Armatoth aka Eye in the Sky known for “armanation” on the RedBrick forum released an article wherein he talks about the upcoming (March) Nations of Barsaive III: Cara Fahd. What is new? What was added and what has been dropped when comparing the new 3rd edition version of the Cara Fahd book to the old first edition Cara Fahd sourcebook? Arma works off several categories and tells us what changed and what was added or dropped and why.

What’s new with Cara Fahd?
While on Christmas we're naturally focused on the holidays themselves, this close to year's end, our thoughts also look forward to the upcoming new year. It’ll see the Cathay Gamemaster’s Guide in January, and Nations of Barsaive III: Cara Fahd in March. Cara Fahd is a revised version of the first edition book, and with revised books we’re always asked by veteran players who already own the book if there’s anything new in there, and what. So for this one, during editing, I kept track of it:

Adventure Hooks:
First edition’s Cara Fahd didn’t have any, so we added some. 16, to be specific. They’re found all throughout the fiction chapters, and relate to what’s presented there. Well, if that doesn’t get you hooked yet, let’s go on….

NPCs:
Or gamemaster characters, as Earthdawn traditionally calls them. There’s 2 new ones found along the others that were already present in first edition. So 9 in total, and they all got a full stat block now! And it’s good to know Krathis Gron’s Social Defense. But we’ll get to that later…

Read the full X-mas special at the RedBrick forum.

Ho ho ho, looks like early Christmas presents are on the run! The recent Cathay moves of RedBrick keep on going. The new Cathay map can be found at the Free Download section at RedBrick.com.
(via Sethariel)

Interesting news! The RedBrick crew announced the Cathay – The Five Kingdoms – Players Guide for December 2010. Now it looks like that the first steps are taken to announce the publication of the first Cathay book. At DriveThru.com and RPGnow the Cathay – Player’s Guide is already available as PDF for just $24.50, including a preview.  So the first early Christmas present is about to arrive.

(via RedBrick forum)

Almost only one month to go until the first Cathay sourcebook will be available. To sweeten the waiting Kathy released again some artwork of the Cathay books. The one on the left displays the horror Yao Mo finding his preferred prey (never drink too much Jiu or Sake!!). Further new b/w illustrations can be found on Kathy’s deviantART page (thx to Sethariel). But that’s not all that I want to highlight with this article.
Recently the book covers done by Paul Tobin of both Cathay books, Cathay: The Five Kingdoms Player’s Guide and Gamemaster’s Guide, were released. The Gamemaster’s Guide’s cover on the left displays a battle or even a civil war scenery, the weird guy on the cover of the Player’s Guide (right) is Bei a jade obsidimen (please correct me if I am wrong) who is one of the protagonists of the novels Dark Shadows of Yesterday and Immortal Twilight written by Hank Woon.

The Cathay: The Five Kingdoms Player’s Guide can now be pre-ordered at Amazon.com for $23.09 (with a predicted release for Jan 11th ‘11) and at Mongoose Publishing for £24.99 (with a predicted release in December ‘10)

Dammi posted on his Red Brick LLC blog some artwork previews of the upcoming Cathay: The Five Kingdoms books (Players Guide coming in December Gamemasters Guide in January). The preview artworks feature several artists so far, like Peter Tikos & Richard Vass, David M. Wright and Jeff Laubenstein. The Cathay sourcebooks open up a new chapter for Earthdawn, offering players and gamemasters a completely new world, set up in the far East and introducing new races, disciplines, talents and and and.
I’ve already made an interview with Hank Woon and Dammi back in 2008. The interview offers some insights about the work and the content of the originally planned classic version of Cathay, so it’s not up to date but still informative.

UPDATE: The series of Cathay artwork previews ends with the works of Kathy Schad. But additionally Kathy uploaded further artwork previews at the Earthdawn DeviantArt gallery. Go there!

Well since two or three days I check the RedBrick forum and realize that no one, yes no one talks about the newly announced novel “Liferock” which will come in October 2010. No questions, no answers from fans, author nor developers, no one. So I’ll pick up the topic to talk a little bit about the novel written by Jak Koke. I think it deserves a discussion about what is new and what the novel is about.
My last post about the novel of Jak Koke was about the “old” version of the book. So is the now announced novel really a “new version” or do we just look at a new cover with old content inside? I guess not because the guys from RedBrick might have helped Jak to adjust the book to the new rules or the new setting of the Earthdawn Third Edition.
The “old” book contained a foreword which said that it was written before Denizen of Barsaive Vol. 2 came out, so there might be some differences inside comparing the rules and the traditions of Obsidimen described in the sourcebook and the novel. As Arma stated in a forum post this was only one example of many when fans asked questions like: “In the novel XY they make the spell this way but the rules say……”. That’s why I think that the novel has been reworked, so that there won’t be any differences anymore between the sourcebooks and the novel when Obsidimen lifestyles are described.
Another sign that the book has been reworked are the number of pages; the “old” version had 313 pages whereby the new one will have 288 pages.
Have a look at the announcing page at RedBrick.com to read about the story of the book. The book will be available via Lulu.com and I guess the prices will be similar to the other novels of RedBrick. For softcover $19.95 and hardcover $29.95.
All the speculations I drop here are just speculations, all of the information above about the reworking, story and prices of the book are not confirmed yet.

My buddy Sethariel, admin of Earthdawn.pl, has setup the 13th edition of the polish Blog Carnival (Karnawał Blogowy ) on his personal page (english google translation). As you see in the title of this post, the topic is to write about illustrations in RPGs. First I want to talk about illustrations in general and their importance in RPGs and finally I gonna talk about the illustrations of Earthdawn and the progress that todays illustrations of the new RedBrick books have gone thru.
A picture is worth a thousand words
In RPGs it is mostly the gamemaster who uses illustrations. Why? Because sometimes his descriptions of situations or places the characters encounter can be as elaborated and detailed as they want, some players simply don’t get it or don’t remember that the small casket in the middle of the room was even mentioned. But the illustrations are essential for the gamemaster too, for example if he is simply not able to transport the mood and the danger the dark cellar room with the casket represents. As I already said “mostly” it is the gamemaster who uses illustrations of monsters or places to give the players a quick overview about what they see and how the characters might feel in that situation. As you all know “A picture is worth a thousand words”. But the same applies to players that should use their painting skills (if exisiting) to show the other players how their character looks like.
“Au contraire, mon ami!” or Imagination vs. Illustrations
RPGs, Pen and Paper games and all the “mostly” unplugged games that can be played, are build on the ability of humans to use their fantasy and imagination. So what happens if you use illustrations and drawings in those games? Yes, the imagination and the individual style everyone has in its own head is forced into a given picture that someone else had in mind and brought it to paper. Ergo, the excessive use of illustrations can prevent players from using their imagination and even gamemasters will lose (or even not learn) to describe situations and transport moods and feelings the characters need to be aware of.
Those two theories above show that gamemasters have to decide carefully when illustrations are useful and when they are simply used because of laziness.
Now and then
Well, Earthdawn. When I started to play Earthdawn (I talk here about the German edition), the main artist that shaped Earthdawn (art wise) for me, was Jeff Laubenstein. His individual style is/was unique and his b/w drawings of the discipline example characters gave everybody a feeling for Earthdawn. (Sorry can’t explain it better). BUT!! (you know that there is always a BUT) in the German edition were 32! colored, high gloss paper pages included. 8 that detailed every race, 8 that showed special places of Barsaive, 8 contained important persons and finally 8 colored monster illustrations were published in those core books.
For every beginner those pages were the icing on the cake. They gave you almost more than the whole descriptions and rules of the core book could give you.
And that is the point, today there is nothing colored inside the books anymore. The covers are the only colored illustrations. No one can be blamed for that, because the price of the books would be more than exaggerated if there were high gloss paper illustrations included. But imagine the following situation:

“A fan comes to his trusted RPG store and grabs the Earthdawn core book (no matter which one), flips through a few pages and ………”

Now guess where he will stop to flip through the pages? Exactly, at the pages with the illustrations. To give players or gamemasters a quick introduction to the gaming world and an insight into the book he holds in his hands, good colored illustrations are a must.
Progress of Earthdawn illustrations
In the beginnings of Earthdawn Jeff Laubenstein was, in my opinion one of the main artists that shaped Earthdawn with his illustrations, mainly the interior art. There were also others that are still appreciated for their work but when Living Room Games published their Second Edition, the drawings and interior art of the books “changed”. Today it is Kathy Schad who is responsible for the artwork and art direction of RedBricks Third Edition sourcebooks.
The progress Earthdawn has gone thru was influenced by the changing of companies that published Earthdawn and the various people who were responsible for the artwork. Finally the copyrights ended up in RedBrick LLC’s hands and the times when different copyright holders made different artwork for Earthdawn are over now. Today official Earthdawn art has a common theme and you can be sure that it comes from one company. I guess the progress of the cover and interior art has not ended yet and maybe we will get to see some colored interior pages in future .
And now watch for yourself how Earthdawn cover art changed over the years. As I already said: “A picture is worth a thousand words”

Yesterday RedBrick LLC announced a discount coupon code that you can use when checking out at lulu.com. The coupon code only works for the novel Scars (Hardcover) and is worth 10$. Use the code BEACHREAD305 at your checkout and you’ll receive the 15% discount. It only works once per account and you can’t combine it with other discount codes. The coupon is valid until August 15th 2010.

Well that’s the news of RedBrick LLC so far, but what is the novel of Caroline Spector about? The short book summary reads as follows:

Outcast, immortal, and alone, Aina must return to Blood Wood to gather the threads of her past which can set her free. She will use anything—and anyone—to escape her ancient pact with the Horror and his terrible gift.

If the Horror will let her...

Read the full description at Lulu.com.

I can only recommend the novel, the story about the protagonist Aina and her connection to the Horror is a must read for every Earthdawn fan. But I have to admit that I won’t buy the RedBrick version because the book was already published in German back in 1995 and is already in my possession.

On the other hand I should grab the opportunity of getting a discount (as you should too), because my Earthdawn collection needs to be complete. Hard to decide…