The following article comes from Raalou and is part of my open call for Guest Bloggers

We first started playing Earthdawn without figurines. It never occurred to us to use 'actual' minis. We did use counters and white board squiggles and maps. After years of playing, our GM was given a box of Warhammer Orcs for his birthday and he found a love for painting miniatures. He then bought the Descent series of Dungeon Crawl board games and set to painting the minis from them. With all the work that went in, we started using the minis as our tokens for our Earthdawn Campaign.

We upgraded our table to include a hex map and accepted the challenge of finding Earthdawn miniatures so that we had better representations of our characters, particularly because of the size differences between trolls down to humans down to Windlings.

Our GMs wife, with a black belt in Google-Fu, was asked to search the WWW and find representations of our characters.

After days of searching, we came across figures that would be great representations for the races of Barsaive:

• T'Skrang – The Trogolodytes at http://www.otherworld.me.uk/ would make cool T'skrang
• Windlings - The 10mm figures at http://goo.gl/a2GNQ would be great for Windlings.

The only race we have had trouble finding miniatures for entirely is Obsidimen, although Trolls are not the easiest to find either. If anyone has any suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated.

Then a new challenge was presented as RedBrick produced the Cathay Series in Earthdawn. After having played with our Barsaivian minis for about a year, we knew we HAD to get some Cathay Minis BEFORE we started their Campaign. Still not decided on races and disciplines we were all going to play, we did a general search for all Cathay related characters.

Here is a list of sites and some specific miniatures that we have found so far:

• http://www.reapermini.com/
• http://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/miniatures/clan-war
• http://www.rattleheadgames.com/
• http://www.fantization.com/

Here is a great figure for a Po Na (monkey man) Monk/Sword Dancer: http://goo.gl/NFVMa 

We are going to remove the bladed weapons and he will become our Pugilist. Will post a pic once we are done.

AND for a female Samurai: http://goo.gl/z12Cp

For the armies, chariots and soldiers we have looked at:

• http://www.blackhat.co.uk/online_shop/
• http://curteysminiatures.co.uk/
• http://www.agisn.de/html/asian_miniatures.html who have a few links to sites where they got their minis from.

So from doing our research, manipulating some minis and purchasing separate weapons and accessories, here are the minis that we are using now:

This Human Swordmaster (Axe-Master) is from here and axes from here.

This Human Cavalryman (Amazonian Woman type) is from here.

This Troll Skyraider is made up of this mini (perfect size for ED Troll). I shaved off the skull in the front of the armor. Added some Warhammer Black Orc horns that came in this set.

This Human Nethermancer is from here. The wings are Manticores wings sewn onto a cloak. Wings from here and the tails are made with Green Stuff found here.

This Windling Elementalist is found here.

This Human Beastmaster is a combination of 2 mini's found here and for the arms here. CLAW SHAPE BABY!!

This Elven Archer (with crossbow) is found here.

  This Dwarf Troubadour is a compilation (pun not intended) of this mini and his instrument comes from here.

GROUP SHOT

We are a dedicated group of Earthdawnians who call ourselves Lords of the Dice.

To see more of us and what we do, check out our site: http://lordsofthedice.mmoguildsites.com/

This was the last entry of my Open Call for Guest Bloggers, I hope you enjoyed the articles as I did. I thank all participants, who did a great job writing those articles.

Already in Issue #8 the Tableau Infractus magazine has become a resourceful series for Earthdawn fans.

The latest release contains:

• The purposed Dragons Cover for LRGs Dragons book by Patrick Keith
• A very different type of horror
• An Interview with Marco Soto of LRG
• A miniatures gallery for Windlings
• Character Creation Referenced sheets
• And a contest for a very nice copy of Earthdawn Journal Issue #9.

Download: - Tableau Infractus #8 (mirror)

The following article comes from Flagg and is part of my open call for Guest Bloggers

I think we can all agree that Earthdawn is a great game!

Unfortunately it doesn't have a big online presence. Fifteen years ago, when I first started playing Earthdawn and the internet was a much more desolate and primitive place, there were several flourishing sites, and dozens of fan-made Disciplines to be found. Today, a Google search for 3rd Edition resources will yield this site, the official RedBrick site, and a few that haven't been updated since the early 2000s. Custom Disciplines, Talents, Spells, etc. are almost nowhere to be found. Perhaps part of the problem is that there isn't an active site where people can easily promote their stuff. If such a place existed, perhaps it would motivate people to share what they have?

Enter the Earthdawn Compendium. A few weeks ago I set about the task of custom-building a submissions database from the ground up. After a lot of hard work, it's now at the point where I feel ready to release it to the public. The site allows users to browse an easy-to-navigate database of Disciplines, Talents, Knacks, Spells, Thread Items, and Creature/Dragon/Horror/Spirit Powers, submit their own, rate what other people have posted, and discuss it all on the forums.

As the site is brand new, there isn't a lot of content yet, but that's where you come in! So stop by, check things out, create and account, and start participating! I love feedback on the site, so please tell me what you think.

• “This blog will be an attempt to draw all the creatures Lovecraft ever wrote about or mentioned.” Head over to Michael Bukowski's blog to discover which creatures of H.P. Lovecraft he drew in one year since he opened his blog. (via Nerdcore)
• Ever wondered how a Jehuthra web would look like?
• A new Earthdawn novel was recently released: “Defiler’s Course” by Donovan Winch
• Vinsane created a great new Earthdawn creature called “Blight Dwarf” "(with stats!)
• Great Periodic Table of Storytelling by Computer Sherpa.
• Read a great article at Blackgate.com about the art evolution of Jeff Laubenstein
• Dangerous foggy forest
• Have a look at the portrait of King Valurus III by hiddenkitten aka SaDe
• Ahhhh maps………..and what about BIGGER MAPS? Then check out the BigMapBlog
• Well and finally have a look at the “Earthdawn Art #6”-article (Polish / English) by Sethariel showing us some great works of a well known Earthdawn artist

Some of the links above were already spread to my Twitter followers (yes I finally made it there…..), so if you want be ahead too, follow me.

The following post comes from Fletcher and is part of my open call for Guest Bloggers.

Earthdawn is a game that holds a special place in my heart. I honestly haven’t played it a great deal (I need to break the group from the d20 habit), but from the moment I heard about it I was fascinated. The concept of a post-apocalyptic fantasy game was something I fell in love with. I have been gaming since I was twelve, playing AD&D with a friend of mine. We hardly had a clue how to play, but that didn’t matter to us. We got to fight monsters, explore dungeons, and get treasure. Eventually I grew and what I wanted changed. I joined a group that played a great deal of Shadowrun and one night the GM explained Earthdawn to me. I soon bought the books and picked up the novels. The world was one that held onto me and would not let go.

The reason I am writing this is to share an app for Android I wrote called “Earthdawn Dice Roller” (pretty catchy right?). The birth of this app is two parts of my life accidentally coming together. I decided to teach myself how to program after not having to write any code for quite a few years after college. A friend of mine suggested I code for Android because I had used Java in the past and the learning curve would be lower. The idea for actually making the app came when we were playing our Earthdawn game. We had played a World of Darkness game previously and used a great dice rolling app on our phones. We tried to find the same for Earthdawn and nothing really did the trick. There are tons of apps for picking which dice to roll and rolling them, but the step mechanics of Earthdawn made those apps cumbersome. That started my programming project.

On to the app finally. It is a free download in the Android Marketplace and is pretty simple. The main screen has three things. It has a check box to use a karma die, a text box to enter your step in, and a button to roll the dice. Those are the basics. I want to keep it simple and easy to use so you don’t have to fumble around when trying to roll your dice during a game. I did include some options to make it more useful (Most features came from user requests).

You can use both Classic and Third Edition dice tables. The Classic mode lets you select what karma die to use also. By default it does not show the value of the die you rolled next to the result, but there is an option to show the value. The app automatically handles extra dice for max rolls.

As I mentioned earlier this is a personal learning experience for me, and as a result some things are not perfect. The rolling mechanics are solid, but some layout and display things are being reworked as I go. As I learn more the app gets better and better. I really appreciate comments and suggestions. They help me see what works and what doesn’t and what features would be most used. Right now I am working on appearance and layout updates and possibly adding a roll log.

If you want to pick up the app in the AndroidMarket or for more information, to leave comments, or check out the change log check out myblog. There is also a thread on the Earthdawn forums that I check up on. You can get to it from my blog. Thanks for checking out the app!