Shadowrun RPG: Deeper History and the Earthdawn Connection

Cafe Society
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I am, at best, a casual fan of RPGs (the non-computer game type), and I tended (when I had money) to buy the sourcebooks to read rather than to actually play. I’ve only actually ever bought four or five Shadowrun sourcebooks when they were actually in print, but a few of those seem to hint at a deeper history than is overtly presented. For instance, the Tir Tairngire sourcebook drops major hints of the survival of some major movers and shakers from the Fourth World, and Paranormal Animals of Europe has a few interesting tidbits that suggest a major menace underlying certain creatures, beyond their physical lethality.

I’ve seen a webpage or two that analyzes the “shadowtalk” sections of the Aztlan sourcebook (which seems to be one of the major hint-droppers), and I’ve also seen a webpage or two that discusses some of the more important Earthdawn/Shadowrun linkages. Unfortunately, Aztlan is one of the sourcebooks I don’t have, and I’ve never even seen an actual Earthdawn rule/sourcebook.

Does anyone know the whole story or know where I can find the whole story on the web? It’s not anything like a huge emergency, or even extremely important. I’m just curious as to what the history actually is, and FASA doesn’t appear to put classic sourcebooks out on the web like Wizards has done with AD&D.

Thanks in advance, folks!

jayjay

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In my experience, there aren’t a lot of Shadowrun/Earthdawn websites out there. According to my Earthdawn GM, they used to have pretty comprehensive company web sites, but the company went defunct.

If you’re interested in Earthdawn sourcebooks, I’d try eBay - they come up pretty often.

Here’s what I know: Earthdawn is a medieval-esque fantasy world ravaged by evil creatured called ‘Horrors’. These creatures can manifest themselves in the world when a certain level of magic exists. In Shadowrun, magic has just started to come back to the world – not enough for Horrors, but enough for the different humanoid races (trolls, dwarves, etc.) and supernatural creatures (ie hellhounds) to come back and for magic to be possible. Horrors, I believe, reside primarily in the Astral realm. They survive through the suffering and pain of others.

There’s more – a lot more – but I don’t remember quite all of it. sh I had more info for ya. If you’re interested in basic Earthdawn info, I have played in both Earthdawn and Shadowrun and I might be able to answer you.

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But if I recall correctly, Earthdawn came out long after SR, and even after the various Horros mentions popped up. So I suppose its really the SR characters that went into Earthdawn, although the writers then went back and pulled ED into SR.

Which I think is a mistake, everything in SR seems to be AI’s, Immortal Elves, and Magic now. Whatever happened to good old corporate wars?

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Actually I have the fiction book when the earth dawn thing happened and Thats when to me the book series jumped the shark and i lost intrest

I never knew the other series it crossed over to but to me it made a lof of what was going on in sr pointless as all certain elves had to do was just be immortal and wait everything out ect

In fact It even crossed over from one of my favorite derek the detective books which had a bummer ending in its self

Do they even make sr fiction anymore ?

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I actually own the first Earthdawn sourcebook. Whaddya wanna know, specifically?

I can sum up the gameworld background pretty succintly off the top of my head, albeit without any of the depth you really want.

There is a fantasy gameworld, with many demi-human races. Trolls, dwarves, elves, reptile-men, etc… Magic abounds. Then magic really abounds, and swings to excess. Demons and assorted nasties start popping through from nether dimensions with frequent abandon. Research mages figure out how to build force domes to keep the nasties out, and then everyone goes and hides for several hundred years.

Every once in a while people try leaving, and Earthdawn takes place in this time frame. You’re supposed to play characters taking back the world, after magic has faded from its supremely high level. Many cities are still hidden in their domes-- some had nasties break their way in… yada yada.

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First to a few questions from earlier

-No TOR is not publishing anymore SR books. Which is good I guess since most of them stunk on ice (not all mind you). Supposedly the company that bought out FASA is going to be revitalizing the SR fiction again but take that with a grain of salt. For the one that cross ED and SR the most read “Worlds without End”

-As far as the new age of SR with dragons and horrors and shtuff is simple, sometimes even the orginal module got old so a lot of new ideas were brought out to freshen SR (not that it needed it but the ideas were good) The Renraku Archology takeover by Deus and his AI acolytes is one of the best IMHO.

Ok so if you are ready to read…

A while back someone posted the exact same question and I and a few others went into a long research about what is what and where it lies. I posted a good sum up for everyone in the need to know. Here it is:

Shadowrun or SR is supposed to have links between the module EarthDawn and SR. The history is made to be murky but some facts have been revealed over the years (The boys at FASA were infamous of making the cross references almost a trial in itself)

Here is the gist: The world has had 6 ages…Dragons and Elves have been in a good deal of them due to their immortality. Here is a rundown on what is what

The First age was of the Horrors, They exist in another plane (world?) all together and every cycle when the manalevel in the world is high enough they appear and stay for about 600 years before they disappear back to where they came from. They come to this world to feed from it. Some of them feed on rocks, plants, animals etc. but some of the more powerful ones feed on human emotions like fear and pain. All they do on this world is to eat (just what they eat is a different question)
In SR terms, they are very close to bridging the gap to the current world and coming into a relative buffet of every known being on our lil dirtball.

2nd was the dragon’s where the great mother dragon created life, beat back the horrors, and generally made everything hunky dory for life to evolve.
The Black Lodge was the home for the supposed ‘original elves’, who actually served the dragons until a big rebellion and went out on their own. Apparently serving a big lizard is not all its cracked up to be

3rd age…humans find their way onto the forefront and are regarded as novelty, elves think they are a joke, dragons regard them as walking blue plate specials. No real info exists on this. Supposedly mana jinked high enough and released the Horrors onto the earth again, known as “The Great Scrounge” and the beginning of the 4th age.

4th age this is Earthdawn, you got the elves becoming the blood elves to exist and fight the horror scrouge (among them ol Harlequin…who is the second oldest elf supposedly only done in age by the Blood Mother…both of whom are supposedly part of the original Black Lodgers). Also on hand are the orks, trolls, dwarves and other knick knack who were in hiding. Atlantis exists and so does magic (a crap load of magic-so much so that it feedsback and sinks Atlantis) which begins the 5th age

In the 5th age humans go from dummies to leaders of the free world. Magic craps out except for lil pockets here and there. Trolls, Orcs, etc go into hiding or disappear altogether. Horrors are gone, Dragons decide to take a long snooze to await the 6th world. The remnants of the immortal blood elves walk among us (wearing a lot of hats I guess). Sometime during this age, the elves decided to geek a good chunk of the dragons in their peaceful slumber. Only a couple survive -some from the 4th age and a handful of the original 2nd agers (Dunk, Lofwyr, Alanis, and Icewing) due to them being too well hidden.

Now comes the 6th age, and if you read the original SR sourcebook, you know the history. The Great Ghost Dance wallops the age of magic into place and we find out where a lot of the trolls and stuff disappeared to…they were just us. Dragons wake up, become cranky and say hello to the world. Elves make a big comeback. 1/3 of the world turns into fantasy beasts…etc etc.

Whew…hope that helps a bit. It may not all be there or may be skewed but thats the gist I get.

To answer a few questions brought up here by earlier posts.

The immortal elves: who they are from where to where
well here is what is believed…SR name first(ED name second)

Ancient Immortals In age and belief to be 2nd agers:

Alachia (Blood Queen)

Harlequin (Caimbeul)

Aina Dupree (Aina Sluage)

Ehran the Scribe

Aithne Oakforest

Sean Laverty

Lugh Surehand

Jenna Ni’Fairra

Urdli

Leonardo (Nonan Findas?)

Karl-Heinz Haessler

Liam O’Connor (?)

Young Immortals:

Lady Brane Deigh

Jane “Frosty” Foster

Glasgian, Tealla and Elleara Oakforest
That adds up to a total of 17 known IEs, but it’s probable that more of them can be found in Tir na nOg, Amazonia and Azania, Pomorya, The Atlantian Foundation and The Mystic Crusaders. What is more, The chapter in “Threats” mentions that the immortal gene can lie dormant in an elf, which could be triggered when the Mana Level rises or if exposed to great magical energies such as a strong power site.

Dunk assasination: Believe it or not, the big D cacked himself. If you read the Dragonheart trilogy books, you find out ol D knew the Horrors were getting close to bridging “the Great Divide” and decided to kill himself to save the world. He went astral and then had a big ass bomb blow his meat apart to blow apart the DragonHeart (a HUGE ASS mana focus) and release enough mana back into the world to delay the Horrors for some time. So, no political motive, no group of runners responsible, just a dragon doing one hell of a honorable thing to save us from hell.
Good idea…but bad BAD form. The author wrapped it up in a neat lil package and ruined a good many modules much to the ire of us players. A LOT of us prefer to ignore the novels due to they seemingly being the bastard child of the SR Universe.

Last Will and Testament: You MUST read Portfolio of a Dragon. This sourcebook details the death and the VERY interesting last will of the big D. Almost all the things given to various individuals concern plotlines everywhere and the fun is trying to figure out what is what. (The phantom room is correct…it was the place where Deus was being ‘born’) and other such things from both Earthdawn and every sourcebook and novel around.

Books to read:
Worlds without End…SR novel concerning the Immortal Elves and a lot of backstory on them. Considered by most to be the most ‘in cannon’ novel out there

Harliquin’s Back - SR gaming module concerning the mysterious and quite annoying sometimes Harlequin. It also delves more into him and how he goes about living through the years. Personally, I think he to be somewhat a asshole. But you live that long, I guess you have every right to be. Quite hard to find but check Ebay
Some great links to learn more about whose who and whats what

You think I was detailed…Look at this. This baby looks like I spoke between mouthfuls of food

The Earthdawn/Shadowrun Crossover Information
http://www.amurgsval.org/shadowrun/earthdawn.html
The Great Dragon Roll Call -this link tells ya who is who and where they are now. About as a complete list as you can get on the wizworms nowadays though it may be confusing due to it mostly being based in the ED world.
http://www.amurgsval.org/shadowrun/GreatDragons.html
Thats enough for me…send me a email and I can help ya anyway I can if ya need more. Who knows…maybe you may want to read my fiction (pretty good I hear)