Earthdawn Survival Guide

* Iopos: Lair of Deceit Kickstarter is live! * Email from Brandon (and his character): More scenarios? * Legends of Barsaive production schedule * PDFs and e-products? * The first adventure. * How long should a first adventure be? * Newer players might need a strong goal or focus to avoid floundering. * Highlight or incorporate Earthdawn’s different and distinctive aspects. * Places to get inspira...

* Beastmasters in Depth * Josh often uses them as pre-mades in his demo games! * A “pet class” that can revolve around animal companions. * Potential for added complexity and breaking the action economy. * Inspired at least in part by the eponymous Beastmaster, Dar from film and TV. * Animal companions are independent characters. While the player may roll dice and generally guide their actions, th...

* Email from Ste: What else might have been lost because of the Scourge? * A brief word about canon “Inspiration, not dictation.” * Differences in the racial population distribution of Barsaive before the Scourge? * What culture lost the most and has the most to regain? * Steel Thought use against blindside or surprise attacks? * Email from Sebastian: Did the dwarfs of Throal intentionally create...

* An apology and some useful context. * Email from Matthew: Pronunciation of Floranuus * What’s up with the dwarfs of Scytha? * Anything from LRG’s Barsaive in Chaos that was left? * Discussion of Vivane’s fate in Second versus Fourth Edition * News about the Iopos book? * Email from Arran: Why the change to multi-Discipline cost from first edition? * Josh goes on quite a bit about that one. * Mag...

* Weaponsmiths! * We will avoid the weeds of Forge Weapon * Dan’s first character was a Weaponsmith. * Fills the narrative niche of craftsman or smith, and makes it a playable role. * Crafting systems can be a thing. * Downtime and a brief aside on Josh’s campaign calendar. * Karma Ritual * Half-Magic Ability * Free Talent: Craftsman * Novice Tier Discipline Talents * A historical retrospective on...

* Email question from Ste: Immortal elves? * Email questions from Joel: Resizing of magic items? * Bluff talent? (With an extensive sidebar about social mechanics) * Crushing Blow versus Down Strike? * How to help other Disciplines be more than window dressing in combat? * What tests do modifiers apply to? * Super Secret Project? * What thing not yet updated do you want to bring back? What don’t y...

* The Archer as folkloric archetype. * Throwing Weapons * Philosophy of targets and missiles * Paths are deeply personal philosophies, but there is no “one true way” * Karma Ritual * Half Magic and distinctive traits of bowyers and fletchers * Importance of perception, accuracy, and speed * Free Talent: Call Missile * Mid-range Durability to highlight desire to not be on the front line * Karma abi...

* Josh’s audio quality is still off. * Timeline: Landing of the Triumph to the release of Fourth Edition. * A brief mention of the forked ED2/ED3 Timeline * Triumph Lands * Varulus assassinated and Battle of Prajjor’s Field * The perfidy of the Denairastas * Post landing cold war. * Ork migration and the rebirth of Cara Fahd. * Building alliances and preparing for the inevitable conflict. * The Ha...

* Emails! Lots of Emails! Please forgive Josh’s audio quality. * From Ryan: Thread item design advice. * From Guillaume: Thoughts about playing characters emerging from a kaer. * From Matt: Changes to Bartertown in the wake of Throal’s increased isolationism? * From Scott: Voluntarily lowering Spell Defense in ED3? * (Found on page 134 of the ED3 Player’s Guide: “Lowering Spell Defense”) * From Jo...

* Introductory levity * Wizards! * Wizardly “design niche” in relation to other magicians * Bookish, scholars, study magic as magic * Karma Ritual * Symbol, synchronicity, and correspondence * Academic, intellectual, learned; magic as “pure art” * Spell Matrices * Novice-Tier Discipline Talents * What is Patterncraft? * Dispel Magic, Tenacious Weave * Steel Thought * Novice Talent Options * Fifth...

* Email: Pronunciation of Ayodhya? * Email: Determining what spell is being cast when weaving threads? * Email: Where is the info about Therans “pausing” the mana cycle? * Email: Old plot threads or story hooks that weren’t followed up or that we used in our games? * Places of Note: Bartertown * Founded to avoid Throalic authority (and dodge taxes) * Mercantile city not originally intended as a pe...

* Air Sailors! * Earthdawn development context * Elevator pitch: What is the Air Sailor’s theme? * Inspiration: Age of Sail * Air Sailor vs Sky Raider * Specialists, not primary combatants * Karma Rituals * Half Magic * Design Insight: Free Talents * Talent Discussion: Novice Tier * Throwing vs Missile Weapons * Talent Discussion: Journeyman Tier * Important Attributes * What to expect as an Air S...

* Email: Why don’t the spell lists in ED4 match the ones from earlier editions? * Email: Can magicians use grimoire casting to cast spells from other Disciplines? * Email: Thoughts on the effect of the mana cycle downturn on the setting? * More timeline discussion: After the Scourge * The Earthdawn * Throal opens its gates and offers land grants * Therans return to Barsaive * First Theran War * Di...

* Email: Throal sent out scouting parties before the elemental clocks stopped? * Email: Wizard spell Flame Flash is pretty powerful, damages target twice! * System Overview: Spellcasting * Matrix Casting - Earthdawn’s “Spell Slots” * Magicians have a lot of options * Grimoire Casting * Grimoire casting in various editions * Raw Magic * Threads in Spellcasting * Dan’s “Meat Grinder” analogy * Spell...

* Listener feedback: Matt asks about Barsaive's current political status quo, and why certain changes were made. * Timeline — The Scourge * The Book of Tomorrow * Council Compact and Slavery * Elemental Clocks * Long-lived Monarchs * Opening the Gates and the Earthdawn * Open mysteries and “Blank Spaces on the Map” * One Tragedy: Blood Wood * The Truth of the Ritual of Thorns * An iconic take on ‘...

In this episode: * Follow-up on derived values from Attributes * Success Levels in Fourth Edition * Karma in Context - Historical and Design * Windlings: Not flying Kender * Windling mechanical upsides and downsides Find and follow: Email: edsgpodcast@gmail.com Twitter: @EDSGPodcast Josh on Twitter: @LoreMerchant Dan on Twitter: @boice_voice Get product information, developer blogs, and more at ww...

As mentioned in a previous episode, here is a short "elevator pitch" that gives a brief setting overview you can use to pitch Earthdawn to potential players.

Let's talk making characters! * Point-buy vs Random Roll. * Decide what you want Discipline and/or race to play before you start. * Mechanics of Attributes and derived characteristics. * Roleplaying is collaborative -- work with the other players! * GM Advice and mechanical guidance for new Earthdawn players. Find and follow: Twitter: @EDSGPodcast Josh on Twitter: @LoreMerchant Dan on Twitter: @bo...

This is a recording of the Earthdawn panel presented by FASA Games at GenCon 2019. Panelists: Kyle Pritchard, Michael Allegro, Tiffany Ragland, Morgan Weeks, Josh Harrison, Russell Zimmerman, and Andi Watson. Audio cleaned up as best as possible. Enjoy!

A little longer, and a little rougher. It's a learning process! In this episode: * Josh as a Horror ! * Listener E-mails * History Lesson: Founding of Thera to the Scourge * A broad geographic survey of Barsaive. * Pronunciation Guide: How do you say some of these words? * Legends: Lyllaria's Mirror Find and follow: Email: edsgpodcast@gmail.com Twitter: @EDSGPodcast Josh on Twitter: @LoreMerchant...

In this episode: * The Elevator Pitch * What is Earthdawn? * Broad setting conceit: What do you do? * Underlying theme of stories and legends. * Magic items with histories that grow along with your character. * All player characters use magic, not just spell casters. * Disciplines: More than just a "class". * Broad mechanical overview; Steps and exploding dice. * Josh's article about the math behi...

It's our premiere! Meet your hosts, Dan Boice and Josh Harrison. In this episode: Josh and Dan each tell the story of they came to discover Earthdawn. A broad history of the game's production history. Discuss Earthdawn's influence on RPG design. (The article Josh mentions can be found here .) Experience running Earthdawn. Talk about favorite characters. (Listen to the Legends of Earthdawn podcast....