Alright We Just need 1-2 more players to get started~
As I will be using the setting but not a fully pre published adventure, I will be running this every other week from 6-10 pm CST. (GMT-6)
If you are not familiar with the game that is ok, I am more then willing to teach it and walk folks through character creation, etc, etc.
For those who are unfamiliar with Earthdawn the basics go as follows:
A short form description of Earthdawn would go something like this, from the wiki: In Barsaive, magic, like many things in nature, goes through cycles. As the magic level rises, it allows alien creatures called Horrors to cross from their distant, otherworldly dimension into our own. The Horrors come in an almost infinite variety -- from simple eating machines that devour all they encounter, to incredibly intelligent and cunning foes that feed off the negative emotions they inspire in their prey.
In the distant past of Earthdawn's setting, an elf scholar discovered that the time of the Horrors was approaching, and founded the Eternal Library in order to discover a way to defeat them — or at the very least, survive them. The community that grew up around the library developed wards and protections against the Horrors, which they traded to other lands and eventually became the powerful Theran Empire, an extremely magically advanced civilization and the main antagonist of the Earthdawn setting.
The peoples of the world built kaers, underground towns and cities, which they sealed with the Theran wards to wait out the time of the Horrors, which was called the Scourge. Theran wizards and politicians warned many of the outlying nations around Thea of the coming of the Horrors, offering the protection of the kaers to those who would pledge their loyalty to the Empire. Most of these nations agreed at first though some became unwilling to fulfill their end of the bargain after the end of the Scourge, wanting to have nothing to do with the bureaucratic nation run on political conflict and powered by slavery. After four hundred years of hiding, the Scourge ended, and the people emerged to a world changed by the Horrors. The player characters explore this new world, discovering lost secrets of the past, and fighting Horrors that remain.
The primary setting of Earthdawn is Barsaive, a former province of the Theran Empire. Barsaive is a region of city-states, independent from the Therans since the dwarven Kingdom of Throal led a rebellion against their former overlords.
The Theran presence in Barsaive has been limited to a small part of south-western Barsaive, based around the magical fortress of Sky Point and the city of Vivane.
The setting of Earthdawn is the same world as Shadowrun, but takes place Millennia earlier.
Flavor of the Game is a combination of Epic High-Fantasy and Lovecraftian Horror, as the players adventure in Barsaive, which feels to me somewhere between Lord of the Rings and Runequest, with a large amount of high magic thrown in. The Lovecraftian Horror comes in whenever the players have to deal with The Horrors, which are perverse, strange and definitively unpleasant. A old Trope for the game is : "If the players aren't sweating an encounter with a Horror. You aren't doing it right."
The Mechanics are rather unique for Action Tests, and are designed to work with the standard D20 dice sets that have been around for the last few decades. The Test runs off what is called the Dice Step (skill or Stat level) of the Character, NPC, or Object in question VS the Target Number of the test. The Dice Step Will Determine what dice are rolled for a Task.
For Example: Tal Vilan, a human Weaponsmith has a Weaponcrafting Skill Dice Step of 8 (starting character) and is trying to forge a sword with some minor magical ability (say, doesn't rust under normal conditions). Their Action Dice Step is 2d6 in this instance. The hypothetical TN is 11 (first rank character getting ahead of themselves on the difficulty curve). The Player manages to roll 12 on their 2d6, which means they make the Average TN for the task.
Now the player has done something Nifty for the Die Mechanic. When you roll the maximum on a dices number, you get to keep that Die roll, and Roll another die of the same type. Rolling two extra dice, the player manages to get another 7 between the two dice (not chaining and more on other die), with a total result of 19. Because this result is so much higher than what was needed (Extraordinary), that certain game effects might be the result, such as a exceptionally well crafted blade that might be of perfect balance and very well suited for enchantment (that doesn't rust).
Such Extraordinary feats when characters do things in Earthdawn have a magical resonance and might cause Items to Awaken into powerful magical items or cause Resonance for the character for certain actions (increased Legend points) and have certain tasks become easier.
Of course, having higher Dice Steps for Skills, Stats, and Talents will help with Action Tests. This is the core mechanic for the system and is pretty intuitive once one wraps their head around it.
Magic is a big part of Earthdawn. Players take on the part of Adepts, which are individuals who have learned to harness their inherent magic into Disciplines (Classes) such as Warrior, Weapon Smith, Elementalist, Nethermancer (etc), to use their magic in various ways (Warriors using their magic to enhance their physical skills, soak damage etc). Each Discipline has their own ways of viewing the world, Karma Rituals, and Half-Magic (a form of magic that allows characters to make intuitive leaps about knowledge things related to they vocation).
There is a LOT of material in Earthdawn. The game itself lends itself to "What the hell are you doing?" kinds of actions which most other systems tend not to encourage for the sake of "realism" (possible exception of Exalted).
An Example of the Step Mechanics
Step / Dice
4 / d6
5 / d8
6 / d10
7 / d12
8 / 2d6
9 / d8+d6
10 / 2d8
11 / d10+d8
12 / 2d10
13 / d12+d10
14 / 2d12
15 / d12+2d6
16 / d12+d8+d6
