Greetings and welcome back!

As you’re (hopefully) aware, last weekend was FASA’s FreedoniaCon! We had games all weekend along with art streams from Don and James (art directors for 1879 and Earthdawn respectively), trips back in time with Ross, opportunities to interact directly with developers, and more! If you missed out, hopefully you will have an opportunity to participate in the future. If you were there, I hope you had a fantastic time.

One of the events was an Earthdawn Seminar where I introduced some reveals of what is planned for 2023. Here’s a look at what was revealed.

Virtual Table Tops (VTT)

Foundry and Roll20 are both supported with official modules. Foundry is up-to-date and Roll20 has support for the Player’s Guide, Gamemaster’s Guide, and Companion — the latter two were just released.

The plan is to make future manuscripts available for VTT adoption once complete to expedite the process.

Magic: Deeper Secrets

This long-awaited book is the next scheduled Kickstarter once complete. No, there isn’t a date. I’ve been putting the vast majority of my attention on dragging it to completion, which means putting other things to the side or it will never get done. This effort means it’s close and the numerous associated previews.

The contents include:

  • Knacks (over 140 unformatted pages so far)
  • Spells (350 entries in the book)
  • Binding secrets (three Named spirits for each binding spell)
  • Improved spell knacks
  • Enchanting (three new types introduced, including Named spells)

We also have extras planned for the Kickstarter campaign:

  • Dragon plush — Alamaise
  • Horror miniature — Ysrthgrathe
  • Spell cards
  • Elemental and orichalcum coins

Alamiase

The reception Mountainshadow received was outstanding and of course we’re doing another one. I put together a list of dragons and got together with James Austin to pick the next plush. He liked the idea of a red dragon to contrast with Mountainshadow and I liked James being excited about the project.

Below is an image of Mountainshadow and the most recent Alamaise sample side-by-side — complete with his infamous scar!

I ate an elf queen and all I got was this lousy scar.” — probably Alamaise

Ysrthgrathe

Despite production issues, there’s popular support for the Horror miniatures and we’re bringing another one to life — the infamous Ysrthgrathe. The modeling is complete and Dan (Aetherstream: Interceptor and Demonworld) is working on producing a sample.

Spell Cards

These The spell cards are tarot-sized with all (or most in some cases) of the information you need contained on the face. While the backs are all identical to enable Illusionist phantom spell shenanigans. They’re available in a big, fancy box which includes every spell available to date (124 each Discipline, 620 total).

We’re looking making them available as individual decks by Discipline and have smaller boxes designed for players to hold the spells contained within their grimoire.

Coins

It’s no secret we like fancy metal coins. However, there isn’t a good typical currency to go along with the book. Which led me to elemental coins and orichalcum, where this is the perfect place to introduce them. There are five elemental coins (introducing wood to the classic four) and orichalcum. We’re working on finalizing the designs based on feedback from the manufacturer, but they’re quite impressive. They will be available as a set in a nice display case and possibly as individual coins as well.

30th Anniversary

This year is Earthdawn’s 30th anniversary and we have some special things planned to mark the occasion. The items below are some of the things we have planned, but perhaps not everything. To celebrate the specific release at GenCon, we plan to run this project during the convention.

Prestige Novels

Two prestige edition omnibus novels are planned as part of the 30th anniversary. One is the complete J’role saga with The Longing Ring, Mother Speaks, and Poisoned Memories. The next we’re referring to as the “lost novels” and features Scars, Little Treasures, and Liferock. The first two are the Earthdawn portion of Caroline Spector’s Immortals trilogy (the Aina novels) and the latter is by Jak Koke.

They going to be 6″ × 9″ hardbound to sit nicely with the other 4E books.

Coin and Pin

Instead of an in-setting coin, we’re releasing a commemorative challenge coin to celebrate the milestone in our shared history and a pin to go along with it. Designs on these are pending.

Digital Initiative

We’re working on bringing Earthdawn further into the digital age. It was novel when a CD of the complete rulebook was included within 30 years ago and we’re looking to pick things back up. This is a multi-part plan and is in conjunction with app developer Richard Hancock.

Earthdawn Wiki

The first part of this is creating an Earthdawn wiki. This is a massive undertaking and is well underway. It started with the discrete mechanics and those are approaching complete.

Ultimately, it will include all the 4E material, Earthdawn content from my blog, and relevant setting content from 1E and 3E. The setting material is planned, but hasn’t been started yet.

This is includes all the expected wiki functionality with cross-linking between items and additional functionality which isn’t possible in a traditional print format. For example, a talent entry incorporates errata, lists clarifications and errata, includes a list of knacks, and has a full list of how to get access to the talent — e.g. what Disciplines and Paths can learn it and when.

This also enables adding commentary to entries and expanding on the lore — such as more information on the specific Tail Dancer schools — connecting Discipline perspectives directly to it, and including some other interesting extras.

Extras like full information for familiars. As a side note: They were originally planned as something which might appear in Magic: Deeper Secrets (this was never on the table as a guarantee). However, that book has way too much content and familiars simply aren’t going to fit, there’s just too much for them. Making cuts to either to make it fit does both a significant disservice. And honestly, the wiki format is a really good fit for how they turned out. It also means adding new spirit types is relatively simple.

Access to the Earthdawn wiki and all it offers is broken into two tiers: free and subscribers. Free access will include the Quick Start, an overview of the setting, and material from my blog. Subscription gives everything (as you would expect) and early or exclusive access (like familiars). It will also include access to all other FASA lines once their wikis are implemented.

It isn’t currently available, but subscription pricing starts at $2.50 per month. Once the wiki is complete (the setting information is included), it increases to $5 per month.

Other Apps

The wiki is the first part, but not the last. I’m not going to get into what else we have planned on this front until we’re closer to offering it so discussion is more about specifics than intentions.