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I have hard time grasping the Astral in Earthdawn. Is it supposed to be essentially a mirror of the regular world or is it assumed that it has its rich internal structure with many worlds with complex interconections? I know that there are supposed to be elemental planes. Are there a part of Astral? Are there many other planes of this kind? How should I imagine them? Something completely "conceptual" or more like actual locations where you can interact with sentient beings? For example, are there some cities or equivalent settlements? Can some Namegivers inhabit it? Is there actually a way to make a stable passage between the regular world and those planes?

I am asking because three main analogues I think of is Shadowrun's astral, World of Darkness' Umbra and the plethora of such "planes" in Chronicles of Darkness. In all these games other "planes" have very rich internal structure and you really can feel that the setting is big and "metaphysically diverse." I always liked it that way. In the case of Earthdawn, I find it slightly difficult to imagine what is the intended role of Astral. Is it a viable option, say, to have a campaign that is set there ninety percent of time (like you can easily do it, e.g., in old Mage)?

I barely started reading about astral space for 4th Edition so I might make a few mistakes but so far, according to the player's handbook:


ASTRAL SPACE:

- Astral space mirrors the physical world exactly.
- Astral space has NO native landscape. If a spot was to lose its connection to the physical world it would be completely empty and dark.
- Everything that exist in the physical world exist in the Astral plane. The opposite is not always true.
- Thus, everything that exist in the physical world (living or not) possesses an astral counterpart (an imprint, see below).
- Appearance: There is constant tufts and swirls of astral energy; shimmering wisps eddying in and around everything.
- The world itself is considered living, so its aura gives Astral Space a constant twilight look (e.g. it's never 'night' in Astral Space). Corruption would darken things however.
- Corruption obscure Astral Sensing (see below).
- When in corrupted space, the landscape can look warped, wrinkled, with clouds of pollution.


Some parts of Astral Space (called the Netherworlds) exist outside the standard astral/physical continuum. Those are are the elemental planes, the spirit planes and some others (possibly including wherever Horrors are coming from: a popular touristic spot).

So, about your questions on 'astral towns' the answer would be no (except maybe in the Netherworlds).

Exemples:

1- If you are in Bartertown and get/see into Astral Space you would be into the astral version of Bartetown: an exact copy of everything that exist in it, nothing less BUT with possibly more (horrors, spirits, elementals, people walking in astral space, objects left there etc).

2- If you are in the middle of an empty field, its astral reflection would also be a field. Astral creatures/horrors could be there but there could be no 'town' as the only things that can exist in Astral Space without an existing physical counterpart are astral beings. There is no such thing as an 'astral only object' thus no 'astral only' buildings/towns.

IMPRINTS: (not to be confused with Patterns)

- Imprints from mundane objects looks nearly identical to their physical counterpart but colorless, looks insubstantial. That does NOT mean they are 'transparent', you cannot see through them.
- Imprints from living/magical things have a distinctive aura, glow with ethereal nature, vivid appearance. Thus easy to figure out if something is magical or not.
- Imprints have the same properties as their physical counterparts: you could see through the imprint of a window but not through the imprint of a wall. Thus you cannot see the imprint of a namegiver hiding behind a wall, the 'bland' imprint of the wall is NOT transparent to the 'brighter aura' of the person's imprint.
- Illusion spells affects the imprints of the person/object too. Thus Astral Sense cannot be used as a 'cheat' to figure out if something is an illusion or not.

So the imprint of a (non-magical) sword would look about the same as the real sword, although colorless and bland (I'm usure if it should be seen as like a black-and-white picture or just an empty/black silhouette) while the imprint of a Namegiver would have the same silhouette as its physical form with some aura emanating from it, the 'inside' of the silhouette would be its pattern (e.g you would not see his 'face').

SENSING ASTRAL SPACE:

- Using Astral Sight / Astral Sense is the safest way to 'see' imprints in Astral Space.
- A physical being cannot use the sense of smell, touch or taste when Sensing Astral Space (nothing is said about hearing so I'm not sure).

Mechanics:

Astral Sight / Sense allows you to see the imprints of everything around you.

- Step 1: You roll you Astral Sight/Sense Talent against 6+modifier of the pollution of the area (see below). If successful you see ALL imprints around you within the range of the talent used.

'Just' seeing the imprints of something/someone gives you some help to figure the nature of it (living, magical, mundane etc) AND it allows you to see the classification (degree of pollution) of this area but that's it.

- Step 2: If you then want to observe in detail a pattern, you'd have to roll again but this time against the Mystic Defense (unsure if pollution modifier applies here or not) of the object/person.

If successful, you can see the pattern (see example at page 212 for an idea how to describe it) to figure out stuff like discipline, thread woven, injury, blood magic etc.

Patterns: From the example at page 212, I assume it means that the data should not be given 'raw' to the player (e.g. 'he is a Beastmaster') but rather through the description of the patterns ('many animals made of bright lights walks around and sometime nudge the core of the pattern with love'), let the player make their conclusions and have fun with the misunderstandings ('the pattern shows many thorns', conclusion: 'she is a Blood Elf!', reality: 'her name is Rose Thornfist').

You CANNOT obtain Key Knowledge this way, no matter how well you roll, this is the domain of the Item History Talent exclusively.

I'm not sure the Netherworlds can be sensed (see below) since you can only see the Astral Space of the 'reflection' of the physical location where you are standing. I'll assume the Netherworlds can only be 'seen' by actually GETTING INTO Astral Space (see below) and then 'porting' into the Netherworlds somehow (there's probably some mechanics about it that I did not read yet).

GETTING INTO ASTRAL SPACE:

You can also actually GET into the Astral Space (I did not yet read anything about the mechanics of how to get there yet) but:

- It's more dangerous, since you are physically there, you can attract attention from Astral creatures (rarely a good thing).
- Once in Astral Space, your physical form merges with your imprint, you no longer exist in physical space.
- Corrupted space is much harder to see in first person than through astral sensing, can drive you mad.
- You can walk through mundane objects in Astral Space although it is unsettling and confusing (nice way to bypass a wall/security but watch out for magical wards)
- You CANNOT walk through living/magical things.
- IMPORTANT: the earth (ground) is considered living, so you cannot walk through it (which is why underground kaers worked so well against Horrors).
- 'Dead' earth (processed stones and stuff like that) is not considered living (thus Horrors could pass through the stone doors of a kaer if it managed to beat their magical defenses).
- The same thing is assumed about wood/plant matter: you cannot walk through a living tree but you can walk through a wooden door.
- You can leave a physical object brought with you in Astral Space. That makes it a great hiding place but many Astral Creatures/Horrors likes shinny things.


ASTRAL CORRUPTION:

By doing damage to the physical world, Horrors have corrupted the Astral Reflection of those places.

There is 4 states (classification) of corruption for a given area:

SAFE: No corruption, pretty much only unbreached kaers, like Throal. (no modifier to Astral Sensing)
Open: A bit of corruption, Horrors pretty much just 'passed through' those spots. Most of the world is 'open'. (+2 modifier to Astral Sensing)
Tainted: Where Horrors caused great suffering. (+5 modifier to Astral Sensing)
Corrupt: Where Horrors did terrible atrocities. (+12!! modifier to Astral Sensing)



*PHEW*. Hope that helps.

So... lots to unpack. I'll start with the easiest answer.

Is it a viable option, say, to have a campaign that is set there ninety percent of time (like you can easily do it, e.g., in old Mage)?

Not really*. The astral in Earthdawn is messed up and while there are beings (spirits, Horrors, and other astral fauna) that inhabit it, it's not really a place for people to live. At least, not the 'default' astral plane.

* Caveat: see my comments at the end.

Is it supposed to be essentially a mirror of the regular world or is it assumed that it has its rich internal structure with many worlds with complex interconections?

Yes.

Which is to say, it's both.

You've got the traditional "mirror of the regular world" which is basically a view of the magical energy present in the regular world. This lets you see patterns (True and otherwise), astral entities, and all that other stuff covered by "astral perception."

But there are also the "Netherworlds" -- what are called (IIRC) "metaplanes" in Shadowrun. These are deep, separate astral realms, and include the elemental planes (though the elemental planes are also kind of their own thing). The netherworlds are where invae, Horrors, and some varieties of spirit come from.

They've never really been a significant feature of Earthdawn, though a couple of them were briefly described in the original Magic: A Manual of Mystic Secrets along with the elemental planes (pages 69-74, if you're interested).

The Netherworlds are varied. Some are pocket dimensions, some are (apparently) entire worlds, others are... something else. The difficulty, in general, is that getting to one requires actually entering astral space. There aren't many ways to easily do so (a couple of high-tier Nethermancer abilities, specific spirit powers), plus it's dangerous due to Horrors and the damage they wrought (IIRC, if you're projecting you take actual damage from astral pollution).

The closest parallel is Shadowrun's astral (and extended realms) -- even if the games aren't officially linked anymore, they were built with similar metaphysics.

In theory, it would be possible to run a "plane hopping" campaign, and put a lot more focus on the astral realms, but at that point you're sailing off into uncharted waters. Like running Earthdawn in a homebrew setting rather than Barsaive-and-surrounding. It would, no doubt, be fascinating, but there's little official support for such a thing.

(Yet. The work we did fleshing out spirits is kind of our first tentative steps in expanding Earthdawn's cosmology.)

Bonhumm wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 17, 2018 11:54 pm

I barely started reading about astral space for 4th Edition so I might make a few mistakes but so far, according to the player's handbook:

I would like first to thank you for the very detailed answer. I should have made a caveat that I read that section and it left an impression that astral is a 'mirrorworld.' Then I was confused what is its relation to netherworlds.

Mataxes wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 18, 2018 12:22 am

They've never really been a significant feature of Earthdawn, though a couple of them were briefly described in the original Magic: A Manual of Mystic Secrets along with the elemental planes (pages 69-74, if you're interested).

Thank you, I actually own the book and didn't check it up there. My fault. Actually, when asking the question, I hoped that maybe there there is some long forgotten supplement devoted specifically to Earthdawn cosmology.

Mataxes wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 18, 2018 12:22 am

(Yet. The work we did fleshing out spirits is kind of our first tentative steps in expanding Earthdawn's cosmology.)

I am quite enthusiastc about this direction.

My two cents.

The source books don't go into a lot of detail about Metaplanes or the far reaches of Astral Space, partially due to the fact that nobody in Barsaive is sure what the truth really is. Sure every Master Wizard has his own pet theories, but they all have different theories. Not many people have ever returned from extended plane-hopping expeditions, and none in more than half a millennia. The answers are literally unknown.

Re: astral impressions.

So the imprint of a (non-magical) sword would look about the same as the real sword, although colorless and bland (I'm unsure if it should be seen as like a black-and-white picture or just an empty/black silhouette) while the imprint of a Namegiver would have the same silhouette as its physical form with some aura emanating from it, the 'inside' of the silhouette would be its pattern (e.g you would not see his 'face').

Astral Impressions have been described as being not only colorless and insubstantial, but also hazy and indistinct.

So if you are using astral sight or sensing to look at somebody holding a sword, at first glance you might only determine that he is holding something. but you are unsure what it might be. It seems to be long, so it might be a sword of some kind, or a club, a stick, or maybe a loaf of french bread. You might need to take a sensing action specifically examine the item being held to determine what it is. A lump on the ground might be a dead log, or a dead body, or merely a pile of dead leaves. At a glance all you get is that there is a lump there.

Likewise, if you are looking solely at imprints, and did not roll high enough to spot their patterns, it would be easy to miss a live name-giver standing next to (or worse yet in) a live bush or tree. If you don't get the name-givers pattern, you sense an irregular blob of living matter. It might be a name-giver. It might be a bush. It might be a name-giver next to a bush. Hard to tell just from the astral imprints without taking the time to focus your attention there.

Think of the original Predator movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Using Normal sight it is easy to distinguish Arnold covered in mud from the roots of a tree. Using the Predator's sight (which I think is a form of heat vision,but the principle is the same), Arnold covered in mud looked almost exactly like the roots of a tree. If you are paying attention, happen to notice the eyes, or know what to look for, you can pick out Arnold. But spotting him is not automatic.

If you rolled high enough to beat the name-giver spell defense, you see his pattern and it is easy to distinguish it is a name-giver. But you would still have to focus your attention upon one specific name-giver to find anything at all about them, and I am fairly sure that "beastmater" or "has to do with beasts" can not be determined in only a few rounds of study.

Bonhumm wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 17, 2018 11:54 pm

If you are in the middle of an empty field, its astral reflection would also be a field. Astral creatures/horrors could be there but there could be no 'town' as the only things that can exist in Astral Space without an existing physical counterpart are astral beings. There is no such thing as an 'astral only object' thus no 'astral only' buildings/towns.

Interestingly, now that I read it, the original 'Magic' sourcebook says that with standard spells you can transport objects to the Astral, in the process their physical and astral form blend together, like in the case of Namegivers, and if they are left in the Astral they stay in the Astral. So per 1st edition, you could, say, build a mansion there. It rarely serves any purpose, and it is anything but safe, yet still, this seems doable. An old master who left physical world for whatever reason, maybe a group that found a unique way to make the stay safe throughout the Scourge and decided to build their kaer in the Astral (Parlainth done right, essentially), it all seems possible if unusual in the setting.

Is that right or is the canon changed somewhere so that these options cannot be pursued? I know that houseruling the cannon is an option, but I would like to make sure whether this is possible by the actual canon.

BRW wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 18, 2018 10:27 am

Is that right or is the canon changed somewhere so that these options cannot be pursued? I know that houseruling the cannon is an option, but I would like to make sure whether this is possible by the actual canon.

It is right, which is why I said further down my original post:

Bonhumm wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 17, 2018 11:54 pm

- You can leave a physical object brought with you in Astral Space. That makes it a great hiding place but many Astral Creatures/Horrors likes shinny things.

However the statement about no such things about astral objects it also true. This is not an astral object, this is a physical object left in Astral Space. It would look different from an Astral Imprint since, by getting into Astral Space, it merged its astral and physical form; so the object would not look like an imprint (colorless, bland) but would look exactly as it is supposed to be BECAUSE it is exactly the 'true' object.

So your idea about bringing a building in astral space would be possible (and very interesting) but again, just like leaving a house empty for months in physical space could end you up with a rat infestation, you could come home to your astral mansion to find Verjigorm living in your basement.

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