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Dumpshock Forums _ General Gaming _ Which Earthdawn books to pick up?

Posted by: MITJA3000+ Mar 15 2007, 10:12 AM

Yep, I just read Dragons, and since my gaming store has some more ED-books, I was wondering if you guys could help to choose which ones to buy. I don't plan on playing Earthdawn, so no rules material. I play Shadowrun, but I'm also interested in ED, especially if it's even slightly relevant in SR. So if it has even some relevance to Shadowrun, please advice me.
These are the books my store has:
Adept's Way
Barsaive at War
Barsaive in Chaos
Blades
Blood Wood Sourcebook
ED Companion (probably only rules right?)
Infected
Ork Nation of Cara Fahd
Path of Deception
Scourge Unending
Secret Societies of Barsaive
Serpent River
Shattered Pattern
Terror in the Skies
Throal Adventures (adventure module?)
Throal: The Dwarf Kingdom
Wanderers Way: Makers of Legend Volume 2
Way Of War: Makers of Legend Volume 1

Posted by: Garrowolf Mar 15 2007, 12:40 PM

Wrong forum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: eidolon Mar 15 2007, 01:45 PM

No sweat. ----moved--->

Garro, calm down bro!

It's been a long time since I read any of the ED stuff, but I remember liking the Companion (and yes, IIRC it's mostly rules; akin to the SR Companion).

Posted by: the_dunner Mar 15 2007, 01:57 PM

QUOTE (MITJA3000+)

Adept's Way
ED Companion (probably only rules right?)

These two are largely rules.

QUOTE

Blades
Infected
Path of Deception
Scourge Unending
Shattered Pattern
Terror in the Skies
Throal Adventures (adventure module?)

If memory serves, all of the above are adventures.

QUOTE

Blood Wood Sourcebook
Ork Nation of Cara Fahd
Secret Societies of Barsaive
Serpent River
Throal: The Dwarf Kingdom

These 5 are world sourcebooks, and are probably the ones that will be most interesting to you as a Shadowrun player. Of the five, I liked Blood Wood the best. I seem to recall some rather interesting bits from Serpent River, but it's been a while.

QUOTE

Barsaive at War
Barsaive in Chaos
Wanderers Way: Makers of Legend Volume 2
Way Of War: Makers of Legend Volume 1

The first two of these are event books, the second two are NPCs. Unless there's a Shadowrun NPC in those books (and I don't remember any, but it's been a while), these should probably be a fairly low priority for you.

Posted by: MITJA3000+ Mar 15 2007, 02:07 PM

QUOTE (the_dunner)

QUOTE

Scourge Unending

If memory serves, all of the above are adventures.

I was under the impression that Scourge Unending was a book about Horrors?

Thanks for the info.

Posted by: eidolon Mar 15 2007, 03:01 PM

Well, if it's anything like the old Fasa SR stuff, it may well be both.

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Mar 15 2007, 05:32 PM

Scourge Unending is aobut horrors, mostly stats, some smaller fiction, with some plot hooks tossed in there. Not as good fiction wise as the original Horrors books, but has more stats for lesser horrors, so a bit more useful.

I would suggest Adept's Way and the ED Comapnion next if you're planning on playing. Very imoprtant stuff there, like expanding on what you can do with patterns, more thread item,s talents for cirlce 9-15 (which are awesome), and the Aept's Way explains things like talent crisis', variant discipline paths, combinations, and fleshes out the disciplines much better.

Posted by: Grinder Mar 15 2007, 07:25 PM

Second the Fisty of Doom here. If you have money to spend after you picked the ones, go for the world books like Serpent River.

If you want updated rules, check out RedBrick's version: http://www.earthdawn.com/ and their webshop at http://www.lulu.com/redbrick

Right now they're finishing Nations of Barsaive, Vol.1, which has Serpent River and the Throal sourecbook into one book with new content added.

Posted by: Cheops Mar 15 2007, 09:08 PM

QUOTE

ED Companion (probably only rules right?)

Yes, this one is mostly rules, although it does give more info about thread magic, blood magic, and the Passions, all of which are in SR. You probably don't need it unless you have lots of money to burn.

QUOTE

Adept's Way
Blood Wood Sourcebook
Ork Nation of Cara Fahd
Secret Societies of Barsaive
Serpent River
Throal: The Dwarf Kingdom

The first book is actually very light on rules. It is mostly descriptions of each Discipline by a practitioner of that discipline. It is invaluable if you are really into portraying Adept Paths in SR. The other ones are all sourcebooks. The one that applies the most to SR would be Blood Wood, which is actually my least favorite, but directly applies to SR's Immortal Elves (probably why I hate it).

QUOTE

Scourge Unending

This one was sort of a rehash of the old Horrors book with new critters added in as well as a mini-campaign. Not the best buy. You'd be better off with RB's GM's Compendium. Then again, no offence intended, I consider most LRG stuff to be crap.

QUOTE

Barsaive at War
Barsaive in Chaos
Wanderers Way: Makers of Legend Volume 2
Way Of War: Makers of Legend Volume 1

See my quote above about LRG stuff. The first two are metaplot books and are only necessary if you like LRG's storyline and want its events to be reflected in SR. The second two are their crappy attempt at the Adept's Way sourcebook. I'd recommend Adept's Way over these two any day.

QUOTE

Infected
Shattered Pattern

These are in fact adventures but they are extremely important for the ED metaplot and for the Great Dragons. The first involves a little girl who is being transformed into a drake hybrid and the second deals with a Horror cult that has kidnapped a GD's drakes and a pattern item. I highly recommend these.

QUOTE

Blades
Terror in the Skies
Throal Adventures (adventure module?)
Path of Deception

None of these have direct SR connections except that Blades is part of the return of Cara Fahd, which was bascially the only Ork nation in ED. Could be important if you want to explore the origins of Orks in SR.

Posted by: MITJA3000+ Mar 16 2007, 10:32 AM

Yey, thank you guys for the info!