Aye... Look at all the 'Trunk' space those babies had for capacity. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Because of the connection? Earthdawn sources can give some small insight into what might have been or maybe still is considered for Shadowrun. Case in point the upper bound estimates for metahuman life expectancy in the Earthdawn corebook. At the very least as long as the crossover was valid that information is useful and coming from the wiki perspective how the Shadowrun background was understood in the past is also interesting to me. But even today if someone writing for Shadowrun cares about that aspect they are likely to look back to the actual Earthdawn source material.

I don't see it... If I wanted to write for Shadowrun, I would look back at Shadowrun. Earthdawn would never enter the mind, as Earthdawn is not in the least the same as Shadowrun. Different Strokes, I guess, but I ignore Earthdawn when it comes to Shadowrun. And am probably saner for it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

You're a former Marine... Sanity isn't the question.
(I just had to get a poke in somewhere)

I agree with you..



The only time I would figure ED came into the picture is in the very beginning when building the foundation. That's already there so it's not needed anymore. Besides IIRC (correct me if I'm wrong) I do believe SR was published before ED.
Now they are also ran by 2 different corps who both have taken the systems in different directions. If FASA was still around and working both then I very well may have agreed that I could use material from ED for SR but even then I seriously doubted it. (But there was always the chance of a potential antagonist).

Well.... True. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Minor correction, though... No such thing as a Former Marine. You either are [a Marine] or you are not.



Indeed... Shadowrun came before Earthdawn. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Rah.Your time on watch may have ended, but that doesn't change your training or mindset.

Once a Marine ALWAYS a Marine...
I may poke at my brothers in arms but all have earned there titles and that is always to be commended and cherished.

So that's what you would do if you hypothetically wrote for SR, but people who very much non-hypothetically wrote for Earthdawn and Shadowrun created one as a prequel to the other. The Earthdawn books written while both lines were with FASA are officially situated in the same universe and therefore contribute to the same canon -- meaning it can be retconned, contradicted, ignored, or depend on who is writing a given paragraph, just like all other canon from long ago. But until further notice, if one of the old ED books says all Orks dress left, they dress left.

And yet that is now over (and has been for many, many years), you cannot get it back... No longer do they share a background, nor have they for many Editions now. So... Earthdawn is irrelevant. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

That will be true, once Shadowrun writers no longer look to Earthdawn material. But even then some stuff has already been introduced into Shadowrun other things might lurk somewhere in a development document. There has never been a concerted effort to "cleanse" the Shadowrun background by retconning all crossover connections.

Anyway we are going in circles. And by all means don't throw up on your paws, if Earthdawn is mentioned in passing.

*Seen on a wall in the Barrens*

God is Dead - Nietzsche

Nietzsche is Dead - God

Still Fragging Here! HA! -Harlequin

Which does not alter for the books already written at the point of divergence, unless you are claiming all existing material at that point got shoved into the memory hole and rewritten.

I don't wanna discuss the revelancy of ED beeing past of Shadowrun. They belong to two different companies anyways today but it was clearly FASA's intention to make it that way (Windlings, Horrors, Harlequin, World without ends, Mountainshadow/Dunkelzahn... I could give an arm long of elements crossing both games).


The most problematic thing about ED beeing SR's past is that it doesn't make sense (where are dwarfs skeletons and ruins of ED civizations).

So this my version of this past:

As well as there's a metaplane with horrors, there's a mundane plane and there are mystic planes (the metaplanes). In between there is an oscillating "plane" which is the gaming universe. It's not magic that oscillates, it's the plane.

When it draws near to the mundane plane (our plane basically) it takes this world "imprint". It may leave a small trace to the mundane universe which explains legends, but not much more. When it moves toward the mystic planes, the fantastic parts start to appear.


This means that during 6th World, there's a mundane world (ours, actually) and the plane who's moving towards the mystic plane. -which means that our world coexist with SR's plane-).
When 7th worlds will start on the plane, everything from SR's background will start to crumble and get back to the mundane's world history. It fades up until it's nearly our world again....until it moves towards the mystic plane into the 8th world.

A few elements survive the downtimes. Like The Book of Harrows. Maybe a few artifacts.


This is why ED hasn't really remembered the 2nd age (a 6000 thousand year old cataclysm should have left scars) without the Books of Harrow. And why SR hasn't trace of ED. The plane is a moving plane between worlds.

Spirits does stay in the mystic planes.
Dragons do create cocoons and stay in stasis until they can awaken in the plane (that is, when it moves away from the mundane plane).
IE are the oddity that can cross the worlds and stay alive during the downtimes when the plane collide with the mundane plane.


This paradygm seems solid to me and is the one I use.

And this makes a lot more sense than ED is SR past which would also be earths past.