I just had this thought kind of randomly pop into my head (my subconscious must have made the connection). At the end of Steven Kenson's novel The Burning Time, the Mage in the story (forget his name) rescues his gay lover (Kenson's writing seems to have homosexuality as a theme a lot *shrug*) from an astral prison controlled by the fixer "Mama". Now, I thought that during the description of that rescue it mentioned there being many of these little "astral cells" and him (the mage) seeing a "big white dragon" escape from one of them. He also saw other strange spirits escape as well (Shedim?). I'm not sure about the dragon part (it was awhile ago that I read it, and my local library lists "Missing" as the location for the book), but one thing I am sure about: it took place at the proper time for Ghostwalker's appearance.

Someone on this forum (not sure who) also mentioned that there was an ED Horror that had captured a GD in an astral prison of some kind. I don't know if it was ever revealed in "canon" who/what "Mama" was, but in all of the books that described her they seemed to hint that she was very powerful, and very evil.

Can someone who owns or has access to The Burning Time please confirm or deny my random thought?

That's been the general consensus. Making Shedim lost souls, thousands of years old.

I'll dig out my copy of The Burning Time a little later. But from what I remember, yes.

And I've met Steven Kenson. Nice guy. If he is gay, so what? Doesn't matter to me.

Wow. No wonder he was so pissed off by the time he hit Denver. If he was freed from his astral cell due to ..in some ways...random chance, a sideeffect of another break out, I'd nuke the first stuff I saw when I came out too. I'd be pissed at my GD kin too that didn't yknow, help me out.

Does any of this have to do with the mass killing of the dragon kin noted in Dragon's of the Sixth World. I took it to being an order of paladins but maybe I'm wrong and it is some horror instead.

There might be a Horror somewhere about the group, or perhaps just Horror inspired, but I think the Hunters are independent in their own crazy way. There are plenty of groups that think [meta]humanity is better off without dragons around - from Immortal Elves to Alamo 20K not to mention a bunch of politicos in Denver. And even other dragons might support the slaughter, perhaps for revenge like the last Sea Dragon. These groups could all be feeding the same rabid beast and putting it to hunt.

Dragons (like anyone who has tons of power) have large amounts of enemies. But they also have powerful friends as well. Does anyone know more information about the Great Dragon of Managascar who has a dragon clutch right now?

This is a little off-topic, but it does concern Ghostwalker.
I've been reading Year of the Comet, and I saw that passage from Rhonabwy, "I issue my condolences for his loss", that oft-quoted passage about Ghostwalker that leads most to assume that Dunklezahn was his brother.
But Hualpa says "Ghostwalker has been rash, but I admit to some admiration for his tactics. They are bold and unexpected, and display great cunning worthy of his respected sire." Who's that respected sire? It seems that Ghostwalker's sire is likely Dunklezahn, which would jive with the "loss" that Ghostwalker has suffered.

Has this been covered over and over again on some other post?

Woah. Waitaminute, is this "Earthdawn" system a preprequel to Shadowrun with the Dragons and some of the elves as recurring characters?

Yep, thats the basics. Earthdawn was a fantasy game made by the team who made SR using similar mechanics. They started writing in cross over material at some point (possibly from the beginning). I haven't played ED my self, so my knowledge is basic at best. But Ancient History's site is awesome for learning about the connections.

You pretty much covered, except that the mechanics are almost completely unrelated to one another.

Since Earthdawn has been sold to Living Room Games the story line between the two RPGs have drifted apart. Soon Earthdawn will be a alternate reality past to Shadowrun.

Earthdawn was not sold to Living Room Games; it was licensed to them by FASA, who still owns bits and bobs of IP. FASA has also licensed Earthdawn to Red Brick Games, who are doing their own version of Earthdawn. Red Brick also has the license to sell the old FASA books as ebooks

WizKids/Fanpro should almost buy up the rights to Earthdawn so they can further develope both games together. It might help solve what happened to Ghostwalker and how he got stuck in the Astral Plane.

As has been noted elsewhere, a lot of the fans of one game end up investigating the other so they can try and get 'the big picture'. Seems like a pretty good mutually beneficial arrangement to me. Reason enough for Fanpro and Red Brick to talk to each other now and then, I'd have thought.

I may be completely wrong in this, but my impression of Earthdawn was that it was essentially a dead line. While having SR continue to sync up with ED's established history is great for the amusement of well-informed players, I'm not sure it's really cost effective to put a lot of effort into reviving ED with a primary goal being to bolster SR sales.

http://www.earthdawn-classic.com/
I feel rumours of its demise might be a little exaggerated. Though I have no idea if it's proving popular.

http://lrgames.com

Not dead, no. A house divided, however.

I spoke to reps for FanPro AND Living Room Games at GenCon 2005. Both said they continue to communicate with each other to keep things as consistent as they can manage....

Laff... "as they can manage" can vary quite widely depending on how much they like each other...

I'm not sure how LRG and Red Brick get along with each other, but FanPro/LRG and FanPro/Red Brick get along just fine. Most publishers -- even of competing products -- get along pretty well and are open to helping out each other when possible.

Hiya!

LRG and RedBrick keep good relations as well. Our relations to Fanpro are also pretty good (as Adam pointed out). We care a lot about consistency and wouldn't write something that contradicts established facts outright. Inconsistencies in the not-so-important details could accidentally happen, of course (we're just humans).


Best,

Dammi
RedBrick Limited

To answer another question from the OP, I believe they revealed that the Boston fixer Mama's full name was Mama Iaga. Quite similar to Baba Yaga, doncha think? Considering that "baba" was a title meaning "grandmother"...

I'm just disappointed that she didn't have a hut with chicken legs.

Ok, that makes sense. Can someone who owns "The Burning Time" please look up and quote the part at the end of the book where all of the Astral Captives are being freed? I thought I remembered something in that part about a "huge white dragon."