Hello. This is the thread lokii and I will use to work on assembling a new SR/ED FAQ. Contributions are welcome.

UPDATE on Tue, 07/05/2016:

I've compiled everything from this thread so far as follows:


The Basics

What is Earthdawn?
What is the Cycle of Magic?
So what’s the history of Earthdawn, in a nutshell?
What’s the connection between the Shadowrun and Earthdawn campaign settings?
Is the crossover still relevant, and why is it controversial?


Earthdawn Setting and Concepts

What is the province of Barsaive?
What is the Theran Empire?
What is the Kingdom of Throal?
What are the Elven Nations?
What are the Horrors?
What are the Invae?
What are Dragonkin?
What are Kaers?


Specifics

What canon Shadowrun products contain references to Earthdawn?
Which characters from Earthdawn lived long enough to make it into the Shadowrun setting?
Are there in organizations in the Sixth World that have ties back to the Fourth World?
Are there any major magical artifacts or cultural remnants from Earthdawn that survived to be discovered in Shadowrun?
Are the Horrors still a threat in Shadowrun? Are any of them active in the Sixth World?
Are the Shedim and Insect Spirits actually Horrors? What about Wraiths?
What are the dates for the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Worlds on the Mayan Calendar?
What about the First, Second, and Third Worlds?
How does the history of Earthdawn line up with real world history?
How does magic differ from the Fourth World to the Sixth World?
Why did the mana level stabilize in Earthdawn?
What is a locus and where does it come from?
What are the Rites of Protection and Passage?
What is the Blood Wood? And what was the Ritual of Thorns?
What is the fate of the White Tree?
What is the compact between dragons and elves?
What happened with the drakes?
Are there any other RPGs besides Earthdawn that are connected to Shadowrun? [Equinox, Eclipse Phase]
Haven't there been other efforts to compile Earthdawn-to-Shadowrun crossover info before this?

This cache would have been awesome to preserve digitally.

While you're compiling 4th and 6th world links, might as well include 8th world if you're up for it while you're at it (what's available anyway):

Okay I will start:

_basics_
what is earthdawn?
what is the cycle of magic?
what is the connection between shadowrun and earthdawn aka the crossover?
is the crossover still relevant?
why is the crossover controversial?

_earthdawn concepts_
what are the horrors?
what is the theran empire?
what are the invae?

_specifics_
are the horrors a threat in the era of shadowrun?
who is still around from earthdawn?
- known (sourcebook, novel)
- potential
what is still around from earthdawn?
why did the mana level stabilize in earthdawn?
what is a locus and where does it come from?
are there horrors active in shadowrun?
are shedim horrors?
are insect spirits horrors?
are there other rpg systems connected to shadowrun beside earthdawn?
- equinox
- eclipse phase
- "Earthrise, Earthdusk, and Earthfall"
how does earthdawn fit into world history?

I've started assembling my own questions. There's a delay, as keeping up with the other thread has been commanding a lot of my limited free time lately.

Still lots of info backed up on Ancient Files.

http://danvolodar.ru/ancientfiles/Shadowrun_to_Earthdawn.htm

@lokii:

A great start. Here's a couple more:

What canon products contain references to the ED setting?
Which characters from the Fourth Age lived long enough to see the Sixth Age?

This page seems a bit intriguing (I believe hermit suggested it me once before), but I'm not sure how well it fits with SR/ED, as there seems to be free use of magic in space, which is supposed to be a big mana void. The destruction of Earth should have gotten rid of most magic. A rather severe solution for the Horrors problem.

EDIT: Some further research has revealed that, yes, apparently this really was supposed to be the Eighth World of the SR/ED universe, but then companies split up, licensing issues, etc. That said, apparently the setting is now (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) totally unrelated to the SR/ED universe, and any obvious similarities or references to them are...clearly just products of your overactive imagination.

So, yes, I think we can give it at least a bit of a mention in the FAQ.

I actually have thought about plans for an Eighth World campaign, but it did not involve the destruction of any planets in the Sol system. Therefore, my feelings about this setting are...mixed.

I updated my list.

Since we had a discussion about the Mayan calendar, maybe we should add a question about that:

why does the mayan calendar switch in 2011 instead of 2012 in shadowrun?
- michael coe

But I guess that would be better suited in a general Shadowrun FAQ.

Because it's still waiting for errata since the 4th Age

LOL! 5 millennia makes even Microsoft tech support look good.

You mean, just like the supposed connections between SR/ED Universe Now? Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge. THOSE Connections?
Any obvious similarities or references to them are...clearly just products of your overactive imagination.


See... works both ways.

For those wanting to take a peek at it, the new version of Equinox is under the Vagrant Workshop banner.

Still trying to make heads or tails of it, though it is amusing they use the FU rules (Freeform/Universal rules, not the other term ), though some could make an argument for the other definition.

Oh, I'm not disdainful, I'm amused. From my research, I believe the "divorce" happened before it was first published. In this respect, SR/ED was luckier, as that relationship was fully official for some time before the licenses were split. I still hold out hope that someday they'll be officially reunited again.

Amused is a good tack...
Not sure they will ever be reunited, but I could be wrong.

But if you take an Astral Hazing character with you, they turn the void into merely a rating 4 background count. That's better than being on the moon / Mars. So it isn't as easy as casting spells on Earth, but it's doable with a couple of initiations. Or there's a portable cyberzombie:

Vagrant do flirt quite directly with the ED/SR setting in their FAQ and then throw in a few alternatives to show they are impartial:

For EP, this link would be relevant: http://eclipsephase.com/clarification-re-equinox

"There are no links to those original ideas in the game anymore, other than sci-fi + horror -- it's just an anecdote about how the ball got rolling with us." Of course, given the treacherous nature of copyright and IP law, this might be just Posthuman covering their rear ends

Further questions:
- What happened in the 3rd World and before?
- How does the whole story line up with actual historic events? (spoiler: Not very well. The Quaternary extinction would have been in the 3rd World, for example)

The best summary I saw for EP's origins was: and Adam doesn't describe EP as descending from SR: though he wasn't against future tie-ins between the settings.
Also worth adding to the list of games related to Shadowrun (for those with a sense of humour) is Catalyst's Battlerun:

I suggest using an etherpad. I copied the questions to this one as a start: https://etherpad.net/p/sredfaq If haven't used one before, feel free to try it. There is an undo button in the tool bar.


Battletech-Crossover: I don't think there is anything substantive, but some speculation always floated around. For example Ancient History on his SR-ED-crossover page:
I don't even remember what Crucible is.

http://leviathanwar.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01...alm-review.html

http://www.keepwargaming.co.uk/fasa-9000-c...ules-1186-p.asp

I put two deliberate references into Season 4 of Shadowrun missions (and Artifacts Unbound).

One is Simon Andrews, a mage who SURGE'd into a humoid lizard that is a deliberate T'skrang reference.

The other is an artifact that is the focus of the first Season 4 mission, the Morel Stone. It's a small obsidian rock that has a faint magical aura that has a vague resemblance to a living aura, and is part of a larger stone. And Morel translates from Sperethiel into "Life".

Easter eggs more than anything, but fun.

Appreciate the Easter Eggs, Bull. I'm working on assembling these in a Word Document, and I'll post the outline in my original post here. I was hoping to have made more headway over the holiday weekend, but I ended up working for some of it.

EDIT: And now I've done so. Check out the original post.

We should also add a list of links to some of the prior work.

Also maybe you could put the link to the etherpad in the first post: https://etherpad.net/p/sredfaq I think that might be an easier way to add information to a draft version of an answer, rather than posting in the thread.

Tauren? Hm, reminds me of Warcraft 3.

Yes, definitely want links to all the previous efforts, good idea. And it's only just, since we'll clearly be building on the work of those who have come before us.

That said, I'm ambitious enough to want to replace the old efforts. The Ancient Files is basically gone, and all we have left is an old copy (though I'm certainly glad it's there). Most of the other ones probably haven't been updated in years. I say, if we're going to do this, let's do it right and go all the way, and incorporate all of the info we can into one location, all fresh and updated.

I've got a Dropbox account that I've hardly ever used - I need to look into setting up a public downloads folder that I can link to from this thread. Then people can download the most recent version of the FAQ as it's being developed.

The end result can be a one-stop-shopping resource for anyone, newbie or veteran, looking for SR/ED crossover info.

Why not just update the Shadowrun Wiki? It already has a lot of Earthdawn info in it.

I just popped over to check again. Its ED info seems pretty scanty and is all over the place. I, at least, have something more comprehensive and centralized in mind.

The wiki should have some information on the crossover. (Here is the corresponding page of the Shadowhelix: http://shadowhelix.pegasus.de/Meta:Shadowr...hdawn-Crossover ) But I think an FAQ is particularly useful in this case, because the same questions about the crossover tend to come up in spread-out discussions, so basically the standard case for it.

Could easily make a Earthdawn tag and have all articles that are relevant tagged and linked to each other. I mean, if you go and put everything in dropbox, what are the odds of it being discovered there and be maintained vs on a wiki?

I'm open to other distribution suggestions, but in the end, I'm planning on producing a single PDF file, not dozens of different pages to be scattered across a wiki.

To clarify, when I've gone looking for SR/ED crossover information over the years, it's been a struggle. I've had to look in many different locations, and it's taken lots of time to try to assemble the whole picture, one piece at a time. I desperately wished that I could just find it all in one location. So, I'm going to create that one resource. Given my work schedule, that will probably be a few hours a week for the rest of this year, but I plan on getting it done eventually.

Sengir's first question is missing:


Also I would add another question about the (potential) crossover connections of various organisations: Black Lodge, Heavenherds (Azania), Atlantean Foundation, Atlantean Rebirth / Ale'i Menatis, Smoking Mirror, government of Tír na nÓg and former government of Tír Tairngire.

To the Earthdawn concepts I would add Blood Wood and the Elven kingdoms.

Done. Thanks for including those. I think I might be ready to get started pretty soon here, I just wanted to make sure I had a pretty comprehensive list of questions to fill in first. Unless anything new comes up, I should be able to start in on this as of this weekend.

On the questions:

To modify my suggestion instead of "Elven kingdoms" the term "Elven nations" is better.

Maybe the question on surviving artifacts can be modified to cover cultural remnants such as Sperethiel, Orzet or the Elven Paths.

I would add Dragonkin to the Earthdawn concepts.

And to Specifics:
What is the fate of the White Tree?
What is the compact between dragons and elves?

I will continue using the pad: https://etherpad.net/p/sredfaq It's just easier than making posts all the time. I don't know if you have seen the first few bullet points for some of the questions I put on there. Also I have started to collect some of the old discussion threads from Dumpshock that dealt with the crossover (see section "discussions on earthdawn"). I will also try to complete my collection of developer commentary in various forums on this particular topic.

I think we should add another a question about what happened with the drakes.

Also I will try to put a timestamp to major changes on the etherpad from now on.

---

And something else: the FAQ was one of two ideas. I also wanted to produce a "timeline of clues", a structured, close documentation of the various hints. It's too in depth for the FAQ I think, but of course should be used to answer its questions. I started this on the Shadowhelix. I will write in English there (I just like working on the wiki) but the plan is to later transfer it to Wikia and make a German translation for the Helix. So the pages have a German title but the rest is in English.

This is the overall timeline of crossover sources: http://shadowhelix.pegasus.de/Meta:Zeitstr...tergrundquellen

But to address specific topics I will make an extra page, that combines subset of the timeline entries with the clues contained in the source. The first one is about Leonardo: http://shadowhelix.pegasus.de/Meta:Crossov...pekt_-_Leonardo

I try to keep interpretations out and just provide the clues thought to be relevant to the topic. Maybe a section for interpretation can be added later. I'll further try to fit relevant developer commentary in. Of course in putting the clues on a timeline, adding the author etc. the hope is to reveal some patterns that make the interpretation easier, though I don't think much will be revealed in the case of Leonardo. Still it is interesting, that Sargent and Gascoigne did write both Black Madonna and the Earthdawn supplement, published a year earlier, in which Leonarus is mentioned. In principle that is what I was hoping for.

As for the scope I try to limit this to crossover topics. So no purely Sixth World secrets, such as the conflict between the insect spirits and Ares or the "awakening" of the Matrix (though especially in regards to Leonardo there is some connection implied). To take the example Leonardo: his identity, role in the Fourth World, the faction he belongs to, the question whether he is or is not Leonard da Vinci, those are relevant. But System Failure reveals that he is still around implied by his alter ego Antonio Vieri showing up. That does not add additional information about his role in the crossover so I did not put it in.

What in System Failure has ties to Earthdawn?

I'm also not sure if you want to add Aetherology to the list too, as it kind of hints at horrors.

System Failure p.104
-> potential obsidimen reference

I'll have a look at Aetherology. It might also be relevant because of the Seelie Court though I suspect it leads away from the original plans.

I was really hoping to keep this all in one place that could eventually be combined in one PDF when we're done. However, how about we make this file #2: "Appendix 1 - Timeline of Clues in Canon Books"?

Sure, if you want to add the tables to an appendix. I just meant as an answer to the question "What is up with Leonardo?" this is way too detailed and as a format unsuited.

Not directly related, but a nice timeline of human development and related events. For example, I didn't know the eruption which created Crater Lake aligns quite nicely with the peak of the last Scourge.

On the other hand, it also shows a problem that a lot of "alternate" history has: 5000 years isn't that much by archeologic standards. Somehow all the wonders of the 4th World must have vanished into thin air, because there is less record of them than of Mesopotamian tax forms.

Hm, but Tir Tairngire had this Lacrima estimate of 3454 BCE close to the end of the Fourth World. Would be interesting to know whether the volcanic eruption was dated differently in the 1990s.

This site (click on "Eruptive History") list the last eruption around 2850 BCE, which is probably close enough. Or Weisman et al just made it up completely to match the Mayan calendar.

As far as I know, the 5677 BCE (±150) date for Crater Lake creation was first wrote in a Geology paper in 1999. What is truly impressive is that it not does aligns "quite nicely". That would fucking precise: the infamous "Human and the Cycle of Magic" wrote by Jordan Weisman in 1990 gives 3113 BCE as the end of the Fourth Age.

3113 BCE to 2011 CE = 5124 years
5124 / 2 = 2562y
3113 BCE - 2562y = 5675 BCE

Interestingly enough, "Human and the Cycle of Magic" stated ancient human calendars started at the end of the Fourth Age, which is wrong if based on RL knowledges. Chinese calendar starts either in 2697 or 2637 BCE, Eyptian referred to Sirius' Sothic cycles, with one starting on 2781 BCE. The Hebraic calendar started in 3761 BCE, but Adam is said to have died in 2831 BCE, Enoch in 2774 BCE and Seth in 2719 BCE (an older Hebraic tradition has the creation in 4339 BCE and the Flood in 2683 BCE). All those fall much close to the 2850 BCE date that is assumed for Mount Mazama last eruption. 2720 is also the end of the Mayan calendar first baktun (a 400 years cycle, 13 of which making a age).

Well, is it much. Archeologists working on periods older than 1000 BCE (or 3000 years ago) gets to lump together items that span several centuries to achieve anything. It's still impossible to give a certain list of Egyptian pharaohs names for instance. The combination of dry desert environments of Egypt and Mesopotamia and writings (standing pyramids also help) gives a lot of information about these civilization up to the 3000-3300 BCE mark. Past that point, it s much more difficult. Compare to what is known about the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture in Ukraine, which is basically Earthdawn era Barsaive, and the city of Talianki (estimated population 10-20,000). Indeed, that would still not be enough to hide elven castle, dwarven steel swords and magical flying behemoths. While rhere could be some room for alternate history, but not alternate high fantasy history.

Well, given the +/- 150 error margin maybe not precise, but still curious coincidence. By the way there is a different version of "Human & the Cycle of Magic" credited to Tom Dowd.

I have found two more papers: 1964 "6600 years ago" and 1983 "6845 ± 50 yr B.P." (see here for B.P.)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.144.3624.1334
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0377-0273%2883%2990004-5

So I guess the estimate used to be lower. Still 3454 BCE is off by another thousand years.

Writing cultures naturally leave behind more than prehistoric cultures, but even with no accounts from the culture itself or second-to third-hand accounts, there is lots of "meta" information. We don't know if burning houses was part of some religious custom, let alone specifics of the religion, but we know it occurred regularly and often with the settlements remaining in place. The Sea Peoples are probably more baffling to modern historians than to the people who faced them, but we know they were around. We even know that certain stuff didn't happen, like the Abrahamic take on the ol' "$DEITY lead us to the promised land" trope. So it doesn't exactly take elven castles to conflict the historic record

As an example of how alternate history might work, I recently read Blindsight, which while being SciFi also includes an interesting take on vampires ((spoiler-free) in-universe slideshow) having existed as a separate subspecies of homo sapiens in mankind's past. But since the difference was mostly in oft tissues and slighly longer limbs can be explained by the normal deviations from the average, nobody ever found a skeleton that looked obviously inhuman, and even the DNA was probably "close enough".