# Earthdawn - Work: Tabletop RPG - Date: 1993 - Houses: FASA Corporation - Platforms: Hardcover rulebook - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/earthdawn/ > FASA's post-apocalyptic high fantasy: after centuries sealed underground from soul-eating Horrors, the peoples of Barsaive open their doors and rediscover a scarred world. **Why it matters:** Earthdawn gave the dungeon crawl a reason to exist, wrapped magic items in legend-based rules, and quietly served as the deep past of Shadowrun's cyberpunk future. ## Quick answers **When was Earthdawn first released?** Earthdawn was first released in 1993. **Who published or developed Earthdawn?** FASA Corporation. **What kind of work is Earthdawn?** Earthdawn is a tabletop RPG in the Tabletop Roleplaying Games, High / Epic Fantasy and Dark Fantasy tradition, released for Hardcover rulebook. **Why is Earthdawn important?** Earthdawn gave the dungeon crawl a reason to exist, wrapped magic items in legend-based rules, and quietly served as the deep past of Shadowrun's cyberpunk future. ## Overview *Earthdawn* begins where most fantasy ends — with the apocalypse already survived. Published by [FASA Corporation](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/fasa/) in 1993, the game is set in Barsaive, a province of a world that has just emerged from the Scourge, a centuries-long age in which the Horrors, alien entities that feed on pain and fear, crossed into reality. Civilization survived only by retreating into kaers: sealed underground cities warded with magic. Now the doors are opening, and the player characters are the ones who walk out first. That premise answers a question fantasy roleplaying had long ignored. Why are there so many ruined, trap-filled underground complexes full of treasure and monsters? In *Earthdawn*, every [Dungeon crawl](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/dungeon-crawl/) is a kaer that failed. ## Origins FASA had defined the late 1980s with *BattleTech* and, in 1989, [Shadowrun](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/shadowrun/), a cyberpunk game in which magic returns to the Earth of the 2050s. *Earthdawn*, designed by Greg Gorden with FASA's staff, looked backward along the same timeline. Barsaive is the ancient past of *Shadowrun*'s world, an earlier age when magic was at its height; the connection was built into the setting's cosmology and rewarded players who knew both games, though each stood on its own. The game arrived in a crowded market. [Vampire: The Masquerade](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/vampire-the-masquerade/) had made mood and story the fashion, and [Magic: The Gathering](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/magic-the-gathering/) was about to pull players toward cards. *Earthdawn* staked out a middle position: heroic high fantasy, but framed by a history of trauma and a strong sense of rebuilding. ## How it plays *Earthdawn*'s mechanical identity is the step system. Every ability, attribute or talent resolves to a step number, which a table converts into dice: low steps use a single die (a Step 5, for instance, is a d8), and higher steps combine several dice of different sizes. Any die that rolls its maximum is rolled again and added — "exploding" dice that allow long-shot triumphs. The table is designed so the average result roughly tracks the step number, which gives the system a smooth, predictable curve with room for surprise. Characters follow Disciplines rather than conventional classes: magical paths such as Warrior, Swordmaster, Archer, Scout, Thief, Troubadour, Beastmaster, Elementalist, Illusionist, Nethermancer and Wizard. Each Discipline grants Talents — magical skills, even for fighters — that advance through Circles of mastery. Everything in *Earthdawn* is at least a little magical, and Karma, a spendable pool of luck, lets heroes add extra dice at crucial moments. The playable peoples mixed the familiar with the new: humans, dwarfs, [elves](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/elf/), orks and [trolls](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/troll/) sat beside obsidimen made of living stone, reptilian t'skrang and tiny winged windlings. Thread magic tied it together. Legendary items have hidden histories; a hero who learns each "key knowledge" can weave a magical thread to the item and unlock more of its power. Treasure became a mystery to investigate rather than a line on a loot list. The setting supplied a political frame too. The Theran Empire, which had supplied the protective magic that saved the kaers, wants its former provinces back, and the Horrors are not all gone. ## Reception & impact *Earthdawn* earned praise for its inventive magic system and dense worldbuilding, and in 1996 *Arcane* magazine's reader poll ranked it 24th among the fifty most popular roleplaying games. It never approached *Shadowrun*'s commercial success, but it built a loyal audience that kept the game alive through repeated changes of ownership. After FASA's tenure, Living Room Games published a second edition (1999–2005), RedBrick released Classic and Third editions (2005–2012), FASA Games funded a Fourth Edition on Kickstarter in 2014, and Vagrant Workshop produced the lighter *Age of Legend* in 2016. ## Legacy *Earthdawn*'s most durable contribution is its logic. By explaining dungeons, magic items and adventuring itself through the history of its world, it modeled a kind of design in which setting and rules justify each other — an approach later echoed by many [campaign settings](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/campaign-setting/) that ask why their genre conventions exist. Its shared timeline with *Shadowrun* also remains one of the most ambitious cross-game continuities in [tabletop](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/tabletop-rpg/) history: a single imagined world whose fantasy past and cyberpunk future were sold on the same shelves. ## Facts - Earthdawn is set in the same world as FASA's [Shadowrun](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/shadowrun/), millennia before that game's cyberpunk era. - Its dungeons are kaers, sealed shelters where whole communities hid while the Horrors ravaged the surface. - Every roll is a 'step': a number looked up on a table of dice, from single dice to combinations, with maximum results rerolled and added. - Thread magic lets heroes bind themselves to legendary items, unlocking new powers as they learn each item's history. - After FASA, the game passed through at least four more publishers, including a Kickstarter-funded Fourth Edition in 2014. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthdawn) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.