"Barsaive might be a small corner of the world
compared
to others but we got power. Look at it this way, we are a small fish in a big
pond, but we got teeth. Big, sharp, pointy teeth!"
-Michiru,
Elven Troubadour
This page will detail the setting of Earthdawn, a world called
Barsaive. I'm working on a map of Barsaive with Campaign Cartographer 2. Also
you can find the official map at the Downloads
page of Living Room Games. The full story
of the history can be found in the
Earthdawn Rulebook (See Living Room Games for details.)
I. The Book of Harrow
Thera, the empire that would one day be a mighty army
and threat to Barsaive, has it's start in an Elven scholar named Elianar Messias,
the Martyr Scholar. Once a close advisor to the Elven queen at Wyrm Wood, they
had a falling out over a Elven country that wished to have cultural independence.
Eliananar is declared "separated" from the court and banished for
challenging the Queen. He is banished to the Delaris Mountains in Barsaive. He
takes with him a group of scholars and attempt to translate lost tomes of
knowledge from a time when the magical aura of the world was greater than at his
time. He greatest challenge is a group of six books each with a blood-inscribed
rune on the cover. One evening his fellows find Elianar, he had torn his eyes
from the sockets and shoved them and the fist holding them into a fire. A
note nearby read" These are the Books of Harrow. They are our doom and our
salvation. Learn from them, or we will all perish." That night six other
scholars are killed. The next day an elder scholar named Kearos Navarim takes
the six Books of Harrow and three fellows and departs to the south west
and on an island in the Selestrean Sea creates a haven for learning called
Nehr'esham, "center of the mind." Someday this would become the Empire
of Thera.
