The Theran Empire

Earthdawn

by Robin D. Laws

Since the end of the scourge, Thera has slowly but surely reclaimed many of the far-flung lands it once ruled and remains the greatest power in the world of Earthdawn. This sourcebook lets players roam throughout Earthdawn's mightiest realm. It describes the island city of Thera from which the Empire sprang, as well as five Imperial provinces with an assortment of unusual cultures, new types of magic, and new creatures and races. 8 color plates, 50 b&w illustrations.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Gaming

176 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1997

About the author

Writer and game designer Robin D. Laws brought you such roleplaying games as Ashen Stars, The Esoterrorists, The Dying Earth, Heroquest and Feng Shui. He is the author of seven novels, most recently The Worldwound Gambit from Paizo. For Robin's much-praised works of gaming history and analysis, see Hamlet's Hit Points, Robin's Laws of Game Mastering and 40 Years of Gen Con.

Reviews

[Devin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very disappointing addition to the otherwise engaging world of Earthdawn. Despite Robin Laws' stellar reputation in the roleplaying game industry, in The Theran Empire he falls flat. This book was supposed to give Earthdawn players and GMs a look at the larger world around the fantastic province of Barsaive. Unfortunately, what we got was a collection of nations obviously based on real-world cultures: the Egyptian culture, the Indian culture, the Germanic culture, etc. Even the names are unimaginative: the Moroccan nation is just called Marac, for example. Your players will be groaning.

One of Earthdawn's strengths was its sense of otherness; longtime fans of Shadowrun knew that the Fourth World of Earthdawn was set in Earth's prehistoric past, but even granting this fact, Laws stole cultures wholesale from disparate points in history: ancient Egypt exists side-by-side with Renaissance Italy, thus denying it even a sense of internal consistency.

[ScienceFictionBookclub · Rating 1 out of 5]

After years of waiting this book was the first major letdown of Earthdawn.

The Theran Empire were the BigBad of Earthdawn, with seemingly unassailable power and magical sophistication. That much we could be certain of in coming to this and I suppose that was what we got.

But what people wanted was a glimpse of the world outside the narrow confines of Barsaive... and what we got were simple analogues of countries we could see on our own map of the world with simple mis-spelled names. For instance Marac, ahem, not Morrocco, is ruled by Sultans. Really? Seriously? After five years of waiting that was all we got?

While the production values were as good as we had come to expect the ideas were poorly thought out and, and dare I say it, plain lazy.

Robin D Laws let himself and us down with this.