The rules of the game are tightly bound to the underlying magical metaphysics, with the goal of creating a rich, logical fantasy world.

Starting in 1993, FASA released over 20 gaming supplements describing this universe; however, it closed down production of Earthdawn in January 1999.

Likewise, Barsaive gets a complete treatment, and the chapters contain a lot of log entries and stories in addition to the setting descriptions; the same applies to Horrors and Dragons.

While RedBrick tried to remain faithful to FASA's vision and visual style, they revised almost everything and introduced new material to fill the gaps.

In 2014, FASA Games announced the forthcoming publication of Earthdawn Fourth Edition and launched a successful Kickstarter to support the project.

Fourth Edition is described as a reworking of the game mechanics, with redundancies eliminated, and a simpler success level system.

[4] In 2016, Vagrant Workshop released the Age of Legend edition using a permutation of the rules-lite mechanics of the Freeform Universal RPG system.

As the magic level rises, it allows alien creatures called Horrors to cross from their distant, otherworldly dimension into our own.

The Horrors come in an almost infinite variety—from simple eating machines that devour all they encounter, to incredibly intelligent and cunning foes that feed off the negative emotions they inspire in their prey.

The community that grew up around the library developed wards and protections against the Horrors, which they traded to other lands and eventually became the powerful Theran Empire, an extremely magically advanced civilization and the main antagonist of the Earthdawn setting.

The peoples of the world built kaers, underground towns and cities, which they sealed with the Theran wards to wait out the time of the Horrors, which was called the Scourge.

Theran wizards and politicians warned many of the outlying nations around Thera of the coming of the Horrors, offering the protection of the kaers to those who would pledge their loyalty to the Empire.

The player characters explore this new world, discovering lost secrets of the past, and fighting Horrors that remain.

The setting of Earthdawn is the same world as Shadowrun (i.e. a fictionalized version of Earth), but takes place millennia earlier.

The map of Barsaive and its neighboring regions established that most of the game takes place where Ukraine and Russia are in our world.

FASA has announced since then, that there are no plans to return Shadowrun to in-house publication, nor to restore the links between the game worlds.

"[7] In the February 1994 edition of Dragon (Issue 202), Rick Swan liked the high production values "highlighted by striking illustrations and FASA’s usual state-of-the-art graphics", and found that "Thanks to clear writing and sensible organization... it's an easy read."

"[8] In a 1996 reader poll conducted by Arcane magazine to determine the 50 most popular roleplaying games of all time, Earthdawn was ranked 24th.

Earthdawn combined traditional fantasy with Call of Cthulhu-style horror and a detailed background to create an evocative and interesting setting.

Combined with a clear, well-designed rules system and an impressive range of supporting supplements and adventures, this is an excellent fantasy game.

Editor Scott Haring noted (referring to the FASA edition) that "Earthdawn had an original, inventive magic system (no mean trick given the hundreds of fantasy RPGs that came before), and a game world that gave you the classic "monsters and dungeons" sort of RPG experience, but made sense doing it.

"[11] In his 2023 book Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground, RPG historian Stu Horvath noted, "In a fantasy world, one of the most difficult tasks is conveying that sense of the fantastic.