Earthdawn Setting Information

Mercato

Formerly a trading post at the junction where the Neise River joins the Great Ocean founded by orc traders from Mountain's Reach looking to expand their routes to the sea, Mercato has grown to a bustling city in its own right. While city politics is dominated by the wealthy orc merchant houses, the city population is increasingly filled with the other badlands peoples as well as those arriving from the west in a time of growing exploration, interconnection, and trade.

With the city's wealth and power rising, the newly-selected merchant prince Kurduuumm Kurank claimed his office on a platform of bringing Mercato out from the shadow of Mountain's Reach to engage in diplomacy of its own, and has wrangled the corresponding funding for the blood bowl team necessary to his ambitions.

Kurduuumm Kurank

The charismatic young merchant grew his family's fortune with a full embrace of the metahuman population of Mercato, expanding the Orcidas clothing brand to include products for centaurs, dwarves, skaven, ogres, and even a line of athletic shoes for snotlings. Having leveraged his newfound fame into politics, he's promised to bring the same sort of forward thinking to his administration.

Morga Tagzuk

A talented offensive assistant coach with the Mountain's Reach blood bowl team, Morga was recruited by the newly-selected Kurduuumm to build and lead Mercato's squad. Dedicated to proving herself, she's reaching out to retired players she thinks still have some more games in them, current members of the Mountain's Reach team she might be able to poach, and raw talent in Mercato and the badlands in general that with the potential to be shaped into a blood bowl player.

Common Calendar

The dwarven calendar has largely been adopted for tracking time. It is divided into twelve thirty-day months:

• Strassa
• Veltom
• Charassa
• Rua
• Mawag
• Gahmil
• Raquas
• Sollus
• Riag
• Teayu
• Borrum
• Doddul

Post-Emergence Civilization

The following information is from the perspective that Raifwise the Half-Elf might have provided to the players over the course of one or more of their social gatherings.

Race	Patron	Elf-voice	Enclave	Home City	Enclave Language
Centaur	Khorne	Gennermain	Iranna Mountain	Ka-Sahan (Lost)	Khazalid
Dwarf	Earthroot	Riellair	World's End Mountain	Silverhome	Khazalid
Goblin, Hobgoblin, and Troll	Alamaise	Maelyrra	Mountains of Mourn	none	Potwor
Halflings	none	none	Iverna	none	Therian
Human	Vestrivan and Vasdenjas	Illelis and Illanmaen	Sky Point	Thera	Therian
Ogre and Snotling	Usun	Iyralbeth	The Great Maw	Ul	Or’zat
Orc	Mountainshadow	Gaessandror	Dark Tooth Mountain	Mountain’s Reach	Or’zat
Skaven	Rathorn	Ulsinlis	Skavenblight	Kavzar	Kish
T'skrang	Aban	Lanulthir	The Mist Swamp	Niall	(telapathic)

Timeline

0	Humans emerge from Sky Point
18	Skaven emerge from Skavenblight
19	Dwarves emerge from World's End Mountain to both west and east
19	Centaurs emerge from Iranna Mountain
19	Trolls and goblins emerge from the Mountains of Mourn
20	Orcs emerge from Dark Tooth Mountain
24	T'skrang emerge from the Mist Swamp
26	An incident within World’s End Mountain severs eastern dwarves from western, rumored to be the awakening of a buried Great Horror
45	Fort Amazonia establishes a permanent human presence in Lustria
63	The Bronze Fortress is constructed, in what will ultimately be the southernmost advance of the chaos dwarves
74	The Southern Horde arrive in the Waste, beginning a shift in power from the dwarves to the centaurs
80	People living along the shoreline of the Aras Sea witness a night-long series of violent explosions of light and sound on Atlia, one-time home of the draconic senate, with the island missing, apparently destroyed, come the morning
82	The dragons withdraw to their enclaves and produce the elf voices to appear in their stead
96	Human sailors make contact with the island of Iverna and the halflings and treemen living thereon
114	The Mercato Council is formed independent from Mountain’s Reach by orc families growing wealthy from the development of deep-water sailing and the associated fishing and transportation industries
117	The centaurs rebel against Khorne and attempt to kill Gennermain. In retaliation, Khorne destroys Ka-Sahan, breaking the backbone of the centaur empire
123	The first blood bowl match is played. Introduced by the elves as a method of resolving disputes with reduced bloodshed, the humans and orcs fought for the right to settle the land where the match was played, in what is now Bretonnia.
135	Previously only inhabited in the warmer months, permanent settlements of hunters, trappers, fishermen, and miners develop at Kislev and Norsca
141	Ogre emigrants arrive in the Badlands from the east
159	Maelyrra begins releasing hobgoblins into the Badlands from the Mountains of Mourn enclave
174	First appearance of a player with a mutation in a blood bowl match. While rumors of their existence had circulated for years, Khutan Snakebringer (chorf blocker, tentacles, foul appearance)—who, in an interview with Jim and Carl, proclaimed his mutations a gift he received after a dream visitation from Khorne—proved their existence to the world.
176	Maelyrra ceases production of hobgoblins and establishes her independent domain north of Alamaise’s enclave
183	The first airship launches from Kavzar. Initially used for aerial scouting, while limited in number due to their great expense, they spread skaven influence across the Waste
208	Khatan Stonehoof, one of the last surviving Bloodletters from the days of the Southern Horde, takes control of the Bronze Fortress to worship the supposed minotaur prophet Bloodthirster living within

Dragons and Their Wards

Earthroot of the dwarves exercises the most direct authority of any of the dragons, involving itself in the day-to-day management of Silverhome, which exists more as an expansion of the dwarven enclave than a distinct city. In conjunction with this, Earthroot makes less use of elves than many dragons, delegating to dwarves whenever possible. The dragon's elf-voice, Riellair, serves more as an external diplomat to other races than as Earthroot's voice to its people. The chaos dwarves, severed from this relationship, were left to find their own way in the waste.

Vestrivan and Vasdenjas fancy themselves the gods of the humans, with Illelis and Illanmaen their seniormost angels. While they leave the details to their human subjects, Vestrivan and Vasdenjas provide the "Ivory Path" for the Theran empire from within Sky Point. Illelis and Illanmaen are commonly found in the royal court observing that the dragons' decrees are carried out.

While Mountainshadow humbly labels himself as merely the 'teacher' of the orcs (and, of course, anyone else wise enough to embrace his lessons) he nevertheless remains actively involved in the affairs of his wards. While refraining from directly commanding any particular course of action, the lectures his elf-voice Gaessandror delivers in Mountain’s Reach's Pride Hall are rarely unrelated to the issues facing the dragon's people.

Rathorn holds herself just far enough apart from the skaven to be able to send her elf-voice, Ulsinlis, in as an impartial arbiter when the great clans are unable to settle a dispute. While she possesses a philosophical style somewhat similar to Mountainshadow’s, she’s less inclined to offer a steady stream of gentle advice than to intervene strongly at key moments for the skaven people as a whole.

Prior to the rebellion of the centaurs, Khorne was a fickle leader. He might spend a month personally directing the preparations for a minor battle—in early years in person, in later years through his elf-voice Gennermain—then spend a year ignoring his people as they waged a costly war. When the dragon attempted to reassert control halfway through a protracted campaign, undermining years of work, the centaurs turned against him and his avatar. In retaliation the dragon destroyed their home city of Ka-Sahan and withdrew completely from the centaurs. Following a brief appearance in Mountain’s Reach by the elf to prove his regeneration, neither Khorne nor Gennermain have been seen in nearly a hundred years.

While a generous patron during the Scourge, Alamaise divorced herself from any leadership of her wards soon after the trolls and goblins left the Mountains of Mourn, encouraging them to find their own way in the world. Apart from the magical experimentation of her elf-voice Maelyrra, including the creation of the hobgoblins, Alamaise has made little public contribution to the world since the time of the emergence.

The dragon Aban is known to dwell within the deep mire of the Mist Swamp, her elf-voice Lanulthir an advisor among many in the court of the t’skrang. Due to the telepathic nature of the lizardfolk, little is known to outsiders of what advice she provides.

The halflings claim that Iverna houses neither dragon nor elf, and that while the horrors may have roiled the ocean they made no effort to come on land. The treemen only talk to the halflings, who refuse to translate a question they claim to have answered satisfactorily.

The names of the dragon Usun and of its elf-voice Iyralbeth are known only from the stories of the ogres. They have never been seen in the known lands. As little is known of ogre interactions with the patrons as is of the rest of their civilization.