The Fourth World

The Fourth World is multi-use term in the Shadowdawn setting that describes an alternative timeline of Earth set during the "previous age of magic", compared to the newer Sixth World of Shadowrun, as well as the actual physical setting.

The Fourth World as an Alternate Timeline

Though few details are exactly given, as a timeline, the Fourth World covers a wide breadth of time in the source material, with at least two used calendar reckonings, the Throalic and Theran Calendars, measured as TH and TE respectively. The timeline of the Fourth World is generally reckoned against these two calenders, with 0 TH marking the foundation of Throal, and 0 TE being the foundation of Thera. In the sourcebooks, many things are discussed from "current date" of the edition, such as the founding of the first Elven Court "several thousand years before the founding of Throal."

How it came to an end, and when is unknown, as well as when it started, but there's a lot of theories differ.

The Fourth World per Ehran the Scribe

Per Ehran, the Scribe, the Fourth Age ended with the sinking of Atlantis in 3113 BCE. He also maintains that the span between Threshold Levels, the point where magic comes to life or falls dormant is roughly 5,200 years. This sets the start and end of the Fourth World at 8313 BCE. This places Fourth Age as overlapping the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Chalcolithic anthropological epochs in Europe.

The Fourth World as a Physical Setting

As a physical world setting, the Fourth World described an alternative world similar to our own, but different. Where modern anthropology saw hunter-gatherer societies across Europe, Earthdawn source material paints a civilized world of cities, trade, and at-least medieval technology in some places. The primeval world we would expect is there, such as the Deep Forest of Vasgothia, which has strong parallels to he primeval ancestor wood of the Schwartzwald and Thuringian Forests. There are places that are different though, changed.

There are places that are different though, changed by the magic of the era or the Scourge. The Barsaive we see, was lush and was as an alternative history of the Ukraine, we see it filled with lush jungles, such as the Liaj and Servos jungles. To it south, it was bordered to the south by Death's Sea, a massive ocean of lava, where the northern tip of the Black Sea might potentially be in our world.

The setting source material provides a Fourth World that was easily understandable as an alternate Eurasia, Mediterranean basin, the Indian subcontinent, and northern African coast. Many of the maps provide slightly different coastlines, and different sizes for the regions, but this may due to unreliable narration or incompetent mapmakers. There is no Discipline for Cartographer, mind you.

The Mayan Calendar and Earthdawn

As a parallel work to Shadowrun, the worldbuilding of the game setting is clearly inspired by the 1980's and 90's game designer thoughts on the Mayan Long Count. Ehran's time reckoning of the cycles of magic clearly support this theme. Can you really trust an immortal elf, though?

Fan Theorycrafting & Lore

There are several really great attempts by the Earthdawn fan and player community of making sense of the intential haziness on the definition of what the timeline of the Fourth Age:

• Thoth over at the Emergence Campaign Blog has a fantastic fanlore of their attempt at mapping an understandable timeline going back to the first ages of magic. (External Link)

See Also

• Humans & the Cycle of Magic
• Thoth's Shadowrun/Earthdawn Timeline
• Timeline of the Fourth World