Orichalcum is a convention which brings together fans of Earthdawn, a tabletop RPG full of magic, unique races and extraordinary disciplines. It was brought to life by a group of its enthusiasts, Auraya, Jankoś and Tęcza, from the Topory Association. The first edition of Orichalcum took place in 2017. It was held at a picturesque forester’s lodge in Głuchów (near Rawa Mazowiecka). In a camping atmosphere, there were lectures, competitions and sessions devoted exclusively to Earthdawn. We gave the participants access to campsite, garden tents for sessions, big wooden gazebo and a fireplace. We wanted to create friendly atmosphere of an RPG camp. From what we heard from the convention attendees feedback, we made it.
A year ago we were able to meet again live 😀 In 2022 we see each other again in Gluchow Forest to enjoy experiencing the magic of Earthdawn together and infect new people with this fantastic disease.What did the convention look like?
We prepared some points of the program dedicated not only for seasoned veterans, but also for greenhorns to the system. Among the lectures there was one which presented the basics Earthdawn, another lecture compared differences in all editions of ED and a lecture showing the new Travar. Apart from discussion panels there were a few competitions – taboo, charades and Earthdawn knowledge contest which had some obvious questions, and even challenging ones which made even ED experts scratch their heads 😉 Of course we prepared some RPG sessions too, which were GM’d by huge fans of Earthdawn. After the official part was over, we discussed ED till dawn: the Barsaive, differences between the editions and our past adventures in the world of Earthdawn etc.
Multisession
“A long, long time ago, when the Scourge began to fall on the Barsaive, seven from the twelve Passions, supported by their Questors, stood to the great battle with a mighty Horror. The Beast was not only cunning but it helped herself with the magic artifact. The extraordinary flail has the power of all five elements and that made the battle extremely bloody and very long. But united forces of the Passions at least made the breakthrough taking the flail from the Horror. Deprived of his power Horror run away from the battlefield. Undoubtedly the attackers would follow after the Beast to finish the fight but when Rashomon picked up the flail the madness appeared in his eyes. With all of his fury he attacked his allies and pulled behind him his loyal Questors. Erendis and Vestrial tried to take away the tainted weapon but it ends for them with madness too. Other Passions, seeing what happened to those who touched the weapon, focused not on trying to take it off from their mad allies but on the way to destroy it. Finally they succeeded. The flail fall apart into five parts. Unfortunately the madness stayed with the three unlucky Passions. The remaining four commanded their Questors to take the parts of the flail and run away from the battlefield. Before the fighters spreaded out, hunted by the insane Questors of the tree Mad Passions, the good ones command them to hide the weapon as far from the battlefield as it is possible. In the heat of battle no one noticed that the fifth part, the handle of the flail, still stayed in the hand of Rashomon…
The Scourge felt down on the Barsaive with the strength of a hurricane. Distracted Questors, deprived of the care of their Passions, which will never returned after the great battle, was trying to fulfill the entrusted task. Risking their lives they hided parts of the weapon, leaving for descendants only the vague/misty leads, which places in Barsaive they choose for the guardians of tainted weapon. A Long Night has ended, Namegivers get back to life on a surface and good Passions recalled the battle from past centuries. They have seen that the madness didn’t leave their brothers, and it even deeper, making them trying to totally destruct the good ones, so they decided to find the tainted weapon and finished their work from the past, rightly suspected that the primaeval owner of the flail still alive and stir in the Mad Passions heads. Garlen, Jaspree, Floranuus and Thysthonius mustered the most loyal Questors and ask them for help to reverse the madness of the Passions.”
The main attraction of Orichalcum was the Multisession. On the Friday evening four Game Masters lead four teams with one purpose – to get a pieces of the cursed weapon. Putting it together was supposed to help in reverseing the madness of the Passions. From all those players we chose the best six. This six players, on Saturday nigh played the final session leaded by two GameMasters. We had a special reward for the Best Player of the Multisession, he won the Gamemaster’s Guide for the 4’th edition of ED.
The name and the patron
We have been thinking a lot about the name of our convention. At last our thoughts went to the most valuable metal in Barsaive which is orichalcum. The additional information from the world of ED showed us that the Orichalcum Spirits may exist, and this information gave our friend from Topory, Banan, the idea of the convention patron and name. Very talented graphic designer and ED fan created for us fantastic desing of Orichalcum Spirit. This artwork was on the promotional cups and it adorned souvenir t-shirts.
What’s next?
The extremely warm reception of the first edition ensured us that we are going in the right direction. An additional motivation was the interest of Earthdawn’s publisher, FASA, in our little convention. The cooperation that was undertaken then resulted in the official patronage that we still have today, and wonderful friendship with Andi and Josh, who visited us in Poland at the third edition of the convention.
In 2020 a pandemic thwarted our plans. However, we didn’t give up. We moved Orichalcum onto the web, which turned out to be a great idea and attracted more enthusiasts of this wonderful system to us.
A year ago we were able to meet again live 😀 In 2022 we’ll see each other once again in Gluchow Forest to enjoy experiencing the magic of Earthdawn together and infect new people with this fantastic disease.