Umbral

Shadowrun Timeline

What are the “worlds” about?

Each period of time is based on the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar, which is approximately 5000-5200 years. In Shadowrun however the the current (Sixth) Age started a little early due to the Great Ghost Dance. Each “world” symbolises a high or low tide of mana, the current Sixth is where Magic is high enough to express in reality, the Fifth was the “low tide”.

Something to consider here; if the current Age if the Sixth and the First is 20-odd thousand years ago… how does that work if Australian First Nations people have had a continous culture for 65,000 years?

It is theorised that the Mana Cycles only started in the First Age, and prior to that mana was constant and allowed the Horrors in. When the name givers (metahumans) developed an event occured which caused the mana flow to cycle up and down, giving a reprieve from the Horrors for 5,000 years. So below I am just summarising the Shadowrun cycle and matching to Real World (RW) and Australian (AU) historical records.

Note that Earthdawn and Shadowrun are no longer tied together, Earthdawn has returned to FASA, Topps owns the TTRPG of Shadowrun, licenced to Catalyst Game Labs. As such, any ties are either historical or “fan-made”.

First World (~23,900 BC – ~18,700 BC) High Magic

Age of Darkness

  • SR: Primordial era; emergence of the “Horrors.”
  • RW: Upper Paleolithic / Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Humans are nomadic hunter-gatherers using advanced stone blades and bone needles. As sea levels were 120m lower, what become British Isles was joined to the European mainland as Doggerland, which was a wide tundra.
  • AU: The Sahul Era. Australia, PNG, and Tasmania are one landmass. People have established settlement all across Australia for over 20,000 years at this point.

Second World (~18,700 BC – ~13,500 BC) High Magic

Age of Dragons

  • SR: height of draconic civilisation, Legends are that the Great Dragon All-Wings sacrificed herself to initiate the mana cycle to protect the world from the Horrors.
  • RW: Upper Paleolithic. Height of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Humans are nomadic hunter-gatherers using advanced stone blades and bone needles.
  • AU: Sahul, much of the megafauna (Diprotodon, giant wombat; Thylacoleo, marsupial lion vanish by this time). People live closer to the coast, the people of what becomes Lutruwita (Tasmania) live in caves among glaciers.

Third World (~13,500 BC – ~8,300 BC) Low Magic

Age of Change

  • SR: period of low-magic, many mythological human civilisations (e.g. Lemuria) hinted here. The area known as Doggerland is seen by some SixthWorld Elves as the “Holy Lands”,which were folded into an astral pocket dimension (Regio).
  • RW: Holocene / The Younger Dryas. Sea levels raise with “The Great Flood”, the did not just rise but burst banks flooding the land, including the Doggerland. Natufian culture starts with stone houses and agriculture. Dogs are domesticated, Göbekli Tepe (first temple) built in 9000BCE
  • AU: Drowning of Sahul, 20% of landmass is lost. Kulin people in Naarm (Melbourne) have stories of Port Phillip Bay once a grassland being flooded. One story talks of the “Time of Chaos” when people neglected their families and land and sea became angry and flooded the grasslands; fearing for their lives the people went to Bunjil the Eaglehawk who said he would love them if they respected the Lore and it walked out in front of the waters, raising his spear and held it back so people could get to safety.,

Fourth World (~8,300 BC – ~3,113 BC) High Magic

Age of Legend

  • SR: this is the period in which Earthdawn is set, but this is no longer tied with Shadowrun due to IP / trademark rights.
  • RW: Sumerians were building Uruk, the wheel and Cuneiform writing, the start of Egyptian Pharaonic dynasties. Start of the Mayan culture, Caral–Supe were building pyramids in Peru. Domestication in full swing (sheep/goats, pids, cattle, cats, chickens, horses, Llamas). Woolly Mammoth about to be totally extinct, also the Giant Ground Sloth
  • AU: PNG no longer connected, water levels higher than now. Greater use of stone blades, spear-throwers and boomerang, sophisticated controlled burning to control the land. Introduction of the Dingo through trade with SE Asia, also extinction of Thylacine on the mainland. Trade for Pituri (a nicotine-rich chewing plant), red ochre and greenstone tools.

Fifth World (~3,113 BC – Dec 24, 2011) Low Magic

Mundane Age

  • SR: period of low-magic, many mythological human civilisations (e.g. Lemuria) hinted here.
  • RW: From ancient empires (Egypt, Rome, China (Qin./Han), and Maya to the current modern world. Industrialisation, Globalisation, mass extinctions…
  • AU: Polynesian migration through South Pacific and Aotearoa (New Zealand), extinction of megafauna (Moa, Haasts Eagle), Colony of New South Wales, Colonisation, Federation of Australia

Sixth World (Dec 24, 2011 – Present) High Magic

Sixth World

  • SR: current Shadowrun setting.
  • RW: we are 15 years in… there are differences, think that the world forked off from about 1990…
  • AU: as above… Australia is not a republic, we are not in ASEAN. New Zealand is still their own country and make excellent pies but did not invent the pavlova, flat white. Melbourne is the largest city in Australia, Sydney is upset about that. No Thylacine has been cloned. Heard Island and McDonald Islands have a 10% US trade tariff on it, the King and Macaroni Penguins, as well as the Southern Elephant Seals resist the tyranny and refuse to send envoys to Trump.
    IRL Forecasts of city populations in 2080 are Melbourne 10M, Sydney 9M, Brisbane 5M, Perth 4M, Adelaide 2M, Canberra 800k, Hobart 400k. If you consider Brisbane to include the Gold and Sunshine Coasts you would be looking at 7M.