Ethshar is a constructed world first developed by American fantasy author Lawrence Watt-Evans for use in role-playing games,[1] in which he later set a number of novels and short stories. He loosely modeled the political and economic aspects of the world on the Roman Empire of about the 2nd century AD.[2]
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Ethshar is the common name of three large cities in the major civilization of this world: Ethshar of the Spices, Ethshar of the Sands, and Ethshar of the Rocks, making up a political entity called the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars.[2] To the southeast of the Hegemony is where the original "Old Ethshar" once was. The former Ethshar, which became embroiled in a generations-long war with the Northern Empire, broke up into more than two hundred statelets collectively called the Small Kingdoms before the end of the "Great War." [3] The inhabitants don't have a name for their world, simply calling it the World.[2]
Notable features of Ethshar, in contrast to some other fantasy worlds:
Notable features of the Ethshar series, in contrast to some other invented-world fantasy series, include:
The first six Ethshar novels were published by Ballantine's Del Rey imprint, all of them being accepted and nominally edited by Lester Del Rey. The seventh and eighth were published by Tor Books, but disappointing sales led Tor to ask Lawrence Watt-Evans to concentrate on his non-Ethshar material, which generated much better sales. After writing several non-Ethshar fantasy novels for Tor, Watt-Evans began experimentally serializing the ninth Ethshar novel, The Spriggan Mirror, on his website under a modified form of the Street Performer Protocol. That novel was published in trade paperback, along with the following, The Vondish Ambassador. LWE has moved on to a third Ethshar serial The Final Calling.[4]
The Ethshar short stories were first published in various anthologies; later six of them were included as bonus material in Wildside Press's reprints of the Del Rey Ethshar novels.