The Dark Eye seems to be the most succesfull RPG in germany and has been around since the 80's. It has evolved into a highly detailed world you can play in. And by detailed I mean everything is described if you need it. There are official maps for many cities, regions and descriptions down to the state of some roads. We ran a session with a german bro last weekend and I can truly say that I have never played anything like it, and I love it. I loved the situation where we were bloodied after a fight with an Ogre and our Hunter looked for some healing herbs in the woods and our DM whipped out a huge splatbook with detailed information on what plants one might find in different regions around the world as well as how you can use them or even make potions out of them.

Character generation took around two hours, wich is a bummer. But what you get from it is a complete character who fits perfectly into the setting. My character had a talent for "pottery" if I ever get around to doing that.

The world is pretty low-magic fantasy. Mages are rare but can get pretty powerfull. We had none in our group.
There is faith-based magic based on "Karma" wich one of us had and it involved the Pantheon of the dominating culture in the north where we played, having 12 Gods with strictly defined aspects.

The playable races are Humans (who are never called that since they split up into many different races), Elves (Wich are more Alien that those of D&D) and Dwarves. Elves and Dwarves come in many flavours as well. You could also play Goblins and Orks who are less monster races and more antagonistic cultures. They also don't look anything like the classic orcs and seem to have branched off in a completely different direction since Tolkien.

Couldn't find the english PDF anywhere in the web for now. Heres hoping anyone has it since I would like to get a group starting as soon as I get back from Germany.