|
Seriously. Why the hell are the flood gates powered by pit fiends? You'd figure some sort of engineer or artificer could find a better solution. Just set up a clay or iron golem to manipulate the mechanism manually instead.
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2022 12:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 1, 2024 04:55 |
|
|
Also to add more comments; the rest of the adventure came off as kinda boring. The supposed shock value from the incest cannibal ogres can't really save from the fact that the whole thing just feeling kinda bland.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2022 12:39
|
|
|
It's a bunch of disparate encounters linked vaguely by the fact there's ogres. The characters don't have much connection, if any, to Turtleback Ferry, and no real attempt is made to give them one. Really feels like there's an adventure missing between book 2 and 3.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2022 13:24
|
|
|
Hey srhall79, could you please check your PMs? Thank you!
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2022 14:35
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:Seriously. Why the hell are the flood gates powered by pit fiends? You'd figure some sort of engineer or artificer could find a better solution. Just set up a clay or iron golem to manipulate the mechanism manually instead.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2022 15:54
|
|
|
Hell, if you're going to power your thing off of called and bound evil outsiders, it's way safer and saner to call something a lot weaker a lot more often.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2022 22:24
|
|
|
Hiring a high level wizard once and trusting when he claims that it will last forever instead of having a maintenance budget is absolutely 100% a local government thing
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 00:01
|
|
|
Speleothing posted:Hiring a high level wizard once and trusting when he claims that it will last forever instead of having a maintenance budget is absolutely 100% a local government thing A wizard is outbidding all the local craftsmen on every project somehow, and getting things done even faster than they ever could, suspicions are raised when one of his engineering projects has "HELP, I'M BEING KEPT PRISONER IN A SUMMONING CIRCLE" engraved into one of the joists. It turns out that he's actually just outsourcing everything to bound planar labour forced to work for free, and all those mills and factories with "magical machines" actually just have angry imps, elementals and demons inside forced to keep the mechanisms running until the day a technical error lets them out and it goes very badly for everyone except for the wizard who's a thousand miles and three planes away with all the money.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 00:18
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:A wizard is outbidding all the local craftsmen on every project somehow, and getting things done even faster than they ever could, suspicions are raised when one of his engineering projects has "HELP, I'M BEING KEPT PRISONER IN A SUMMONING CIRCLE" engraved into one of the joists. It turns out that he's actually just outsourcing everything to bound planar labour forced to work for free, and all those mills and factories with "magical machines" actually just have angry imps, elementals and demons inside forced to keep the mechanisms running until the day a technical error lets them out and it goes very badly for everyone except for the wizard who's a thousand miles and three planes away with all the money. So you're telling me I need to finally start posting that Eberron Campaign Setting review.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 00:19
|
|
|
Kaza42 posted:Every background has one set ability score and one "pick any". For second scores, Wizards get little out of strength, and the most out of dex or con, but any background can give +1 int. And there's an explicit "build your own" option where you just get two +1s Hey thanks for covering Level Up 5e! I've been very curious as to whether it's any improvement over 5e proper, and so far it all looks pretty neat.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 01:36
|
|
|
disposablewords posted:So you're telling me I need to finally start posting that Eberron Campaign Setting review. Well, you clearly do.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 05:54
|
|
|
Libertad! posted:
Thanks for all of this. With some mixed feelings about past Dragonlance, it's still rooted deep in my gaming history (my current game, I'm liberally borrowing elements to put toward younger players unfamiliar with the source). I couldn't help but be curious about this release. From your review, it sounds worth getting and running.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 08:17
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:Seriously. Why the hell are the flood gates powered by pit fiends? You'd figure some sort of engineer or artificer could find a better solution. Just set up a clay or iron golem to manipulate the mechanism manually instead. I suppose to start setting up Karzoug. "He trapped PIT FIENDS just to power a dam! Isn't that amazing/awesome/powerful?"
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 08:20
|
|
|
Cooked Auto posted:Also to add more comments; the rest of the adventure came off as kinda boring. Hypnobeard posted:It's a bunch of disparate encounters linked vaguely by the fact there's ogres. The characters don't have much connection, if any, to Turtleback Ferry, and no real attempt is made to give them one. This was where my game sputtered out. I don't even remember the dam. I was painting up some stone giants, but never got around to finishing. It reads as very forced. I suppose the start in Sandpoint could be similar, here's a town, care about these people, but you're first level, you go with it. At this point, the party is 7th level, and they're told to go to this village they haven't heard of to then take back a fort they haven't heard of. They can establish a base of operations here... except the next adventure sees them leaving the area and they'll never return.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 08:25
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:A wizard is outbidding all the local craftsmen on every project somehow, and getting things done even faster than they ever could, suspicions are raised when one of his engineering projects has "HELP, I'M BEING KEPT PRISONER IN A SUMMONING CIRCLE" engraved into one of the joists. It turns out that he's actually just outsourcing everything to bound planar labour forced to work for free, and all those mills and factories with "magical machines" actually just have angry imps, elementals and demons inside forced to keep the mechanisms running until the day a technical error lets them out and it goes very badly for everyone except for the wizard who's a thousand miles and three planes away with all the money. It'd be funnier and probably even more unethical if they were actually summoning celestials for this purpose on the reasoning they'd be less likely likely to go on a rampage if they broke loose. The saddest angel sweatshop.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 15:42
|
|
|
srhall79 posted:I suppose to start setting up Karzoug. "He trapped PIT FIENDS just to power a dam! Isn't that amazing/awesome/powerful?"
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 15:48
|
|
|
Obligatum VII posted:It'd be funnier and probably even more unethical if they were actually summoning celestials for this purpose on the reasoning they'd be less likely likely to go on a rampage if they broke loose. The saddest angel sweatshop. "You have to assemble all these iPhones or, well, gee, I guess I'd have to summon a Pit Fiend to do it, and he'd probably blow up the orphanage across the street once the binding expired..." Sadly I don't really think it'd work with D&D celestials since they are on the record as being somewhat loose about the concept of being "Lawful Good."
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 17:23
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:"You have to assemble all these iPhones or, well, gee, I guess I'd have to summon a Pit Fiend to do it, and he'd probably blow up the orphanage across the street once the binding expired..." Lawful Good would mean they'd (violently) oppose allowing their fellows to be enslaved. With Pit Fiends, they're evil so they can't really can't on others to come help save their butts.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 17:28
|
|
|
Everyone posted:Lawful Good would mean they'd (violently) oppose allowing their fellows to be enslaved. So what you're saying is that the real difference between demons and celestials is that the celestials are unionized.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 17:43
|
|
|
srhall79 posted:
When I was running RotR, I was using the anniversary edition of the adventure path which had some new stuff included. Since you didn't mention it, maybe this was something new they put in, but it led to one of the most memorable parts of the campaign for my group here. Deep inside the dam, in the room with the two magic circles, an ancient guardian remains - the dreaded Skull Ripper. From the RotR anniversary edition bestiary: quote:Skull rippers were once guardians of the dead, the grim custodians of the of the great ossuaries of Thassilon. Although skull rippers are discovered in ancient tombs and sepulchers, occasionally a geological upheaval or massive flood destroys a given catacomb and leaves a skull ripper stranded. In these cases, the construct emerges and ventures forth into the world above, harvesting skulls and causing widespread panic as it searched for a new tomb to guard. Picture a Large scorpion construct made of skulls and bones. It has an AC 24, 112HP, DR 5/adamantine, SR 20, and 2 claw attacks and 1 tail attack that all attack at +20. The claw attacks do an automatic grab, and with a CMB of +26 for grapple, it's gonna latch onto someone. And as part of the grab, it can attempt the horrific Behead ability. If someone is already pinned by the skull ripper, the beast can attempt to behead it with another CMB, and if successful, does 4D6+18 damage. If that brings the victim below 0, they have to make a DC 23 Fort save or have their loving skull ripped from their body and added to the skull ripper's body. When my group went through, one of my PCs was a fighter with the Leadership feat, meaning he had a minion 2 levels below him following them around - Krudge, another fighter. He was sent into melee with the skull ripper, and the creature absolutely hosed him up with 2 nat 20's on his claws. This led to (for me) the amazing moment of being able to use a monsters badass head ripping ability without killing an actual PC - poor Krudge had his skull yanked from his body and slammed into the constructs head before the PCs put it down. We still reference unlucky Krudge to this day for going out in the most gruesome manner of any of our adventures, PC and NPC alike.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 18:05
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:So what you're saying is that the real difference between demons and celestials is that the celestials are unionized. Demons probably snitch like there's no tomorrow, just to forward their own position.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 18:21
|
|
|
Everyone posted:Lawful Good would mean they'd (violently) oppose allowing their fellows to be enslaved. Pit Fiends are lawful, they might actually be able to count on a rescue squad if for no other reason than to send a message not to pull this kind of thing. You'd really want Balors if you're committed to the world's stupidest flood gate. Edit: Basically, devils are also unionized but much meaner. Obligatum VII fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Dec 9, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 19:34
|
|
|
Devils are more like a police union. Honestly you could probably do it with celestials if you just get the ones from Bytopia, aka the Elemental Plane of Protestant Work Ethic.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 19:58
|
|
|
Obligatum VII posted:Pit Fiends are lawful, they might actually be able to count on a rescue squad if for no other reason than to send a message not to do pull this kind of thing. You'd really want Balors if you're committed to the world's stupidest flood gate. Edit: I can definitely see Acererak or Halaster imprisoning an epic-level monster just to make them operate a door. That's the kind of thing they'd do. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Dec 9, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 20:01
|
|
|
Obligatum VII posted:Pit Fiends are lawful, they might actually be able to count on a rescue squad if for no other reason than to send a message not to do pull this kind of thing. You'd really want Balors if you're committed to the world's stupidest flood gate. Oh, like a mobbed up union, I see Halloween Jack posted:
Isn't that canonically how Acerereak keeps the Tomb of Horrors clean, resetting the traps and hosing out the remains of the previous adventurers, just a shitload of bound fiends to the point the place is a mosh pit on the Astral Plane?
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 20:18
|
|
|
Asterite34 posted:Isn't that canonically how Acerereak keeps the Tomb of Horrors clean, resetting the traps and hosing out the remains of the previous adventurers, just a shitload of bound fiends to the point the place is a mosh pit on the Astral Plane? Yes, and it was part of the writer's phenomenally stupid "Nuh uh! You can't beat the Tomb of Horrors! Everything you can think of, Acacerak already thought of and planned for!" poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 20:20
|
|
|
srhall79 posted:Thanks for all of this. With some mixed feelings about past Dragonlance, it's still rooted deep in my gaming history (my current game, I'm liberally borrowing elements to put toward younger players unfamiliar with the source). I couldn't help but be curious about this release. From your review, it sounds worth getting and running. You're very welcome. If I'm going to TG's resident Dragonlance Lore Spouter, I should get around to reviewing the big sourcebook that brought the setting into 5e. The adventure is runnable from my non-playtest estimations, although will need a bit of tweaking to tamp down on the worst stuff. I can't make any promises, but I very well may review a DM's Guild Dragonlance sourcebook or two this holiday season.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 23:12
|
|
|
Libertad! posted:You're very welcome. If I'm going to TG's resident Dragonlance Lore Spouter, I should get around to reviewing the big sourcebook that brought the setting into 5e. Hah! Yes! The ritual has succeeded! The curse is no longer mine! I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 23:27
|
|
|
Narrator: That's what they thought. It was time for the curse to get worse.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 23:36
|
|
|
PurpleXVI finds that his review schedule for the next 5 years is filled with nothing but Kingdoms of Kalamar sourcebooks, and the monkey's paw tucks in a finger.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2022 23:45
|
|
|
 Eberron Campaign Setting Part 1: Introduction Eberron is outright my favorite D&D setting. It’s almost 20 years old now (holy poo poo), born from a “setting search” contest during the run-up to D&D 3.5. Keith Baker’s pulp fantasy submission took the spotlight, and over the next two years Eberron was developed and released to the world in 2004.  As mentioned, Eberron is a fantasy world of pulp adventure - daring explorers wield keen blades and keen wits to bring to light the world’s secrets, for profit and thrills. Some of these secrets might be the mysteries of foreign lands on the other side of the world, while others are sinister intrigues close to home. The world is also culturally as well as magi-technologically much more modern to fit the pulp stylings: modernizing governments and bureaucracies, trains, telegraphs, powerful corporations, and the like. A grueling, gruesome hybrid of World War I and the Eighty Years’ War just ended. Literacy is high and newspapers are popular. You could reasonably find jazz clubs. Elf Capone would still be caught for tax evasion. It also tried to be a more open-minded and forward-thinking sort of setting, where some of the more problematic assumptions of D&D around things like alignment and “race” were set aside. (For mortal beings. Immortal or truly alien creatures like outsiders or aberrations still have much firmer alignments.) The writers didn’t especially succeed, but they did put an effort in. That effort is one of the big things I’m here for, because it’s an area I’ve always wanted to mine for unexpected sources of adventure in the intersectional politics of the setting. (Watch out, people, my degree’s in sociology and I talk like this sometimes. But it’s also almost as old as Eberron.) This review is largely for my own benefit - Eberron’s my TTRPG white whale. Every attempt to run or play it has fallen apart after a few adventures for various reasons. So I’m here to take stock of what works and what doesn’t for me, and try to obtain a clearer view, as much as I am here to share it. As a result, of course, this is as much about my Eberron as it is the official Eberron. The influences and interpretations I bring to it, the things I’ve read and whatever I’ve learned and experienced over my life to bring to the table both consciously and unconsciously. I’ll do my best to be clear about this distinction, and highlight where my particular influences come from. Eberron has had at least a campaign setting book release in each edition since its introduction, but I am working specifically from the 3.5e release that started it all. However, I’m not out to do a deep dive on all the rules - I’m not interested in doing a retread of 3.5’s issues. Still, I’ll go over some of the new rules material, especially in terms of the tone that I feel the designers were trying to communicate about the setting and how to play in it. It didn’t completely work out, alas.  ”The living spell exploded around Arlok, Baristi, and their companions as they explored the perpetual twilight and unyielding devastation of the Mournland…” Also, the line’s art is largely excellent at communicating what the setting is about. I feel like, more than usual, the artists and writers were in strong communication with one another to set the tone. Even across a wide array of artists, many of them capture something that immediately tells me, “This is Eberron,” in a way that reminds me of how Tony DiTerlizzi’s work immediately declared, “This is Planescape.” I'm sure more knowledgeable and capable artists (both professional and amateur) would find plenty to criticize, but for me the artists and whoever managed them for the line did a great job of shaping the world in my mind's eye. Each chapter opens with a full-page piece that could be a big splash page in a comic book or, more appropriately, for the latest chapter of an adventure serial in a magazine. They’re some of the most memorable works in the line. These splashes are full of energy and action, occasionally to the point of being too busy, but they clearly want you to think of the world as one where everyone is always on the move. Adventure is happening right now and won’t wait politely for you to show up before it gets going. The World “Eberron” is the name of the planet as well as the setting. It’s a fairly standard fantasy world overall in that its climate, year, biomes, and so on imitate those of Earth. Of course, a lot of the actual societies across the world also imitate those of Earth, out of need to make something immediately relatable for players and DMs both. There are five continents: the barren and arctic Frostfell, the broken and magically-shrouded Xen’drik, the secret land of dragons known as Argonnessen, the insular Sarlona and its Inspired masters, and finally Khorvaire, main focus of the product line. There are also scattered islands and the island-continent of Aerenal. The world is named after one of the three creator dragons of ancient legend, who with her siblings Khyber and Siberys wrought all that is before tragedy befell them. When all was new, Khyber grew jealous and desired to control what had been made. And so he struck first, murdering his sister Siberys. From that followed a great struggle between Khyber and Eberron, which ended when Eberron wrapped her body around Khyber and enveloped him. The two enmeshed became the world, life springing up on Eberron’s surface while the most hellish of fiends spawned from Khyber’s rage and malice in the realm of the Dragon Below. The remaining pieces of Siberys, the Dragon Above, spin silently to this day around her entwined siblings, forming a golden Ring visible in the sky even during the day. Khyber still stirs in his bonds, causing earthquakes and releasing more fiends to assault his remaining sister’s own children, the creatures of the surface. (Including those that live underground but don’t originate from down in this planet’s version of the Underdark.) Whether these progenitor wyrms actually existed, of course, is a matter of debate. The dragons of Argonnessen have Opinions on this point.  Khorvaire Khorvaire is the focus of most Eberron material. It’s a large continent that is home to the Five Nations of Galifar and the Dragonmarked Houses. Humans didn’t originate here but they’ve dominated the continent for the past few millennia. Even so, the Five are squabbling children and upstarts compared to those who came before. The ECS has a very abridged timeline of the world from creation to present day, and the pre-human ages last tens of thousands to millions of years. (Numbers are a bit wacky sometimes. Writers, scale, et cetera.) The Five are usually synonymous with Khorvaire in general as they were the founder states and, more recently, successor states to the thousand-year Kingdom of Galifar. “Successor states” because of the century-long Last War, which saw Galifar fall apart and only ended two years before the setting’s assumed present day. These nations are Aundair, Breland, Thrane, Karrnath, and Cyre. However, Cyre was destroyed in a mysterious magical disaster in the last days of the war and is now called the Mournland. Despite being predominantly human, the Five have significant communities of the “common” (AKA, PHB player) races, as well as some of the “monster” races. Most of the continent recognizes a goblin as a taxpayer, not an infestation to murder and rob. Well… mostly. The definition of what’s a common or monster race brings us around as well to the dragonmarked houses. The common races are the ones that have dragonmarks. There are a handful of “unmarked” races that are not considered monsters (the ones new to the book like the kalashtar and changelings), but otherwise the division in the dry rules text of common (PHB) versus monster (MM) races is also a social division in the setting. And there are implications around that. Implications the writers at least knew were present. See, Eberron feels to me like it was walking a bit of a tightrope. It came out in 2004. Even with a lot of progress since then, gaming is still dealing with regressive bullshit nearly two decades later thanks to sacred cows and angry grogs. Eberron’s designers were trying to be more forward-thinking but they were also answerable to conservative corporate interests, such as the people who demanded a generic white guy be the foremost “iconic” character for 3rd Edition (hi, Regdar!). So I’m not going to champion Eberron as particularly progressive, but I’d like to note how it can be… open to interpretation. How sometimes certain barriers were not thrown up to get in the way. Room to make it more inclusive for those who want to read their experience into the world, without overt contradiction. It’s not great, but it feels to me like it’s what they could get away with, at least in a new setting book that would have a lot of eyes on it. It’s a bit more up and down across the line in general. (To give you a specific example, though one not in the ECS itself: the book Faiths of Eberron covers various religions across Khorvaire. And I noticed something the few times marriage came up: it was always in gender-neutral terms. “Two people,” or “the couple.” Very carefully neutral. At no point do they say same-sex marriage is a thing, but nor do they automatically contradict the possibility.) So. To get back to my point. Dragonmarks and the houses are one of the tools that Eberron leaves on the table for realizing that “open potential,” particularly for matters of race and culture as well as capitalism. They’re easily as important as the Five Nations in shaping the setting, and it’s fair to say that neither the houses nor the Five would really exist without each other. The houses are also trying to say too much and it makes them an occasionally clumsy metaphor, but it’s an effort I still want to highlight because I think there’s real material for adventure and storytelling there.  Dragonmarks are, well, magical marks that can appear on a person’s body and grant them some kind of magical gift. They appear fairly consistently in specific family lines of specific races, which has enabled those lines to band together and leverage their marked members’ gifts into a commercial edge. Between those advantages and canny politicking, the houses have coalesced over the centuries into powerful international corporations. (Think the Gilded Age and early monopolies instead of cyberpunk. For now.) Dragons believe these marks are signs of the Draconic Prophecy, and are simultaneously intrigued and incredibly cranky at having bits of the Prophecy appearing on these drat mortals who are dead of old age the second you turn around. (And also elves, who are slightly less likely to die while you take tea but that the dragons just hate for other, unknown reasons.) From a game design standpoint, dragonmarks are there to provide race-specific new toys to make sure someone still wants to play an elf or dwarf alongside the warforged and shifters. But from a cultural standpoint… well, it’s interesting. Capital and ethnic nationalism are already in bed in Khorvaire, helping define who’s a normal person and who’s a monster by virtue of a “natural advantage” for the ones who count as people. Two houses more directly touch on that, though reserved primarily for Dragonmarked, the house-focused splatbook. Interbellum On top of all this, Khorvaire is much more fractured than it used to be. Just as the Five have split apart from the unified Kingdom of Galifar into a bunch of would-be successors, each has also seen various independence movements carve off border provinces each nation was used to exploiting. Even some of the houses are experiencing crises of leadership and succession, one having already split in half and another barely holding together at all. Most of Khorvaire is exhausted, economically and politically as well as just individually. The people are tired and still hope the Last War will truly be the last war. The Treaty of Thronehold is still celebrated for bringing an end to the killing. However, those in power know that Khorvaire is just holding its breath before the next great war. Nobody quite knows from which direction it will come, and attempts to forestall it may themselves yet provoke it. And that’s not considering those who wish to strike first, whether out of paranoia or ambition. Alright, now that I’ve bloviated enough on my approach to the world of Eberron and this review, time to actually consult with the book. I’m going to largely go in order of the text itself, presenting things as the book presents them to you. I’ll end this introduction by going over the ECS’s own introduction, specifically a section called Ten Things You Need To Know.
Even though I tease, this list is good to have just laid out there from the start. The writers want you to understand that there is adventure potential everywhere. That this is a world PCs are part of and can expect to make a mark on as they get caught up in high-stakes intrigues between nations and monopolizing megacorps. You may not be dealing with kings, queens, and house barons right away, but an audience with one is closer than you’d think - and a secret commission even closer. (Okay, okay, also there’s a running gag of 12 plus a missing 13th thing - 12 marks with a 13th extinguished one, 12 nations of modern Khorvaire plus the one destroyed nation, 12 moons plus a 13th missing one. Look at the creator’s name; it’s a Baker’s Dozen joke, reportedly unintended but then something they ran with once the writers noticed.) Next: PC Races! (Actual content post later tonight, once I've let things breathe a bit
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2022 00:07
|
|
|
Ah yes, Eberron. The setting I instantly fell in love with when I heard about it. Only been able to play a single short campaign in it, in 4e of all editions, but still a setting I really like. Even if it as some issues I've noticed, especially during a re-read of the few books I have on my shelf. (Would've loved to have more but I was young when they first came out and by now they're all horrendously overpriced second hand.) disposablewords posted:[*]1: If it exists in D&D, it has a place in Eberron: Look, we’re trying to sell books here - I mean uhhh heeeeyyyy this new world is totally open to bring in anything you want from the others, it all fits in! Somewhere! A lot of the setting-agnostic mainline 3.5 sourcebooks would often include short sections on where their new content might fit into Eberron, as a result. This being one issue I noticed, there are a lot of Player Character options added in setting agnostic books and those are all represented here, and that makes things kinda messy at times. Not to mention some really dubious choices, like Neanderthals.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2022 00:47
|
|
|
I was in an Eberron game for a couple of years, it was fun. There’s loads of cool stuff in there. It felt to me like Eberron was the first setting that matched the “dungeonpunk” art of the 3e core books, a style which was designed to be setting-agnostic and not evoke any particular real world culture. And thanks to Wayne Reynolds being at Wizards for much of this period there’s some of that in 4e as well.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2022 00:50
|
|
|
I heard somewhere that Eberron was initially a reader entry in a WoTC contest to create a new setting. One of the stipulations in the contest was that it had to have room for everything else in the line. So as much as it was New and Different, it had to make room for everything else WoTC wrote by developer fiat. Don’t know where I heard that, though, so it may be total horseshit.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2022 03:58
|
|
|
You remember correctly about its origins. Or else I have also been massively misinformed.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2022 04:01
|
|
|
Nah, the origin part is correct at least. As you do mention the setting came from a contest about giving D&D it's first new setting in x number of ears during 3.5s mid point or something like that. No idea about the last requirement though, but it's probably true considering one of the settings ground rules.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2022 04:09
|
|
|
Obligatum VII posted:Pit Fiends are lawful, they might actually be able to count on a rescue squad if for no other reason than to send a message not to pull this kind of thing. You'd really want Balors if you're committed to the world's stupidest flood gate. Basically this but maybe the fiends in the adventure got fed to the dam because "snitches get stitches."
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2022 04:16
|
|
|
gently caress yeah Eberron! Played a short campaign of that back in college, didn't really get it at the time but very much dived into it later on. Some D&D settings, like Dark Sun or Ghostwalk or Spelljammer or what have you, can feel like they're artificially tethered to the name and rules and common setting assumptions of "classic" D&D and would be better served by frankly being their own game entirely. Eberron feels at times like it's straining against the limitations of its IP as well, but it also feels like it needs that context to really shine. It kinda depends on the assumptions of Sword and Sorcery Greyhawk stuff to act as almost historical precedent, like a magical Middle Ages leading to Magical Early Modern Colonialism, and now to after the Magical Industrial Revolution and the Magic Interwar Period
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2022 04:54
|
|
|
 Part 2: Character Races 1: Common Races Whoof. Okay. Races. In D&D. Eberron is rather up and down on this, doing better overall than D&D broadly tends to. But that’s… that’s not hard. I’m only talking the common races in this post because to include everything I want to say about the new races as well would run me right up against the character limit, and I don’t want to dump a giant undigestable mass of text all at once. Even so, I’m going to be sidling up to some sensitive issues and doing a bit of apologia on Eberron’s behalf. Not so much to let it off the hook, except in that I’m willing to assume ignorance rather than malice when it fucks up. Still, if I’m talking poo poo, call me out on it. The ECS starts off right out the gate with PC races, particularly the four new races of the setting: Changelings, Kalashtar, Shifters, and Warforged. Changelings and shifters are an expansion and continuation of the half-elf and half-orc concept, born of a union of humans and something else. Populations will intermingle. Kalashtar are a weird psychic variation on the theme. The warforged, meanwhile, are a deliberately created race of living constructs. They are also an invitation to discuss questions of moral and legal personhood, the pressures of stereotyping and social control on a minority, and the looming shadow of a history of forced servitude - at a remove and through a fantastical lens, as speculative fiction often does to address various problems without rubbing too hard at a raw wound. (And also which racist shitheels use to deny the issue is even being discussed. But racist shitheels are gonna do that with everything, so.) Khorvaire is most heavily populated by the common races of the PHB, with humans holding the plurality. Elves, gnomes, and dwarves have their own nations as well, plus sizable populations that have assimilated melting-pot style into the Five. On top of that, these races’ respective dragonmarked houses meld Galifaran and their own home cultures, a melding which then filters back into the human-dominant Five and to the other nations. As a result, an elf from Thrane is going to have some different cultural values and loyalties than an elf from House Thuranni or an elf from Aerenal (or even an elf from Aundair). Not that this means the races’ crunch varies any to reflect those cultural differences. All three of those elves still instinctively know how to use longswords and bows, for example.  ”One moment, Orbas the half-orc was comparing the warforged known as Relic to a wagon with three wheels. ‘It had a purpose once upon a time,’ he laughed. ‘Now it’s so much old trash.’ The next moment, Orbas was being hurled across the common room of the Broken Anvil tavern like an empty keg of ale…” This chapter also has short profiles for each “Region of Origin” with most common player classes, skills, and feats found among the people there, but these are just suggestions and not mechanical bonuses or restrictions of any sort. They tell you what kind of education and ability that society values (even if they don’t overtly say so), with for example most of the Five suggesting various Knowledge skills because Galifar promoted public education. If I was to actually go back and run an Eberron game in 3.5 (ehhhh…), I’d tell players they’re free to take a bonus feat and extra class skill from their region. I liked Occupations from d20 Modern, plus I already tended to give PCs extra skill points anyway. Another note before I wade in on the races, Eberron does the common fantasy trope of basing various cultures more or less directly off of real peoples. Most are a mix of influences, further remixed with fantasy elements to make the comparison less obvious. Sometimes that obfuscation doesn’t work out well - guess what happened with dwarves! So let’s start there! Humans are listed first but everyone else is in alphabetical order, so screw it, going to give the quick glimpse over the dwarves that this section affords before going on to the other common races. Dwarves  So how did the writers do a whoopsie with the dwarves? Well, to start with, they’re bankers. The modern banking system was founded by House Kundarak, who bears the Mark of Warding, and it expanded beyond them into broader dwarf society. Thanks to the concentrated mineral wealth of their homeland, the Mror Holds, the dwarves have an outsized influence on Khorvaire’s economy. This is only further reinforced by the Aurum a… well, a secret society of the mega-rich, dominated by the dwarven bankers, who use their power to manipulate events to their own ends. Um, guys… Wait, let’s look at the Mror Holds! Very standard “dwarves in their mountain halls” stuff, twelve clans, spent a while under the German-analogue nation’s thumb and got away to found their own independent state… uh… Hm. Kind of big noses in that art too… Not really comically as these things go, but also… gently caress. Okay. I’m pretty sure an antisemitic depiction was not intentional (and I’ll certainly apologize and eat crow if someone does bring something out about how it actually was), but it’s a clear sign of how the well-meaning can still thoughtlessly trip over this stuff. And the dwarves of Khorvaire have certainly tripped over it. What I think the actual intended set of influences was for the dwarves is significantly less sinister, but also poorly communicated: Italian and Dutch merchant princes and bankers, plus Swiss bankers because mountains. They mint much of Khorvaire’s coinage just as the Florentine Republic’s florin became a standard of trade across much of Europe, later followed by the Dutch guilder. As far as the Aurum goes, it’s meant to be a reference to actual historical anti-competitive collusion like price-fixing, placed in a “world of intrigue” with conspiracies around every corner. And of course there’s a thirteenth missing clan - the Baker’s Dozen joke again. I don’t think it’s a malicious combination, but all together it has a really bad look. The sole dwarven dragonmark is the Mark of Warding, held by House Kundarak. To continue the Florentine Republic comparison, think of the Kundarak as the Medicis. They haven’t entirely co-opted the Mror Holds into a client state, but they have an undeniably profound influence. Elves  Wait, holy poo poo, is that a POC elf? And she’s not a drow?! It’s… something, I guess! Where dwarves are still quite dwarfy, elves get a fair amount of work put in on making them elfy in different ways from the D&D usual. They’re still divided up into several “kinds” of elf, but the biggest divisions are primarily cultural. While the drow are basically confined to one of those particular cultures, the other elf subraces aren’t formally divided up much as they tend to be in other settings. (Mind, Eberron by default assumes any elf is a high elf, the generic type in the PHB, but still. If it exists in D&D, it has a place in Eberron!) The picture above shows off the three most common sorts of elf as a result - starting from the left, an elven citizen of the Five, a Golden Horde wanna-be from Valenar, and a noble necromancer of Aerenal. Yup, necromancers. See, that old time religion among the elves involves ancestor worship. Valenar elves invoke the spirits of honored ancestors, while Aereni are much more direct. They pipe raw positive energy ceaselessly through the withered corpses of their greatest citizens, creating a sort of reversed form of undead to act as eternal counsel to the realm. Despite (or because of) their general elfiness, the elves do still have a rather bloody history. Of which the world was recently reminded during the Last War, through two notable events: the founding of Valenar in the southeast of Khorvaire, and the division of the Mark of Shadow. Valenar broke away violently from the nation of Cyre, and many Valenar elves harbor further dreams of conquest and glory. Meanwhile, the house of the Mark of Shadow, House Phiarlan, split in twain when one of the family lines of the house was wholly extinguished by another. Now the two elven houses of Phiarlan and Thuranni are harsh rivals at the best of times, as busy directing their special elf bullshit at each other as much as anyone else. As an aside, the drow are a goddamn discussion of their own that I will get to in due time, but it will be in a much later post so I can really get at it in my overly-verbose fashion. They’re a special case of still tripping over the pathetically low bar to clear, yet somehow stumbling a couple feet forward before face-planting. Maybe I’ll make them a special double-feature with... I don’t know, the sahuagin or something? Gnomes  Gnomes are… let’s be blunt here, gnomes are goddamn gnomes. They’re curious, clever, industrious, and broadly considered faintly ridiculous by the “tallfolk” even as they carefully prise every little fact and secret out of others to secure their position through honeyed words, blackmail, and a stranglehold on the means of mass communication. Yup, you guessed it, time for another round of “Antisemitic… or Not?” I don’t actually hear this as much about the gnomes as I have the dwarves, but they do run right up against one of the other big modern anti-Jewish conspiracy theories: control over mass media. The gnomish House Sivis bears the Mark of Scribing, which they have used along with various magical items to create and manage nearly the entirety of the modern communications infrastructure of Khorvaire. The gnomes are also known for creating the first and biggest modern newspaper in Khorvaire, the Korranberg Chronicle. This also may or may not seem a bit of a stretch, but their homeland of Zilargo is a place whose independence the gnomes talked and “tricked” out of the much more Western European and US-inspired nations of the Five, which has also faced periodic incursions from hostile neighbors. (Zilargo, Zion?) Motherfucker, Eberron, I’m trying to go to bat for you. Assuming that this is another case of the authors tripping over a bad stereotype accidentally, the intended influence of the gnomes still isn’t particularly obvious to me. However, my personal take on them goes hand-in-hand with the Galifaran nation of Breland. I take Zilargo and Breland as cynical and idealistic views of the United States, respectively. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Zilargo and Breland are joined at the hip since the first human conquest of the region. The gnome love of secrets and their dominance over mass media and communication then comes to reflect the way the US has spent much of the last century aggressively exporting its views and culture to the rest of the world while building an overreaching intelligence apparatus to help maintain hegemony. Meanwhile, the more idealistic (yet all-too-willing to morally compromise) Breland maintains a pleasant veneer of hard work and industry as the source of their higher quality of life. Some of it is true, plenty of it is unacknowledged luck, and some of it is willful ignorance of outright exploitation. Half-Elves  Eberron’s half-elves finally ditch the “oh woe is me, caught between two worlds” thing that D&D has tried, to varying degrees, to keep up through the editions. Thank you, Keith Baker. Instead they’re just around, not quite as common as humans but much more common than elves. Most half-elves these days are born to other half-elves, but the other two peoples still mingle freely as well. There are two dragonmarked houses among the half-elves, House Lyrandar and House Medani. Lyrandar is the cool, hip one and Medani is the boring bunch of squares. By which I mean Lyrandar has the Mark of Storm, AKA weather magic, and they also get magic airships to go along with it. (Other people can use the airships, but the Lyrandar have it easiest. They’re literally designed to work better with the Mark of Storm.) The Medani have the Mark of Detection, a useful but conceptually kind of boring set of… well, detection magic. Divination stuff. The Medani are very PC-friendly in that they always have an excuse to be hired to investigate various mysteries. They also have a strong relationship with and presence in the nation of Breland (in which resides Sharn, the big city of Start Your Adventuring Career Here). Even their fluff in later books is pretty bland, ready to adapt for a PC’s backstory. But for having two dragonmarks, half-elves are still kind of just… there, at least in the ECS. Later books present and expand upon the idea of a half-elf supremacist movement developing as an extremist strain of the sizable half-elf populace trying to find a distinct voice and culture within the Five. As both elves and humans originated on different continents but came together on this one, some half-elves have taken to styling themselves the “Khoravar,” the Children of Khorvaire - ignoring, in usual ethnocentric nativist fashion, all the other (mostly monster) peoples who actually originated in their “homeland.” Half-Orcs  Half-orcs are rad. Eberron doesn’t bother with that usual “child of rape” nonsense the rest of D&D is uncomfortably fond of for them. (Once more, thank you, Keith Baker.) The vast majority of half-orcs are born of loving relationships or casual flings just like everyone else, and the most likely source of personal tragedy is that big old war that just finished a couple years ago. Orcs are mostly localized to the far west of Khorvaire, especially the swampy and dismal Shadow Marches. Their elevator pitch is “Noble Savage druids in a place where Cthulhus once broke into reality.” D&D 3.X played up the idea of druid magics being inimical to unreal cosmic horror bullshit and vice versa, and the orc druids are the main focus of that in Eberron. Naturally, humans being humans, “settlers” came in and… actually settled down to live among the orcs largely peacefully. Huh, that’s unexpected. Anyway, plenty of humans turned out to be into buff, tusked gray-green men and women, and plenty of orcs turned out to be into the skinny weirdos from the east. The children of these unions were by and large embraced by their parent peoples, best shown to the world by House Tharashk - the only house to have its dragonmark on two races. The Mark of Finding appeared among both humans and half-orcs at the same time, and they’ve since used it to corner the market on Eberron dragonshards. Despite being (so far) unable to manifest the mark, orcs are still important to the Tharashk families as, well… family. There are plenty of orc representatives of the house across the Five. They’re far from perfect but man I enjoy how the setting treats its orcs and half-orcs. Orcs are still a marginalized population in a relatively marginal land, but instead of ravening barbarians just beyond the border they are much more realistically presented as normal people who just want to live as they have. House Tharashk, as the face of orcs and half-orcs to much of the world, is full of potential that doesn’t simply come from having a powerful mark. Halflings  Halflings ride dinosaurs and they are cool as gently caress. That’s all. Okay, okay. So Eberron halflings are basically the Noble Savage thing again, only this time Plains Indians with details from some other nomadic peoples. Traditionalist halflings range across the Talenta Plains in the east of Khorvaire, where a variety of the (relatively) smaller dinosaur species can still be found. (No K-T extinction event here. Plenty of hunting, though!) They don’t fall too hard into the worst tropes about Native Americans but the writers and artists didn’t work too hard to pull them out of it, either. They tend to hit the “uncivilized barbarian” routine usually reserved for (half-)orcs in other settings, played positively as a direct and plain-spoken honesty that cuts through more civilized bullshit and negatively as ignorance and superstition. Talenta halflings are familiar with and even a little casual about violence, yet not out of an innately violent nature - they’ve had their own share of problems both internal and external, and they herd and hunt goddamn dinosaurs for a living. Sometimes, life just hurts and the halflings aren’t shy about that. Plus they can just laugh in the faces of anyone else who tries to say anything about how violent they are, given recent events. Hospitality and reciprocity are dreadfully important to the halflings, and suitably the two halfling houses bear the Marks of Hospitality (Ghallanda) and Healing (Jorasco). You can probably guess what the two marks do by their names, and what kind of industries their respective houses have ended up dominating. This gives the halflings an interesting tension between house culture and their home culture that most of the other houses don’t have: they’ve commodified what were seen as divine gifts granted to carry out sacred social responsibilities among the Talenta nomads. Ghallanda keeps a hand in on the Plains, maintaining one of the only permanent settlements there as neutral ground. Jorasco is much less popular but the House of Healing still holds sway despite their abandonment of tradition for worldly wealth. Humans  So as mentioned, humans get the first actual profile in the races chapter but screw it, they’re D&D humans. That’s it. I’ll be talking about them as I talk about the various nations of Khorvaire because they’re everywhere. That art is probably the most important bit of the human profile because it establishes that hello yes there are actually people of color among fantasy humanity. Most named NPCs are still depicted as white, of course. The most notable exception is Jaela Daran, the 11-year-old head of the Church of the Silver Flame and thus the nation of Thrane, who has a “chocolate-colored complexion.” Several NPC portraits in Dragonmarked look vaguely Asian-ish, which if specifically intended is one artist actually remembering that humans in this world originated on the continent of   Respectively, Baron Zorlan d’Cannith, kind of a dick, and Baron Kwanti d’Orien, a chill dude for a megacorp patriarch, from Dragonmarked. Both looking more than anyone else like they could fit into a Romance of the Three Kingdoms game. Or, uncomfortably, into a “yellow peril” pulp serial. There are four human dragonmarks (setting aside the one shared with half-orcs in Tharashk). The most important by far is the Mark of Making, held by House Cannith, who monopolize commercial crafting across the continent. Almost every professional artisan is licensed by Cannith - you can go without the license, but the default assumption for doing so is that you failed to measure up to Cannith’s standards and thus your products are inferior. Cannith is powerful but it’s also having problems as the family leadership was decapitated with the destruction of Cyre. They also have the power of being the writers’ favorite house despite that. Seriously, they’re everywhere. House Orien, with the Mark of Passage, are a mix of teamsters union and rail magnates. Travel anywhere of significant distance, for goods and people both, is usually done by way of Orien trade caravan or the magical lightning rail. Or, for the richest in the greatest of hurries, by Orien teleportation. The trade caravans have an old tradition of accepting guard service to pay your way, conveniently. It’s mostly unnecessary right now, but they like to keep the practice alive. Their patriarch is the least isolated and up-his-own-rear end of house leadership, as he loves to travel and check up on house matters personally. House Deneith bears the Mark of Sentinel. They specialize in mercenary services, especially meeting the demand for bodyguards for royals and nobility. Their whole shtick is being excessively martial and known to honor their contracts religiously, but with some starting to realize they have very well-armed agents in the homes of nearly every lord and lady of consequence in the Five. Last is the Mark of Handling, held by House Vadalis. Their mark helps them handle animals, and they use these talents to selectively breed (and magically enhance) their stock. Honestly? They are so severely underused they feel like an afterthought. Vadalis mostly seems to exist to round out the number of houses and marks, and to justify war bears.  …you know what? Worth it. Next: The ~New~ PC races!
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2022 05:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 1, 2024 04:55 |
|
|
Asterite34 posted:Eberron feels at times like it's straining against the limitations of its IP as well, but it also feels like it needs that context to really shine. It kinda depends on the assumptions of Sword and Sorcery Greyhawk stuff to act as almost historical precedent, like a magical Middle Ages leading to Magical Early Modern Colonialism, and now to after the Magical Industrial Revolution and the Magic Interwar Period I feel like the clear D&D DNA was what always made me least interested in giving Eberron a shake, personally. Whenever someone told me about it, it just sounded like someone took all the proper nouns from 3.x and reshuffled them until they came up in different combinations.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2022 06:00
|
|