D&D 5E Chronicles of Eberron Is Keith Baker's New D&D Book, out now!

After a few days of teasing, Eberron creator Keith Baker has announced his new book -- Chronicles of Eberron! By Keith and Imogen Gingell, the 200-page book will be available on DMs Guild in December.

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Hektula is the Scribe of Sul Khatesh, the Keeper of the Library of Ashtakala, and the Chronicler of the Lords of Dust. Her treasured tomes hold arcane secrets still hidden from human and dragon alike. What lies beneath the Barren Sea? What powers does Mordain the Fleshweaver wield within Blackroot? Who are the Grim Lords of the Bloodsail Principality? All these secrets and many more can be found in the Chronicles of Eberron…

• Chronicles of Eberron is a new 5E sourcebook from Eberron creator Keith Baker and designer Imogen Gingell.
• This book explores a diverse range of topics, including lore and advice for both players and DMs, along with new monsters, treasures, spells and character options.
• Chronicles of Eberron will be available on the DMs Guild as a PDF and print-on-demand.

But that's not all! There is a collaboration with Hero Forge and new T-Shirts!

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[Cap'n Kobold]

The humans being a part of Tharashk at this point seems unnecessary and probably could be entirely orc and orc-related.

If I remember rightly, all "humans" with the Mark of Finding have some orcish blood. Just not always enough to qualify mechanically as a half-orc.

 

[grimslade]

And having DMsGuild to get his ideas published without direct WotC supervision has been a gift to us as well.

Absolutely. I mean he could have gone full 3PP and filed the serial numbers off to produce Ebberon: Rebuilding from the Previous Conflict, but using the DMsGuild lets him use the full IP and produce new material. I wish we could have similar access for Greyhawk and Dark Sun, but alas, we will not have a singular vision to coalesce around. When Greyhawk and Dark Sun are opened up for DMsGuild access, we will have many competing visions...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Absolutely. I mean he could have gone full 3PP and filed the serial numbers off to produce Ebberon: Rebuilding from the Previous Conflict, but using the DMsGuild lets him use the full IP and produce new material. I wish we could have similar access for Greyhawk and Dark Sun, but alas, we will not have a singular vision to coalesce around. When Greyhawk and Dark Sun are opened up for DMsGuild access, we will have many competing visions...

We could have a singular vision for Greyhawk, if Gail Gygax decided to hand over EGG's papers to someone to edit and consolidate, but that seems unlikely. That could happen with or without WotC, if they just gave it another name, as the Troll Lords did during their abortive Yggsburgh setting.

 

[grimslade]

We could have a singular vision for Greyhawk, if Gail Gygax decided to hand over EGG's papers to someone to edit and consolidate, but that seems unlikely. That could happen with or without WotC, if they just gave it another name, as the Troll Lords did during their abortive Yggsburgh setting.

It would be old notes. Part of the success of Eberron in 5E is Keith reinterpreting his work into the new rules. It isn't just dogmatic devotion it is innovation and assimilation. Who would be the one voice to pick up the reins for EGG? From the Ashes already fractured some of the fans of the setting, but Living Greyhawk fractured it more. I could have seen Erik Mona stepping up into that role but he seems to have a day job that takes up his time now...
There is a similar problem with Ravenloft. Who is pushing the setting forward? Where is the buzz about this nostalgic setting? Who would be that person for Planescape when it is released next year? Keith Baker and Eberron are in a unique position of having a creator continuing to create publicly without a massive edition fracture of the fan base.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Not really? Dragonshards have existed since the Age of Demons. They were formed at the creation of the Universe and people have always used them to power their rituals and magical items.

You could see them as a coal analogue, but they have always been used so there wasn't a moment of "and now we found a fuel source that can triple the energy output"

They're a "new power source" in the sense that there's a (fairly) recent push to industrialize their use. They're definitely a magical analog for coal and other fossil fuels, but as a cleaner and more powerful source of energy. The two places on Khorvaire where Eberron Dragonshards are the most common (the Shadow Marches and Q'barra) are frontiers filled with magical prospectors, the majority of which are servants to a giant corporation that sells the fuel source to people that need it (primarily the other Dragonmarked Houses, especially Cannith).

 

[Scribe]

I want to take a moment to talk about Sarlona, because it is way more intense than just "DnD but psychic instead of magic". I played a game focused there and it was crazy.

Sarlona is basically the height of communist/Facist China backed up with the rulers being literal psychics and convincing the people that they are the great heroes protecting them from the demons in the mountains (who are the only rebels left).

The leaders are revered as reincarnated heroes (actually psychic dream monsters puppeting bodies) and there is a heavy emphasis on spirituality and community (to drive down emotions and individuality to make the populace more docile). Their dreams are controlled through psychically powered pylons, and not only is their conditioning reinforced through their dreams (home is safe, sudden terror from beyond, home is safe) but since their dreams are curated removing them from the influence of the pylon to have real dreams freaks them out that demons are invading their minds.

It is a land where the enemy has won, and convinced the people that they are the real heroes, after all, do you want to go back to the chaotic mess of a world where all those wars happened? (Ignore the fact that the enemy secretly instigated those wars). If you ever want to play "Paranoia, but DnD" Sarlona is the place for it.

Wow, this sounds amazing.

 

[ChaosOS]

If you go back and check the ToC, Chronicles has a  lengthy chapter on Riedra

 

[Staffan]

They're a "new power source" in the sense that there's a (fairly) recent push to industrialize their use. They're definitely a magical analog for coal and other fossil fuels, but as a cleaner and more powerful source of energy. The two places on Khorvaire where Eberron Dragonshards are the most common (the Shadow Marches and Q'barra) are frontiers filled with magical prospectors, the majority of which are servants to a giant corporation that sells the fuel source to people that need it (primarily the other Dragonmarked Houses, especially Cannith).

I think there's an additional oil field aspect to it as well. The reason Eberron shards primarily come from the Shadow Marches and Q'Barra is that any significant sources in "civilized" regions have already been exploited and emptied. Much like easily accessible oil fields have already had all their oil pumped up, so now we're either using increasingly complicated methods of extracting it, or going to more remote places.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If I remember rightly, all "humans" with the Mark of Finding have some orcish blood. Just not always enough to qualify mechanically as a half-orc.

I am not familiar with this statement or where/who it might have been made... but I don't doubt someone could have made it. I personally suspect that Tharashk originally was made to encompass Humans in addition to Half-Orcs in 3.5 because Orcs themselves were not considered a "playable race" as such at the time, and the writers might have thought the House wouldn't get enough play if it was Half-Orc alone. So giving it to Half-Orcs and Humans (and some Orcs NPCs) made sure the mark and the House would gain a bit of traction. Thus once that was established it would make sense someone would try to justify the "dual race" marking by suggesting the idea that the "Humans" were just Half-Orcs from enough generations back.

The funny part of course being that we don't have a similar "dual race" mark for either of the two half-elf Houses. Because half-elves were always more popular than half-orcs in the playerbase, the need to "boost" their playing numbers by saying Medani and Lyrandar could have humans and/or elves also with those marks was unnecessary (and in fact the setting tried to get across the idea that at this point "half-elves" were in fact a true-breeding race called Khoravar.) It doesn't make a whole lot of in-world sense to me why one of the half-races has both "parent races" as part of their ability to have a mark... and yet the other one doesn't. And it gets into the whole thing about trying to demarcate these specific two half-races as the only "real ones" in the game (via mechanics and special write-ups) with all the other potential interracial relationships being just swept under the rug as "Well, they are more connected to X or Y parent race, but we aren't going to bother really dealing with it."

At this point in the game (and within Eberron especially, as they are a setting where so-called "racial purity" is a major driving force in a predominant part of the world)... I personally would want to go either way fully on the idea of interracial parenting-- either make every parental combination of race as highlighted and explicit as half-elves and half-orcs are... or else move half-elves and half-orcs into the sub-race category like OneD&D did in their first playtest packet. Because this "these two half-races are important enough to write about but every other one isn't"... kinda blows in my opinion.

 

[humble minion]

There is a similar problem with Ravenloft. Who is pushing the setting forward? Where is the buzz about this nostalgic setting?

For Ravenloft, that's been the community at Fraternity of Shadows (and the Kargatane before them) for several editions now. But they've chosen not to get involved (as a group, at least) with DMSGuild which is where the action is these days. They still mostly just release old-school netbooks as free downloads from their site, which probably misses much of the modern Ravenloft audience.

There's at least one DMSGuild publisher putting out massive encyclopedic volumes about every Ravenloft Darklord ever, but they haven't quite struck the right note for me. There's a lot of almost verbatim retelling of stories we've heard many times over past editions, and frankly the writing and general quality isn't up to the standard of real topnotch products like Exploring Eberron. Which is understandable, not everyone has Keith Baker's production budget.

But nobody's really grabbed the setting with both hands and made it their own yet, like the Maztica people have with their particular setting, for instance. Ravenloft is a tough one to do though. The old Core had some obvious problems, but so does WotCs new iteration, yet both versions of the setting have their upsides and defenders. Whatever you do, you're not going to make them all happy.