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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[RealAlHazred]

Don't Eberron Dragonshards fill that exact role?

While dragonshards are something of a universal magical component, the role they fulfill in the setting isn't as part of the Industrial Revolution -- it's the Gold Rush. Dragonshards are an extremely rare resource coveted by all.

To my mind, the new thing fitting the "Industrial Revolution" niche is the Warforged Liberation. The Industrial Revolution was about something (in our case, technology) obsoleting a whole sector of a workforce, causing widespread Change (unemployment, unrest, etc.) in the pursuit of maximum Profit. In Eberron, when it was just House Cannith using the warforged slaves to produce their own products cheaply, it was fine. But now that they're free people, they have gotten jobs everywhere. Your neighborhood butcher fired your father, and "hired" a warforged to do the same work for coppers on the gold piece. They do the same work, for less wages, longer hours, fewer complaints, and fewer opinions. Multiply this across most manual occupations in Khorvaire, and it's a recipe for the same sort of unrest.

 

[Thommy H-H]

I get that enumerating every possible permutation of Half-X is practically impossible, but Half-Elves and Half-Orcs have established history within the game and its settings, and even if how they are portrayed in the modern game could use some care and nuance that was lacking in older editions, I don't think tossing all Half-Xs out the window and saying "just play a full X, even if you call it something different" is the right way to handle it.

I wasn't suggesting it was tbh. As I mentioned later in my post, there are people who find value in the "half-X" ancestries. My point was that if you remove the unfortunate implications that come from them in order to present them as their own groups that, in their backstories, have mixed heritage - so a 'new' race of true-breeding half-elves, as exists in Eberron, for example - you actually remove the element that people find compelling!

To be clear, I have no solution. As I said, it's trying to square a circle. Because these things don't exist in our world where, to the best of our knowledge, we are the only sapient beings around, we only have our own modern (or more properly Victorian, I guess) notions of 'race' to serve as allegories. And that's exactly what leads us into this whole mess.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

I wasn't suggesting it was tbh. As I mentioned later in my post, there are people who find value in the "half-X" ancestries.

Yeah, blame it on me not fully reading your post before using the part I quoted as a jumping off point. My bad.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I do think a 'custom parentage' option makes most sense. I've dropped Half Elf and Half Orc.

I use Level Up's system for character creation, which handles combined heritages (like it handles everything else) better than O5e.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, its always been odd to me, and never sat very well. Especially when HO was always cast in a negative light, while HE was this blessed golden child.

One of the things I liked about Dragonlance was that Tanis  Half-Elven was far from being treated as a golden child.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It's a question that does not have good answers yet I don't think. For me, my issue was always that it was always just these two specific mixed races that continually were used as the standard-bearers in the PHB... despite the fact that the existence of the Half-Orc mixed race originally were due to unsavory reasons, and that Muls have existed in the game for decades but only show up in Dark Sun for some reason. Tie that to the humanocentric systems that make their "half" name be the other half of humanity and the "half-elf" and the "half-orc" have just never sat well with me. It always seemed arbitrary these two choices, and it discounted all the other mixed races that probably / supposedly existed. Not only Muls, and Ogrillons, but gnome/halfling parentages, dwarf/elf parentages, human/halfling parentages etc.

I most certainly agree that in Eberron specifically the Jhorgun’taal and Khoravar are treated as though they were their own races and thus have kind of a need for their continued existence call out in that setting. But like Muls on Athas, I almost wish the Eberron books specifically called them out by those names all the time, and not just every once in a while when they wanted to get specific (and calling them half-elves and half-orcs most of the time otherwise.) If you're going to treat them are truebreeding races, then call them by their racial identity and not this half-measure D&D continues to stick with.

I know @Thommy H-H said the practicality of full write-ups of all the combinations of mixed parentage was impossible (and I agree when we look at the complete list of 60+ races now called out in D&D)... but if we can get four elemental plane ancestor bloodlines, an upper plane bloodline, a lower plane bloodline, and like a dozen different elves and humanoid animal races... at the very least we should be able to have write-ups for more than just these two.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

I most certainly agree that in Eberron specifically the Jhorgun’taal and Khoravar are treated as though they were their own races and thus have kind of a need for their continued existence call out in that setting. But like Muls on Athas, I almost wish the Eberron books specifically called them out by those names all the time, and not just every once in a while when they wanted to get specific (and calling them half-elves and half-orcs most of the time otherwise.) If you're going to treat them are truebreeding races, then call them by their racial identity and not this half-measure D&D continues to stick with.

Problem with that is that not all half-elves identify as Khoravar...

For example, amongst the half-elven Dragonmarked Houses, House Lyrandar is very much centered on their distinct Khoravar identity, whereas House Medani openly embraces the "bridge between two worlds" view and encourages its members to see themselves as both human and elf rather than apart from either.

I don't think there's a "one-size-fits-all" approach to take, unfortunately...

 

[Scribe]

I use Level Up's system for character creation, which handles combined heritages (like it handles everything else) better than O5e.

I was excited for Level Up, bought the books, but I dont know it just didnt hook me.

 

[ChaosOS]

I lean much more into the Eberron names in my publications, but that's also because if you're buying my stuff on the dmsguild you're already pretty into Eberron - Keith's stuff, let alone 1st party content like Rising, has a much broader appeal.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I use Level Up's system for character creation, which handles combined heritages (like it handles everything else) better than O5e.

Can you summarize? My DM has the books, but I haven’t spent much time with them. IIRC you have culture and heritage (or something similar), but I don’t remember anything about mixed heritages.