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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[Micah Sweet]

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.

You have heritage (your actual physical form), culture (the people you grew up with), background (your pre-adventurer training; also includes your ASIs), and destiny (why you are an adventurer; focuses on new sources and uses for inspiration). Your heritage includes traits (which all members of your heritage have), a choice from two or more gifts (this is often used as a representation of subrace if there are physical differences) and at 10th level, a choice of paragon gifts. For a character of mixed heritage, who choose the traits from one and the gift from another (your choice).

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

You have heritage (your actual physical form), culture (the people you grew up with), background (your pre-adventurer training; also includes your ASIs), and destiny (why you are an adventurer; focuses on new sources and uses for inspiration). Your heritage includes traits (which all members of your heritage have), a choice from two or more gifts (this is often used as a representation of subrace if there are physical differences) and at 10th level, a choice of paragon gifts. For a character of mixed heritage, who choose the traits from one and the gift from another (your choice).

So the things that matters here are the heritage traits and gifts. And you get to chose one or the other from each heritage. That makes a lot of sense. I doubt WotC will go that far with ‘24e, but it would be a good idea IMO.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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 don't know, to me it is backwards.

In Europe, Coal powered and drove the Industrial revolution.

In Eberron, The industrial revolution altered how Dragonshards were used.

The rest of the stuff (where it is, who is getting it, how clean it is) doesn't matter for the point I'm trying to make

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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...

As a Greyhawk Folio DM back in the day, I suspect that getting Folio-era notes from EGG, set before the wars, etc., would be a pretty good unifying point for everyone. The other stuff (including the Chainmail game) would be in a possible future, and the material could be used in those future settings, as preferred.

Still, as long as Gail is with us, I don't think there's much chance of that happening anyway, and I imagine there will be a nasty battle over whatever she's got once she's gone.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I think the only way to handle it, ultimately, is the way that Eberron does it (albeit not in so many words): by making those half-races into distinct populations and societies, and giving them names that don't sound so...uncomfortably essentialist. But if you have "Khoravar" or something similar in place of "half-elf", it does rather beg the question of what mechanical purpose having that as a separate category serves. What is inherently appealing about playing someone from a culture whose ancestors are a mixture of human and elf/orc/whatever, when you can equally just be an elf, an orc, or a whatever?

The bottom line is that D&D has, at its core, concepts of racial essentialism that were part of the fantasy milieu from which it arose. From Tolkien's obsession with bloodlines and categories of people, to pulp adventures and their colonialist antecedents, to Gygax's own cultural biases, we've been left with a pretty uncomfortable legacy. I don't know how you fix that without just abandoning the whole idea of fantasy 'races'. I suspect One D&D's first playtest was trying to go that way by establishing that they were, indeed, species, and that any viable interbreeding required Bigby's benevolent biomancy or whatever but, as has been pointed out, you run the risk with that of alienating a whole different group of players who have a personal connection to the idea of a blended heritage.

Basically, Eberron does it better than most of the settings, and Keith generally has his head screwed on with regard to these issues, but there's really no way to square the circle on this one.

The problem for me at least (which is similar to the problem I have with Halflings) is that Eberron is basically the only setting that does anything interesting with the Half-Races. Sure, removing half-races from the PHB will be a bit of a problem for Eberron, but it won't be for basically every other setting in D&D.

So, IMO, either every other setting needs to change and actually do something with the Half-Races beyond saying "they're there", or the PHB needs to dump a concept that has failed in every setting except Eberron. In which case, I think OneD&D's proposed solution works quite well. The more viable solution when presented with "remove something that's a problem in every setting except one" and "fix the problem with extensive retcons in every setting except one" is always just to remove the thing.

However, I am not of mixed heritage, besides the normal melting pot of European backgrounds that a lot of Americans have, so my opinion certainly carries less weight on this matter than that of people that are descended from two or more different races/ethnicities.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

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.

Until gold was used in modern electronics, it was basically just a shiny metal that people liked to have because it doesn't tarnish. Eberron Dragonshards actually do have a use, as a magical fuel source for creating magic items and casting spells. So it's more analogous to coal and oil than gold.

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.

That's definitely an interesting and good idea, and I love the idea of making the anti-Warforged protestors more like the Luddites, but not really what we were discussing. Thanks for bringing it up, though.

 

[Gradine]

In Europe, Coal powered and drove the Industrial revolution.

Not quite; technically speaking the power that drove the industrial revolution was the steam engine, which was primarily invented to pump water out of coal mines but ended up changing literally everything. It was ehen people realized how many ways they could use the steam engine that drove the rush for more coal.

Coal wasn't anything new, but it was needed to power the all the new machines people were creating.

In that sense dragonshards in Eberron are a fair analogy. While theoretically the Last War was the major impetus behind the last century of innovation, it expanded the applications of dragonshards by so many multiples that it led to the greatest demand for the stuff in history of humanity on Khorvaire.

 

[darjr]

heroforge Eberron print.

Needs a bit more cleanup and a paint job. I might keep the blades clear. also I have a second for invisibility. @hellcowkieth #eberron #dnd #heroforge #3dprinting

 

[Chaosmancer]

Not quite; technically speaking the power that drove the industrial revolution was the steam engine, which was primarily invented to pump water out of coal mines but ended up changing literally everything. It was ehen people realized how many ways they could use the steam engine that drove the rush for more coal.

Coal wasn't anything new, but it was needed to power the all the new machines people were creating.

In that sense dragonshards in Eberron are a fair analogy. While theoretically the Last War was the major impetus behind the last century of innovation, it expanded the applications of dragonshards by so many multiples that it led to the greatest demand for the stuff in history of humanity on Khorvaire.

Fair enough.

However, it is also worth noting that the Steam Engine wasn't a new concept. It had existed for hundreds of years if not a thousand years or more before the Industrial Revolution. It was merely redesigned to be more powerful by Newcomen and then by Watt.

So, the steam engine was redesigned to pull water out of coal mines, and the heat for that steam engine was supplied by coal, and the redesign of the steam engine powered by coal allowed for the industrial revolution. Which is wild.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I think my reticence with Shards = Coal is the Industrial Revolution theme. I prefer to keep Eberron a little farter to ''industrial'' esthetic, to avoid the whole steampunk thingy that has been over-exploited in the last few years.

Its already pretty hard to mix the more recent 1800 esthetic of D&D product with the usual equipment list and cheap-pseudo medievalism of the rules. Having dudes wearing full plates in a 1900 esthetic is too jarring for my taste.