Lord Tirian said:
One of the reasons why I've opened the thread - even if I get nothing, I get inspiration! And Graf's post was full of Eberron goodness (though it only addresses my problem partially, as the misconceptions of Eberron are a) somewhat popular misconceptions, b) some that my players picked up through me and through official material - getting a blank slate is sometimes useful in such cases.).
Obviously, I got a bit carried away.
The misconceptions are "real".
I mean... my players also think that hard core adventure is only available in Xen'drik.
I think this perception is largely driven by some weird choices on the part of WotC (and the novels, of which I've not read many), but I think the actual material/the original intent (as I read it) of KB, Wyatt and the rest of the design team was for Khorvaire itself to be mostly wilderness with a few nicer places to live (for contrast) and some very urban areas (for pulpy/noir adventures).
My strong personal opinion is that homebrewing is the bane of running good adventures. All the time you spend tweaking this kingdom, that economic relationship, etc etc takes energy away from making a good story now (a weird innkeeper, an interesting villain, a tricky conflict).
And, I think, Eberron is pretty dark on a personal level. There are "darker" settings but they have so much baggage that I think you really run the risk of player revolt.
- Mourning, I think, is overused, but it's still a horrific idea that should easily imping upon the player character's and NPCs consciousness.
- Warforged? Also overused, but the world made an entire sentient race, used them as weapons and now that it's incovenient they've been discarded completely. It's genocide really (in the technical sense); the warforged are going to be wiped out.[sblock=Obviously]Players don't feel like this is the case because every page of the rule book screams BUT SO-AND-SO is SECRETLY manufacturing MORE WARFORGED, no one knows this BIG SECRET.
Which is a big failing, and pretty lame.
But, as the book is written (as opposed to presented) it's a fairly depressing situation; unless you're a racist (anti-constructist?) of course. [/sblock]
- Your average person is somewhere between subsistence level and poor. They're well educated but they'll never be able to afford to ride the lightning rail (and a lot of the lightning rails were broken during the war anyway). Their nationalistic, they've lost a lot of relatives and friends in a really vicious war.
- The gods they pray to provide no evidence of their existence; scholars tell them that when you die you go to a gray underworld for a few years until you completely forget yourself and then dissolve.
- The world has split up along racial lines, what was once an integrated kingdom ruled by a just leader is now a mass of squabbling countries.
- The dragonmarked houses are wealthy monopolies but even being marked isn't so great. Sure you have wealth, respect and power, but the elders of your house basically pick who you marry as they try to breed for ever-more-powerful dragonmarks. Your wealthy relatives will give you trouble (up to and including assassinating you) if you don't go along with their plans. Regardless of your own personal moral compass you're supposed to be neutral in all conflicts, selling to the highest bidder.
Eberron does have a specific feel to it. And I very much respect that people don't want that feel, or to use the setting, but it's not a "light" setting.
I mean... Sharn has a table for "what sort of random body did you find?"
Still, IK is cool and mixing Eberron and IK could be a lot of fun.
I would just suggest that you really think about what's missing from Eberron that you need, stick it in and then focus more on "local issues".
Or, just run IK straight for a while and see if there's anything from Eberron you need.
IMHO natch.
