Keith, do you keep a list of active Eberron fan sites and, if so, would you mind posting them please? ...Is there anywhere you could point me and any other Eberron fans who happen to be reading this?
Over the last few years I've posted a lot of Q&As
at my website, and it's something I still try and do every month; you can select "Eberron FAQ" in the categories to find them. And for old things sadly no longer supported - there's always the
Dragonshard archive.
There have been a few active sites in the past, but the one I am aware of now is
The 13th House.
It's frustrating for me that I can't provide more support for the setting; I've been talking to WotC for years now, and while the mood is still positive I don't know if it will be months or years before further support for the setting happens. This is one of my primary motivators for creating
Phoenix - to have a new setting that I can support as fully as I wish. If Phoenix is successful enough to merit it, I'd love to develop the setting more deeply with additional adventures, source material and/or fiction... but that's really going to depend on how successful the setting is. As I am producing it through my own company, if interest isn't there we'll need to move on to other things. Essentially, Phoenix is my attempt to create something more like Eberron; if it doesn't take off I'll probably focus on smaller projects, more along the lines of Gloom.
Here's a question for you (and everyone reading this): Do you think Phoenix would be more appealing if I offered conversions for game material to other OGL systems? It's not something I've considered because the Phoenix system is closely rooted in the design of the world, which is why I decided to create a new system instead of just making a sourcebook for an existing system. Phoenix isn't just about leveling up when you die: it's a setting where the odds are against you and the stakes are brutally high. Thus we remove the random factor of dice. Using cards for resolution means that there's a random factor from turn to turn, but that in any particular turn you know what you're capable of. Essentially, it's like saying that you know this round whether you're going to roll a 10 or a 20 - and if a 10 isn't good enough for what you wanted to do, find an action that you can accomplish with a ten. Or burn sparks to push beyond what you have in your hand... but when you run out of sparks, you die. It's a simple system that handles the stakes of the story very well. I could create stats in other systems for the threats, etc - but it wouldn't give the same feel or the sense of control you have over your character's actions.
As a side note, the "Prop" house rule I dropped into "One Night In Graywall" is actually a standard thing in Phoenix.