D&D 5E New Eberron Book Details From WotC

WotC’s Jeremy Crawford appeared on Twitch last night with Bart Carroll, discussing the upcoming D&D setting book Eberron: Rising from the Last War. Lots of details within!

- Overview of Eberron, emphasized potentials for adventure and post-WWI pulp style of setting.

- Dragonmarked Houses as fantasy Corporations, playable Dragonmarked characters as race rules in the book

- Rules and stories for playing, Warforged, Changlings, Kalsthar, Shifters, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Orcs. Playable Orc is different fro mthe Volo's Guide rules to reflect the different story (no intelligence malus, few other tweaks, still usable for other worlds, these are PC Orcs as opposed to Monster Manual Orcs like Volo's).

- Full rules for the Artificer, including a new feature in this book for making Common and Uncommon magic items

- Aberrant Dragonmark Feats are in the book

- Group patron rules for organizations the late 19th-early 20th century style: newspapers, criminal syndicates, universities, spy rings: fourth choice after Race-Class-Background that the party makes together, has new fluff background features to give characters and adventure hooks

- Possibility of the party becoming their own patron, example being creating your own Crime Syndicate

- All of the above is Chapter 1 material

- Chapter 2 is a Gazeeter of Korvaire and the world: delves into great nations, the religions, touches on otehr continents

- Chapter 3 is a zoom in on Sharn, a microcosm of the setting, great place for Noir intrigue

- Chapter 4 is a 100 page adventure creation toolkit comparable to Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica: wealth of adventure building tables, maps, organization information, first level adventure set in Sharn. Reveals brand new information about the Mournland, for instance, during the war they created not just regular Warforged and Warforged Titans but also Warforged Colossi the size of skyscrapers: one of the maps is of a fallen Warfored Colossi as a dungeon @doctorbadwolf

- Section in "massive" chapter for creating adventures about Eberron's cosmology, and how it relates to Great Wheel multiverse, left to DM to decide how sealed off Eberron is by the Progenitor Dragons

- There are extended magical item economy rules in chapter 5, Common magical items are plentiful: buying, selling, crafting rules and price lists.

- Eberron specific monsters and NPCs in the sixth and final chapter, covering things like Daelkyr, Living Spells (3 different Living Spells in the book including Living Cloud Kill, and a template for making more) and various specific NPCs

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[Parmandur]

I don't see Eberron being in the same multiverse as the rest of the DnD worlds as changing the Progenitor Dragons mithology. To me they created (in the mithos at least) a universe and then the ring enclosed it. Being or not connected to the rest of the worlds does not change that. that's the beuty of a magic multiverse, things can be connected but unreacheable, elfs can come from completely different origins but be exactly the same... I don't see how being part of the multiverse (as the new canon affirms) makes the elfs of Eberron a creation of Corellon.

Well, Eberronian Elves are a creation (emanation, technically) of Corellon per Mordenkainen's Time of Foes, they've just forgotten that "fact."

I love the MToF lore, use it myself, more than happy to mix it in with what they bring in this new book. Not everyone's cup of tea.

 

[Bolares]

Well, Eberronian Elves are a creation (emanation, technically) of Corellon per Mordenkainen's Time of Foes, they've just forgotten that "fact."

I love the MToF lore, use it myself, more than happy to mix it in with what they bring in this new book. Not everyone's cup of tea.

Do you know where that book affirms that elfs in Eberron are a creation of Corellon? Because that goes directly against the settings lore

 

[Parmandur]

Do you know where that book affirms that elfs in Eberron are a creation of Corellon? Because that goes directly against the settings lore

Not really in a position to flip through the book at the moment, but Elves on various worlds are discussed in the Elf chapter, Eberron being called out specifically. This being not the same as previous editions of Eberron is part of the dust-up here, MToF rather aggressively asserts a new metasetting norm that does overwrite a bunch of stuff. I like the new stuff, but I can understand it being irritating to others.

Eberron Elf origins already got retconed in 4E to include the Feywild, IIRC. Basically, Elves not knowing their origins is a retcon that previous versions of Elf origins are believed in Eberron, but are not "true."

 

[R_J_K75]

Reading again how Wayfinder's handled it, the ring of Syberis being a shield is Canon, but the state of it is where the DM's choice comes in to play... If you want Eberron as an active part of the multiverse the ring is weakenned, if not its intact.

So Eberron is canonically a part of the multiverse, but the access to the setting is up to the DM. In the end everyone herewas a little bit right XD I like this solution,as @Parmandur said its a light but solid enough touch.

So if I understood the video and this conversation in this thread the Ring of Syberis is not a crystal sphere in the traditional sense as described in 2E Spelljammer? Its not a crystal sphere at all but is serving the purpose of one by shielding it from the rest of the material plane and multiverse, and this shield is weakening?

One thing I found interesting was the discussion on the material plane. Maybe I just never made the connection but I never knew that all the campaign settings were on the same material plane. I always thought that they were on their own separate material plane, with all of these separate material planes touching the same multiverse. Crawford goes onto say that one could teleport from Toril to Oerth as long as they knew the Sigil Sequence. Ive been playing D&D a long time and it was always been a cardinal rule that you couldnt teleport to other prime material planes. As far as the Sigil Sequence I never heard of these before. Pretty confused on the stuff in this paragraph, can anyone enlighten me?

 

[Arnwolf666]

Like I said.

My challenge was specifically to the idea that Eberron’s crystal sphere broke, and it’s shards made the Ring of Syberis. That isn’t the case. What is the case, in 5e, is simply that the Ring of Syberis shields Eberron from the rest of the multiverse, and that it can be treated as weakening quite recently.

What I’ll be doing, because I don’t like the change to the nature of the progenitor dragons implied by this lore change, is ignoring all of that. Eberron exists as a separate universe, not a separate crystal sphere. Corellon didn’t create elves in Eberron. Full stop.

And when I run nentir vale, Nerule is dead and the Raven Queen took his place.

Some worlds benefit from being part of the same universe, separated only by crystal spheres and space. Others don’t.

Changing the nature of the world to fit a cinematic universe is something that should only be done if it makes the specific setting better.

Also, it’s still a single multiverse if Eberron and Ravnica are separate universes. It fits the term better, in fact. Multiple parallel universes is the normal usage of “multiverse”. What Mearls and Crawford describe is just...a universe.

Exactly. Great post. I prefer gygaxian multiversal theory with all the alternate material planes sharing the same outer planes, inner planes, etc. but that is just what works for me. But this is another good way of doing it.

 

[Bolares]

Not really in a position to flip through the book at the moment, but Elves on various worlds are discussed in the Elf chapter, Eberron being called out specifically. This being not the same as previous editions of Eberron is part of the dust-up here, MToF rather aggressively asserts a new metasetting norm that does overwrite a bunch of stuff. I like the new stuff, but I can understand it being irritating to others.

Eberron Elf origins already got retconed in 4E to include the Feywild, IIRC. Basically, Elves not knowing their origins is a retcon that previous versions of Elf origins are believed in Eberron, but are not "true."

So, I did the same lazy research of hiting ctrl+f and looking for the keyword Eberron in that chapter... I found 3 mentions (two of them in the same paragraph) and will post them here:

"The elves of Oerth are a sorry sort, abused by their past conquerors, often in hiding, and much divided. Although I have found evidence of greater elven empires in other worlds, these too seem shattered. In so many worlds, the rise of humanity seems to follow the fall of elves. What will follow, should humanity fall? Orcs. There is evidence of this already in the world of Eberron, a place where humanity lost a war with itself." This is one of the in character quotes of Mornenkaiden, and makes little sense to me, as in Eberron the Orcs don't have an inclination to form an empire.

"Vulkoor
Drow of the world of Eberron worship a scorpion-god named Vulkoor, which is their world’s equivalent of Lolth. Vulkoor is often portrayed or envisioned as a giant scorpion or as a hybrid creature with the head, arms, and upper torso of a strong male drow and the lower body of a scorpion. The dark elves of Eberron revere scorpions, seeing spiders and other arachnids to be lesser servitors of Vulkoor. Many drow believe that Vulkoor and the Mockery (one of the group of evil deities known as the Dark Six) are one and the same. Drow from the jungle continent of Xen’drik ritually tattoo themselves using scorpion venom, leaving white scars etched into their skin.
Drow of other worlds rarely know of Vulkoor. Those who are familiar with his name consider him one of the weakest of the Dark Seldarine, a subordinate of Lolth who is disregarded by the other gods. Both visions of Vulkoor might be accurate, since Lolth seems to have little influence in Khyber but the drow there bear many similarities to the Lolth-worshiping drow of other realms throughout the multiverse."

This one is in the part that talks exclusivelly about drow, an seems really misinformed to me, as not all drows worship Vulkoor, but still the paragraphlets the "truth" open to interpretation if Lolth created the drow or not.

 

[Arnwolf666]

Corellon larethian creates the drow when he cast them out.

 

[Bolares]

To me the part of the Chapter on elves in monenkaiden's that contradicts Eberron's lore the most is this:

"The most ancient tales speak of elves as the children of the god Corellon. Unlike many similar myths involving other races, these tales are true. Elves are all descended from a deity, and their origin led to a tragedy that shapes their culture to this day.
The gulf between the elves and Corellon, and the split between Corellon and Lolth, arose from the same transgression. That one incident set all the many races of elves on their present paths, determined their unique life cycle, and triggered an unflagging hatred between the drow and the elves of the Material Plane. No other event has had such momentous impact on elven history as the one that began it all."

But still this to me feels like a general description of elves, and Eberron's lore presents an specific one for that setting. And specific always beatsthe general description. Even more in a setting where gods walking and dancing in the world are not a thing, and there is a canonical shield preventing inteference form other planes.

 

[Parmandur]

So if I understood the video and this conversation in this thread the Ring of Syberis is not a crystal sphere in the traditional sense as described in 2E Spelljammer? Its not a crystal sphere at all but is serving the purpose of one by shielding it from the rest of the material plane and multiverse, and this shield is weakening?

One thing I found interesting was the discussion on the material plane. Maybe I just never made the connection but I never knew that all the campaign settings were on the same material plane. I always thought that they were on their own separate material plane, with all of these separate material planes touching the same multiverse. Crawford goes onto say that one could teleport from Toril to Oerth as long as they knew the Sigil Sequence. Ive been playing D&D a long time and it was always been a cardinal rule that you couldnt teleport to other prime material planes. As far as the Sigil Sequence I never heard of these before. Pretty confused on the stuff in this paragraph, can anyone enlighten me?

It is stated to be a Crystal Sphere, as in Spelljammer, that has been set up with a "shield" to keep Eberron cordoned off from the rest of the cosmos.

The sigil sequence is part of the Teleportation spell, needed to transport to a specific location on the same Plane. In the 5E standard cosmos, as laid out in the PHB and DMG, all worlds are on one material Plane together.

 

[Bolares]

This may sound like a disingenuous question, but I promise it isn't, english is not my first language and sometimes I assume some stuff by context...

IIRC they saythe ring is like a crystal sphere... being like a crystal sphere is the same thing as saying it is a crystal sphere?