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]

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.

I mean, for anybody's given game, whatever goes. However, the core provided background is that Eberron Elves are part of what is described here, but have forgotten their origins pre-Proginator sealing shennanigans. I'm curious to see if this gets any more detail in this book.

 

[R_J_K75]

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.

I dont have the Wayfinders Guide so I havent read it

 

[Bolares]

I mean, for anybody's given game, whatever goes. However, the core provided background is that Eberron Elves are part of what is described here, but have forgotten their origins pre-Proginator sealing shennanigans. I'm curious to see if this gets any more detail in this book.

By the setting's lore there is no "before the sealing".

 

[Parmandur]

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?

No, that's a fair question.

What Crawford said was that "in Eberron you can actually see what in other worlds we might refer to as the Crystal Sphere." The reason he phrases it this way is that "Crystal Sphere" as a term for the barrier around the systems is a misnomer, not quite accurate. It is identical to what Spelljammer calls a Crystal Sphere for Eberron space.

 

[Parmandur]

By the setting's lore there is no "before the sealing".

That the people of Eberron know about. I don't know precisely what the Wayfinders book says, but Crawford's presentation here is of the Proginetor "Dragons" or whatever they were making the microcosm at a particular point within cosmic history. They aren't necessarily beholden to a presentation from a previous edition, as seen in the difference between 3E and 4E versions. It's more important for WotC right now to provide the option to make Eberron work within the metasetting.

 

[Bolares]

That the people of Eberron know about. I don't know precisely what the Wayfinders book says, but Crawford's presentation here is of the Proginetor "Dragons" or whatever they were making the microcosm at a particular point within cosmic history. They aren't necessarily beholden to a presentation from a previous edition, as seen in the difference between 3E and 4E versions. It's more important for WotC right now to provide the option to make Eberron work within the metasetting.

I say there is no before because in the myth the ring is formed when Syberis dies and Eberron seals Khyber, and after that the creatures begin to be created. And even if you choose the myth to not be true, canon says the ring is a shield, and the option they give is that its just starting to be weakenned, so when would the elves be created if the shiled weakenning is a recent event?

Looking now by a design perspective, using this paragraph to refer to Eberron seems problematicand contraditory too, because every time the designers refer to Eberron in 5e they go out of their way to give possible interpretations, not a TRUTH. This same book does that when discussing the Drow and Lolth (as I've quoted earlier). That makes the statement that "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. " rather strange if it is aplicable to Eberron too.

 

[Parmandur]

I say there is no before because in the myth the ring is formed when Syberis dies and Eberron seals Khyber, and after that the creatures begin to be created. And even if you choose the myth to not be true, canon says the ring is a shield, and the option they give is that its just starting to be weakenned, so when would the elves be created if the shiled weakenning is a recent event?

Looking now by a design perspective, using this paragraph to refer to Eberron seems problematicand contraditory too, because every time the designers refer to Eberron in 5e they go out of their way to give possible interpretations, not a TRUTH. This same book does that when discussing the Drow and Lolth (as I've quoted earlier). That makes the statement that "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. " rather strange if it is aplicable to Eberron too.

Eberron Elves are already canonically from another world: the Giants kidnapped them from the Feywild and enslaved them. So, Corellon didn't create the Elves on Eberron (he didn't create any Elves, they emenated from him by accident), Corellon made the Elves and some came to Eberron and forgot their origins cut off from the rest of the cosmos.

 

[Bolares]

Eberron Elves are already canonically from another world: the Giants kidnapped them from the Feywild and enslaved them. So, Corellon didn't create the Elves on Eberron (he didn't create any Elves, they emenated from him by accident), Corellon made the Elves and some came to Eberron and forgot their origins cut off from the rest of the cosmos.

Not the feywild, Thelanis. The shield does not only protect Eberron's material plane, but their entire cosmology. Thelanis is not the feywild with another name, is a similar but different plane, as are the material planes of Toril and Eberron.

Edit: And in fact they are not from Thelanis, they are descendants from the Eladrin from Shae Tirias Tolai, a feyspire that was transported to X'endrik. Eberron elveswere created in X'endrik, on the material plane.

 

[Parmandur]

Not the feywild, Thelanis. The shield does not only protect Eberron's material plane, but their entire cosmology. Thelanis is not the feywild with another name, is a similar but different plane, as are the material planes of Toril and Eberron.

Still, the point is they came from outside. Originally, from Corellon. Corellon isn't neccesarily aware of Eberron, anymore than Eberron Elves are aware of him, but 5E Elves are his children.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

Oof. I’d forgotten how bad that is. Especially the drow of Khyber part. They don’t even worship Vulkoor, and are not like Llolth Drow (then, neither are the Vulkoori, or however it’s spelled). The Umbragen drow harness the power of the Umbra in order to survive the underdark, and have a civilization so advanced they consider all surface dwellers basically cave people.

The rest ranges from wild oversimplification to the point of implying false statements, to outright nonsense.

If the 5e Eberron books call Vulkoor an aspect of Llolth, I’ll have to basically give up on 5e Eberron lore altogether, as it will be useless.