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]

Not in my Eberron books they’re not. I’ve got 3 edition’s worth of them as well (well, PDF for one of the editions).

But your of course welcome to do whatever you want in your Eberron.

Absolutely. My Eberron makes use of the main D&D lore, but nobody else has to do that in their game. Elves being descended from Corellon doesn't harm anybody's individual game.

 

[Parmandur]

Your taste isn’t being mocked. Bad writing is being mocked.

I like the first DnD movie. I don’t get offended when people mock it, because they aren’t mocking me, they’re mocking a poorly produced movie.

I enjoy the MToF fluff. It is not garbage writing, and I am glad that it is part of the game now. Don't like it, don't use it, but mockery is unkind.

 

[Bolares]

Sure Elves being descendent to Corellon does not hurt the game, but that's not what we were talking about. Everyone's Eberron is equally valid, but per canon, as expressed in every edition of the setting elves are not Corellon's creation. I do not mean this in a "you are playing it wrong" manner, its just a fact, at least until rising from the last war comes out.

 

[Reynard]

The same species popping into existence on different planets is too ridiculous for me suspension of disbelief. They have to have a common ancestor or they are a different race. I don’t expect to find humans around alpha Centauri when we start exploring neighboring star systems in the far future.

Except Eberron isn't a planet out in space somewhere. It is an isolated world (barring its 12 moons which may actually be manifestations of its planar cosmology) in it's own pocket universe ruled by it's own physics, primordial beings and maybe gods. It doesn't need to exist in the wider D&D multiverse and in fact trying to force it in there weakens it's own story and unique aspects. And trying to make it fit in the ridiculous, silly and nonsensical Spelljammer cosmology is two sins in one.

All that say, unless there are drastic mechanical impacts of 5E Eberron being forced into the Great Wheel and Spelljammer Prime, I'll just ignore it and tell players to refer to the 3e materials for lore.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Sure Elves being descendent to Corellon does not hurt the game, but that's not what we were talking about. Everyone's Eberron is equally valid, but per canon, as expressed in every edition of the setting elves are not Corellon's creation. I do not mean this in a "you are playing it wrong" manner, its just a fact, at least until rising from the last war comes out.

Eh. Things get a little fuzzy because I'm not sure if Wayfarer's Guide is actually canon. (In the wider 5e sense. As far as I'm concerned it is most definitely canon in any Eberron game I'm running unless I choose otherwise.)
Regardless, if you have a DM who insists that eberron must be in rigid adherence to the closest letter of 5e multiverse canon, that might be the best path to take.
Perhaps there are enough similarities between the Feywild and Thelanis that a connection or portal could be made that allowed the eladrin to cross over? Or perhaps Eberron and Siberys deliberately allowed some eladrin refugees in to allow them to develop without Corellon's influence.
The drow have a fairly solidly different origin from that in Mordenkainen's, but the eladrin could be wrangled to be originally Corellon's creations if that was required by the story.

Except Eberron isn't a planet out in space somewhere. It is an isolated world (barring its 12 moons which may actually be manifestations of its planar cosmology) in it's own pocket universe ruled by it's own physics, primordial beings and maybe gods. It doesn't need to exist in the wider D&D multiverse and in fact trying to force it in there weakens it's own story and unique aspects. And trying to make it fit in the ridiculous, silly and nonsensical Spelljammer cosmology is two sins in one.

All that say, unless there are drastic mechanical impacts of 5E Eberron being forced into the Great Wheel and Spelljammer Prime, I'll just ignore it and tell players to refer to the 3e materials for lore.

I actually like the concept or Eberron being created by the progenitors as a sanctuary from the meddling of the gods that plague the other worlds. They re-created the races found on other worlds, but without a lot of the baggage that Gruumsh, Corellon, Moradin et el saddled them with.

In practical terms, there is no difference whether Eberron is completely separate, or on the same plane, but just isolated by the barrier of Siberys. - Unless you want to actually start crossing over, where the concept of Siberys failing could be used.

 

[bedir than]

Unless you want your table to relate to other tables' histories and lores the idea of canon is non-sensical.

Your table is your lore. It's your story.

 

[R_J_K75]

Unless you want your table to relate to other tables' histories and lores the idea of canon is non-sensical.

Your table is your lore. It's your story.

Exactly. Heres a few examples. I played in a FR game where myself and another friend DMed the same campaign. We were both well versed in the lore of the setting so it was always exciting to see what the other DM was going to do and made for alot of fun. In another game I played in the DM ran a Waterdeep game where he took so many liberties with the setting and disregarded so much of the lore of the setting that it just didnt feel like the Realms and wasnt fun at all. In my current FR game my players know very little of the Realms so it give me the option to do what I want regardless of established "canon". Bottom line a good DM has to know his players expectations and live up to them, otherwise theyre dead in the water.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

On the actual thread subject, one thing I am hoping for is more talk about "mundane magic" as in spells designed for everyday use. I understand that the PHB focuses on adventuring magic for a reason, in the same way the MM is mostly things to fight and not representative of the general flora and fauna of the world. But it would be interesting to see what kinds of magic are used in a setting like Eberron where the vast majority of magic is used for daily life, infrastructure and so on.

Sounds like a perfect book for the DMs Guild.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

New Eberron sounds amazing. I think I’d like to try to persuade my group to play. Anyone know if someone’s created a player facing one pager out there to get play groups excited to play?

 

[hbarsquared]

IMO, the whole concept of "canon" is losing meaning as we head into 2020. From 5e's inception, and to its benefit, the designers have recognized that "every home game is their own," and the prevalence of blogs, streams, twitch have only enforced the concept that every group will forge its own canon.

This is a good thing.

To whit:

The Dragon Marks were the only thing that I had trouble with because I could never remember the differences between them. I just introduced things slowly and just disregarded what I wanted. I liked the whole story line of the Last War and the cold war feeling after. To me that was what Eberron was about. I wish theyd have left it at Khorvaire and left out the other continents.

I never consider any of my books obsolete, I still use alot of 1E-3E books to supplement my 5E game. Even though I dont use my 4E books Ive still kept them because some of it might come in handy one day.

This is, in no way, "my Eberron."

But this is exactly how Eberron should be approached.