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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[MarkB]

There are not Forgotten Realms Elves and Other Elves in 5E-verse. Just Elves.

Citation required.

 

[Parmandur]

I believe we are talking in circles here. Yes, Wayfinder's Guide uses Corellon as a possible alternative origin for Eberron elves, but in your interpretation of Mornenkaiden's, there is nothing possible. Elves are the children of Corellon and that is the bottom of it. That I don't like, and will never like. Give this things as options not as reallity.

All of MToF is optional.

 

[Bolares]

All of MToF is optional.

Then it's not a core assumption of D&D lore.

 

[Parmandur]

Citation required.

@Bolares posted the bits from MToF upthread. That's not a FR book, but part of the core assumed metasetting.

 

[Parmandur]

Then it's not a core assumption of D&D lore.

All core assumptions of D&D lore are optional, unless one is woreking on a licensed product (so a D&D cartoon that went to Eberron would probably hint at the Corllon descent option, for instance).

WotC is very loose on "Canon" at this point, except as an inside style guide.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

If the claim was that in their game that's what happened its not just fine, but a really cool idea. What I understood was, "that's the core assumpiton of the game".

Not going to get into that argument thanks.
I will say that I disagree with trying to zoom out the perspective to the point where elves of different worlds cannot be distinguished from each other. You could use the same logic to say "There are no elves or dwarves or humans, just humanoids."

When I think about slaughtering sacred cows, this **** is not what I have in mind.

Answer me this: what good for Eberron does it do to shoehorn the stories of Corellon and Lolth, or Moradin, or Yondalla, or Gruumsh, or whatever "standard" deities and legends into Eberron, which has its own mythologies and histories; what good does it do to force the Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Orcs, and whatnot of Eberron, to cleave close to the stereotypes of their races when the very setting is designed to subvert or defy them as to open up new directions for those peoples?

I'm sure it will work in some games, just as some games having Forgotten Realms drow be a result of illithid experimentation on normal elves rather than a split between factions at the dawn of the race would fit their plot better. Its an option.

Another example: the way that D&D online made the connection between Eberron and the FR was by Llolth influencing an overlord/demon that shared similar traits and creating a connection through Khyber to the Demonweb. That's valid in that game.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

1. There is still plenty of choice, it can all be ignored even
2. 5E doesn't share these stereotypes anymore
3. An all-connecting multiverse is super-fun

1. See #3
2. But those still have echoes even today, and though those stereotypes are no longer insensitive or even maliciously racist, they still carry baggage that setting creators may not want to deal with when crafting their worlds. In Eberron, the Elves of Aerenal obsess over their ancestors dead and undead, not a distant creator god. The Dwarves of the Mror are not reclusive miners but instead are gregarious traders and bankers. Talenta Halflings are not simple, innocent farmers but are instead martial nomads. Orcs are not rapacious marauders in service to a vengeful god, but instead are a deeply passionate and spiritual people caught in a war with foul and unspeakable fiends from the dawn of time. By trying to integrate and assimilate Eberron into the metasetting lore beyond the degree it already is, you run the risk of negating and erasing these unique qualities.
3. For you maybe; I find it more trouble than it's worth to reconcile Eberron and Ravnica with the rest of D&D. Besides, your posts in this thread read more as trying to push one true way on the settings rather than simply another option, born from what I view as a (perhaps deliberate) misreading of the text.

 

[Parmandur]

1. See #3
2. But those still have echoes even today, and though those stereotypes are no longer insensitive or even maliciously racist, they still carry baggage that setting creators may not want to deal with when crafting their worlds. In Eberron, the Elves Aerenal obsess over their ancestors dead and undead, not a distant creator god. The Dwarves of the Mror are not reclusive miners but instead are gregarious traders and bankers. Talenta Halflings are not simple, innocent farmers but are instead martial nomads. Orcs are not rapacious marauders in service to a vengeful god, but instead are a deeply passionate and spiritual people caught in a war with foul and unspeakable fiends from the dawn of time. By trying to integrate and assimilate Eberron into the metasetting lore beyond the degree it already is, you run the risk of negating and erasing these unique qualities.
3. For you maybe; I find it more trouble than it's worth to reconcile Eberron and Ravnica with the rest of D&D. Besides, your posts in this thread read more as trying to push one true way on the settings rather than simply another option, born from what I view as a (perhaps deliberate) misreading of the text.

And yet reconcile Eberron and Ravnica with both Spelljammer and Planescape is something that Crawford did in the video posted upthread. Totally optional at the table, that is the assumed default, take it or leave it. I'm the one being told that there is "One True Way" to use Eberron, but it ain't so.

 

[Azzy]

I've never been a fan of mixing the settings. Never will be. Not going to happen in my games.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

All core assumptions of D&D lore are optional, unless one is woreking on a licensed product (so a D&D cartoon that went to Eberron would probably hint at the Corllon descent option, for instance).

WotC is very loose on "Canon" at this point, except as an inside style guide.

This is a great quote here, and one people debating should really acknowledge (same goes for a similarly pointless debate on Greyhawk which I sadly contributed to); WotC purposefully keeps connections between settings vague with hints, in order for readers to incorporate or disregard pieces.

If you want Eberron to be connected to Corellon, you can take that passage literally. If you don't, you don't, and keep Eberron distinct.

Wizard's wants you to be happy.