D&D 5E Eberron Is Here Today!

Eberron: Rising from the Last War hits local gamestores today. Eberron creator Keith Baker talks on his blog about what's changed!

So, what's changed? The Mror Dwarves, races, Dragonmarks, the Mournland, Lady Illmarrow, monsters... but not guns!

And what's new? The artificer class, group patrons, warforged colossus, and scary monsters!

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Explore the lands of Eberron in this campaign sourcebook for the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

This book provides everything players and Dungeon Masters need to play Dungeons & Dragons in Eberron—a war-torn world filled with magic-fueled technology, airships and lightning trains, where noir-inspired mystery meets swashbuckling adventure. Will Eberron enter a prosperous new age, or will the shadow of war descend once again?

• Meld magic and invention to craft objects of wonder as an artificer—the first official class to be released for fifth edition D&D since the Player’s Handbook.
• Enter the world of Eberron in a 1st-level adventure set in Sharn, the City of Towers
• Dive straight into your pulp adventures with easy-to-use locations, complete with maps of train cars, battle-scarred fortresses, and fallen warforged colossi.
• Explore Sharn, a city of skyscrapers, airships, and intrigue and a crossroads for the world’s war-ravaged peoples.
• Flesh out your characters with a new D&D game element called a group patron—a background for your whole party.
• Explore 16 new race/subrace options including dragonmarks, which magically transform certain members of the races in the Player’s Handbook.
• Confront horrific monsters born from the world’s devastating wars.
• Prepare to venture into the Mournland, a mist-cloaked, corpse-littered land twisted by magic.

 

[Gradine]

My understanding is that the Progenitor Dragons are pretty widely considered as a creation myth and metaphorical, in-universe. It's not meant to be taken literally.

 

[tetrasodium]

My understanding is that the Progenitor Dragons are pretty widely considered as a creation myth and metaphorical, in-universe. It's not meant to be taken literally.

Pretty much, liken it to the whole "created the world in seven days" thing, but they set the foundation for much of what follows. The timeline goes back to -10,000,000 YK for the start of the age of demons. Prior to that was the age of dragons at "unknown". The age of demons up to "998 YK The Present: Your Adventure Begins... "is pretty packed with the rise & fall of civilizations, extraplanar invasionS, & all sorts of interesting events that join together to shape the world as it is & its people/cultures/etc as they are.

 

[Weiley31]

No they do not & it's really not part of it but needs to make it clear how it's blocked off or something because the great wheel ,likes to say tharits gods, & its baseline assumptions apply to all settings. Eberron has it's own wildly different Cosmology (as does darksun with its), The gods do not exist in eberron or are so hands off that they make a coma patient look involved. Demons are often native to eberron, races are very different in many many cases. When you start importing the baselines of settings from great wheel (lets be honest and not pretend that the great wheel is something other than "in the forgotten realms"). does damage to both of those settings & vice versa if you try to import stuff from them.

To give an example of just how incompatible they are, Back in 4e Wotc had this big metaplot with asmodeous, the 9 hells, & tieflings... Asmodious did not exist... The nine hells also did not exist.... Tieflings were pretty new & didn't explicity exist but more on that below...

Eberron's history right from the creation myth all the way up to the present & no doubt beyond has massive influences . Tieflings in the planeswalker handbook where they got introduced where pretty much "some mortal race with a bit of fiend in their blood". That explanation worked fine for eberron given its influences & unique spin on alignment, but not with the metaplot.

In the metaplot Asmodeous did something to birth/claim/whatever the tiefling race & they all became his children while he became lord of the nine hells. Asmodious' lore as an individual was violently in conflict with much of eberron, so the eberron books created a plane that was totally not just the nine hells but was literally rthe nine hells if you instead called it "baator". Unfortunately multiple layers within the nine hells conflict with planes that actually exist within eberron's planar structure.. the metaplot too precedence & eberron sourcebooks became this weird mishmash of duplication.

Now that the nine hells existed, asmodeous could be installed as its ruler... unfortunately eberron's Children of Khyber (this includes both races of demons & devils) don't do the whole bargain for souls thing & have a very different role within the setting... Now they had both & it was a logic conflict.

So on & so forth, I'll stop there rather than continuing. baator is a rather touchy subject. Eberron treats magic as a science, FR treats it pretty much like a cargo cult treats science. You can cargo cult down science into myth/lore/legend/etc, but you can't really do the same in reverse & that makes it so cracks start forming in the tapestry the further you push.

Corelleon: Nah I don't fill like dealing with the elves over there. Pushes the model of Eberron away from his Evermeet model which is on the other side of the table.

 

[MarkB]

My understanding is that the Progenitor Dragons are pretty widely considered as a creation myth and metaphorical, in-universe. It's not meant to be taken literally.

To a greater or lesser extent, yes. Essentially, there may have been this trio of beings that created/became Eberron, but even if they did exist in some capacity, they're so far-removed from anything that a regular mortal could understand that calling them "dragons" is basically just a convenient label.

 

[Parmandur]

(lets be honest and not pretend that the great wheel is something other than "in the forgotten realms"

The Great Wheel as a default cosmology predates the Realms, and is much bigger than that. It's the default of D&D.

 

[Xenonnonex]

D&D beyond is awesome. All software has bugs.

Would you say D&D Beyond is beyond awesome?

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

Just cuz the dice say a bad guy is SUPPOSED to die due to a lucky hit, doesn't mean you let the dice rule the direction/outcome of the planned story.

Well sure, I mean, why let the dice rule the direction of anything? Your "planned story" will play out much smoother without any dice at all...

 

[Xenonnonex]

Lots of people missing my point, but I have a head cold and a stye and don't feel like typing out a long explantion of what I meant, so except this tldr and move on to something else pls.

FR is billed as the "You can include ANYTHING in this setting" in terms of types of magic, races, etc.

Eberron is much the same, but with a lot different flavor. ORcs are there, Elves are there, Dwarves are there, but everything is a lot different.

Has nothing to do with being generic. Pls stop trying to deconstruct my argument and then rebutting things I never said...

From your initial post in your review you constructed an easily to be misinterpreted sentence. If you want people to not deconstruct it at least word your sentence better.

 

[Weiley31]

Well sure, I mean, why let the dice rule the direction of anything? Your "planned story" will play out much smoother without any dice at all...

Imagine if Luke Skywalker scored a lucky decap, instead of that shoulder graze, on Vader during the fight at Cloud City. Boy Luke would've felt stupid wandering around twiddling, his thumbs in the place and slipping down the hole

What I'm saying is, for the story, NEVER be afraid to commit dnd Blasphemy and tell the dice to get lost. And there's a difference between being a jerk dm and fibbing the dice just to TPK and fibbing the dice for the sake of telling the story.

You don't want your Destined Duel against the rival of the multiple encounters die just because of a small thing. Especially when the rival is the true final boss.(oh snap plot twist.)

 

[tetrasodium]

Corelleon: Nah I don't fill like dealing with the elves over there. Pushes the model of Eberron away from his Evermeet model which is on the other side of the table.

Good example. Eladrin were captured by the giants of Xendriik & forcibly magebred into elves so they would be better slaves. When those elves one day started to rebel, the giants magebred some of them into drow in order to police, hunt down, & recapture rebellious slaves. All of that shaped the elves into something that would be unrecognizable to the FR elves in all but appearance. But hey maybe Corelleon was the name of one of the giants who did the magebreeding or he learned magebreeding from The Dragons while the giants were learning magic from the dragons ;D

Yea, you can convert things across, but things start to fall apart in one setting or the other & if it's a player trying to lead on doing it then it gets messy or they keep butting heads with the gm.

@Parmandur Yes it predates, but it's pretty in conflict with various settings & that's why eberron, darksun, & ravenloft have their own explanations for having their own planar structure (or lack of). Over the years FR has consumed it & that was my point. The great wheel isn't harmed by the presence of settings that shun it & put up a reason for opting out, but those settings are harmed by having it shoehorned in where it's problematic. That was my point, it wasn't an attempt at a setting war