D&D 5E Keith Baker: Exploring Eberron

Eberron creator Keith Baker has been busy recently! He has unveiled the cover to his new book, to be released in July on DMs Guild in PDF and Print on Demand hardcover. It will dive into parts of Eberron that have received little attention in prior books, including the undersea civilizations and the planes.

Keith sent Sly Flourish a PDF copy of the book, which Sly flipped through


Also, check out the KB Presents Twitter for past previews

 

[Hellcow]

Hi Keith! Question about the planes writ large - are the Talenta Plains and Eldeen Reaches actually more plane-touched or is that just authors writing more about manifest zones when there aren't cities to discuss. If they are, how does that compare to Sarlona, which per SoS is extra sensitive to the planes.

The Eldeen Reaches are particularly planetouched and noteworthy for the SIZE of their manifest zones; the Gloaming and the Twilight Demesne are large enough that we show them on the map. It's also the main reason the Greensingers exist, and why they are focused in the Eldeen Reaches as opposed to being equally dispersed across Khorvaire.

I don't see the Talenta Plains as being unusually planetouched. As you say, one reason the zones are called out is because there are few cities... and in my opinion, most of the major cities in Eberron are built on manifest zones. A manifest zone is essentially a (super)natural resource, and something people of Eberron know how to harness. The reason they aren't really mentioned is twofold. The first is because they're ubiquitous; there's SO many of them that talking about all of the manifest zones in Breland would fill a book. The second is because most of them aren't that large. The Gloaming is dramatic because of its vast size; there may be a zone with a similar effect in Breland that's only a few hundred feet across. Likewise, the Twilight Demesne in the Eldeen Reaches is remarkable because of its size, but we HAVE called out dramatic Thelanian zones in other places - notably, the Feyspires, which were scattered across Khorvaire.

So: the Towering Woods are unusual, but more in size than power. We haven't suggested that the Reaches have anything like the reality storms or wild zones of Sarlona.

I will be talking more about manifest zones in Exploring Eberron.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

@Hellcow you've mentioned elsewhere that there may be some expansion on Greater Dragon Marks in Exploring.

Any chance we will see something for Halfling Clawfoot Riders? Maybe a feat or dedicated subclass? I’d not, how would you handle a player wanting to play a BM Ranger with a Clawfoot? Maybe a unique creature in the style of the recent UA Beast of Air and Beast of Earth?

 

[Hellcow]

@Hellcow you've mentioned elsewhere that there may be some expansion on Greater Dragon Marks in Exploring.

Any chance we will see something for Halfling Clawfoot Riders? Maybe a feat or dedicated subclass? I’d not, how would you handle a player wanting to play a BM Ranger with a Clawfoot? Maybe a unique creature in the style of the recent UA Beast of Air and Beast of Earth?

No, I'm afraid there's no material on the Talenta Plains in ExE. There's so many possible topics I'd like to cover and there was no way to cover them all in one book. I'll note that Q'barra, the Demon Wastes, the Eldeen Reaches, and the Talenta Plains all fall into this category. If ExE does well, perhaps there will be an ExE 2!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

No, I'm afraid there's no material on the Talenta Plains in ExE. There's so many possible topics I'd like to cover and there was no way to cover them all in one book. I'll note that Q'barra, the Demon Wastes, the Eldeen Reaches, and the Talenta Plains all fall into this category. If ExE does well, perhaps there will be an ExE 2!

Totally fair! Each of those areas could be a campaign setting in themselves!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Man...also, all this time I’ve been focused on a Talenta Ranger...I coulda been playing a Talenta Druid!

Why ride a pteranodon when you can be one!?

 

[ChaosOS]

I know someone who's playing a Talenta druid maskweaver - Circle of the Shepherd - with a clawfoot mount named Gigi. Backstory is she was his on the plains, but he couldn't afford to bring her with him to start, then "purchasing" her was just paying to bring her out with him. The velociraptors from Volo's as it so happens are the best creature to summon at level 5, they're about 40% more effective than wolves. Circle of the Shepherd, with the thp totem, covers for their fragility.

In other news, to me there's a bit of a theme of going "into the wild" - orcs, Talenta, Eldeen, Demon Wastes - for an "ExE 2"...

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Is it true that flumphs are the true masters of the Daelkyr?

 

[Beleriphon]

Is it true that flumphs are the true masters of the Daelkyr?

No, there flumph's are named for Flumph the Noodly One, a Daelkyr.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I know someone who's playing a Talenta druid maskweaver - Circle of the Shepherd - with a clawfoot mount named Gigi. Backstory is she was his on the plains, but he couldn't afford to bring her with him to start, then "purchasing" her was just paying to bring her out with him. The velociraptors from Volo's as it so happens are the best creature to summon at level 5, they're about 40% more effective than wolves. Circle of the Shepherd, with the thp totem, covers for their fragility.

In other news, to me there's a bit of a theme of going "into the wild" - orcs, Talenta, Eldeen, Demon Wastes - for an "ExE 2"...

Nice! Another way to go might be to have it be an adolescent raptor, and have it grow up during play, but that depends on if the group uses extended downtime as part of the game.

And I totally agree about the “into the Wild” theme for an Eberron book! That would be awesome, and something I at least don’t have. (Clarification: I don’t have any 3.5 Eberron books, as I played 3.5 very briefly and didn’t like it)

 

[Azzy]

Man...also, all this time I’ve been focused on a Talenta Ranger...I coulda been playing a Talenta Druid!

Why ride a pteranodon when you can be one!?

When I first saw Wayfinders, that was the first character concept I thought up--a halfling moon Druid with a claw foot mount that can also turn into a claw foot (or other dinosaur).