D&D 5E Chronicles of Eberron Is Keith Baker's New D&D Book, out now!

After a few days of teasing, Eberron creator Keith Baker has announced his new book -- Chronicles of Eberron! By Keith and Imogen Gingell, the 200-page book will be available on DMs Guild in December.

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Hektula is the Scribe of Sul Khatesh, the Keeper of the Library of Ashtakala, and the Chronicler of the Lords of Dust. Her treasured tomes hold arcane secrets still hidden from human and dragon alike. What lies beneath the Barren Sea? What powers does Mordain the Fleshweaver wield within Blackroot? Who are the Grim Lords of the Bloodsail Principality? All these secrets and many more can be found in the Chronicles of Eberron…

• Chronicles of Eberron is a new 5E sourcebook from Eberron creator Keith Baker and designer Imogen Gingell.
• This book explores a diverse range of topics, including lore and advice for both players and DMs, along with new monsters, treasures, spells and character options.
• Chronicles of Eberron will be available on the DMs Guild as a PDF and print-on-demand.

But that's not all! There is a collaboration with Hero Forge and new T-Shirts!

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[Zaukrie]

Until this thread came up, I didn't realize how much I love Eberron. I tried to run a game there, but it broke up when two of the players left and, well, it was family and a bit odd. Alas, my current group didn't want to play there.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The forest part is also home to one of the few really high-level characters in the setting that isn't an outright villain: Oalian, a 20th level druid. Oalian also happens to be an awakened tree, and as such doesn't move around much.

IIRC, Oalian cannot move, period. All of the high-level "benevolent"/neutral spellcasters in the setting are location-locked. Oalian is stuck in a grove in the Eldeen Reaches, Jaela Daran loses her high-level magic if she leaves the Cathedral of the Silver Flame, the Undying Court can't leave Aerenal's Irian Manifest Zone, etc.

It's to address the "Superman Stays Out of Gotham" trope, by explaining that the reason why Eberron's high-level characters don't solve the setting's big problems and adventures, like Elminster, Laeral Silverhand, or Drizzt probably could in the Forgotten Realms, is because a) there's barely any that are of high enough level to make a difference and b) they're all stuck, in some way or another, to their current general location.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

It’s always neat to see what is going on in the Eberron-verse, but it never interests me enough to bother getting any of the books. I enjoyed the lore of Eberron only in regards to one specific subject and outside of that it’s about as interesting as the rest of the D&D settings that have come before and after. Not that I have anything against the setting, it looks really cool and inventive in some regards.

I know you like Dragons. Have you checked out Eberron's take on dragons? Because they're really quite interesting, especially his recent article on how he would include Gem Dragons in Eberron (they're the remnants of a previous version of the world that survived the end of the a previous Kalpa, being powerful humanoid Psions that tapped into the dream of a dead godlike dragon that slowly transformed them into dragons, kind of like how Dark Sun's Dragons work).

 

[Bolares]

See, I never got into Eberron, because I was already invested in multiple 1e and 2e settings and metaplots by the time it rolled around. So the only thing I took from it was that I liked aetificers and robots, and in D&D that's where they came from.

And I don't like the noir genre.

In my opinion, most of the noir vibe of Eberron is focused on sharn… A big city, sure, but still a city in comparison to the rest of the world.

 

[Bolares]

@Scribe there are some places that are not focused in arcane magic. The eldeen reaches, as mentioned, uses primal magic as a tool for their civilization. The talenta plains use dinossaurs. Karnnath uses undead (with some arcane magic). The continent of sarlonna focuses a lot in psionics…

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

It's not just about metaplot. I had already dedicated emotional effort to Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, and Planescape, and a bit to Dark Sun besides. By the time Eberron rolled out, my group had tried 3e, went back to 1e (we tried 3e again later) and I wasn't interested in a D&D setting that had nothing to do, at all, with any setting I was familiar with, where virtually every aspect of the setting was designed to be different and surprise you.

Isn't Dark Sun similar? It subverts most of the typical roles of the normal fantasy races and isn't connected to the rest in any way.

And all the marketing really hit the noir stuff hard. I'm just not a fan of running investigations.

Yeah, it was marketed poorly. I've only done a few side-quests involving investigations/noir in Eberron. However, I've done dozens of "typical" D&D adventures, like dungeon crawls, hexcrawls, tracking down BBEGs, gathering rare magical ingredients, killing hordes of demons and aberrations invading from Khyber, and finding powerful magical artifacts necessary to save the world.

I agree that the marketing, and often the art, tends to focus too much on the noir. It really isn't that big of a part of the setting if you dig deeper.

Also, so many things in it seemed like subversion for the sake of subverting, and I'm a traditionalist for the most part.

Eh, no. Most of the subversions weren't subverted "for the sake of subverting". Basically all of the subverted material is really, really good and of higher quality than most of the played-straight versions of the tropes. It gives a lot of thought to what it does and doesn't subvert.

I did take the artificer and the warforged, because I like technology and I like robots. In fact, the only issue I had with warforged is that they were the only constructed heritage, and they had such a specific story.

The Warforged are definitely hard to remove from Eberron, I 100% agree with you there.

I heard that Nerath did a good job of converting them over, but when I was making my homebrew race, I had to make an entirely different version of "Golemfolk" to fill the role of Warforged in my world.

I'm in a different place in some ways, and there are things about Eberron that sound interesting. But I'm an all-in kind of guy, and it's hard to add another deep dive to all my franchises at this point.

It is definitely hard to get into settings, especially when there's been a lot of material for them. I made the mistake of spending a couple months reading the FR wiki before I figured out that there was no way that I could learn everything about the FR in my lifetime.

However, if you like some of the stuff from it, I have an interesting idea, but I'm not sure if you would engage.

Here's a proposal:

You tell me one awesome thing about a setting that you know a lot about and love that you think I don't know yet and that you think I'd like. It can be Dragonlance, it can be Dark Sun, or Old Ravenloft, Planescape, or whatever setting you want.

Then, I'll tell you about one part of Eberron that I think is awesome and you probably don't know yet.

(Maybe this would be a good idea as a new thread, though. Would people like that?)

 

[Micah Sweet]

In my opinion, most of the noir vibe of Eberron is focused on sharn… A big city, sure, but still a city in comparison to the rest of the world.

Again though, all the marketing. They really pushed Sharn as the place to be in Eberron.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Isn't Dark Sun similar? It subverts most of the typical roles of the normal fantasy races and isn't connected to the rest in any way.

Yeah, it was marketed poorly. I've only done a few side-quests involving investigations/noir in Eberron. However, I've done dozens of "typical" D&D adventures, like dungeon crawls, hexcrawls, tracking down BBEGs, gathering rare magical ingredients, killing hordes of demons and aberrations invading from Khyber, and finding powerful magical artifacts necessary to save the world.

I agree that the marketing, and often the art, tends to focus too much on the noir. It really isn't that big of a part of the setting if you dig deeper.

Eh, no. Most of the subversions weren't subverted "for the sake of subverting". Basically all of the subverted material is really, really good and of higher quality than most of the played-straight versions of the tropes. It gives a lot of thought to what it does and doesn't subvert.

The Warforged are definitely hard to remove from Eberron, I 100% agree with you there.

I heard that Nerath did a good job of converting them over, but when I was making my homebrew race, I had to make an entirely different version of "Golemfolk" to fill the role of Warforged in my world.

It is definitely hard to get into settings, especially when there's been a lot of material for them. I made the mistake of spending a couple months reading the FR wiki before I figured out that there was no way that I could learn everything about the FR in my lifetime.

However, if you like some of the stuff from it, I have an interesting idea, but I'm not sure if you would engage.

Here's a proposal:

You tell me one awesome thing about a setting that you know a lot about and love that you think I don't know yet and that you think I'd like. It can be Dragonlance, it can be Dark Sun, or Old Ravenloft, Planescape, or whatever setting you want.

Then, I'll tell you about one part of Eberron that I think is awesome and you probably don't know yet.

(Maybe this would be a good idea as a new thread, though. Would people like that?)

As an aside, Dark Sun is post-apocalyptic, which  is a genre I like.

for the rest, however. I accept your deal. I like the idea of a separate thread, but if there isn't one, I'll reply here.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

As an aside, Dark Sun is post-apocalyptic, which  is a genre I like.

My point was that it's overall pretty subversive of "core" D&D. You mentioned Eberron's subversiveness a reason for you not being a fan of Eberron, but also listed that you're a fan of Dark Sun. I just thought it was odd that you would say that you don't like subversions while mentioning that you like a setting that is overall very subversive.

(Note: I'm not saying your preferences are wrong or trying to force you to like Eberron, I just thought those two things were inconsistent/contradictory and would like clarification as to your thought processes and preferences. I'm just asking why Dark Sun's subversions, for lack of a better phrase, "get off the hook" for you, but Eberron's don't?)

for the rest, however. I accept your deal. I like the idea of a separate thread, but if there isn't one, I'll reply here.

Okay, great! Give me a bit, and I'll make a thread about it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My point was that it's overall pretty subversive of "core" D&D. You mentioned Eberron's subversiveness a reason for you not being a fan of Eberron, but also listed that you're a fan of Dark Sun. I just thought it was odd that you would say that you don't like subversions while mentioning that you like a setting that is overall very subversive.

(Note: I'm not saying your preferences are wrong or trying to force you to like Eberron, I just thought those two things were inconsistent/contradictory and would like clarification as to your thought processes and preferences. I'm just asking why Dark Sun's subversions, for lack of a better phrase, "get off the hook" for you, but Eberron's don't?)

Okay, great! Give me a bit, and I'll make a thread about it.

Different priorities I guess, coupled with me being young and "edgy" when Dark Sun came out. Like I said, I like post-apocalyptic settings, and all of Dark Sun's changes were in service to thst theme. I also like psionics, and they of course were heavily featured.

Eberron, on the other hand, made a bunch of what I saw at the time as "look at how different I am!" changes, for no particular reason that I could see, and the only visible theme to the setting was noir. It basically taught me to ignore it (except for the artificers and the robots).