D&D Eberron: Race for the Crab Temple Coming to PAX East

A new Dungeons & Dragons adventure set in Eberron is debuting at PAX East this weekend. Wizards of the Coast has announced that D&D Eberron: Race for the Crab Temple, a new D&D adventure set in Xen’drik, will make its convention debut at PAX East. The Level 3 adventure will feature premade characters made using 2024 Player's Handbook rules along with options from Eberron: Forge of the Artificer.

As its name suggests, Eberron: Forge of the Artificer will update the Artificer class for 2024 5th Edition rules. It will also update all Eberron-specific species for the revised ruleset. The new rulebook comes out on August 19, 2025.

The full description of the new Eberron adventure can be found below:

Your group has been dispatched by Morgrave University to travel to Xen’drik and seek out the Crab Temple. It’s a race between your expedition and a rival to discover its secrets! Premade level 3 characters are provided, featuring rules from the new Player’s Handbook and first looks at options from Eberron: Forge of the Artificer!

 

[Xethreau]

Eberron is set in a ambiguous "time" that straddles the high medieval to post WW1 Europe. Almost anything fits.

I don't even know what "narrative revisionism" would look like, but I bet Keith Baker is guilty of it on his blog and in his books, since the Eberron you want to preserve is WotC's, nothing Keith's.

[edit] To be clear, "timeframe" isn't something that bothers me. Eberron is simultaneously medieval, post-Civil War, post-WWI, post-WWII, pre-Y2K, AND post 9-11 all at once. [/edit]

A certain level of revision is fine. Adding tieflings and dragonborn to Eberron in 4e just makes sense. Heck, even adding guns to Eberron makes a little sense (fans have been calling for it for years).

But a rather large and IMO unwelcome revision would be something substantial... like dirigibles instead of elemental airships. Regretably we already see this in the 2024 era Eberron art.

The use of RL-style airships in Eberron would actually change the history of the setting considerably. These airships don't appear to be things powered by bound elementals, which is a huge plot point.

So yes, it does make me concerned about the actual lore of the setting changing due to attempts to modernize the art style.

 

[Reynard]

[edit] To be clear, "timeframe" isn't something that bothers me. Eberron is simultaneously medieval, post-Civil War, post-WWI, post-WWII, pre-Y2K, AND post 9-11 all at once. [/edit]

A certain level of revision is fine. Adding tieflings and dragonborn to Eberron in 4e just makes sense. Heck, even adding guns to Eberron makes a little sense (fans have been calling for it for years).

But a rather large and IMO unwelcome revision would be something substantial... like dirigibles instead of elemental airships. Regretably we already see this in the 2024 era Eberron art.

View attachment 404931
The use of RL-style airships in Eberron would actually change the history of the setting considerably. These airships don't appear to be things powered by bound elementals, which is a huge plot point.

So yes, it does make me concerned about the actual lore of the setting changing due to attempts to modernize the art style.

Where is that image from?.

I agree on airships btw. Not that we can't have derigibles, but that derigibles should be Air airships, if that makes sense.

 

[Yaarel]

The use of RL-style airships in Eberron would actually change the history of the setting considerably. These airships don't appear to be things powered by bound elementals, which is a huge plot point.

Ok, I get that.

So your dispute is more about the content of what is being portrayed, not really about the artistic style of how it is portrayed?

In sum, more content with overtly magical Air Elementals, less with mundane balloons of helium or hydrogen.

As a fan of high magic, I can live with this.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Where is that image from?.

The new DMG

 

[Xethreau]

So your dispute is more about the content of what is being portrayed, not really about the artistic style of how it is portrayed?

Yes, precisely so. I very much worry that the change in art is an indication of a change in content and storyline. Art noveau and deco have a place in Eberron, and I never contested that.

 

[Demetrios1453]

A player of mine played a Warforged druid and flavored it as a transformer. It was great.

That's a pretty awesome bit of RP flavoring there.

 

[ProfessorDetective]

A player of mine played a Warforged druid and flavored it as a transformer. It was great.

Reminds me of Pointy Hat's Druid video, where his example PC was an abandoned gardening automaton that eventually gained (or was gifted) sentience.

 

[Bolares]

[edit] To be clear, "timeframe" isn't something that bothers me. Eberron is simultaneously medieval, post-Civil War, post-WWI, post-WWII, pre-Y2K, AND post 9-11 all at once. [/edit]

A certain level of revision is fine. Adding tieflings and dragonborn to Eberron in 4e just makes sense. Heck, even adding guns to Eberron makes a little sense (fans have been calling for it for years).

But a rather large and IMO unwelcome revision would be something substantial... like dirigibles instead of elemental airships. Regretably we already see this in the 2024 era Eberron art.

View attachment 404931
The use of RL-style airships in Eberron would actually change the history of the setting considerably. These airships don't appear to be things powered by bound elementals, which is a huge plot point.

So yes, it does make me concerned about the actual lore of the setting changing due to attempts to modernize the art style.

I don't think this vehicles are substitutes for elemental airships... Sharn always had flying vehicles that are independent form the ships Lyrandar controls. I think some form of dirigible fits, even more so in the smaller scale represented here.

Also, this dirigibles don't need to be made with helium, if you use soarwood and acount for the manifest zone in sharn.

 

[Bolares]

A player of mine played a Warforged druid and flavored it as a transformer. It was great.

Keith has a warforged druid character that goes in a different direction, Rose:

That's the great thing about eberron, a lot of different things fit.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

Ok, I get that.

So your dispute is more about the content of what is being portrayed, not really about the artistic style of how it is portrayed?

In sum, more content with overtly magical Air Elementals, less with mundane balloons of helium or hydrogen.

As a fan of high magic, I can live with this.

Oh, see, I took this image as showing off variant sky coaches (Sky busses!) that would only work in Sharn, utilizing its natural air affinity due to proximity to Syrania