D&D (2024) You Can Now Pre-order Eberron: Forge of the Artificer

Pre-orders for the upcoming setting book have gone live. Eberron: Forge of the Artificer comes out on August 19th. The book contains the new 2024/5 edition Artificer class with 5 subclasses, the Warforged species, a ton of backgrounds and feats, and 20 new monsters.

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Forge wonders in the world of Eberron, where magic meets marvelous inventions.

Play as the Artificer: the ultimate creative class. You’re not just an inventor or spellcaster. You're an innovator, a bold-hearted visionary, fusing together magic and technology to craft extraordinary creations.

Fuel your adventures with this rules expansion for Dungeons & Dragons:

• 4 revised Artificer subclasses and 1 new subclass: the Cartographer
• 5 revised species, 17 backgrounds, and 28 feats
• New spells, bastions, and magic items
• 3 distinct, genre-based campaign templates for building fantasy noir, political thriller, and pulp adventure campaigns in the world of Eberron
• Over 20 new monsters, each inspired by a campaign model

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[WanderingMystic]

H

Keith Baker is plain in this: gunpowder is not used in Eberron because magic does it better.

The people of Eberron are not ignorant of technology, they just have a better option available: why burn coal when your engine can run endlessly on a captured elemental?

He has more recently stated that if he was to add guns to Eberron then it would be from the old goblin empire

 

[Bolares]

Eberron is not steampunk, clockpunk, magicpunk or dungeon punk, because Eberron is not PUNK. There is space to tell punk stories in it with the dragonmarked houses, but that is not what the setting is. Eberron is pulp and noir.

 

[Bolares]

Where? Neither the OG 3.5e ECS nor Rising mention WW1 by name that I can find.

In its "Tone of Eberron" section, the ECS even states that Eberron "combines traditional medieval fantasy with pulp action and dark adventure."

The books don't reference it by name, but Keith has done it repeatedly, going as far as 2013 that I could find.

Bakery News & Eberron Q&A!

You might be wondering where I’ve been for the last few weeks. Well, Calgary, for one… I had a fine time sampling poutine, playing games and acquiring fine dice bags at the Calgary Expo. Beyond tha…

keith-baker.com

If we corelate the Last War to WWI, what would be your take on WWII?

While there are many keystones in WWI that relate to the Last War, the end of the war is much closer to that of WWII: the appearance of a weapon that completely changes the face of modern warfare. While few nations believe the peace will last, and all are jockeying for power, no nation would dare to start a new war until the mystery of the Mourning is revealed. How could Aundair dare to employ wide-scale war magics in the field when it’s possible the widespread use of such magics is what destroyed Cyre? How can they dare attack another nation until they are certain that nation hasn’t harnessed the power of the Mourning? Beyond this, there is the fact that if any nation COULD harness the power of the Mourning and weaponize it, who would dare to challenge them? Until you answer the question of the Mourning, it’s impossible to define the shape of the Next War. Will it be fought with almost no magic to prevent another war? Will it be much like the Last War, once it is revealed that the Mourning was a fluke? Or will the Mourning be weaponized, making the new conflict take a completely different form from the last?

 

[Von Ether]

For my two cents, D&D has had a long standing tradition of using the aesthetics from one genre and the vibe from another. The classic being its faux Medieval trappings (sliding into the Renaissance) with a Wild West vibe*. Lets not even go down the rabbit hole of the game's many anachronisms, plate mail without guns or the phrase "iron rations" (a WW I era term ironically enough.)

With that in mind, yes, I understood the original Eberron to have a WW I vibes with a completely different set of visual trappings at odds with the 19-teens historically. (Magicpunk/dungeonpunk would have been a term for those visuals 20 years ago, though there is nothing "punk" about it.)

However there is also the long tradition for GMs to slide other genres into their campaigns avoid burn out as compared to just teaching the table a new rpg*. The early writers of D&D did this themselves (Castle Amber anyone?)

Long story short, one of D&D's strengths is how easy GMs cherry pick the aspects that inspire them to run a game a go with it. I feel that goes double for Eberron. While I loved the 3e ascetic, I drew more from Raymond Chandler and Steven Spielberg's homage to the 1930s serials for story ideas.

While I may not be the biggest fan of the visual reboot, at least it looks great. I might grumble but I won't dis anyone who is inspired by it enough to run more games.

*Just a couple of years ago, a guy was running a 5e game at the FLGS that name dropped computers and scientists and didn't make up any new houserules that I was aware of.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Eberron isn’t steampunk or clockpunk, though. If anything, It’s “magipunk”.

The trains aren’t steam-powered – they use magically bound elementals.

The airships aren’t dirigibles – they use magic wood and magically bound elementals.

Warforged aren’t robots – they’re magically created beings with souls and bodies made of metal, wood, stone, and other organic bits.

House Sivis sends telegrams using magic not electricity and wires.

House Vadalis experiments on animals using magic not alchemy or genetic engineering.

City streets are lit by magical lights tended to by magic-using lamplighters. There’s no central gas or electrical grid powering them.

And so on!



Eberron has magical technology. There’s no steam power or clockwork gears or electricity (other than magical lightning).

Ironically FR does have steam technology and clockwork technology, in limited amounts, but it's always Eberron, even FR that gets pegged as the steam punk setting.

 

[Remathilis]

Which is weird, since D&D isn’t medieval, nor is the 3rd edition Eberron art. Basically, I would take it as meaning generic fantasyland.

Keith Baker is plain in this: gunpowder is not used in Eberron because magic does it better.

My problem with older Eberron art is that it looks like Pathfinder art. That's mostly because custody of Wayne Reynolds was gained by Paizo in the divorce from WotC. After a decade and more of him doing the covers and iconics for Paizo, I equate WARs art with PF at this point, so I'm perfectly happy with letting Eberron's art evolve past his style.

 

[Remathilis]

With that in mind, yes, I understood the original Eberron to have a WW I vibes with a completely different set of visual trappings at odds with the 19-teens historically. (Magicpunk/dungeonpunk would have been a term for those visuals 20 years ago, though there is nothing "punk" about it.)

The most Eberron adventure you can make is Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. So much of Eberron's "pulp" vibe can be distilled into it. Indy on a train punching Nazi's? Your heroes are on a lightning rail fighting Emerald Claw operatives. Need an airplane? Airship. Need a telegram? Sending stones. The Last War is absolutely the stand in for post-War political and social tensions needed for espionage and revenge plots.

 

[jgsugden]

I'm a little surprised to be seeing this in August, but to have no signs of the FR book. The FR UA was first...

 

[Remathilis]

I'm a little surprised to be seeing this in August, but to have no signs of the FR book. The FR UA was first...

The Forgotten Realms books were announced for November a long time ago.

 

[Azzy]

My problem with older Eberron art is that it looks like Pathfinder art. That's mostly because custody of Wayne Reynolds was gained by Paizo in the divorce from WotC. After a decade and more of him doing the covers and iconics for Paizo, I equate WARs art with PF at this point, so I'm perfectly happy with letting Eberron's art evolve past his style.

He also did a lot of 4e art, so I think WotC and Paizo had joint custody.