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.

​

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!

​

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

something about the word "user" made me smile.....

Hey! I'm not addicted to Eberron! I can stop whenever I want to!

Pst. Hey, Keith. How much for a hit of that Eberron?

 

[RealAlHazred]

Yeah, I hated that cover, and forgot it exists. I prefer the alternate cover, which is amazing.

Keith baker is VERY CLEAR that there are no guns in Eberron

I loved the idea KB has floated in comments where he talked about the ancient goblinoid Empire and the possibility that it had "advanced" (for Eberron) technology. I'm an Old, and in the Old Times, before the Coming of the Empire, we had a lot of home campaigns where there were ancient high-tech ruins. In my Eberron, there are ancient Dhakaani low-to-moderate-tech ruins -- they were maybe developing flintlocks and dirigibles before the Daelkyr wiped out their Empire. Keith has said:

There are many things humans take for granted that the Dhakaani have never developed. But the Dhakaani are the finest armorers and weaponsmiths in the known world, superior even to House Cannith and the Tairnadal. They have mastered metallurgy and learned to produce and work with alloys that other races haven’t even discovered. Adamantine is a Dhakaani specialty; Cannith has learned to work with this metal, but it is costly and difficult, and they don’t understand it as the Dhakaani do... The Dhakaani never developed the traditions of the wizard or sorcerer, and as noted above, they don’t have divine classes. Their primary sources of magic were bards (sticks tongue out at bard-haters on ENWorld) and artificers. However, it’s important to recognize that these classes were NOT identical to Cannith artificers or Phiarlan bards. These core classes existed, but they would have had their own unique subclasses and specific spell lists. They may have developed paths that aren’t seen today, and may never have done things that we commonly associated with the classes.

I love the idea that the Dhakaani just don't have equivalents of the magic wands and scrolls that the Dragonmarked make today, because they used a totally different technology (i.e., mundane technology) to do the same things. Their "wizards" were versions of bards and artificers, and they just didn't have the same sorts of wizards and clerics as the modern age. It gives them a very different flavor and a unique culture in Eberron.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yep. Eberron is part of the reason why I have such strong feelings against metaplots. The setting proves that they're not just pointless, but actively harmful to the health a setting.

So the timeline will never officially advance. There are novels that take place there, but they're not considered "canon" anymore than the MCU is canon to Marvel's comic book continuity.

It's amazing. IMO, every setting would be better if they chose to do that.

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.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

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.

But Eberron doesn't have a metaplot. So why would it be hard to get invested in it? IME, it's much easier to get invested in Eberron's lore, even the "deep" lore, than it is for the Forgotten Realms or Ravenloft.

And I don't like the noir genre.

Eberron is mostly not noir. It certainly supports those forms of adventures more than other settings, but it has an incredible amount of stories/adventures of different genres/subgenres that it can support. "If it exists in D&D, you can find it in Eberron" doesn't just apply to races and monsters. It applies to types of adventures, too.

 

[Zaukrie]

There are almost no "noir" adventures....despite its reputation.

 

[Staffan]

If you all tell me there is an area that is low magic, more 'rough', lower population, more 'frontier' like...I'm not sure what I'll do.

@Bolares @Levistus's_Leviathan

Others have provided some examples, but there's also the Eldeen Reaches which used to be part of Aundair but broke free during the Last War. It is more rural than the nation it used to be a part of, with roughly half being fertile planes and the other half being a deep forest. There isn't much arcane or divine magic among the common people in the Reaches, but druids and rangers are relatively common, with several druidic orders being active in the region.

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.

The Eldeen Reaches would be a cool place to run a wilderness-based campaign, or a war-based campaign where the PCs form a resistance to a fairly overwhelming invader should Aundair attempt to re-conquer it (seeing as the main reason they broke free was that the Reaches were a bloody nuisance and Aundair had bigger fish to fry in the Last War).

 

[Scribe]

Others have provided some examples, but there's also the Eldeen Reaches which used to be part of Aundair but broke free during the Last War. It is more rural than the nation it used to be a part of, with roughly half being fertile planes and the other half being a deep forest. There isn't much arcane or divine magic among the common people in the Reaches, but druids and rangers are relatively common, with several druidic orders being active in the region.

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.

The Eldeen Reaches would be a cool place to run a wilderness-based campaign, or a war-based campaign where the PCs form a resistance to a fairly overwhelming invader should Aundair attempt to re-conquer it (seeing as the main reason they broke free was that the Reaches were a bloody nuisance and Aundair had bigger fish to fry in the Last War).

Ah man, thats sounding almost exactly what I was looking for...

 

[Micah Sweet]

But Eberron doesn't have a metaplot. So why would it be hard to get invested in it? IME, it's much easier to get invested in Eberron's lore, even the "deep" lore, than it is for the Forgotten Realms or Ravenloft.

Eberron is mostly not noir. It certainly supports those forms of adventures more than other settings, but it has an incredible amount of stories/adventures of different genres/subgenres that it can support. "If it exists in D&D, you can find it in Eberron" doesn't just apply to races and monsters. It applies to types of adventures, too.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

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.

 

[Zaukrie]

Saving Salvation is on DMSGUILD. It is a rural, old west-like, set of adventures. It does not feature guns, but it makes me feel that feel some.

looks like that is an AL town, which I didn't know.