ZEITGEIST Converting Zeitgeist 5th edition to the Eberron world

[reighndragon]

Introduction
At the start of my last campaign (2014-15) the Zeitgeist adventure path was not yet finished and I didn't want to start an adventure path without knowing how it would end. So I converted Curse of the Crimson Throne to 5th edition DND, set in Q'Barra in the Eberron world and started running it. However this campaign is coming to its resolution so I want to start a new campaign. I really love the Eberron world and think the Zeitgeist adventure path is still a very good adventure path for this setting, although because of its conspiracy it needs a lot more work for conversion.

I browsed the internet but couldn't find a conversion yet, so I'll have to start from scratch. Does anybody know if someone already did work for a conversion to Eberron? I expect the conversion to take at least several months.

"Short" stance on where I am now:
I will replace the city of Flint with the city of Passage in Aundair. I wil increase its population to 180.000 which is significantly less than the 800.000 of Flint, but comparable to the Aundairian capital of Fairhaven and the other biggest cities in Eberron. The setting is a lot less industrial and more in the arcane sciences, but this still fits. Magical industry can still have its pollution
Flint has been made the industrial centre for Aundair at the start of the war and has grown a lot through work for people fleeing from the area between Aundair and Thrane, which has seen a lot of battle in the Last War. The industrialization of Aundair has been a big part in the independence of The Eldeen Reaches.

At the moment I think the Obs will be coupled to the Emerald Claw and Vol. Although this could change if I read the later adventures. House Cannith West will also be involved for making a new Warforged Colossus without using a creation forge and thus not violating the treaty of Thronehold.

• RHC will be the Royal Eyes of Aundair
• Aundairian royalty has made a pact with the Unseen Court (Unseen Court is situated in the Eldeen Reaches and Aundair), but is still inherited by family lines.
• No limitations on flight.
• Teleportation is blocked by Gold as written
• No guns, but wandslinging and magical siege weapons.
• No dead magic area
• Danor will be presented partially by House Cannith and House Orien, and partially by Breland.
• Ber is represented by Droaam
• Crisilllyir is represented by Thrane
• Drakr is part the Mror Holds and part Karrnath
• Elfaivar is not a nation, but represented by organisations, maybe part Eldeen Reaches.
• Yerasol are islands in Lake Galifar close to the Blackcap mountains and the city of Xandrar.
• Srasama, not clear what to do with her. The big apocalyptic part is the mourning, I think the hatred of the Eladrin is changed to a hatred by Shifters due to the Silver Crusade.
• The Seals will be the seals made by the Gatekeepers to imprison Daelkyr into Khyber. The Ancients will be the Gatekeepers.
• The Dreaming is a layer of Thelanis
• The Bleak Gate is a Shadow demiplane of Khyber with connections to Mabar (shadow demiplanes are described in Exploring Eberron by Keith Baker)
• Eladrin are coupled to Thelanis.
• Deva will be replaced by Kalashtar. Yes this means the Governor will not be as long in office.
• Tieflings are extremely rare but I like having the Jierre family being the Dukes of Xandrar. The influence of the Blackcap mountains has caused Tieflings to exist in this city. (This city also has a relatively large Blood of Vol following).
• The nihilists of the dwarves will be the Puritans of the Silver Flame in Aundair. Not the same philosophy but they do have their radicals.
• I'm not sure yet which theme is presented by what part of the druidic sects of Eberron. All of them are applicable for a part of a theme, but no one overlaps exactly.
• All the other planes sealed are shadow demiplanes in Khyber with links to the normal planes and their respective moons as described in Exploring Eberron.
• Because they are demiplanes connected to Khyber no long term planar travel is possible to these demiplanes. House Orien is funding research how to use these demiplanes to have fast travel to other places linked to the same demiplane, but no significant progress has been made.

Themes:
Dockers - as written, small adjustments
Eschatologists - Puritans of the silver flame
Gunsmith - as written, but focus on magical weapons, wands etcetera, it's a wandslinger.
Martial Scientist - As written, the two largest schools of learning are in Xandrar and Rekkenmark.
Skyseer - not sure yet, but probably connected to the Wardens of the Wood or the Gatekeepers, with use of the Observatories in the Eldeen Reaches.
Spirit Medium - not world specific can be used as written, maybe ties to the Elves of Aerenal as teachers.
Technologist - not a theme, is represented as the artificer or magewrights of the setting.
Vekeshi Mystics - New organisation of former Cyrans after the Mourning.
Yerasol Veteran - Last War veteran
Dragon marked House - A theme connected to the dragonmarked houses.
I would like to keep the amount of themes the same as originally.

Maps
For map purposes I will need to decrease the scale of the city with a factor of 4. I don't think this will give a problem with the adventures time restrictions on travel as stated in for instance the 2nd and 5th installment, allthough I haven't read all adventures yet. Is there a high resolution map of Flint and Central District available without any text and numbers on them?

Legal issues
I want to rewrite the Player's Guide with the Conversion to Eberron. I don't want to get into any problems with copyright issues. I know Eberron as a world is availlable through the DM's Guild, but I don't know what the status is for the Zeitgeist adventure path. If I would post the converted Player's Guide on this forum would that be a problem?

Ending
Sorry for the long post, but if anyone is interested in helping, feel free to reply. I will try to keep this post up to date if any significant changes are made or if more points are added. Maybe make a link to a document later on.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

It looks like you have read the guide and the first five episodes before doing your conversion,I can't help you with Eberron as I have never read it but before committing to anything in your conversion read all of the adventures so you know what each part does in the base campaign, I am certian that trying to run this campaign without reading all of it is a bad idea so I suspect the same is true of a setting conversion.

 

[reighndragon]

Thanks for the reply, I try to do conversion during the reading of the adventures. This makes the reading a lot slower but it lets me make adjustments to conversion while reading the adventures. It does increase the understanding of what is important for the conversion and what is less important.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

That is what I do for mechanic changes, but given the complexity of the plot and relationship between events early on and later on I think for mapping factions to other factions and looking at how the world works and comparing that you risk wasting your effort as something you learn later on means your earlier mapping of factions does not work in light of later events.
It is worth noting that the plot outline in the GM's campaign guide is not quite accurate it was I think written before the later books were written and details diverge .
In particular I suspect you need to look at the details of the Ob in book 7 , the vekeshi and Ob stuff in book 8 and the world crisis events of books 10-11 to make sure you can fit them in. Also I remember dragons are odd in Eberron so the whole Pemberton/Dragon thing may be an issue.
Given that the nature of the planar mechanics is central to the entire plot you need to work out how the Axis Island ritual and the Gyre are going to work and why the assorted hyper powerful beings of the eberron setting (or Forgotten realms, greyhawk, Krynn, Golarion etc ) let the pc's fix the world ending problem instead of doing it themselves , or take advantage of rebuilding the world to suit their factions goals . The later adventures are critical for defining how you are going to change Eberron to fit the campaign or the Campaign to fit Eberron. A key feature of ZG is that there are no archmages or other high level adventurers except the pc's (and Rock Rakhus) who can save the world where as a typical rpg setting has numerous groups with that level of power to serve as foils to high level pc's and it would strain credibility that they ignore what is happenning after book 9.

Regardless of the above , I hope everything works and you have as much fun as I did running the campaign

 

[reighndragon]

Thanks for the reply, I will surely look into these things and focus on finding the answers. There is a possibility I will only run Act 1 and 2 if it will diverge too much from Eberron in Act 3.

I think it fits perfectly for Eberron, in contrast to the other campaigns it has a wide magic feel to it. 1st to 3rd level spells and effects are widely applicable. Fourth and fifth level spells are known and can be found. Sixth level and above are extremely rare and could be legendary. Only very special persons could reach such levels (the pc's).

The dragons in Eberron have a prophetic vision of the world. They intervened with the giants 40.000 years ago and that didn't go particularly well for the world. As such they will not intervene again very quickly. If there are prophetic lines showing the intervention is not necessary (PC's fighting against the Obs), they will not intervene. As such my thought at the moment is to make Pemberton a member of the Draconic Chamber which keeps an eye on things. I don't know at the moment of this is still reasonable if I read the adventures he's involved. There are also some rogue dragons not part of the Chamber, although those are less powerful.

Let the PC's be the saviors of the world is one of the most important parts of running a campaign in the world of Eberron. They need to be in the spotlight, not some NPC.

At the moment I'm not really converting by just making notes of which could be which. Some factions have multiple options and I will decide when I've read the whole campaign.

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

I am not entirely sure why you are using Fairhaven for Flint, rather than Sharn. The city of Sharn has more of that "industrial city at the center of the world" vibe.

Besides that, this is not the first time such a conversion has been done.

 

[RangerWickett]

For adventure 10, make sure you have some massive threats to keep the party busy in their home country. In Z, they have to deal with fey titans, which keeps them from immediately jetting off and stopping some events from happening in the rest of the world.

For adventure 11, pick three cities you are willing to obliterate, and make sure you set up ways in advance for them to be screwed up. In Z, it's doomsday eschatologists making their way toward the Drakran city Mirsk, intending to test out a superweapon made from the eye of the Voice of Rot that will let them kill everyone; and the Gidim returning to Ursalina in Ber, trying to turn everyone into obedient food sources; and mass hysteria in Alais Primos, capital of Crisillyir, where people try to execute their gods in a volcano and inadvertently conjure a giant lava dragon.

 

[RangerWickett]

If I would post the converted Player's Guide on this forum would that be a problem?

Rather than being a problem, we'd be quite happy with you.

 

[reighndragon]

I am not entirely sure why you are using Fairhaven for Flint, rather than Sharn. The city of Sharn has more of that "industrial city at the center of the world" vibe.

Besides that, this is not the first time such a conversion has been done.

I'm using Passage for Flint, because I think Aundair has a much bigger connection to the Fey compared to Breland. So putting the Fey Titans in Aundair and Eldeen Reaches is much more logical. As such I can use Breland for Danor which is indeed much further developed in industry especially if you take Zilargo into account. As the city of Flint and it's map is quite important for a couple of adventures, I wanted to use the map of Flint for a different city so setting it in Sharn or one of the other capitals was not an option.

The headquarters of House Orien are located in Flint as such it's a logical location for a lot of factories for Lightning rail and other industry for this House. After the Mourning I increased the use of Passage by House Cannith West which gave a big impulse to the industrialisation of Passage. Passage will also be the first city in Korvaire to have a subwaysystem, logical for the seat of House Orien.

I've seen the threat you mentioned, but the amount of conversion was unfortunately not very detailed.

For adventure 10, make sure you have some massive threats to keep the party busy in their home country. In Z, they have to deal with fey titans, which keeps them from immediately jetting off and stopping some events from happening in the rest of the world.

As written above I want to use the Fey Titans as beings coupled with Aundair and in the past the Eldeen Reaches. I'll probably also focus on a renewed try from Aundair to conquer "Western Aundair" (The Eldeen Reaches). A lot of work for the Constables in their homeland.

I'll have to think about the 3 cities to obliterate. I want the Daelkyr and the plane of Xoriat have a big connection to the AP. So it would be logical to exterminate another clan of the Mror Holds as they have connections with the Daelkyr in Khyber. Unfortunately Thrane has no Volcano, but I could let an overlord come out of the quenching of the silver flame in Flamekeep. The armies of Dyrrn the Daelkyr could overrun Graywall the only "respectable" city of Droaam. Details will follow in the future.

 

[MarkM]

I would just echo the importance of reading through as much of the adventure path as you can before getting too far down the road on the conversion/localization. I homebrewed a short campaign set 100 years prior to the adventure path, and while doing so I made some adjustments to the world and history. Now that I'm starting to run the entire adventure path and am reading each book of it more carefully I'm realizing how interconnected many things are, and that some of my very minor changes have ripple effects where I now have to change other things down the road. I think you will save time and possibly heartache by reading any version of the path to the end before you spend a tremendous amount of time on the conversion. I think combining Zeitgeist and Eberron will be great and is absolutely doable, so not trying to discourage the project, but just hoping to save you some work.