D&D General Eberron Invades The Realms!

[Negflar2099]

I'm curious what people think about this scenario. If the 5 (or 4 rather) nations joined forces across Khorvaire along with the Dragonmarked Houses and created an armada of spelljamming ships to invade the Forgotten Realms what do you think would happen? Is Elminster powerful enough to crush such an invasion single-handedly? There are a lot of other powerful characters in the realms. Would they be able to collectively repel such a force? Would they fracture under their own infighting?

 

[Leatherhead]

Eberron is relatively low-powered by design. A wide floor but low ceiling.

 

[Stormonu]

The Eberron armada would quickly find out that its ships were supplied by the Zhentarim and became ghostly over Toril, dropping the living contents earthbound, whilst all the goods remained for the Zhentarim's counter-fleet to unload them at Stardock.

 

[overgeeked]

I'm not a lore hound for either setting, so take this with a grain of salt. At a guess, the gods would be a wash...so ignore them.

Eberron has wide but not tall magic. Meaning there's lots of low-level magic being used, but not much high-level magic in the setting. It's there, it's just not as common as some other settings.

Forgotten Realms has wide and tall magic. Meaning there's lots of low-level magic being used and a lot of high-level magic in the setting.

So just thinking about it from that angle, the FR are likely to push back the invasion easily at first, throwing out high-level spells that the Eberron invaders wouldn't have access to or be able to deal with effectively, but those resources would run out. Spell slots get used, material components aren't available at the corner store. There'd be a planet-wide run on a lot of rare and already expensive components.

The invading forces would be outnumbered by the inhabitants of the FR by default. You're not mobilizing the entire planet to invade another planet...but Faerûn will be able to mobilize basically anyone that can fight with an interest in defending their home. Though using history as a guide you could make a good argument for the Eberron forces turning local factions against each other to weaken various FR kingdoms, etc. To dip even more into history, there's the question of diseases. Each population would have exposure and immunity to various diseases the other has never encountered before. This would kill a lot of people on both sides.

The invaders could establish a beachhead somewhere on the planet, likely one of the Remembered Realms or the Best Ignored Realms, and move out from there. Minimizing their points of contact with the enemy and not alerting the whole planet at once. If they were to invade, that would be the way to go. Find a nice, quiet, out-of-the-way corner of Faerûn and take it over. Use the local faction's rivalries against them to make gains. Move out from there. With blitz attacks they could strike out and take over quite a bit of territory in a hurry.

ETA: Any kind of sci-fi thinking would end things in a hurry. Mass drivers. Snaring asteroids, comets, and other random space debris and simply hurling it towards the surface of the planet. If you don't care about the planet itself, the geography, or what's left to control you could be done conquering the planet by wiping out the whole population in an afternoon.

 

[Shardstone]

Eberron has the mourning and ancient dragons that control time and space as well as a literal monster empire. Let's not pretend that its theme of wide magic doesn't mean there aren't literal world-enders walking around, or that they can't figure out how to make an orbital barrage of meteor swarm.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I'm not a lore hound for either setting, so take this with a grain of salt. At a guess, the gods would be a wash...so ignore them.

Eberron has wide but not tall magic. Meaning there's lots of low-level magic being used, but not much high-level magic in the setting. It's there, it's just not as common as some other settings.

Forgotten Realms has wide and tall magic. Meaning there's lots of low-level magic being used and a lot of high-level magic in the setting.

So just thinking about it from that angle, the FR are likely to push back the invasion easily at first, throwing out high-level spells that the Eberron invaders wouldn't have access to or be able to deal with effectively, but those resources would run out. Spell slots get used, material components aren't available at the corner store. There'd be a planet-wide run on a lot of rare and already expensive components.

The invading forces would be outnumbered by the inhabitants of the FR by default. You're not mobilizing the entire planet to invade another planet...but Faerûn will be able to mobilize basically anyone that can fight with an interest in defending their home. Though using history as a guide you could make a good argument for the Eberron forces turning local factions against each other to weaken various FR kingdoms, etc. To dip even more into history, there's the question of diseases. Each population would have exposure and immunity to various diseases the other has never encountered before. This would kill a lot of people on both sides.

The invaders could establish a beachhead somewhere on the planet, likely one of the Remembered Realms or the Best Ignored Realms, and move out from there. Minimizing their points of contact with the enemy and not alerting the whole planet at once. If they were to invade, that would be the way to go. Find a nice, quiet, out-of-the-way corner of Faerûn and take it over. Use the local faction's rivalries against them to make gains. Move out from there. With blitz attacks they could strike out and take over quite a bit of territory in a hurry.

ETA: Any kind of sci-fi thinking would end things in a hurry. Mass drivers. Snaring asteroids, comets, and other random space debris and simply hurling it towards the surface of the planet. If you don't care about the planet itself, the geography, or what's left to control you could be done conquering the planet by wiping out the whole population in an afternoon.

Honestly I doubt the 5 Nations could take on Thay and win, never might mind all of Faerun or worse yet all of Toril.

Szazz is a higher level by far then any magic user on Eberron and he's not even Thay only archmage or Lich. Oh hell, even Menzo's Matron Mothers would kick in the teeth of Eberron's fleet. Have you seen the stats on Matron Mother's in the MM, Menzo alone has like a hundred of them and it's not even the most powerful nation in terms of divine magic, that'd be Mulhorand and Unther, who are ruled BY ACTUAL GODS. So no Eberron would stand no chance.


There are Torilian fleets of spelljammer, tons of Dragons, Griffins, and other fliers, dozens of Archmages and Archpriest, and weirder naughty word and that is assuming that the Eberron fleet doesn't just get nailed by some realms shaking event before anyone notices they are there. There are also other none Torilian interstellar powers in Realmspace that likely won't react well to an invasion fleet in Realmspace. And vast Orc and Goblin hoards. And Blood Forges. And an Overgod.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Eberron has the mourning and ancient dragons that control time and space as well as a literal monster empire. Let's not pretend that its theme of wide magic doesn't mean there aren't literal world-enders walking around, or that they can't figure out how to make an orbital barrage of meteor swarm.

FR has several monster empires. And of the Eberron fleet attacks from Wildspace to barrage Toril, they are doing so techniquely from the Astral Plane which means FR's Gods, and not just the ones in mortal hosts, but the full power of Greater Gods, get to directly intervene, which means that fleet is screwed as the gloves are off.

 

[Eltab]

I'm not a lore hound for either setting, so take this with a grain of salt. At a guess, the gods would be a wash...so ignore them.

Eberron has wide but not tall magic. Meaning there's lots of low-level magic being used, but not much high-level magic in the setting. It's there, it's just not as common as some other settings.

Forgotten Realms has wide and tall magic. Meaning there's lots of low-level magic being used and a lot of high-level magic in the setting.

So just thinking about it from that angle, the FR are likely to push back the invasion easily at first, throwing out high-level spells that the Eberron invaders wouldn't have access to or be able to deal with effectively, but those resources would run out. Spell slots get used, material components aren't available at the corner store. There'd be a planet-wide run on a lot of rare and already expensive components.

The invading forces would be outnumbered by the inhabitants of the FR by default. You're not mobilizing the entire planet to invade another planet...but Faerûn will be able to mobilize basically anyone that can fight with an interest in defending their home. Though using history as a guide you could make a good argument for the Eberron forces turning local factions against each other to weaken various FR kingdoms, etc. To dip even more into history, there's the question of diseases. Each population would have exposure and immunity to various diseases the other has never encountered before. This would kill a lot of people on both sides.

The invaders could establish a beachhead somewhere on the planet, likely one of the Remembered Realms or the Best Ignored Realms, and move out from there. Minimizing their points of contact with the enemy and not alerting the whole planet at once. If they were to invade, that would be the way to go. Find a nice, quiet, out-of-the-way corner of Faerûn and take it over. Use the local faction's rivalries against them to make gains. Move out from there. With blitz attacks they could strike out and take over quite a bit of territory in a hurry.

ETA: Any kind of sci-fi thinking would end things in a hurry. Mass drivers. Snaring asteroids, comets, and other random space debris and simply hurling it towards the surface of the planet. If you don't care about the planet itself, the geography, or what's left to control you could be done conquering the planet by wiping out the whole population in an afternoon.

If the Eberron Invasion Fleet does any reconnaissance before landing, it will pounce on somewhere like demon-dominated Impiltur and appear to be the solution to a problem, not a problem itself. After consolidating their beachhead ...

 

[Henadic Theologian]

If the Eberron Invasion Fleet does any reconnaissance before landing, it will pounce on somewhere like demon-dominated Impiltur and appear to be the solution to a problem, not a problem itself. After consolidating their beachhead ...

...they will promptly get their asses kicked. The minute they start conquering stuff the rest of Faerun unites like it did during the Tuirgan invasion, and Eberron's forces get flattened by magical firepower. Don't get me wrong, Eberron can have potent magic firepower thanks to their clever engerineering and combing of low level magic, but that's will piles of infrastructure and time, none of which they have on Toril.

And what Eberron calls The Mourning, FR calls a Tuesday. Seriously it's not just all the high level magic users or monsters or huge armies, it's that everyone on Toril is a little nuts, hence the frequent use of magical weapons of mass destruction and genocides in FR history.

Even the Phyrexians might not want to go to war with FR and the Phyrexians are scarier then the 5 Nations.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The surprise factor is totally impossible, because the FR deities automatically know everything could affect thousands of believers.