D&D 5E Eberron Is Here Today!

Eberron: Rising from the Last War hits local gamestores today. Eberron creator Keith Baker talks on his blog about what's changed!

So, what's changed? The Mror Dwarves, races, Dragonmarks, the Mournland, Lady Illmarrow, monsters... but not guns!

And what's new? The artificer class, group patrons, warforged colossus, and scary monsters!

---

Explore the lands of Eberron in this campaign sourcebook for the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

This book provides everything players and Dungeon Masters need to play Dungeons & Dragons in Eberron—a war-torn world filled with magic-fueled technology, airships and lightning trains, where noir-inspired mystery meets swashbuckling adventure. Will Eberron enter a prosperous new age, or will the shadow of war descend once again?

• Meld magic and invention to craft objects of wonder as an artificer—the first official class to be released for fifth edition D&D since the Player’s Handbook.
• Enter the world of Eberron in a 1st-level adventure set in Sharn, the City of Towers
• Dive straight into your pulp adventures with easy-to-use locations, complete with maps of train cars, battle-scarred fortresses, and fallen warforged colossi.
• Explore Sharn, a city of skyscrapers, airships, and intrigue and a crossroads for the world’s war-ravaged peoples.
• Flesh out your characters with a new D&D game element called a group patron—a background for your whole party.
• Explore 16 new race/subrace options including dragonmarks, which magically transform certain members of the races in the Player’s Handbook.
• Confront horrific monsters born from the world’s devastating wars.
• Prepare to venture into the Mournland, a mist-cloaked, corpse-littered land twisted by magic.

 

[Parmandur]

Yes it predates, but it's pretty in conflict with various settings & that's why eberron, darksun, & ravenloft have their own explanations for having their own planar structure (or lack of). Over the years FR has consumed it & that was my point. The great wheel isn't harmed by the presence of settings that shun it & put up a reason for opting out, but those settings are harmed by having it shoehorned in where it's problematic. That was my point, it wasn't an attempt at a setting war

Ravenloft, Dark Sun, and now Eberron all tie into the Great Wheel. More isolated than some, but all three can tie into either Spelljamming or Planescape as desired. This is the standard, because again it is easier to take out than to put in.

 

[Xenonnonex]

Ravenloft, Dark Sun, and now Eberron all tie into the Great Wheel. More isolated than some, but all three can tie into either Spelljamming or Planescape as desired. This is the standard, because again it is easier to take out than to put in.

They could have had a meta-setting but smashing disparate cosmologies into one singular setting is a really ill thought out way of going about it. At least they are giving reasons why Eberron's cosmology is structured the way it is and ultimately closed off.

 

[Weiley31]

I wouldn't bet money on that.

Oh it does: deep, deep, DEEP, down below.

 

[tetrasodium]

Unless they do: in the case of D&D, the meta-setting is the standard in the books. People can ignore this in their own make-believe, because it is all made up.

This is why some settings need to explicitly wall themselves off from the great wheel. does it bother you that much that a setting explicitly makes it hard for the "default setting"(lets be honest, that is FR) to poison its own lore with lore from the "default setting" of FR instead of explicitly accepting that some other setting that makes no attempt at compatibility says that all other settings have a welcome mat down for it... or are you just debating for debate?

 

[ad_hoc]

Imagine if Luke Skywalker scored a lucky decap, instead of that shoulder graze, on Vader during the fight at Cloud City. Boy Luke would've felt stupid wandering around twiddling, his thumbs in the place and slipping down the hole

What I'm saying is, for the story, NEVER be afraid to commit dnd Blasphemy and tell the dice to get lost. And there's a difference between being a jerk dm and fibbing the dice just to TPK and fibbing the dice for the sake of telling the story.

You don't want your Destined Duel against the rival of the multiple encounters die just because of a small thing. Especially when the rival is the true final boss.(oh snap plot twist.)

I'd prefer to let the players create the story with me rather than just be my audience.

Try telling them that you have pre-scripted everything. Just be honest. See how many people want to keep "playing" then.

It's actually a lot of fun to allow the story to happen at the table. It's part of the magic of the TTRPG.

 

[Weiley31]

I'd prefer to let the players create the story with me rather than just be my audience.

Try telling them that you have pre-scripted everything. Just be honest. See how many people want to keep "playing" then.

It's actually a lot of fun to allow the story to happen at the table. It's part of the magic of the TTRPG.

Oh no, not EVERYTHING is gonna be pre-scripted. Just PARTICULAR story beats.

 

[ad_hoc]

@Parmandur Yes it predates, but it's pretty in conflict with various settings & that's why eberron, darksun, & ravenloft have their own explanations for having their own planar structure (or lack of). Over the years FR has consumed it & that was my point. The great wheel isn't harmed by the presence of settings that shun it & put up a reason for opting out, but those settings are harmed by having it shoehorned in where it's problematic. That was my point, it wasn't an attempt at a setting war

Ravenloft relies on being part of the regular D&D cosmology for its existence.

It's a demiplane that draws in souls from other planes and traps them. The land is all a mishmash of places from other realms as well.

It's located in the deep ethereal to make it hard for people to escape and to cut them off from their gods.

It wouldn't make sense as its own separate world.

 

[ad_hoc]

Oh no, not EVERYTHING is gonna be pre-scripted. Just PARTICULAR story beats.

Do you explain this to the players ahead of time?

Do you tell them that no matter what they do they will succeed or fail at some things so that you can have particular story beats occur?

 

[tetrasodium]

Ravenloft relies on being part of the regular D&D cosmology for its existence.

It's a demiplane that draws in souls from other planes and traps them. The land is all a mishmash of places from other realms as well.

It's located in the deep ethereal to make it hard for people to escape and to cut them off from their gods.

It wouldn't make sense as its own separate world.

My point exactly. It also wouldn't make sense with Pelor, Mystara, & the rest getting in bar brawls with the Bloody Barons & Dark powers so has its own justifications for why they aren't. More importantly is that it's lore does not overwrite the lore of the settings it snatches people from, it just snatches them & then subjects them to it's baselines while they are... guests. The justifications the various settings make are not an important thing I'm trying to be hyperspecific on just to show that they don't put out the welcome mat

 

[Weiley31]

Do you explain this to the players ahead of time?

Do you tell them that no matter what they do they will succeed or fail at some things so that you can have particular story beats occur?

Well if the main theme of the campaign is playing/or the character theme song is playing, then I'll let them know to GO HAM!!