D&D 5E Eberron: Rising from the Last War Coming For D&D In November

A new D&D campaign setting has appeared on Amazon -- Eberron: Rising from the Last War. It's slated for November 19th, at $49.99.

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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?

• Dive straight into your pulp adventures with easy-to-use locations, complete with maps of floating castles, skyscrapers, and more.

• Explore Sharn, a city of skyscrapers, airships, and noirish intrigue and a crossroads for the world’s war-ravaged peoples.

• Include a campaign for characters venturing into the Mournland, a mist-cloaked, corpse-littered land twisted by magic.

• 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.

• 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.

There is an alternate cover for game stores:

WotC's Jeremy Crawford confirmed that "The book incorporates the material in "Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron" and adds a whole lot more."

 

[MarkB]

Considering reskinning isn't designing anything new and is just re-using already made mechanics, I feel like the label is appropriate. But if people are truly this offended I'll let the matter rest.

If the existing game mechanics fits and is playtested, then adding something new just because you don't want to be seen as re-using something existing is basically just bloating the system for no good reason.

So, in many cases, reskinning is quite simply expedient design.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Considering reskinning isn't designing anything new and is just re-using already made mechanics, I feel like the label is appropriate. But if people are truly this offended I'll let the matter rest.

If you say "lazy", it implies it was done that way because the person responsible did it that way because they where too busy eating pizza, drinking beer and generally slacking off to do it any other way. Do you believe that to be the case?

An alternative interpretation is "efficient".

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Or, put another way, does Dark Sun have to have gnomes? Gnomes have been a core part of the rules since forever, and yet they don't exist in the Dark Sun world. And that should be fine (or as I would say, MORE THAN FINE! Muahahahahaha!).

You're very effectively proving my point!

Dark Sun took a considered decision on what races to include, and how, and so on.

You proposed not including more recent D&D material in GH on the basis it wasn't there already. That would be equivalent to DS including Gnomes because they're a default.

So, um, thanks for illustrating that. I agree that mindlessly shoving in every element without consideration is silly, but so is a dismissive "no need!" or worse a generalised "it'll ruin GH to add stuff!" attitude. Most modern D&D stuff would fit well into the kitchen sink of GH, without causing dissonance. So it's all worth considering seriously, not dismissing. If something can't fit, don't add it, if it can, do.

As an aside I think gnomes have always been the most problematic race to place in D&D, because they sort of exist in a weird place in-between elves, dwarves and halflings, and have had some trouble fixing an identity (Svirfneblin worked at least). Dark Sun took races and made them into surprising versions of themselves, or new spins (a half dwarf in addition to the old half elf, cannibal halflings, beardless dwarves, etc.) and I suspect that they couldn't come up with anything for gnomes that really worked because what even were 2E gnomes?

I say this with love, note, and post-Fey wild etc. gnomes have more of a place and an identity.

Anyway I think Dragonborn and Tieflings and Aasimar are good fits for GH, the former as some sort of LG or LN martial kingdom and the latter two as appearing in the population.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Dark Sun took a considered decision on what races to include, and how, and so on.

You proposed not including more recent D&D material in GH on the basis it wasn't there already. That would be equivalent to DS including Gnomes because they're a default.

I've read this like five times and I still have no idea what this means. Lowkey said adding gnomes to Dark Sun wouldn't work because they weren't there before. How does that mean adding Dragonborn to Greyhawk makes sense?

Anyway I think Dragonborn and Tieflings and Aasimar are good fits for GH, the former as some sort of LG or LN martial kingdom and the latter two as appearing in the population.

Stylistically there's not really a problem. GoS kind of showed this by adding a tiefling, it doesn't really break the immersion. But adding a full Dragonborn kingdom is a big no-no.

I'm cool adding a text-block saying something like "Dragonborn and Aasimar are almost unheard of in the Flaeness region and would be treated by locals with a mixture of fascination and fear. Whether these races originate from far-off continents, or from entire different worlds, is up to you the Dungeon Master to decide."

Tieflings are pretty much confirmed now as existing in Iuz's empire (though again are extremely rare outside of it) so no problem there.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I think that Tieflings, like Drow and Valley Elves, have to be carefully considered. In other words, so long as there is appropriate language regarding the likely reactions in various places in GH, there isn't a real issue.

Completely agree. I know little on Valley Elves, but I know Drow are arguably even more evil-aligned in Greyhawk than they are in FR, as there is no Drizzt character running around. If both tieflings and drow are both presented similarly to how goblins/orcs/kobolds are in FR (being almost always bad), it'd be more appropriate.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Eh, if I wanna play a world like Dark Sun I’ll use different rules, or I’ll change the rules of dnd a hell of a lot more than the setting rules ever have.

If I want to play a broken dying dnd world, it’s gonna have all the phb races and some that aren’t in the phb.

Also, the gnome thing isn’t a considered decision about what races to include. It was “lol I hate gnomes so I’m gonna have one of the Sorcerer kings genocide them for literally no discernible reason so they aren’t in the world”. Including them doesn’t change the setting’s nature, it just reveals an additional option, depending on how you decide to present them.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[MarkB]

As an aside I think gnomes have always been the most problematic race to place in D&D, because they sort of exist in a weird place in-between elves, dwarves and halflings, and have had some trouble fixing an identity (Svirfneblin worked at least). Dark Sun took races and made them into surprising versions of themselves, or new spins (a half dwarf in addition to the old half elf, cannibal halflings, beardless dwarves, etc.) and I suspect that they couldn't come up with anything for gnomes that really worked because what even were 2E gnomes?

I think Eberron has been the most successful at this. Zilargo, with its casual surveillance society, secret police, and ingrained sense of intrigue, feels like a much more unique take on gnomes than I've seen elsewhere, while really playing to their game-mechanical strengths.