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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dave Turner" data-source="post: 3197212" data-attributes="member: 12329">Great points, Jurgen, and they raise questions that I should at least consider.  Maybe the monopolistic nature of the Houses needs to be downgraded a bit.  Despite modern anachronisms like the lightning rail and the Orien telegraph system, Eberron is still very much a nineteenth century world.  It's not "flat" in the Thomas Friedman sense of the word.  Travel is still difficult and an upstart competitor to the Houses can't rely on globalization and the Internet to compete.  As a result, Jurgen's suggestion about blackmail through espionage is a good one.Sabotage, on the other hand, is trickier.  If the Houses are so indispensible, then sabotage would have to be limited in order for it to be a viable tactic.  Destroying the Orien infrastructure in a kingdom might free up some royal cash for your House, but, if the Houses were ubiquitous, it could throw the local economy into chaos.  Stability is good for profit and too much sabotage would seem counterproductive to your own bottom line.  The nineteenth century nature of Eberron means that a significant economic disruption could be more harmful than it would be in a modern corporate analogy.  If the Houses engage in minor or nitpicking forms of sabotage, however, then the drama of sabotage is reduced.An important part of the campaign's structure, however, involves a threat to the supremacy of the Dragonmarked Houses.  Maybe the campaign should be focused on this threat and the dynamism that I feel the Houses might be lacking will be introduced by the threat?I don't have the books with me, but does anyone remember what spell levels the various dragonmarks correspond with?  For example, does the Least Mark grant a 2nd level spell, the Lesser a 3rd level spell, and the Greater a 4th?  Jurgen's point about the relative ease with which the Dragonmark gives the Houses a magical leg-up by significantly reducing magical training costs for those abilities prompted this question.</blockquote>

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