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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lancelot" data-source="post: 5403564" data-attributes="member: 30022">I'm not a huge Eberron fan - it's not that I actively dislike it, but I prefer most of the other D&D settings.Having said that, there are still a number of things I appreciate about the setting...<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Warforged. They've become one of my favorite races, simply because of the humor value. The players in our group tend to over-emphasize their "robotic" traits, which results in frequent hilarity at the table. Robot accents, failure to understand human emotion, single-minded focus on sometimes trivial tasks. It may not be "high fantasy", but it's fun.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The lack of established lore. Every grognard and his dog has an opinion on the Red Wizards of Thay, or the Zhentarim, or Iggwilv and Iuz, or Graz'zt, or any of the other 20+ year villains of the D&D milieu. But not so much has been written about the Shadow in the Flame, or the Emerald Claw, or the Lords of Dust. They're still largely undefined, which makes them easier to customize for the DM... and more uncertain for the player.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Sharn and Xendrik. If I was going to call out two particularly interesting and flavorful locations, it'd be these two. There aren't too many D&D cities that are built "up" rather than "across", and the artwork/maps for Sharn make it look very distinctive. Xendrik is just fun: pulp jungle exploration, with shades of Indiana Jones and the Tomb of the Giant kings.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Magic-as-Common-Science. Probably the thing that distinguishes the setting most from any other, with the partial exception of Mystara (which also had some of this, in certain areas). Lightning trains, homunculi, arcane tools and attachments. It makes an interesting change.</li> </ul>Things that I wish were a little different...<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Eberron Drow. They're like regular drow, but... uhh... they like scorpions instead of spiders. And they're... uhh... they're a patriachal society! Yeah, that's it. Oh, and their driders are actually drorpions. So, totally different from regular drow. Yeah.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Daelkyr. I'm a reluctant believer that Lovecraftian elements are too prevalent in D&D, and wayyy too codified. There was already a concept of the Far Realm in D&D; a strange and unknowable place from which madness issues. The Daelkyr (to me) are an attempt to anthropomorphize the insanity of the Far Realm. They turn insane creatures like aboleth into "creations" rather than "cosmic accidents" and "things which should not be". And that diminishes the whole thing for me. It removes a lot of the mystery. If you want Big Bad Evil Guys who are responsible for a lot of the vileness in the world, use the Lords of Dust (or some of the traditional archfiends like Obox-Ob, Dagon or Baalzebul).</li> </ul></blockquote>

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