How would you fit Red Wizards (FR) into Eberron?

[Plane Sailing]

If you want to fit them in as seamlessly as possibly, then they become "Emerald Wizards", a sect of arcane casters from the Emerald Claw, founded by Vol herself, to create a ritualistic power-base as yet one more means to her goal. They can be dressed in deep forest green, with tattoos reminiscent of Dragonmarks, each enchanted with some arcane power, and making heavy use of ritual magic.

That is definitely the way I'd go about it (in fact I probably will...)

 

[Von Ether]

Instead of having the magocracy already established, what if it's just starting? Q'kbarr seems to be a place of experimentation and wildness. It seems to be a place where lizardmen can see an Inspired ambassador and Cyre refugee village all in one day. Having a few banished Audiarian wizards setting up their own utopia in the jungle doesn't seem that far off. Add in a few disgruntled magewrights and you're on your way.

If it happened quickly, the king would have to come to some sort of compromise. At the very least, you could build a plauseable setting where the king is just a figurehead and the mages dominate the court with little to no love for the king.

 

[Psychotic Jim]

How would you fit in the Red Wizard plot of taking over the magical item market by selling goods at big discounts?

 

[FireLance]

I have a slightly different take on this - I'd place the Red Wizard-like organization in Aundair. According to Five Nations, Aundair is the most magically advanced country, and is the headquarters of one of the three House Cannith branches. Thus, it seems to me to be the most logical place to put an organization of wizards making and selling magic items for profit. In addition, one of the adventure hooks in Five Nations (Dust Motes, p. 20) centers around a plot by one of the rakshasas operating out of a secret base of the Lords of Dust in Aundair to corrupt one of the leaders of House Cannith. The influence of the rakshasa could make this branch of House Cannith more sinister, and it would be more of a surprise since they had actually been nothing more than magic item merchants previously.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I would place the Red Wizards in spelljammering ships visiting the Siberys Ring, of course!

Or rather, in a lone spelljammer, crashed in the depths of Xendrik nearly five hundred years ago.

The handful of survivors, including the two Red Wizards, a cleric and several Thayan Knights (a group ranging from 9th to 15th level), used their wealth of magic items and high-level spells to carve out an empire from the local humanoids. They built their capital in the jungle above a giantish ruin and began exploring the latter.

All but one of the original survivors are gone, now, and that lone "survivor" is a lich (Necro8/RedWiz8). He rules a sizable number of (insert your favorite savage humanoid/monstrous humanoid/giant)s in Xendrik, teaching the most promising how to become Thayan Knights and Red Wizards, albeit of less power than himself.

He may also have been meddling in Khorvaire.

 

[arwink]

For my money, the campaign roles of the Red Wizards (sources of intrigue and magic items) are already being fulfilled by the various dragonmarked houses, so I'd probably look at making them an order of Wizards that has recently been brought in from Sarlona in order to challenge the trading monopoly of the Dragonmarked. While they appear as traders on teh surface, they're ambitions have been corrupted and warped by contact with the Inspired and creatures from the nightmare realm, turning them into ambitious men that unwittingly serve the purpose of the Dal Quori.

I'd probably even go the extra step and make them psions rather than wizards, but that's just me.

Alternatively, they could easily be a sect of dragon-blooded humans bred by the evil dragons of Argonessen.

 

[Henry]

D'oh! The only WotC monster book that I don't have! That's kinda weird, though--obviously some development's been done on Xen'drik for them to have named features--I wonder when they'll see print?

Joshua, here's that Xen'drik tidbit I promised:

"Armands [anthropomorphic armadillo monks] inhabit the desert of Menechtarun, on the continent of Xen'drik. They enjoy civil relations with the Sand Giants [big giants, sand-related spell-like abilities] of the Golden Sargasso and trade with them often. They also do business with various goatfolk [called Ibixians] and orc tribes in the Fangs of Argarak, a mountain chain east of the desert. A tribe of armands will typically build a caravanserai around or near a desert oasis and open its gates to traders, adventurers, and other peaceful visitors."

It's not much, but it mentions at least three Xen'drik locations.

 

[Teemu]

Those MM 3 Eberron fluff texts aren’t necessarily very reliable… take a look at the one for the Dread Blossom Swarm:

The elves of Aerenal have been accused of deliberately transplanting and unleashing dread blossom swarms upon their enemies, most recently the orc tribes of the Shadow Marches.

I’d say the Red Wizards work best as part of the Order of the Emerald Claw, or perhaps as something coming from Aundair.

 

[William Ronald]

I would place the Red Wizards in spelljammering ships visiting the Siberys Ring, of course!

Or rather, in a lone spelljammer, crashed in the depths of Xendrik nearly five hundred years ago.

The handful of survivors, including the two Red Wizards, a cleric and several Thayan Knights (a group ranging from 9th to 15th level), used their wealth of magic items and high-level spells to carve out an empire from the local humanoids. They built their capital in the jungle above a giantish ruin and began exploring the latter.

All but one of the original survivors are gone, now, and that lone "survivor" is a lich (Necro8/RedWiz8). He rules a sizable number of (insert your favorite savage humanoid/monstrous humanoid/giant)s in Xendrik, teaching the most promising how to become Thayan Knights and Red Wizards, albeit of less power than himself.

He may also have been meddling in Khorvaire.

A good idea except that Eberron is in a completely different cosmology and does not seem to support spelljammers. So, it would be very hard to get a spelljammer to Eberron. I am not enven sure if such transitive planes as the Plane of Shadow, the Astral Plane, or the Ethereal Plane connect Eberron to any other D&D cosmology.

 

[Lord Morte]

the campaign roles of the Red Wizards (sources of intrigue and magic items) are already being fulfilled by the various dragonmarked houses, so I'd probably look at making them an order of Wizards that has recently been brought in from Sarlona in order to challenge the trading monopoly of the Dragonmarked.

Or perhaps they're a splinter group from the Dragonmarked Houses themselves? A commercial faction lead by dragonmarked wizards who wish to profit from offering a wider range of services that any one other guild, a sort of 'one-stop' shop The arcane specialisation element derives from their extensive research efforts, which are aimed at providing more and better services than the Houses, while the tattoos are tied in some way to the Dragonmarks themselves.

Another alternative is that they were established in by Thrane's theocracy as an alternative to relying on the Dragonmarked Houses. IIRC Black Flame Zealots (ComDiv) were originally part of Thayan mythology, so they can be brought back as Silver Flame Zealots