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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hellcow" data-source="post: 3776757" data-attributes="member: 15800">Well, I've written about this elsewhere, but to summarize my "Why Eberron works with Points of Light with little change" thoughts:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Khorvaire has a low population density. "Points of Light" has ALWAYS been the model. In Breland, you have a lot of villages and hamlets around Sharn, Wroat, Starilaskur... but you have a lot of empty space between. There's not SUPPOSED to be a lot of villages right along the edge of the King's Forest. So around Sharn or Wroat it's very civilized, but halfway between you are out in the open.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Eberron DOES have easy methods of safe travel. That's why the previous point works. Most people going from Sharn to Wroat will take the lightning rail, not walk. The main point to this is that there are still things in land claimed by the Five Nations that are, essentially, undiscovered (remember, untill the war began, Droaam was labeled as Breland on the map). You CAN find ruins from the Age of Demons or Dhakaani empire. Not in the dense central areas, but they are out there.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Then you have the Mournland. The point here is that the central heart of the nation just got turned into one massive dungeon. Between ruined cities, strange areas created by the event, and monsters from the Mourning spilling out, there's lots of possibilities.</li> </ul>And that's what I'm saying. As it stands, you CAN strand someone in Eberron. The world's just HAD an apocalyptic event - I don't think it needs another one. I'm of a few different minds on this. One approach would be to simply ignore it. As long as NO ONE uses Vancian magic any more, I actually think it's a stronger approach. Eberron is a world with magewrights and wizards. If I'm basing my D&D campaign on a pre-existing novel - Lord of the Rings, say - I'm probably not going to change Middle Earth and say "Gandalf has to learn magic all over again". I'm just going to change the way magic works in the world and say "In 4E, Gandalf is a 15th level loremage, even though in 3.5 I had him as a wizard/archmage/loremaster." He didn't start all over again, I just had to figure out the best way to reflect his abilities under the new rules.  Essentially, the only reason I see a need for a magic-changing event in world continuity (for Eberron - not my place to make statements about FR) is if SOMEONE is still using Vanican Magic - or if there's something about the new system of magic that ought to have a huge impact on the world that hasn't been taken into account by current history, like teleport or sending being first level spells. I don't like clumsy retconning. If it's decided that elephant-people are a core race, I would want to come up with a strong explanation for the presence of elephant people in 4th Edition Eberron, not just say "What? You didn't notice the elephant people before?" But unless the new system of magic SHOULD change the flavor of the world, I think it's easier to say "The 3.5 ECS says Mordain the Fleshweaver is the best Transmuter in the world. In 4th edition, transmutation magic works different, so Mordain is now a transmogrifier, but he's the best transmogrifier in the world." As long as the net result is the same - Mordain can turn you into a toad - I don't actually want to rewrite everything to say "Mordain used to use a spellbook but now he doesn't"... because it doesn't really matter if he did. And I don't want to say "Mordain can't use magic at all any more because it changed."Essentially, if you just read the fluff of the 3.5 ECS, what things do you find that say "This can only happen in a world with Vancian magic?"WITH THAT SAID - I haven't seen much of anything about the 4E magic system. If it's something that really WOULD change the history of the world if it existed in the past, that's a very different situation. And with THAT said... even there, you could still essentially have a magical "aftershock" of the Mourning affect the way magic works without, say, having a second Mourning that nukes Breland. OMG! First the Mourning destroys Cyre, than four years later the aftershock transforms magic! What if the next aftershock kills us all?"Well, there's still going to be gnomes in Eberron, at least AFAIK.</blockquote>

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