Nice, thanks for the pointer.
D&D 5E Running Eberron in 5e
Nice, thanks for the pointer.
Actually, Eberron5e.com is a great source of material... The guy (gal? guys? gals?) behind it get what the setting is about and make some great implementations on races, specially Warforged (albeit on the overpowered side for the heavier version).
Still think nobody nailed Dragonmarks in 5e, though.
Maybe we could have some setting-specific ruling that allowed players to chose between Dragonmarks and "Other Thing", but best idea so far for this is "give everyone a 1st lvl feat", making them chose between a dragonmark and a feat from a fluffy-feat list.
Another issue is that one of the most interesting things from Eberron was the evolution of Dragonmarks. You could be a high lever character with a lesser mark, or you could be a mid level character with a greater mark (aside from level restrictions). And Siberys Mark was another thing althogether. IMO, the auto-update approach for Dragonmarks takes away a bit of the fun...
Still think nobody nailed Dragonmarks in 5e, though.
Maybe we could have some setting-specific ruling that allowed players to chose between Dragonmarks and "Other Thing", but best idea so far for this is "give everyone a 1st lvl feat", making them chose between a dragonmark and a feat from a fluffy-feat list.
Another issue is that one of the most interesting things from Eberron was the evolution of Dragonmarks. You could be a high lever character with a lesser mark, or you could be a mid level character with a greater mark (aside from level restrictions). And Siberys Mark was another thing althogether. IMO, the auto-update approach for Dragonmarks takes away a bit of the fun...
Gradine
The Elephant in the Room (she/her)
This is exactly why I don't think feats are great implementation for Dragonmarks, and especially not in 5e where feats are rare and feat trees are discouraged. It's also why the otherwise good idea of replacing racial traits also doesn't work, because you still have to find some why to figure out the development of the mark.
I still believe that the best implementation, at least in 5e, would be to count the Dragonmark as a Blessing, and you can balance the mark's development against magic item acquisition (using the suggestion from the beginning of the thread to balance least/lesser/greater against magic item rarity).
Gradine
The Elephant in the Room (she/her)
I was incorrect; Throneport (the city that contains Thronehold) is detailed in The Forge of War (p. 94). There's an almost decent map of the city; mostly depicting the city as having two neutral zones (the port and Thronehold itself) and the rest of the city divided into four other districts, one for each the remaining Five Nations. It's described as sort of a mix between Casablanca and post-war divided Berlin.
Of course, The Forge of War contradicts the established canon in a number of ways, but if you look at it as an in-universe document with an unreliable narrator (with a particularly strong anti-Thrane bias) it's a decent enough supplement.
Gradine
The Elephant in the Room (she/her)
This is awesome! My own conversion wasn't nearly so ambitious... I took the approach of trying to change as little as possible while still retaining the look and feel of Eberron. My notes on chapter 4 are probably longer than all of the other chapters combined. Here's my HotDQ in Eberron, according to Gradine... (or as I call it, Hoard of the Cold Sun).
The Talons of Tiamat have been working in secret, mostly on Xen'drik, to decipher the Draconic Prophecy required to free Tiamat from her prison in the Pit of Five Sorrows. Much of what has been required to come to pass has, and now the Talons must prepare for an assault on the Pit and the final ritual required to free her. To that end the Talons have been split into two tasks; seeking the Dragon Masks, ancient relics left behind by Tiamat to corrupt the hearts of the dragons of The Chamber, and the collection of vast hoards of dragonshards, required to produce the final burst of energy necessary to complete the ritual.
In order to avoid detection, the Talons have masked their activities on Khorvaire by infiltrating and taking control of lesser cults. Rezmir has successfully taken control of one large cult dedicated to the rise of Masvirik, The Cold Sun, and Rhashaak, the corrupted black dragon guardian of Haka'torvhak. This Cold Sun cult has expanded its operations outside of Q'Barra, and Rezmir is now overseeing the raiding of small settlements throughout Khorvaire, which she plans on collecting and shipping west, to the Shadow Marches, where she has instructed a converted House Cannith scion to use the treasure to purchase a large supply of dragonshards from House Tharashk. From there, she only needs to ship the shards a short distance to Naerytar, a secluded fortress with a particularly fortuitous discovery: an ancient Mabarian portal to the Endworld Mountains, a short distance from where Skyreach Castle is hidden. Skyreach is how Rezmir plans on delivering her hoard of dragonshards to the Talons stronghold in Xen'drik.
I make a lot of minor changes to characters for flavor reason or setting reasons (for a start, I convert all half-dragons to dragonborns). The adventure begins in Aundair, where Frulam has unwittingly used a Cold Sun hideout, where Rezmir is secretly trying to hatch the fiendish spawn of Rhashaak, as her base of operations. Cyanwrath has ties to Seren and is obsessed with emulating Rhashaak. I hold back on the dragon attack; the ability to corrupt dragons is meant to be a major reveal at a later point in the campaign.
From there the adventure proceeds pretty much as typical; the caravan travels west from Passage, through the Eldeen Reaches and the Byeshk Mountain and into the Shadow Marches. The cult's goods are managed by Boris d'Cannith, a house Cannith East scion who is personally overseeing a rather large purchase of dragonshards. He's convinced the Cold Sun will give him the power to not only overtake Cannith East but reform the entire House; in truth, Talon agents plan on assassinating him and stealing away the dragonshards to Nearytar as soon as the transaction is completed. Jamna Gleamsilver is ostensibly there on behalf of The Trust but is also a secret agent for The Aurum, this adventure's stand-in for the Zhentarim. The Red Wizards are replaced with a group of tiefling dissidents from the Venemous Demense.
Most of the rest of the NPCs on the journey are given minor updates, changes or are fleshed out to give a bit more flavor to the setting. Samardag the Hoper is an obnoxiously optimistic follower of the Sovereign Host and trader in local Khorvaire oddities (like feather charms from Sharn). The Pole is a Warforged veteran. Most of the traders carry goods from all over Khorvaire, like Karnnathi silks. Lasfelro is actually a family of Changelings (Las, Fel & Ro), thus explaining their wild personality swings, fleeing from an overzealous Silver Flame Inquisitor because they stole a holy relic (a magical shield) and are seeking the protection of Fel's fey pact patron (hence the gargoyle familiar). The caravan as a whole is part of a larger effort by House Orien to open up a legitimate and safe trade route through to the Shadow Marches, and quite a few of Dragonmarked Houses have sent scions along to track the progress on it. Most of the scenarios have minor changes and updates to reflect the new setting or the new circumstances regarding some of the characters. The Golden Elk's prophecy is slightly re-written to steer players to follow the dragonshards.
Chapter 5 becomes an investigation again as the caravan reaches Goldmire and the party has to figure out where the dragonshards went and who killed Boris; the remaining Cold Sun cultists of course blame the PCs for both. This leads them to Naerytar, which is probably the first place where the PCs can find clues regarding the Talons and come to the realization that the Cold Sun cultists were simply patsies.
I don't really do much different with Chapter 7 except flesh out the NPCs a bit more; give Treskin a bit more of a personality. Talis is formerly a House Lyrander scion with the Mark of Storms.
Chapter 8 is where I make some other fairly major changes. First off, I replace Captain Othelstan with Master Otheltash, a fanatical Kalasthar mystic who's been convinced that releasing Tiamat will result in the turning of the age in Dal Quor. He's mindwashed most of the town with some stolen Riedran technology. Skyreach itself predates the founding of elemental binding by the giants; Blagothkus bound his dead wife to the castle to power its flight using forbidden Mabarin magics, for which he and his creation were imprisoned in the Everice for millennia until freed by the Talons. Blagothkus doesn't really care about what the Talons want; he wants to rebuild Giant civilization and would actually rather not have the Chamber as an enemy. His Qabalrin servant, the vampire Sandesyl Morgia, is a different story; she's much more interested in helping the Talons than remaining loyal to her old master, but could be convinced that Tiamat's rise isn't really in her best interest either. There's a lot of tension on Skyreach between the different factions (the tieflings are of course only interested in themselves and building their own power, and are actually rather counting on the Talons to fail to awaken Tiamat).
I'm going to be taking a closer look at RoT again and seeing what I can do with that for converting it. Dragons and giants both tend to play very different roles in Eberron than in FR and I haven't really gotten a chance yet to read the individual missions to see how they might fit in. I imagine once I do I might make even more tweaks to HotDQ to set up some more foreshadowing.
Enevhar Aldarion
Hero
Not sure if this means anything or not, and maybe someone will upload audio or video from this, but both Crawford and Perkins are at Emerald City ComiCon this weekend and they did a panel together on D&D and Eberron. The panel included the creator of Eberron, Keith Baker, and it was moderated by Bill Benham of the Adventurer's League.
http://www.emeraldcitycomicon.com/e...-Siberys-Eberron-from-Inception-to-Livestream
It has been posted elsewhere by AL people that an extra long and exciting season is coming soon. Any chance they are pulling a 5E Eberron surprise on everyone?
http://www.emeraldcitycomicon.com/e...-Siberys-Eberron-from-Inception-to-Livestream
It has been posted elsewhere by AL people that an extra long and exciting season is coming soon. Any chance they are pulling a 5E Eberron surprise on everyone?
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It’s been so long since I’ve found and interesting Everton chat, this thread is awesome 
I guess I was ambitious but I survived playing through an epic Dragonlance campaign and felt a dragon themed campaign/adventure path should be equally epic. Plus I was rewarding my players’ trust in me moving on to 5E by not penalising their character advancements and so started them off as 12th level renowned veterans of the Last War.
Big picture I’m pretty happy with the logic behind my campaign and the related role of dragons in Khorvaire/Eberron...
I figured Dragons’ belief Tiamat is imprisoned beneath Argonessan in the Pit of Five Sorrows is reasonably based on draconic eye witness accounts of her fall. They dominate Argonessan, utterly crushed the giants, struck hard against Aerenal, but in Khorvaire they seem secretive or guardians of ancient places of dangerous power. To me this points to them being much more heirs of ancient secrets pond powers than random monsters.
If Tiamat did have power to corrupt chromatic dragons/half of dragon kind and the Talons of Tiamat have failed to free her in the 100,000 years since her imprisonment it’s probably because fear of her escape, and the risk of being enslaved again is why dragons dominate Argonessan and likely means they’ve they’re ruthlessly exterminated the cult (along with all possible witnsss?) every time they’ve popped up.
If a magical dragon horn could be heard by and summon dragons from across the realms, it would likely draw an overwhelming response by the rulers of Argonnesan so I dropped that entirely.
On the other hand, if there were traces of Tiamat’s corrupting influence left in scales she might have shed in a remote, long forgotten lair, forging these into enchanted masks might let the Talons secretly strengthen their power base dramatically by enslaving vulnerable dragons before Argonessan’s rulers took the threat seriously enough to respond.
Details (like featuring Eberron’s iconic dragonshards!) are where I feel I’m falling down.
Giants as a coherent power group seems too contrary to canon history to fit Eberron, but some left over “technologies” from when their magic was strong enough to provoke a catastrophic dragon attack, that’s another story.
A giant built and giant-ghost powered floating castle are pretty cool, but I think the ghost is better a remnant of the ancient past dominated by the cult (or a powerful vampire employed by the cult perhaps) rather than one influenced by a living giant. So Blagothkus is out but Esclarotta’s ghost is likely favourable towards anyone who might free her from domination, and if they can present a way to strike back at the dragons who destroyed her civilization so much the better!
But even starting my party at 12th level (they’re 13 nearly 14 now), they found a clever single adult dragon was deadly. They’re reluctant to risk facing multiple and/or more dragons with or without cultists in tow.
Uniting the nations of Khorvaire into putting an army at the party’s backs seems unlikely given the lingering results of the Last War. At least in the short term.
Thank you so much. I was sure I’d seen a write up and map of Thronehold but just Could. Not. Find. It. Again. Myself.
Agreed. So far I think they worked best as a prestige class but I don’t see prestige classes coming back in 5E and really like Aldarc’s suggestion that Dragonmarks provide advantage to relevant proficiencies too. That really feels right for 5E and would be a nice balance to the rather lacklustre spell once per long test suggested in the unearthed arcane update, but what skills for each Mark?
High praise considering the source, thank you.
I feel that might be arguable given what you've shared. I wish I’d come across your ideas before I started my campaign, dragonshards are practically signature items for Eberron! Now I absolutely have to figure out how to incorporate them and have completely missed them so far.
I guess I was ambitious but I survived playing through an epic Dragonlance campaign and felt a dragon themed campaign/adventure path should be equally epic. Plus I was rewarding my players’ trust in me moving on to 5E by not penalising their character advancements and so started them off as 12th level renowned veterans of the Last War.
Big picture I’m pretty happy with the logic behind my campaign and the related role of dragons in Khorvaire/Eberron...
I figured Dragons’ belief Tiamat is imprisoned beneath Argonessan in the Pit of Five Sorrows is reasonably based on draconic eye witness accounts of her fall. They dominate Argonessan, utterly crushed the giants, struck hard against Aerenal, but in Khorvaire they seem secretive or guardians of ancient places of dangerous power. To me this points to them being much more heirs of ancient secrets pond powers than random monsters.
If Tiamat did have power to corrupt chromatic dragons/half of dragon kind and the Talons of Tiamat have failed to free her in the 100,000 years since her imprisonment it’s probably because fear of her escape, and the risk of being enslaved again is why dragons dominate Argonessan and likely means they’ve they’re ruthlessly exterminated the cult (along with all possible witnsss?) every time they’ve popped up.
If a magical dragon horn could be heard by and summon dragons from across the realms, it would likely draw an overwhelming response by the rulers of Argonnesan so I dropped that entirely.
On the other hand, if there were traces of Tiamat’s corrupting influence left in scales she might have shed in a remote, long forgotten lair, forging these into enchanted masks might let the Talons secretly strengthen their power base dramatically by enslaving vulnerable dragons before Argonessan’s rulers took the threat seriously enough to respond.
Details (like featuring Eberron’s iconic dragonshards!) are where I feel I’m falling down.
Giants as a coherent power group seems too contrary to canon history to fit Eberron, but some left over “technologies” from when their magic was strong enough to provoke a catastrophic dragon attack, that’s another story.
A giant built and giant-ghost powered floating castle are pretty cool, but I think the ghost is better a remnant of the ancient past dominated by the cult (or a powerful vampire employed by the cult perhaps) rather than one influenced by a living giant. So Blagothkus is out but Esclarotta’s ghost is likely favourable towards anyone who might free her from domination, and if they can present a way to strike back at the dragons who destroyed her civilization so much the better!
But even starting my party at 12th level (they’re 13 nearly 14 now), they found a clever single adult dragon was deadly. They’re reluctant to risk facing multiple and/or more dragons with or without cultists in tow.
Uniting the nations of Khorvaire into putting an army at the party’s backs seems unlikely given the lingering results of the Last War. At least in the short term.
That's supposed to be easy...
House Cannith, Making -> Arcana + 1 Tool ('cos tool proficiency is mostly fluffy)
House Deneith, Sentinel -> Athletics (Mercenary) or Investigation (Sentinel Marshal) ('cos military, resistance, good with basic maneuvers like shove)
House Ghallanda, Hospitality -> Diplomacy + "Cooking Tool" (or something like it)
House Jorasco, Healing -> Medicine
House Kundarak, Warding -> Investigation (or Perception)
House Lyrandar, Storm -> "Water (or Air) Vehicles", plus ... Survival? Nature? I don't remember what rules over driving a ship, if it's a tool should be a bonus
House Medani, Detection -> Insight (or Investigation)
House Orien, Passage -> Arcana and "Land Vehicles"
House Phiarlan, Shadow -> Performance (or Acrobatics)
House Sivis, Scribing -> Insight (or History)
House Tharashk -> Survival (Perception ?)
House Thuranni, Shadow -> Stealth (or Deception)
House Vadalis, Handling -> Handle Animal
Edited due to great suggestions below
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I'm not keen on giving bonus to Perception since it's the game's best skill... however, Kundarak and Medani are very tied to Perception. Insight is a OK alternative, but Investigation is a bit lame IMO, but that might be me not fully aware of the difference between that and Perception, always have the felling that there's some overlap
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