Secrets of Sarlona is here...

[LoneWolf23]

Just sorta skimmed through it so far.

Early impression is that this would be an outstanding setting for a campaign featuring psionics.

I'm getting even more of a Stargate SG1 vibe from our evil empire of the Inspired --- we have alien entities possessing human forms and controlling vast legions of followers who don't realize that they are working for the bad guys.

Also...a substantial population of mongrel ogre/ ogre mage / half-giants. I like that.

Actually I felt the other way.. That Secrets of Sarlona took things away from the Goa'uld rip-off and made Reidra more like a fantasy version of 1984, with shades of B5's "Psi-Corps" managing things. All it needs is Doublethink...

 

[Aaron L]

RPGs are all about plagiarism and emulation, aren't they?

I go back to 1st Edition AD&D, so it's interesting to me to see how D&D drew upon the fantasy of the 1930s through the 1970s --- Moorcock and Tolkein and Leiber and Howard --- then gradually solidified into something that was uniquely D&D.

Eberron is, in some ways, the D&D setting that is the most purely D&D to me, just because it is not drawing so directly from these earlier influences --- rather, it's taking 30+ years of D&D and then riffing off of those conventions.

Exactly. 1E was almost as much sci-fi as fantasy, with it's "magic items" that had buttons and levers on them (Apparatus of Kwalish and the Rod of Lordly Might, fr'instnce), and with influences such as Lovecraft and the like it's no surprise.


Eberron takes everything out there and mashes it together to make something fun. Just like D&D did in the very beginning. Fntasy, sci-fi, anime... it's all in there and it's ll good.

 

[JPL]

Actually I felt the other way.. That Secrets of Sarlona took things away from the Goa'uld rip-off and made Reidra more like a fantasy version of 1984, with shades of B5's "Psi-Corps" managing things. All it needs is Doublethink...

That's a fine point --- the Quori are engaged in constant subliminal indoctrination of their masses of followers, and occasionally step in with some psionic brainwashing. But there's also a religious / philosophical aspect to their dominance. And some of it is simple education --- if you are taught from birth that all kalshatar are possessed by evil spirits, it will take a lot of evidence to make you think otherwise.

----

Incidentally, most of the ExPH races are present ---- love what they did with the elan ---- but there are few or no warforged, elves, halflings, or gnomes. Dwarves and duergar live together, and there is a huge shifter population up north. Plus the aforementioned mongrel ogres...