Sell me on Eberron

[Doug McCrae]

Key elements of Eberron:

1) Pulp D&D. The world is a medieval fantasy version of the 1920s/30s. The Last War is WWI. Sharn is New York. Breeland is the USA. The Order of the Emerald Claw are nazis. Xendrik is Africa, the dark continent. There are magical versions of trains, airships and the telegraph. The Cults of the Dragon Below are Cthulhu cultists.

2) Cinematic. Raiders of the Lost Ark is a major influence, to a lesser extent The Mummy and Pirates of the Caribbean. There's one fight on board an airship or on top of a train per adventure.

3) Noir. Private detectives, secret agents. There's at least one NPC with a hidden agenda per adventure. Often they work for one (or more) secret organisation. Shapechangers are common.

Here's a typical Eberron scenario:

PCs start off investigating a murder in Sharn. The clues lead to Xendrik. On the way, there's a fight on board an airship. In Xendrik there is a typical wilderness trek and dungeon bash, though with more emphasis on traps. When the PCs leave the dungeon they're jumped by the Order of the Emerald Claw.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The tweaks to religion are among the best things Eberron has brought to the game, IMO. (Obviously, it's appeared in third party products before, but this is the first time it's shown up in an official product.) I'd love it if some variant of the way Eberron handles religion issues could become status quo.

Like everyone said, though, if your goal is to play Indiana Jones or Sam Spade in a D&D setting, Eberron is for you. It's certainly possible to play more traditional stuff, but it's not what the setting does best.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

The last new homebrew I tried to build was a fantasy version of Berlin in the cold war period. I think I'm becoming convinced.

 

[Merkuri]

The last new homebrew I tried to build was a fantasy version of Berlin in the cold war period.

The main continent is pretty much in a state of cold war at the moment. A hundred-year continent-wide war has just ended, and everyone is still pretty edgy. Nations are trying to one-up each other, collect information, and protect themselves without actually starting a new war. Lots of opportunity for spies and secret government projects.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

I knew I made the wrong choice on my setting search entry!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The main continent is pretty much in a state of cold war at the moment. A hundred-year continent-wide war has just ended, and everyone is still pretty edgy. Nations are trying to one-up each other, collect information, and protect themselves without actually starting a new war. Lots of opportunity for spies and secret government projects.

And the war-weary veteran and the survivor who knows something that the now-existing powers don't want the world to know about are staples of Eberron games.

 

[Glyfair]

The best thing I tell people about Eberron is that it turns the standard Tolkienesque D&D tropes on their heads and provides a new, fresh, modern (in the sense of modern vs. traditional) setting for D&D.

And this is probably the biggest atmospheric difference. The basic society of Eberron is much more modern than most FRPG settings. The politics and the structure of the society is early 20th century. This is a factor of the political atmosphere being based on Europe between WWI and WWII, and much of the rest of the setting being based on the pulp magazines of that time period (at least the U.S. ones).

The Flame has a physical presence in the capital city of Thrane, and even issues commands via the head of the church, the Keeper of the Flame, but it is not truly a deity - rather it is the embodiment of many celestial creatures who gave up their physical forms during an ancient battle.

And even that is delightfully vague. The flame was used to imprison many great evil beings in the past. It is rumored that their are two voices from the flame, one being the voice of a great evil being imprisoned in it. It is even rumored that there is only one voice, and that is the evil being.

 

[Klaus]

Actually, the closest thing to a real deity in Eberron is the Undying Court.

In the tropical island-continent of Aerenal, the elves keep their greatest heroes and leaders in a mummy-like state after death. These positively-charged creatures (think anti-undead, called deathless) reside in the City of the Dead, and are collectively worshiped by the elves as The Undying Court.

 

[Solarious]

Actually, the closest thing to a real deity in Eberron is the Undying Court.

In the tropical island-continent of Aerenal, the elves keep their greatest heroes and leaders in a mummy-like state after death. These positively-charged creatures (think anti-undead, called deathless) reside in the City of the Dead, and are collectively worshiped by the elves as The Undying Court.

Which highlights one of the big changes of DnD attitudes in comparison to Eberron: the base races are very different. The elves are very much focused on death and the continuation thereof; the elves of Aerenal are the ones who practice ancestor worship on the most extreme scale, as mentioned above, and sustain them beyond death with worship. Without living elves to worship, the Undying Court could not exist (it also has a lot to do with the local manifest zones, think places where other planes bleed into the Material, which connect to both the positive and negative energy planes of Ebberon).

On the other end of the scale, there is a seperate culture of elves who don't believe in keeping their ancestors alive after death, and instead try to emulate their great deeds in their rebellion against the Giants. Those ancestors are then supposed to live vicariously through them. This makes these elves highly skilled glory-hounds who go and try to do bigger and crazier things all the time. In fact, they managed to make a land grab in the middle of the Last War and founded their own country, whom they named after their culture: Valenar.

Then there are the halflings, who are now nomadic dinosaur hunter/herders. The gnomes are re-imagined as frightening social maestros who made triple-dealing a daily part of life (best described in two words: The Trust). Orcs are half heroic druids who defeated the forces of madness and drove them deep within Khyber, while the other half are worshippers of the very same madness that had inslaved them. Half-Elves have found their own identity as the children of Khorvaire, and especially in their two Dragonmark Houses, Medani and Lyrander. Dwarves are perhaps the least changed, being famous bankers and fierce warriors (the most noticable detail being that they were quite barbaric at one time).

And all you really need for an Eberron game is the ECS, which has plenty of inspiration and hooks for you to lach onto. But you should go through the Dragonshards Archive, which has information and interpetations straight from Keith Baker, and is generally considered equal to sourcebooks as an excellent source of information (many even believe them to be superior).

 

[victorysaber]

1) Pulp D&D. The world is a medieval fantasy version of the 1920s/30s. The Last War is WWI. Sharn is New York. Breeland is the USA. The Order of the Emerald Claw are nazis. Xendrik is Africa, the dark continent. There are magical versions of trains, airships and the telegraph. The Cults of the Dragon Below are Cthulhu cultists.

Can you elaborate more on this WW II analogue?