What the Dorruh are you doing to my Eberron?

[Gothmog]

Step One: Updating settings to 4e (or any updates for any edition, if past memory serves).

Step Two: Nerdrage.

Step Three: Hilarity ensues (or PROFIT! if you watch South Park).

On a more serious note, it seems the whole Astral Sea and moving dominions of Eberron fit together nicely. It would be easy to envision the dominions moving through the Astral Sea, coming into close proximity to each other, which is pretty much the established Eberron cannon, no?

Wouldn't it be better to avoid getting worked up until we actually know more and maybe have the book in our hands?

 

[Remathilis]

See, one of the cool things about Eberron is the fact that its planes aren't attached to some sort of big wheel or whatever. Instead, they're unattached, floating in the astral plane, whizzing around the material plane like demented magical moons.

Indeed! Each of Eberron's 12 moons are tied to a plane. (Like with everything, there was 13, but Dal Quot is permanently remote, so there is a lost moon).

So I wonder of the moons Risia and Ferria inhabit will merge into one larger moon as well... (half-joking)

Still, you summed up my point perfectly.

 

[Nymrohd]

The orrery cosmology of Eberron is certainly not well detailed. Apart from the presence of Thelanis and Dal quor in a novel (and probably more; early bad experiences with Eberron novels stopped from reading more of them) the planes are not that well described. However the orrery structure is an important part of the plane that is tied to its history. By the few posts we have it seems the plan is to intergrate aspects of the core planes to the Eberron planes. If the structure is kept intact, this will not essentially be a change but rather more information. As for implementing archdevils and demon lords in Eberron, well 3E did that already. Levistus is in an iceberg city between western Khorvaire and the Frostfell.

Keith Baker has thoroughly explained the concept of the dragonmark change. It is intented for players only to rarely be able to manifest a dragonmark not related to their lineage, and it is interpreted as the direct hand of the Prophecy. While I understand that saying something is rare and PC only will not change how often it will inevitably happen on game tables (especially if dragonmarks are actually strong choices for optimization), the explanation is more than adequate and fits the setting perfectly.

Doom and gloom for FR was pronounced quite a long while before the FRCG was published. It was rather clear back when the GHotR was published that they were planning to blow the place up. There has been no such indication for Eberron. And the main reason the FRCG was mediocre was not so much the changes made but rather the substandard writing and the lack of imagination in describing the new world, both of which have nothing to do with assimilation to 4E but rather with more FR specific issues (especially in-house writters promoting their pet projects). Eberron and FR are disparate cases.

P.S. Dark Sun did not just have a corner of the Elemental Chaos that had water. It had an entire paraelemental plane of Rain!

 

[Remathilis]

Keith Baker has thoroughly explained the concept of the dragonmark change. It is intented for players only to rarely be able to manifest a dragonmark not related to their lineage, and it is interpreted as the direct hand of the Prophecy. While I understand that saying something is rare and PC only will not change how often it will inevitably happen on game tables (especially if dragonmarks are actually strong choices for optimization), the explanation is more than adequate and fits the setting perfectly.

Sadly though, it will turn a important choice into another optimization element.

Before, you knew the best artificers were human, the best healers were halfling, etc. A PC wanting to excel in those areas had an important choice: do I pick a race like halfling (which isn't normally tailored to my class) to get the mark, or do I become the race I want to play (like shifter) and forgo the mark?

Now, that choice is non-existent. Want to be a dragonborn AND pilot an airship? Forget half-elf, just be a "touched" dragonborn and get to flyin!

I hold out hope there is SOME mechanical disadvantage to selecting a mark outside of the appropriate race. Something akin to abberant marks. We shall see...

 

[Nymrohd]

Sadly though, it will turn a important choice into another optimization element.

Before, you knew the best artificers were human, the best healers were halfling, etc. A PC wanting to excel in those areas had an important choice: do I pick a race like halfling (which isn't normally tailored to my class) to get the mark, or do I become the race I want to play (like shifter) and forgo the mark?

Now, that choice is non-existent. Want to be a dragonborn AND pilot an airship? Forget half-elf, just be a "touched" dragonborn and get to flyin!

I hold out hope there is SOME mechanical disadvantage to selecting a mark outside of the appropriate race. Something akin to abberant marks. We shall see...

Honestly, there doesn't need to be a mechanical disadvantage. Lyrandar will not care much about the Prophecy; if you have their mark, you will have to work with them or agree not to work against them (or else you'll end up at the bottom of the sea pretty quickly). And the Cannith mark was simply too good. All the decent artificer PRCs required it. It was not a choice, it was a requirement. Also race optimization in 3E was not that important; racial benefits were simply too minor. It is far more important in 4E though. If a mark assisted a class that the race did not favor, it would be substandard as mostly skipped unless it was overpowered. This way marks can be balanced with other feats.

 

[glass]

It's not the change. It's what it changes into.

Except that we don't yet have any idea what it is changing into, so at the present time, it can't be anything but the change.


glass.

 

[Hellcow]

See, one of the cool things about Eberron is the fact that its planes aren't attached to some sort of big wheel or whatever. Instead, they're unattached, floating in the astral plane, whizzing around the material plane like demented magical moons.

Perhaps.

Or perhaps the planes are all layered over the material. Perhaps Thelanis, Shavarath, and Dolurrh are all around you all the time, just as war, death, and wonder are always a part of the world, and it's simply the case that planar harmonies cause the walls between the worlds to fade and reform at different rates.

The Orrery model is simply one interpretation of things, based on observable facts (and the possible connection to the physical moons). Those facts are that the planes become coterminous and remote, and do so at different rates... suggesting the idea of orbiting bodies. However, you also have manifest zones: static locations, spread all across the world, that maintain persistent links to other planes. Doesn't this suggest that the planes are omnipresent - all around us at all times - just lying beyond metaphysical walls? What about the fact that dreams go to Dal Quor wherever they happen to dream, or that dying spirits always find their way to Dolurrh? Does this tie with the idea of a plane that has some sort of physical orbit around Eberron?

The fact of the matter is that the people of Eberron don't KNOW what planar geography is... or if there's even any such thing. Madness, war, death, dreams... these are part of life. The fact that their influence waxes and wanes leads to the concept of the orrery, and that's not changing. My novels have dealt with Fernia, Thelanis, and Dal Quor, and there's nothing in any of them I would change if I was writing them today. Sure, Thelanis fills the role of the Feywild in Eberron. But IN Eberron, it is first and foremost Thelanis. It's the realm that touches the Twilight Demesne, the sanctuary of the Greensingers, home to the Queen of Dusk and the Nine Brothers of Night. It's a realm of stories and wonders... and a realm that, like every other plane in Eberron, spawns manifest zones and influences the world. The fact that it fills the role of the Feywild ALLOWS you to use Feywild elements from other sources IF YOU WANT... just as, in 3E, the Mournland and Xen'drik provided places you could put almost any creature from any Monster Manual. But just because you COULD put a city of Abeil in Xen'drik doesn't mean that you HAVE to... and likewise, just because the Manual of the Planes suggests that creature X is influential in the generic 4E Feywild doesn't mean that creature even exists in Thelanis. Again, Gates of Night shows you my vision of Thelanis, and I wouldn't feel any need to change it if I was writing it today, or if a future book goes back there.

So ultimately, my point is that *I* don't feel a vast transformation, or a need to make any vast changes to my campaign or the stories I'm writing. Personally, I've always held the opinion that the orrery is a metaphor, not that the planes are literally alien worlds; rather, the planes are ALWAYS all around us, with the coterminous and remote phases reflecting their shifting influence over this point of convergence.

 

[Glyfair]

So ultimately, my point is that *I* don't feel a vast transformation, or a need to make any vast changes to my campaign or the stories I'm writing. Personally, I've always held the opinion that the orrery is a metaphor, not that the planes are literally alien worlds; rather, the planes are ALWAYS all around us, with the coterminous and remote phases reflecting their shifting influence over this point of convergence.

Thanks Keith. A lot of my apprehension about the changes in 4E to Eberron's planes are because I have no idea exactly what they are planning (and the comment starting this truly makes me think I will discard many of the planar changes). I expect some of the others are the same.

As usual, your post gives me an entirely different POV about some Eberron things. The concept of the planes certainly makes sense. Indeed, it reminds me somewhat of the old DC multiverse with Earth-1, Earth-2, etc.

 

[Hellcow]

Just to make clear, the content of my post is based on my interpretation of things and nothing more. My point is that the core mechanics of the world - shifting influence of the planes, manifest zones, the names and natures of the planes themselves - remain intact to the level that I feel no need to change MY campaign. The Orrery model may not be the only possible map of the multiverse... but you could still use it, basing it off of the perceived influence the planes have on the world.

Likewise, the key is that by saying "Thelanis is essentially the Feywild", you're saying "You can easily use Feywild materials from other sources in Thelanis" - not that you HAVE to do so. In The Gates of Night, I present the idea that time works differently in Thelanis than in other planes - that you have to physically travel to go from dusk to dawn. I don't care if that's not the default behavior of the Feywild, because Thelanis isn't the DEFAULT Feywild; it is Eberron's faerie court, and as such an easy place for Feywild material. The 3.5 ECS noted that you could find a place for anything in Eberron, but that you might have to make adjustments to fit the tone of the world; that's the key here. The generic Feywild isn't overwriting and eliminating Thelanis, anymore than the existence of a generic plane of dreams eliminates the story of the quori and kalashtar. It simply provides a source of additional material you can choose to incorporate into Eberron's planes if you wish.

 

[Remathilis]

Thanks Keith!

The article I quoted made it seem like Fernia was a part of the Elemental Chaos, and you could walk from there to Risia by simply crossing elemental chaos motes. You're answer stikes me more what I thought it would be; This is Fernia. If you need to use it for an adventure, treat it as part of the EC.

Still Keith, if you can without breaking your NDA, answer this: No Abyss in Eberron, right?