What the Dorruh are you doing to my Eberron?

[Glyfair]

One of the coolest innovations of 3e was the "multiple multiverses" aspect; Greyhawk had the Wheel, Faerun the Tree, Eberron the Orrery, etc. Similarly, there were no demon-lords or archdevils, there were the Rajah, who were just as powerful BUT tied directly to Eberron. This gave Eberron a unique feel from the traditional planes like the Abyss or Celestia and tied nicely to the 12+1 motif in Eberron (12 planes + Dal Quot).

I agree.

Now, Eberron is getting slammed with the same old boring cosmology as everyone else; back to the 2e multiverse of everything goes.

I disagree with the boring statement. I find the new "core" cosmology much more inspiring than the old default planar structure that I felt was falling under the weight of too much "canon."

Anyone else afraid 4e Eberron will be as unrecognizable as 4e Realms?

Nope. I will take whatever ideas I like from the cosmology and stick to what I have. I also know I am going to ditch the whole "any PC can have any dragonmark regardless of race" in my campaign as well.

I trust Keith and Ari to create a compelling 4E campaign setting book. I have to admit, I was trusting James Wyatt and feel this is a very bad decision. However, it's nothing I can't ignore and use the bits and pieces that transfer into my preferred version.

 

[Rechan]

Yay, something new to grouse about.

I think I'll wait and see how the execution is before get too up in arms.

But Oni! GOLDEN WYVERN ADEPT!

 

[FourthBear]

Looking over the Eberron Campaign Guide, most of the 13 planes will likely be placed into the Astral Sea or Elemental Chaos. Thelanis really *is* the Feywild. Dal Quor as the Plane of Dreams and Xoriat as the Far Realm are pretty obvious. The latter two planes haven't been detailed in 4e, so nothing really to contradict. Dolurrh as Shadowfell isn't as good a match, since while souls do pass into the 4e Shadowfell, they are specifically mentioned as not typically lingering there, as they do in Dolurrh.

Not sure if they're going to want to introduce the primordials into Eberron. I'm sure they won't lose the Siberys/Eberron/Khyber creation myth, but might they introduce the primordials somewhere after that? Or would they simply suggest that Eberron campaigns use 4e primordials as example of servants of Khyber/Rajahs/Daelkyr/OtherCosmicVillains?

Hmmm, reading through I actuallly don't see anything claiming that the 13 named planes are the only planes in Eberron's cosmos. Just that these 13 are the planes in orbit (regular planar conjunction) with Eberron. I wonder if they'll open up the Eberron cosmos to better allow for DMs to use other planes, just not in 13 planes that enter conjunctions.

 

[Shemeska]

I. Told. You. So.

2) The 4e cosmology (unlike the 3e Cosmology) is inhabitable;

Entire campaign settings and uncountable campaigns therein over the years would say otherwise. People (well, 4e fans at least) keep claiming over and over that more or less the Great Wheel planes would apparently rape you to death for stepping in their awesome purity and nobody would ever want to go there. Repeating that time and again doesn't make it true.

Eberron will be assimilated. There can be no existence of individual identity.

Wait, no. Great Wheel didn't force itself into every campaign. You had things like...oh say...Eberron.

So I guess, here comes the old boss, worse then the new boss.

In other related news, I'm torn between morning the loss of one of my favorite settings, and laughing inappropriately at the hilarity of I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT

Or maybe we're (understandably) paranoid because we saw what happened to Forgotten Realms?

Don't act like 4e has no track record here. They do. And it's not a good one.

Anyone else afraid 4e Eberron will be as unrecognizable as 4e Realms?

These pretty much say it all.

Around a year ago, there was discussion on the WotC boards about the possibility of 4e changing Eberron's unique cosmology into the default. I called it back then. Lots of people thought I was being too cynical, or not giving the 4e design team any credit. And (as I recall) Keith Baker tried to assure everyone that he was certain there wouldn't be anything as bad as some people feared. Well, now Eberron fans can go through exactly what FR fans went through with 4e. Change for the sake of change.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I went off on this a while back. Here's my schpiel:

IMO, this kind of thinking is thinking is almost entirely bass ackwards.

FIRST of all, and most importantly, having a different cosmology helps define what is important in your world. I mean, this is basically the real reason that human cultures over the aeons have all come up with different cosmologies (Dante's vision of Hell/Purgatory/Paradise, Miltonian "world on a string"/"music of the spheres" heliocentrism, the Hindu wheel of existence, Nordic Ysgard, et cetra ad nauseum). To lack support for this customization in D&D is lazy, narrowminded, and ultimately at cross-purposes to actually telling the story you want to tell.

SECOND of all, but related, is that one cosmology is not truly universal. Like I talked about in the thread on "what is Core," settings define themselves by including things that others don't and excluding things that others include. If you can't exclude the feywild or the astral sea or the far realm or the elemental chaos, or the shadowfell, if you can't include, I dunno, a plane of dreams or a plane of parallel consciousness, or a million extra Earths, or something like the thread "A Nameless City on a Many-Named Sea" cultivates, you're shoehorning in things that were never meant to fit, that don't fit, and that are frankly incongruous, and you're leaving out things that would help define and differentiate the setting.

I don't think it's going to "ruin" Eberron per se. The Great Wheel didn't "ruin" anyone's game per se, either, when everything was forced into it. But it's far, far worse than a setting that is allowed to define its own cosmology.

That said, it's a tragic and dissapointing backpedaling after one of 3e's greatest sacred-cow slaughters, the idea that all campaign settings MUST subscribe to the same cosmology. It shoehorns ideas into some sort of pre-defined structure, and the motive for it sounds basically like "We want people to be able to buy more copies of the Manual of the Planes."

It's frustrating, boneheaded, near-sighted, profit-motive change without any truly redeeming qualities (just a weak excuse or two and the hope that it won't hurt much). It kills imagination. There was a reason 3e got rid of the idea of a shared cosmology. 4e thought that MotP sales outweighed encouraging DM creativity in this respect.

It reaches beyond Eberron, really. Eberron (and most WotC settings, I'm sure) won't be too horribly affected. There will be some weird verbiage, an excuse or two, and a "do whatever you want in your home games!" paragraph, but that'll be the extent of the damage.

The real problem is the design philosophy of One Sandwich to Rule Them All narrows the creative field for innovation, directly in WotC, and indirectly in many 4e games.

It's dumb to think that all cosmologies need to constrain to your pet one because you want to sell more books about it.

 

[MadMaxim]

Wow, I didn't know they would go to such lengths to streamline the campaign settings, that's rather unfortunate. I'm with the people who think this is rather narrow-minded, because like others I found the Eberron cosmology interesting because of the differences compared to Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms. I can't really see why people buying Manual of the Planes can't just pick the stuff from the book they want and put that into their Eberron games rather than forcing the core cosmology into Eberron. I think DMs who make use of the planes are a creative lot and would have figured out how to use stuff from Manual of the Planes in their Eberron games. I actually think it's kind of funny that Eberron in 3.5 was the setting wherein you could find a place for all the core D&D stuff without much trouble, but now Eberron has to conform to the core cosmology instead... Kind of sad, really...

 

[Remathilis]

"Sterilize...imperfections."

Eberron will be assimilated. There can be no existence of individual identity.

Fear will keep them in line. Fear of this battlestation.

Wow, we get Cybermen, Borg, and Death Star references. Go Sci-Fi!

 

[DaveMage]

Actually, I was thinking Nomad from the Original Star Trek.

 

[Remathilis]

Aside from the occasional conjunction or opposition (or whatever its called when the plane gets far away) did the Eberron planes matter?

Well...

First, you are right, the conjunction of the planes (and its remote phase) could lead to some interesting story-telling elements. Secondly, manifest zones are very important to the world of Eberron (such as Sharn being a manifest zone of Syriana). Third, there was a lot of anti-GW elements to Eberron's structure. There were no Abyssal lords like Orcus or Demogorgon. That role was filled by the Rajahs. There was no Abyss, no "demon" as a combined force. Balors lived on Feria, Maraliths on Shavarash.

It was something different and new. While I generally like the World-Axis 4e cosmology, I'm upset with the idea of cramming Eberron's Orrery cosmology structure into 4e's World Axis because I think its un-necessary and is only there to make Eberron more "generic-planar-friendly".

We'll see what the ECS and EPG have in store, but so far I'm not liking this "Eberron uses the same cosmology as the generic/FR" shick.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

On the other hand, "everything that exists in D&D exists in Eberron" was something they originally sold Eberron as, back before it was even released in the 3E era. From that perspective, this is a perfectly unsurprising change.

You were always supposed to be able to pick up a non-setting-specific WotC book and be able use it with your Eberron game.