Wizards of the Coast Reveals Revised Eberron Species Details

Wizards of the Coast has revealed some new details about Eberron: Forge of the Artificer, specifically detailing some of the changes players can expect to see from the species rules in the book. The upcoming Eberron splatbook will feature five species. Four of the species appeared in Eberron: Rising From the Last War, while the Khoravar (which have mixed human and elvish ancestries) are presented as a unique species in the book.

Today on D&D Beyond, Wizards listed some of the changes that will appear in each ruleset. Most notably, the Warforged is now presented as a Construct, while the Kalashtar are presented as aberrations. This makes these species immune to various spells that only impact humanoids. Additionally, the Khoravar has a new Lethargy Resilience feature that turns a failed saving throw to end or prevent the Unconscious condition into a success. This feature recharges after 1d4 Long Rests, which is a new design element to D&D.

According to D&D Beyond, the following changes are being made:

Changeling:

• Based on the Changeling from Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse.
• Shape-Shifter: You have Advantage on Charisma checks while shape-shifted.

Kalashtar:

• Creature Type: Kalashtar now have the Aberration creature type.
• Mind Link: You can now allow multiple creatures to communicate with you telepathically, and they no longer must be able to see you.
• Severed From Dreams: You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice after a Long Rest. This proficiency lasts until you finish another Long Rest.

Khoravar:

• Now included as a unique playable species in the world of Eberron
• Darkvision: Gain Darkvision with a range of 60 feet.
• Fey Ancestry: You have Advantage on saving throws to avoid or end the Charmed condition.
• Fey Gift: You know the Friends cantrip. When you finish a Long Rest, you can swap it for any Cleric, Druid, or Wizard cantrip.
• Lethargy Resilience: You can turn a failed save to avoid or end the Unconscious condition into a success. You can use this trait again after you finish 1d4 Long Rests.
• Skill Versatility: Gain proficiency in one skill or tool of your choice. After you finish a Long Rest, you may swap that proficiency for a different skill or tool.

Shifter:

• Based on the Shifter from Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse.
• Size: You can choose to be Medium or Small when you select this species.

Warforged:

• Creature Type: Warforged now have the Construct creature type.
• Constructed Resilience: Now have Advantage on saving throws to end the Poisoned condition and some aspects of this trait have been moved to Sentry's Rest and the new Tireless trait.
• Integrated Protection: Donning armor no longer takes an hour.
• Sentry's Rest: Now specifies Warforged don't need to sleep, and magic can't put them to sleep.
• Tireless: You don't gain Exhaustion levels from dehydration, malnutrition, or suffocation.

 

[Weiley31]

Man, that Lethargy Resilience has to be THE most unnecessarily fiddly niche ribbon ability in all of 5E. It reads like a PF2E skill feat lol. Hopefully the 1-2 times sleep comes up per campaign don't occur within d4 days of each other!

Khoravar:

• Lethargy Resilience: You can turn a failed save to avoid or end the Unconscious condition into a success. You can use this trait again after you finish 1d4 Long Rests.

It's also not a powerful enough ability to gate that way.

1d4 long rests is a little weird, I probably would have just gone with one long rest.

Imagine, if you will, having shoddy luck and rolling a four day long rest recharge each day.

On the other hand, I wonder if this may end up being a new method of "recharging" racial features if they decide to continue fiddling with such a concept.

Like, if the feature was JACKED, I could see a use for a recharge method like that. If not, well it's certainly a choice for sure.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

There's definitely some Eberron material out there that implies that lycanthropes are shifters taken to 11 rather than shifters being watered-down lycanthropes. I can't recall if that material is presented as fact or if it's an in-setting theory.

It was in a Dragonmarks article on the old WotC website...

The origin of lycanthropy remains a mystery that defies even divination; commune and legend lore produce cryptic and often contradictory statements about moons made flesh and the darkness within. The sages of Arcanix and the Library of Korranberg have produced many theories, tracing the disease to the daelkyr, the Gloaming, manifest zones bound to Lamannia, or ancient druids. A more exotic theory comes from the Eldeen Reaches. A number of shifter tribes believe that the moons of Eberron are powerful spirits that watch the world below. These shifters maintain that the shifter race is not descended from lycanthropes: Rather, the first lycanthropes were formed from shifters. According to this legend, the moon Olarune sought to create guardians who could protect the world of nature; reaching down from the sky, she touched a handful of chosen shifters, granting them the power to fully assume animal form. But the moonspeakers say that a thirteenth spirit is in the sky -- a dark moon that hides its face from the world. This darkness corrupted Olarune's gift, infecting many of her chosen with madness and evil. Or so the tale is told. Shifters with these beliefs have hunted evil lycanthropes for centuries: they simply lacked the resources to eliminate the threat. While these hunters are a minority among the shifters, as a race the shifters have no great love for lycanthropes. A shifter community may take risks to shelter a good lycanthrope, but no sensible person would knowingly welcome an evil werewolf into his home.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Maybe we should stop calling them hybrids and start calling them "Creoles"?

The half elves, orcs, dwarves and giants of my personal setting have been calling themselves "creole peoples". Everyone wants pirates of the Caribbean in their d&d setting, no one wants to bother looking at Caribbean culture.

I've never understood why the term hybrid is offensive. Many irl humans (including myself) had mixed species ancestors.

 

[LazarusKane]

As Addendum to the previous post about the "Dragonmarks article on the old WotC website": Two "kanon" continuationions of the article from the author:
IFAQ: Moons and Lycanthropes
Dragonmarks: Lycanthropes

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The mechanics (crunch) are IMHO the priority because it's the only hard fact the authors can control. The flavour (fluff) (description, culture, relations to other species etc.) is something that (sometimes) varies between the settings - so for example the standard Players Handbook halflings aren't like the tribal halflings of Eberron or the cannibalisic halflings of Dark Sun - or maybe the halflings of your own setting. How people interpret something isn't controllable - if they see Half-Elves as positive representation (for someone with mixed parents) or (Half-)Orc and drow as negative representation (of black people - I hope it's ok to give an racist example ) is out of the hands of the authors of the species.

I mean, it’s not completely out of the authors hands. Volos presented half-orcs how they did, there wasn’t exactly much extrapolation involved lol

When the description uses exactly the same wording as old rhetoric used to dehumanize Black and Native people, it isn’t on the reader to give the author the benefit of the doubt.

 

[LazarusKane]

I've never understood why the term hybrid is offensive. Many irl humans (including myself) had mixed species ancestors.

No you don't... "Human" is the species and your ancestors are from the same species.

 

[Parmandur]

Imagine, if you will, having shoddy luck and rolling a four day long rest recharge each day.

On the other hand, I wonder if this may end up being a new method of "recharging" racial features if they decide to continue fiddling with such a concept.

Like, if the feature was JACKED, I could see a use for a recharge method like that. If not, well it's certainly a choice for sure.

I think it is meant to replace the base Human Heroic Inspiration bonus...which can be very erratic in application, possibly.

 

[Charlaquin]

I've never understood why the term hybrid is offensive. Many irl humans (including myself) had mixed species ancestors.

It’s a term typically used for (non-human) animals, and so is dehumanizing when applied to human(oid)s

 

[Charlaquin]

No you don't... "Human" is the species and your ancestors are from the same species.

Well, a lot of humans have some amount of Neanderthal ancestry. Same genus, different species. Probably. Paleo taxonomy is complicated.

 

[LazarusKane]

I mean, it’s not completely out of the authors hands. Volos presented half-orcs how they did, there wasn’t exactly much extrapolation involved lol

When the description uses exactly the same wording as old rhetoric used to dehumanize Black and Native people, it isn’t on the reader to give the author the benefit of the doubt.

Do you maybe mean a different book?
"The lore of humans depicts orcs as rapacious fiends, intent on coupling with other humanoids to spread their
seed far and wide. In truth, orcs mate with non-orcs only when they think such a match will strengthen the tribe. When orcs encounter human who match them in prowess and ferocity, they sometimes strike an alliance that is sealed by mingling the bloodlines of the two groups. A half-orc in an orc tribe is often just as strong as a full-blooded orc and also displays superior cunning.
Thus, half-orcs are capable of gaining status in the tribe more quickly than their fellows, and it isn't unusual for a half-orc to rise to leadership of a tribe."