D&D (2024) You Can Now Pre-order Eberron: Forge of the Artificer

Pre-orders for the upcoming setting book have gone live. Eberron: Forge of the Artificer comes out on August 19th. The book contains the new 2024/5 edition Artificer class with 5 subclasses, the Warforged species, a ton of backgrounds and feats, and 20 new monsters.

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Forge wonders in the world of Eberron, where magic meets marvelous inventions.

Play as the Artificer: the ultimate creative class. You’re not just an inventor or spellcaster. You're an innovator, a bold-hearted visionary, fusing together magic and technology to craft extraordinary creations.

Fuel your adventures with this rules expansion for Dungeons & Dragons:

• 4 revised Artificer subclasses and 1 new subclass: the Cartographer
• 5 revised species, 17 backgrounds, and 28 feats
• New spells, bastions, and magic items
• 3 distinct, genre-based campaign templates for building fantasy noir, political thriller, and pulp adventure campaigns in the world of Eberron
• Over 20 new monsters, each inspired by a campaign model

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[GarrettKP]

The Amazon preorder page has these extra preview pages, giving some hints as to the nature of the Campaign Tool Kits (each is a full chapter and the Sharn Inquisitive one seems to be somewhat spoiled by this) as well confirming the existence of both House Agent as a generic background and a series of “House X Heir” backgrounds which will have the Dragonmarks as their origin feats.

 

[pukunui]

Features that clearly (pseudo) date Eberron:

As I already said above, I'm fine with there being 1920s-ish elements in the setting ... but I feel like some people are aruging that it's the only and/or main time period that inspired the setting. It's not. There are many inspirations.

As pointed out above, the Last War in Keith's mind is a mix of both world wars, with the Mourning being equated to the atomic bomb. And while he doesn't mention the Hundred Years' War by name, that's clearly an inspiration as well. (He even states that some people would have called it "The War of Succession".)

Let's be clear here: Eberron is a big mishmash of anachronisms. Yes, Sharn is very 1920s (albeit with medieval castle skyscrapers instead of glass and steel ones) ... but the Lhazaar Principalities are very much stuck in the Age of Sail. New Galifar in Q'Barra is a late-19th century gold rush area, while, thanks to Keith's latest book, the Breland/Droaam border is even more of a late-19th century "wild west" frontier zone.

Eberron also has wild west-style wandslingers (instead of gunslingers) mixed in with the standard D&D medieval/renaissance arms and armor.

So what's bothering me is that, based on this new art direction, it feels to me like WotC is trying to make "Eberron = 1920s" happen. Eberron =/= 1920s. It's a mix of all sorts of things! I guess I'll have to wait and see if all the art in this new book looks like that or if it's just some of it.

And, for the record, as I already stated, I am NOT a Wayne Reynolds fan. In fact, I bounced off Eberron when it was new because I didn't want trains or robots in my D&D! I've since come around and it is now potentially my favorite D&D setting ... but I still shy away from it being "mostly" 1920s in vibe.

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I like that bit about the Draconic Prophecy. It feels more useful than what's in Rising. It also feels like something I could share with my players (at least the first half).

That being said, as a graphic designer, I can't really understand why they chose to go with that grainy black-and-white color scheme. I guess it's meant to look kind of newspaper-ish or something, but it just comes across as making the book look cheaply made (like the 3e era softcover adventures and splats that were all black-and-white on the inside). Like it's been photocopied or something.

 

[Bolares]

So what's bothering me is that, based on this new art direction, it feels to me like WotC is trying to make "Eberron = 1920s" happen. I guess I'll have to wait and see if all the art in this new book looks like that or if it's just some of it.

To be fair, we haven't seen any image outside of Sharn yet, so the 1920's style can be still reflecting the city and not the entire setting

 

[Von Ether]

That being said, as a graphic designer, I can't really understand why they chose to go with that grainy black-and-white color scheme. I guess it's meant to look kind of newspaper-ish or something, but it just comes across as making the book look cheaply made (like the 3e era softcover adventures and splats that were all black-and-white on the inside). Like it's been photocopied or something.

I can't pull up a sample, but I seem to remember seeing that style for the Glamorous Hollywood era or advertising. But I could be wrong.

 

[BenjaminPey]

Metropolis. It's to evoke the Fritz Lang movie Metropolis. Like this warforged redesign, especially on the alt-cover.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So what's bothering me is that, based on this new art direction, it feels to me like WotC is trying to make "Eberron = 1920s" happen. Eberron =/= 1920s. It's a mix of all sorts of things! I guess I'll have to wait and see if all the art in this new book looks like that or if it's just some of it.

That's because 20s fashion is cool*. And the image of people sitting on a train, reading broadsheet newspapers, wearing medieval costume, is good only for comedy.


*Wild West and Victorian also works, they are only separated by a coupe of decades and a few thousand miles. But a fedora is more practical than a top hat in a dungeon.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That being said, as a graphic designer, I can't really understand why they chose to go with that grainy black-and-white color scheme.

I can't pull up a sample, but I seem to remember seeing that style for the Glamorous Hollywood era or advertising. But I could be wrong.

Futurism was the zeitgeist of the early 20th century. But these days we tend to imagine it in black and white because our imaginations are influenced by the surviving film and photography of the period. Victorian times were sepia.

See the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which tried to evoke that period in the early 21st century. It uses a mostly black and white (or at least desaturated) colour palate and a film grain effect.

I guess if you aren't familiar with the original media, the effect is lost. I was lucky enough that the 1930s Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers movie serials were shown on TV when I was small.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I wonder if this new Changeling will be monstrosities like Doppelgangers, or Fey like the MotM, or still humaniod?

Eberron & FR lore have Changelings as Human Doppelganger hybrids, but MotM made them a kind of fey in a nod to folklore instead of D&D lore.

 

[Parmandur]

1920s Pulpiness would be a lot more distinct in a Magic: the Gathering card...which might be a factor in the D&D art design at this point.

 

[talorien508]

Ebberon is probably my second favorite setting, after Dark Sun.

I personally loved Wayne Reynolds art and style. To me, that set the bar pretty high and established the mood of the setting. Similar to Brom's influence on Dark Sun (if less pronounced).

The new artwork for the supplement is substandard. This continues a trend set in the new PHB and DMG, that FOR ME, the art is much less evocative and feels "cheap" in some respects.

This piece, for example, looks unfinished, what is going on in the background? I get this is supposed to be a cool shot of the Artificer "going all IRON MAN". But to me this looks like a bad comic book rendering rather than artwork for a flagship product (D&D). I hope there is another panel we don't see, otherwise this is an image of a guy looking at the ground. I find the execution worse than the composition though, so there is no saving it in my eyes. It doesn't feel very D&D to me either. Regardless of Eberron's differences from other published settings.

All just my opinion, , of course. I don't expect most to agree with my take. In general I think the art has taken a real nosedive. I don't have the MM (and probably won't pick it up), so maybe that is better as a whole than the rest.

I've been playing D&D 2024 for a bit now and while I think I still like 5e a lot better, it's great to see the official Artificer for 5.5 hit the table. We need this for that new UA reanimator subclass, which I am looking forward to seeing in its final form.