The World of Eberron
Eberron is a world that's been crafted from the ground up to be deep, rich and complex. It's a world strongly influenced by different planes of existence, where extraplanar incursions are a dangerous fact of life. Humans in Eberron are relative newcomers, but they have developed diverse cultures as different from one another as dwarves and elves. Emerging from a devastating war, Eberron is a world full of intrigue and different factions vying for power. Its nations are built on the ruins of past civilizations, filled with dungeons, and strongly influenced by powerful dragons. Weaving these elements together into a setting full of possibilities, Eberron combines the D&D of yesterday with modern fantasy influences. For more on the setting, read Keith's comments below.
Eberron
Technology
- Magic Items
- Horseless Carriages?
- Firearms?
- Transportation
Arcane
Magic
Divine Magic
- Religion and Cosmology
- Gods
- The Sovereign Host
- The
Silver Flame
-
The Progenitor Dragons
- Godless Clerics?
- Reincarnation
Psionics
Economics
Geography
- Sharn
- Sarlona
- Xen'drik
- Khyber
Politics
- Dragonmarked Houses
Culture
- Asian Influences
- Language
Races
- Humans
- Dwarves
- Half-Elves
- Talenta Halflings
- Warforged
- Warforged
Gender
- Warforged
Titans
- Warforged and Religion
- Changelings
- Shifters
- Kalashtar
- Elves
- Half-Orcs
- Gnomes
- Goblinoids and Orcs
- Gith
- Racial Origins
- Subraces
- Dark
Elves
Monsters
- Dragons
- Undead
The Role of Classes
- Druids
- Paladins
- Rangers
The Last War
- The Mournland
Secret
Societies
Dal Quor and the Dreaming Dark
The Lord of Blades
The Planes
It's the name of the planet. And it's something else.
People
are saying "It's Shadowrun!" It's not. "It's steampunk!"
It's not.
Looking
back, I do wish that we hadn't shown the lightning rail in [Across
Eberron], just because everyone latched onto that as if it was the
center of the world. If you look at all the art that's been shown, you'll
see that the lightning rail is an unusual element of the world and not
an example of the general tone.
I will note that the name is purely derived from the appearance of the force that suspends the train. It's certainly not "powered by electricity." As for the source of that energy or the origin of the Lightning Rail, that's one of those things that hasn't been revealed yet; as I've said in other threads, there are still a few important elements of the setting that haven't been discussed yet (although there are certainly hints in the existing material).
The
lightning rail is a special case, and there is a story behind who created
it, repairs it, and maintains it. All will become clear in time.
[Horseless]
carriages that you drive around on the road like cars [are not a part
of Eberron]. As noted before, it's not a blanket "everything technological
exists as magic."
Could someone build one? Sure, it would be a golem with wheels, just like
the juggernaut in the MMII. But it would be pretty expensive, and wouldn't
necessarily be faster or as manueverable as a horse. So nope, you aren't
going to see horseless superhighways in Eberron.
Despite
the presence of airships and what appears to be a train, there is little
similarity between Eberron and [steampunk PC game] Arcanum. Unlike Final
Fantasy, which I have never played, I do own Arcanum and enjoyed playing
it. However, one of the central themes of that game was the conflict between
technology and magic; as Eberron does not use technology [that involves
electricity, gunpowder or steam power] there is no such conflict.
Further, like Shadowrun, Arcanum plays up the clash of its component genres.
Part of Arcanum's signature style is having dwarves dressed like cowboys
and elves with rifles… Eberron is a fantasy world -- not an alternate
version of our world, or a parody of modern styles.
So people can go buy Arcanum, and I recommend it, actually. But the
experience won't be a mirror of what they'll find in Eberron, and this
should become clearer in months to come.
"Technological" elements are actually a fairly rare part of the world, with things like the lightning rail being the exception as opposed to the rule.
Magic items are still reasonably rare, simply because even a cheap magic item usually still runs in the hundreds of gold pieces, which is a lot of gold for a normal person. It's more likely that a farming community would tithe to a druidic sect in exchange for seasonal plant growth spells than that each farmer would have a personal magic item. But if you want a magic broom that sweeps the whole house in the blink of an eye or a washbasin that instantly cleans your clothes, take a look at prestidigitation -- it's a zero-level spell with a tremendous amount of everyday applications.
...Actually, you can make a dishwasher pretty cheaply using
prestidigitation. Make it a large command word item that can only be used, say, twice per day, throw in the limitation that it can only be used to clean (reducing the normal range of effects, since a soiling machine isn't much use), and you can probably bring home a combination dishwasher/washing machine for under 300 gp. The same technique can get you a microwave or a refrigerator, though the refrigerator would need to be continuous and thus would be considerably more expensive.
A major point to bear in mind is that all of the magic in Eberron is drawn from existing spells. If there is a dishwasher, it's because there is a way to do that using a low-level spell from the
Player's Handbook. It's not just a random "well, this is a technological thing, but it's not technology -- it's magic."
As the creator of the setting, I'd say "dripping with magical contrivances" is a bit of an overstatement. The general level of magical convenience is probably closer to the later 19th century than to 1930. There are no telephones. There are no cars. The wealthy may avail themselves of things like the
prestidigitation washing machine, but for the average person, 300 gp is still a fortune, and not something to throw away on a this sort of luxury. The great cities, like Sharn, have the largest concentration of magical conveniences, but even there you won't see a magic microwave in the average inn. If you're out in a farming village you may not see any magic items -- although you may have a local magewright who uses augury to advise the community or improves her mundane work through the use of magic. Magic is also a cultural thing, and is more common among the human nations than places like Darguun.
The central concept is not "replace everything technological with magic." It's the idea that since arcane magic is something that obeys formulas and rituals and can be studied and understood, that over the course of centuries it would end up playing a more significant role in society and serving some of the same functions as technology -- transportation, communication, and warfare. Why develop cannons when you have someone who can throw fireballs? But it still has all the restrictions of magic, and it's not something that pervades every level of society... Where there are magical items, they should feel magical.
I think that some people are assuming that such "magitech" is going to play a larger role in the world than it does. Setting aside the comment about magic dishwashers, look to
the art
itself, or to the material that has been released so far. Note that people are still using swords and bows, and wearing armor. It's D&D, not Shadowrun. Arcane magic is a force that people are aware of, and magewrights and adepts are a part of society. But wizards, especially high-level wizards -- are quite rare, and you don't get some of the elements of high magic you see in Forgotten Realms. Yes, the lightning rail can help you move between the great cities quickly, but it's no network of teleportation gates; it still takes time, and it can be dangerous in its own right.
The lightning rail remains problematic because it is the most anachronistic in appearance. I don't think that there's anything else in Eberron that comes close on that account. At this point, I feel that I can say that it's not just a random magic item; it uses elemental binding like the airships, and requires the powers of the Mark of Passage to control the bound elemental.
Eberron does try to make magic more a part of the world, and that won't work for everyone. But it still tries to preserve the wonder and mystery that is an integral part of fantasy. A few more weeks, and we'll see how it works for people.
Horseless Carriages?
The juggernaut from Monster Manual II is a nonhumanoid construct and a clear example of how a magical vehicle (if a heavily armored one) could be made. Such horseless carriages are sure to be found somewhere in Eberron (more likely in some places than others). However, they would be very expensive to make, and unless they ended up being much faster than horses (speed not being something magical constructs are noted for) it usually isn't worth the expense. Mainly they would be status symbols, although the tireless aspect obviously has its advantages. So it's not that there are NO personal magical conveyances anywhere in Eberron; it's just that they are still rare luxuries, not the common mode of transport.
With that said, in the Eberron Campaign Setting book (or, for that matter, the Sharn sourcebook) you'll find no mention of such horseless carriages. As I say in that thread, while I could see them being made in the world, they would be expensive and not much more useful than a normal carriage. I can certainly imagine such things existing, and there are one or two places where they would be most likely to be found. But it's more a matter of the "there's a place in Eberron for most things in D&D" - like juggernauts - than "This is a world where everyone drives magic cars."
With constructs having a clear place in the world as shown by the warforged, it is logical to assume that juggernauts would also have been used in the war. If juggernauts exist in the world, someone could obviously create a lightly armored juggernaut and use it as a form of
(semi-sentient) transportation. As I said before, it might not make SENSE to do this from any sort of financial or functional standpoint, and we're not going to say "They have magical horseless carriages here" in the campaign setting book. The point is that the level of magical advancement is different across the world. If you wanted to put horseless carriages in the world, there are one or two places that would make the most sense -- though even there, only the richest and most powerful people would be able to afford such a thing.
But, to get to the bottom line: we don't say that these things are in the world. Given the precedent of the juggernaut, I can see the logic for them if YOU want them there. That's your decision. And that's the big point about "there's a place for everything in the core books". That doesn't mean that
abeil, aranea, grimlocks, and every monster under the sun has a preestablished role in the world: it means that if there is something you want to bring in, it should be easy to find a logical place to put it.
I should note that when I mentioned the 19th century, I didn't mean to imply that Eberron is a mirror of 19th century Earth, any more than it reflects 1930s Earth.
My point was more that where there is magical "technology", it is generally less widespread and less advanced than 20th century technology. Fundamentally, Eberron is still a medieval setting, but with a number of magical enhancements - things that just seem to make sense in a world where arcane magic exists. Rather than saying that people acquired magic around the time that Western civilization started working with gunpowder, and then saying Eberron is now in the 19th century, a more accurate parallel would be to say that the Roman Empire discovered magic and that the western world is now in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance (depending where you are) -- and that magic has simply been incorporated into the evolution of cultures over the centuries. Of course, Eberron is home to a number of different cultures... there is a considerable difference between the Sarlonan cultures, the kingdoms of old Galifar, and, say, the Shadow
Marches.
No guns in Eberron -- what I was trying to say is that "Indiana Jones" refers to the overall feel of the action more than to the literal look and play action in the world.
No guns. No "magic guns." Wands exist, and we are doing some new things with wands, but wands remain spell trigger items and are very expensive in comparison to, say, crossbows. So an army may have a magewright with a wand of fireballs instead of a cannon, but the average city guard or soldier will be using a crossbow, not an Uzi of magic missiles.
...You could do things with Craft Wondrous Item. The Last War has been a focus for all sorts of magical innovations in war, and there are certain to be magical weapons beyond wands. However, bows, crossbows, etc remain the prevalent form of ranged weaponry.
As for cannons, well, any old shlub can fire an arbalest or a catapult, too. Without going into a big essay -- which I'd love to do if I only had the time -- "not in the vocabulary" is the basic idea. All of the traditional pre-gunpowder tools of war are still seen on the battlefield, possibly enhanced by magic (so get that flaming arbalest loaded). There are a few new options for wands that I can't go into at this point, but comparing the
wand of fireballs to the cannon -- it's true that it can't be used by any old
schlub, but assuming you have someone who can use it, it has the advantage of being far more mobile, extremely accurate, and more difficult for the enemy to spot; if you add flight into the mix, a flying character with a wand becomes a very versatile and dangerous opponent. Though with that said, not everyone can use wands (let alone fly). This is still a world where the common soldiers use crossbows; you don't have magic missile blasters all over the place.
Could cannons be useful? Absolutely. But the basic idea is that magic has always been a part of society, and it is what the scholars and philosophers have focused their energy on. They know that
fireball exists, and have therefore worked on ways to produce fireballs more efficiently. They know how to enchant weapons, so they have produced enchanted siege weaponry. Perhaps some culture will eventually produce gunpowder weapons. But at the moment, magic is a versatile enough tool that people have not felt the need to look beyond it.
Though again, all of this really applies to the nations of old Galifar than to Eberron as a whole. Warfare, magic, and other cultural elements may vary dramatically from nation to nation.
"Travel anywhere on the planet" is a bit of an exaggeration. The now infamous lightning rail allows transportation between major cities, but it is basically a train -- faster than most horses, but certainly limited in where it can go. Airships exist, but airship travel is considerably more expensive and also limited in where you can get to. There are some other limitations to both forms of transport that I can't really go into right now. And you have boats with elemental-bound sails and riding beasts (horses, dinosaurs, and other critters). The red line is the key example in that Indy can quickly cross over the world, but that when he arrives at his destination he still may have to take a few days to trek into the jungle from the nearest major city. It is possible to see multiple areas of the world in a single adventure, but you aren't going to ride the lightning rail right to the dungeon door.
Eberron
is a world in which magic has been incorporated into the evolution of
society. However, it is also a world where truly powerful wizards are
rare; one of the goals is to make sure that the player characters have
the potential to have a serious impact on the world, and as a result there
aren't 30th-level archmages running around. So, lower-level magic is going
to be more common than in FR -- but you won't be teleporting around the
world on a regular basis. And yes, the high cost of magic items is being
taken into account.
You
won't have everyone blasting each other with wands of magic missile.
First off, wands are spell trigger items, and second, they are fairly
expensive. They may be slightly more common and we may have done a few
new things with them, but the typical soldier will still have a crossbow
instead of a wand.
[However,]
war often drives
scientific innovation, so it would be logical to assume the same would
hold true with magic...
Low
level arcane magic has been incorporated into society. [Magic is] more
common in the larger cities while being relatively rare in the smaller
communities; use of magic also varies by culture. Powerful magic items,
such as airships, exist, but this does not mean that they are commonplace.
Truly powerful magic, such as teleportation or resurrection, is considerably
less common that in many other settings. Magic serves some of the functions
of technology, but this is not a simple cut-and-paste; it is a matter
of looking at the existing spells and seeing how they could be adapted
to serve civilization. Continual light creates a permanent light
source that requires no fuel; that's useful to any civilization.
A
3rd-level evoker with a 14 Intelligence can cast continual flame
three times a day, which means that over the course of a year that one
individual can produce 1,080 permanent magical light sources. With that
coming from a single low-level character, to my mind it again becomes
a question of why continual flame lamps aren't a standard part
of any large fantasy city, unless magic is so rare that a 3rd-level wizard
is a miracle. *shrug* In Eberron, high-level magic -- teleportation, disintegration,
resurrection -- is rare and wondrous; lower-level, practical magic like
continual flame has been put to the obvious, practical use.
I'll also note that the existence of "working class mages" does
not detract from the uniqueness of the wizard or sorcerer. The details
will emerge as time goes by, but one of the main points of the pulp mood
is to highlight the role of the PCs as being special. Magic may be more
common, but if anything, wizards -- people capable of casting a vast range
of spells, and using the most powerful magics -- are less common than
in most existing settings.
[Magewrights
are not] as common as blacksmiths; it's just that they are more common
than wizards or sorcerers, who are both fairly rare.
Full spell-casters are relatively rare in Eberron. You've got [the magewright NPC class], but it's the same principle as the adept to the cleric or the warrior to the fighter. Arcane magic is a force that obeys rules and rituals, and has thus been tapped to serve society. But that doesn't mean that everyone has the skill to become a full wizard, or the innate talents of the sorcerer.
Magic has an impact on everyday life. The point with Sharn -- the city in the pictures -- is that it has extremely tall towers that would have been very difficult to build or maintain without the use of magic. Likewise, the flying ships are pure fantasy; it's simply the idea that "If magic is a force that could be quantified and controlled -- as arcane magic can be -- it will eventually be used for communication, transportation, and warfare."
With that said, it is first and foremost a fantasy world, not some bizarre science fiction world disguised as D&D. Magic may affect everyday life in the big cities, but that doesn't mean that everyone is a wizard. There are flying ships, but it's not as if the sky is filled with flying ships, and you're still going to do most of your fighting with sword and bow. People don't have magic cellphones or magic cars.
Astrology may have a role to play, but I'll leave it at that.
Eberron adds new spells, but it also tries to look at the existing spells and to consider the affect they would have in the world.
Magecraft [a new 1st-level spell that speeds crafting] is the biggest example of how magic affects daily life. You don't have magic telephones or TVs, and construct "cars" would be a bizarre luxury (if they exist at all). But you do have the smith, the mason, and for that matter the alchemist using magic to enhance and improve the work they do every day, allowing them to produce higher quality items in a shorter period of time. So you'll have a fair number of commoners and experts with one level of magewright -- they don't have a lot of magical ability, but they have learned to weave magic into their mundane skills.
Spells with a solid use in every day life are more common: prestidigitation. Augury. Mending. But frankly, are these really the spells you see as evoking awe and wonder in any case? And bear in mind that a magewright's spell selection is very limited, as he gains all his spells through Spell Mastery -- the typical magewright knows a few cantrips, and that's all. True wizards and sorcerers are rare, and even in the greatest city in the world you'll have a hard time finding someone who can cast stone to flesh. Teleportation, summoning, and other spells that are either the sole purview of the true arcane caster or high level will still be rare and impressive -- and given the relative scarcity of wizards, considerably rarer than in Forgotten Realms. Sharn, which has been built through the use of magic, is one of the wonders of the world; people don't see it and say "*yawn* Look, skyscrapers", they say "The towers touch the sky!" (and there are reasons why that magic can't be used across the world, tied to the planar cosmology).
The powers of the sorcerer are drawn from the same primal force that a wizard manipulates through the application of formula and knowledge, but a sorcerer has an innate instinctual bond to this power -- as does a dragon. This is still different from divine magic, as the sorcerer does not need to follow any sort of system of faith or belief to draw on his abilities (and can only manipulate the power in a limited set of ways).
One theory on the source of magic is that it comes from the progenitor dragons: Siberys, Eberron, and Khyber, who now comprise the world and the ring above. This ties into the mystical power of dragonshards and the powers of the "lesser" dragons. But this is, of course, only a theory.
Use
of any high level spell will remain a remarkable thing.
The
highest-level friendly NPC cleric in the setting [Jaela Daran, the head
of the Church of the Silver Flame] is 16th level... I see Jaela as having
more in common with the Dalai Lama than Alia from Dune… As for possessing
so much power at such a young age, Jaela's power is largely derived from
the Flame itself; hence the note that "she is bound to the flame
and cannot venture far from it."
At 16th level, even she can't perform a true resurrection, and you can't just show up, toss a few thousand gold pieces at her, and expect her to raise your buddy, any more than you could expect the Pope to perform your wedding (especially if you are, say, a Zoroastrian). Raising people from the dead is a major divine miracle, and not something as simple as buying a nice suit of platemail. And since most priests are adepts -- if not experts -- finding someone who can perform major clerical magic can be a challenge. With that said, there may be other sources for simple, low-level healing...
Arcane
magic is, so to speak, a science, and as a result people who can perform
arcane magic sell their services as in other settings. Divine magic is
a miracle of faith... So you usually won't go to a temple for healing
unless you are acting in the service of the
church. Does this mean that there is no healing in the world? Not at all.
The mechanics are the same. Eberron does not change the mechanics of the core rules, it just adds some things over the top. However, we are trying to change the way divine magic is perceived. Arcane magic is in some ways a science. But divine magic is about faith and miracles, and people are a little less blase about it... Raise dead is uncommon, and resurrection rarer still. I'm not going to discuss cosmology or death right now, but the short form is that there are few priests of sufficient level to cast these spells, and doing so is a serious religious decision -- it would be rare to find a priest with this level of power who would be willing to perform such a miracle for a mere purse of gold.
[The campaign setting will introduce new spell domains, but not new schools of magic.]
Eberron actually attempts to strengthen the arcane/divine division.
As a general rule, a person's opinion of arcane or divine magic is not influenced by his ability to perform divine or arcane magic. The two are completely different. Divine magic is a miracle of faith, arcane magic is a triumph of knowledge. There are gods
(Aureon, the Shadow) whose portfolios include arcane magic, so priests respect arcane magic as being part of the world. A wizard might be a devoted follower of Aureon who respects the power of his priests as being divinely granted, or he might be an athiest who feels that the faith of the priest somehow allows her to tap into primal forces... but there's no "Your magic
sux" attitude.
Except, of course, for the Ashbound, who despise both arcanists and
clerics...
The fact that divine magic is based on faith does not mean that everyone who has faith can perform miracles. In the religions of our world, a handful of holy people are thought to have performed miracles. Personally, I don't think this means that these are the only people who ever had true faith; it just means that in addition to their faith, they have a closer bond to the spiritual world. Perhaps they've been touched by a higher power or chosen for a greater destiny. Perhaps they simply see the universe in a way others cannot.
Perhaps a character with a low Wisdom may have blind faith, but he will also be weak-willed (as shown by Will saves), inobservant (as shown by poor Listen & Spot checks), and have difficulty grasping spiritual matters (poor Wis spell DC, inability to cast clerical/druidic/adept magic). The character with high Wisdom can have both faith and understanding. He can see and understand the world around him and still embrace spiritual matters, and he has the strength of will to focus his faith.
At least, that's my view.
Divine magic is far more mysterious than it is in many settings. Most priests are at best adepts if not simply experts, and the temple isn't just a marketplace for healing. A true cleric is a miracle worker, and people should be impressed by her powers.
The world does have its own cosmology and approach to the gods... both where the planes and religions are concerned. One of the religions - the Church of the Silver Flame - can be seen in the [January] Gearing up for Eberron web article. There are other religions, but as always I can't say anything until more information is released. I will note that we've given druids a little more backstory and variety that they've had in most settings -- they aren't just generic park rangers.
Religion is an important part of the setting. Druids have a well-developed place in the world, and groups like the Church of the Silver Flame are a major force within the world. Depending where you go there may be corruption within the church, but it also has many devoted followers. Not every priest is a cleric, or even an adept. You can be deeply spiritual and still not have access to divine spells.
Most of the pantheons either directly relate to one another or are self-contained/primal forces, so you don't have the "My god created the world" "No, MY god created the world!" arguments you can sometimes get with too many pantheons that cover the same ground.
The Traveler is not part of the Sovereign Host, and is in fact one of the Dark Six. As a general rule, name = Sovereign, nameless = Dark (you could in this way see "dark" as "mysterious"). However, the two pantheons are connected, and thus one could say that followers of the Sovereign Host and the Dark Six are all part of the same overall religious community.
It's worth noting that all of the gods are very distant in Eberron; thus a skeptic could claim that most of the commonly accepted gods are imaginary. With the exception of the Undying Court, the gods do not live on the (known) planes. Maybe they do exist; maybe they are manifestations of the faith of their believers. There's no question that a follower of the Fury can gain divine power -- but whether this is the gift of a god or purely the strength of inner faith is a mystery. You may be able to commune with the Fury, but you can't find her and try to beat her up; if she exists, it's on a truly different level of reality.
It is also the case that a warforged cleric might actually worship the Lord of Blades and potentially gain spells, though the Lord of Blades doesn't have the power to grant spells, work through commune, etc. In this case, the cleric is actually drawing on the primal concepts embodied by the Lord of Blades, not the LoBster
himself.
The Path of Light is not restricted to kalashtar. In Adar, quite a few humans follow the Path of Light. It is a racial religion only in that the vast majority of the kalashtar follow it.
The Valenar revere their ancestors, but they do see them in a different light than the members of the Undying Court. They revere the memories of the ancient ancestors and try to emulate their actions in the modern age, while the elves of Aerenal preserve the heroes of the present age as Undying. The Valenar tradition thus predates the creation of the Undying Court. However, for game purposes, both the Priests of the Passage (Aerenal) and Keepers of the Past (Valenar) use the Undying Court domains. A Valenar elf still respects the elves of the Undying Court, and the Aereni honor the heroes of Xen'drik; it's just that the focus is different.
There are no "gods of the dwarves" or that sort of thing. However, some cultures have different interpretations of the same religions. So in the Shadow Marches, Balinor of the Sovereign Host is known as Baalkan, and is more likely to be shown in an orcish guise. The sovereigns and Dark Six are also sometimes displayed as idealized dragons. Each god is associated with a particular dragon -- not that this necessarily reflects on the behavior of all dragons of that color.
The followers of the Host are open to the idea that there are many powers in the world. Remember, the Silver Flame does not claim to have created the world (neither, for that matter, do the Sovereigns). The followers of the Host are happy to accept that there is a Silver Flame, and that it is a force with power in the world. But it's a strange impersonal force. While the gods don't physically manifest in the world, their followers still *think* of them in anthropomorphic terms, and the smith believes that Onatar may hear his prayer and guide his hand; thus the inhuman, abstract nature of the Silver Flame is something that most followers of the Host find difficult to identify with.
As a side note, while God and Deity both work, I personally prefer to refer to members of the Sovereign Host as "sovereigns", regardless of gender.
As the brother of Dol Dorn and Dol Arrah, it is logical to assume that the Mockery once had a name. But the knowledge of that name has been lost or intentionally excised; might there be some value in recovering it, or is the secrecy itself a source of power?
I think this is clear if you read the ["Organizations in Eberron"] article, but people have been confused, so:
-
The Silver Flame is indeed a force, not a personified being.
Tira Miron was a vessel for this force, but not in the FR avatar sense... more like a high-level paladin. -
In death, Tira serves as the voice of the Silver Flame. If you do a deity-interaction spell, it's Tira's spirit you would talk with. Basically, the Flame is too inhuman for most folks to interact with directly.
-
Jaela Daran is the Keeper of the Flame, and she guards the physical manifestation of the Silver Flame on Eberron. As a result, she is a conduit for its power -- but again, this just gives her clerical abilities and wisdom beyond her years.
Of course, that's all just taken from the article.
The Silver Flame is a primal force that has existed for eons. However, it was not something the human mind could interact with. Through her sacrifice, Tira formed a bridge between the Flame and humanity (and
demihumanity). When you use commune, Jaela serves as the conduit that makes that communication possible. Even then, when you use commune, you're not speaking to Tira -- you're speaking to the force that once was
Tira, but is now part of the Flame. And to use commune in the first place, you have to be a 9th level cleric, and they aren't around in droves... Jaela is the most trusted and respected of these. Her amazing level of power is the direct result of her effectively being chosen by the Flame (though that's not exactly like FR's Chosen). The Keeper of the Flame is in a sense carrying on the tradition begun by Tira back in the day.
As for Jaela, it's certainly worth noting that she has her enemies in the church. And, as I assume SD meant to say, Jaela's power is limited when she is
away from Flamekeep (though it's not as if she has to sit in a single room). Jaela can draw on the wisdom of the prior Keepers for guidance.
[The knights of Thrane] are exceptional warriors, both on foot and cavalry.
[An Aristocrat 1/Warrior 1 would] certainly serve for a basic Thrane
cavalry soldier (and Thrane does certainly field heavy cavalry). The honest-to-goodness Knights of Thrane are the elite warriors of the land, and would be
more like Ari 2/Ftr 2, give or take a few levels; the more devout knights could replace either side with a few levels of paladin, although only exceptional individuals would advance beyond 2-3 levels; the captain of the order is an 8th level paladin.
The issue with the Knights of Thrane is that they walk the line between church and crown; historically, their first loyalty is to the throne of
Thrane, but most of the current knights have more respect for the spiritual authority of the Flame than the temporal authority of the crown. So far, the balance has held, but the tensions are
there (so if you want a Three Musketeers-style campaign, you could certainly do it in
Thrane!)
The standard symbol of the flame is a single silver flame with two smaller flames rising up to either side, and a smalled crescent-like flame on the bottom; for those who have it, you can see it on page 68 and 77 of the
CSB. It is often displayed on an arrowhead, and a worshipper may wear an arrowhead as a necklace or (in a martial context) carry a quiver of arrows bearing the
flame.
The Silver Flame accepts the freedom of people to worship as they see fit, with the understanding that a) the church is actively spreading the faith of the Flame and b) the worship of evil powers -- the Cults of the Dragon Below, the Dark Six, etc -- will be met with hostility. The church of the Silver Flame is not so much dedicated to the spiritual conquest of the world as to the
eradication of evil, both supernatural and mundane. The smith who says a prayer to Onatar isn't hurting anyone; a friar might try to sway him to the Flame, but he won't strike him down as a blasphemer or anything like that. A paladin of Dol Arrah and a paladin of the Flame would see eye to eye on many things, even if the follower of the Flame sought to win the faith of his comrade.
But short answer: the Church of the Silver Flame does not acknowledge the divine authority of the Sovereign Host, but it does not condemn those who worship the Host (at least at the moment). The Dark Six, the
Cults of the Dragon Below, and the Blood of Vol are different issues (although many who follow the Blood of Vol are not necessarily evil).
Most of the powers of Eberron cannot be seen. We believe in the Mockery, but he's not going to come down and personally skin us
(thats what his monks are for). But the three dragons: I'm standing on Eberron. I can descend into Khyber, if I dare. And I can see Siberys when I look up at the sky. Khyber is a place of danger, of unnatural creatures. Eberron is the world as we know it. Siberys is unknowable. Is there life up there? Who can say? Just to throw out a few more attributes, Khyber is confined; Eberron surrounds and contains Khyber; and while Siberys surrounds Eberron, it's worth noting that it is a ring of shards... which is to say, it's broken.
A good case could be made that the druids are, for all intents and purposes, cults of the Dragon Between. But they don't use this title, and dfferent druids have slightly different takes on what's best for the world. ("Druid Aspirant Conan! What is best in life?")
As for the Dragon Above, there are a variety of good reasons that Siberys hasn't spawned much of a following -- I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to guess what these might be (of course, if you want a Siberys cult in your game, no ahead...).
Eberron is the surface of the world, and Khyber the world within. Thus I'd say Siberys is the world above, and all above. But again, I'm just answering off the top of my head; it's not something that much thought has gone into, because currently there is no space travel. An hour later I might have an entirely different answer.
Airships aren't capable of reaching the Ring of Siberys. If you want to run the pioneering ring-mining expedition adventure using an experimental vessel, consider the following: given the power of fallen Siberys shards, the ring itself undoubtedly has an immensely powerful magical aura that could disrupt enchantments on approaching vessels; and who knows what dangerous creatures live in the ring? (Well, me, but other than that...)
[While clerics in Eberron can worship concepts or primal forces rather than gods,] there's no such thing as a cleric who doesn't believe in anything but happens to get spells. If a cleric wants a particular set of domains, he's going to have to be able to justify his personal beliefs and how these domains apply to them... and the DM can always reject the concept or penalize the cleric for failing to live up to his beliefs.
I would agree that reincarnation as a warforged or kalashtar doesn't make sense. A kalashtar has to inherit the spirit bond from another kalashtar; it couldn't just be manufactured. And despite the "living" nature of a warforged, having warforged on the reincarnation list would make no more sense than having iron golems or toasters on the list -- regardless of soul, the body is a manufactured component.
Psionics
The inclusion of psionics will not make the world unplayable for people
who hate psionics or don't own the psionics rules. Just like mind flayers
in the MM, there will be rules for using folks like the kalashtar without
the [Expanded Psionics Handbook], and the DM can always choose to stay
away from Sarlona and to give the psionic power groups a smaller role
in his or her campaign. The goal all along has been to make psionics a
part of the world as opposed to an afterthought -- but its up to the DM
how much of a focus to put on them.
A player who hates psionics can homebrew Sarlona into something else;
psions could probably be shifted to sorcerers while still keeping some
of the flavor of the nation. Kalashtar can be removed or kept as is, using
the rules that are provided for folks who don't have the XPH. Neither
action will "break" the setting; there are a lot of things going
on in Khorvaire. But it will remove an interesting thread of the story
of the world. I guess my point is that psionics can be pulled out without
too much difficulty, but it's not quite as simple as "all the psions
in the world live in China" -- Sarlona may be the cradle of the psionic
civilizations, but its existence has had an impact on the rest of the
world.
It's not that there is some weird radiation in Sarlona that grants psionic abilities; instead, the presence of the Inspired and the kalashtar has made psionic powers a part of the central culture, so if a player character wants to be a psion, Sarlona is his logical point of origin (though he could be a Talenta halfling trained by a renegade kalashtar monk or something like that).
In the campaign setting book, psionics are focused around the kalashtar and the Inspired, along with existing psionic iconics like the
illithids. As has been said before, you don't have to have the XPH to play in Eberron; if you hate
psionics, change the psions to sorcerers or stay away from Sarlona.
As for sleeping, an important question the DM needs to answer is whether a character can dream while in "trance" -- the same issue holding true for elves. The kalashtar specifically address the idea that a life without dreams has an impact on the psyche; you'll want to decide if the same is true for elves and
elan, or if they can "daydream" while in trance.
Dal Quor is a realm shaped by the minds of sentient creaures. The quori are manifestations of this realm, and this gives them considerable psionic power. Your personal mileage may vary. As a
psion, you may draw entirely on your own personal force of will, or you may channel the collective power of human/elf/whatever minds -- in which case, you are effectively drawing on Dal
Quor.
As for illithids, it certainly makes more sense to tie their powers to Xoriat and the Daelkyr than to Dal
Quor; they are emissaries of madness, and this is certainly one reason they can fry your brains.
Magic is not present equally throughout the civilized world. Those halflings with the dinosaurs do not make use of any of the "industrial magic" advances, for example. Even in the civilized nations, there are large rural areas where magic is only used in simple ways: a traveling augur, a tinker with mending and make whole, a blacksmith who can use a minor incantation to guide his hands and improve his work. More information on this may be revealed in the next issue of Dragon. Eberron is a world where low-level arcane magic is a little more prevalent and better understood, but again, it is not by any means a mirror of the
modern world with magic in place of technology.
Permanent magic is still expensive, even low-level items. Sharn is called the City of Towers for a reason -- magical skyscrapers are not a feature of every metropolis. Likewise, airships *are* expensive and have various control issues; they are not common, and in terms of price think of an airship ride as being equivalent to an airplane ride -- not something people can afford to do every day.
There are still few things to be revealed that have an impact on the economy of the world. All I can say is "House
Cannith" created the warforged, and that's not just a random group of artificers.
There are a few economic advances such as banks, and you can get letters
of credit when dealing with significant sums of money.
A
lot of things in Eberron are geographically linked. Referring back to
the web article, psionics are a part of the culture of the continent of
Sarlona, which is not the continent DMs are encouraged to use as the base
of operations. If you don't like them, avoid trips to Sarlona and downplay
the use of Kalashtar or Sarlonan NPCs and you're home free. Same goes
for halflings on dinosaurs or the warforged. You may have to adjust some
NPCs, and you'll certainly lose some of the unique flavor of the world
-- but I don't imagine that it would make the setting unusuable.
Khorvaire
has been divided into 12 regions -- Sarlona is an entirely separate continent,
and thus somewhat easier to ignore. And you could remove any of the 4
new races without requiring you to lose part of Khorvaire. [However, dinosaurs
belong to] one of those 12 regions [on Khorvaire]...
Just for the big picture, I'll note that the main land mass is Khorvaire, the smaller mass in the southeast is called Aerenal, and the bit to the southwest is the projection of the continent of Xen'drik. Though that is an early map -- don't necessarily expect it to match up perfectly with what you find in the campaign book!
I'll note
that Aerenal did not actively participate in the Last War and is not one
of the 12 nations; like Riedra and Adar, it is a sovereign nation with
no ties to the old kingdom. It is also the case that not all of the nations
are "new"; it is simply the case that the balance of power has been dramatically
altered with the dissolution of Galifar. And "Mror" is properly "the Mror
Holds."
Cyre [a nation of Khorvaire pronounced SEE-ree] doesn't have a coastline.
Argonnessen [is] another continent I don't think I've seen mentioned yet on any of the discussion boards, for those of you keeping score of the size of the world...
There are a number of regions that for various reasons are dark and mysterious, providing the... um, extreme... explorers and would-be dungeon crawlers with mysteries to unravel and ruins to explore. Each area does have a clear history and place in the world, and there are logical reasons why they are are still dark and mysterious.
There is another landmass beyond [Khorvaire, Sarlona, Xen'drik and Argonnessen]. However, those 4 are the most important ones for purposes of adventuring. You can reach Sarlona by sailing west from Khorvaire across the Barren Sea.
The [setting's] focus is on the continent of
Khorvaire. However, information is provided about all of the different continents from the get-go. If we had the space, we'd have gone into even more detail about Sarlona and
Xen'drik, but you can only squeeze so much into 320 pages. A DM can choose to keep the campaign within a small area, but the setting is intended to support global adventuring.
The Campaign Setting book will describe all of the continents, even if some are described only briefly.
I'm afraid the bard in Across Eberron wasn't the best cartographer. Sharn is located along the river [in the southern part of Breland] -- thus making it accessible by air, land, and water.
And yes, that island [at the center of the rivers that extend through northern Khorvaire] is an important location -- it's just not Sharn.
As for Sharn vs. Wroat, just because a city is impressive doesn't necessarily mean it will be the capital. New York City has Wall Street, the UN, a major tourist trade, and 20 times the population of Albany... but Albany is the state capital. Among other things, Wroat predates the current incarnation of Sharn... but all this will be covered in more detail in the upcoming books (notably the Sharn sourcebook).
Sharn is sometimes called "the gateway to Xen'drik".
[Sharn's]
manifest zone is stable, but towers have fallen in the past (for those playing along at home, see the last paragraph of the Sharn description on page 147). Of course, if someone did find a way to destabilize the manifest zone, yes, you'd have a good disaster movie ready to go...
Sarlona
While Sarlona is the land where psionics are more common, that is because of the influence of the
quori, not something inherent about the land. If other psionic races were found there, they would actually be hunted by the Inspired, who want to maintain psychic superiority; they don't encourage humans to develop psionic powers.
Sarlona is a nation filled with millions of humans. There are a relatively small number of Inspired, but we're still talking hundreds, not dozens. Like demons, devils, and angels there are different orders of
quori; the lower-powered Inspired are civil administrators, military officers, etc while the higher orders are ambassadors, governors, and agents of the Dreaming Dark. And those higher-level Inspired are definitely a force to be reckoned with; the Devourer of Dreams can easily take an 18th-level psion one-on-one. Dealing with Inspired actions is something PCs will have the chance to do -- but overcoming the Dreaming Dark itself would be a major epic-level challenge, not something a few characters in their teens are going to be able to accomplish.
The next question is "Well, if the Dreaming Dark is so powerful, why hasn't it conquered the world?" Physical conquest is not the goal of the DD. While they did conquer
Riedra, they did it in such a way that they appeared to be saviors as opposed to tyrants. They dislike outright violence, and being immortal can take a lot of time to bring a plan together. And they've only recently turned their attention to
Khorvaire. So give them a century... unless the adventurers have something to say about
it.
The critical elements of life in Adar are that it's a nation under siege, where you live under constant threat of Inspired attack. Life is ascetic and driven by tradition -- it has to be, both to deal with the war footing and the limited resources of the mountain realm. The kalashtar of Khoravire are somewhat more innovative and less traditional than their Adaran counterparts, because they can be; they still have to worry about Dreaming Dark assassins, but they are not fighting off the forces of Sarlona on a daily basis.
Xen'drik
The shadow elves are inhabitants of
Xen'drik. Xen'drik is not covered in great detail, and that's intentional, because Xen'drik is the land of mystery. I can imagine a Xen'drik sourcebook full of things that could be discovered in
Xen'drik, but in my opinion you should never see a perfect map of this continent because the whole idea is that this is a place for individual DMs to play with the world and add in their own favorite ideas. Perhaps in a century or two it will be fully explored -- but at the moment it's a very large and dangerous place.
With that said, Xen'drik is not a completely blank slate. There is lots of room for DMs to play with, but it does have ties to the history of the world. Among other things, it was the birthplace of the elves. However, it's certainly not "the land of the elves" any more. That title would most likely go to
Aerenal, which is discussed in the CSB.
The basic point here is that the CSB does focus around Khorvaire. The people of Khorvaire deal with the
Aereni, so Aerenal is discussed. The shadow elves are an obscure culture that has never had contact with the people of
Khorvaire, so there's no reason to have them in the CSB.
Khyber
During the incursion of Xoriat into the material plane, approximately six Daelkyr came through with their armies. These Daelkyr are now trapped in the depths of Khyber; others remain in
Xoriat. This is not something Khyber had anything to do with; as noted elsewhere, the progenitor dragons are not active forces in the world. However, you may recall from the Dragon article that Khyber shards are good for binding things -- thus Khyber itself is a good place for binding things.
The Cults of the Dragon Below are a very disparate group. Are your cultists allied with the
Daelkyr, who have been sealed in Khyber after the incursion from Xoriat? Are they tied to the
rakshasa, the first children of Khyber? Or just the primal force of Khyber itself?
I'd say that the worship of the Dark Six predates the incursion of Xoriat. As things stand, no one has claimed to ever have met, say, the Mockery -- although there are stories of those who have been to the realm of the Keeper.
The war was a civil war that shattered a strong unified kingdom, so there are actually more monarchies now that there were before. Twelve nations participated in the Treaty of Thronehold, which ended the war -- but there are others that either chose not to participate or weren't invited. Monarchy remains the most common form of government, but not the only one.
There are certainly groups that, without being neutral, may not always be clear whether they are acting for the greater good or evil. Some things are clear cut... other times it's all shades of grey.
Prior to the last war, the human kingdom of Galifar dominated Khorvaire. Following the laws of succession, the crown of Galifar should have fallen to Mishann of Cyre, but the lords of Thrane, Breland, and Karrnath rejected her claim. The fifth nation, Aundair, supported Cyre -- at least at the start of the war.
The war was fought between the five primary provinces of Galifar itself, all of which are now separate countries under the Treaty of Thronehold (with the exception of
Cyre, which was destroyed). While the Last War has drained resources, these four nations are the largest and most advanced human nations on
Khorvaire, and are the primary powers of the land.
Of the other 8 nations recognized by the treaty, some arose during the war, while others existed beforehand as vassal states of
Galifar. Many of these are primarily demihuman states, but some are largely human lands. There is also at least one self-proclaimed nation in modern Khorvaire not recognized by the treaty. And for what it's worth, Aerenal and the nations of Sarlona are not counted among the 12; the treaty only extends to
Khorvaire.
And actually, Zilargo was an independent nation throughout the history of
Galifar. Don't underestimate the gnomes.
The Dragonmarked houses are very large entities; in Sharn alone, there are 176 people who possess some level of the Mark of Making (concentrated on the least mark, of course). Furthermore, the Dragonmark Houses are not nobility in the sense of being princes and kings; their power is based on the economic & industrial applications of their marks. It's been noted before that clerics aren't the primary source of healing in this world: that's what House Jorasco does, and there's gold to be made in keeping people healthy.
So as opposed to an isolated few who rule nations through divine right made manifest through blood, the dragonmarked houses are large families who stand outside the rule of kings because of the economic influence of their magic.
In a sense, each house is a nation without borders; they exert their influence across all of
Khorvaire, but they are feared and respected for their economic power as opposed to their military strength, and all nations court their favor. During the last war, every nation invlved in the fighting needed Jorasco healers, the weapons and warforged produced by House
Cannith, etc.
There are some fairly detailed cultures, and I don't think a few sentences [in Dragon magazine] are going to be able to get across many of those details. Take, for example, the mention of barbarians in this month's Dragon, which basically says "There are barbarians in this world." However, if you look at the feat (Dragon Rage, with the prerequisite of Dragon Totem), and take a good look at the sketch of the barbarian, you can see that there's actually something unique and interesting going on with barbarians. And that's just barbarians from Argonnessen.
Asian
Influences
Eberron doesn't directly duplicate the cultures
of Earth, so you don't have a perfect match for Asia, Aztec culture, etc.
There may be Asiatic elements to one of the goblinoid cultures, but that
doesn't translate to "take Oriental Adventures and replace humans with
hobgoblins". The warrior in that image wouldn't call himself a samurai,
and his concepts of honor and the political structure of his nation have
little in common with China or feudal Japan. However, you could still
choose to use the samurai class for him, or give him feats from OA. Currently
there is a goblin order of monk/rogues that serves much the same purpose
as ninja; these could be adapted to use a ninja class or OA rules. The
Sarlonan nations also focus on mental, martial, and spiritual discipline
-- so while there aren't legions of samurai there, you could certainly
have a hidden school that teaches the martial techniques of the samurai.
So: there aren't people who *call* themselves samurai, but there are places
where you could use samurai or ninja classes if you chose.
[The goblin rogue/monks] are called the shaarat'khesh ("silent knives").
I'm afraid that they are only mentioned in passing in the campaign setting
book -- they are by nature a hidden order, and they are part of the most
reclusive civilization in Darguun. There are a lot of interesting things
about Darguun, but we could only squeeze so much into the book. Darguun
will hopefully be explored in more detail in a future sourcebook. But
hey, since there's not a lot of details, you're free to do whatever you'd
like with them!
Language
It is the case that we are keeping things relatively simple. Probably
what you'll get is me adding some [flavorful language names] as color
on my web site. "Common" will still be called "Common" just because that's
what it is in the main books, but I know its origin, what it might actually
be called by an inhabitant of the realm, and why it is the common tongue.
"Elf" is the word for the race in the Common tongue. Generally, however,
people will refer to elves by their culture -- "I was dealing with a Valenar
mercenary"-- because that plays a major role in what to expect and how
you deal with them. Across Eberron already does highlight that, with the
Valenar guide and mention of the Valaes Tairn (the formal name of the
Valenar elves). If you just said "an elf", people would assume you were
referring to an elf from an integrated community.
Orcs are always called orcs, just as humans are always called humans and dogs are always called dogs. However, *cultures* may have different names. A hobgoblin is a hobgoblin is a hobgoblin, but is he from the Ghaal'dar, Dhakaani, or Lhesh Marguul? This will make a major difference in his behavior and abilities, and what PCs should expect in dealing with him.
At the moment, no additional names for coins are provided. Primarily, this is for simplicity. It's entirely possible that every different nation uses different coinage, and when you say "you find fifty crowns" it can be a pain if the PCs have to say "which were those again? Coppers?" "Now, you're thinking of Droaam craws... Crowns are gold." 'Gold piece' is a generic term that tells you the value without getting into the source or culture associated with the coin. But as you say, this simplicity does come at the expense of flavor. It's possible that most nations still use the standard currency denominations of Galifar (though Darguun, Droaam, Zilargo, Valenar, and the Mror Holds -- not to mention Aerenal, Riedra, and Adar -- would be unlikely to do this), even if they mint their own variations of these coins featuring their rulers, monuments, and heroes, and this may be something discussed further in the future. But the CSB does not present alternate names for coins.
There
are a few place on Khorvaire where monstrous races have actually established
powerful civilizations, providing a strong backstory for a PC from one
of these species. Then there are other places throughout the world that
would be well-suited to whatever the player or DM comes up with -- just
as you describe. That's part of the whole "everything in D&D
is in Eberron" thing that some people don't get. We've tried to give
everything in the MM a logical place in the world. In some cases this
means a place in history, a significant civilization, or like the dinosaurs,
a place in one of the other cultures. But for other creatures, it's a
matter of providing a logical place where they *could* be, if the DM decides
to use them. Take the aranea. Right now, the campaign setting doesn't
mention aranea at all. But if the DM wanted to add in a culture of
aranea,
it's completely clear where they belong, and it wouldn't seem at all out
of place or forced (IE, "Why haven't the aranea had greater impact
on human civilization?"). All will become clear in time.
With all that said, I'm very happy with the range of races currently available
and don't think that too many people will feel the need to turn to monstrous
characters. I look forward to more information being released about the
4 new races. Warforged and shifters in particular both offer a wide range
of interesting options for players... which is not to slight the kalashtar
or changelings, simply that the first two are more complex in terms of
game mechanics. I will note that all of the new races are ECL 0, just
to keep things simple. The new races are interesting and each brings a
lot of story potential to the table, but they are not over the top uber-races.
[Dragon issue] #317 will cover all of the new races *except* the warforged. I know it's also going to discuss the role of the old races, and I'm slightly concerned that this will provide deceptively little information (just as the blurb about the druids in #316 is only the tip of the druidic iceberg), so bear that in mind. While you may have to wait a little long for your warforged info, hopefully you'll enjoy the other races; I myself really like shifters, and if I had the chance to play a game it would be very hard to decide which race to play. (Warforged fighter or artificer? Shifter monk or druid? Decisions, decisions...)
We are also trying to leave things open for the players who don't want to be tied to a cultural tradition. The elvish nations are very different from one another and from many of the traditional elven stereotypes. However, the player who picks it up and says "I hate these Aerenal elves! I just want to run around in the woods!" can simply be an elf raised in one of the druid communities. The major cities of Khorvaire include people of all races, so if you don't want to be a Talenta dinosaur-riding halfling, you can be a halfling whose family has lived in the city of Sharn for six generations, and who thus has adopted a fairly metropolitan outlook. With that said, we've also tried to present human nations with distinct cultures as well. In addition, the world is just emerging from a major war. So the question of homeland is an important one. Were your people involved in the war? Were you involved, and in what capacity? There's much more to be revealed about the war and the effect it can have on storylines, but it will come out in time.
Personally, I'm very pleased with the gnomes of Eberron. It seems to me that gnomes usually end up being comic relief -- not so here.
Many works of fantasy fiction focus primarily on human characters. On the other hand, racial diversity has always been a part of D&D. Our goal in Eberron was to give the non-human races distinct enough cultures that it means something to be an elf, a shifter, or a halfling -- that if you're a Valenar or a Aerenal elf you have some foundation to build your story, instead of just "Well, I've got pointy ears and I'm good with magic." At the same time, if you don't like the cultures we've created -- you love halflings but hate dinosaurs -- you can always be from one of the multiracial metropolitan communities of the Five Nations, and choose to play your character like a small human with hairy feet ...or say that you were raised in Zilargo and developed your rogue skills serving as one of the eyes of the Trust.
Humans were the dominant force behind the Kingdom of Galifar, and they are currently the most common race. However, most of the major cities of Khorvaire (including those of the nations that once comprised Galifar) have fairly diverse populations. As for relative levels of power, that's not a question I can easily answer at this time.
[Question: "Will dwarven women have beards?"] Nope.
[Their rarity] varies by region. Most half-elves are descended from those elves who have abandoned the main elvish cultures, but there have been alliances between noble houses that have been sealed by marriage, so half-elves can be found at all levels of society.
If there were dinosaurs in Mongolia and they ate all the horses,
well, what would have happened?
Within
this world, there is a nation of halflings who ride dinosaurs. Hate the
idea? Stay away from that nation and pretend they don't exist. It's not
like you'll find dinosaurs on every street corner. Some people like it,
some people don't. I happen to like them, and there's a lot more to the
culture than riding dinosaurs. But they are hardly a cornerstone of the
world, and just because you like playing halflings doesn't mean you have
to saddle up your trusty clawfoot.
…It's no Dinotopia -- dinosaurs are only common in a particular part of the world.
In fact, in all the games I've run, no one has ever even seen a dinosaur (although I'm fairly sure there is a dino-riding halfling in James Wyatt's game).
Local names are provided for all existing dinosaurs (i.e., the quetzalcoatlus is known as either a soarwing or shovath'ien, depending if you're speaking common or Draconic).
"How would it be possible for a small halfling to capture and tame a dangerous medium-sized creature"? For a start, they'd most likely use the same methods medium sized humans have used to capture and tame larger and more powerful creatures (such as horses and, say, elephants). Now, the clawfoot has the element of being a predator, unlike a horse. But if you started with the fastieth, you could use the fastieth to help capture clawfoot mounts. Likewise, you could get your rangers, druids, and Animal clerics to use charm animal, calm animal, animal trance and similar spells to help you capture and control the beasts, making your physical prowess less critical.
Further, in the case of dinosaurs, you can steal the eggs; I'd think it more likely that the halflings obtained their first clawfoot mounts by stealing eggs
and training them from birth, as opposed to capturing and breaking wild
clawfeet.
So if it's a question of "could it be done?" personally, I don't see why not -- though I am of course biased. Again, people have used elephants in battle, and those are dangerous creatures two size categories larger, as opposed to the Small-to-Medium ratio of the halflings and their mounts. If you're coming from the direction of "I just hate the idea of using dinosaurs in D&D" or "I like traditional Tolkeinesque halflings and don't like bizarre halfling cultures", well, fair enough.
Artificers are effectively the clerics for the Warforged, but it's not simply the case that "artificers build warforged". The precise history of the warforged and their current place in the world was not discussed in detail during the demo, and there's a little more to it than that.
Also, somewhere I saw someone say that most warforged are 1-5 years old. This is clearly the result of a misunderstanding. What I said was that Warforged actually have the opposite starting age progression from other races; the complex classes (like wizard) actually start out younger than the simple classes, because the first warforged made were fighters, warriors, and scouts, while the more complex classes represent later refinements of the design. (I rather like the idea of the warforged sorcerer, with the concept that its magical powers are effectively enchantments woven into its body).
The Warforged were developed for use in the Last War. They are no longer being created... with a few notable exceptions. As for who created them and why it can't be done by any old artificer, that's one of those things you'll have to wait for.
They have a favored class and multiclass just like most demihuman races. They have certain drawbacks to balance the many cool things they have going on, but this isn't one of them. The warforged are sentient creatures (and hey, on the average smarter than half-orcs) and are therefore capable of learning new skills.
The warforged are sentient creatures and can therefore learn any skill a human could. On the other hand, for a warforged class may represent its initial design -- the combat specialty it was built to perform. A good example of this is barbarian. In my mind, a warforged barbarian is not simply a primitive fighter, but rather a warforged built as a skirmisher -- capable of swift movement and an occasional burst of hyperactivity. Such a warforged's "Rage" might not manifest as fury, but rather as a cold and relentless burst of offensive power. Likewise, a sorcerer may be an unusual warforged designed to act as a living wand. A monk could be a warforged who has chosen to follow this path after its military career, but it could also have been built as an assassin (swift, skilled with stealth and hand-to-hand combat); in this case, its "wholeness of body" could be seen more as a capacity for self-repair as opposed to a spiritual discipline.
Warforged already have a lot of good things going for them, so they don't get the bonus of a flexible favored class.
None of the nations of Khorvaire (or Sarlona, to cut off one obvious
conclusion) built warforged. Make of that what you will.
Warforged are living constructs, which will change the way certain things affect them (or don't).
Playing the stoic fighter who doesn't breathe, doesn't eat, doesn't sleep, who was made for war alone and now has no war to fight... well, I know a number of folks who have had fun with that (myself included) and that's just one of the simpler directions you can take a warforged.
Where do you belong in the world? What are your origins? Who created you, who did you fight for, how did you get where you are today? This also plays into the idea of a character who has either been created for a specific purpose -- the barbarian warforged representing a 'forged built for speed and skirmish combat, with the rage "overdrive" option -- or the warforged who has advanced beyond its original function to follow a new calling, as in the case of a cleric or paladin (sure, the stat mods make these somewhat questionable choices, but from a roleplaying perspective they can be fun).
It really comes down to the fact that you are one of the most visible legacies of the Last War (though the Mournland does take first prize there). You are a symbol of something the world wishes to forget, a living weapon in a world that claims to be striving for peace. What will you do now? What happens when you encounter the family whose children were slaughtered by warforged? To a certain degree, all characters should consider some of the same questions, but for a warforged they are harder to escape.
By the time true warforged were created, the Last War was underway and the kingdom of Galifar no longer existed. House Cannith - of which I'll say no more until something is said officially -- developed the warforged on their own initiative.
I certainly see the issue of a race that cannot (for the most part) procreate
and the question of forces wanting new warforged armies being a source
of many story ideas.
Because the warforged were built as weapons of war, I have always seen them as being "born" with the inherent skill set they need to accomplish their designated task. It would be fairly frustrating if a warforged had to be taught to speak, for example. What makes them unique among constructs is the ability to learn and adapt. So a warforged may come into existence with the skills of a 1st-level fighter, but it has the ability to gain experience just like a person.
However, this doesn't address the question of mental age. First, most warforged are actually older than four years; they were first produced thirty years ago, and the last one was made two years ago. So they could be up to thirty years old. They have the same capacity for emotions as people. The question is, to what degree have they explored their emotions and personalities? In my mind, most used the war as a driving purpose; they don't need to question the meaning of life, what they're going to be when they grow up, etc, because they already know. The purpose of life is war, and you will fight. Now, however, there is no war -- and without that, who are you? Some may explore this and develop deep and interesting personalities. Others may look for work where they don't have to deal with these questions -- get a job at a quarry mining ore 24-7.
So ultimately, it's up to you. Like people, two warforged are likely to be unique individuals. If you want to be a cold, emotionless warrior, that's certainly appropriate. However, there are warforged philosophers, warforged who hate their enemies, and warforged who want to have fun.
"Adamantine body" is something of a misnomer -- it used to have a longer, clunkier name (something like "adamantine plated body"). A warforged with this feat is not supposed to be solid adamantine, like a suit of adamantine armor; if so they would be virtually indestructible, after all. Instead, it is a matter of adamantine being alloyed with the base metal to strengthen it. Ditto for mithral. With that said, you might still be able to get something for a dead warforged; on the other hand, it depends how unscrupulous your buyer is. It's sort of like showing up with a dead human and saying "Wanna buy his skin?"
Cost is certainly a good question. However, I will point to the money *our* military spends on its gear. Look at how much they pay for a single toilet seat, let alone a missile or plane! The warforged never replaced human soldiers; they were elite units that supplemented the human forces.
One other point: Warforged don't actually eat. They have the ability to benefit from consumable magic. In the case of potions, I have always seen this as some sort of intake valve that connects to an internal reservoir of alchemical fluids. As for heroes' feast I always say it that they were somehow able to draw the magic from the substance without actually digesting it. But they do not possess a digestive system designed for solid matter. A sense of taste is thus in question. It seems to me more likely that they would not taste, but might be able to experience different sensations by "drinking" different alchemical substances (potentially even being able to get drunk).
Sighting a warforged should be a rare event. At a quick guess, I'd say that there are around 10,000-25,000 warforged spread throughout Khorvaire, with a significant number of those still concentrated in the Mournland or in a few major cities. That gives you 2,000-5,000 per nation, with a stronger focus put on
Cyre.
The cost of warforged is difficult to estimate. It's not like making a golem. The exact process of making a warforged is a secret known only to House Cannith. Some people say they were using tools recovered from Xen'drik. Regardless of the truth of that, they were using the mysterious creation forges, which are extremely powerful magic items. So they were using magic to streamline the process of producing magic. Further, House Cannith includes hundreds of magewrights and most of the most talented artificers of the age. Yes, I would imagine they were able to produce more than one warforged a day... probably considerably more than one, though I don't want to commit to a number without think about it further.
There are no cyborgs in Eberron. Are warforged grafts something that might make sense? Sure, I could see it as a path for House Cannth to start toying with. But as it stands in the CSB there are no cultures, nations, or houses that make use of magical prosthetics or anything similar.
As things stand, there is no set warforged naming convention. Some use military designations, others nicknames they've been given by comrades in arms, purely descriptive names, or names that they just like the sounds of. Some might name themselves after military tools -- weapons, shields, etc, reflecting the role that they believe they fill. I'd tend to stay away from [names like] "Manifold" or "Gear", since the warforged are not actually mechanical in nature.
Warforged look like warforged. If you want to add some sort of custom carytid-style warforged to your Eberron, no-one's going to stop you, but as it stands there are not "male" and "female" models of warforged.
Warforged haven't been around that long, and with the average joe's tendancy to anthropomorphosize things it seems more likely to me that the typical soldier would assign a gender to his big metal buddy as opposed to coming up with a new word or saying "it". Heck, in our world even ships have a gender.
It's certainly possible that the *warforged* will come up with a gender-neutral term for their race. However, there is no uniform warforged culture or civilization, so such a word would not necessarily spread throughout Khorvaire. The person most capable of getting such a word into common usage would be the Lord of Blades, since most warforged have some interest in LoB's activities; even those who disagree with his extreme agenda might pick up warforged-specific vocabulary terms.
The original titans are sentient (though not by much), but are not in fact living constructs. Of course, having developed the techniques for creating living constructs, House Cannith presumably could have created a living titan; while it's is a change from the stats in the CSB, it would certainly be an interesting NPC you could create for a story. I may have to use one in my game!
[Warforged titans] cannot be raised [from the dead]. As for sentience, they have an Intelligence score, which golems do not. I would say that a titan does not have a personality. It won't make decisions on its own. However, it can respond to instructions or to evolving tactical situations in a creative manner. According to the Monster Manual, a normal golem is "incapable of any strategy or tactics." A warforged titan won't paint a picture, but it is capable of evaluating threats and making basic tactical decisions (though it won't be as clever as the smaller warforged). It can speak, it just doesn't have much to say.
And yes, I'd be inclined to say that a standard titan couldn't gain class levels (or if it could, it would gain XP at a minimal rate). The ability to learn and mentally evolve is a trait of the smaller warforged. A titan works with the information it's been given, but it can't acquire new skills.
The warforged have only been around for 30 years, and they were created by human hands, so there's no question of creation myths... Their creation was not divinely inspired. Onatar and the Traveler are both gods of artifice, which could be seen as having a resonance for religious-minded warforged... on the other hand, it seems just as likely that a warforged soldier would turn to a war god, just like a human soldier. A noble warforged might be determined to see his soul merge with the Silver Flame. Many warforged follow the Lord of Blades with the same zeal a human cleric would devote to a deity, and the idea of a warforged cleric drawing divine magic from this devotion is certainly an interesting one.
The concept on the changelings is that they are the offspring of doppelgangers and demihuman races. Thus for the parent, you have much the same experience as if your child had been stolen and replaced; you believe that you will give birth to a normal child, but you end up with a disturbing half-human (or half-dwarven, as in the picture you have seen) thing. Hence the name "changeling". The human parent, not realizing that the other parent is a doppelganger, expects to have a normal child, and thus it's easy for the superstitious to believe that the inhuman child they end up with is not actually theirs. But while that's the origin of the species -- and still a way they can be born -- at this point, the changelings are a true-breeding species in their own right.
Originally, the idea was that a changeling could be born to any human/demihuman race. Currently, they are defined as the offspring of humans and doppelgangers, which makes sense since the changeling does not possess racial traits (i.e. you'd expect a dwarf changeling to have darkvision). That might be something that gets developed further using feats or traits to represent ancestry; Mark Tedin did an interesting series of sketches -- of which the dwarf is one -- that shows parents of different races with their changeling children.
I've always liked doppelgangers myself (I even wrote a small book on them for Goodman Games, though Eberron takes them in a different direction), and always been intrigued by the possibilities of doppelganger culture. I won't say more about the changelings because nothing has been said and I'd like to see what people expect to see, but from a design perspective... the changelings are a way to bring some of the mystique (so to speak) of the doppelganger into the foreground while avoiding difficult issues like having a PC race with natural detect thoughts (a real downer when you're dealing with mystery plots).
In the case of a changeling, how do you find an identity when you are born with the ability to shift your own at will? Changelings have no nation, no cultural heritage, and most humanoids distrust or fear them; how do you rise from that background to become a hero (or villain)? What drives you to stand out instead of choosing to fade into the background?
Shifters do always look like [this], though I certainly feel that a player can choose to "customize" the appearance of his shifter slightly if he wants a closer bond to a specific animal. This would also come out even more when the character shifts -- a longtooth shifter (with the bite attack) will most likely grow an extended snout or jaw to facilitate the attack.
As things stand, shifters are really a melting pot of lycanthropic heritage. You may have a bit more rat in you than most, but you are still a shifter, not a "wererat shifter". Basically, assume you've already had many generations of ursine shifters mating with feline shifters -- and the median result is what you've seen in the pictures. Like I said, I'm all for letting players customize their shifters a bit, but a shifter with a strong resemblance to a particular animal would be unusual, not the norm.
Lycanthropy is a curse and a communicable disease, and this is largely what drove the Church's purge of lycanthropes (even, as you say, the good ones). Shifters cannot infect others and thus are not seen as a threat. During the crusade, some shifters helped shelter lycanthropes; others helped the Church hunt them, to prove the innocence of the shifter race. So relations between shifters and the Church vary considerably.
In the case of the shifter, you have the character who partially wears his inner nature on the outside. In most cases, your choice of shifter trait should have some reflection on your personality, giving you something to immediately think about and build on. If you're a longstride shifter, running is part of who you are. Are you a hunter, who lives for the chase? Or is your natural instinct to flee from battle? How do your primal and bestial instincts gel with trying to live among a civilized nation (which you presumably are if you're with a party of adventurers)? How do you deal with the unnatural aspects of city life?
The concept behind the kalashtar is more or less that they have a second soul, being the descendants of humans bonded with exiled outsiders.
The Inspired are not well suited for use as a PC race, due to the fact that they are essentially immortal (you have to actually journey to Dal Quor to permanently kill one of them). The PC kalashtar have severed their connection to Dal Quor, and as a result handle planar travel like anyone else. There are a few ways that an Inspired host can be temporarily cut off from its guiding spirit, and the effects of this are dealt with in the Inspired write-up in the
corebook.
If you've got a kalashtar in your party, you can always have psionics in your game. Though for reasons that will hopefully soon become obvious, your kalashtar probably won't be Riedran-born. But wait, isn't Riedra supposed to be a psionic culture? And aren't the kalashtar the naturally psionic race?
There is a big difference between the kalashtar and the Inspired.
The kalashtar are spirits who fled from Dal Quor by bonding with human souls, severing their connection to Dal Quor in the process; their innate psionic power comes from the remnants of the natural power of the quori spirit itself, diluted through the generations. The Inspired are vessels for fully-empowered quori spirits and thus have a direct connection to Dal Quor. Short form -- the Inspired are a little scarier than the kalashtar.
The reason the kalashtar exist in the first place is because their quori spirits were fleeing persecution in Dal Quor, and the Inspired continue to hunt them down to this day. Why? Well, that will be revealed in time...
The quori spirit in an Inspired leaves the mortal body should it die, fall unconscious, or fall asleep, with no harm to the quori. But the possession is a voluntary action, so the quori could also break the connection at any time.
The key difference between the Inspired and the kalashtar is the nature of the quori spirit. With the Inspired, the spirit inhabits the vessel, and if the vessel is killed, the spirit returns to Dal Quor until it takes a new vessel. While it can draw on the skills and abilities of its vessel, the quori remains a separate entity that will outlive its host.
In the case of the kalashtar, the original bonding between the quori spirits and their human hosts occured thousands of years ago. These days you don't choose to be a kalashtar -- you are born one. The quori spirit is in some ways a racial memory shared by a particular family line. Unlike [Star Trek's] Trill, where one person carries the symbiote, everyone in a kalashtar family possesses a certain aspect of the quori ancestor, sharing memories, ideals, etc. However, like the Trill, each person also has their own unique personality, based on how their human soul interacts with the inherited elements of the quori spirit. Further, the memories and traits of the quori will be stronger in some than in others; this is likely to go along with psionic potential, so if you become a powerful psion you've got a strong bond to the family spirit. In any case, just because most of the original kalashtar quori were lawful good, doesn't mean that you can't run into a kalashtar descendent who's turned out bad.
One typo [in the kalashtar web article] -- where it says that the Inspired have been persecuting the kalashtar for 5,000 years, it should be 1,500. The Inspired haven't been on Eberron *that* long.
One can obviously draw comparisons to the Trill in Star Trek or the Gou'ald in SG-1, though the kalashtar/Inspired are spiritual symbiotes as opposed to physical ones, and the Dreaming Dark is far more subtle than the Gou'ald, and you've got your biplanar existence for the Inspired, and so on and so on. I'm sure someone else can pop up and say "Game X has a race of revenants who share their bodies with ghosts." But for what it's worth, I'd never seen SG-1 or anything similar when I came up with the Inspired.
The the soul of the original quori is spread out through its descendents. So a kalashtar does not have two fully separate conscousnesses and sets of skills, as one of the Inspired has. But he has the potential to tap into memories and powers of the original quori, and his personality will be shaped by nature of the original quori spirit. Currently this is represented by taking levels in psionic classes; the high-level kalashtar psion most likely has a stronger tie to his quori spirit. In the future, other ways to draw on the quori spirit may be explored.
In a sense, you could say that the first kalashtar quori planted a tree in the soul of a human, and that when the bonded people have offspring, a piece of that tree is grafted to the child. In some children the graft takes and grows, until the child may develop powers that rival those of the original quori. In others it never grows, but the child still has diminished traces of the first spirit. Even in the child with potential, while his sapling is a mirror of that original tree, it is entirely contained in his own soul. So while I keep saying that they all have a bond to the original spirit, it's not a collective consciousness.
(OK, that's probably a screwy analogy, but what can I say, it's been a long day.)
I'm glad that to see that at least some of the psi-folks are happy with the kalashtar. I think they have a great deal of story potential, and that's certainly something that can be developed further in the
future.
What kalashtar would deign to fight his foe with something so crude as a lump of steel? ...I'd expect most militant kalashtar to be soulknives or monks.
Having thought it over, I settled on the spiritual inheritance being bound to the gender of child and parent. As for [the children of kalashtar and elves or orcs], it would come down to genetics: the basic question is what sort of racial dominance you have when a human breeds with one of these races. Can you ever get a pure human or pure elf from a human-elf crossing, or is it always a half-elf? If you go with the latter, the child will be a half-elf or half-orc with no kalashtar traits. If you go with the former, than if genetics would produce a human child and that child is the same gender as the kalashtar parent, he will inherit the bond and be a kalashtar. There are slight physiological differences between a pure human and a kalashtar, but they are close enough to be considered human for genetic purposes, and if you inherit the spirit you inherit the differences. But the quori spirits were originally bound to human vessels, and if you move too far from that, the spirit can't form a proper bond.
An Inspired is a humanoid vessel that may be possessed by a quori spirit. If the host dies or is rendered unconscious, the spirit returns to Dal Quor. Fighting it on Dal Quor is the only way to permanently destroy it.
And yes, you can encounter an
unpossessed Inspired, and this is covered in the Campaign Setting book.
The quori spirits of the kalashtar have permanently severed their ties to Dal Quor. They now exist in the collective minds of their kalashtar descendents -- so each kalashtar has a spiritual bond to his quori ancestor, but does not possess a full, sentient, quori spirit as an Inspired does. The kalashtar represents a merging of human and quori, while the Inspired is voluntary but total possession. In that way, the kalashtar are
somewhat more like the trill than the tok'ra. A kalashtar hs vague memories that come from the quori spirit, values and personality traits inherited from the spirit -- but there aren't actually two separate minds