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 that you could speak to as individuals.
There are kalashtar communities in most of the large cities of Khorvaire. ...Within kalashtar communities, the strongest bond between kalashtar is between those who share a bond to the same spirit; even if such a kalashtar is actually your 63rd cousin, the two of you would consider each other to be brothers, and would have a strong understanding of one another's motives and feelings. The spirit bond is inherited from the parent whose gender matches your own.
For what it's worth, the Aerenal elves *do* hate the traditional undead. Aerenal necromancy is based around respect and veneration of the dead. Zombies and skeletons are a abhorrent desecration of the memory of the fallen, while creatures like vampires prey on the living to sustain their own "lives". The Undying Court is made up of the departed ancestors of the elves, but it isn't a collection of vampires and liches. All will be revealed when the setting book is released.
In Middle Earth, orcs are the result of the corruption of elves (in the distant past), and thus the antipathy logically follows. In Eberron, the elves of Aerenal and the orcs of Khorvaire really have no common ground whatsoever, and the Aerenal have little interest or opinion about the orcs. The Valenar elves don't care about orcs one way or the other, but despise the goblinoids of Darguun due to wars in the distant past and more recent clashes as mercenaries in the Last War.
The Aereni and Valenar are quite different culturally, and this is something that may be developed further in the future. But biologically? An elf is an elf is an elf.
Aerenal did not participate in the war. The Aereni do have an order known as the Deathguard, who are dedicated to the destruction of negatively charged undead, who have been around for thousands of years; you might be able to use [the Hunter of the Dead or Skullclan Hunter prestige classes] for this order.
[Elves war against one another] just as any human nation would -- although they are far older than the human nations, and have more history with one another. When you consider that a single elf can live for 900 years and look at the sort of changes that human society has gone through in that time -- well, the elder elves have seen many nations rise and fall.
The Valenar elves are described as "savage" [in Dragon 317]. To me this conjures images of barbarians and grugach, which couldn't be farther from the truth. "Violent" or "warlike" definitely; "savage", not so much.
The Valenar elves do have clerics, but technically they also follow the Undying Court. There is a difference of focus -- they preserve the memory of ancestors who have already died as opposed to preserving the existence of those who have only physically died -- but functionally, there is a great deal of similarity between them.
Half-Orcs
There are places in the Shadow Marches where humans and orcs live in the same communities. Half-orcs are not necessarily the product of violence or shunned as they are in some settings.
One observation, for folks who say "but the whole point of half-orcs is to be outsiders" -- in the Shadow Marches, half-orcs are largely accepted. However, this doesn't mean that they are embraced across the world. The Marcher druid won't give a second thought to your being a half-orc, but the Thrane knight can still consider you a disgusting half-breed. Of course, for many demihumans, a half-orc isn't much stranger than a human; it's really a question of culture (and the behavior of the half-orc in question).
Likewise, orcs have the same cultural range as humans: just because there are orc druids and settled farmers doesn't mean you can't encounter a group of orc bandits... just like with humans.
Gnomes
When it comes to the gnomes, knowledge is power. (And knowing is half the battle...) The idea of bard as the favored class of the gnomes is certainly reflected by their culture in
Eberron.
The gnomes have certainly experimented with elemental weapons, which is another reason people chose to respect their neutral status. I would certainly imagine that a few elemental siege weapons would have made it onto the battlefield, between the work of Zilargo, House Cannith, and other houses; the first airships were developed for use in the war, after all. However, this is not addressed directly in the CSB - again, we were squeezing as much as we could. I would expect this to be dealt with in an article/sourcebook either dealing with the Last War, Zilargo, House Cannith, or the magic of Eberron in general.
Goblinoids and Orcs
The first humanoid druids on Khorvaire were orcs. However, this was before there even were humans on Khorvaire. There is still a strong orcish influence in the Gatekeeper druid sect, but many human druids don't know about their orcish past... and likewise, many orcs have moved away from it.
Orcs & goblins were not 'first on the world' (that honor would go to the Lords of Dust, among others) -- goblins simply had a sophisticated civilization long before humanity developed one.
The goblinoid races had a sophisticated empire that collapsed due to the incursion of Xoriat, civil war, and the arrival of humanity. In the wake of the Last War, a new goblinoid nation -- Darguun -- has been formed, though it has little in common with the old empire.
Hobgoblins and bugbears are rarely found in human communities. Goblins were used as slaves in the early days of human colonization, and goblins are found across the continent; many large cities have goblin ghettoes.
Darguun was formed 19 years before the start of the campaign, towards the end of the Last War. "Empire" is probably a generous description. I'll say that Valenar and Darguun were formed under similar circumstances... Darguun has no direct ties to the Empire of Dhakaan aside from the fact that it has a goblinoid population. There is no nation that is officially "Dhakaan". Beyond that, well, wait and see.
Officially, orcs are not "goblinoids." I know, in Tolkein "orc" and "goblin" are the same word in two different langauges... but here they are two unrelated species. On Khorvaire, they had two very different cultures: the civilized, highly structured empire of Dhakaan and the wild, scattered orc clans of the west.
Goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears are closely related on a genetic level, and all three had a place in the old empire of Dhakaan. Which of the three came first? Did they evolve naturally, or was magical tampering involved? Perhaps the answers will emerge in time.
I have a few thoughts of my own, but I'll sit on them and see if WotC decides to do a sourcebook dealing with Darguun (you never know, it could happen).
There is certainly a lot of story potential for orc or goblinoid PCs in
Eberron.
There is no force right now that claims to be the Empire of Dhakaan. Within
Darguun, Lhesh Haruuc is moving to establish a powerful hobgoblin nation, but if anything he is modeling his nation more on Galifar; the Ghaal'dar hobgoblins possess little knowledge of their ancient empire.
However, during the final days of the empire, a number of smaller clans did retreat into the mountains to try to preserve their ancient traditions. These groups are generally
referred to as the Dhakaani or the Heirs of Dhakaan. Individually they are far more capable than the typical goblinoids. Their soldiers are more often fighters than warriors, they produce masterwork weapons, and have access to other ancient traditions; the Shaarat'kesh goblins are a Dhakaani order. With the rise of Darguun as a nation, these Heirs of Dhakaan are begining to scheme to return the empire to power -- but first they must agree on a rightful emperor or empress, and this is currently the source of much conflict.
Page 154 of the Campaign Setting book lists two of the more powerful Dhakaani clans, the Kech Volaar and the Kech
Sharaat.
(To be honest, I'd be more inclined to say that the picture on page 155 is Ruus Dhakaan of the Kech Sharaat. Lhesh Haruuc is supposed to be getting on in years, and his proper title is "High Warlord of the Scarlet Blade" -- and while that obviously refers to the blood of his enemies, I'd be inclined to give him a sword of red alloy to go with his name. I love the image, it just looks more like a Dhakaan warlord than a Ghaal'dar; not the similarity in the armor to the Dhakaani warlord on page 157.)
The Dhakaani clans have preserved many of the traditions of the empire. To throw out a few points:
* At the height of the empire, the goblinoid races were tightly unified, as opposed to the "strong dominate the weak" philosophy often seen among savage humanoids. Each race served to the best of its abilities. Goblins were primarily craftsmen and serfs, forming the bulk of the population and performing both skilled and unskilled labor. In the military, goblins served as scouts and spies; exceptional goblins might join the shaarat'khesh assassins. Hobgoblins, the next most populous race, are stronger than the goblins and have a gift for order and discipline. Hobgoblin fighters formed the bulk of the military, and typically served as the administrators of the empire. Bugbears were celebrated for their strength and served as heavy laborers and shock troops; Dhakaani bugbear soldiers were typically barbarians, but this represents a trained ability to sublimate conscious thought to combat frenzy as opposed to simple primitive rage.
* The Dhakaani were a primarily agnostic society; in place of divine spellcasters they relied on bards, who served as historians, mediators, and advisors.
The Eberron CSB does not include anything about playing goblinoid PCs. My personal take is that the Ghaal'dar would use the standard rules, but if/when the Dhakaani goblinoids are examined in more detail I would expect to see new options that would make them more appealing as PCs.
Bear in mind that what I described was the culture of the Dhakaani goblinoids. Currently, the dominant culture of Darguun are the Ghaal'dar hobgoblins, who have a less cosmopolitan outlook on things. As for
why the modern Dhakaani clans are few in number, there weren't very many of them to begin with, and they have long been engaged in internal feuds. If the Dhakaani clans were united under a single leader, they would be far more dangerous than the Ghaal'dar -- but so far, their energies have been directed against one another.
The Githyanki are located in the astral plane, the Githzerai are in Kythri. If you ask me -- because it hasn't been set in stone yet -- I would say that they are descended from the survivors of a world destroyed by Xoriat.
Racial Origins
Humans [originated in] Sarlona.
Elves [are from] Aerenal [but originated in] Xen'drik. Aerenal was around during the height of the Empire of Dhakaan, and elves and goblins clashed in the past.
As for the others, I don't think anything's been said about them, so I need to leave it unsaid for the moment ...although some continents have spawned multiple races.
One of the goals of Eberron was to create a logical world. In my opinion, the massive numbers of subraces seen in different settings don't make sense. Presumably, ability score modifiers are the result of physiology: elves are swifter but more frail. Why would that change from culture to culture? Do Americans have different racial statistics from, say, Lithuanians? From this we decided to focus more on culture. And as far as splatbook potential goes, the different cultures do have a lot of flavor, and certainly each could have its own spells, PrCs, feats, and even monsters, companion animals, and unique equipment associated with it. There's a lot that can be explored without changing stats.
At the same time, Khorvaire does have the "melting pot" aspect; there are elves who have left the major elven cultures for various reasons to live in the human nations. Thus, if you don't like any of the new culutres, you can choose to have a more generic background and simply be "An elf from Sharn."
The Drow are defined in the world, but are not as prominent as they are in FR. If you want to play a drow, that's between you and the DM. Currently, drow are the only subrace specifically placed in the world. There's nothing stopping you from dropping a tribe of Grugach in the ruins of Xen'drik, but that's a choice you'll have to make. The original Eberron proposal did actually include a fair amount of detail about aquatic societies, including aquatic elves, but that's something that has been put on hold at the moment -- already we've had trouble squeezing all of the info into the book.
Yes, there are drow in Eberron, but there's no Lolth, and they don't actually have anything to do with spiders. They have their own role in the history of the elves of Eberron, alongside the Valenar and the Aereni. For some folks they will undoubtedly be too different, but you obviously can't make everyone happy.
And for what it's worth, they're really only mentioned in passing the the campaign setting book; I'm not entirely sure when the full drow-in-Eberron story will emerge. So they have a unique culture and place in the world, but it's not like they're a pillar of the setting.
Monsters
Gnolls have a defined place in the world, though they do not have as significant a role in the history of Khorvaire as orcs or goblins.
...Droaam is the gnoll
homeland... While they aren't the brightest bulbs in the box, gnolls are extremely pragmatic. They have established themselves as a neutral mercenary force in Droaam, preserving their culture by serving all sides (with the caveat that they will not fight other gnolls except in the pursuit of preexisting feuds among the gnolls). With the rise of the Daughters of Sora Kell, the hags are the primary employers of the gnoll brotherhood, but gnoll mercenaries can also be found in the service of both Deneith and
Tharashk.
The yuan-ti do not have a defined role, much as I like yuan-ti. Personally, I'd be inclined to make a yuan-ti culture in Xen'drik, but I could also see them in Khyber, working with one of the Cults of the Dragon Below. Grimlocks are also not dealt with specifically, but certainly have "Khyber" and "The Mournland" written all over them. Gargoyles would have a logical place in Droaam.
Droaam is where you get the bulk of your ogres and trolls, along with most of the few true giants on
Khorvaire. Droaam did not actively participate in the Last War; it took advantage of the fall of Galifar to establish its borders, and it sold mercenary services through House
Tharashk. Of course, while the Daughters of Sora Kell have declared the sovereignity of
Droaam, the nation is not recognized by the Treaty of Thronehold.
As has been noted elsewhere, Deneith largely holds the corner on mercenary services across
Khorvaire, but Tharashk has a special
"in" with Droaam because of its orcish members -- something that Deneith is interested in changing.
The presence of Ogre & Troll mercenaries would come through House
Tharashk, and they would have been primarily found among the nations that border the area
(Aundair and Breland). Thrane wouldn't stoop to employing monstrous mercenaries even though they are close by.
Ogres and Trolls (and other lesser giants) have inhabited the region
around Droaam & the Shadow Marches for ages -- it's simply the case that they only recently formed into anything resembling a nation.
While zakya rakshasas are accomplished fighters and enjoy combat, and while they lack the sorcerer abilities of the typical rakshasa, that doesn't mean that they won't use intrigue as a weapon. They possess the same shapeshifting and mind-reading powers as a standard rakshasa, and while they may beat you up physically when their true nature is revealed, it still may never be. A rakshasa zakya is also ideally suited to posing as a knight or warrior, as it possesses the martial skills to back up the disguise.
The religious beliefs of the dragons of Eberron are fairly mysterious to humans. On the surface, it appears that the celestial dragons are revered, but at a distance; even more than the other gods of the setting, they do not directly intervene in the affairs of the three progenitors, and do not provide direct guidance or instruction to the dragons. The Draconic Prophecy and the progenitor dragons are aspects that are of greatest importance in everyday life. The details of draconic beliefs -- and how they interact with the humans who actually live in close proximity -- will be explored in more detail when Argonnessen is examined more closely. But it's not quite as simple as "Evil dragons worship Khyber and good dragons worship Siberys." The Prophecy is the key, and this is something that manifests through all of the progenitors... and now, through the Dragonmark houses.
The dragons take their blood very seriously, and are not going to spread it among the lesser races or creatures lightly -- and a half-dragon may be considered an abomination by many dragons, even if his parents approve of his lineage. They are not impossible, just very rare. Argonessen would certainly be the place to find dragon disciples or a tradition of dragon disciples.
I would also think that you could get "half-dragons" without actually involving a dragon. The idea of the warforged magically altered to emulate the powers of a dragon, or a creature bred by a Daelkyr using the essence of a dragons captured and slain centuries ago, would both work. If there was a dragon in Cyre at the time of the Mourning -- an observer for the Chamber, for example -- the disaster could had spread its essence into a number of other creatures.
But the key point is that in official products (again, you are free to do as you wish), half-dragons are going to be rare; they are exceptional creatures like Vol, not "Oh, look, it's an army of half-dragons."
Officially, Vvaraak [also known as Kharaak] was a black dragon, though I think a little mystery there is fine.
Most vampires are associated with the Blood of Vol. Remember that in Eberron, the spirits of the dead go to Dolurrh, which isn't a very happy place. The elves of Aerenal found a way to preserve their heroes through veneration and positive energy; those who followed Vol found a darker path to keep their heroes from Dolurrh. The elves of Aerenal consider negative undead to be an abomination, as they prey on the living to prolong their lives (as opposed to the Undying, who are supported by the prayers of the living).
As a PC [vampire], you would have to deal with the threat of discovery by the Silver Flame and the possible issue of the Aerenal Deathguard. There would also be the question of your relationship to the Blood of Vol and the Order of the Emerald Claw. Were you once a member of the Order who turned against your masters? I think there's certainly story potential for a vampire PC; it would be unusual, but heroes are often unusual.
Note that while vampires are *usually* associated with the Blood of Vol, there are exceptions; vampires have been created in other manners and cultures, and for the moment I'll just leave it at that.
No new types of vampires are presented in the CSB. There are a few things that could be developed in the future, specifically relating to the first vampires of Eberron, but since that's not in the CSB it's something I can't discuss in detail at this time...
The campaign setting book will discuss each class and how it fits into the world. The short form, however, is that there is no one single role for each class. There is a nation where rangers have a significant place in the culture, and a variety of options & beliefs are presented there. At the same time, there's been a war, and some nations use rangers as scouts and skirmishers -- making it a military specialty as opposed to a matter of devotion to nature. The same can be said of most other classes -- there are certain classes that are extremely well suited to particular cultures or races, but that doesn't mean you are tied down by these.
I
really like the role of druids in Eberron; druid characters have a wide
variety of interesting backstories to choose from, and a number of related
feats that can make two druids quite different from one another. But nothing
currently revealed goes into that level of detail. The current Dragon
article [in issue #316] discusses classes, but at such a high level that
it's virtually impossible to know what it will be like to play one of
the classes. In the case of druids, it mentions how the order began, but
that was thousands of years ago and has little bearing on the current
state of affairs a druid will deal with.
(And no, druids are not magitech-hating Luddites who blow up the tracks
of the magic train.)
There are some very interesting new options for druids, beyond just different selections of animal companions, and they definitely have an interesting place in the world.
[The description of orc druids working with a a black dragon to save Khorvaire in (Dragon #316)] was how the order began, but thousands of years have passed since then,and Khorvaire is a very different place than it was; the druids have gone through changes along with the continent. I'll just say that there are many different ways to interpret "the role of guardians of their homelands and the balance of nature in general" and leave it at that. New druidic feats [also] play a major role in giving druids a sense of individual and cultural identity.
The Gatekeeper druid protects nature by fighting the unnatural. With that said, the Gatekeepers were the first druids of Eberron, but it's been seven thousand years since they battled the hordes of Xoriat and druidic traditions may have splintered and evolved in that time.
The [Campaign Setting book's] best descriptions of the smaller druid sects (specifically the Children of Winter) are included in the Eldeen Ranger Prestige Class.
Eberron does not make specific changes to the core rules regarding paladins. The DM will have to decide how to interpret the world as best fits a paladin PC. The [Code of Conduct "associates"] clause begins "while she may adventure with characters of good or neutral alignment...", I have always taken "association" to mean a close or long-term partnership. If you read it as any form of interaction, including business deals, yes, your paladin will have a considerable amount of trouble in Eberron. Taking the [example of an evil] innkeeper -- I wouldn't penalize a paladin for buying a drink from an evil innkeeper. However, I don't expect him to buy a partnership in the inn (unless this is for the strict purpose of gaining leverage to change the behavior of the innkeeper). And if he finds out that the innkeeper is doing something worse than just watering down the ale and padding the bills -- something like sacrificing babies in the basement or providing a base of operations for local bandits -- I'd expect him to do something about it.
Looking to the Church of the Silver Flame -- the primary source of paladins -- the warriors of the church are expected to combat evil in all forms. But martial might is best suited for supernatural evil -- fiends, undead, and similar threats. In the case of lesser human evils -- greed, selfishness, lust, as opposed to slavery, murder, and the like -- the sword may not be an appropriate weapon. With the greedy innkeeper, I would say that chopping him in half was in fact an evil act. If the paladin did not have greater evils to deal with, I'd expect him to try to get to the root of the problem with words, to try to show the innkeeper the harm he is causing and teach him to behave in a better way -- to try to bring light to the world through enlightenment as opposed to bloodshed.
Likewise, you might find a lawful evil priest in the Church itself. If that priest holds a higher rank than the paladin, you run into your authority issue. If the priest orders the paladin to perform an obviously evil act, I would expect the paladin to refuse and condemn the priest; the church is, overall, a good organization. However, the priest may be accomplishing noble goals in a ruthless manner... In such a case I would expect the paladin to try to find a more noble way to carry out the goal of the mission, but not to refuse it entirely. I'd expect him to investigate the priest and try to prove that his evil nature was a threat to others - or to see if the priest can be led back to the light. But without that proof, I
wouldn't expect him to just stubbornly refuse to talk to the priest or to follow orders that serve a greater good.
I'd say that it comes down to letter of the law versus intent. As an Eberron DM, I would allow a paladin to interact with evil NPCs provided that they never compromise their own morals, act in the interests of the greater good, and seek to change the behavior of the evil individual whenever possible. With that said, it's clear that a paladin cannot befriend an evil individual, serve in the same adventuring party, or have a similar close relationship; I might allow the paladin to go on the mission he's been given by the priest, but if he goes out barhopping with the priest after the adventure, I'm going to draw the line.
But that's me... and that's just how I've dealt with paladins all along. Eberron won't specifically change the rules, so it's really up to you to decide how to interpret them.
Eberron includes black, white, and shades of grey. There are noble heroes, and there are villains whose evil cannot be questioned. Dreaming Dark? Evil. Keeper of the Silver Flame? Good. Church of the
Silver Flame itself? Well, basically good, but capable of brutal action in the cause of what it sees as right... and well, there is a lot of corruption within certain regions... etc. If you're dealing with Jaela, you know you're on the side of right: but that doesn't mean that you can rely on every action taken by the church as being a good thing.
The absolutes exist to provide definition, and a paladin is one of these truly noble heroes. They are just the exception as opposed to the rule.
The "druidic sects" include rangers as well as druids, but rangers also play a role in the military culture of many nations, especially the Valenar and the Talenta halflings. (Now, as noted before, PC classes are less common in the world than in some settings, but the Valenar soldiers are exceptionally skilled, and this is reflected by the presence of rangers as opposed to warriors).
The event that forced
the Treaty of Thronehold and brought a (temporary) end to the Last War
was the utter devastation of one of the five major nations involved in
the war, creating the region known as the Mournland (as seen in Across
Eberron).
I'll add to that by saying
that the exact cause and nature of the Mourning remains a mystery: it
is not the case that someone just dropped a magical nuclear bomb (or if
it is, no-one knows who did it or how).
In my opinion, the more people think about how the war has affected their characters and party the better. Did you fight? Who did you fight for? Did you lose anyone important, and if so, who killed them? What brought the party together - did you serve together during the war? Fight on opposite sides?
Most of my play groups end up coming from the nation that is now the Mournland, because you've just got serious angst there (and it's a great excuse for being rootless adventurers). One group are former soldiers, while the others are patrons of an inn that was destroyed during the war (the innkeeper, her warforged bouncer, a Valenar mercenary who has turned her back on her people, a hard-drinking cleric in search of redemption, and a dragonmarked enchanter). I used the former soldier group as pregen characters when I was running demos at Winter Fantasy, and one of my favorite moments was when the ex-commander, discovering that the adventure will take them to the Mournland, informs the rest of the group "We're gong home."
Anyhow, I look forward to seeing what other ideas people come up with. As for starting at [higher than 1st level], I certainly think that Eberron is a good setting for this, since the players are supposed to be remarkable individuals right off the bat. I've run both of my campaigns from 1st-level, and the campaign book includes an adventure that gets you to 2nd-level, but if you want to be Doc Savage right from the start, begining at a higher level is certainly a good solution.
All five of the primary nations [involved in the Last War] used warforged, some more than others. One nation made use of undead troops. Most PC classes would be represented in the war at some level -- as mercenaries if nothing else -- though the bulk of the soldiers were warriors supported by adepts and magewrights. Some monstrous creatures were used as mercenaries, including lesser giants (specifically ogres) but not true giants.
The war did span a century, and a detailed account would take up a lot of space -- and while it is an interesting subject that could spawn many adventure hooks, we had a lot of basic material to establish. There are places where specific incidents are mentioned, but there is no comprehensive battle-by-battle breakdown. If there is interest, this is certainly something that could be expanded upon in the future, whether as a concentrated description or a breakdown of how it affected a specific country.
Like Galifar itself, all of the Five Nations were monarchies ("were" as Cyre is gone). The dragonmark houses dominate much of the middle class and exist beyond the borders of nations -- and as you say, for most of them the war was a highly profitable time, as transportation, communication, healing, espionage, mercenary force, etc are all vital parts of warfare.
[Factors
that caused and sustained the Last War:]
* Each of the Five Nations has a fairly strong cultural identity. National pride and personal beliefs were on the line. People weren't just fighting because their king told them to, but because they believed in the cause; in that sense, it's somewhat more like the American Civil War than, say, Vietnam. For the warriors of Thrane, the war presented an opportunity to spread the influence of the Silver Flame and to destroy the blasphemy represented by Karrnath and its use of undead. Karrnath was the birthplace of the first king of Galifar, and a nation strong in magic and military might, and its people believed that it was their right to rule again (not to mention putting the Thranes in their place). Cyre had the aspect of being both the nation whose queen should have by rights inherited the throne, so there was the belief that they were fighting for the true traditions of Galifar -- but equally importantly, as the crossroads, they had to fight just to defend themselves from the constant threat posed by the other nations.
* One thing we have gotten used to in the present day is television. We get to see the horrors of war instantly and constantly, and have hundreds of magazines and other forms of media to choose from. When you compare the death toll and public reaction in this current war to, say, the American Civil War (620,000) or World War II (50,000,000), it's a striking difference. I've heard it said (not that I necessarily trust the source) that more American soldiers died in a practice mission for D-Day that have died in Iraq. Does it make these things any less horrible? Not at all. But if you're safely off the front (Sharn, for example, was never under siege), you believe in the destiny of your people, your king tells you that you are on the edge of victory -- if your main sources of information are the King's heralds and the gnomes, who are you going to trust? Yes, you have the people whose children don't come home, whose relatives near the front lines have their homes raided and destroyed, but it might be years before they conclusively know the fate of their relatives, if ever. And will this tragedy make you turn against your king or will it strengthen your resolve to fight the enemy and make them pay?
I have no doubt that there would be those who would trust the Korranberg Chronicle over the crown, and there would be places (especially in Thrane) where the Chronicle would be banned. But even there, the Chronicle wouldn't have the impact of modern media -- and even the gnomes can't find out everything.
* It's also the case that the war was not one constant battle. Alliances shifted. Concessions were made. Treaties formed and broken. There would be periods of calm on one front that might last for years before they unexpectedly fell apart. Aristocrats that pressured the King of Breland to step back from the war might change their mind after an unexpected attack by Aundair, etc.
* In our world, the Hundred Years War lasted 116 years; a period of extended conflict is certainly possible, if unusual.
* It's worth noting that the nation of Q'barra was founded by people who refused to fight in the Last War -- that when they were unable to influence their own nations, people from across the Five Nations simply left to try to start a new nation preserving the values of the old kingdom.
* Ultimately, of course -- and I bring this up only as a point of last resort, as I prefer things to make sense -- it is a fantasy world, and a world of pulp extremes; it may not be something that is perfectly realistic. But again, while this always lurks in the background, it's no reason to discourage discussion.
With a few notable exceptions to get the ball rolling, this was not a case of a nation choosing to enter a war to assist another group. If you're in Karrnath and you don't like the war, tossing the king off the throne won't stop the Thrane fanatics from butchering you. You can't just say "Can we stop this now?" if the other side won't agree to it, which is why those with the strongest anti-war position simply left. Even today, there are many factions eager to return to war; the unknown threat of the Mourning is holding this at bay out of pure fear, but who can say how long this will last.
"The Mourning" is the general term for the event that destroyed Cyre. The details are still a mystery; as a rule, even those who were close enough to have seen what happened blacked out or suffered traumatic memory loss.
For the moment, people are hesitant to start the war anew until they know more about the nature and cause of the Mourning -- but as time passes, the deterrent strength of Mourning is bound to fade.
The fact that two years have passed [since the Mourning] and there has been no further destruction implies one of the following:
- It was an accident.
- It was intentional, but the person responsible either was killed in the disaster or has been unable to acquire the resources to do it a second time.
- It could be performed again, but whoever did it has accomplished their goal and has no interest in further destruction.
The Treaty of Thronehold is largely based on fear: no one knows what happened, and no one wants it to happen to them.
If some group or nation unlocks the secrets of the Mournland and can reliably harness the power that created it, the political landscape of Eberron could change dramatically... it's one of those lurking threats a group of heroes may need to deal with.
[Organization in Eberron are] not like [West End Games']
Paranoia where different party members belong to different secret societies without one another knowing. Many of the organizations presented in the book aren't actually secret (like the Church of the Silver Flame), and those that are generally forces the adventurers would oppose or work for as a unit, not as individuals (such as the Dreaming Dark). It's not like Indiana Jones is going to stop and say "Followers of Kali? Huh. What kind of pension plan you got going for you?"
With that said, Eberron is a world of shades of grey. Sometime's it's obvious, but you may not always know if you're doing the right thing by working for or opposing a specific group. Even with the Church of the Silver Flame -- heck, the priest you're dealing with could always be a shadow of the Dreaming Dark. But again, that's an issue the party should face together as opposed to something that drives them apart.
Dal Quor and the Dreaming Dark
The Dreaming Dark controls and shapes the heart of Dal Quor. Mortal dreamers appear on the unformed fringes of the realm.
...Do you know that YOU don't go to another plane when you dream? If I told you that you did, would you be able to find your loved ones at night? For the quori, Dal Quor is home -- they know the geography, they are always lucid, they can teleport around. A mortal dreamer will have a more difficult time. Lucid dreaming is not something that is explored in any detail in the initial book. It may be developed as the planes are developed, it it's something you can always do yourself, or as someone mentioned earlier, my Oneiromancy chapter from Atlas Games' Occult Lore would certainly fit right in. As for other organizations -- as it stands the Dreaming Dark is the only organized force in Dal Quor. But if you made an order of oneiromancers and wanted them to have a citadel in the fringes of dreams, I wouldn't stop you. It's a big place.
You know how a few minutes of dreaming can seem like an hour in the dream? [That's why time passes more quickly there.] But if you dream that you are preparing spells, you aren't going to have the spells in the morning.
Generally, your dream is a reflection of your mind -- unless an outside force intrudes on the dream, you are shaping a small pocket of Dal Quor... If you move deeper into the realm, you will encounter the "static" geography of the plane. Personally, I would require a skill or spell to become lucid -- take a look at Occult Lore if you want to get a sense of what I'd do. Perhaps I (or someone else) will come up with a Dal Quor-specific system in the future, but obviously I like the Occult Lore system, since I wrote it. :)
Even if the Dreaming Dark are the most organized and powerful force in Dal Quor, there are other spirits in the realm -- and there could be ghosts of dreamers or other strange things. A prophetic dream could be a message from one of the inhabitants of the realm, or it could be information gathered from the subconscious minds of other dreamers -- a warning about a war picked up from the mind of the man who plans to start it. Really, that's up to the DM.
I will say that the heart of Dal Quor is shaped by the Dreaming Dark itself -- and it's going to be hard for a single mortal mind to go up against that and win.
In Eberron, people generally have some vague knowledge of the planes because of the issue of coterminous planes, but there's a big difference between scholarly knowledge and folklore. I'd be inclined to say that many people do believe that you go to Dal Quor in your dreams -- but only sages will know any solid facts. Other people may believe all sorts of wild stories: you can be trapped there forever, you can be killed by your nightmares, if you keep making that face it will stick that way, and so on. Since it
would take remarkable skill or luck to communicate with someone in a dream, most people will not believe that it is possible.
The incursion from Dal Quor occurred on Xen'drik thousands of years earlier [than the Xoriat invasion].
The Inspired have been more active in the courts of Khorvaire in recent decades, as has the Dreaming Dark. Regardless of whether they arranged Jarod's demise, it has certainly served their interests well...
In his first incarnation, he actually
was a higher level character. He was dropped in power so that he could be a foe PCs can personally interact with earlier in their careers. I would certainly consider him to be a villian who should evolve with the party -- he will gain experience and power just as they do. I may post my stats for the higher-level LoB at some point.
While it's not specifically said, he's also a villain that should always have an escape plan. He's a master strategist, and if he gets to choose the battlefield he'll have lots of tricks prepared. Between infusions, magic
items, duplicates, and other tricks, he should keep enemies on their toes.
The Lord of Blades is in many ways a fantasy Dr. Doom. He's a talented artificer, a deadly opponent, and while he's a villain, he's a hero to his people. And yes, that was what I was thinking with duplicates.
As for alignment, I think it's all a matter of how you view alignment, with Eberron being a little shadier than most. As I said before, I see the LoB as having a lot in common with (at least certain presentations of) Doctor Doom -- that he truly cares about his people, that they love him, but that he is completely ruthless when is comes to dealing with his enemies. Humans don't deserve any better: he was built to kill humans, and he'll show them what a good job they did building him.
Obviously it's your call, and I'm glad you have so many ideas for him. But I like him as a complex villain: a villain who has a reason for his hatred, whose philosophies warforged PCs need to think about. But someone human PCs will have a hard time coming to grips with. He shouldn't end up shaking the hand of your Cannith artificer and saying "Sorry about all the bad press I've been getting, really I'd like to congratulate you on a damn fine job."
In my mind, "hatred of weak-fleshed creatures" is just a short, simple way of describing his actions. His actual motivation is considerably more complex, and I'd say that it involves the following elements (among others):
* Humans created the warforged to fight their wars. The Lord of Blades feels that it's time for them to reap what they have sown. I see this less as the standard sci-fi "humanity is inferior and must be replaced" and more as an issue of slave uprising -- "They created us to die in their service -- now it's their turn."
* With that said, the Lord of Blades does believe that the warforged are inherently superior to organic creatures, because the warforged are creatures of conscious design, as opposed to creatures molded by nature (the
Lord of Blades not believing in any sort of divine creation). Thus, I don't see him having a problem with using flesh as a building material if the end result truly is a superior creature. It's not the material that is the issue: it's the means of creation.
There are far worse things than the Lord of Blades out there, both in terms of power and character. Powerwise, he's only a 12th-level character, even if he does have access to significant resources and followers. The
Lord of Blades is a challenge that will grow in power with the adventurers, but he's got a ways to go. Character-wise, while he wants to do in humanity, the Lord of Blades has reasons for his anger and he cares about the warforged; if it serves the best interests of the warforged, perhaps he will some day back down from his militant agenda (looking to comic super-villians again, Magneto was with the X-Men for quite a while). There's a lot of gray in the world, and the LoB is part of that. But there is also clear light and darkness -- and the pure darkness isn't pretty.
Eladrins are from Thelanis. You've only seen a very brief description of the planes; the
Campaign Setting book gives far more information about the planes and their inhabitants. There are certainly vast cities on the planes; the vast fortresses of Shavarath, the twilight citadel of Thelanis, the dark heart of Dal Quor. With that said, interplanar travel is uncommon. The inhabitants of the planes are defined by their environment, and most have little interest in interactions with other planes. The battle on Shavarath is not like the Blood War. It is not a battle that ever can be won, or that any of the parties expect to win: they fight because it is their nature and their purpose. What would a warrior of Shavarath do in Thelanis? Why would the lords of Thelanis welcome such an individual? I see outsiders as being more primal in nature than most mortals -- just as in many Earthly religions, free will is something that is largely unique to mortals.
Of course, there are always exceptions. If you have a great idea for a story, go with it. Perhaps a group of warrior outsiders from Shavarath laid claim to a battlefield on Eberron in the height of the Last War. Maybe there's a crossroads hidden in the astral plane where atypical outsiders have established a multicultural communtiy. But it's not part of the foundation of the setting.
In regards to Asmodeus & Demogorgon specifically, I haven't placed them in the world. They aren't in the current core books, and in my mind they are unique characters that I think of in conjunction with the existing settings. On top of which, characters like Asmodeus, Belial, et al are beings from earthly mythology. I'd rather start anew with fresh set of extraplanar figures. The Devourer of Dreams from Dal Quor; Belashyrra, the Lord of Eyes, the Daelkyr who is said to have created the first beholders; and so on. Just because the gods are mysterious doesn't mean that there aren't powerful extraplanar threats to deal with -- remember, the last conjunction with Xoriat almost destroyed civilization on Khorvaire.
Again, however, if you want to throw Demogorgon into Shavarath, or slot Eberron into the Great Wheel, more power to
you!
The native fiends -- the Lords of Dust -- are engaged in a wide variety of schemes, both political and otherwise. The Dreaming Dark is a force of outsiders working to manipulate the world. But the majority of extraplanar outsiders are more interested in their own planes than Eberron. Demons and devils are scattered throught the various planes, as suits their nature.
Manifest zones exist outside of the regular cycle of the planes. In a sense, a manifest zone is a region in which the plane is always considered to be either coterminous or remote, although the effects can be more unusual than the normal effects of the planar cycle.
A ranger or druid werebear with ties to the Greensinger sect would be perfectly at home in the Faerie Court of Thelanis. A wizard could also find a place in the Faerie Court, and moving between the worlds is very easy, especially in the Twilight Desmene of the Eldeen Reaches. This makes the cities of Thelanis one of the better locations for interplanar traffic. However, where you will find a problem is with the flowing time aspect of Thelanis (time passed more quickly on Eberron than on Thelanis, and this can catch up with you). On the plus side, this means that you could have fled the crusade into Thelanis, and you are only just returning. On the down side, unless you're a member of a long-lived race, aging will be a problem -- though as a DM, I could certainly see one of the nobles of Thelanis granting you a blessing that protects you from aging on your return.
Thelanis itself is also a good realm for adventuring; anything you could find in a faerie tale or story of the otherworld could be found there.
In the case of Lammania, you could perhaps slip through a manifest zone when the planes were coterminous. In terms of cities, you have the civilizations of the genie (dao, marid, djinni) and guardinals, but for the most part Lammania is a realm of primal nature and the elements.