Anime Eberron

[Night Goat]

I've been reading Eberron sourcebooks, and...wow. I'm amazed by how good this setting is, and I really want to DM an Eberron campaign. I've never played in one before; what experiences have you guys had?

 

[Ulminati]

Eberron is the best setting ever. 3.5ed books are the best. Ignore the 4e sourcebooks. There's some decent pulpy eberron novels around too that make good reads for public traffic. Eberron is basically Indiana Jones with wizards.

 

[Xathrodox86]

I'm not that familiar with D&D, but is Eberron sort of a Fantasy-with-tech setting? I was thinking about giving some D&D a try within my group, but Forgotten Realms make my skin crawl and I'm afraid to run Ravenloft.

 

[Ulminati]

Eberron is D&D 3.5e with the relatively abundance of magic taken to its logical extreme. There's a ton ow low-level pseudowizards (Magewrights) who craft items of convenience rather than mass destruction.

There are 3 main themes in eberron adventures. There's the Indiana Jones ruin exploration (Giant/Elf empires in Xen'Drik, Goblin empires of Darguun); Political intrigue (cold war between several nations after the 100-year war plus competition between dragonmarked houses) and pulpy Noir detective stories (especially in Sharn). You also have a few world-ending threats if you want a classical save the world campaign. (Lords of Ash for demons, Cthulhu Horrors in the Daelkyr, Soviet mind-readers/Cthulhu with the Inspired and Dreaming Dark).

Look up some old numbers of dungeon magazine. I recommend the Chimes at Midnight/Quoth the Raven/Hells Heart as a good source of inspiration for a detective adventure. Of the Novels, the Doom of Kings/The Word of Traitors/The Tyranny of ghosts was decently entertaining. (Same as pulpy 40k novels). The Binding Stone/Grieving Tree/Killing song has some of the same characters and is technically a prequel. But the writing was also a bit worse. I also recall finding Bound by Iron and Legacy of Wolves good for what they were at the time.

One of the great things about the 3.5e sourcebooks is that they're 95% fluff with descriptions of places and peoples and only 5% splat in the form of new feats and items. I paticularly liked the Sharn shourcebook and the Last War sourcebook.

 

[Grunker]

If you want to do the Indiana Jones thing, I can recommend this.

Its themes and adventures fit right into Eberron, you only need to do small modifications. No one wants to play in Golarion after all.

 

[Xathrodox86]

Thanks a ton people. I'm really interested in Eberron now. Seems like a great change in style from standard D&D modules.

 

[Grunker]

I'm really interested in Eberron now. Seems like a great change in style from standard D&D modules.

Eh, Eberron is really overrated IMO. Most high fantasy worlds are the same, and changing setting won't save your game. I find myself playing more and more games in Forgotten Realms simply because the most important part of the setting is a base of reference for my players. Otherwise choose an actual fresh setting that isn't high fantasy BUT WITH X.

 

[Xathrodox86]

Eh, Eberron is really overrated IMO. Most high fantasy worlds are the same, and changing setting won't save your game. I find myself playing more and more games in Forgotten Realms simply because the most important part of the setting is a base of reference for my players. Otherwise choose an actual fresh setting that isn't high fantasy BUT WITH X.

Right now we're playing Hunter: The Reckoning and have an absolute blast with it. Storytelling this game is awesome.

 

[Caim]

One of the great things about the 3.5e sourcebooks is that they're 95% fluff with descriptions of places and peoples and only 5% splat in the form of new feats and items. I paticularly liked the Sharn shourcebook and the Last War sourcebook.

Yeah, I was just going through the Faiths of Eberron book and it's mostly fluff aside from the odd prestige class here and there and only the last dozen pages or so are pure crunch. Good stuff.

 

[Ulminati]

Eh, Eberron is really overrated IMO. Most high fantasy worlds are the same, and changing setting won't save your game. I find myself playing more and more games in Forgotten Realms simply because the most important part of the setting is a base of reference for my players. Otherwise choose an actual fresh setting that isn't high fantasy BUT WITH X.

 

[Ebonsword]

I'm not that familiar with D&D, but is Eberron sort of a Fantasy-with-tech setting? I was thinking about giving some D&D a try within my group, but Forgotten Realms make my skin crawl and I'm afraid to run Ravenloft.

Give Greyhawk a shot. It's a far better setting than Forgotten Realms.

 

[Caim]

Greyhawk beats Forgotten Realms because you're able to write your own stories without conflicting with canon stuff.

Seriously, in Faerun you can't throw a rock without hitting something that has at least one book written about it.

 

[Ulminati]

In Faerun you can't take a piss without soaking the boots of a lv 20+ NPC.

 

[Havoc]

And that's why I, when GM, don't care about books taking place in FR. "You only need to read the campaign setting. The rest will be from what I feed you." and since it's one of the most favourite (and used in video games) setting, the players already know much about it to easily make characters. Personally, I like it too, because of the "diversity" of the world.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

FR is my go-to setting if I'm GMing a game that is both:

A)Going to consist of experienced players
B)Something I want to put minimal prep-time into

Pretty much everything in FR is designed as a fantasy analogue to something in the real world, and I find that quality makes it very easy to improvise plots and characters while also retaining reference points for my players.

That said, I really haven't kept up with anything from WotC since the launch-days of 4e, and I never paid much attention to Eberron (seemed like a lamer version of Arcanum, but with golems as PCs),

Can any bros catch me up on the differences between FR/Golarion/Eberron?

 

[hakuroshi]

Golarion is basically FR for Pathfinder. Different names, and geography is even more earth-like. Less emphasis on uber-NPCs as well. Still a kitchen-sink where a lot of good-fleshed regions do not fit together at all.
Never played Eberron. Seems to be more cohesive and aiming to be more original in themes then FR etc. A lot of routine necromancy, aberrations and techno-magic.

 

[Ulminati]

There were some very good adventures for Eberron in Dungeon magazine. If you can get your hand on a stack of them in print or PDF, I reccomend checking out the following for inspiration:

- Fallen Angel (Dungeon # 117) - Very good (somewhat tough) dungeon crawl that explores why one of Sharn's most famous towers collapsed during the last war. tha antagonist also made an appearance in one of the novels... Son of Khyber if memory serves.
- Whispers of the Vampires blade (Published module) - So-so as modules go, but it has some very nice set-piece encounters.
- Murder in Oakbridge (Dungeon #129) - A very nice murder mystery. Race against time to stop an assassing from killing off residents of the neighborhood for revenge.
- Chimes at Midnight (Dungon #133), Quote the Raven (#150) and Hells heart (used to be free on the WotC site, you may have to look around for it) - A very nice trilogy that pits you against a deranged detective. He made a very good recurring villain and has a flair for dramatic murders. Has a very nice Batman/Gotham feel to it
- The Aundarian Job (Dungeon #147) a bank heist to retrieve a cursed artifact from a dragonmarked house of dwarves
- Crypt of the Crimson stars (Dungeon #123), Temple of the Scorpion God (#124) and Pit of the Fire Lord (#125) are a nice indiana jones esque romp to Xen'Drik.
- Queen with Burning Eyes (Dungeon #113) a pretty decent low-level dungeoncrawl in Undersharn.

As for the books, they fall squarely in the pulpy side. If you don't expect great litterature, you can dig up some old paperbacks/ebooks. I used to read them when I was stuck in the airport, on a train or on the toilet. Of the more tolerable are:
- Bound by Iron/Legacy of Wolves - 2 decentish detective books where people are trying to figure out whudunit. Both feature Paladins that aren't utter retards, so that's nice.
- The Binding Stone/The Grieving Tree/The killing Song - It's ok as Eberron books go. But the human mage really got on my nerves. Two of the main characters goes on to have a much better adventure
- The Doom of Kings/Word of Traitors(Tyranny of Ghosts - The aforementioned much better adventure. Shifter drifter inadvertedly gets involved in politics in the goblinoid kingdom of Darguun
- The city of Towers/The Shattered Land/The Gates of night - kind of bleh.. the high points are a good tour of Xen'Drik and an introduction to the Sulatar/Scorpion sects of drow. Also shows some of the lost giant civilization and touches on the (real) origin of warforged. It also features the Dreaming Dark, which makes a great antagonist if you're going to make your own campaign.
- The Queen of Stone/The Son of Khyber/The Fading Dream - not much good to say about these. The first one showcases Droaam, which is an interesting country run by night hags and inhabited by semi-civilized monsters. The son of Khyber is the only canon reference I've found that explores the war of the mark (and it features someone from the trilogy above). The Fading Dream was trash. Overall the weakest of the trilogies I chewed through.

As sourcebooks go, you should definitely check out the following:
- Sharn: city of Towers. The gold standard by which all sourcebooks should be judged. Gives you a complete overview of all the districts, plot hooks, notable NPCs, history, the works. highly recommended.
- Five Nations: Has some really good datadumps on the human nations of Khorvaire. If you're not looking to go to Xen'Drik, sarlona or Sharn, this book is practically mandatory
- Secrets of Xen'Drik. Is the one you want for wilderness exploration and ancient ruins. If you want an Indiana Jones feel to your adventures, this is a good one to start with.
- City of Stormreach. A nice companion book for Secrets of Xen'Drik, detialing the only major city on the continent.
- The Forge of War. has a lot of info on th emajor battle of The Last War. Very nice if you want to roll back the timeline a bit and place the players as a special forces group of one of the nations. People often forget that Eberron is set a few years after a 100-year world war. There's a lot of angry veterans out there and most organizations expect the war to flare up again. It's a bit like 1960s europe.

 

[Night Goat]

Hakuroshi is spot-on about Golarion, it's FR with the serial numbers filed off. Eberron is very different however. Here are some things that set it apart from most other settings:

• Magic is an integral part of the world, and is used for things other than combat. For example, there are magical trains and airships. In a lot of ways, it's sort of like sci-fi but with magic instead of technology. The warforged are more than just golems; they're more like sci-fi androids, with all the themes that implies. There's a continent dominated by alien invaders from another plane, who have created a dystopia where everyone is provided for but no one is free. There's also a post-apocalyptic region where everything is mutated from a cataclysmic event in a magical war.
  
• Alignment is downplayed, morality is rarely black-and-white.
• The gods don't interact with the world, and may not even exist.
• There's room for pulp adventures and dungeon crawls, but also for politics and intrigue. There's a lot of factions and they're pretty interesting.
• There aren't a lot of high-level NPCs in the setting. The heroes have a reason to do things because there isn't an Elminster who could fix everything on his own.

 

[mastroego]

Golarion is basically FR for Pathfinder. Different names, and geography is even more earth-like. Less emphasis on uber-NPCs as well. Still a kitchen-sink where a lot of good-fleshed regions do not fit together at all.

Well, to be fair, the fit together at least as much as Real Earth Regions fit together, if you think about it.
I'm playing PF right now (on roll20) and I think the setting might be the best part of it. It's really well done.
Of course, I despise the anime art though.

 

[Night Goat]

Pretty much everywhere on Golarion is a theme-park version of a real place. This means it's easy to familiarize yourself with the setting, but you probably won't see much that you haven't seen before.

 

[Ulminati]

Pretty much what night goat. On Khorvaire (the main continent), most major NPCs are level 3-8. In Sharn, the biggest city in the world, there's a grand total of 3 NPCs who would be able to cast Raise Dead. (One is evil, one is in hiding and won't do it and the last is so wrapped up in politics players would be unlikely to ever get an audience). Levels get a bit higher on Xen'Drik and all bets are off on Argonessen... But those aren't places regular people go to.

The magic is an integral part basically takes the already abundant magic of settings like FR and puts it to use to more sensible commercial use. The Dragonmarked houses all have an affinity for a few types of magic in the form of their dragonmarks, and have specialized. (EG: The ones who can manipulate the weather do rainfall for farms and run a very lucrative fleet of ships with gust of wind or bound air elementals. The ones who can purify food&water run inns etc).

There's a lot of nice intrigue going on too. Some of the dragonmarked houses interests overlap (most notably House Lyrandar who does airships and sea ships and House Orien who has the Lightning Rail and teleportation platforms for high-end customers). But on top of that, all the major nations just came out of a major war. There used to be one giant empire on Khorvaire. That split into 5 kingdoms when the succession lines got unclear and 100 years of war followed. One nation was wiped out (Cyre), others popped up as mercenary companies defected and started up their own shit (Valenar Elves, Darguun Goblinoids) or just decided to strike while the humans were busy bickering (Droaam). The war has just ended a few years ago when Cyre (now the Mournland) got hit by a magic nuke from an unknown party. (Actually, the reason is given in The Fading Dream, but it's a crap book so disregard it. It's also more interesting as a Mystary). Now all the nations are licking their wounds and trying to get an advantage on the others for when the conflict flares back up again. all the major nations have secret service branches that frequently employ adventurers to spy for them.

Also, Karrnath are the Tru Bros that basically work like a mix between Prussia and Transylvania with undead. Breland are the (corrupt) kapitalist peeg-dogz. Thrane are religious fanatics who already tried to genocide one race (shifters). Aundair are magicfags anf act like a decadent mix of renaissance French and British. Cyre got blown up and are no more. Valenar are a bit like Mongols/Dothraki from GoT, except they're Elves. They were mercenaries in the employ of Cyre who turne don their employers. Q'barra is a frontier settlement that's not explored much on the official source material. Darguun is like Valenar, except it's Hobgoblins, Goblins and Bugbears. They also had a huge empire that spanned most of Khorvaire thousands of years ago, which theyr'e trying to rebuild. Zilargo is where the gnomes live. They love intrigue and backstabbing and can get really unpleasant. Droaam is another monster nation, led by night hags and inhabited by ogres, gnolls, gargoyles, harpies, medusas and the like. They aren't formally recognized as a nation yet, but they're pushing for it. Shadow marches is a mix of orcs, human and drooamite culture. Another "frontier" area. It's explored in the Binding ston and Grieving Tree. Demon wastes is a high-level area full of Nasty Evil Stuff and generally the purview of things "normal" Eberron adventurers shouldn't meddle with. It's essentially mordor. Mror Holds are stereotypical dwarf mountainhomes and Lhazaar principialities are youur typical pirate islands. Nothing to see here. :3

Not pictures are Sarlona, where Humans originally came from. now a communist hell-hole ruled by mind-reading night mares from (literally) the plane of nightmares.Argonessen is where all the dragons went to after they had a big fight ith demons long ago. It's another high-level continent that's not really detailed much in the core books. To the south is Xen'Drik, which is the "new world" in Eberron. A jungle nation that used to be inhabited by a highly advanced civilization of giants until they nearly wiped out the world fighting the mind-reading nightmares from sarlona. Then the dragons came and wiped out the giants. There are some settlements on Xen'Drik now and a lot of adventurers go there to loot giant ruins. Stuck between Khorvaire and Xen'Drik there's Aerenal, the other Elf Nation. These guys are obsessed with their ancestors to such a degree that they reanimate them as immortal, undead "councilors" in their holy city. They have a pretty funky religion going there. they're a bit reclusive and there's not much reason for non-elves to go visit them. But they do a brisk trade with the five nations, so you are likely to meet their envoys and diplomats in major cities on Khorvaire.

There's quite a lot of country-hopping in many Eberron campaigns, due to the prevelance of high-speed transports like Lyrandar airships and the Orion Lightning rail. And the sourcebooks do a good job of detailing the different nations. A halfway competent GM can make them all feel like new and exciting places, unlike FR/Golarion where every place feels like more or less the same.

 

[Night Goat]

In Sharn, the biggest city in the world, there's a grand total of 3 NPCs who would be able to cast Raise Dead.

Aaackshually, the biggest city in the world is Durat Tal in Riedra, with a population over three times that of Sharn.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Yeah sorry, I should have been more clear. I'm very familiar with both FR and Golarion, I was trying to ask what sets Eberron apart from them.

Ulminati awesome reference list. Will have to check these out. Thank you much.

 

[Ulminati]

In Sharn, the biggest city in the world, there's a grand total of 3 NPCs who would be able to cast Raise Dead.

Aaackshually, the biggest city in the world is Durat Tal in Riedra, with a population over three times that of Sharn.

Don't believe the communist propaganda.

In Khorvaire when it is night, you go to sleep and have dreams. In Soviet Rierdra, dreams have YOU!

 

[Xathrodox86]

I'm not that familiar with D&D, but is Eberron sort of a Fantasy-with-tech setting? I was thinking about giving some D&D a try within my group, but Forgotten Realms make my skin crawl and I'm afraid to run Ravenloft.

Give Greyhawk a shot. It's a far better setting than Forgotten Realms.

What about Mystara and Dark Sun? I know that DS is very unique in it's post-apoc style, but I was wondering about Mystara, the base for one of the best beat em' ups in history.