Exploring Eberron: The Cover

Eberron: Rising From The Last War is out in the world, but I’d still hard at work on my next project. Rising provides a basic introduction to the setting, while Exploring Eberron delves deeper into aspects of the world that have received relatively little attention—from the aquatic nations of the Thunder Sea to the newly introduced idea of the Mror dwarves working with symbionts. As part of the development cycle we commissioned new art from a host of fantastic artists. The image above is the mock-up of the front cover; below you can see the full wrap-around image, designed by artist Thomas Bourdon.

In developing the book, Wayne Chang and I developed a few iconic characters who appear in multiple images. Here they’re dealing with a few friends from Dal Quor (note the portal in the background), which ties to the planar content in the book. But each one has their own story. Ban is a golin’dar (goblin) rogue with ties to the Sharaat’khesh. Dela Harn d’Cannith is an artificer with the Mark of Making, pursuing research forbidden by her house. Rev is a warforged barbarian who’s been extensively repaired and tinkered on by Dela; his name is short for “Revenant,” after a comrade remarked on the number of times Dela brought him back to life. Rusty is a dwarf warlock and wandslinger from the Mror Holds. And Gentle is a kalashtar monk. If you’re wondering what’s up with her claws, Gentle and Dela are both using subclass options presented in the book, while Rusty’s symbionts are also in the book.

Let me know what you think of the cover! And thanks as always to my Patreon supporters!

65 thoughts on “Exploring Eberron: The Cover

  1. This cover is beautiful! Also very excited for each of the characters they seem very intriguing. Hooray for more khesh’dar!

  2. Awesome cover. And wow the E: RftLW book is fantastic. Chock full of ideas and hooks! Thanks Keith!!

  3. I love this because it is cool. I hate it because it is a tease of SOMETHING THAT IS NOT DONE YET! I WANT IT NAO! 🙂

    Seriously, this is some ultra-professional stuff, rivaling or exceeding the standard art we see in big-house RPG publishers. Well done, well done indeed.

  4. I agree with the wallpaper idea with an option for a mobile wallpaper as well lol.

    Kalashtar Monk with Claws? I’M IN!!! Can’t wait for the book, Keith!

  5. The Cover looks amazing and I absolutely adore RftLW, I do want to know although probably unlikely. Will any of these features from this book be supported on D&D Beyond? or would they need to be ported over?

    • You can technically add it yourself as Homebrew Content. That is what I do. The process is fairly simple, especially if you pull up your PDF and just cut and paste the text blocks for the subclass, spell, magic item etc. I would just ensure you are in no fashion sharing it with anyone else as that would rob the hard work of the authors!

      • Oh most definitely, I bought RftLW twice to give support to the setting and plan on doing the same for Exploring Eberron, like Khyber will I not give my support to my favorite Cowboy. I plan on only sharing it with my D&D group for my Eberron Campaign.

      • xD

        I’ve ran 20yrs of DnD now, and I’ve ran Strahd, I’ve ran Event Horizon like campaigns.. but Mordains little friends are the first time I’ve ever had a party scared of a place in and out of game.

        Going back this last year has really reignited my love for the game. Thanks for all you do Mr. Baker. Can’t wait to order the hard cover!

        • Hey! Gotta give props and get details on your Event Horizon adventure! I love that movie!

          I did my own 3.5 Event Horizon Adventure with a sapient Flying Citadel as a combo Darklord and Domain in Ravenloft. Goooood times!

    • Per Keith’s response to my query below about the Druidic sects, he says EE doesn’t go too deeply into The Reaches.
      Sounds like it’s probably a little further down the roster for consideration.

  6. I’m looking forward much more for this book than I was for Rising from the last war. I’m not running 5E anyways so I don’t need any rules updates anyways. But adding to the Eberron lore is what I’m really interested in, so this seems to be a must have.

    Oh and I really like the cover art. Aaaand as someone who absolutely loved those little vignettes in the classes chapter of the original campaign book (Thondred, Azm and all the other guys), I really hope that you’ll do the same with the Iconics mentioned above

  7. I’ll second a call for a wallpaper like this. Or third. However many people have asked.

    Also, somebody said hardcover. Aren’t these just PDFs? Or am I wrong about that?

  8. You going to sell us this one twice too? Wayfinder is still a bit too fresh in folks’ minds for you to be doing this again.

    • You do realize that the WGTE/RFTLW bit was all WOTC, right? Wayfinders was a pure Keith production that WOTC picked up and expanded upon with 200 more pages of content because lots of people wanted more Eberron content, and wanted a hardcover to boot. If you don’t care for the pieces that are new in Rising (Group Patrons, Ch.4 Eberron adventures, two artificer subclasses, the bestiary, plus the expanded gazetteer) you don’t have to buy it!

    • Really? Way to be a jackass.

      You basically paid for early access. You got to enjoy playing in Eberron once more in the newest edition, and all you can do is complain.

      More than that, WGtE was Keith’s work, not a Wizards thing. Thanks to WGtE, we actually got Rising. Without the one, the second wouldn’t have happened.

      • I mean I bought the WGtE gladly and I’m not bothered at all by content being reprinted in Rising.

        Buddy up there just feels entitled to something for nothing. I don’t buy 5e content because it’s mostly freely available (legitimately) but I do buy the Eberron stuff, because my purchase is how I show I support Eberron content.

        But still, good for “Once Burned” who chose to not tie their comment to their name, I’d assume because they’d still like to reap the FREE content Keith Baker provides on the regular. Have to admire that courage.

    • I see your concern – however, (from how I understand it), Keith is in the process of creating various books from the massive content on his site here… not repeating content.

      About Wayfinders – that was, how I see it, a WotC lie (or gross miscommunication)
      How it was perceived by many, was that all the content in the book would be the same as the published hardcover book.

      Water under the bridge… I have the Special Edition, looks nice – I knew going into it (purchasing the Wayfinders guide) I would be getting the hardcover anyway…

      Yes, they could have communicated better.
      And yes, I would love to see the books from Keith as actual Hardcover books available for worldwide shipping on Amazon from Wotc. (Tired of the Realms – never wanted it) 🙂

      The cover is already tons better than the two attempts from Wotc (minus the Special Edition, which is beautiful)

      Also Keiths other Eberron 5e book, Morgrave Misc., has better art than the official Wotc Wayfinder… (go Keith!) 🙂

  9. Wow, love the cover and can’t wait for the book!! Is there any chance there will be a print-to-order option for a physical copy, or pdf only?

  10. It looks very interesting and where Eberron is concerned there can never be enough material. Between its Harn like adherence to keeping a consistent timeline or its open mysteries waiting to be exploited its a world with endless possibilities.

    The Artwork truly feels Eberron inspired.

  11. I know that the warforged subclasses have been replaced by warforged specific feats, but they are not in the Rising from the Last war sourcebook. Is this where the warforged feats will be?

    • There will be a few feats for warforged in Exploring Eberron, but bear in mind that this will not be official content.

  12. On the note of Exploring Eberron, is there a chance that siege staffs or livewood arbalests will be in the book or is that too much of a spoiler?

  13. Will we be getting Feats or sub-classes for the Druidic Sects? I love me some Children of Winter and Gatekeepers!
    Oh, and something akin to the Impyre Prince prestige class?

    Seriously, I can’t wait to have this in my hands!

    • Exploring Eberron doesn’t delve deeply into the Eldeen Reaches. I’d love to explore the Reaches and the Druidic sects in a future book, but there’s a lot of topics I’d love to write about, and I had to make some choices.

      • Fair ’nuff, of course! There’s ALWAYS something else, but never enough time, right?

        Just appreciative of every little bit of Eberron I can get!
        Will the iconics get statted out in “Exploring” or possibly in these pages?

        • The iconics aren’t given stat blocks in Exploring Eberron, but it could definitely happen on this website if it’s something patrons want to see!

    • Right now, it’s a moving target. While we’ve already begun editing and layout, there’s material I’m still adding, and between holidays and PAX Unplugged time is in short supply. I’ll make an announcement when we have a concrete date.

  14. Superb cover !!
    Will Q’barra be expanded on ?
    I know some lizardfolks dying to know more 😉

    • I’m afraid Q’barra isn’t in the scope, though I’d love to work on it in the future (as I’m running a campaign there!)

  15. The cover – looks like what I expected from WotC with the official release!
    (They missed it with both covers – though, I have the beautiful Special Edition!)

    Really wish this was hardcover and available through Amazon Worldwide shipping.
    You have a ton of stuff on your site (larger than a typical books worth of info)
    * Be amazing if all of this makes it into the various projects you are doing.

    Happy Holidays! (Congrats – the official Eberron book has been a very pleasant read thus far…also have the Wayfinders guide)

  16. I don’t suppose this is far enough along to get a look at the table of contents? 🙂

  17. Omg… I’ve been SOjazzed about 5e Eberron, ever since wayfinder’s came out… how did I NOT KNOW THIS WAS A THING?!?!

    Can’t express how excited I am. I love my RftLW, but there’s so much Eberron content from 3.5, I had to accept that it couldn’t all fit in one book.

    This might be silly, but with the release hopefully approaching, can you comment as to whether we might see yet another release down the road? For that matter, do you see yourself writing any more Eberron novels? I’m a huge fan of the Thorn of Breland books! XD

    In summary; I will buy everything you make. Thank you for your efforts!

    • I certainly intend to keep creating new Eberron content for the DM’s Guild after ExE, but I can’t tell you if there will be more official content. As for novels, I’d LOVE to write more Eberron novels, but that’s up to Wizards of the Coast; at the moment the license for the DM’s Guild doesn’t include fiction. We’ll see if that changes!

      • That would be fantastic!

        Very much looking forward to ExE and opening up the fiction licence …. nice. Am reading through various old novels from the 00s. Great for ideas and developing the setting. Wish their font size was bigger for my ageing eyes though!

        Stay safe Keith!

  18. Curious what that monster in the background that the monk is fighting is? Is that something new that’s being introduced in this book or is it something that already exists in one of the earlier publications?

    • That’s a du’ulora quori, a nightmare spirit that feeds on anger. They first appeared in Secrets of Sarlona.

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