Monsters of Eberron: The Bodak

Posted on September 2, 2024 by Keith Baker

*The bodak. Art from Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse.*

The plane of Mabar embodies the end of all things. It hungers to consume all light and life. It is one of the most common origins for the restless dead, as the corpse becomes a conduit for the hunger of Mabar, a vessel through which it can consume life energy. This can be seen in the bloodlust of the vampire or the life-draining touch of the wight, but it is especially obvious in the vile bodak. This creature has a hollow void where its soul once was—a direct channel to the Eternal Night. When it opens this maw, a bodak emanates an aura of annihilation, sucking the life force of all things around it down into Mabar. Worse still, the eyes of a bodak are pits of shadow that rip at the soul of anyone who meets its gaze, tearing out the essence of the victim and pulling it down into the relentless void within the bodak.

Bodaks rarely rise on their own. A bodak can only be formed from the corpse of someone who has studied the necromantic arts or devoted themselves to a malefic spirit—someone whose soul has already been scarred by their choices. Their master consumes the soul of the servant and uses it to create a bridge to Mabar. But the master maintains a tie to the bodak that remains until its final death. A bodak’s master knows everything the foul creature sees or hears… and if they so choose, the master can assume direct control of a bodak and speak with its voice. The great explorer Bendolos Bin Dolas once faced a bodak that spoke with the voice of the Keeper itself, demanding a toll in souls for safe passage. It is possible a once-mortal creature such as a lich or vampire of great power could create a bodak of its own—a servant who could serve as their eyes and ears within the world, preserving their master from any exposure or risk.
Dorius Alyre ir’korran, the Manual Maleficent

In the past, I’ve talked about the role of Sphinxes, Perytons, Cyclopes, Lamias, and Hags in Eberron. Going forward, I’m going to make this a make this a regular series of articles—considering the roles of interesting creatures in the setting. The bodak was requested by one of my patrons in August; I’ll be posting polls on Patreon to determine the subjects of future articles. In the meantime…

WHAT’S A BODAK?

Like many creatures in Dungeons & Dragons, the bodak has its roots in real-world mythology but has ventured far from those roots. The gaelic bodach is alternately a trickster spirit or a harbinger of doom and death. D&D made the bodak an evil being distinguished by a deadly gaze. Different editions give it different origins, but I’m drawing on the Fifth Edition lore and mechanics—saying that a bodak was once a mortal servant of a malevolent entity and now acts as an extension of its master. Keeping that in mind, let’s look at the distinguishing mechanical features of the Fifth Edition bodak, as presented in Monsters of the Multiverse.

Corporeal Undead. The 5E bodak is a medium undead creature. It is immune to necrotic and poison damage; resistant to cold, fire, and non-magical bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage. It can’t be charmed, frightened, or poisoned, and it doesn’t eat, drink, or sleep. In my campaign, all of this reflects the fact that it is an animated corpse. It’s not that it is actually resistant to physical damage—that a sword can’t penetrate its flesh—it’s that wounds that would hurt a living creature are irrelevant to the bodak. You can drive a spear into its heart and it doesn’t care, because it’s not using its heart any more. Reducing a bodak to zero hit points means that you are destroying it—crushing bones or severing body parts until there’s not enough left of it to pose a threat. This is something I like to call out when fighting corporeal undead because it’s so different from fighting living creatures. Hit points can reflect skill or luck, an enemy parrying your attack or slipping out of your reach. But when hit the bodak for 20 slashing damage, I’ll say that your blade sinks deep into its arm, severing its bicep—a crippling blow—but that it just swats the blade aside and reaches out for you. I want to emphasize that this is a walking corpse. Its resistance to fire damage isn’t because it can’t be burnt; it’s because it doesn’t feel the flames.

Sunlight Sensitivity. A bodak suffers 5 points of radiant damage when it starts its turn in sunlight, and has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks while in sunlight. I’d highlight that the bodak is a corpse animated by shadow—and that sunlight eats away at that animating force. It’s not that the bodak physically burns; it’s that it hisses and writhes in agony, that the shadows in its eye and mouth boil away… and that if it’s somehow kept in sunlight until it is destroyed, it just collapses, becoming a entirely mundane corpse. The radiant damage isn’t to the body, it’s to the animating spirit.

A Consuming Void. When a bodak attacks physically, it uses its fist—inflicting 1d4 bludgeoning damage plus 2d8 necrotic damage. To me, it’s noteworthy that the bodak doesn’t attack with claws or teeth; it strikes with a fist for a fairly minor amount of physical damage. But it inflicts a significant amount of necrotic damage. It also has the option to activate an Aura of Annihilation, which inflicts 5 necrotic damage to any creature that ends its turn within 30 feet of the bodak, aside from undead or fiends. So, it inflicts necrotic damage with its touch and with its very presence. But what does this LOOK like? What’s the experience of it? Like Dorius ir’Korran, I like the idea that the bodak is a conduit for the hunger of Mabar. There is a gate within the bodak, and when it opens it, all life energy within 30 feet is sucked into the bodak and down into Mabar. It’s a walking black hole. The Aura is a fairly slow, minor effect; the touch is more powerful. But they point is that when a bodak “attacks with its fist” I wouldn’t describe it as taking a swing—I’d say that it lays its palm on its enemy and they feel their life force being ripped out of them and drawn into the bodak’s hand. A secondary aspect of this is that the Aura of Annihilation is described as affecting “creatures”—but I’d extend that to vegetation. When a bodak activates its aura, it drains all the life from the area around it. Plants will wither. I might even have colors drained of their intensity… so when you come to a place where a bodak has unleashed its power, everything will be dead and gray.

The Deadly Gaze. The Fifth Edition bodak has two gaze-related attacks. Death Gaze is an innate ability that activates when a creature that can see the bodak’s eyes starts a turn within 30 feet of the bodak. The victim must make a constitution saving throw or take 3d10 psychic damage; if it fails the saving throw by 5 or more points, it’s reduced to zero hit points. This ability has no effect on creatures that can’t be frightened. Meanwhile, it also has Withering Gaze, an active attack that inflicts necrotic damage on a target. Withering Gaze cannot be avoided (although a successful Con save cuts the damage in half); it has a 60 foot range; and the victim doesn’t have to be able to see the bodak’s eyes.

In my mind, these are two entirely different effects. Withering Gaze is an extension of the “Consuming Void” idea I mentioned earlier. A bodak is a conduit to Mabar. When it glares at a target, it sucks the life out of them (necrotic damage). Someone with great constitution can resist this, but never completely; when a bodak looks at you, you can feel your life being ripped out of you and sucked down into its eyes. By contrast, Death Gaze isn’t an attack on the part of the bodak itself—it’s something that just happens when a living creature looks into the fully opened eyes of the bodak. It inflicts psychic damage rather than necrotic and can’t affect creatures immune to fear. I’d tie this to the idea that Mabar consumes hope. When you look into the eyes of a bodak you’re staring into the Void of Mabar, and it rips away the will to live. While creatures immune to fear are immune to the effort, it’s less about terror and more about absolute, crushing despair. But essentially, it’s a side effect. The bodak chooses to target you with its withering gaze; the death gaze is what happens when you look into its eyes. However, having said that…

What does a bodak LOOK like? Neither the Fourth Edition Monster Manual or the Fifth Edition Monsters of the Multiverse describe the appearance of the bodak in text. Mechanically, we know the bodak doesn’t have claws or a bite attack. The picture above is from Monsters of the Multiverse, and suggests withered flesh and a oversized, distended mouth. In my campaign, I say that the appearance of a bodak varies based on the power that created it. What defines a bodak is that it a corpse animated by shadow, filled by the essence of Mabar. But that can manifest in different ways.

Bodaks tied to the Bone King are withered, with desiccated flesh stretched tight over bone. Veins of shadow shift and writhe beneath their skin; occasionally the flesh cracks and shadow leaks out like wisps of smoke. The mouth of such a bodak is filled with shadows, but it is not distended like some of the others.
The bodaks of the Empress of Shadows look like the image above. The energy within the corpse twists and reshapes it, creating a hunched and twisted figure. The mouth stretches dramatically and is filled with shadows, and this comes to another twist. When using bodaks tied to the Empress, I’d say that it’s their MOUTH that’s the threat, not their eyes. When the bodak uses “Withering Gaze” it’s opening its mouth wide and sucking in the life force of a victim; and it’s looking into the gaping maw of the bodak that triggers the “Death Gaze” effect.
Bodaks created by Mazyralyx see their bones slowly shift as they develop draconic traits. They can be mistaken for dragonborn, but notably they don’t have scales on their withered flesh; it’s just the bones that twist. They grow claws and inflict slashing damage with their physical attack. The Death Gaze of these bodaks is caused by looking into their eyes, but the “Withering Gaze” manifests as a sort of breath attack; the bodak spews a bolt of shadow at its target. Powerful bodaks of Mazyralyx can extrude or retract wings of shadow as a bonus action, gaining a fly speed equal to their walking speed.
When Lady Illmarrow creates a bodak, it retains its appearance from its mortal life. All color is leached from its skin. Its veins are filled with shadows instead of blood, but initially this effect is subtle. The eyes of the bodak are flat and expresionless, but they are initially eyes of flesh and blood. All of this changes the first time the bodak activates its Aura of Annihilation or uses one of its other traits. When it opens up the conduit to Mabar, its eyes are consumed and transformed into wide pits of shadow. The dark veins beneath its skin expand and can be seen pulsing beneath the pale flesh. Shadows drift from its mouth like mist. When its Aura is inactive, the shadows beneath its skin subside a bit and mist stops drifting from its mouth, but its eyes remain deep sockets of despair.

A final point to this is that the bodak is a humanoid that has been transformed. It’s presented as a medium creature, implying that it was a medium creature in life. But a bodak could potentially be created from a halfling or from an ogre. A halfling bodak might use the standard stat block while just being a small creature. If I was using a bodak made from an ogre or a true giant in my campaign, I’d likely create a new stat block for it, reflecting greater mass and physical power.

MALEFIC SERVANTS

Bodaks are extensions of Orcus’s will outside the Abyss, serving the demon prince’s aims and other minions. Orcus can recall anything a bodak sees or hears. If he so chooses, he can speak through a bodak to address his enemies and followers directly.
Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse

In life, a bodak must be a devotee of a malevolent power. The devotee performs a ritual that binds their spirit to their master; this requires an arcane mark to be inscribed over their heart. Any time thereafter, the master can use that bond to consume the soul of the servant—filling the void so created with a conduit to Mabar. The bodak maintains vague memories of the devotee, but it has been hollowed out and has no will or desires other than to serve its master; likewise, it loses the vast majority of the skills it possessed in life. When Lady Illmarrow trains her apprentices in necromancy, she demands that they undergo the bodak ritual. The apprentices thus marked hope to develop such great skill that Illmarrow will consider them too valuable to consume, as a bodak lacks spellcasting ability.

A bodak is linked to its master by the thread of its lost soul. The master can actively monitor a bodak, directing its actions and speaking through its mouth. While the master controls the bodak at such times, it isn’t directly inhabiting the bodak’s body; notably, when Lady Illmarrow controls a bodak she can’t grant it her spellcasting abilities. Most of the time, a bodak is following the direction of its master but it isn’t being actively monitored, let alone controlled. But an important element is the fact that the bodak’s master can recall anything the bodak has seen or heard. So while the master might not be directly controlling a bodak when a group of adventurers destroys it, the master can reel in the thread of its soul and study it, recalling all that it saw and heard up to the moment of its death.

From a metagame perspective, this is a fantastic way to introduce a recurring villain. If your party of adventurers are 4th level, they aren’t ready to encounter the lich Lady Illmarrow… and besides which, Lady Illmarrow wouldn’t personally leave Farlnen to take part in a minor operation in Ardev. But she might send one of her bodaks to assume command of an Emerald Claw cell. And when the paladin strikes the final blow, the bodak speaks a final phrase in a different voice—Too late, little light. I have what I needed. The adventurers have defeated the Claw and saved innocents, but Illmarrow was looking for a piece of information, and she got it. The next time they fight a powerful Claw sell, there’s another bodak… and in the final battle, it too speaks with Illmarrow’s voice. Now she’s curious about them. Who are you, little light? Why do you fight me? I’ll learn eventually. Continue to oppose me and I won’t just kill you. I’ll take everyone you love and bind their bones to my service. The next time adventurers encounter the Emerald Claw, they may realize that they need to kill the bodak as quickly as possible, before it even sees them—because they have to blind Illmarrow so she doesn’t know what’s happened. These bodaks themselves can become more powerful, either with general boosts or because they have magic items (that adventurers can take from them… but are these powerful weapons cursed when attuned by the living?). The point is that in fighting her bodaks, the adventurers get to interact with Illmarrow long before they are ready to face her directly… and they get a sense of her personality and plans. They could even have a lengthy parley with her, as she attempts to lure them to her cause. While the loss of a bodak is an annoyance, Illmarrow herself isn’t in danger; so she can be a little casual in her dealings. I am older than your civilization, child. I am eternal. Kill this vessel and I’ll raise another. And eventually you will serve me, whether by choice or when your bones dance for me.

With this in mind, there are a few beings that can create bodaks. The Bone King and the Empress of Shadows are Dark Powers of Mabar, and they sometimes use bodaks as agents and eyes in the material plane. However, they rarely have NEED of such agents or eyes. Often what happens is that one of them will create a bodak for a particular purpose—perhaps the Bone King wishes to speak directly to a warlock or vampire tied to him. Once that conversation is over, the master has no use for the bodak—but it lingers in the material plane. It’s possible the creator would order the bodak to serve their mortal ally; or they might just abandon the bodak and leave it to wander the world, killing again and again as it seeks to fill the bottomless void in its heart.

There are two powers native to the material plane known to use bodaks; these are described in more detail below.

Lady Illmarrow, the Lich-Queen of Farlnen

As noted above, Lady Illmarrow forces her students and champions to undergo the bodak ritual, swearing oaths to their queen and carving her sigil over their hearts. As long as they serve her well, they have nothing to fear. But should they disappoint her or betray her, she can rip out their soul from afar and create a new bodak. Illmarrow can only maintain seven bodaks at a time, and she uses them as her eyes across Khorvaire—sending them to monitor important operations or to ensure the loyalty of a cell commander who might be wavering. Should one of her bodaks be destroyed, she can potentially create a new one from afar, as long as she has a marked minion in the region. It’s worth noting that she can’t just mark anyone; participating in the ritual requires a talent for Arcana and necromancy. So Illmarrow marks her students, but she can’t just mark the rank and file soldiers of the Emerald Claw.

Illmarrow’s bodaks retain much of the appearance they had in life. They have been hollowed out, but they still retain a shell of their original personality. These bodaks typically have an Intelligence of 12 (rather than the default of 7); they are capable agents pursuing Illmarrow’s agenda, not just slavering monsters. But they are still entirely bound to her and cannot question her orders. One option to consider is that when a bodak kills a mortal, it may gain a little strength and personality. This means that older bodaks may be more powerful and independent, which can make them useful to Illmarrow—but also, she doesn’t want them to become too independent, and may destroy a bodak that’s been around too long. This is a way to have adventurers encounter more powerful bodaks—and also potentially to have a story about a bodak trying to find a way to sever its ties to Illmarrow, which is hard when she can recall everything it sees and hears…

As noted above, bodaks are a great way to introduce Lady Illmarrow to adventurers early in a campaign. Bodaks are powerful enough to intimidate a squad of Claw goons, but not as deadly as a vampire or a death knight. They can provide a consistent “face” for the Emerald Claw—so adventurers feel like they are fighting Illmarrow, not just groups of thugs. A bodak could even have a limited Hat of Disguise that projects Illmarrow’s image over the creature when she is in direct control of it—so it doesn’t just speak with her voice, it reminds people exactly who they are dealing with.

Mazyralyx, the First Dracolich

The ancient dracolich Mazyralyx dwells in a vast cavern in the Demon Wastes, where he sits atop a vast hoard of bound souls and treasures gathered across the ages; it’s no wonder that some mortals call this the Lair of the Keeper. But Mazyralyx serves the overlord that created him—Katashka the Gatekeeper. Mazyralyx can maintain twelve bodaks; a few are nearly as old as the dracolich himself, but he replaces them as they are destroyed and the youngest of them are just a few years old. Mazyralyx uses his weakest bodaks to watch and assist cults of the Gatekeeper (as described in Exploring Eberron); most of the time such a bodak will just act as a guardian and enforcer for the living cult leader, but all know that it can speak with the voice of their true master. Katashka cults generally seek to become undead, but they knowingly or unknowingly serve the overlord by spreading fear of death and the undead, and the bodak will drive that agenda. Mazyralyx’s elder bodaks work with the Gatekeeper’s servants among the Lords of Dust, carrying out the Prophetic schemes that could one day free the overlord.

Beyond this, like the Keeper he resembles, Mazyralyx loves to collect interesting souls and treasures. His bodaks don’t pull souls into Mabar; instead, they draw the souls of any creature they kill with their “Withering Gaze” (which manifests as a shadowy breath weapon) to the dracolich’s hoard in the Lair of the Keeper; such a creature can only be returned to life through the use of a wish spell or by stealing the bound spirit from the Lair of the Keeper. At the DM’s discretion it could take time for the bodak to “digest” the soul—so if it is killed within one day, the soul is released to Dolurrh and can be raised normally. What this means is that Mazyralyx’s bodaks can show up targeting particular mortals or seeking a treasure that has caught the attention of the dracolich. It may not be clear how or why Mazyralyx has developed an interest in his prey; perhaps he’s heard of it through a Gatekeeper cult, perhaps he learned of it through the Prophecy. The point is that the people he targets are surely remarkable in SOME way—but it may not be clear to a mortal observer just what makes them special. These bodak reapers may have the ability to animate lesser undead; a target could be herded to the bodak by zombies or shadows. Typically, Mazyralyx abandons a hunt if a bodak reaper is destroyed; so it may be a challenging battle, but it is possible to escape the dracolich’s grasp.

In conclusion…

That’s all I have to say about bodaks at the moment. If you’ve done something interesting with a bodak in your campaign, share the story in the comments! In other news, Frontiers of Eberron is now available for preorder, and if you preorder you get the d20 conversion of the adventure “Heart of Stone” for free! If you plan to get a physical book with Print on Demand, you WILL be credited if you already have the PDF and get the PDF + Print bundle—so the only reason not to do the preorder is if you ONLY want the book in print, and no PDF. Beyond that, I want to thank my Patreon supporters for making articles like this possible—as I said above, patrons will have the chance to vote on the next obscure monster I write about!

Frontier Previews: The Border Road and College of Wands Bard!

Posted on August 29, 2024 by Keith Baker

Phoenix Dawn Command: The Final Mission

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Keith Baker

Frontiers Preview: The Harpies of the Byeshk Mountains

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Keith Baker

IFAQ: Hellfire Weapons in Eberron

Posted on August 16, 2024 by Keith Baker

*This is the oni Roo from my Graywall campaign, illustrated by Matthew Johnson. But she’s kinda fiendy?*

Frontiers of Eberron is coming out in September! I am holding a live Q&A at Noon Pacific time TOMORROW, Saturday August 17th, to discuss the book. This is on my Patreon Discord channel, so you have to be a Threshold patron to participate. Even if you can’t attend live, the session will be recorded and shared for patrons. So, that’s a thing. Another benefit of being a Patron is that you get to ask me questions. Questions like…

What are your thoughts on hellfire weapons, lemures, and the River Styx in Eberron?

The principle of Hellfire Weapons is that they catch the souls of creatures killed by them and turn them into lemures on the River Styx, where they are recruited to fight in the Blood War. Eberron doesn’t have the River Styx or the Blood War. So what’s the point of Hellfire Weapons? Off the top of my head, I have three ideas.

One option is to tie them to Shavarath. Say that they’re tied to the Legion of Tyranny and that they catch souls and turn them into devils fighting for the Legion. On the surface, this fits the core idea—recruit you into an army of devils fighting an extraplanar war. But there’s a few issues, notably that mortal souls ALREADY fight in Shavarath. Every mortal projects a conscript into Shavarath, the same way you project a dream self into Dal Quor when you dream. In this very moment, you ARE fighting in the Eternal Battleground. Which makes Hellfire Weapons slightly redundant. The catch is that your conscript-self is recruited by whichever Legion most closely matches your values and nature; the Hellfire weapon would catch your soul and force it into service for Tyranny. If I ran with this idea I’d make it an extremely new development likely initiated by a mortal: the immortals of Shavarath have been fighting their war since the dawn of creation and don’t do dramatic innovation. The idea would be that a mortal (Warlock? Artificer? Dragon? All of the above?) came up with this plan, theorizing that this would be a way to slowly but inexorably shift the balance of power in Shavarath.

Having said that, this isn’t an option I’d use. The whole point of Shavarath is that it’s AN ETERNAL BATTLE. Everyone comes back. It’s not really an interesting backdrop for a CAMPAIGN… and also, again, it’s not really SUPPOSED to be a situation driven by dramatic shifts. Which brings us to option two. What I’d do is to keep the core idea of the hellfire weapon—if it kills you, you are reborn as a devil in a hellscape, stripped of memory and forced to fight—and dump the part where the battle takes place in another plane. That’s right: I’d say that hellfire weapons are manufactured by the Lords of Dust, and you don’t return to the River Styx, you return in THE DEMON WASTES. I’d say that this was a recent breakthrough in Ashtakala—facilitated by Hektula and Sul Khatesh—and that Rak Tulkhesh and, say, Eldrantulku are recruiting forces into the Demon Wastes in this way. In theory they are going to raise a vast army of corrupted mortal souls and roll over the Ghaash’kala and into Western Khorvaire… but for now, they’re mainly fighting each other. So as a campaign, you get killed with a hellfire weapon and find yourself as a lemure in the Demon Wastes, assigned to fight alongside one of the Carrion Tribes against rival Carrions. If this sounds interesting, check out this recent article on the Demon Wastes!

A third option—and the one I’d personally use—would be to say that the weapons are forged by Mordakhesh (albeit with the help of an innovative mortal artificer) and send your soul to the Bitter Shield, the heart demiplane of Rak Tulkhesh, which is another realm of endless war. In theory, again, Rak is building up a massive horde of soul-soldiers who will on day emerge to terrify Eberron, but in the meantime you are in a realm that is the heart of an overlord of war. There could be a river of blood there where you wash up that washes away some memory, filling the Styx role. You’re adjacent to Eberron, but is there any way for you to return to it? Unlike the other scenarios, in the Heart of Rak Tulkhesh the war truly is pointless; the “enemy” might change every day. But this could also be an interesting opportunity to explore a series of epically impossible conflicts, because this is essentially the dream of an archfiend of war. You and your fellow adventurer-recruits are assigned to a squad, and while everything around you changes from day to day, your squad sticks together. Today you need to sneak into a citadel mounted on the back of a tarrasque and kill the commander. Tomorrow you need to hold a narrow pass against a swarm of berserkers. What fresh terror will come up the day after that?

I haven’t read Descent Into Avernus, where Hellfire Weapons come from. so I don’t know how it handles the idea that the adventurers have been recruited into an endless, immortal war… specifically, how it handles death. If you return after you die, then why does any of it matter? Why is it exciting to try and infiltrate the Tarrasque Fortress; why not just jump off it and die? If I was running the session, I’d run with these principles…

Your soul has been bound to this battle. The arc of the campaign is about finding a way to escape and become mortal—or to choose to abandon mortality and try to make a real difference in the hellscape. To succeed on either path, you need to hold onto your mortal identity.
When you die you return. But each time you return, you lose a fraction of your identity and become a little more fiendish. I would have a little set of fiendish boons, and each time you die you get a new fiendish boon—possibly tied to the sort of fiend you’re becoming. But you’d also lose a fraction of your mortality… and I’d also have tasks and tools that respond to that mortality. So aside from your mortality being necessary to escape, it has a practical benefit if you can hold on to it. The main point here is that there is an end: if you lose all of your mortality and fully become a fiend, your character has been lost and you’ll become an NPC.
When you die you don’t return right away; essentially, you are reborn in the downtime between adventures. So an early death is going to hurt the odds of success for your party, potentially leading to a total party kill. Which is possible in this scenario because there will always be another war tomorrow. You will all lose some of your mortality, but failure is an option. I’d most likely recruit players whose characters have died to play NPCs for the duration of a session.

With all this in mind, a thing I’d at least consider is to not run this as a D&D campaign at all, but rather to use my own RPG system, Phoenix Dawn Command, which is all about death and rebirth. I’d just tweak the Phoenix system a little so that the schools represent different types of fiends; add the “mortality” element; and say that if you die seven times, you fully become a fiend and you’re lost.

Anyhow, I know this is very different than how they work in Descent to Avernus, but that’s how *I* would use Hellfire Weapons! And in case it’s not obvious, in all of these cases the soul is being diverted from its proper path—Dolurrh and whatever lies beyond. So it’s possible the Queen of the Dead might eventually take an interest once this hits a critical mass…

But wait! I thought that immortals couldn’t reproduce! Does this change that?

It is a basic principle of Eberron that immortals cannot be destroyed, but that they cannot reproduce—that an overlord is a finite pool of energy, and it supports a finite number of fiends. It’s possible that Hellfire Weapons are a new development that changes that, and there’s a simple precedent for how it would work: It’s a core belief of the Church of the Silver Flame that virtuous mortals join with the Flame after death and strengthen it. If this is actually true, it means that mortal souls are an energy source that can merge with and strengthen a source of immortal power. So it could be that a brilliant mortal artificer—and I say mortal because this is where I’d highlight that mortals are more innovative than immortals—has studied this and figured out a way to do the same for the overlords, binding mortal souls to strengthen the overlords. But even then, mortals bound to the Silver Flame don’t become full fledged celestials. And with that in mind, I’d say what’s happening with Hellfire Weapons is something entirely different. What APPEARS to happen is that a mortal killed by the weapon awakens in a new place as a weak fiend, and with each death they become more and more fiendish until they are full fiends. To an outsider this LOOKS like a new fiend is being born. But that’s not what’s happening at all. Remember that MOST of the fiends tied to an overlord were bound along with it; rakshasa are the most common native fiends because they were best able to escape this binding. What’s going on with Hellfire Weapons isn’t the creation of a new fiend; it’s that the mortal soul is being connected to a fiend bound by the Silver Flame and used as a means of escaping the Flame. Which is why you don’t want to die even though you’d get more power, and why the final fiend becomes an NPC—because it’s NOT the adventurer, it’s an ancient fiend who has hollowed out their soul and used it to escape.

So again, the point is that fiends ARE finite — Hellfire Weapons are a way to bring more fiends into the world, but it’s done by freeing them from their bonds.

Thanks again to my Patreon supporters for interesting questions and the support that makes these articles possible!

Dragonmark: Lamias of Eberron

Posted on August 14, 2024 by Keith Baker

Lamia by Brynn Metheney from the *Monster Manual*.

It is said that love is the origin of the lamia—deepest love of primal evil. A warlock may seek power from one of the foul overlords, but only the most remarkable can truly embrace their masters—loving Tyranny, War, Treachery, Secrets—and they are forever changed by this experience. The touch of the overlord burns their mortality away, freeing them from all fear of time but stripping them of the ability to sire or carry new life. Their bodies are reshaped in the feline mold of the spirits they embrace—though there are tales of lamia that are serpentine in appearance. If true, is this a reflection of the overlord that has touched them, or is it evidence that the rakshasa themselves have not always favored a feline appearance? Whatever the truth, the lamia retains half of its mortal form, and the lower shape of a beast. Like the rakshasa, it has the power to deceive and to charm mortals. The behavior of a lamia reflects the fiend it so loves. One that loves Tyranny will be a petty tyrant; one that loves Secrets may conceal itself in a place of knowledge, while one that loves Treachery will surely go into a place filled with people, where factions can be created and bloody feuds can be set in motion…
Dorius Alyre ir’Korran, The Manual Maleficent

The Age of Demons came to an end when the fiendish overlords were bound by the Silver Flame, along with their mightiest servants. But a few fiends slipped through the wards… especially the sly rakshasas, resistant as they are to all forms of magic. Ever since then the rakshasa have moved secretly among mortals, manipulating families and nations in pursuit of Prophetic ends. Along the way, countless mortals have been drawn into cults and into the service of the overlords. And a few among these attracted the attention of the greatest unbound servants of the overlords—the prakhutu. Rakshasas are immortal, and do not reproduce biologically. But there are consequences to loving a fiend. Those mortals who form a true union with a prakhutu—and through this lesser fiend, to the overlord itself—can be transformed by the experience, imbued with partial immortality and a spark of fiendish power. This is the origin of the lamia. Ultimately, immortals are ideas—and a lamia loves the idea of an overlord so deeply that it has become a part of them, forever changing them in the process.

The Monster Manual describes lamias as hedonistic tyrants, saying “Ruined desert cities and the tombs of forgotten monarchs make perfect lairs for the wicked lamias. These decadent monsters take what has been forgotten and make it the seat of their hedonistic rule, surrounding themselves with sycophants.” This is a perfect description of a lamia devoted to the overlord Tol Kharash, and there are such lamias living in the Barrens of Droaam. Some of the weaker lamias have embraced the Daughters of Sora Kell, and they are recognized as chibs within the structure of the nation. But there is one of greater power that defies the Daughters. Hezhala was once a hobgoblin dirge singer. She was seduced by the glorious vision of Tol Kharash and his avatar in that age, seeing in her mind an empire driven not by muut and atcha but rather by the adoration and fear of the perfect empress—her. She blends the powers of lamia and bard, and her words can break the minds of those that hear her. Centuries ago, she returned to the ruins of Ashar Draal, the city of her birth. Much like Ashtakala, Hezhala cloaked Ashar Draal in illusion. She bound a host of goblins to her will, along with ogres and orcs that she cloaked to have the appearance of bugbears and hobgoblins. She ruled an echo of the Dhakaani Empire, not as it was, but as it would have been under her rule. When Sora Teraza came to Ashar Draal, the blind sister wasn’t fooled by the illusions. She offered Hezhala the chance to be a part of something greater—to live in reality instead of clinging to illusion. But she would have to release her hold on her ensorcelled thralls—to embrace the Daughter’s vision. Hezhala refused; she was an empress and would not serve another, no matter how powerful they were. She ordered her champions to kill Sora Teraza, and that was a mistake. When Teraza returned to Ashar Draal, she came with Maenya’s Fist behind her. The city that had long been ruined was reduced to rubble, and today it is known as the Fallen Demesne. Hezhala’s fate is a mystery. She may be bound in chains below the Great Crag; or she may have escaped, and even now she may be dreaming of how she will one day rule the new nation the Daughters are building.

Hezhala is more powerful than a typical lamia. But the point remains: she is a lamia of Tyranny, a lover of Tol Kharash, and she seeks to rule her own petty domain. There are others like her at large in the Barrens. But this is not the only path a lamia can take…

A lamia devoted to Eldrantulku the Oathbreaker can use the standard lamia stat block. But they will dwell among people, hiding in a great city or court, disguising themselves with illusion and using their enchantments to encourage intrigues and to sow discord.
A lamia that loves Sul Khatesh adores watching the impact of dangerous knowledge. Such a lamia might run a coven of warlocks in a small village. They could maintain a “school of magic” in an out of the way tower, drawing in travelers and forcing them to be their pupils. Or they might find a place to hide in an institute of learning, guiding select pupils and driving them down dangerous paths. There could be lamias living in the stacks of the Library of Korranberg… possibly with the blessing of the gnomes.
A lamia bound to Tul Oreshka replaces Disguise Self with Invisibility, Suggestion with Crown of Madness, and Geas with Phantasmal Killer cast as a 5th level spell. They can cast message at will without disrupting their invisibility. They often live as solitary hermits contemplating mysteries, but when travelers draw near the lamia innately knows secrets that will hurt them, and may stalk them invisibly and whisper terrible things to them. When engaged in combat, Crown of Madness and Phantasmal Killer reflect their abilities to trap victims in their own minds, while puppeting their bodies.
Lamias tied to Rak Tulkhesh live to incite others to violence. They rarely stay in one place for long, because wherever they go violence follows. They have incited refugees to turn on those giving them shelter, seeking to take a new home by force… or causes those sheltering refugees to fear such an uprising and take dreadful action. They have enflamed tensions along borders, started crime wars between rival gangs, and far worse. There could be a lamia in Thaliost right now, while another lamia is running a cell of the Swords of Liberty in Breland.

Often a lamia will directly manipulate and rule a force of mortal thralls. However, some lamias love to embrace a talented mortal following the same path that they did. A lamia of Sul Khatesh may find an arcane prodigy and act as an advisor, encouraging the mortal student to start a coven. Lamias living among mortals sometimes start families; while lamia can’t have children of their own, they will steal mortal children and raise them, building families from scratch and guiding the family from the depths of their manor.

All lamia have ties to a prakhutu, but direct contact between them was fleeting and in the past. They love the overlord, and more specifically the idea of it. Lamia don’t usually have direct supervision or guidance from the Lords of Dust; they are usually left to follow their own instincts. However, a lamia may well be helping a prakhutu enact a particular path of the Prophecy — even if they don’t know it. But I could imagine a party of adventurers defeating a lamia in the deep library of Arcanix, only to hear a voice from the shadows…

“Alas, poor Halarax. I always knew it would end this way, but it’s still a shame to see your lovely story end.” Time stands still as an old woman emerges from a book-lined passage. As she moves toward the fallen lamia, her form shimmers, and you see her feline shape, arcane sigils inscribed on her fur in steaming blood. You can feel her age, her power, and her sorrow. She stares into your eyes as she easily lifts the massive corpse with her twisted hands. “I cannot touch you today, little children. But one day… you will pay for killing my lover.”

And then she and the corpse are gone, and you can move again.

The lamias of Eberron typically have the lower bodies of tigers, a reflection of the rakshasa. However, a lamia can have a different appearance if that fits its story. Lamias were once mortal and their upper body reflects that original mortal form. A lamia under Arcanix might be a human or an elf. A lamia in the Barrens might have the torso of a hobgoblin or even of a minotaur. In creating a lamia, consider its history. Lamias have limited immortality; they are immune to the effects of aging, but they can be killed. Nonetheless, Hezhala was a dirge singer before the fall of Dhakaan; consider the things a lamia might have seen, the mortals it might have known. And as shown with Hezhala, a lamia could have greater powers than the basic stat block provides.

Dream Vampires. Many lamias lose the ability to dream as part of the price of their immortality. One myth says that lamias can remove their eyes, and must do so in order to sleep. While this is unlikely, some dreamless lamias learn how to form a connection to the dreams of mortals—to experience dreams through their victims. Such a lamia gains the ability to cast dream once per day, targeting a creature that has been affected by its Idyllic Touch within the last week. Some lamias simply observe their victim’s dreams, or send messages through dreams as a way to direct thralls. Others torment their victims, causing them to sicken and eventually die. This is the “Nightmare” effect of the Dream spell—preventing successful rest and inflicting 3d6 psychic damage. However, keep in mind that while it is mechanically a “nightmare”, the dream could be terrifying, inspiring, or ecstatic bliss; the point is that it is exhausting, reflecting the idea that the lamia is feeding on the victim’s dreams and lifeforce. The nature of the dreams should reflect the overlord the lamia is tied to, as well as their own desires. My thought is that this process prevents the dreamer from going to Dal Quor; the lamia’s Idyllic Touch forms a psychic bond and the victim essentially dreams in the mind of the lamia. So a lamia will never cross paths with a quori in Dal Quori, but a quori could take an interest in the fact that thralls are being cut off from Dal Quor. I might allow a dream-stealing lamia to send messages to any thrall they have a dream bond with, but the idea of this is that they can only feed on one at a time. So they might be able to cast Dream more than once, but they can only use the Nightmare ability once per day.

And now for something completely different… The idea I suggest above makes sense to me and ties to the standard D&D lore of the lamia in that they were once mortal but were transformed by their ties to fiends. However, there is another idea that is sitting in the back of my mind, something completely different but that feels like it could be fun. And this is the idea that lamias are from Sphinxlantis. Sphinxes are powerful members of the civilization of Sphinxlantis, who possess the ability to move through time. Lamias, on the other hand, are rogues and renegades who fled from Sphinxlantis—but it was a one way journey, and they have no ability to travel through time on their own. Following the idea that Sphinxlantis faced an inescapable doom, the common lamia could simply have fled to escape that doom and now seeks to live a hedonistic life in the place that it landed; this gives you the traditional lamia behavior described in the Monster Manual, the petty tyrant and pleasure seeker. On the other hand, you could have a lamia that has fled to a very specific moment in time because there is something it wishes to see or experience, or a person it wishes to interact with. In this, it’s essentially a weaker and more limited sphinx. A lamia might approach could be infatuated with a particular member of an adventuring party, refusing to say what it is that they’re going to do but constantly implying that they are going to be amazing. Such a lamia could be a helpful advisor—dropping the idea that all lamias are evil, though in the eyes of Sphinxlantis this lamia is surely a rogue. Or it could refuse to offer any useful advice, and at some point say “That’s it?” because the adventurer has actually accomplished the moment they came to witness… and the lamia now will try to assuage its disappointment by killing the adventurer.

While this is what I would do with lamias, there are many other good ideas out there. The moderator Jason on the Eberron Discord has a different take on lamias and the Fallen Demesne, and whether it’s to talk about lamias or anything else, it’s a great resource for all things Eberron. Check it out! And as always, thanks to my Patreon supporters for making these articles possible! I’m going to be previewing pieces of Frontiers of Eberron for patrons over the next few weeks, so if that sounds fun, now is a good time to join!

IFAQ: The Tain Gala

Posted on July 22, 2024 by Keith Baker

A female harpy singing and playing the lute. — *Taleth of the Forgotten Choir will be performing at the next Tain Gala.*

When time permits, I like to answer interesting questions posed by my Patreon supporters. Questions like this…

I have a session coming up that I’m setting at the Tain Gala. I was curious what sorts of things might go on at the gala that a level 3 or so party would reasonably be able to take part in? My hope for the session is that the players will walk away having made a good impression with some wealthy folk and have it lead into them gaining a group patron.

The Tain Gala was first introduced in the Sharn: City of Towers sourcebook, which had this to say about it.

The Tain Gala (first Far of each month): Balls, galas, and feasts occur throughout the year, as ambassadors, nobles, and dragonmarked heirs wine and dine their relatives and associates. However, the Tain Gala has become an institution in Sharn. The ir’Tains, one of the oldest and most powerful families in Sharn, owns many towers and their wealth rivals that of the Kundarak clan. The guest list of the Tain Gala defines the social order of the city. The families with permanent invitations to the Gala, the Sixty, are the royalty of Sharn.

In addition to these aristocrats and wealthy gentry, Lady Celyria ir’Tain does her best to invite a few unusual celebrities to entertain her guests—artists, poets, and sometimes adventurers. Aside from fantastic food and drink, such guests receive generous gifts and a temporary increase in status; for the next month, the attitude of any member of the Sixty is increased by one category when dealing with the celebrity. An adventurer known to be a friend of Lady ir’Tain often receives invitations to other events or other forms of special consideration.

The Tain Gala is first and foremost a place for the wealthiest and most powerful families of Sharn to mingle: to see and be seen, to share news and gossip, and to network with one another. It is a celebration of their power and wealth, which is displayed through the decor, the clothing, the food, and the entertainment. The attendees will eat, drink, gamble, and dance—all of which provide opportunities to share gossip and discuss plans. Eligible heirs will court and be courted. People engaged in business will talk to allies and rivals. Powerful people will discuss politics with city councilors. So it is a place to celebrate and to be entertained, but there are countless deals and schemes unfolding in the shadows. If you want a quick glimpse at what this is like, I suggest you watch Bridgerton or The Gilded Age. The Sixty Families are engaged in a complex dance that has been going on for ages and which will continue long after tonight.

Against the steady backdrop of the Sixty Families and their negotiations and intrigues, entertainment changes from month to month. There will always be music and dance; here’s a random table of possible performers.

Tain Gala Performers

d8	Performer
1	Taleth of the Forgotten Choir. A harpy songbird from Droaam and devotee of the Fury, whose enchanting voice draws emotion from even the hardest heart.
2	Castalo Con Cavaron. One of the finest Thurimbar players of the modern age, this Zil gnome weaves the complexities of an orchestra with his mystical rod.
3	The Hydra Quintet. The current prodigies of House Phiarlan’s Demesne of Music.
4	The Brelish Symphony Orchestra. The top members of the orchestra, drawn away from the Kavarrah Concert Hall for this command performance.
5	Elvinor d’Phiarlan. The current matriarch of House Phiarlan, giving a rare performance of the legendary Dance of Twenty Shadows.
6	Strings of Steel. A warforged trio that’s become a sensation. Two members of the trio were built to perform, while the third is a former war hero now devoted to music.
7	Duo Delo. A pair of changelings who blend song and dance, switching parts and voices throughout the performance.
8	Hammertail. A trio from the Talenta Plains who combine percussion with sounds generated by small glidewings.

Beyond that, there will be special guests who have been invited to provide entertainment, whether through actual performance or simply by sharing their stories in conversations. There could be poets, actors, athletes or illusionists who will entertain others with impromptu performances. There might be war heroes, displaced Cyran nobles, or ambassadors from Aerenal or Riedra. This Tain Gala Guests table can help with random ideas, but it’s just a foundation; the point is, there will always be a small selection of people who aren’t part of the Sixty, who have been invited to liven up the gala.

Tain Gala Guests

1d10	A…	With…
1	Cyran Refugee	A remarkable artifact
2	War Hero	A fascinating story
3	Popular Actor or Poet	An urgent cause
4	Ambassador	News of a terrible disaster
5	Passionate Priest	An exotic familiar or animal companion
6	Legendary Wizard	An investment opportunity
7	Powerful Noble	An important announcement
8	City Councilor	A desire to wed
9	Dragonmarked Heir	A call to action
10	Wayfinder Adventurer	Roll Again, but the guest is an imposter!

What about the Adventurers?

The main question to address if you’re running an adventure at the Tain Gala is why are the adventurers there? Here’s a few ideas.

Bodyguards. One of the regular guests of the gala asks the adventurers to accompany them because they are afraid of some sort of threat. This threat could be physical, social, or supernatural—as serious as assassination, or as casual as Saiden Boromar always steps on my feet—you need to make sure that doesn’t happen. The question here is why the guest is using the adventurers and not hiring Deneith or Medani. One option is that using house bodyguards is a sign of fear; the adventurers won’t be recognized as bodyguards by the other guests.

Fifteen Rounds of Fame. If the adventurers have done something dramatic and public as part of their adventures, Lady ir’Tain could want them to come and regale her guests with retellings of their recent deeds. This is an excellent opportunity for other guests to try to hire the adventurers for their own intrigues.

Background. One or more of the player characters could be invited based on their background. An entertainer could be hired to entertain; a good performance at the Tain Gala would open all sorts of doors. A soldier could be asked to share stories, or the gala could be having a special memorial for survivors of an especially brutal conflict. A sage could be asked to lecture on their area of expertise, or to confirm the authenticity of an artifact. In this case, the other adventurers could be present as guests of the honored guest.

Undercover. The adventurers are brought in by a guest who has a secret agenda. Posing as servants or family members, the adventurers are expected to break away and perform some sort of heist or scheme over the course of the gala. Alternatively, the adventurers could be hired by the Royal Eyes, King’s Citadel, or some other espionage agenda and charged to infiltrate the gala disguised as servants or entertainers.

Fight Club. We don’t talk about this, but… If you want to take a darker path, the ir’Tains could occasionally hire groups of adventurers to face off in (usually) non-lethal combat. This could be a special occasion—for example, a way to commemorate the festival of Brightblade—or it could be a dark secret that has been going on for years.

Scandal! Some member of the Sixty could choose to bring a group of adventurers to the Gala precisely because they don’t belong there. Cariana ir’Tain could meet the adventurers in a Callestan club and invite them to come to her home, neglecting to mention the big party that’s happening. Daral ir’Tain could want the adventurers to overshadow a rival noble’s big entrance.

Fifteen Rounds and Background are the best approaches if the goal is to connect the adventurers with a new patron; Undercover and Bodyguards are based on the idea that the party already has a patron who’s bringing them to the gala.

But what do you DO there?

As noted, the gala is a PARTY. People talk, drink, dance. What does this look like in terms of scenes and challenges for players? Here’s a few ideas.

Conversation. Much of the party is people talking to one another. A question is whether the adventurers are primarily interested in LISTENING—in which case you might have them make Insight and Perception checks to pick up interesting information—or if they are TALKING, in which case they should be making Charisma checks using the skill that matches their demeanor.
Dancing. Even if they have no interest in romance, adventurers might be asked to dance. At its simplest, a round of dancing could require a Performance or Acrobatics check. For something more dramatic—especially at a gala celebrating an important Cyran refugee—people could dance the Tago or something equally challenging. If romance IS part of the adventurer’s goals, Persuasion, Insight, or Deception could also come into play; you could draw out a single dance with multiple ability checks reflecting both physical and social talent.
Spotlight. Depending on their background and history, an adventurer could be the focus of attention, asked to regale the gathered guests with a description of their deeds or a demonstration of their skills. Depending on the stakes and the complexity of this, it could be a single ability check or it could be a series of checks that provides greater opportunity for a scale fo success and failure.
Gambling. There’s always a room where people play games. Depending on the time and the tone of the session, you could resolve gaming with ability checks or you could have players actually play a game. If you take this approach, you could create a unique game for your session; use games like Three Dragon Ante or Illimat; or as suggested in this article, use Chess or Poker as placeholders for Conqueror or Thrones.
Dining. Eat and drink! An uncouth adventurer could have to rely on Insight or Performance to keep from embarassing themselves; a finicky adventurer might have to make a Wisdom saving throw to force down a particularly unpleasant delicacy. Likewise, adventurers who choose to drink or partake in other intoxicants could have to make Constitution saves (with any relevant bonuses against poison); exhaustion is a reasonable mechanic to use for inebriation.

Now, I’ve suggested ability checks adventurers could make if you WANT to roll dice, but you don’t have to roll dice! Many of these situations work just fine as pure roleplaying. if you do choose to roll, this can be to measure the scale of success rather than to determine success or failure. The soldier can’t actually FAIL at telling her war story—but a exceptional role will make her the center of attention and perhaps earn an audience with the general in attendance. This latter point can be another key to what adventurers are DOING. If they are trying to acquire a patron or if they want to meet an important person who doesn’t mingle, they might have to impress the guests first. In this case, ability checks could be used, but again, failure doesn’t have to mean FAILURE; it just means the performance didn’t impress the people they hoped to impress. It could be as simple as telling the adventurers to get an audience with Saiden Boromar tonight, each one of you will have to do something that impresses people; you’ve got two chances. What do you do?

That’s all for now! This is only the tip of the iceberg, but hopefully it gives you some fun ideas to work with. Thanks to my Patreon supporters, who make these articles possible; I’m posting an extra People You Meet At The Party table on Patreon as bonus content for patrons. I’ll note that Taleth of the Forgotten Choir, the harpy pictured above (drawn by Matthew Johnson) is a player character in the new campaign I’m just starting for patrons! In addition, GenCon is coming up and some of my events are getting booked up: here’s my schedule, though I am NOT in Elisa Teague’s Legacy game and I’m in the 2 PM game on Sunday! I’d also like to give a shout out to friends making good things: KP11 Studios’ Project Dastan, the first studio actual play in India; Todd Stashwick’s Progcore Fantasy: Dark Age of Theer; and Foam Brain Games’ Lost Tome of Monsters 2!

Enjoy the Gala!

Flashback: Sphinxes of Eberron

Posted on July 19, 2024 by Keith Baker

I’ve written a lot of articles over the last decade, and every now and then I like to pull and old article back on top of the stack for people who missed it the first time. This is a combination of two of my previous articles, on Sphinxes and Sphinxlantis. Enjoy!

She had the body of a great black cat, with the neck and head of a beautiful elf-maiden – though if that head was on a humanoid body, she’d have to be nine feet tall to match the scale. Her skin was flawless cream, her eyes glittering gold. Her long hair was midnight black, dropping down and mingling with the vast raven’s wings folded on her back. The black of her fur and hair was striped with bands of brilliant orange, and these seemed to glow in the dim light; when she shifted these stripes rippled like flames.

“Why are you doing this?” Daine said. “If you know so much about our destinies, why the riddles? Why not just tell us what you know?”

The sphinx smiled. “What answer do you wish to hear, Daine with no family name? That I am bound by divine and arcane laws, and have told you all that I can? That I have told you what you need to know to fulfill your purpose in this world? Or that I have my own plans, and I am shaping your destiny as much as any of the others who watch?”

“Which is true?”

“Which will you believe?”
City of Towers

Sphinxes are enigmatic and inscrutable. For all their cryptic insights and challenges, in some ways the greatest riddle of the sphinx is the sphinx itself. Where do they come from? What is the source of their knowledge, and most of all, what is their motivation? In most tales a sphinx is found guarding some arcane site or artifact, only sharing its treasure or its knowledge with those who can pass its test. Why does it do this?

No sphinx will answer these questions. No power on Eberron can read the mind of a sphinx, and divinations shatter against their inscrutable nature. And so the sages of Eberron are left to ponder the riddle, studying the clues that are available. The first and most popular theory about sphinxes was presented by the loremaster Dorius Alyre ir’Korran. In his Codex of All Mysteries, ir’Korran asserted that sphinxes are living embodiments of the Draconic Prophecy. Their oracular abilities are tied to the fact that they are manifestations of the Prophecy and innately know the paths of the future. They are bound to their duties and found in portentous locations because they are literally instruments of destiny, positioned to guide and challenge the people who will in turn shape history. They slip through time and space because they exist beyond it. Ir’Korran suggested that although they appear to be individuals, sphinxes are in fact all part of a greater entity, fingers on a hand too vast for mortals to see.

For centuries most scholars have embraced ir’Korran’s theory. Magister Mara ir’Lain observed that sphinxes often appear to be guarding tombs, temples, or treasures, but there are no reliable accounts of a sphinx being assigned such a task. An androsphinx that identified itself as Silverstorm challenged Harryn Stormblade in the ancient Dhakaani citadel below Cazhaak Draal, but the only Dhakaani account that mentions sphinxes is the story of Jhazaal Dhakaan outwitting a sphinx to obtain its secret knowledge. Ir’Lain believed that this supported the Codex: that as Silverstorm wasn’t posted by the Dhakaani, its stewardship of Cazhaak Draal must be tied to the Prophecy.

However, over the centuries, scholars have learned more about sphinxes. In his paper “The Sphinx in the Library”, Professor Cord Ennis of Morgrave University made the following observations (summarized for the terrestrial reader; Ennis doesn’t mention the Monster Manual):

Sphinxes are powerful and varied spellcasters. The androsphinx in the Monster Manual is a divine spellcaster, using Wisdom to cast cleric spells. the gynosphinx is an arcane spellcaster, using Intelligence to cast wizard spells. While it’s possible that this is tied to the species of sphinx, it’s equally plausible that these are learned skills—that an androsphinx could master arcane magic, or a gynosphinx could channel magic through faith.
While they often appear to be bound to some sort of duty, sphinxes seem to have personalities and even a desire to learn. The most well-documented sphinx of the modern age, Flamewind, resides at Morgrave University and often spends her time reading; she has been known to attend parties and theatrical events.
Sphinxes are monstrosities, not celestials, fiends, or fey. This suggests that they are creatures of flesh and blood, rather than immortal incarnations.

Ennis challenges the Codex on multiple points. If sphinxes are extensions of the Prophecy, why are they monstrosities rather than some form of celestial or fiend? Why do we see what appear to be both wizards and clerics among them, rather than a single path reflecting the channeled power of the Prophecy? Why did Flamewind attend the premiere of Five Lives, and even shed a tear in the final act? There are certainly reports of Flamewind assuming the role of the imperious oracle—as she did when first encountered, and as in the account quoted at the start of the article—and yet, she also seems to be capable of more casual interactions.

Cord Ennis believed this proved that sphinxes could have a more mundane origin: that they are mortal creatures, that they can study and learn, that they have more personality than the typical celestial. But as critics were quick to point out, no one has ever discovered any evidence of a civilization of sphinxes. There’s only a single account (discovered in Cul’sir ruins) of multiple sphinxes being encountered at the same time. All of this supports the Codex. There’s no signs of a sphinx civilization because sphinxes are tools of the Prophecy.

A team of researchers in the Arcane Congress presented a new theory, seeking to bridge the two: that sphinxes are creatures of Thelanis. The premise is that sphinxes aren’t instruments of destiny, but rather that they exist to drive the plot. Thelanis is the plane of stories, and its archfey often seem to enjoy seeing echoes of their stories in the world. Under this theory, the reason sphinxes show up at such dramatic times and locations is because the story needs them to—that they are some form of servants to the archfey, helping to guide the world in ways that echo the story of their masters. This ties to the fact that Thelanian creatures often show more personality and quixotic behavior than celestials, and that lesser fey aren’t immortal. While a compelling theory, opponents counter with the point that sphinxes don’t share the typical traits of Thelanian entities—which is to say, they are monstrosities rather than fey.

Most recently, Cord Ennis returned with a refinement of his thesis. Ennis suggests that sphinxes are mortal, civilized creatures, but that the reason there’s no evidence of any sphinx civilization is because they aren’t from this time. There are a number of accounts in which people facing sphinxes in their lairs are shifted through time—the apocryphal tale that Breggor Firstking was a beggar who was given a chance to relive his life and used his knowledge to become a king, or the story of the man who sleeps in a sphinx’s lair without permission and awakes a hundred years later. According to Ennis’s theory, the idea that sphinxes can move through time helps to explain both their seemingly oracular abilities and their interest in cryptic actions; that their enigmatic behavior shapes future events in ways we don’t see, but they do. The lack of any signs of sphinx civilization is because it doesn’t exist in the scope of history as we know it. And further, the fact that sphinxes only manipulate time in their lairs suggests the use of some form of eldritch machine as opposed to the innate powers one would expect in a living manifestation of the Prophecy—that they accomplish time travel using a tool, rather than personal power alone. Ennis asserted that this could explain Flamewind’s observed behavior—at times the cryptic oracle, and at other times almost more of a curious tourist.

While intriguing, Ennis admitted that there was one piece of the puzzle that still escaped him. When do these time-traveling sphinxes come from? His first thought was the distant future—that they could even be some sort of mystically evolved descendants of the modern races. Yet if that were the case, is there no risk of their meddling changing their own future? Given this, he ultimately favored the idea that the sphinxes are from the very distant past—that they could potentially be the citizens of the FIRST civilization of Eberron, a society that predates the Age of Demons and whose existence was wiped from history by the dominion of the overlords. With this as a foundation, Ennis suggests that the actions of the sphinxes might not be the absolute demands of destiny one would expect from embodiments of the Prophecy, but rather a grand game. As their time is long past, the sphinxes don’t actually care about the ultimate outcome; whether the overlords rise again or the daelkyr are unleashed doesn’t actually hurt them. Ennis further suggests that this could reflect the different techniques seen among sphinxes. The “divine” sphinxes—those wielding clerical abilities—could see their actions as being a divine mission, potentially even one mandated by the Progenitors (because what other gods were there at the dawn of time?) while the “arcane” sphinxes could be the scientists of their time. Thus, Flamewind could be in Sharn because she knows it is a nexus of elements she wants to deal with—events or people she wants to observe or influence—but that between those key events she is simply enjoying studying this time and place, so alien to her native time.

While these are all intriguing possibilities, as long as sphinxes remain inscrutable they will remain a mystery. Servants of the Prophecy? Agents of the archfey? Travelers from the dawn of time? All three are possible, and the only way to learn the truth is through adventure. Within their lairs, sphinxes have the ability to manipulate time and travel the planes.

Why Does This Matter?

The mystery of the sphinx is an important part of the creature, and something I want to maintain rather than simply providing an absolute answer. Are sphinxes time travelers? Agents of Prophecy? Shapers of story? All three are possible—but each has a different impact on both the role a sphinx may play in a campaign and on the mechanics of the sphinxes themselves. Most critically, the rules of the sphinx’s lair action state that the sphinx can shift itself and others to “another plane of existence.” It doesn’t specify which plane of existence or that the sphinx has multiple options. This answer—along with the circumstances under which the sphinx would USE its lair actions—likely depends on its origins. Because again, always remember that just because a sphinx CAN do something doesn’t mean it WILL. A Prophecy sphinx my have the POWER to shift people through time, but it may never use it if it isn’t required. So, let’s briefly consider the theories presented above and the ways these would impact a story.

Time Travelers. One of the core elements of sphinxes as time travelers is the idea that they are a mortal civilization. They are advanced beyond any civilization that exists today, but they are individuals using magical tools to accomplish these things—they are arcane scientists and divine spellcasters, capable of observing the tapestry of time and playing a great game with it. If this is the case, Flamewind in Sharn may indeed have very specific events she wants to observe and people she wishes to drive down specific paths, but at the end of the day she is a mortal wizard. She may play the role of being enigmatic and all-knowing, but there’s a touch of the Wizard of Oz; she DOES have knowledge of the future and of the potential destiny of the characters, but she’s not in fact infallible, she is playing her own game, and she also enjoys being a little bit of a tourist between those critical events. Should you follow this path, there’s a few points I’d consider.

The spellcasting abilities of a sphinx reflect whether they are a divine or arcane spellcaster—essentially, a wizard or a cleric. Under this approach, gynosphinxes and androsphinxes are simply male and female sphinxes, and it should be possible to encounter an androsphinx wizard or a gynosphinx priestess. A key question is what divine power sphinxes serve; personally, I like the idea that they might have a different sort of relationship with the Progenitors than people of the present day.
In shifting themselves or others to another plane, I would specifically use XORIAT. We’ve established that Xoriat is the key to time travel, and I’d assert that the time travel techniques being used by the sphinxes are based in this. The sphinxes aren’t creatures OF Xoriat and have no love for the daelkyr; they are scientists who are USING Xoriat. But they can also toss you into it for kicks.
The lair abilities of a sphinx are tied to a form of eldritch machine. Most likely this is specifically linked to the sphinx and cannot be used or even understood by any other creature… But it’s POSSIBLE that someone who’s figured out the mystery of the sphinx and has access to their lair could find a way to hack their time machine. A second specific question is where Flamewind has her lair. If the lair is a machine, it’s not likely to be something she could build in Morgrave University. In the novel City of Towers, this is why she deals with the protagonists in the abandoned temple in Malleon’s Gate; she hangs out at Morgrave, but her LAIR is in Malleon’s.
The final point is that time-traveling sphinxes are manipulating events, but they don’t have the same sort of agenda as heralds of Prophecy or Archfey emissaries. They aren’t invested in the outcome in the same way as, say, the Lords of Dust or the Chamber. Ultimately, this isn’t their time and the outcome won’t actually AFFECT them; it’s more intriguing than vital. However, divine sphinxes are more likely to be driven by a divine mission, while arcane sphinxes are more likely to be scientists and researchers.

Agents of the Archfey. If Sphinxes are tied to Thelanis, they are a form of fey; it’s up to the DM to decide whether to add the fey subtype or simply to say that you don’t HAVE to be fey to be from Thelanis. Sphinxes would effectively be Greater Fey—not truly immortal, but with a loose relationship to time and reality. A few thoughts about Thelanian sphinxes…

The plane they can travel to is Thelanis. Their ability to manipulate time is something that they don’t use with great precision and essentially only use when it serves the story; they aren’t truly time travelers, but they can throw Rip Van Winkle ahead a century when it fits the story.
A sphinx will be tied to a specific archfey, and its goals and the role it plays—guarding a location, posing a riddle—are tied to the story of that archfey. A Thelanian sphinx will be bound by fey logic: if it eats anyone who fails to answer its riddle, that’s not a CHOICE, it’s what it HAS TO DO. It MUST follow its role in the story.
While they draw on wizard or cleric spell lists, sphinxes aren’t actually clerics or wizards; their spellcasting reflects innate fey powers rather than arcane science.

Incarnations of Prophecy. If they are incarnations of the Prophecy, sphinxes stand sideways to the conflicts of the Lords of Dust and the Chamber. They don’t seek to manipulate the Prophecy: they ARE the Prophecy. While they may not be celestials or fiends, neither are they mortal creatures: they appear when and where they are needed, and likely disappear back into the Prophecy once their purpose has been fulfilled. If you want to explain the curious behavior of Flamewind, one possibility is to say that while a Prophetic sphinx has a limited existence, during the time it does exist it is a conscious entity; that Flamewind has spent eons as a disembodied thread of the Prophecy and is enjoying this incarnate period while she waits for the purpose that has caused her to be made manifest comes to a point. Key points about Prophetic sphinxes…

A Prophetic sphinx has no tied to any specific plane; as such, the planes it can access are likely tied to its specific Prophetic role.
This likewise ties to its ability to time travel. Essentially, a Prophetic sphinx has no free will. It exists for an absolute purpose. It CAN manipulate time or transport people to the planes, but it won’t and can’t use this power unless it is necessary for the purpose it’s manifested to fulfill. If adventurers must travel to Shavarath, it will transport them to Shavarath. If they must go forward ten years, it will take them forward ten years. But it can’t just decide that it would be INTERESTING to take them forward ten years to see what happens, as a time-traveling sphinx might.
The spellcasting abilities of a Prophetic sphinx are an innate part of its purpose and not skills it has learned.
The sphinx only exists to fulfill a purpose, guiding or guarding a particular node of the Prophecy. It is quite possible that part of its purpose is to prevent the Lords of Dust, Dragons, or other forces from interfering with that Prophetic lynchpin. But it has no wider goals, and it will discorporate once its purpose is fulfilled.

Essentially, time traveling sphinxes are the most free-spirited and are essentially playing a game with their riddles and challenges, while Prophetic sphinxes are the least free-willed and most bound to an absolute agenda, with Thelanian sphinxes falling in between.

Do Time Travelers Break The Game?

The fifth edition sphinx has the ability to travel in time, and to take others with it. From a purely abstract perspective, this throws all sorts of wrenches into a campaign. If adventurers fight a sphinx, why doesn’t it just go back in time and kill their grandparents? If the daelkyr rise, why don’t the adventurers get a sphinx to take them back in time and undo everything?

First of all, that last point is an excellent argument for having that power: it IS an ultimate escape hatch. It means that you CAN put failure on the table. You CAN have have Rak Tulkhesh break its chains and drown the Five Nations in blood, and the only hope is for the adventurers to fight their way to Sharn and convince Flamewind to give them a second chance. From a narrative perspective, that option is a great thing to have. The trick is that it shouldn’t be something that trivializes every defeat… “Oh, Flamewind, I lost at cards last night. Can we redo that?” Which brings up a number of points: when they can travel in time, and when they will travel in time.

First of all: time travel is a LAIR ACTION for a sphinx. You may not meet a sphinx in its lair… and a particular sphinx might not even HAVE a lair. In Sharn, Flamewind definitely can’t call Morgrave University “her lair.” Presumably, her lair was in the Xen’drik ruins where she was first found. I’ve suggested that she might have built a NEW lair in some abandoned part of Sharn, but it’s equally plausible to say that she just doesn’t have a lair in Sharn; if she wants to help you time travel, you’ll all have to make a trip to Xen’drik (and hope nothing else has taken over her lair!). So keep in mind that when you meet a sphinx guarding a tomb, there’s no rule saying that the tomb is actually its LAIR.

Second: Even if a sphinx COULD solve all your problems with time travel, why would it? The Thelanian sphinx is there to nudge the story in a particular direction, not to completely rewrite it; as said earlier, it’s likely doesn’t have full free access to time travel, and can only actually use the power when it fits the narrative (IE: it can toss Rip Van Winkle forward a hundred years, but it can’t take you back in time to murder King Jarot). The Prophecy sphinx is even more limited, bound by unbreakable bonds of fate to only do the things it’s supposed to do, and taking you back in time isn’t an option. The wild card is the time traveling sphinx, but here’s the catch: it doesn’t care about your problems. From the perspective of the time traveler, it sees the full scope of history, filled with uncountable deaths and tragedies. From your perspective, the release of Rak Tulkhesh is a horrible tragedy that could be stopped and hundreds of thousands of people could be saved. From the time traveler’s perspective, the rise of Rak Tulkhesh and those tragic deaths are just one page in the book of all history, one filled with countless tragedies and countless deaths; what the time traveler knows is that HISTORY GOES ON, and that in three thousand years these events will only be a memory. The time traveler’s job isn’t to defeat Bel Shalor for Tira Miron; it’s to challenge Tira Miron to realize that she has the power to do it herself. Or they might even just be here to watch! The release of Rak Tulkhesh in 998 YK is a fascinating moment in history and they’re just here to watch it unfold.

The short answer I’d give is that when dealing with a time traveling sphinx, decide EXACTLY WHY IT’S HERE. If it’s a divine sphinx it may have what it believes to be a divine mission. If it’s an arcane sphinx, it may be a tourist here to observe history or it might be playing a game, seeing if it can engineer a very specific outcome. Whatever the goal, nothing else matters to it. Everyone around it is simultaneously already dead and haven’t yet been born. You may want it to solve your problems, but your problems are no more important to it than the problems of every single other tragic person in history, and if it’s not helping them it won’t help you. It’s not here to beat Rak Tulkhesh for you—it’s here to give you the clue or the challenge, and then see if you do succeed… or take notes on exactly how things play out when you fail and then go home to the dawn of time, where that failure is just an entertaining anecdote.

Of course, there’s a third even zanier option to consider, following the model of The Magicians: How do you know that sphinxes HAVEN’T been resetting the timeline? Is it in fact possible that Flamewind is in Sharn to engineer a very specific outcome—and if it somehow fails, she will take the entire city back in time and replay the entire scenario until you dummies get it right? It could be that the adventurers somehow realize that Flamewind has prevented Rak Tulkhesh from being released thirty times already—but again, she can’t solve the problem, she can only pull everyone back a year and hope that this time you’ll figure it out. Or, on a smaller scale, you could have a Groundhog Adventure where each day ends with a second Mourning and the adventurers starting over again… Once again, Flamewind is reseting Sharn each time they fail, but she can’t actually solve the problem for them, because it’s their history. But again, it’s easy enough to say that this is the single reason she’s in Sharn… and once you to get it right, she’ll return to her own time for good.

Essentially, yes, unlimited time travel would cause all sorts of problems. So limit it. Limit what they can do (no lair, no travel; no violating the laws of the Prophecy; etc) and limit what they are willing to do. Your horrific apocalypse is just one page in a very big history book, and for the time tourist it’s a cool event to observe happen, not something they need to fix.

Looking the time travelers from the past, How do they handle and reconcile the fall of their civilization? They can go back to their home at the dawn of time, but eventually that time runs out on their civilization?

Certainly. It’s something we see in various versions of Atlantis. Imagine that they know that their civilization will end in one year. The overlords are going to rise and that is absolutely, 100% inevitable: Krypton WILL explode. They don’t have the resources to project their entire civilization beyond the Age of Demons; they can only support, say, one hundred time travelers. And it may even be that they can only support them for a certain amount of time, that they will eventually be pulled back to the doomed dawn. So those one hundred time travelers are essentially stretching that final year out for as long as possible by dwelling in other times — seeing as much as they can of a future their people will never know, cataloguing the wonders of eternity and doing what they can to be a part of legend—to create stories that WILL be remembered—before they are gone.

On the other hand, if you want a more activist story, consider this: what if the reason the sphinxes are tweaking history and shaping stories is because they are creating a point in the distant future that they CAN move their civilization to? Essentially, it’s an even longer game than the Lords of Dust. Each shift—each hero tested—is shifting the number of a combination lock. At some point they will create the future they are looking for, five thousand years from now, when Sphinx Atlantis can leap forward in time and be saved. So they could, essentially, be from both the past AND the future.

If you had to place “Sphinxlantis”—the theoretical Sphinx lost civilization—anywhere in Your Eberron, where do you think it would be and why? What would it be like?

The answer is simple: It was in a place that no longer exists. This comes back to the idea that it simply isn’t possible for the sphinxes to somehow save it. The overlords ripped their way out of Khyber and they can shape reality with their power. It’s not just a matter of splitting previous continents, though I think that definitely happened. Consider the overlord Ran Iishiv, the Unmaker. It seeks to tear down reality itself, and in the Age of Demons it was free to express that desire; in my opinion, large chunks of whatever existed before were completely annihilated by Ran Iishiv, and that’s just ONE of the overlords. This comes back to the observation that there are no traces of a sphinx civilization… in my opinion, it’s one of the pieces of the world that Ran Iishiv unmade while earning that title. There may be TRACES of Sphinxlantis that have somehow survived, but I think they would be more likely to be artifacts than structures.

A second key point is that in my opinion, Sphinxlantis was just one of the civilizations that existed in the past. So what other creatures were around? For starters, dragons and titans. Dragons are said to have emerged from the blood of Siberys falling upon Eberron; they were there at the start. You could use this to play with some of the “First World” ideas, if you want. However, in my opinion “modern” dragon civilization has absolutely nothing in common with the Sphinxlantis-era dragons—whatever civilization existed at the dawn of time were completely annihilated by the Age of Demons. Rak Tulkhesh and Tol Kharash set existing civilizations against one another in brutal wars, while Eldrantulku and Bel Shalor tore them apart from within. The Wild Heart and the Heart of Winter devastated civilizations with the horrifying potential of nature, while Ran Iishiv simply annihilated them. And dragons themselves would be subsumed by the Daughter of Khyber. Again, these are just a few of the overlords and they dominated the world for millions of years… it’s no surprise that little remains. With that said… who else could have existed? Frankly, anyone. Dragons and titans are sure things. But given the role of the Ghaash’kala, it’s quite possible that orcs existed at the dawn of time and survived through the Age of Demons. I’ve joked about the people of the Five Nations attributing Dhakaani ruins to some lost human civilization… but if it suits the story you want to tell, you could say that there was a human civilization in Sphinxlantis, something far more advanced than the present day. A truly odd idea is that the sphinxes were products of a primordial human civilization. Rather than saying that in the past you had sphinx families sitting around a table together at Sphinxsgiving, it could be that the sphinxes were created by the people of Sphinxlantis AS time travelers—that the reason their eldritch machines can’t be used by others is because the sphinxes themselves essentially ARE eldritch machines. You can explore this idea whether or not you use humans as their creators.

Another thing I’d consider: If the myths are accurate, Sphinxlantis predates both the Sovereign Host and the Silver Flame. Earlier I suggest that the divine spellcasting sphinxes may engage more directly with the Progenitors. This ties to something I suggested in my Siberspace campaign—that LILENDS are children of Siberys. There’s some broad similarities between lilends and sphinxes, both blending humanoid and animal features. It could be that the shape of the sphinx is a reflection of a connection to Siberys (though they ARE mortal, not celestial)… or it could be that the people of Sphinxlantis created the sphinxes in partial emulation of lilends and other celestials. In any case, because Sphinxlantis predates the Silver Flame, they would have had more interaction with individual native celestials—couatls, lilends, and more.

Why Does This Matter?

A key question in deciding why this matters depends on the motivation of the sphinxes. Do the sphinxes have a mission? Are they paving the way for a new Sphinxlantis to be born in the distant future? Are they playing a cosmic chonological game with one another? Is there actually a secret war being waged between the divine spellcasting sphinxes and the arcane spellcasting sphinxes? Or are they ultimately just tourists, stretching out the final days of their civilization by living out their lives in other times and watching the world that takes their place?

Aside from the sphinxes themselves, one reason this matters is because it is an excellent source of artifacts. Part of the whole point of time traveling sphinxes is that they are more advanced than any modern civilization, including Argonnessen. The certainly had a closer relationship with the native celestials, and may have had a closer relationship with the Progenitors themselves. And any object that has survived from the dawn of time would HAVE to be powerful and virtually indestructible. So this is an excellent origin point for artifacts that are incredibly powerful but have no connection to any known civilization—artifacts that could do ANYTHING.

Typing this, another thought occurs to me. I’ve said that the sphinxes could have had a different relationship with the Progenitors. That could include Khyber. If I wanted to explore a story that deals with the Progenitors as actual, concrete entities I might consider the idea that Sphinx civilization is older than the world itself—that rather than being created BY the Progenitors, the sphinxes could have come to this reality WITH the Progenitors. In this concept, they aren’t celestials because they’re older than the celestials. Though again, this is as a civilization—any individual sphinx is mortal, so it’s not like Flamewind is older that Eberron, but her people were. This could be one reason that they aren’t fighting the destruction of Sphinxlantis… because some among them honor Khyber and believe that Khyber deserved an opportunity to express their vision on reality, at least for a time.

Again, it’s important to me to say that we don’t know if the Progenitors were real or if the creation myth is just a metaphor. But part of the point is that if it is a metaphor, it may be a metaphor in which the reality we know was created not by cosmic dragons but by three immensely powerful mortal individuals—potentially, members of the same civilization as the Sphinxes. I say this in the same way I suggest multiple possible causes for the Mourning: because the answer depends on the story you want to tell. If sphinxes are survivors of the first civilization, THEY may know the true nature of the Progenitors… and may have been their servants, creations, or peers.

GENERAL QUESTIONS

What about Zenobaal?

Dragons of Eberron presents the idea of Zenobaal, a rogue dragon who refers to itself as “The Prophecy Incarnate”. One aspect of Zenobaal is that he has an alliance with a gynosphinx named Maris-Kossja, and that they have a brood of half-dragon gynosphinx offspring. How does that fit with this idea?

There’s a few factors: first and foremost, this article is based on the fifth edition interpretation of sphinxes, which positions them as being more rare and unique — as opposed to the default 3.5 approach, by which sphinxes are just part of the world. This article notably doesn’t address hieracosphinxes, for example. The second point is that I didn’t create Maris-Kossja or Zenobaal, and this article is based on how *I* use sphinxes — which is more reflected by Flamewind. With that said, I have no issues with Zenobaal, and I think it can work in this interpretation. The simplest approach is to use the time travel idea, because under that concept sphinxes ARE mortal and could have offspring; Maris-Kossja has come from the past or future, is fascinated with Zenobaal, and has chosen to produce offspring with him… creating that rare time when you could encounter multiple sphinxes. That’s pretty straightforward. The more exotic option is to go with the Prophetic Sphinx and say that this is evidence of Zenobaal’s deep ties to the Prophecy. Zenobaal is so bound to the Prophecy that it has literally manifested a mate for him—and that his half-dragon offspring are flesh-and-blood manifestations of the Prophecy.

In general, however, this article is based on the 5E interpretation of sphinxes and will not necessarily apply to all 3.5 uses of sphinxes. You’ll have to decide how to address other contradictions. If you go with time travel sphinxes, and interesting option is to say that criosphinxes and hieracosphinxes are MODERN sphinxes — that they are either the primitive ancestors of or devolved descendants of the time traveling sphinxes.

The Inscrutable trait prevents anyone from reading the thoughts of a sphinx. Can a sphinx choose to lower this defense and allow an adventurer to detect its thoughts?

With questions like this, my first response is what’s going to make a more interesting story? As I say above, to me the inscrutability and the mystery of the sphinx are part of what make encounters with them so compelling. Consider the exchange between Daine and Flamewind at the start of this article: which answer will you believe? I like the fact that even if a sphinx wants to help a group of adventurers, it HAS to remain cryptic and enigmatic; they will never be able to know for certain whether it’s telling the truth and what it might be hiding from them. The concrete reasons for this would vary based on the story of the sphinx. If sphinxes are manifestations of the Prophecy, it’s reasonable to think that their thoughts are so complex and immense that no mortal mind can grasp them. If they are time travelers, it could be that their perspective is simply too alien to be understood, or it could be that anyone peering into their minds is caught up in a labyrinth of possible pasts and futures. It could be interesting to run an adventure in the mind of a sphinx, with the adventurers trying to find their way out. By the 5E rules as written, a sphinx CAN allow other forms of divination to affect it—so it can allow you to scry or locate it, if it chooses—but it is simply impossible to discern the thoughts or emotions of a sphinx, and I’d continue that.

The latest news from WotC suggests that Sphinxes will be Celestials…

Any sort of new edition will always shake things up, and the lore will have to adjust to it. Consider that this article presents three different interpretations of sphinxes, and that Professor Ennis’s argument against the Prophecy sphinx is that they ought to be celestials. So the whole point is that IN EBERRON ITSELF, next year you can expect to see the a Korranberg scholar publish a paper rebutting Ennis’s work by saying The latest research suggests that sphinxes ARE celestials. The Prophecy Sphinx SHOULD be celestial, just as the Fey Sphinx should be fey; it’s the time traveling sphinxes that make the most sense as monstrosities. So all of the ideas here remain valid; it’s up to a DM to decide if they want to pick the one that makes the most sense with the current mechanics, or if they want to actually keep ALL of them and just say that “sphinx” is being used as a name for three completely different forms of creature because it’s hard for a casual observer to tell the difference. Just like how in The Queen of Stone, Thorn deals with a creature she calls a maniticore, but it’s definitely not the standard monstrosity manticore from the Monster Manual…

Thanks for taking this journey into the past with me, and thanks to my Patreon supporters for making these articles possible! The artwork that accompanies this article is an image of the medusa Essra, by the artist Matthew Johnson. Essra is one of the characters in the new Eberron campaign I’m running for my patrons, the first episode of which happens this weekend. If you want to watch the games I’ve run or play in a session yourself, check out my Patreon!

IFAQ: Troll Origins

Posted on July 18, 2024 by Keith Baker

The Chib is a chill troll in Graywall. Art by Matthew Johnson.

As time permits, I like to answer interesting questions posed by my Patreon supporters. Questions like…

What do you see as the origin of trolls in Eberron? They are so different from other giants, they almost seem like aberrations to me – maybe some Daelkyr or other experimented with ogres?

In my Eberron, there has never been a nation of trolls; they have always been found in wild places on the edges of civilization, but never amassed in great numbers or forged a kingdom. A common folk belief is that they are the children of hags; whether or not they are directly related, trolls are often found in the vicinity of story hags. The dominant theory among Korranberg scholars is that trolls began as native fey—that the first trolls were the literal embodiment of the monster under the bridge and the predator in the shadows. This explains both their remarkable healing ability and the fact that in spite of this incredible gift, they haven’t spread to dominate the region or the world. They aren’t entirely real and don’t follow the same basic logic as natural creatures. Their fertility rate fluctuates so that there’s always just enough of them to maintain their role in the story. This also supports a difference between trolls and ogres. Both are large and powerful, but ogres are more human in their behavior and aspirations. Much like the supporting cast of Thelanis, trolls are often patient and content to play out their role in a tale; the point being that a troll might be content to sit beneath a bridge for a century, while an ogre would get bored after a day or two. The fly in the ointment is that trolls aren’t fey. The Korranberg assertion is that trolls began as native fey but that those who left Thelanian manifest zones slowly became more real, as has been seen to occur with eladrin. With this in mind, trolls encountered in Thelanian manifest zones—or in Thelanis itself—may be fey instead of giants.

The region of the Barrens that is now the domain of the Prince of Bones was never a nation in the same way as the Cazhaak Draal or the Venomous Demesne. It’s a region of ruins, haunted and dominated by trolls, lesser hags, and roaming monstrosities. The Prince of Bones is the largest and oldest troll—a legend who blends elements of traditional troll and annis hag. With the guidance of the Daughters of Sora Kell, the Prince of Bones is working to change the story of his domain, and towns are rising among the ruins. But the ruins remain, and there are still monsters that prefer lurking in the shadows to living in the light; it’s still one of the wildest and deadliest regions of Droaam.

So throughout the history of Khorvaire, trolls have played the role of monster, rarely seen in large numbers and rarely organized. This has changed with the rise of the Droaam and the appearance of war trolls. These are the backbone of Maenya’s Fist: an army of disciplined troll soldiers, well equipped and skilled in the use of weapons. There’s no precedent for such a force in history, and no one knows exactly how Sora Maenya assembled this army or how long it took. One theory is that Sora Maenya has a massive fortress deep in the roots of the Byeshk Mountains, where she has been building her army for centuries; according this theory, most of the war trolls are her children or her descendants. Others assert that Sora Maenya essentially worked epic magic to craft a story… that in the same way the first trolls may have embodied the idea of the monster beneath the bridge, that Sora Maenya wove a tale of the Legion of Monsters. So even more so than the domain of the Prince of Bones, if there is a true city of trolls to be found, it is Maenya’s Keep below the Byeshk.

While the idea that the first trolls were native fey is the most popular academic theory, there is a second idea proposed by scholars at Morgrave University. They believe that goblins, bugbears, and hobgoblins are magebred species—that some ancient civilization bioengineered the Dar subspecies to fill specific roles in society. This theory suggests that trolls were products of these same magebreeders—but that they proved wild and uncontrollable, and weren’t integrated into dar civilization. The question remains who these magebreeders were. Most proponents of this idea suggest that dragons were responsible, as it’s known that there was a Draconic civilization on Khorvaire that completely collapsed and disappeared. Others believe that it was a humanoid species—the protodar—who were either exterminated by their creations or who potentially destroyed themselves through civil war, leaving their dar soldiers behind. A final theory combines both of the above, suggesting that the trolls were engineered by the creators of the dar, but that they were then influenced by Thelanis, which is what made them uncontrollable.

Whether their roots are as fey or as living weapons, trolls are long lived and durable, but have a very low rate of reproduction; they have never been as populous as ogres, let alone the dar. Their role in Droaam—both with the war trolls of Maenya’s Fist and the domain of the Prince of Bones—represents a new shift in the role of trolls within Khorvaire.

Thanks to my Patreon supporters for their support! If you have your own questions, you can ask them on Patreon.

IFAQ: Goliaths in Eberron

Posted on July 14, 2024 by Keith Baker

*The Chib is a troll from my upcoming Droaam campaign, but he IS a big guy. Art by Matthew Johnson.*

When time allows, I like to answer interesting questions posed by my Patreon supporters. Questions like…

Now that Goliaths are coming to the PHB with their different forms based on their giant ancestry, do you have any thoughts on how they could be included more commonly than the few paragraphs afforded in Chronicles?

Good question. When the Fourth Edition of D&D added Dragonborn and Eladrin to the Player’s Handbook, we found ways to give each of those species roles in the setting that could easily support player characters—while at the same time, not making dramatic changes that would feel jarring to people in long-term Eberron campaigns, such as saying the people of Thrane are all dragonborn. With this in mind we placed a Dragonborn culture in Q’barra, with the idea that the human colonists hadn’t fully differentiated between the Trothlorsvek dragonborn and the Lizardfolk Cold Sun Federation—we’d always said there’d been reptilian humanoids in Q’barra, it just turns out there was a greater variety than people knew about.

In previous sources I’d suggested that Goliath mechanics could be used the represent the Eneko of Sarlona, an offshoot ogre species largely found in the Syrkarn region. This idea—reskinning Goliaths as an existing species—is still an option. Goliaths with fire giant ancestry could be used as Eneko. Goliaths with hill giant ancestry could be reskinned as ogres from Droaam. Cloud giant goliaths could be recast as Oni. That could work. But with them as a core species in the new PHB, it feels weak to me; it’s valid for people to want a place for Goliaths, something more than just “They’re actually ogres.”

Thinking it over, I’ve come up with not one, not two, but FOUR possible options that could work—each with a very different footprint within the setting and a very different set of roles for player characters. The question is how big a role you want goliaths to play and whether you want them to have a dramatic, active story or if you just want a safe space where they can come from. So, here’s a few ideas to consider.

HOUSE VADALIS: PROJECT GOLIATH

During the final decade of the Last War, the Feral Heart of House Vadalis set up a secret facility in Xen’drik. Far from the eyes of the Five Nations, dragonmarked magebreeders used the abhorrent techniques of the Seryan line to imbue human test subjects with the essence of dead giants. These experiments were agonizing and deadly. The test subjects were criminals, deserters, and others smuggled from Khorvaire. Dozens were slain in the initial trials, but over time the research bore fruit, creating few dozen people each carrying a fraction of a giant’s might. It was then that Project Goliath came under attack. The survivors don’t know who was responsible. Was it Sulatar Drow? The Battalion of the Basalt Towers? The Guardians of Rusheme? Whoever was responsible, the disruption allowed the goliaths to break free from their captivity, destroy the facility from within, and escape.

This idea is what I call a small batch approach. The point would be that there’s only around 24 goliaths in the world, and that if you’re a goliath, you know all the others; you were all tormented in that secret Vadalis facility, and all escaped together. You don’t have a large footprint in the world and most people who meet you will have no idea what you are or what you can do. A few key elements of the story…

Project Goliath was a rogue operation run by the Feral Heart. So House Vadalis as a whole isn’t hunting you down. But member of the Feral Heart may have survived the destruction of the facility. Will you investigate and try to track down any survivors? Or wait and see if they rebuild and come after you?
How did the Feral Heart capture you? Did they kidnap you directly? Or were you betrayed by someone else? Were you a soldier whose corrupt commander claimed you were a casualty of war before shipping you to Vadalis? A criminal betrayed by your employer? The key point being, are you just happy to be alive, or are you looking for some payback?
What’s your relationship with the other goliaths? Are you allies trying to help one another and fighting against common enemies? Or… are some of the other goliaths terrible people the world was better off without? Do you feel an obligation to track down these other goliaths before they can wreak havoc in the Five Nations?
What’s your relationship with the giant who’s essence you carry? Are they fully dead and gone? Are you haunted by their spirit? Or do you perhaps have flashes of their memories, glimpses of artifacts and secrets in Xen’drik that could change the world? And if so, are the other goliaths allies who could work with you to uncover these secrets—or do you need to make sure that no one finds the artifacts you see in your giant-touched dreams?

The point of Project Goliath is that it is a clear and easy path for goliath ADVENTURERS, but it doesn’t actually create a goliath CULTURE. Instead it ties the goliaths directly to the giants of Xen’drik, with that idea that adventurers (and possibly, villainous rivals) going follow dreams and memories to uncover deadly secrets in Xen’drik.

LORGHALEN: ELEMENTAL GOLIATHS

Chronicles of Eberron explores the island of Lorghalen, one of the southern isles of the Lhazaar Principality. The island of Lorghalen and the waters around it are a nexus for powerful elemental energies. As depicted in Chronicles, Lorghalen is home to a gnome culture; but the gnomes are depicted as working closely with native elementals. But a generation after the gnomes settled on Lorghalen, the first goliaths appeared—born fully formed in Lorghalen groves, but with the minds of children. The Lorghalen sages believe that it’s the elemental forces of Lorghalen instinctively responding to the presence of the humanoid settlers—creating these giants to work with the tiny newcomers and to protect them. As such goliaths have always been celebrated in Lorghalen; a newborn Goliath is adopted into a gnome family as a “big brother.”

Lorghalen goliaths feel a deep connection to the natural world. The older they grow the stronger this becomes, and as they grow older they begin to grow in size and elemental power. These Elders have the statistics of giants, but have the Elemental creature type rather than Giant. They are tied to the elemental energies of Lorghalen and rarely leave the island; they dwell in its strongest manifest zones, mediating on the flow of energies and advising Lorghalen stonespeakers.

Lorghalen goliaths are a half-step further than Project Goliath. They have a small footprint in the world and their culture is intertwined with the Lorghalen gnomes. Part of what’s interesting about the Lorghalen goliaths is to play up their elemental connection—they aren’t tied to giants, they’re tied to EBERRON and to the forces of nature. The idea that they are essentially immortal—seeds that will grow into giant elders—can also be a fun thing to explore. As a goliath adventurer, this is your time to see the world before you settled down and become an elder bound to a place of power. You might be a seed cast on the wind looking for a new elemental stronghold out in the world—you could be very interested in meeting druids or other primal cultures. However, this idea of an elemental culture closely tied to gnomes may not be what people want from goliaths. So…

LHAZAAR: THE STONEHEART PRINCIPALITY

Long before humanity came to Khorvaire, a massive airship crashed on the eastern coastline. The ship was built by giants—a unique vessel designed to explore the world beyond the land of Xen’drik. The ship fell because it entered a powerful Lamannian manifest zone, releasing bound elementals and causing the ship to plummet into what is now known as the Forsaken Forest. The wood possesses the Primordial Matter trait of Lamannia, and its vegetation is strong and vibrant—and refuses to be conquered by civilization. The survivors of the crash built a settlement in the woods, but despite their valiant struggles the forces of nature overcame the giant pioneers. Ruins are scattered around the ancient ship, overgrown and worn down. Planar scholars might note the resemblance to the layer called Titan’s Folly in Lamannia—another place where giants fought the power of Lamannia and lost. But this expedition left a lasting mark on the region: Goliaths. When Lhazaar landed in the region that bears her name, she found being already dwelling on the mainland—orc, dwarves, and the mighty goliaths that lived on the edge of the Forsaken Forest. Lhazaar and her peers were ruthless and determined to carve out a home in this new land, and in the days ahead they would slaughter and oppress goblins and other denizens of Khorvaire. But the Goliaths of Skairn were too strong and too well entrenched to be easily conquered. The newcomers established treaties with the giantfolk, establishing what is now known as the Stoneheart Principality. The Stoneheart capital of Skairn plays an important role in the Principalities. The goliaths have little interest in seafaring and take to the water only to fish; but the Lamannian-touched lumber they harvest from the Forsaken Forest is some of the finest available in the region, and traders come from across the Principalities to purchase lumber for their shipwrights. The Stoneheart don’t have a fleet on the water, and Skairn remains neutral in the feuds of the Sea Princes; it is a friendly port for all.

The Stoneheart Goliaths are proud of their ancient ties to the land. They believe they are descended from the ancient giants that fell in the forest, and that they have ties to the region older even than those of the dwarves. Mechanically, there is one important element. Goliaths are born with the Powerful Build trait—they are large and powerful. But upon reaching adolescence, they make a pilgrimage into the Forsaken Forest, traveling to the ancient shipwreck and touching an artifact within it: a massive stone charged with mystical energy, which they call The Stone Heart. Touching the stone sends a surge of mystical energy through the young goliath, triggering their Giant Ancestry trait (and providing access to Large Form, though not all goliaths manifest this power). one aspect of this is that the Giant Ancestry trait isn’t directly hereditary; the child of two goliaths with fire giant ancestry could manifest Stone’s Endurance or Storm’s Thunder. There are also goliaths in other principalities—notably, the Cloudreavers—who don’t possess Giant Ancestry, as they have never been to the Stone Heart to activate this latent power.

The Stoneheart Principality is prosperous, buoyed by the lumber trade and the strength of its people. Stoneheart goliaths have never sent a fleet onto the water, but they have often served as mercenaries for other princes. A small number of elite Stoneheart mercenaries sell their services through House Deneith, and the princes of Karrnath have traditionally had a goliath bodyguard. As such, while goliaths are rarely seen in the Five Nations, they are recognized and renowned for their strength, endurance, and commitment to a task. During the Last War, Deneith brokered the services of an elite company of goliaths known as the Stone Hammer. Throughout most of the war they served Karrnath; but toward the end of the war Cyre lured them away. Because of this, most members of the Stone Hammer died in the Mourning. Many of the survivors have chosen to remain with communities of Cyran refugees, holding to their last contract to protect Cyre. The former captain of the Stone Hammer, Skuldaran, now protects Prince Oargev in New Cyre.

The point of the Stoneheart Principality is to give the goliaths of Khorvaire a unique culture, role in history, and tie to the giants of Xen’drik without having such an overwhelming presence that it feels strange not to have encountered them before. People across the Five Nations have heard of goliaths due to royal bodyguards and the tone Hammer, but they are still quite rare outside the Lhazaar Principalities. Within the Principalities they have an important role, but they are a mainland force that has no strong ties to piracy. They were there before Lhazaar, and they are the people of wood and the stones of the coast. They have no interest in sailing on the water, but it is their lumber that makes it possible. And this is also a way to add flavor to the canonically undeveloped port of Skairn and the Forsaken Forest. What is the Stone Heart, and what other secrets could be hidden in the ancient ruins around it?

THE GOLATHARI: THE TITAN’S BLADE

In the last days of Xen’drik, the immortal titan Golath foresaw the plans of the dragons and led a small force into a Khyber demiplane. Golath was a target of interest, and he sealed the gate to the plane behind him so that the dragons would find no trace of him and believe him dead. Golath and his kin conquered the native denizens of the demiplane, and over the course of tens of thousands of years they built a mighty empire. Now they have returned… and they want vengeance.

The idea of the Golathari is to take many of the traditional tropes of the Githyanki and recast them onto Goliaths. They are a brutal, powerful extraplanar raider culture ruled by a godlike immortal tyrant. Goliaths are descended from the giants who accompanied the titan Golath and the humanoid natives of the demiplane; over the course of tens of thousands of years they have become a unique species. Unlike what I’ve suggested for the goliaths of the Stoneheart Principality, the Giant Ancestry of the Golathari goliaths would be hereditary, and furthermore, this is where I’d use the Ordning.The giants of ancient Xen’drik didn’t have this tradition, but it is something established by Golath and maintain among his goliaths as well as the actual giants of his demiplane; goliaths with hill giant ancestry are expected to show respect to those further up the Ordning.

The idea of the Golathari is that they are a brutal martial culture that has held onto and built upon some of the mystical traditions of Xen’drik, as well as working with unique materials and energies found in their demiplane. For millennia, Golath has been plotting a way to take revenge against Argonnessen, and he is finally putting that plan into action. He has found a way to open portals from his demiplane into Eberron, but it is currently impossible for anyone to enter the demiplane against his wishes. He has developed weapons uniquely suited to fighting dragons. Dragonbane weapons are an easy option, but this could also be the source of Orbs of Dragonkind. I could also imagine him having developed artifacts that can temporarily strip a dragon of its inherent arcane abilities. If you wanted to borrow a further twist from the traditional Githyanki story, Golath could have forged a dangerous alliance with the Daughter of Khyber—who is content for Golath to slay and enslave dragons and break the current civilization of Argonnessen knowing that when she herself is freed her children will destroy the last titan. But for now Golath’s weapons—like Orbs of Dragonkind—could be empowered by the overlord, and he could Spawn of Tiamat fighting alongside his goliaths.

If I used this story, I would make the Golathari Incursion something that’s unfolding RIGHT NOW. Across the world, Golathari raiders are striking Chamber operations and assassinating rogue dragons. They may be gathering parts for a devastating weapon that could strip the arcane power of all the dragons of Argonnessen. The Golathari goliaths believe in their righteous cause and are utterly devoted to their immortal tyrant; again, this is a space where you could borrow the relationship between the Githyanki and Vlaakith in other settings. And with that in mind, that’s a key element for Golathari goliath adventurers: are you a loyal servant of the Titan King on an important mission requiring you to work with these tiny denizens of this backwater world? Or are you a rebel and a renegade, someone who knows that Golath consumes the essence of those goliaths who become too powerful, and who sees him for the tyrant he is?

EVERYDAY GOLIATHS

The four ideas presented above are all designed to give goliaths a STORY within the world—whether it’s a very recent story like Project Goliath, or if they’ve been around for a while, like the Stoneheart Principality. However, you don’t HAVE to give goliaths a deep story. And even if you DO use the Stoneheart Principality, you can make a goliath who’s just descended from a family of goliaths that immigrated to Karrnath centuries ago and think of themselves as Karrns. Just as Brelish dwarves and elves are BRELISH rather than having ties to the Mror or Aereni cultures, if you just want to play a goliath from Sharn who works for the Boromars and doesn’t CARE where he came from, that’s fine. Likewise, I said above that I wouldn’t turn the entire population of Thrane into dragonborn… but I have no problem with the idea that there may be dragonborn living in Thrane. Someone raised the idea that it would be cool to have a community of wyvernborn living in Thrane, and I love that; I just wouldn’t completely change the established culture and history of Thrane in adding them. But as long as player and DM are on the same page, you don’t have to use a story that’s as exotic as any of these options to add a new ancestry to your campaign.

IN CONCLUSION…

While these ideas aren’t mutually exclusive, I personally would choose one of them for my campaign. Project Goliath is the least intrusive, as only a handful exist. The Lorghalen goliaths have a very small footprint; they have a place to call home, but haven’t made much impact. The Stoneheart Principality is a way to give goliaths a clear and unique culture while still interweaving them with the existing story of the Lhazaar Principalities. And the Golathari are both an active and entirely new threat, rising up from Khyber with an aggressive agenda. And if they CAN actually strip Argonnessen of its power, what will that do to the balance of power in the world? Who will stand against the Lords of Dust?

Feel free to discuss these ideas in the comments, but I am unlikely to have time to answer questions here. If you do want to ask me questions — like the one that inspired this article! — check out my Patreon.

Keith Baker’s Blog

Exploring the World of Eberron

Category Archives: Eberron FAQ

Monsters of Eberron: The Bodak

WHAT’S A BODAK?

MALEFIC SERVANTS

Frontier Previews: The Border Road and College of Wands Bard!

Phoenix Dawn Command: The Final Mission

Frontiers Preview: The Harpies of the Byeshk Mountains

IFAQ: Hellfire Weapons in Eberron

What are your thoughts on hellfire weapons, lemures, and the River Styx in Eberron?

But wait! I thought that immortals couldn’t reproduce! Does this change that?

Dragonmark: Lamias of Eberron

IFAQ: The Tain Gala

Tain Gala Performers

Tain Gala Guests

What about the Adventurers?

But what do you DO there?

Flashback: Sphinxes of Eberron

Why Does This Matter?

Do Time Travelers Break The Game?

If you had to place “Sphinxlantis”—the theoretical Sphinx lost civilization—anywhere in Your Eberron, where do you think it would be and why? What would it be like?

Why Does This Matter?

GENERAL QUESTIONS

IFAQ: Troll Origins

What do you see as the origin of trolls in Eberron? They are so different from other giants, they almost seem like aberrations to me – maybe some Daelkyr or other experimented with ogres?

IFAQ: Goliaths in Eberron

HOUSE VADALIS: PROJECT GOLIATH

LORGHALEN: ELEMENTAL GOLIATHS

LHAZAAR: THE STONEHEART PRINCIPALITY

THE GOLATHARI: THE TITAN’S BLADE

EVERYDAY GOLIATHS

IN CONCLUSION…