IFAQ: The Elvish Language

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My new book Exploring Eberron is available now on the DM’s Guild. You can find a FAQ about it here. Yesterday I posted an IFAQ about developing languages. In the comments, a question came up about the role of the Elvish language in the world. Since the answers have broader implications on a general philosophy of worldbuilding, I wanted to make it a standalone IFAQ. So…

Elvish is the language of Thelanis. Is that primordially true, i.e. did Elves speak that language prior to their enslavement by the Giants? Also, if Elvish is the language of Thelanis, are Elves born knowing it, or must it be taught to children like any other language?

There are no canon answers to these questions. By the rules of D&D, elves speak Elvish. It’s part of their racial features. There’s no explanation of where the language came from or how they come to learn it. So first, to be clear, everything I’m about to say is what I do IN MY CAMPAIGN. It has no foundation in any canon source, though as far as I know it doesn’t contradict any canon source either; the topic has simply never come up. But if you don’t like it, don’t use it. To me, this is a perfect example of a choice where you need to think about the broader implications—you need to be sure you WANT your story to go down a particular path. So I’ll tell you my answer, but then I want to talk about WHY I’d answer that way.

First: Elvish is the language of Thelanis. That is primordially true. The planes are universal concepts, and their fundamental principles don’t change (setting aside the complications of Dal Quor!). With that said, one of the minor effects of Thelanis is that while you are in Thelanis, you understand Elvish. When you’re wandering through the Endless Weald, you can understand the songs of the dryads singing in the trees; you are part of the story and that means you understand its words. It is only when you and a dryad LEAVE Thelanis that you realize that you can’t understand her any more, and start hearing her words as Elvish instead simply understanding their meaning.

Second: In my Eberron, every elf is born with an innate understanding of the Elvish language. It doesn’t matter if you’re an orphan born in a Sharn gutter or a proud Aereni. You don’t have to be taught; the language a part of you, tied innately to the Fey Ancestry feature. It is impossible to be an elf and NOT understand Elvish.

WHY DO THIS? What appeals to me about this is that in concretely establishes that elves are not human. They aren’t just humans who have pointed ears and live for centuries. They are fundamentally alien beings whose minds do not work the same way as human minds. It further reinforces other things we’ve established about the elf cultures, namely that they are extremely tied to tradition and that they aren’t as innovative as humans. This makes sense if elves have a greater degree of engrained knowledge and instinct than humans. As an elf, you never have to develop a new language. You are born knowing THE LANGUAGE, the language that will allow you to speak to any elf anywhere.

This comes back to one of my basic principles of world building. I like exploring worlds that are unlike our own. To me, it’s fascinating to consider the impact of having a language seared into your brain from the moment of birth. How would that affect the development of culture? It is fundamentally the antithesis of the Babel story—the people of the world are divided by their many languages, but all elves are united by their common tongue.

The original question included this: was Giant the language that the oppressed elves were supposed to use with their overlords, while Elvish was preserved as the language they used among themselves? Absolutely. The giants weren’t going to learn Elvish, so elf servants had to learn at least basic Giant. It’s not that Elvish was preserved, because the elves couldn’t forget it even if they wanted to. But it was unquestionably SUPPRESSED, and elves would be punished for speaking it. But this is also a crucial factor in the eventual uprising. Captives of the giants, descendants of Qabalrin refugees, the unconquered ancestors of the Tairnadal—despite their different cultures and histories, they were united by the Elvish tongue and could always understand one another. Given this, one might well ask what about the Drow? First of all, by the RULES drow speak Elvish. Second, they possess the Fey Ancestry trait. To me, those two facts hold the answer. While altered by the giants, the drow still have their Fey Ancestry, and it is through that ancestry that they know the Elvish language.

This gets to a much deeper and more complicated question: Do the Khoravar (half-elves) innately understand Elvish, or do THEY have to learn it? The reason this is complicated is because it has vast ramifications on the relationship between Khoravar and Elves. We’ve often raised the question can a half-elf become a Tairnadal? Could they join the Undying Court? If all elves innately understand Elvish and Khorvar do NOT understand Elvish, that’s a deep point in favor of the idea that Khorvar are fundamentally not elves… while if they are born with the knowledge of Elvish, that’s a strong argument that they ARE spiritually part of the elf species and COULD connect with Patron Ancestors. PERSONALLY, I would say that Khoravar DO innately know Elvish, for the same reason as drow. Under the rules of 5E, half-elves possess the Fey Ancestry feat and have Elvish as an ingrained language. For me, it’s all about that Fey Ancestry; part of what it means to have Fey Ancestry is to KNOW ELVISH, in the same way that I’ve said that part of being a druid is that you KNOW DRUIDIC. This also explains why the Valenar were so quick to bring in Khoravar administrators; they may not consider them equals, but it’s good to have an administrator who KNOWS THE LANGUAGE. But this is definitely a case where I could see a DM ruling the other way specifically because of how they want to play out that story of the Khoravar who wants to be Tairnadal. We’ve also made a point of saying that many Khoravar communities develop a Khoravar Cant that is a unique blend of Elvish and Common; part of the point of this is that they KNOW Elvish, but they are choosing to speak in a manner that is unique to THEIR people, not simply relying on the language of either parent. Likewise, it adds color to the relationship between Aereni and drow; even though the drow were created to kill elves, they still know the Language.

So this raises another interesting question… what happens when you need a new word? A situation arises where there’s a concept that’s never been expressed in Elvish, or a poet is expressing an entirely new concept. Do they create a new word? If so, wouldn’t they have to teach it to others? Isn’t this exactly how we end up developing unique dialects and new languages? Certainly. But this is where we get back to the point that they’re not human, that they are touched by the Fey, that this is something that fundamentally doesn’t make sense. The poet doesn’t create a new word the way a human poet would. They realize they already know the word, even though it’s never been spoken in Elvish before. And once spoken, every other fey creature also knows that word. Because Elvish isn’t just a mundane, mortal language; it is an immortal, magical language. An elf knows Elvish because fundamentally, they are fey, and being fey means knowing Elvish. The language evolves as it is needed, and all fey creatures know the language. What this DOES mean is that any creature without Fey ancestry who learns Elvish WILL find that new words occasionally appear and they’ll have to learn their meaning, because without Fey Ancestry, they don’t get those automatic dictionary updates.

This is a long discussion of a point that, mechanically, makes no difference. Because by the rules, elves just know Elvish. It’s a racial feature with no inherent story. But the point is that once you add a story you GIVE it meaning. The reason I’d say that they DO all know it, that it is fundamentally tied to Fey Ancestry is because I WANT to explore the impact of that decision—on the Xen’drik Uprising, on the relationship between Khoravar and Aereni, on the idea of elves being bound to tradition. I think it’s interesting to explore ways in which elves AREN’T like humans, and to imagine what it would be like to be born with immediate, perfect knowledge of a language.

So, in conclusion, when there is no canon answer to questions like this—or even if there is!—the question to me is always how will it affect the story, and what story do I want to tell? *I* find the story of innate-knowledge-of-Elvish more INTERESTING that Elvish-is-just-a-mundane-language-like-any-other. But you certainly don’t have to agree with me!

Are there other languages that would work the same way?

Certainly. I’d say that an aasimar understands Celestial the same way that an elf understands Elvish; they don’t have to learn it, and you can’t be an aasimar and NOT understand Celestial (unless you’re an aasimar tied to a power that speaks another immortal language; note that the Court aasimar in Exploring Eberron speaks both Elvish and Celestial, and of course has Fey Ancestry!). All true immortals are born innately possessing all of their basic knowledge, including languages, and I would say that just like I’ve suggested with Elvish, if Celestial needs a new word, all creatures with an innate knowledge of Celestial automatically know that word. Again, MORTALS who have LEARNED the language wouldn’t get that automatic update. This could be an interesting element for archaeologists, being able to date inscriptions in Abyssal or Celestial based on “Note the use of ‘Alael’, which didn’t become part of the language until the Age of Giants.” But in general this would be an aspect of immortal languages. Humans can make new languages; immortals are born knowing their language, and again, can usually make themselves understood when they wish to.

In this article I suggested that Undercommon might be constantly evolving, but that anyone who could speak Undercommon automatically knows the current form of it—essentially the same principle as the Elvish dictionary updates, but that rather than just ADDING to the existing language, the pre-existing words are always changing… and that when you find inscriptions in Undercommon, they may make no sense under the current form of the language or they might have taken on a new meaning. However, this is a pretty difficult concept for us poor mortals to wrap our brains around, and I didn’t actually push it in either the Wayfinder’s Guide or Rising From The Last War.

Before the fall of Xen’drik were there multiple Giant languages for each realm?

This comes back to the whole question of language-in-games in general. Xen’drik is a massive continent and there were multiple, very distinct giant civilizations. Barring some exterior factor—IE Fey-Ancestry-means-you-speak-Elvish—it’s reasonable to assume that these different giant cultures would all have developed unique languages. However, it’s also the case that we haven’t defined those languages; we’ve never mentioned Sulatan or Elevenese. What we’ve said is that the language we know as Giant was the COMMON TONGUE of Xen’drik, widespread enough that it is what you find spoken by the vast diverse range of creatures across the continent. I might very well introduce the idea of Elevenese as a PLOT DEVICE—the adventurers have found an ancient scroll in Risia that’s written in old Elevenese, the pre-Giant language of the Group of Eleven! It’s completely unknown in the modern age, and you’ll need to use Comprehend Language!—but I’m not going to expect a player character to waste a language slot learning Elevenese; Giant is the language you NEED to know to get by in Xen’drik. Again, at the end of the day, it’s the question of how will this decision affect the story you and your friends tell at your table?

What is the difference/relationship between Celestial and Draconic?

In the article that’s been linked a few times I suggested that they might be the same, but I’ve actually backed off from that (and we didn’t include it in Rising From The Last War). I think that there are SIMILARITIES between the two, just as I’ve suggested that Goblin and Orc may have their roots in Abyssal (noting the similarity between Goblin and the names of the Overlords). But essentially, I think Draconic is the oldest MORTAL language, but it’s not an IMMORTAL language.

What about gnomes? Aren’t they fey? Do they know Elvish?

The idea that gnomes are from Thelanis was added into the fourth edition books specifically to address the fact that in fourth edition Dungeons & Dragons, gnomes were fey creatures. This is no longer true in fifth edition, and it’s not something we mention in Rising From The Last War. To my mind, this is in the same category as BAATOR, which was added into the planar cosmology in fourth edition, and REMOVED AGAIN in Rising From The Last War. Canon can evolve, and the latest canon does NOT have gnomes as Thelanian immigrants. What I have suggested is that there are gnomes who have immigrated FROM EBERRON TO THELANIS through the Feyspires, but they are natives of Eberron. They do not have Fey Ancestry and as such don’t have an innate understanding of Elvish. If a gnome knows Elvish, it’s because they learned it like anyone else.

Setting aside the fact that the idea of gnomes being from Thelanis was always a 4E artifact, the gnomes and elves of Eberron have a few very fundamental differences that reflect this. The elves are deeply bound to tradition and not driven toward innovation. They are happy to exist in isolation. By contrast, gnomes are typically extremely inquisitive. They are called out as being explorers, seeking out new lands and discovering new cultures. The Zil try different religions. House Sivis is specifically called out as having created multiple languages. They’ve reverse-engineered elemental binding techniques recovered from Xen’drik. The fact that there’s some gnomes in Thelanis is a reflection of that deeply inquisitive nature—not of Thelanian origins. With that said, as I describe in the Exploring Eberron FAQ, I’m playing a gnome artificer from Pylas Pyrial in my current campaign. But he’s NOT a fey creature; he’s just using the “Magical Thinking” style of artifice tied to his Pyrial upbringing.

Thanks for taking this deep dive into the Elvish rabbit hole. And thanks to my Patrons for making it possible!

IFAQ: Creating Languages

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My new book Exploring Eberron is available now on the DM’s Guild. You can find a FAQ about it here. I am currently working on a longer article about the Nobility of Khorvaire, but as time permits I like to answer interesting short questions from my Patreon supporters, so here’s one from Samantha:

How do you pick the names for the Overlords? They seem to all have a common thread or convention, and I’m dying to know what it is.

The answer is tied to a broader question of worldbuilding, which is how deep do you go in creating languages for a world? Exploring Eberron includes a Goblin glossary, compiled with help from Don Bassingthwaite and Jarrod Taylor. The bulk of that glossary was developed by Don when he was working on his Legacy of Dhakaan novels, but he built it on the foundation I’d established in previous sourcebooks. The answer is that I almost never go deep into creating a language; but my goal is to be distinctive and consistent. I don’t usually bother to create a full dictionary of hundreds of words. But I establish a simple set of rules and keep track of existing words, and use the existing words as a foundation going forward.

So for example, here’s a few we came up with developing the 3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting.

Elvish. The elves use a lot of diphthongs, especially ae and ai. Words often have a soft flow, and V and L are common letters: Vadallia, Valaestas, Valenar, Vol. We quickly established Shae as “City”, Taer as “Fortress”, and “Pylas” as “Port.” This is important for worldbuilding, because you want consistent naming conventions for places when you are creating maps—even if you don’t yet no the culture. Elvish words are usually multisyllabic, and L, S, and R are common end letters… Tairnadal, Aerenal, Valenar. However, you have a few short names, usually formed on -ol—Vol, Shol.

Goblin. An immediate goal was for Goblin to feel harsher than Elvish. Goblin also uses a lot of diphthongs, but generally with repeated vowels—duur, ghaal, guul. It blends sibilance with harsh k and kh sounds—Shaarat’khesh, Taarka’khesh, Kech Shaarat. As seen in two of those three examples, glottal stops are common. As with Elvish, we immediately settled on place names, so draal was “city”; Rhukaan Draal, Cazhaak Draal, again with the harsher sound, dipthongs, and hard k’s. We started with those few basic words: duur is “dirge“, shaarat is “sword”, taarka is “wolf”, volaar is “word”, ghaal is “mighty” and could be attached to a people (ghaal’dar) or thing (ghaal’duur). We had Shaarat’khesh, the “silent blades” and Kech Shaarat, the “Keepers of the Blade.” But the point is that at the time, we didn’t have too much more than that. Until Don came along, we DIDN’T create a extensive Goblin dictionary; it was simply the case that when you needed to make a new Goblin word, you wanted to look back over the words that already existed and to make a word that feels like it fits the same pattern. So again, for me, the vital element is consistency.

So with that in mind, how did we pick the names of the overlords? Well, even before picking their names, we established the idea that every overlord would have a common title. The overlord’s actually names would be ancient and people might be superstitious about using them. Beyond that, part of the issue of using alien languages is that players can have trouble remembering them. “Rak Tulkhesh” is a jumble of sounds; “The Rage of War” immediately says this is an angry warmonger. So for most of them, the TITLE came first: The Rage of War, the Voice in the Darkness, the Keeper of Secrets, the Shadow in the Flame. In then developing their actual names, it’s the same process as for Goblin or Elvish: establish basic principles and make sure you stick with them. So…

  • Most overlords have a monosyllabic first article and a multisyllabic second article: Rak Tulkhesh, Sul Khatesh.
  • Like Goblin, overlord names often combine harsh consonants with sibilants—Tulkhesh, Oreshka. However, overlords generally DON’T use diphthongs or glottal stops.
  • Ul, kh, and sh are common; Sul Khatesh, Tul Oreshka, Rak Tulkhesh. Part of the concept is that while they’re usually broken into short-name long-name, to some degree each syllable has power… it’s actually Rak-Tul-Khesh and Tul-Or-Esh-Ka. This plays to the idea that on some level the name of an overlord is an incantation… which explains why you DON’T want to say their names!

There are exceptions to all things. Eldrantulku the Oathbreaker uses a single word in both name and title, but you can still imagine his name as El-Dran-Tul-Ku. Dral Khatuur has a diphthong in her name. She probably should have been Dral Khatur; I admit that this was just a case where *I* liked the look and feel of Khatuur… Dral-Kha-Tuuuuur.

Some older versions of D&D had Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic as languages, but didn’t fully expand on their role. How would you make them distinct from Infernal, Abysmal, and/or Celestial for Eberron?

PERSONALLY, how I’d make them distinct is by making them nonexistent. There’s a number of reasons why I wouldn’t use these in my campaigns.

First, I usually find that having too many languages tends to get in the way of a story instead of making it more fun. The last thing I want is for the adventurers to meet a crucial NPC but then find no one can speak to him. This CAN be fun if it’s a specific part of the story — they need to play charades to figure out the directions to the dragon’s lair, or they need to find the one sage in the region that can read ancient Orc. But I don’t want that to be a part of EVERY ADVENTURE. As a result, I tend to REDUCE the number of languages in the game, focusing on the idea of “common tongues” — Common as the common language of Galifar, Goblin as the common language of Galifar, Giant as the common language of Xen’drik, Riedran as the common language of Sarlona. Exotic languages are EXOTIC and may play an interesting story role — the gnolls will be impressed if you actually speak gnoll — but any Znir gnoll will understand Goblin.

But beyond that, ALIGNMENT languages are especially weird for Eberron, where we try to downplay the role of alignment and play up personal choice. It’s not like you are born lawful and go to lawful school where they teach you to speak Lawful. You could make it the language of Daanvi, and in the 3.5 ECS many planes have languages. But in my Eberron, any immortal that WANTS to be understood WILL be understood. When the couatl appeared to Tira Miron, it didn’t speak Common; it just SPOKE, and she UNDERSTOOD. When you finally make it to the Amaranthine City of Irian, I don’t WANT you to find that you don’t understand anything the crowds are saying. The planes aren’t just mundane alien worlds, they are UNIVERSAL SYMBOLS — and as such, I say that if an immortal wants to be understood, it WILL be understood. I don’t mind having planar languages as the MOST esoteric of the esoteric languages; if you find a SCROLL from Mabar, maybe it’s written in Mabaran. And to be clear, an immortal CAN speak a mundane language if that serves its purpose. But that’s a conscious choice.

So having said all that, it’s not what I would do, but on that principle of EVERYTHING HAS A PLACE, if I HAD to put alignment languages in Eberron, I would say that they are fundamentally magical languages; they are universal languages — the speech of immortals — but are only understood by people who share the outlook of the speaker. So perhaps a Shavaran angel of the Legion of Freedom DOES speak Chaotic, which means that any creature with a chaotic alignment understands it perfectly and no one else understands it at all. It is the language of FREEDOM, understood by any free spirit. But it’s not a language you can LEARN; it’s part of the I’m-an-embodiment-of-chaos aspect of the immortal. If a player character could speak it, it would be through some kind of magic item or supernatural gift.

As a fun side note: sometimes soldiers or emergency service personnel use a “pointy-talky” card to facilitate communication with people when they have no common language. When we were developing the RPG Phoenix: Dawn Command we created a pointy-talky for Phoenixes to use on their missions; I’m going to share that now on my Patreon!

IFAQ: Treaties and Laws

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My new book Exploring Eberron is available now on the DM’s Guild. You can find a FAQ about it here. I am currently working on a longer article about the Nobility of Khorvaire, but as time permits I like to answer interesting short questions from my Patreon supporters, so here’s one from Asmuz:

What’s the relationship between the Treaty of Thronehold and the laws of the Thronehold nations? Why is it called out that Darguun’s practices are against the Treaty of Thronehold, while Karrnath having the brutal Code of Kaius isn’t an issue?

The Treaty of Thronehold serves the following major purposes.

  • It ensures a state of peace between all signatories, and that no Thronehold nation will initiate an attack against any other signatory nation.
  • It includes the provision that while traveling within a Thronehold nation, any citizen of a Thronehold nation will have the same rights and protection under the law as a citizen of that nation.
  • It includes a number of lesser provisions banning the production or use of certain types of magical weapons and war rituals. It’s this section that bans the production of warforged and grants freedom to all warforged, who are to be considered citizens of the Thronehold nations whose citizens originally purchased them.
  • It defines the recognized borders and dealt with variations reparations and concessions, which, for example, confirmed Thaliost as a territory of Thrane.
  • It recognizes the rights of the Dragonmarked Houses to operate within all Thronehold nations, maintaining the established principles of the Korth Edicts. This also establishes that members of Dragonmarked Houses receive the same legal protections as Thronehold citizens. (This is why, notably, the Treaty can dictate things like “No building warforged.“)

This was a TREATY, not a CONSTITUTION. The Thronehold nations aren’t united kingdoms. They are NOT bound by the same laws—they are simply bound to treat all citizens of Thronehold nations with the same rights as their own people, and to obey the bans specifically laid out in the Treaty. A nation couldn’t, for example, make a law saying “We can sell warforged” without violating the Treaty.

Now, there’s a second thing that enters play, and that’s the Galifar Code of Justice. The Five Nations were all once united as Galifar, and remember, the Last War was fought because each wanted to reunite Galifar under their rule. Thus, it’s not surprising that they maintained the common laws, because maintaining those laws was evidence of their preservation of the ideals of Galifar. However, some of the Five Nations MODIFIED those laws. The original 3.5 ECS makes these observations…

  • Aundair. “Aundair adheres to the Galifar Code of Justice, an intricate system of laws and regulations that once helped maintain order throughout the united kingdom.”
  • Breland. “Breland makes use of the Galifar Code of Justice, and law enforcers can be found in every thorp, village, and city.”
  • Karrnath. “While the Galifar Code of Justice provides the basis for civil rights in Karrnath, the Code of Kaius that developed from it is more rigid and less forgiving. Indeed, the nation has labored under martial law since the earliest days of the Last War.”
  • Thrane. “As long as you do no obvious evil, you won’t find trouble in Thrane. However, Thrane’s laws tend to be more stringent than the Code of Galifar, and punishments more brutal.”

Sharn: City of Towers has an section that deals with law in Sharn—which, as noted above, is the Galifar Code of Justice. Here’s an important detail, with highlighting…

The mark of the outlaw is recognized in all of the Five Nations, and any nation that respects the Galifar Code of Justice looks suspiciously on exiled outlaws. As a result, outlaws usually congregate in Darguun, Droaam, the Shadow Marches, Xen’drik, the Lhazaar Principalities, and Q’barra—nations that either ignore the Galifar Code or that believe a convict can overcome a criminal past.

Sharn: City of towers, page 134

So: The Treaty of Thronehold does not require its signatory nations to make use of the Galifar Code of Justice. What I suggest here is that what it DOES require is for all citizens of Thronehold nations to be protected by local law. So as a Thrane in Darguun you are entitled to the same protection as one of the Ghaal’dar—even if that may not include all the protections you’re used to. The only nations that use the Galifar Code are the Five Nations and New Galifar in Q’barra (the mention of Q’barra in the quote above is referring to Hope). The other nations have their own systems of justice: Zilargo is far more restrictive than any of the Five Nations, while the Shadow Marches and Darguun are less structured. In the Lhazaar Principalities, princes have the right to set the laws of their domains. GENERALLY these agree on common, basic principles, but they are all unique.

So to get back to the basic question… Why are Darguun’s practices an issue when the Code of Kaius isn’t an issue? They aren’t an issue under the Treaty. Darguun isn’t REQUIRED to abide by the Galifar Code of Justice, and the proof of this is that it doesn’t. The issue is that Darguun was accepted as a Thronehold nation because of the desire for peace. Prince Oargev is very eager to have its status revoked, to have the region recognized as Cyre, and to get support to drive the Ghaal’dar from the region. Haruuc KNOWS that other nations consider their laws to be barbaric, and specifically, the practice of slavery to be an atrocity. It’s not that he HAS to change these traditions, it’s that he WANTS to change these traditions because he wants to maintain the support of the other Thronehold nations. But it’s an important point that there’s no “Army of Thronehold” that enforces these terms; the consequence of violating the Treaty is that the other nations may choose to expel you and then you’d lose the rights described above, IE, any nation could attack you and your citizens wouldn’t be protected by local laws.

Since I haven’t said this for a while, keep in mind that everything in this blog reflects how *I* do things in my campaign. I’ve quoted books that I’ve worked on, but it’s entirely possible I’ve contradicted something in Forge of War. This is how I see the Treaty, but as always, it’s up to you to decide how you use it in your game.

In Sharn: City of Towers the law seems to favour execution or monetary fines as punishment for crimes. Is this a quirk of Sharn (not a lot of prison space) or representative of the general pattern of the Galifar Code of Justice?
It’s a reflection of the Galifar Code, but it’s not quite as simple as “Fines or execution.” Pages 132-134 of Sharn: City of Towers also mentions hard labor, branding, mystical punishment, and exile. The main point is that EXTENDED INCARCERATION is very rare under the Galifar Code. You are expected to pay for your crime, with either money or labor. If you are deemed a threat you are forced to LEAVE the community (through exile) and may be forced to bear the ongoing burden of your crime through a brand. But Galifar doesn’t rely on lengthy incarceration, whether as a tool for punishment or redemption. Page 134 of S:CoT specifically states that “executions are rare.” But this is what makes Dreadhold so significant; there AREN’T a lot of major prisons designed for indefinite stays.

Was there an established system of international law/treaty making or was Thronehold something of a Peace of Westphalia sort of affair? Have nations made separate treaties with each other in addition to Thronehold or is everyone sort of waiting to see if it works?

Good questions. Consider the following points. Up until around a century ago, there was basically ONE NATION in Khorvaire (with a few minor side territories like Lhazaar). The war was being fought to restore that nation; the question was who would rule it. The Treaty of Thronehold is not a perfect solution and no one is happy with it. It’s not a carefully planned out utopian foundation for international law and relations; it’s a desperate tourniquet applied because people are terrified of the Mourning. It doesn’t settle the grievances that set the Last War in motion. It leaves in place nations like the Eldeen Reaches, Darguun, and Valenar that are STRONGLY contested by chunks of the population. The point is that people are terrified that if the war continued there could be a second Mourning. People believed that they HAD to stop the war at any cost, and the Treaty of Thronehold was the fastest solution they could find. But it’s not supposed to be perfect. There ARE elements of it that don’t make sense or that don’t go far enough. There is no body like the United Nations, no global peacekeeping force, and while they’ve established an international tribunal at Thronehold that’s very much an experiment that they are still figuring out. Looking to the signatory nations, the Eldeen Reaches and Talenta Plains are barely nations; Darguun and Valenar are contested by Cyre, though they were accepted because there is no more Cyre. But again, this isn’t a perfect system and there are many ways in which it has yet to be tested, because it’s only been in place for two years. So to me, some of these questions are questions that should come up IN A CAMPAIGN — as leaders TRY to strengthen the international community, as cases come up that test the concept of international law, and so on. This isn’t an ancient system that’s been perfected; it is very much a living thing that is still being put to the test.

An interesting aspect to consider is that when the Last War began, it was being fought by five nations that shared a common foundation of laws and that were ultimately seeking to renunite their nations, merely arguing over who would be in charge. The Treaty of Thronehold represents the death of that dream, not only accepting that Galifar will not be restored, but acknowledging nations that do NOT share the common laws or traditions of Galifar. The Five Nations were at least cousins; Valenar, Darguun, and the Eldeen Reaches all come from entirely different families with little in common. People believed they HAD to make a solution as quickly as possible, because in light of the Mourning, it was literally about preventing an apocalypse. But no one is entirely HAPPY with the Treaty of Thronehold.

Thanks to my Patreon supporters for keeping this site going, and to all of you who’ve been reading Exploring Eberron, I hope you’re enjoying it!

FAQ: Exploring Eberron

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Exploring Eberron is now available on the DM’s Guild. I wanted to take a moment to answer questions about the book, both general questions and some very specific ones…

GENERAL
What’s “Exploring Eberron?”

Exploring Eberron (ExE) is a 248 page sourcebook for the Eberron Campaign Setting, using the fifth edition rules of Dungeons & Dragons. It’s written by setting creator Keith Baker (hi!) along with Will Brolley, Wayne Chang, and Laura Hirsbrunner.

No, I mean what’s IN the book?

ExE is a deep dive into elements of Eberron that haven’t been explored in past sourcebooks, including the planes of Eberron, the aquatic civilizations of the Thunder Sea, Droaam, the Dhakaani goblinoids, the Mror Holds, and the Last War, along with Keith’s personal thoughts on the religions and races of Eberron. All in all, about 200 pages of the book are lore, with a heavy focus on how you can use this information to generate interesting stories or characters. The remaining 48 pages include new races, subraces, feats, backgrounds, archetypes. magic items, and monsters. You can check out the table of contents here.

Is it official content?

No. This is not produced by WotC and it does not match all previous canon sources. This is Keith’s personal view of Eberron and what he does in his Eberron campaigns.

Where can I get it? What formats?

Currently, Exploring Eberron is exclusively available on the DM’s Guild. It’s available as a PDF or as a print-on-demand hardcover. A bundle allows you to get the PDF for $5 when you buy the hardcover.

If I buy the PDF now and then want to buy the hardcover later, can I retroactively get the bundle?

No, the DM’s Guild doesn’t have a system in place that makes this possible.

Is it going to be available on D&D Beyond? Roll20? Fantasy Grounds?

It’s not official content and will not be on D&D Beyond, for a host of different reasons. We are exploring the possibility of conversions on other online platforms. At the moment it is only available on the DM’s Guild.

THE PROCESS

What parts of Exploring Eberron were ideas you’d had for years as opposed to ideas you developed while writing the book?

It’s not quite so clear cut. Almost all of the topics in Exploring Eberron are subjects I’ve wanted to write about for a decade. I sketched out the Thunder Sea—with the balance of power between the powerful Sahuagin nation and the sea elf colony, with the neutral, nomadic merfolk—as part of the setting bible in 2003; that setting bible likewise included the idea of the nation of monsters that eventually became Droaam, and the idea of the goblins having lost a great empire. I developed the planes with Bill Slavicsek, James Wyatt, and Chris Perkins as we developed the ECS in 2004. But all I had were the basic IDEAS. I didn’t work out the SPECIFICS of the Sahuagin nation or name the noble line of sea elves. We knew Fernia was the Sea of Fire, but back in 2004 we DIDN’T know exactly how it differed from the elemental planes.

Over the course of the next decade, all of these things evolved in their own way. Writing The Queen of Stone and “Backdrop Graywall” gave me an opportunity to explore Droaam in more depth. I established the basic framework of Mabar in the article I wrote on this blog a few years ago. But that was essentially a first draft. Notably, I said that one of the powers of Mabar was the Queen of All Tears. But at the time, I didn’t know who she was. I had a general vision of a tragic undead figure. But it wasn’t until I was writing the Mabar section of Exploring Eberron that I decided she was once mortal, and thought about what tragic figure from established canon could fit that part. I always knew that the slaadi were residents of Kythri, but it wasn’t until working on ExE that I thought about what made them different from the slaadi of other settings.

So most of the BROAD concepts had been in place for decades; the primary exception would the the Mror Dwarves (with the Realm Below and Ruinbound dwarves), as that’s new angle we specifically developed in Rising From The Last War. But many of the specifics were developed over the last year, because I finally had an opportunity to spend sufficient time to really think them through.

Is there some chapter or meaningful content that didn’t make the final cut of ExE?

There’s not a lot of material that I WROTE that we didn’t use. There’s a few things, like the Shavarath denizens table I’ve posted as a Patreon exclusive. But keep in mind that the book is 80 pages longer than we originally planned, precisely because I DIDN’T want to cut a lot of ideas that I loved. However, it is the case that I had to limit the scope of some of my original ideas. For example, originally I planned to do a write up on each of the major warlords of Droaam, similar in scope and style to the write-up for the Cults of the Dragon Below: describing the warlord, their personality, their history, their minions, their story hooks. We actually commissioned a fantastic image of Sheshka, the Queen of Stone. But as things went on, I realized both that we didn’t have room and that it didn’t actually feel like the right content for what is largely a player-focused book… that it was more appropriate for a book that mainly focused on organizations, threats, monsters, etc. Honestly, that’s the biggest piece of restricted scope that comes to mind, and it’s something I definitely WILL write at some point; it just didn’t fit here. But again, it’s not that I WROTE it and then we cut it; it’s that I realized it didn’t fit, so I DIDN’T write it.

What is your favorite new thing in “kanon” that appears for the first time in this book?

It’s a difficult choice. I love all my children. I’m particularly happy with the Queen of All Tears; I always liked the concept of her, but when the final piece of her story fell into place, it was just such a perfect fit. In general, I’m thrilled with all of the planes; there were a number (Kythri, Risia, Fernia) where initially I wasn’t actually sure they would be especially compelling… but whn I sat down and actually explored the idea, something wonderful came together.

Insofar as you’re thinking ahead right now, are you planning on focusing on your non-Eberron, non-D&D work for a while? When you do your next project for DMG, do you anticipate an adventure pack, or a more focused book of lore? Do you envision ever doing another book on the scale of ExE, or is the prospect too horrifying to contemplate at the moment?

I’m still determining the answer to that question. Wayne and I started working on Exploring Eberron over a year ago, and until last week we didn’t actually know how well it would do. This is what I do for a living, so that matters; if it doesn’t make enough money, I HAVE to pursue work that will keep a roof over my head. So I didn’t make plans for another major book because I didn’t know if I could afford to. But I love writing about Eberron and there are many more elements of the world I WANT to explore; it’s always just been a question of what’s feasible.

I do have non-D&D projects I’m working on, including The Adventure Zone: Bureau of Balance and a new Gloom project I’m working on. And I do want to do SOMETHING with my roleplaying game Phoenix: Dawn Command; I love the system and I’ve wanted to revisit it for some time. However, I still love Eberron and don’t want to lose momentum. I will be continuing to work on this website and working to increase the value of being a Patreon supporter; the more supporters I have, the more I can do with the site.

So having said all of that: Wayne and I have already talked about a number of possible projects for KB Presents. I will say that I’m not going to jump right into another 240 page book; I want to work on a few smaller projects before diving into that again. But I think you’ll be happy with all of the things we’re considering, and I’ll share more once there’s something concrete to share.

I understand you’ve played characters in Eberron games using some of the subclasses in this book. Can you tell us about them?

The preface of Exploring Eberron has an image of a warforged druid. This was a gift commissioned by Wayne; it’s Rose, a warforged druid I played in a campaign run by my friend Dan Garrison, the co-designer of Phoenix: Dawn Command. The campaign began at a party in Metrol on the night of the Mourning, and Dan provided the players with a list of basic character concepts to choose from and expand upon. I chose the warforged companion of the Princess of Cyre, a special commission for the royal family; classes weren’t setting, and I decided the companion would be named Rose, and would have the capabilities of a druid. As I have long loved the idea of warforged druids turning into living construct animals, I did the first pass on what became the Circle of the Forged druid. Long story short: the party was epic; we danced the Tago with knives; Metrol was sucked into Mabar when the Mourning occurred; hijinks ensued.

So Rose actually predated Exploring Eberron by about a year, and the Circle of the Forged druid was the first subclass developed for it. The Maverick artificer was developed before I played one, driven by my love of the flexibility of the 3.5 artificer—specifically, of the 3.5 infusion spell storing item. I love the concept of the artificer as someone who can tinker what you need on the spot. So, when Dan started another campaign—this time set in Callestan, with the players assuming the roles of professional rat-catchers—I decided to play a Maverick. My character is a forest gnome urchin, born in the feyspire of Shae Joridal but orphaned and separated from his home in Ghaal’dar attack; he grew up on the streets of Lower Dura and doesn’t really understand the fey potential in his blood. With this in mind, he uses the Magical Thinking approach to artifice that I describe in ExE. One of my favorite elements is using the guidance cantrip, because every time I cast it I come up with a different explanation for what I’m creating based on the effect I’m assisting with. Someone’s about to make an Investigation check? Try these special spectacles I’ve put together. About to use Athletics to make a dangerous jump? Let me add my pep paste to the bottom of your boots!

(VERY) SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

Does House Ghallanda have any interest in recreating or importing the odder cuisines presented in the book to the Five Nations (perhaps homogenizing it in the process, see American “Chinese food”)?

I don’t think it’s been suggested, but I think it’s a fantastic idea. Of course, in order to introduce grist to Five Nations they’d have to figure out the secret of how it’s made, and bear in mind that while we’ve told YOU how grist is made, the people of DROAAM don’t even know what it is, and once that secret is uncovered, they have to figure out how the Daughters are making grist actually edible. But I could see a great Ghallanda heist one-shot based on stealing the secret formula for grist…

In Exploring Eberron, it talks about the daelkyr being trapped in specific demiplanes and unable to leave, but I was always under the impression that they were described as “trapped in Khyber” being free to move about in Khyber unlike the Overlords. Is this a shift from canon or did I miss or misunderstand something regarding to this?

It’s not a shift from previous ideas, it’s a clarification. The idea all along was that you can’t FIGHT a bound overlord; they are a spirit in a shard and do not physically manifest. They don’t have kingdoms in Khyber. By contrast, it was always the idea that the daelkyr ARE physically present in Khyber, that they DO have lairs and minions, and that you can go meet one. But it was never clearly explained how they were trapped or what limitations were on their movement. Likewise, the earlier sources suggested that Khyber was strange and wondrous, but never clear how its geography worked. Over the next decade, I presented the idea that Khyber contains many demiplanes—and that entrances to demiplanes can transcend normal space, which explains how Belashyrra could be fighting the Umbragen in Xen’drik and troubling people in the Shadow Marches. It’s not that the domain of the Lord of Eyes spans the Thunder Sea, it’s that the domain is a DEMIPLANE with entrances in both places.

So in ExE I just clearly state this idea. The daelkyr aren’t bound in the physical tunnels of Khyber. They are each bound in a unique DEMIPLANE in Khyber. Within that demiplane they have absolute freedom of movement, so each one rules their own bizarre kingdom. Their minions can leave the demiplane, and again, demiplanes have exits across the world. But the daelkyr can’t leave the demiplane, which finally gives a clear explanation of how they have SOME freedom of movement but can’t “leave Khyber.”

So the IDEA remains: the daelkyr aren’t stuck in shards like overlords. They have realms they rule and you can go meet one and fight one. But those realms are little pockets of reality, and the daelkyr can’t LEAVE them.

There are Krakens and Aboleths underwater, are there equivalents of the Gatekeepers or the Church of the Silver Flame? What about of the couatls themselves?

Underwater? Surely. In the Thunder Sea? No. I’m sure there was an aquatic counterpart to the couatl, and I’m just as sure that they were involved in the same celestial sacrifice that bound the overlords and created the Silver Flame. It’s likewise logical to think that there were serpent cults among the locathah of the Thunder Sea, but they were crushed by the Eternal Dominion and the Valraean Protectorate, both of which do not allow freedom of religion in their realms. You could certainly have a secret Silver Flame tradition lingering among locathah dissidents, but the basic philosophy of the sahuagin is fundamentally opposed to its principles; “the strong should make sacrifices to protect the weak” is NOT a theory that fits in the Eternal Dominion. This doesn’t mean that the sahuagin are unaware of or helpless against supernatural threats; but they are handled by the martial might of the Dominion, not by some religious cult.

The kalamer merfolk are druids who maintain the balance of manifest zones, so they are something of a parallel to the Gatekeepers, but they don’t share any specific traditions with them and have no history with the daelkyr.

Does the Undying Court know about the Queen of All Tears and does it care?

With any question like this, my answer is always what makes the story more interesting? In my opinion, it’s more interesting for this to be a secret the player characters can discover, leaving them to decide what to do with the knowledge, rather than saying “Oh, the Undying Court has known about that for centuries.” Among other things, if the Undying Court already knows about it, then either they don’t care or can’t do anything about it, because they HAVEN’T. If they don’t KNOW, then it leaves open the possibility that they will panic when they find out about it. But in general, I will always lean toward adventurers making a dramatic discovery NOW over NPCs making a dramatic discovery a thousand years ago.

Kind of as a broader version of this question, what level of knowledge do the Material Plane experts possess and to what degree is it relevant to daily living?

The book gives examples of what experts know when it quotes the Planar Codex and other scholars. The limits of what can be known through Arcana depend on where you are and on what the DM WANTS players to know. The Undying Court has spent thousands of years astrally traveling and gathering information, and they likely have the best knowledge of the planes; other scholars may have their information through Aereni accounts.

But in terms of what does EVERYONE know? Pretty much the names of the planes and their basic concepts, and they don’t always get those right. We’ve called out that the typical person thinks of Risia as the “Plain of Ice” and Irian as the “Plane of Light” and don’t understand the deeper symbolic roles of these places. People know about them because of manifest zones, but without an Arcana check they don’t know much.

Fernia and Risia seem to have moved away from the mildly evil aligned, while Syrania moved away from mildly good aligned. What led to those decisions?

I’d argue that Risia IS still mildly evil-aligned. Here’s a quote:

At first glance, Risia appears to be barren and empty. But some travelers have described a presence, a sense of being watched, and most feel this presence is malign. On the surface, the concept of Risia seems entirely neutral; there’s nothing inherently evil about ice. But there’s a hunger to Risia—an innate desire to consume warmth and to bury living things in ice. In the Planar Codex, Dorius Alyre ir’Korran calls this force the Killing Cold. 

Exploring Eberron, page 182

By contrast, my view of Fernia is that it explores all symbolic associations of fire, both benevolent and destructive, and shouldn’t be inherently evil. Syrania is primarily about commerce and knowledge and didn’t need to be inherently good; this also helps to clearly differentiate it from Irian. Beyond that, I didn’t assign those specific traits in the original ECS, and Exploring Eberron is about how I see things, not canon.

I’m a big fan of Sarlona, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen HOW the kalashtar are slipping Riedra’s net and getting to Khorvaire. Is this ever spelled out?

There’s no steady stream of kalashtar into Khorvaire. As for how immigrants have managed it, they’ve done it in small numbers and disguised as humans. They’ve made their way to Arhdman in the Syrkarn, or worked with smugglers using the secret port of Dvaarnava. Some have made a dangerous pilgrimage through Khyber. And there have been one or two bold strokes that have involved major operations to disrupt or draw away the Riedran blockades. But it’s NOT a trivial thing, and they never travel openly under a flag of Adar.

There’s a bit about magic making permanent changes to the body being a relatively common thing. How does this work with the description on identification papers?

Actually, permanent changes are NOT common. Here’s the text from the book, with a few highlights.

Minor cosmetic transmutation is quite common; most professional beauticians can change your hair or eye color. Unnatural effects are rarer, seen mainly in Aundair and Zilargo… The effects of cosmetic transmutation typically last a week, but if you’re dealing with a magewright of sufficient skill, you can extend the effect to one month. In some cities, you might even find an expert who can make the change permanent. The more complicated the transmutation, the more costly—and hard to find—the service becomes.

Exploring Eberron, Page 28

So first of all, permanent transmutation is not common. What’s common is turning your brown hair red for a month, or getting permanent eyeshadow for a week — the sort of cosmetic changes people get in OUR world, and I don’t have to update my driver’s license when I change my hair color. Exotic changes — like having, say, silver hair or cat’s eyes — are NOT common and are generally only seen in the cities of Aundair or Zilargo, where people are used to a higher degree of arcane experimentation. Permanent transformation is not only out of the price range of most people, but it’s also not something that’s available most places — again, in a major city, you might find someone who can do it. And as noted later in the section, “as with any magewright, beauticians are often specialized; a hairdresser might be able to give you permanent exotic hair but be unable to change any other feature.”

A second point is that identification papers aren’t something you need in everyday life. The ECS calls out that they’re typically carried by members of the middle and upper classes; so common laborers don’t even have identification papers. They’re primarily going to be used when crossing borders, using letters of credit, or similar situations; but you don’t need to show identification papers to buy a beer at the Gold Dragon Inn. If your papers are accurate except for your silver hair, no one’s going to question that you had your hair done. If you ARE going to engage in permanent, dramatic physical transformation—changing your apparent species, gender, height, or the like—you will want to get your papers updated. .

I had a question about the Dol Udar. Are the Gatekeepers at all aware of it?

Keep in mind that the Gatekeepers aren’t a powerful, modern faction with widespread resources. They’re the last remnants of an order that has been in decline for thousands of years, dwelling in a backwater with almost no contact with the modern nations, doing their best to maintain the ancient seals that keep forgotten evils at bay. With that in mind, consider that the Gatekeepers don’t NEED to know what the daelkyr are doing elsewhere in the world; they know that as long as they preserve the seals, the daelkyr cannot escape their prisons—and again, the seals are NOT geographically linked. There’s no Gatekeeper seals in the Mror Holds; the seals that exist prevent Dyrrn from leaving his demiplane, no matter where it touches the world.

With all that in mind, the whole point is that THIS IS WHY THEY NEED PLAYER CHARACTERS. What’s a more compelling story—the Gatekeepers having vast resources and knowing exactly what’s going on? Or the Gatekeepers knowing that they DON’T know exactly what’s going on in the wider world and needing to send a young, promising champion—a player character—to investigate the disturbances they’ve felt in the distant east? With that said, if you DON’T have a PC in this role and your player characters are active in Dol Udar, you could introduce an NPC in that role—a Gatekeeper agent who’s been sent to investigate the situation and provide assistance. But I’d still play that as they don’t KNOW what’s going on, so they’ve sent an agent to find out as opposed to they’re entirely aware of the situation and have already made plans to deal with it.

If you have questions about Exploring Eberron, post them below and I’ll answer when I can!

Exploring Eberron Unleashed!

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Art by Katerina Poliakova

Exploring Eberron is finally available, and you can find it here! 

Wayne, Laura, Will and I have spent over a year developing this book, and I am thrilled to finally unleash it on the world. The excerpt above is one of our favorite pieces of art—Tira Miron, whose sacrifice inspired the modern-day Church of the Silver Flame. I would walk through all the content that’s contained in the book, but why type all of those words when I can just share the Table of Contents, along with my absolute favorite piece of art: Marco Bernardini’s map of the planes.

Art by Marco “MA4PS” Bernardini 

While there are still many pieces of Eberron I look forward to exploring in future Eberron, this has been a fantastic opportunity to deal with topics I’ve always wanted to explore in more depth but never been able to explore in the official books: the planes of Eberron, aquatic civilizations, the Dhakaani goblinoids. the monstrous nation of Droaam. It investigates familiar ideas—presenting my personal vision of the faiths of Eberron, and expanding on the changlings, shifters, warforged, and kalashtar—while also building on concepts we developed for Rising From The Last War but couldn’t develop in depth. like the dwarves of the Mror Holds and their ongoing war against the daelkyr.

Exploring Eberron has 247 pages of content, including new subclasses, races and subraces, magic items, backgrounds, and monsters. It is currently only available on the DM’s Guild. It is available both as a PDF, print (print on demand, so it’s not a limited edition), or as a bundle. This is NOT official content and will not be available on D&D Beyond; this is my vision of Eberron and what I do at my table.

If you have any questions, post them below—I’ll start a FAQ tomorrow! In the meantime, I’ll be DMing an Eberron adventure for the band Magic Sword at 7 PM Eastern Time as part of GenConTV’s Twitch stream. And if you’re one of my Patreon backers, thanks for your support—I’ll be posting a tiny exclusive later today, a “deleted scene” that was cut from Exploring Eberron during editing.

Thanks to all of you who have made Eberron your own over the years, and to those who are just exploring it now, enjoy the journey!

IFAQ: Immortal Alliances

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When time permits, I like to answer interesting questions posed by my Patreon supporters. Today I want to answer a few questions about immortals in Eberron.

In the past I’ve said that one of the most important differences between mortals and immortals in Eberron is that immortals lack free will. With a few notable exceptions, immortals can’t change. They may LOOK like humans (or humanoids), but they are essentially cogs in a metaphysical machine: created to serve a specific purpose. The gear in a watch didn’t DECIDE to be a gear, and it can’t suddenly quit being a gear; in the same way, the typical angel of Shavarath didn’t DECIDE to fight in the war, nor could it choose to stop.

So: immortals come into existence with an established purpose and with the knowledge and tools needed to play that role. The deva in Shavarath didn’t have to learn how to use a sword, and more important, over the course of hundreds of thousands of years of war, it’s never gotten any better at it. Again, one of the strengths of mortals is that they can change. They begin with no skills whatsoever, but they can follow any path they choose. This isn’t to say that immortals can’t learn new facts. And this does vary by immortal. Hektula, the rakshasa Librarian of Ashtakala, has surely learned new spells over the last hundred thousand years. However, she may not have gained any new class levels in that time. She’s broadened her knowledge, but she is at the peak of her potential and can’t push beyond it.

Or course, there are exceptions! The radiant idols are fallen angels of Syrania. The kalashtar are bound to quori who rebelled against il-Lashtavar. It’s possible that you could find an angel of Shavarath who has abandoned the eternal war. But these are exceptionally rare. We’ve never said how many quori exist, but for sake of argument, let’s say there’s a hundred thousand… mostly lesser spirits like the tsoreva, and mostly devoted to duties in Dal Quor. From the perspective of the quori, the current era of Dal Quor has lasted for 400,000 years. In all that time, we’ve called out 67 quori who rebelled to become kalashtar. Let’s imagine there’s another 33 who were either caught and destroyed or who have managed to remain undetected. That’s still around a .1% rebellion rate over the course of 400,000 years… not too bad. Essentially, these are malfunctions. They’re gears that came into existence with the wrong number of teeth. Which is why the Dreaming Dark seeks to destroy rebel quori — to that energy can be drawn back into Dal Quor and reforged into a proper, compliant spirit.

So, keep these basic principles in mind. Most immortals come into existence with a clear purpose and with the skills they need to accomplish that function. They choose how they pursue that purpose, but they cannot change it. They are powerful, but they cannot learn new things as mortals can. Some of them have existed for a million years of subjective time. They don’t grow bored; they don’t desire change. They are what they are.

With that in mind, let’s look at a few questions.

How common is it for a fiend or cult to serve multiple overlords?

This depends on your definition of “Serve.” Most lesser fiends are bound to their overlord in the same way that the quori are bound to il-Lashtavar. Mordakhesh didn’t DECIDE to work for Rak Tulkhesh; the Shadowsword is essentially an extension of Rak Tulkhesh, the embodiment of one of the many ideas that falls under the Rage of War. Serving Rak Tulkhesh is part of his spiritual DNA; it’s not a choice, it’s what he IS. Thus, he will never feel that same loyalty to another overlord; it’s not in his nature.

HOWEVER: It’s possible that Rak Tulkhesh and Sul Khatesh could have a common goal, and that they might work together to create a cult that serves both of them. The mortals in that cult might feel equal loyalty to both overlords, just as devotees of the Restful Watch revere both Aureon and the Keeper. The fiends associated with the cult might work toward its common goals, but it doesn’t change the fact that every one of those fiends is devoted to EITHER the Rage of War or Keeper of Secrets, not both. They pursue the alliance because it serves the purposes of their overlord, but there is never any question that THEY serve their overlord and only their overlord.

Ultimately, this sort of alliance is why the Lords of Dust came into existence—to facilitate cooperation between the servants of different overlords. With that said, it’s more common that this simply extends to preventing fiends from fighting one another as opposed to actual alliances like I’ve described above. In fact, I’m not sure there IS an example in canon of two overlords working together in that way. Part of it is because their natures are SO different that it is hard for them to forge a lasting alliance; a second aspect is that the things the overlords require for their freedom—the Prophetic “combinations” to their chains—typically have nothing in common. Keep in mind that the reason the overlords were defeated was because they wouldn’t cooperate… and that while we mortals would learn from that mistake, immortals can’t change. So it’s not IMPOSSIBLE to have a fiendish cult that serves two overlords, but it’s not common and not likely to be long-lived.

In theory, it’s MORE plausible with the daelkyr, because the daelkyr were all originally on the same side. They have shared resources; Dyrrn created the dolgrims and Belashyrra created beholders, but both can be found serving any daelkyr. However, it’s also the case that most daelkyr cults are shaped by the mental influence of their daelkyr patron, and this is a powerful and unique force; a mortal bound to both Dyrrn and Belashyrra would be mentally torn in two very different directions. So again, it’s more likely than an alliance between overlords, but still not likely to be a long-term alliance.

There’s one wild card here: non-native fiends. NATIVE fiends have a bond to a particular overlord. But we’ve called out the fact that there are immortals from the planes who have broken from their planes and joined with the Lords of Dust… essentially, rather than a fiend rebelling to become an angel, it’s a fiend rebelling to be a fiend somewhere else. Two canon examples of this are Thelestes, a succubi who serves the overlord Eldrantulku; and Korliac of the Gray Flame, a Fernian pit fiend allied with Tul Oreshka. Such fiends are already outliers, because they have broken their original path, which again most immortals can’t do. As such, there’s nothing that prevents them from choosing yet ANOTHER path. CURRENTLY Thelestes serves Eldrantulku… but she could decide to serve Bel Shalor and the Wyrmbreaker as well, or to simply break her ties to the Oathbreaker. Ultimately, as with all things, the end answer is do what’s best for your story. Most quori can’t rebel against il-Lashtavar, but SOME CAN; if you want a new rebel quori in your story, then there’s a new rebel quori! If you decide that the Wyrmbreaker is betraying Bel Shalor and working with Eldrantulku, so be it (though like the Devourer of Dreams, it’s not entirely odd to think that the chief servants of spirits of betrayal and corruption might themselves betray their masters!).

Can immortals be promoted or demoted? Can an immortal gain power?

Yes, just not in the same way that mortals can. Time and experience aren’t how immortals improve. Essentially, the way to think of any particular group of immortals—the quori, the angels of the Legion of Justice, the fiends of Rak Tulkhesh—is as a pool of energy. The amount of energy in that pool is static and cannot change. If there are a hundred thousand quori, there will always be a hundred thousand quori. Kill one—or a hundred—and their energy flows back to il-Lashtavr, which eventually reconstitutes that energy and spits out replacements. This is why people bind immortals instead of killing them; you can’t destroy that energy, but if you can take it out of circulation, that’s a win.

So: this pool of energy is static. But it’s not distributed equally. A powerful immortal like Mordakhesh holds more of that energy than a typical Zakya rakshasa. A powerful immortal can redistribute that energy. So it is POSSIBLE for a deva in Shavarath to be elevated to the position of planetar… but only if a planetar is demoted to deva, or if the deva is taking the place of a planetar that was destroyed rather than it being reconstituted. Likewise, Rak Tulkhesh could STRIP Mordakhesh of some of his power, and then invest that power into another fiend. So yes, the higher powers CAN elevate or promote the immortals below them; but only by redistributing that energy from somewhere else. There will always be devas in Shavarath; Justice Command can’t just promote them all to the rank of solar.

However, there’s one other possible twist. The energy within a pool is static. But the other way for an immortal to gain power is to TAKE energy from somewhere else. This is the idea of the Devourer replacing il-Lashtavar: that an immortal could USURP another immortal’s power. Another possibility is that an immortal could somehow draw power from an artifact or some other outside source. So Mordakhesh doesn’t gain levels just by killing things. But if he found some way to literally absorb the essence of a coautl, maybe he COULD gain strength. The main thing is that this would be a momentous event that is shaking the metaphysical balance of the multiverse. It’s quite possible that it would be dangerous and potentially unstable… that there would be some way to restore the couatl, pulling the power back out of the fiend.

What are the attitudes of the Daelkyr and the Dreaming Dark towards one another? What about the Lords of Dust?

The Lords of Dust, the Dreaming Dark, and the daelkyr are the three most powerful malevolent forces in the setting. Their ultimate goals are mutually exclusive. The Dreaming Dark seek a stable world dreaming their dream. The overlords seek a return to primordial chaos. The daelkyr seek to transform reality into something unrecognizable. There’s no vision of victory that will allow two of these groups to both be satisfied. It is also the case that they are DANGEROUS. A rakshasa doesn’t fear death; it knows it will return. But can a daelkyr change the ESSENCE of a rakshasa—driving it mad or turning it into something new and horrifying? If you’re a rakshasa, you don’t want to find out. Essentially, NO ONE in their right mind, immortal or otherwise, wants to fight the daelkyr if they can avoid it.

These groups don’t actually know much about one another. The daelkyr and fiends don’t dream, so the quori can’t spy on them that way. The Dreaming Dark holds its councils in Dal Quor where none can spy of them. Riedra is hidden from the Draconic Prophecy. The daelkyr don’t care what the other two are up to, and their actions are inscrutable. Dreaming Dark mind seeds and daelkyr cults can appear anywhere, subverting long-established Lords of Dust agents without even realizing it. So more often than not these groups will stumble onto one another accidentally—and when they do, the first one to realize it will usually act to eliminate the threat. Consider that the Edgewalkers of Riedra are specifically trained to fight fiends and aberrations!

On the other hand, if you WANT these groups to work together in your campaign, go for it. The main question is why. The easiest ally is the Lords of Dust, because their goal of manipulating the Prophecy could require one of the other factions’ schemes to succeed. The main thing is that in any sort of alliance, each faction likely thinks it’s coming out ahead in the exchange… because in the end, they can’t both get what they want.

Personally, I rarely use all three of these as equal threats groups in the same campaign. All of these factions have been scheming for centuries or even thousands of years. There’s no reason that all of their schemes have to come to a tipping point in 998 YK. It’s entirely reasonable to say that the stars won’t align for the Lords of Dust for another decade, or that the daelkyr are currently dormant. So you can have alliances or conflicts between them, but you also can choose to ignore one or more completely.

You could also have the groups work against one another, using PCs as pawns.

Certainly. As noted above, in my opinion if their plans conflict, they will oppose one another, and the player characters could be caught in the middle of that. The main thing in MY Eberron is that the Chamber and the Lords of Dust are actively at war (though a very cold war). They are playing a game on the same board—manipulating the Prophecy—and they understand one another. By contrast, neither the Chamber nor the Lords of Dust really have a clear picture of the daelkyr or the Dreaming Dark. So they eliminate these threats when they interfere with their plans, but they don’t see the big picture of what they are trying to accomplish — while the dragons and fiends DO have that picture with one another.

What’s a “native outsider?” Are they basically the same as immortals that live on other planes, only native to Eberron, or is there more to them than that?

“Native outsider” is a holdover term from 3.5 and can be thought of as “native immortal.” It means that the immortal is a product of the material plane. Native fiends are apocryphally said to be children of Khyber, while native celestials are children of Siberys. First of all, this means that when the immortal dies, it will be reborn on Eberron——while if you destroy a Shavaran devil on Eberron, it will be reborn on Shavarath. It’s also the case that immortals in some way embody the concept of their planes of origins. So take a pit fiend. If it’s from Shavarath it is ultimately a spirit of WAR and tyranny. If it’s from Fernia it is first and foremost a fiend of FIRE. If you just want a generic “I’m eeeeevil” pit fiend, than it should be a native immortal tied to one of the overlords, such as Bel Shalor. As a side note, the night hags of Eberron are native immortals, but aren’t tied to the overlords; they are their own faction.

Regarding stuff like efreet, salamanders, or similar entities, would you have them all follow the same template as fiends and celestials in that they generally maintain a particular alignment or distribution of alignments, or is this not a fundamental aspect of some groups of immortals and the alignment of a group is more dynamic in some cases?

My definition of “Immortal” means the following: the creature is tied to a specific plane; it came into existence with its skills and knowledge in place, and did not need to learn; it does not reproduce naturally; it has a static population, and when it is destroyed, either it will be reborn or a new creature of its type will appear to take its place. As long as it meets these criteria it doesn’t matter if a creature is a celestial, elemental, fiend, or aberration. If it does NOT meet these criteria, it is not immortal under these terms. Thus, for example, a vampire is immune to aging, but it won’t be replaced if it is destroyed and it has a method of reproduction. It’s not an immortal; it’s a mortal that is channeling the power of Mabar, which sustains its life.

Immortals are SYMBOLS more than they are living creatures. They have purpose, even if often that purpose is simply to represent an idea. The basic definition of “fiend” is that it embodies an EVIL aspect of an idea, while a “celestial” embodies a GOOD aspect of an idea. Shavarath is the plane of WAR. Devils represent war fought in pursuit of tyranny; angels, war fought in pursuit of justice. So for these spirits, alignment is part of their core concept. Elementals aren’t as clear cut and don’t have an automatic alignment bias. But as they are immortals, they represent IDEAS. So the key question is “What is their idea?”

In MY Eberron, what the efreeti represent is the beauty and glory of fire… but also its capricious and deadly nature. The raging bonfire is beautiful and awe-inspiring, but if you are careless it can burn all you hold dear. So too with the efreeti. They are glorious and powerful. But anger them and they will burn you in the blink of an eye. What we’ve said in Eberron is that alignment doesn’t tell us WHAT you’ll do, it tells us HOW you’ll do it. You can have an evil king who wants peace or a good queen who pursues war; it’s just that the evil king will be ruthless in his pursuit of peace while the queen will be kind as she pursues war. Efreeti don’t necessarily want to DO things we would consider evil. They want to celebrate their wealth and power. They want to outshine their rivals. An efreet might invite you to a grand gala in its brass citadel, with no hostile intent. But if you insult it, or embarass it by using the wrong fork, it will burn you with no remorse. THAT is what makes efreeti evil. It’s not that they are all conquerors or torturers; it’s that like fire, they have no mercy and no empathy. They BURN, bright and beautiful, and if you aren’t careful they will burn you.

So efreeti are not universally pursuing an evil CAUSE in the same way that the devils of Shavarath are. But they still have evil ALIGNMENTS because it’s in their nature to be merciless and unrelenting… even if a particular efreeti has no grand designs we would see as evil. Meanwhile, the beings who embody the purely benevolent aspects of fire are celestials, and those who embody SOLELY its destructive aspects are fiends. The Azer are spirits of industry and are neutral. Efreeti are both the beauty of fire but also its danger; they won’t necessarily pursue evil goals, but they have no remorse when their actions cause suffering.

That’s all for now! Thanks as always to my Patreon supporters for keeping this site going!

IFAQ: The Inspired

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I’m still working on my Riedra article—which will now be split into multiple articles, though I’ll post both this week—but I thought I’d start the week off with an IFAQ on a related topic raised by my Patreon supporters: The Inspired.

Rising From The Last War has this to say about the Inspired.

Any humanoid who can dream can volunteer to serve as a quori vessel. But the Inspired of Sarlona are humans bred to be such vessels. They have no choice in this destiny, since they can’t resist quori possession. Physically, Inspired resemble the kalashtar, possessing an almost supernatural beauty.

Rising from the last war, page 294

This is concrete and clear. The quori can possess any dreaming humanoid that agrees to the possession. The Inspired are members of a subspecies of humanity—known as the Chosen in Riedra—bred to be possessed. What Rising doesn’t call out is that in the original canon, Chosen are bred to be possessed by a specific quori spirit; you’re not simply a generic Chosen available to all quori, you’re Chosen of Lord Sulatesh. Chosen can volunteer to be possessed by another quori (and most would be happy to do so), but only one spirit has unlimited access. In Riedra, GENERALLY “Inspired” means Chosen-who-is-actively-being-possessed, but if the spirit leaves an Inspired host because of important business in another host, the “empty” Inspired still maintains their position and will carry on in the spirit’s absence.

Now, Rising muddies the water a little with this subsequent paragraph.

Most of the people of the Five Nations have heard of the Inspired lords of Riedra—never realizing that Inspired are spread throughout Khorvaire as well. Beggars and generals, merchants and mayors might all be secret servants of the Dreaming Dark. Such Inspired have to willingly accept quori possession, but the Dreaming Dark has long experience in weaving dreams that can convince mortals to surrender their bodies.

RISING FROM THE LAST WAR, PAGE 294

The main point here is that the section is using “Inspired” as a general term for any creature possessed by a quori spirit. Which is fine, because you can use the STAT BLOCK for any such creature. But it’s important to understand that this second class of people—humanoids who have ALLOWED a quori to possess them—will not CALL themselves “Inspired” and they would not be recognized as Inspired by the people of Riedra. Likewise, it is the CHOSEN who “resemble the kalashtar, having an almost supernatural beauty.” There’s no change to the appearance of people who willingly allow themselves to become possessed, and again, these voluntary hosts can be of any humanoid species that can dream. The stat block in Rising presumes a Chosen host, but you could have a dwarf, an ogre, or even a shifter infected with lycanthropy as a voluntary host.

Quori possession is entirely different from the relationship between a kalashtar and their quori spirit. With the kalashtar, the quori is a passive presence that simultaneously guides many kalashtar. With the Inspired (voluntary or otherwise) the quori is an active presence that controls a single body at a time, and it fully dominates the host. What we’ve said is that while possessed by a quori, it feels like you are making your own decisions, but you have no control; because of this, people who are possessed by a quori for long periods of time often find that their personality shifts to mirror that of the quori, because it feels natural. This is why the Inspired are trusted even when they aren’t inhabited; even without the quori presence, they tend to think like the quori. However, this sort of shift requires years of possession. Someone who is tricked into accepting quori possession and quickly freed—either because the quori voluntarily leaves or because it is driven out—remembers what happened while they were possessed and can refuse to let the quori return.

So: a quori working with Chosen hosts can move between its vessels at will. It could have Chosen vessels on three different continents and coordinate international schemes involving all three hosts. However, if the quori is working with someone who was voluntarily possessed, they may not have this option; it could be that the moment they leave the host it will turn against them, raising the alarm and undoing their schemes. Note that such a freed host may not KNOW much about the quori’s grand schemes. Usually quori trick victims into accepting possession with clever lies—claiming to be an angel, or the spirit of a heroic ancestor, or something like that. The victim may quickly realize that’s true, but they don’t know what the quori actually is or what it wants. The quori gets access to the memories of the victim, but the victim doesn’t learn the secrets of the quori. So again, freeing a host can be a major snag in the plans of the Dreaming Dark, but it doesn’t provide access to all their secrets.

So just to sum up: The Inspired is the title used for the rulers of Riedra. These rulers are raised up from the Chosen—a magebred form of humanity who cannot resist being possessed by the patron quori of their line. Quori can also possess any willing humanoid capable of dreaming, but the once they leave that host they will have to be granted permission to return to it. 

The humans found in the Carrion Tribes of the Demon Wastes are supposed to be descended from refugees from Sarlona. Could some of these refugees have been people who were part of the Chosen magebreeding program? It seems wonderfully tragic for them to flee Sarlona to avoid being possessed only to end up in a land of fiends. Could this mean that there is a bloodline of Carrion Tribe barbarians optimized for fiendish possession?

Sure! We don’t know what was involved in creating the Chosen. It’s quite possible that the Inspired experimented with existing possessing fiends to perfect their hosts, and began with a vessel that was broadly vulnerable to any form of possession. The main point is that they’d have to have been failures as CHOSEN, because the defining feature of the Chosen is that they can be possessed ANYWHERE. Again, a quori of the Dreaming Dark can have Chosen vessels on every continent and move between them at will; their physical location is irrelevant. So a Chosen vessel can’t simply RUN from its patron quori; it will need to have some form of supernatural protection to avoid possession. But sure, you could have a bloodline in the Demon Wastes whose members are descended from early failures in the programs that created the Chosen.

The ECS notes the Chosen/Empty Vessels have slight fiendish and elven qualities (pg 290). With Sarlona and Aerenal being quite separate, is this elven quality a result of some magebreeding, selective breeding with traders, or just a way to describe their grace and etherealness?

Largely the latter. Rising is clearer about this, simply stating “Inspired resemble the kalashtar, possessing an almost supernatural beauty.” Actual elves would be a weird options since they’re very uncommon on Sarlona and because they don’t dream, which makes them a strange choice for a dream-host; I’d actually think that part of what defines the Chosen is that on one level they are ALWAYS dreaming, that their innate connection to Dal Quor is stronger than that of most creatures. The quori may have worked with tieflings from Ohr Kaluun as part of their program (giving that fiendish touch); another possible vector for an elf aspect is something that will come up in the upcoming articles, namely that one of the sorcerer-lines of Corvagura drew its power from Thelanis and had fey features.

What’s the story with mind seeds?

Mind seed is a psionic discipline from the 3.5 psionics rules that replaces the consciousness of the victim with a copy of the consciousness of the caster. In 3.5 the kalaraq quori had a specialized version of this—focused mind seed—that replaced the PERSONALITY of the victim while keeping their memories and skills intact, which is a pretty important detail if you want to to replace a top spy and not have them lose all the skills they need to perform their job.

Mind seed is a perfect example of an ability that is, ultimately, a plot device and doesn’t actually require psionics rules to be used in a story. It’s not intended to be used on player characters; it’s a tool that allows the Dreaming Dark to infiltrate other organizations, seeding people in their dreams. Seeds are the ultimate moles, because they aren’t possessed and thus can’t be exorcised; once the seed personality has taken hold, the only way to recover the original personality is with the equivalent of a wish. So again, it doesn’t really NEED mechanics; all that matters is that the Dreaming Dark has the capability to replace a victim’s personality with the personality of a Kalaraq quori, which allows them to have moles almost anywhere.

Of course, it’s reasonable to wonder: why doesn’t the Dreaming Dark have hundreds of mind seeds? Why aren’t all the rulers of Khorvaire mind seeded? There’s a few factors. The kalaraq generally plant seeds in dreams, so there’s the basic idea that they can only affect mortal humanoids that dream; they can’t mind seed elves or warforged. It’s also the case that mind seed is a slow process that can be stopped if it’s identified along the way (in the 5E version, you have about 6 days in which the effect can be removed by remove curse). So, for example, in Adar people know what to look for and will generally nip potential mind seeds in the bud. But people in Khorvaire are less familiar with this… so, why don’t they mind seed ALL the important people in Khorvaire? The answer is called out in Secrets of Sarlona: The quori don’t CONTROL mind seeds. Someone who’s possessed is entirely dominated by the possessing spirit. A mind seed is a copy of the quori in a humanoid body. The driving cause that unites the quori is the fear that the turning age of Dal Quor could destroy them all… but a mind seed ISN’T a quori and isn’t actually threatened by this. And worse still, the kalaraq quori are spirits of ambition. So it’s rare, but kalaraq mind seeds have cut ties with the Dreaming Dark to pursue their own ambitions… and as they have the cunning and knowledge of one of the leaders of the Dreaming Dark, these rogue seeds can be serious threats. As a result, the quori are very careful about not relying too heavily on mind seeds. The ideal mind seed has an interesting challenge that will keep the seed from becoming bored, while not having so much power that it will collapse the quori plans if the seed does rebel.

With that said, Rising From The Last War presents a simpler version of this that states that the victim “becomes a thrall under the quori’s control.” And you can certain take this approach, perhaps just limiting the number of thralls each kalaraq can have. But I prefer the original concept, which is that the mind seeds AREN’T under quori control. They serve solely because of inherited loyalty; but they have the potential, however rare, to evolve and rebel.

That’s all for now! More on Riedra will be coming this week. Thanks to my Patreon backers for keeping this site going!

IFAQ: Moons and Lycanthropes

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I’m still working on the article about Riedra in Fifth Edition. It’s a very long article and I still have a ways to go with it, so I wanted to break things up with a quick question from one of my Patreon supporters.

How do the multiple moons of Eberron affect lycanthropes?

The canon answer is simple: lycanthropes are affected by all of the moons equally, and this is one reason the Lycanthropic Surge was such a threat; it’s common to there to be at least one full moon at any time.

Now, that’s the canon answer. Personally, I say that the answer is more complicated and tied to the fact that we’ve never provided a canon explanation for the cause of lycanthropy. After all, if lycanthropy was created by an overlord, why are there ANY good lycanthropes? So my answer is that there are multiple forms of lycanthropy, each with a different relationship to the moons.

The most benign form of lycanthropy is Olarune’s Blessing. This is a condition that spontaneously manifests: it’s not hereditary and it cannot be transmitted by bite (or any other method). It’s primarily been observed among shifters of the Towering Wood, who believe that it is a sign of being called to service by Olarune, charged to protect innocents from the threats of the wild and to protect the wild itself from threats. Just as vampirism tends to pull someone toward an evil alignment, Olarune’s blessing draws a person toward good alignment; they feel a drive to embody the most positive aspects mortals associate with their animal form. However, this is not the absolute eradication of personality that can be seen in other strains, and those carrying Olarune’s blessing can choose their own paths. A lycanthrope carrying Olarune’s blessing is only affected by the moon Olarune. In my Eberron, most werebears are the result of Olarune’s blessing—but the blessing can be tied to any form.

The second would be Dyrrn’s Corruption. The daelkyr Dyrrn took twisted Olarune’s blessing to create this form of lycanthropy, which is both hereditary and infectious. Each strain of Dyrrn’s corruption associates an alignment (typically neutral or evil), a form, and a moon—neutral tigers tied to Rhaan—and overwrites the personality of the victim. So there may be neutral werewolves, and they will create new neutral werewolves when they spread the affliction. While Dyrrn’s corruption is infectious, it can only spread one step; natural lycanthropes can infect new people, but victims of the affliction can’t spread it themselves. So can spread, but not rapidly. When Dyrrn’s corruption fully takes hold, it destroys the personality and many of the memories of the victim; while there are neutral strains, they are alien in their outlook, and a player character overtaken by Dyrrn’s affliction would likely become an NPC. Each strain of corrupted lycanthropy is driven by its own inscrutable (and unnatural) instincts. Some pursue dangerous activities, acting as Cults of the Dragon Below; others are simply enigmatic, creating strange monuments in the wild or howling in eerie choirs. It’s also the case that Dyrrn’s while Dyrrn’s lycanthropes could be physically indistinguishable from other lycanthropes, they could be more alien in appearance or horrific in their transformations. Perhaps the corrupted werewolf transforms into a skinless wolf. Maybe only Dyrrn produces werespiders, and they aren’t actually natural spiders but rather alien, chitinous horrors. Or maybe the lycanthrope appears to take the form of a mundane wolf, but when you cut it tentacles reach out from the wound, or its blood has a life of its own!

The final form is The Curse of the Wild Heart. The Wild Heart is an archfiend, an overlord of the first age who embodies mortal fears of the wild. This is both hereditary and infectious. Regardless of the form, it enforces an evil alignment upon its victim, driving them to become predators; this is the infamous curse that will cause a werewolf to prey upon their own family and loved ones. Victims of the curse don’t embody any actual traits of their associated animal, but rather are driven to embody the darkest fears and superstitions associated with them. Victims of the curse of the Wild Heart are affected by ALL moons equally. The trick of the curse of the Wild Heart is that it fluctuates in power based on the current status of the Wild Heart itself. When the Wild Heart is dormant or distant, the curse only has the one-step affliction of Dyrrn’s corruption (natural lycanthropes can pass it, but afflicted victims can’t). When the Wild Heart is stirring—or if someone is near to its prison—the curse grows stronger. Under these circumstances any lycanthrope can spread the curse and the drive toward cruel and predatory behavior is amplified.

The behavior of creatures afflicted by the curse of the Wild Heart is extreme and predatory; this is the source of the terrifying tales of lycanthropic bloodshed. Natural-born cursed lycanthropes are still driven toward predatory cruelty, but they can learn to control these impulses. A key example of this is cursed werewolf Zaeurl, the leader of the Dark Pack of Droaam. She is a born predator and a ruthless hunter, but she isn’t controlled by the curse and doesn’t serve the Wild Heart; she chooses her own path.

The final catch is that the power of the Wild Heart trumps that of Dyrrn or Olarune. During the Lycanthropic Surge, the Wild Heart was close to breaking its bonds. And at that time, it co-opted ALL lycanthropes as its thralls. Even good-aligned champions of Olarune and neutral carriers of Dyrrn’s corruption became cruel predators bound to serve the Wild Heart. These lycanthropes returned to their previous states when the power of the Wild Heart was broken, but the threat remains.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to identify the form of lycanthropy you’re dealing with when you meet a lycanthope, aside from letting them bite you and see if you become infected. The short form is that if a lycanthrope seems to embody the noble aspects of the beast it’s bound to it is likely one of Olarune’s blessed; if it embodies the worst superstitions and acts in a predatory manner it carries the curse; and if it just acts in an unpredictable manner, it’s one of Dyrrn’s. Olarune’s blessed do not spread the curse of lycanthropy. Those cursed by the Wild Heart can currently spread it freely (using the standard 5E rules for lycanthropes!)… which suggests the power of the Wild Heart is again on the rise! Only natural-born corrupted lycanthropes can spread the curse.

Can shifters contract lycanthropy?

Yes, shifters can contract any of the forms of lycanthropy described above. The Towering Wood is a nexus for all forms of lycanthropy, and one reason it was so easy for the servants of the Wild Heart to turn the templars against the shifters during the Silver Crusade is because the vast majority of the lycanthropes in the first wave of the surge were cursed shifters. The shifters had been fighting the cursed lycanthropes well before the templars even knew of the danger. With the arrival of the templars, the servants of the Wild Heart knew they couldn’t allow shifters and templars to become allies, so they staged events and spread lies. Imagine that a werewolf leaps into a village and starts slaughtering people. When it’s finally brought down by templars, it reverts to its natural form—the form of a shifter. A local hunter swears that she’s seen whole villages of these things roasting farmers and howling at the moons. The hunter’s a wererat or a rakshasa, and the story is entirely untrue—but this was a time of sheer terror, when ANYONE you knew could secretly be a murderous lycanthrope waiting to strike, and it was all too easy for fiends to sow fear and hate. This in no way excuses the deaths of innocents; but it’s an example of the fact that in Eberron stories aren’t supposed to be simple. Innocents suffer. Stories end badly. If not for the Silver Crusade, the Wild Heart would have risen and destroyed civilization; but that’s cold comfort to the innocents who suffered and died.

So which type of lycanthropes escaped to Lamannia?

You could find any of the three forms of lycanthrope as refugees, though I’d say that it would be Olarune’s blessed who would have been most keen to find a sanctuary that would keep them from having to fight or kill innocents. I’ve said here that Olarune’s blessing is NOT hereditary; one interesting possibility would be to say that it IS hereditary in Lamannia, so that there are communities of blessed lycanthropes in the Twilight Forest.

Is there any geographic basis for the different forms of lycanthropy?

Any form of lycanthrope could be found anywhere in Eberron. Olarune’s blessing is the rarest of the three but could manifest in any place where primal magic is especially strong; this is often tied to manifest zones connected to Lamannia. Again, though, even in such regions the blessing rarely occurs. Dyrrn’s corruption typically spreads from a passage to Khyber connected to Dyrrn’s realm (while we haven’t suggested it, it might well be an issue in the Mror Holds!). Because of the nature of Khyber and demiplanes, this could be found anywhere. Likewise, while creatures afflicted with Dyrrn’s corruption can’t spread the curse, a natural-born lycanthrope can start a cult and spread the corruption to their followers. The curse of the Wild Heart is strongest above the Wild Heart’s prison—which is presumably in the Towering Wood of the Eldeen Reaches—but it is the most contagious curse and could easily spread. The Wild Heart also has rakshasa and other fiendish servants, and its more powerful servants may have the power to spread its curse. So all three forms are especially prevalent in the Towering Wood of Khorvaire, but lycanthropes can be found anywhere.

Do you see these as the only forms of lycanthropy?

Not at all. Of the top of my head, I can immediately imagine two more forms. I could see a form of lycanthropy tied to Thelanis, literally based on the STORIES of people becoming beasts. Beyond that, we’ve called out the existence of a cabal in House Vadalis called the Feral Heart (no relation to the Wild Heart!) that strives to create living weapons; I could easily see them developing their own strain of lycanthropy. In each case, I’d probably add a unique twist based on the strain. It could be that Thelanian lycanthropes are vulnerable to cold iron instead of silver, or that Vadalis lycanthropes aren’t tied to the moons at all. And that’s just what I came up with now; I’m sure I could develop other interesting options if I put my mind to it. Perhaps House Ghallanda has a secret line of lycanthropic blink dogs! Don’t be limited by the idea that all lycanthropes have to share a common origin and identical abilities; if you have an interesting story, change the rules to match it!

And to be clear: none of these ideas are canon. Within a particular campaign you might decide that it is only the Wild Heart who is responsible for lycanthropes, or only the daelkyr. I like having both out in the world, but there no reason not to just pick one form of lycanthropy and leave it at that.

That’s all for now! Next up: Riedra! Thanks again to my Patreon supporters, who make this blog possible!

Magic Sword: Shadow Marches

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I’m about to join forces with the band Magic Sword and gamers Damion Poitier and Satine Phoenix to tell a tale set in the Shadow Marches of Eberron. As I write this, the game is just a few hours away—starting at 4 PM Pacific time, streaming here. However, if you miss the live stream, it should still be available to view after the fact!

Preparing for this game has kept me busy, so my next article will be slightly delayed. Last month’s Patreon poll ended in a tie, and while I thought I was going to write about nobility, because of reasons the next article will be about Riedra in Fifth Edition. But don’t worry, Nobility fans, I’ll write that article as soon as I can.

I hope you can join me and Magic Sword as we explore the Marches! And thanks as always to my Patreon supporters!