Dragonmarks 10/18: Converting Eberron

Posted on by

I’m currently developing a new fantasy setting. I’ll be talking about this more in the months ahead, but one of the key elements is that I’m designing it to be system neutral. I will be launching with RPG support for at least one system, but unlike Eberron the world itself isn’t integrally tied to the mechanics of a particular RPG – and I want to make it as easy as possible for people to adapt the setting to the system of their choice. As this is a topic I’m wrestling with on a daily basis, it’s a great time to address questions about adapting Eberron to other systems.

If you are adapting Eberron to other systems, what is important to have mechanically? (besides dragonmarks and races)

It’s a difficult topic to address without knowing anything about the system in question. You could use Eberron with 13th Age, Dungeon World, or Dread – but obviously in a rules-light system like Dread, you’re going to approach the conversion in a very different way. I’m going to use Dread as an example throughout this article simply because it is so different from any edition of D&D. For those who aren’t familiar with it, in Dread characters are defined by a basic concept and the answers to a list of questions the gamemaster asks the players; they have no numerical statistics. All challenges are resolved through Jenga; when a person tries to do something that involves risk, the gamemaster decides how many tiles they must move in order to succeed.

So, I think your basic guide is the Ten Things You Need To Know About Eberron, found on page 4 of the 4E Eberron Campaign Guide and page 8 of the 3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting. I’m not going to go through all ten points, nor am I going to reprint the full text of a point, so you’ll want to refer to one of the books for full benefit.

  • Tone and attitude. Eberron “combines traditional medieval D&D fantasy with swashbuckling action and dark adventure.” This section mentions that we added action points to support this flavor – that they allow “players to alter the course of dramatic situations and have their characters accomplish the seemingly impossible.” Some systems out there already have something similar built in. If not, one option is to simply lift the 3.5 or 4E action point systems and use them as is – spend an action point to take an extra action, add an extra die, or do something remarkable. For Eberron Dread, I would give each player a token and allow them to use that token once to knock five pulls off of a particular action… which means most things are automatic, but as GM I do still have the ability to say “That’s a 20-pull action, but hey, it’s only 15 with your action point.”
  • A world of magic. Read what it says in the book. The key here is that magic is a part of everyday life. Magewrights are specialists who can cast a handful of spells or rituals, and who have turned that mastery into a job – the locksmith who can perform arcane lock and knock, the oracle who can cast augury and divination. A critical point here is that fully-powered wizards, artificers, and clerics are rare and remarkable; Eberron is a world of widespread low-level magic, and a magewright locksmith can’t simply pick up your spellbook and learn to cast fireball. For the most part this is about the world around the players and the services that are available to them. If the players are in Sharn they should be able to find an arcane locksmith, whether it’s D&D or Eberron Dread.
  • Dragonmark Dynasties. I know you said “besides dragonmarks”, but my point is that there’s more to dragonmarks than the simple mechanics of the mark itself. The dragonmarked houses are influential forces in society because of the magical services they offer. Even if no player character has a dragonmark, they’ll go to House Jorasco for healing, rely on Orien and Lyrandar for transportation, send a message through House Sivis, and take advantage of House Cannith’s services any time they purchase magical goods. House Tharashk’s powers are reflected in their presence in remote places – the fact that their gift allows them to locate veins of precious resources that would otherwise go undiscovered. To cut to the chase: when translating the world to a new system, don’t simply think about the dragonmarks as they will be used by the players; think about how you will represent the primary services and gifts of each house, and how PCs will feel the influence of those houses.

With both this and the previous point, I want to emphasize that if the RPG you’re using has its own magic system, feel free to dramatically change the services available or power of the mark. Don’t worry about directly mimicking the powers of the 3.5 Mark of Creation; consider how creation works within this system, and what magics exist that facilitate it. Then place those powers in the hands of House Cannith. Jorasco heals. Cannith creates. Sivis communicates. The precise powers they wield don’t have to be identical from system to system, as long as they are the masters of those fields.

  • The Last War has ended… sort of. The impact of the war is one of the most fundamental themes of Eberron. Mechanics aside, you should always consider the impact the war has had on your characters and plot. Mechanically, are their any aspects of the system that lend themselves to magical weapons of mass destruction or other things that would have been harnessed to the war effort?

There are many other points you could consider; for example, I will look at the influence of the planes, and the effect of manifest zones, coterminous and remote periods, and the like. However, this isn’t as important as those basic ten points; review that list, and if you feel like you’ve got them covered, you’re on solid ground.

Of course, one of those ten points is “new races.” So…

If creating homebrew Warforged, Kalashtar, Shifters, or Changelings in other systems, what about each race should I focus on?

It’s a difficult question to answer without addressing a particular system, but here’s my take on the core of each race.

  • Warforged. The warforged are constructs. They don’t eat, breathe, or sleep. A warforged soldier is a weapon; his armor is fused to his body. It’s up to you how far to take the construct element. 3.5 provided the warforged with a host of immunities, while 4E scaled them back. Regardless, durability is a core theme: the warforged are bad from leather and steel, and have fewer vital points than a human. A second thing to consider is that the warforged are magical beings; they are living constructs and can evolve beyond their original design. A warforged juggernaut literally grows heavier armor and spikes. While it may not come up in a game, another key fact is that the warforged cannot reproduce; there’s a finite number of them, and if they want to thrive as a race, this is something that will need to be addressed.
  • Kalashtar. A kalashtar shares its mind with an alien spirit. This allows it to resist psychic attacks and enhances its personal psychic abilities. If you’re not using a system that supports psionics, you can mimic this with other forms of magic, or simply emulate it by granting the kalashtar the ability to form simple mindlinks, bonuses to checks to influence people, and the like. At lest it go without saying, kalashtar don’t dream normally.
  • Shifters. I wouldn’t worry about the precise shifter abilities presented in either book as much as I’d try to capture the basic idea of the shifter: a being with a strong primal spirit, who can call its animalistic nature to the fore for a brief period of time. The primal characters fit shifter nature quite well; the druid’s ability to shapeshift is an extension of its inherent nature, while the barbarian calls on feral instinct to fuel his rage. When looking to civilized shifters, it’s a question of how they harness that animalistic spirit for their urban endeavors, and whether they feel trapped in the city or have adapted to it like a rat. But in short, animalistic characteristics that can be enhanced for a brief period of time.
  • Changelings. Obviously the first challenge is the shapeshifting ability, and making it work without unbalancing your game. Note that by default it doesn’t change clothes. Beyond this, changelings are related to doppelgangers (or are one and the same, if you’re using 4E) and as such has a latent gift for telepathy; in 3.5 this is reflected by their bonuses to Bluff and Insight, as they are capable of subconsciously picking up surface thoughts and using them to influence people.

All of this really just scratches the surface; the warforged Dragonshards, Kalashtar DDI article, and other resources delve more into what defines each race. But these are some key things I’d take into account when converting the race.

Are you using Eberron with a system other than Dungeons & Dragons? Tell me what you’re using and what you’ve done with it!

Six Questions: Don Bassingthwaite

Posted on by

I know a lot of interesting people. Some I’ve worked with, some I’ve met while traveling the world, some just owe me money. My name may be on the website, but it seems kind of boring if I’m the only person whose voice is heard here. So I’m bringing some of my friends to the site, as time permits. I’m not a podcasty kind of guy, so I’m just keeping things simple: one guest, six questions.

My second guest is DON BASSINGTHWAITE. He’s the author of seventeen fantasy novels, including The Dragon Below and Legacy of Dhakaan trilogies for Eberron. He’s also written numerous short stories, including “Too Much Is Never Enough” in the cyberpunk compilation Foreshadows: The Ghosts of Zero—where you’ll also find a story by yours truly!

So, Don—what’s your story?

Do you mean why do I write or who am I overall?

I was born in small-town Ontario, grew up a hugely geeky kid, started my last year of high school preparing to go into science at university, switched to humanities for my first year, then discovered anthropology and switched to that second year because I knew I wanted to channel my geekiness into writing and anthropology is just more inspiring than English. I’m now a hugely geeky adult who gets paid to write (I know!) and work with books in my day job as well (I know!). All my current novels are RPG tie-ins so far, but I still have my eye on finally getting something original published.

Why do I write? Because I enjoy it. Because I like making stories out of things. Because I enjoy submerging myself in imagination.

In both of your Eberron trilogies, you’ve invested a significant amount of energy into developing languages. Why do you feel this is important, and what’s your process as you do it? What’s your favorite Goblin proverb?

Partly it grows out of my background in anthropology. Language is a key aspect of culture so using words and phrases out of another “language” makes a fantasy culture feel more real for me. It can be as small as a throwaway name for a plant or something bigger like abstract concepts. Language can suggest how interactions work between speakers (degrees of formality, for example) or the history between groups (conquest or trading or even just isolation changes languages). Just the sounds a language uses suggests something about its speakers to a reader.

The process pretty much depends on how rigorous I want to be and what I want to accomplish. For The Dragon Below trilogy, I worked out a basic grammar for the savage Bonetree clan because I wanted to be able to emphasize from the beginning that while they were human, they came from a very different, much more isolated background than more civilized characters – I wrote whole (short!) conversations in their language. For Legacy of Dhakaan, I built on previus sources and kept things simpler with just a lexicon of Goblin words and enough general ideas about the language to string pithy proverbs together consistently. With the goblins, I wanted to establish a baseline of familiarity, then blow that up with something startling to say “Hey, remember that these are goblins. They’re monsters.” I actually think the second approach worked better overall.

Favorite Goblin proverb? “Je’shaarat mi paa kotanaa” – A sharp sword hurts less when you fall on it.

If you were Dhakaani, would you be a goblin, hobgoblin, or bugbear? Why?

Goblin. I like the pride of hobgoblins and the brute savagery of bugbears, but there’s something really enjoyably sinister about Dhakaani goblins. In my mind, they thrive on cunning, they’re small and stealthy, and everybody under estimates them. If there was one character from Legacy of Dhakaan I’d love to go back and explore, it would be Chetiin, the old goblin assassin. He’s likable and honorable, but also very ruthless.

How did you develop your original cast for The Binding Stone? Why did you decide to make Geth a shifter, for example?

That’s going back a long way! My character development process is kind of free form but a lot of the choices I made were about picking out the pieces of the Eberron setting (then still under-development) that really appealed to me, then building those into the story. To use Geth as an example: Aside from shifters being more common in the rather wild region where the story began, I liked the duality of control versus savagery that shifters represent, and I felt like I wanted a character who was all action but not necessarily too smart.

That and typical shifter abilities grew into Geth’s style of fighting and his signature weapon (the great-gauntlet that is both weapon and light armor). Then it became a question of where did he get that weapon and why is he still in this wild, somewhat isolated region instead of elsewhere in the world – and that led to his background as a mercenary veteran on the run from his past and that led to the former friend who became one of the other protagonists in the book, Singe, the swordsman/fire wizard who is Geth’s foil because he is smart.

What’s a story that’s inspired you?

You mean stories rather than novels, right? And just one?? Okay, if I restrict myself just to stories and cheat a bit by naming two, I’d say Fritz Leiber’s “Ill Met in Lankhmar” and Tanith Lee’s “Red as Blood.”

“Ill Met in Lankhmar” is brilliant because it expresses both a whole setting (the city of Lankhmar) and a saga (of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser). It stands on its own but it’s the foundation for so much more. Plus it’s got a great solid fantasy feel. It’s real.

“Red as Blood” is almost the opposite because it’s very dreamlike and unreal, and Tanith Lee’s style of writing is so lush and rich. It’s a story that stands completely on its own. For me, I think it was inspiring because it was one of the first examples I read of something that took the familiar (the story of Snow White) and turned it completely around.

What’s next?

I’m not actually sure. I don’t have anything under contract at the moment but I’ve been saying for years that I want to get something original written and now I’m kicking around ideas. It might end up being a break for writing sword and sorcery style fantasy to try something different, or it might not. The problem with writing something original is that there are just so many possibilities, it can be hard to pick one and just work on it!

Meltdown Celebrity D&D 2013: Penance

Posted on by

On Saturday, October 13th Satine Phoenix and Meltdown Comics are hosting a Celebrity Dungeons & Dragons event in Los Angeles to raise money for the children’s literacy charity Reach Out and Read. Three tables of players will go throughPenance; I wrote this adventure and will be running one of the tables tomorrow. And you can be a part of it!

There’s three ways for you to get involved:

Watch the Games! The adventure begins at 1 PM Pacific Standard Time on Saturday, October 13th. For a small donation to Reach Out and Read, you can watch live streams of the three tables & chat with your fellow viewers. To get in on the stream, go to Meltdown Comics between Noon and Six PM Pacific time on Saturday. The links will not be active until noon, so if you go to the site and don’t see anything about the game, check back!

Buy Games! During the event, a handful of games from Wizards of the Coast will be available on the Meltdown website. If you purchase one of these special games, the proceeds will go to Reach Out & Read, and you can have your game personalized by any or all of the participants!

Get the Adventure! Like what you see? With a donation to Reach Out And Read, you can download a copy of the Penance PDF so you can run it at home! The adventure will only be available on the Meltdown site from 12 PM to 6 PM, so if you want it, make sure to be online!

Participants include:

– Javier Grillo-Marxauch, creator of The Middleman – one of my favorite shows!

– Jason Charles Miller: actor and frontman for Godhead!

– David Nett, the mind behind the webseries Gold.

– Sandra “Sex Nerd” Dougherty

– Hot rod artist Coop

And many more! Adam Levermore! Matthew Mercer! Sax Carr! Check here for the full list!

This event is not administrated, sponsored, or endorsed by Wizards of the Coast.

 

Six Questions: Andrew Looney

Posted on by

I know a lot of interesting people. Some I’ve worked with, some I’ve met while traveling the world, some just owe me money. My name may be on the website, but it seems kind of boring if I’m the only person whose voice is heard here. So I’m bringing some of my friends to the site, as time permits. I’m not a podcasty kind of guy, so I’m just keeping things simple: one guest, six questions.

I’m kicking this off with ANDREW LOONEY. He’s best known as the creator of Fluxx, a crazy card game about change (and the foundation for my recent release, Cthulhu Fluxx). Andy founded Looney Labs with his wife Kristin, and he’s the designer of just about everything the company has published. He’s also a former NASA programmer, a starship captain, a hippie, and the Emperor of the Universe.

So, Andy—what’s your Goal?
Our Company’s official mission is To Create Fun, and everybody knows that All You Need is Love, so I win if I have Love and Fun on the table in front of me. And Chocolate.

What’s with all the pyramids?
Pyramids are cool. I dunno, I’ve just always liked them. Then I had this vision of a game set using elongated pyramids, and the obsession really took off. I can’t explain it any more than that.

What’s your favorite game you didn’t create?
Hearts. I’m also a big fan of Texas Hold’em. And I’d like to give an Honorable Mention to Homeworlds, which is my favorite game for the Looney Pyramids that I didn’t invent (but which still seems disqualified because it uses my pyramids).

If you had a time machine for 24 hours (of time as you experience it), what would you do with it?
Great question! The way you’ve asked it makes me assume that I can make as many timejumps as a want as long as return the machine to it’s owner at the end of the 24 hour rental. Assuming I also have precise targeting, I’d just hit the “road” and see as many temporal sites as I could jam into those 24 hours. I’d just be a tourist — I think I’d be too afraid of unintended consequences to want to change history, and where would you even start? Saving John Lennon? Stopping 9-11? Killing Hitler? Unsinking the Titanic? In Chrononauts I also start by saving John, but with all of history to unravel I think I’d be afraid to do anything but look, as unobtrusively as possible. But to get specific, here are some I’d punch in right away:
• I’d visit the New York World’s Fair on the same spring day in 1965 when I attended as a baby. Ideally, I’d find my family at the Futurama and we’d have a Back to the Future moment.
• I’d go to Disneyland on July 20, 1969 and watch the crowd at Tomorrowland as they hear news of Apollo-11.
• Of course, I’d have to visit the future: 5 years, 10 years, 100 years ahead. I think I’d probably end up spending most of my time looking ahead, much as I’m also fascinated by the past.
• I’d look myself up when I was about 15, and tell myself a few choice bits of advice. I’d pass myself off as second cousin of one of my uncles, or something. But I’d be afraid of telling myself too much, again fearing the paradoxes.
• I’d like to watch an atomic bomb test, from a safe distance of course.
• Who am I kidding? Of course I’d have to save John Lennon!

What don’t we know?
I think the more important question is, what do we THINK we know that we are actually totally wrong about?

What’s next?
Fluxx: The Board Game! It’s gonna be big! No, really, the box will be huge compared to the boxes we usually make! Anyway, it’s very exciting. It’s playtesting really well, so look for it sometime in 2013!

That’s it for this episode! If you have more questions for Andy, go ahead and post them here. I can’t promise he’ll ANSWER any of them, but hey, it’s worth a shot!

Dragonmarks 10/3: Eberron and 13th Age

Posted on by

I’m going to try out a new feature on Friday. But today, let’s get right to the question.

If you were to run an Eberron game using 13th Age, what would you use for Icons?

Some of you may be saying “What’s 13th Age, and why does it need Icons?” So let’s clear that up. 13th Age is a new roleplaying system developed by Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet, with a little bit of help from yours truly in the very beginning. The Icons are central part of the default setting of the game and of the system itself. The Icons are thirteen powerful NPCs who exert a tremendous amount of influence on the world, and who in many ways embody central themes. The High Druid is a force of nature, while the Archmage and the Emperor are forces of civilization and order. The Priestess speaks for all the deities of light, while the Diabolist traffics with all manner of dark forces.

OK: there’s some powerful people in the world. What makes this central to the game? Why would you need to have Icons if you wanted to use the 13th Age system to play Eberron? During character creation, you get three points to spend on connections to Icons, and these connections define your character’s background and affect ongoing gameplay. Consider the following example:

Lyssa Calton sets her connections as Emperor 2 (positive), Lich King 1 (negative). Discussing things with the GM, she works out the idea that she comes from a powerful noble family in the Dragon Empire, and that her ancestors were instrumental in one of the Lich King’s worst defeats. As a result, he has laid a curse on her family: whenever someone of her bloodline dies, they become undead servants of the Lich King. Right from the start, this gives the GM lots of hooks to work with. Lyssa obviously will want to find a way to break the curse. Family honor calls on her to oppose the Lich King. And in the meantime, due to the position of her family, she might be called on to serve the Empire in some way, or used as a pawn in a scheme to dethrone the Emperor.  However, these relationships can also have in-game effects on the fly. For example, when the adventurers are stopped by an Imperial patrol, Lyssa could see if her connection with the Emperor allowed her to influence the guards and command their assistance. And while the relationship with the Lich King is a negative one, she can still be creative with it; perhaps the curse can allow her to infiltrate a band of undead, as they already perceive her as one of them.

So: a relationship with an Icon helps define a character and drive a story, but it is also a concrete in-game tool in the character’s arsenal. If you’re using the system in Eberron, you’re going to what something to take its place. What will it be?

It’s not a simple question. In many ways, Eberron was intentionally designed NOT to have figures like the Icons. There’s no clear equivalent to the Archmage or the Emperor; all the human rulers are about equal in power (well, except Queen Diani of Thrane). Keeper Jaela is the most powerful priestess, and yet in many ways Krozen matches her in influence… and where the Priestess of 13th Age speaks for all the gods of light, Jaela is tied only to the Silver Flame. There is no one Elf Queen or Dwarf King.

Given this, I think the best choice is to try to address the underlying role of the Icons—defining the background of your character and giving you influence within the game. With that in mind, I think the list has to be based on your campaign. Who do you see as the major players? Consider the following.

Hands of the Twelve: From start to finish, this campaign is going to revolve around the Dragonmarked houses: their internal rivalries, the balance of power between the houses and broken Galifar’s nobility, the growing power of House Tarkanan and the aberrant dragonmarks. Each house has its personal agendas; as the PCs rise in power, they will need to decide whether to embrace that goal and bring it to pass, or whether to change the direction of their house. The Icons are each of the individual dragonmarked houses, the Twelve as an institution, and House Tarkanan. Each character is a member of one of the houses they are tied to and bears the dragonmark of that house; when they use the mark in a creative way, use Icon relationship dice to determine how effective it is. When a player takes a point of relationship with a house, she should also pick an individual who’s her personal patron/ally/enemy/rival in that house; this puts a human face on things in addition to reflecting a connection to the house as a whole.

Return of the Host: The Sovereigns and Six Don’t manifest in the world directly. But following the Mourning, they can no longer sit idly by – so they have chosen mortals to serve as their hands in the world. Here the Icons are the gods of the Sovereign Host and the Dark Six; you could choose to add in other divine or immortal forces, such as the Silver Flame or Undying Court. Relationships reflect alliances or feuds, and these don’t have to all be on the obvious sides; while a Player Character may serve Aureon, it’s possible that he has angered Dol Arrah and the Shadow. Alternately, an artificer could be chosen by both Onatar and the Traveler; over the course of his adventures, he will have to decide which path to follow, and bear the consequences of that choice.

Lords of Sharn: The DM has declared that the entire campaign is going to be set in Sharn. As a result, the Icons for the campaign are on a much smaller scale that you’d normally expect. Instead of the Prince of All Thieves, you can have the Boromar Clan and Dassk as Icons. Even here, the GM should decide who the major players are going to be: by the book, Daask, House Tarkanan, the Boromar Clan, and the Tyrants are all influential criminal forces; however, she may decide that the Boromar Clan is the only one that is going to get full recognition as an Icon, and that a relationship with the Boromar Clan reflects overall ties to the criminal underworld. Similarly, I’d pick one or two dragonmarked houses (probably Cannith and Tharashk, personally) as worthy of being Icons in the campaign; you don’t want to dilute the list by offering too many choices, and you can use this relationship to determine influence with allied houses. So following this, my personal Sharn list might be:

  • The City Council
  • The City Watch
  • The King’s Citadel
  • Morgrave University
  • The Boromar Clan
  • House Cannith
  • House Tharashk
  • House Tarkanan
  • The Church of the Silver Flame
  • The Sovereign Host
  • The Blood of Vol/Order of the Emerald Claw
  • The Aurum
  • A Nation (Choose one)

I’ve thrown on “A Nation” as a way of suggesting a character with a strong connection to a nation’s government – from a gnome who’s got friends in the Zil embassy to a Brelish nobleman. Tarkanan and Tharashk could be pulled if you didn’t plan on having a lot of dragonmarked hijinx, but I think that they each bring good story potential to the table.

As with the Dragonmarked example, I’d have each character choose a specific ally/patron/rival/ally to be the face of each Icon they choose. They have ties to the Silver Flame – are they agents of the corrupt hierophant or of a more lowly but dedicated priest?

There may seem to be some significant gaps here. What about the Chamber? The Lords of Dust? The Dreaming Dark? The list of possible Icons goes on and on. In part, I dropped these because the longer the list, the less impact each Icon has. Another reason to drop these groups is because they are secretive. Part of the point of the Icons is that everyone knows who they are and that their names alone carry influence; with the Lords of Dust, a player character tied to their schemes probably won’t even know it for a long time, let alone have an opportunity to do name dropping.

In general I encourage you to decide which groups will be the most influential in your campaign. Yes, the Lords of Dust and the Chamber are both powerful forces capable of exerting global influence. But do you want them to do so in this campaign? An Icon chosen by a player character will potentially play a role in every session – are you prepared to use the potential Icon in that way? Just as a player’s choice of Icons defines their personal story, your choice of Icons defines the story of the campaign. If the Daelkyr are available as an Icon choice, people should expect them to have an impact; if you’re not interested in that, don’t put them on your list.

I’m not sure I 100% agree with choosing a specific patron, personally… while an Icon may be killed, the advice given was that that should probably be a very major event, maybe even a campaign conclusion. This would still apply to a house or organization falling. It doesn’t really apply if your patron is a lowly priest.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. When I suggest choosing a patron, it’s not to have that patron serve as the Icon. A lowly priest doesn’t serve the same role as the Priestess. However, the same can be said of Ythana Morr – and the fact that she is technically the leader of the Silver Flame in Sharn doesn’t mean she’s the one who’s going to be the best story match for your character. The ICON in this case is the Church of the Silver Flame. That is the force you are connected to; you should establish the basis of that connection; and it’s your connection to that entire organization that should be taken into account when you use your relationship dice, not the patron. The patron is simply a bonus, in part to make up for the fact that these organizations DON’T have a single face; again, Ythana’s no more the true face of the Silver Flame in Sharn than Flamebearer Mazin Tana, and as you say, the death of either one of them won’t be the end of the Silver Flame in Sharn; if you lose your rival, I’d just sit down with you and pick a new ally/rival/patron tied to the force. For example, say you’ve got Mazin as an ally, and because of the work you do together he dies; you might now gain an enemy in Ythana Morr because your work has been exposed, or perhaps Mazin’s daughter will blame you for his death.

So again: the ENTITY is taking the role of the Icon, and you need to define your history and relationship with that entity. The idea of adding an individual – whether a patron, rival, friend, or enemy – is simply a further way to develop the history of your character. In particular, if you look to the Hands of the Twelve idea, the point is that three characters could all be from House Cannith and make that their most important relationship – but they may all have secondary relationships with different individuals in the house.

I noticed you didn’t address one (I think common) campaign type, though: The international intrigue game.
Correct, because it’s not a question with an easy answer; it’s what I was covering with the last paragraph of the first answer. I feel it is important to limit your list of icons to around 10-15, both for the sake of the players and the story. If I simply listed every possible force that COULD be considered an icon, it would be way over that; in the Thronehold nations alone you hit that number, and that’s not including churches, dragonmarked houses, groups like the Emerald Claw or Aurum, or potentially the more secretive manipulators. As such, I really feel that you need to decide which of these forces are the REAL movers and shakers in this campaign. A global game may involve every nation in some form. But are Q’barra and the Lhazaar Principalities actually as significant or influential in the story you envision as Thrane or Aundair? Will the faith of the Sovereign Host actually play an Iconic role? For that matter, will the Church of the Silver Flame play a role that isn’t covered by, say, Thrane or Aundair? Do you want the Twelve as a single Icon, or do you want to pick one or two houses that are going to be particularly important to the action of the campaign?

So let’s look at ONE EXAMPLE of a political intrigue game.  I’m going to use this list of Icons.

  • Aundair
  • Breland
  • Cyre
  • Karrnath
  • Thrane
  • Darguun
  • Droaam
  • The Eldeen Reaches
  • Valenar
  • House Cannith
  • House Thuranni
  • The Aurum
  • Blood of Vol/Emerald Claw
  • Church of the Silver Flame
  • The Lord of Blades

This campaign is going to focus on the cold war between the Five Nations and the threat of a new war, which will be assured if the mystery of the Mourning is solved. Droaam, Darguun, and Valenar will all have active roles, and the potential of open conflict with any of the three is possible; the relationship between Aundair and the Eldeen Reaches will also be an issue. The Church of the Silver Flame will have a role to play outside of Thrane; for example, a Brelish character could be a respected templar with a significant relationship with the Church yet who opposes the theocracy in Thrane. While all of the dragonmarked houses will be involved, only two will have major roles. Cannith may be critical in solving the Mourning, and with war on the horizon, every nation is trying to forge stronger ties with the House of Making. Meanwhile, Thuranni is going to be acting as a significant opposing force to the national intelligence agencies… but who are they working for? As noted before, the Chamber and Lords of Dust are both involved in this campaign, but both are deep enough behind the scenes that I’m not including them as Icons.

Players don’t actually have to have a relationship with a nation to be from that nation. A relationship implies a close tie to the powers and interests of that nations. A tie to Breland may make the player a noble, a ranking agent of the Citadel, a prominent member of the anti-monarchy movement… or of course, it could mean that he’s made powerful enemies in that nation or has some other form of negative relationship there.

But I could easily come up with an entirely different campaign model. One point I’ll make is that 13th Age only runs through character levels 1-10; In planning a campaign story, you’re not looking for a 30-level arc.

What do you think should happen with Icons that are secretive, like say the Scar that Abides?

Personally, I don’t consider them to be “Icons.” I was involved in the early concepting stages of 13th Age, when the list of Icons was being developed. One of the possibilities we considered was an evil force in the underworld that was the source of aberrations, not unlike the Daelkyr. Ultimately we decided that while such a thing might exist, it didn’t fit the role of “Icon.” While it might have a significant role within the world as a threat, people couldn’t interact with it directly; only a few of the other Icons interacted with it, and even then not directly (little possible beyond “hold it at bay”) and there was little possibility of friendly interaction. Could you have a story/background tie with it? Sure. You’re a half-blood aberration. Your family was killed fighting the aberrations. But overall, its impact on the world is one-sided and limited. By contrast, the Lich King’s impact on the world is obvious; he has history with the other Icons; and it is actually possible for other forces to negotiate with him or interact with him or his lieutenants. Someone could form a temporary alliance with him; the Dragon Empire could decide to go to war against him; the Archmage could reveal that the Lich King is his father; the Prince of Shadows might have the Lich King’s heart in a chest.

So in other words, secret forces can be part of backgrounds and they can be tied to unique things whether they are Icons or not. They could be just as powerful or even more powerful than the Icons. But for me, the purpose of an “Icon” is that it shapes the world both in its own right and through its constant interactions with other Icons. Looking to the Diplomacy game, having Aundair, Thrane, and the Church of the Silver Flame as separate Icons shows that you’re dealing with the way all three of these affect one another as separate forces. It may be that the Chamber and the Lords of Dust are pulling the strings of all three of them – but if none of them KNOW it, then the story as the world perceives it remains about the interaction between church and nations, and those are what I’d choose as my Icons.

But your mileage may vary! It’s just a question of what it means to be an Icon.

Dragonmark 9/26: What Makes A Monster?

Posted on by

There’s lots of good questions in the queue, but this one demands a response, so let’s get to it!

How do you interpret the motivations/background of monsters or aberrations as predisposing them to evil, given that they’re free-willed, and therefore should be good as often as evil, civilized as often as barbarous, given an normal statistical spread?

Before I go farther, if you haven’t read this post on Alignment in Eberron, I suggest you start there. Because it’s good to get on the same page as to what I mean when I say “evil.”

Back? OK. The answer is easy: I don’t interpret the motivations or backgrounds of monsters as predisposing them to evil or savagery. One of the phrases I use to describe Eberron is that it’s a place where “the bad guys aren’t always monsters, and the monsters aren’t always bad guys.” I want my fantasy worlds to feel logical… and as such I believe that for the most part, any creature that possesses free will and human-par intelligence should have the same diversity you find in humans and should be affected by the same factors – culture, history, environment, and so on. I say “for the most part”, because in a magical world a non-human species could have any number of abilities that should have an effect on culture; a telepathic race in which each city has a gestalt personality might have diversity between its city-group-minds, while the individuals within a city are virtually identical.

But taking Eberron, let’s look at a few examples:

Humans. Just as a starting point, I’ll note that humans aren’t innately good or civilized. The majority of the barbarians of the Demon Wastes are human. The people of the Lhazaar Principalities come in a wide variety of flavors; many lack “modern amenities” people are used to in Sharn and Fairhaven; and thrive by preying on others. They are generally civilized because they share common cultural roots – so where you have tribal cultures among the orcs and halflings, all the humans of Khorvaire are descended from Sarlonan cultures advanced enough to seek to establish colonies in distant lands (the Demon Wastes being a special case).

Orcs. The orcs of Khorvaire began as a tribal/primal culture and had no interest in abandoning their traditions for a more industrial culture. The Daelkyr incursion and the arrival of Sarlonan refugees both changed things and created new cultural groups. Looking at the orcs today, you can see…

– The Gatekeepers: The first druids of Khorvaire. It was the orcs who awakened the greatpine we now know as Oalian, and orcs who trapped the daelkyr in the depths.

-The Ghaash’kala:The orcs of the Demon Wastes worshipped the Silver Flame long before Tira Miron was ever born. They hold the Labyrinth against the Carrion Tribes; they are unknown to the people of the Five Nations, but they have helped safeguard the lowlands for thousands of years.

– The Marcher Clans and House Tharashk: A blended culture formed from the bond between humans and orcs. House Tharashk is a thriving and ambitious house, with both humans and orcs among its leaders.

– The Marcher Tribes maintain a simpler way of life, because they see no need to change it. They are divided among those influenced by the Gatekeepers (more “good”) and the Daelkyr (more “evil”).

-The Jhorash’tar are descended from similar roots as the Marcher Tribes. I don’t consider their conflict with the dwarves as something that makes them “evil”; it’s the same sort of struggle over contested territory humans have had time and again in our world.

Goblins. I don’t have time to go into paragraph overviews, but the spectrum is clear enough. The Dhakaani are a sophisticated civilization that once dominated Khorvaire, and which is more advanced in certain areas than humanity (though weaker in others, in part due to the lack of dragonmarked houses). The Ghaal’dar are a developing nation, on par with many of the Lhazaar Principalities. There are isolated savage tribes – just as with humans. And then you have the city goblins you can find in Sharn, who aren’t that different from humans. Their behavior is partially dictated by poverty, partially dictated by prejudice (which in turn helps create the poverty). Their biology affects certain things: races with darkvision have an easier time living underground. Both the Ghaal’dar and Dhakaani are very militant cultures, which can create a more ruthless environment in which lawful evil individuals have an easier time than, say, chaotic good; but that’s a cultural thing, and a chaotic evil goblin is going to have just as difficult a time in a Dhakaani clan.

Medusas. Read this article. A key quote: “Despite their worship of the Shadow, medusas are no more inherently evil than humans or elves. Some are arrogant and proud, believing that their deadly gaze places them above mundane creatures. Others respond to the fear they encounter every day by despising those who fear them, a path that often leads to evil alignments. But many enjoy the same pleasures that humans do, and seek out song, good company, and the satisfaction of hard work.” Cazhaak Draal is a small kingdom, due to the low fertility of the medusa race, but it is as sophisticated as any nation in the Five Nations; Councilor Kilk of Sharn has petitioned the city council to employ medusa architects and stonemasons.

Droaam Overall. So if monsters aren’t all savages, why was Droaam a savage land before the hags came to power? First, it wasn’t entirely a savage land. Cazhaak Draal has been around for centuries. The gnolls of the Znir Pact have a history stretching back to Dhakaan; they’ve just held to their ancestral lands and traditions. The tielflings of the Venomous Demesne trace their roots to Ohr Kaluun. It’s simply the case that these cultures were small, isolated, and surrounded by savagery. That savagery comes in the form of creatures like ogres and trolls, who are a) carnivorous and b) not as intelligent as humans (or orcs, or goblins). They aren’t genetically disposed towards EVIL as such… but lower intelligence means they are less likely to develop tools of civilization, and when you have incredibly strength you might as well use it. An ogre’s gotta eat, and if he can intimidate a bunch of kobolds into making sure he gets his food, great. Meanwhile, it’s difficult for a carnivorous species to support the large population base of a city – which leads to small tribes and villages. The Daughters solved this problem by introducing grist. Otherwise, you simply couldn’t maintain the troll/worg/etc population you currently see in the Great Crag or Graywall.

So: if monsters aren’t monsters, why are they monsters? If you haven’t already read it, you might want to check out The Queen of Stone, which is set in Droaam and features a number of monstrous characters. Sheshka – the queen of stone herself – addresses this very point. Consider: Humans do a great job of fearing and hating humans for relatively minor things – differences in skin color, religion, language, political views, or simply because you’re on the land I want to have. And fundamentally, as two humans, we have a lot in common. Now, let’s expand those difference. You’re a mammal and I’m a reptile. I have living hair which serves both as a sensory organ, a natural weapon, and a form of body language – when I talk to you, it’s really disturbing and alien to me, because your hair just sits there; it’s not expressing emotion or anything. And where you say “Wouldn’t someone with a petrifying gaze be a great ally?” I’ll counter with “If you’re sitting in a room with this creature who has different religious views, a completely different form of body language, unknown customs, and who can kill you by looking at you, are you going to feel completely at ease?” Fear is a major wedge; the difficulty in common cultural ground is another. We have first contact sometime. We don’t speak the same language. You look like a scary thing, someone panics and gets petrified, we all panic and now you’re a monster of legend. Even looking just to humans and goblins: you look alien; you smell alien; you have sharp teeth; you can see in the dark and I can’t. All that is creepy on a gut level even we aren’t divided by class struggle, religion, or geopolitical differences.

So TODAY there are people trying to bridge that gap. The Queen of Stone is about exactly that. And in The Shadow Marches you’ve had humans and orcs living side by side for ages. But why do humans and monsters not get along? The same reasons humans and humans don’t get along, magnified by vast biological differences.

Of course, that’s “monsters.” You also mentioned aberrations. These are a specific and very different case. A good first step here is to look at this Eberron Expanded article. The short form is that with a medusa you can say “What would it be like if I could petrify people and had living hair?” With a troll, you can get the basics – tremendous strength, low intellect, regenerates, carnivorous – and try to put yourself in its big shoes. Aberrations, on the other hand, are entirely alien in both biology and outlook. Mind and body are twisted, either by Khyber or Xoriat. They aren’t incarnate ideas as immortals are, and they DO have free will; Xorchyllic is a mind flayer pursuing his own agenda, while the 3.5 ECS notes “A few (beholders) have abandoned the path of aggression for philosophy and reflection.” Nonetheless, whenever I deal with aberrations – from dolgaunts to gibbering mouthers – I try to emphasize that they don’t think like us. Their logic appears to be madness. It may be a structured, ordered madness that can produce amazing things; mind flayers and beholders are far more intelligent than most humans. But nothing about them is human, physically or mentally. Add to this the fact that a great many aberrations were specifically designed either to be living weapons or as bizarre works of art. Why is a dolgaunt innately aggressive? Because it was genetically engineered to be a soldier. A medusa’s gaze is an amazing thing, but it is ultimately a product of natural evolution in Eberron – a biological means of harnessing the ambient magical energy of the world. While the powers of a mind flayer were engineered by the daelkyr; it was designed to dominate and destroy minds.

That’s my rant. I’d love to hear your thoughts and stories. What have you done with monsters in Eberron (or anywhere else)?

ADDENDUM: New questions!
If sharp teeth and dark vision are enough to disturb humans, what about half-elves, elves, gnomes and dwarves? There is hardly any canon prejudice against them and they are treated as full citizens of the nations they are part of… Granted, they have Dragonmarked houses backing them, but still…

If you look through the setting, there are a number of places where humans do discriminate against “demihumans”. Riedrans consider most demihumans to be inferior creatures. The Valenar are widely distrusted and disliked since they betrayed Cyre, while changelings face ongoing prejudice in most nations. Shifters suffered during the Purge because of their race and still have issues with Aundairians and the Church of the Silver Flame. Warforged face many challenges. One of the points of the Shadow Marches is that it’s a place where orcs and half-orcs mingle with humans without prejudice. House Lyrandar is called out as providing the Khoravar with a bastion in world where they are often outsiders.

With that said, let’s compare some elves from the dragonmarked houses to a city goblin and a hobgoblin from Darguun.

• The elves are, for all intents and purposes, humans with pointed ears. Their eyes are slightly larger than ours, their features slightly more angular. But their teeth are the same as ours. Their skin comes in the same tones as ours. They have noses. Overall, they generally behave in a manner similar to humans when it comes to dress and hairstyles.
• By contrast, the goblinoids have skin tones that are never found on humans. They have sharp, protruding teeth, virtually no noses, and entirely different body posture and proportions. Put that goblin next to a halfling or gnome; which of the three could you possibly mistake for a human child? And note that the snouty noses and protruding teeth are also going to mean that their facial expressions will be very different from those of humans. Elves, gnomes, dwarves, and halflings should all have similar expressions and thus be easy for you to subliminally pick up on moods; goblins will be innately alien. And the same will be true in reverse for the goblin.
• Working off 3.5, elves have low-light vision while goblins have darkvision. My point isn’t that you look at a goblin and you’re afraid because he can see in the dark; he’s not wearing a sign that says “I have darkvision.” But his darkvision is going to affect the way in which he interacts with his environment – notably where he lives. A goblin can live in a pitch-black cave; even an elf needs light down there. So the environment of the goblin feels alien. Though over the course of time, it also plays to the bogeyman element and a child’s fears: goblins could come in the night and you’d never see them. Which ties to…
• With the exception of the Valenar’s recent and swift annexing of Cyre, humans have never fought a war with elves. On the other hand, Khorvaire was the land of the goblins until humans drove them into the dark places and enslaved them. It’s been quite some time since goblins were slaves, thanks to Galifar; but their original relationship with humanity was an antagonistic one. Combine this with the fact that most city goblins still live in poverty, and you have fuel for people to fear that goblins hate them or want their things. Now again, layer on top of this their fundamentally inhuman appearance (big teeth!) and their ability to creep around in the dark. In recent years, add in the whole Darguun-seized-from-Cyre thing and you’re sure to get fallout there, even on city goblins whose families have been part of Galifar for centuries.

These same principles hold true for most of the demihuman races; they are closer to humanity than the “monstrous humanoids.” With that said, my point is that humans manage to fear and hate humans for things far more trivial than the differences between human and goblin… and I think this holds true both for demihumans and humans themselves in Eberron. A ritually scarred barbarian from the Demon Wastes, an artificially decomposed Aereni, a masked halfling dinosaur rider, a Valenar warrior… all of these will get a different reception from most citizens of the Five Nations than a member of their race who is dressed in national clothing and whose accents and mannerisms conform to cultural norms. Inhuman physicality simply magnifies these things. A wealthy goblin dressed in Davandi fashions who speaks with an impeccable Brelish accent will have an easier time in Sharn than that D-Waste barbarian.

ONE MORE THOUGHT… one of the comments raises the point that existing monsters are good villains in part because they are “mysterious.” For me, there is certainly a place in the a game for evil that is truly alien and unknowable, and for me this is the point of the daelkyr and their closest allies. Their very presence leads to madness and twists us into strange reflections of ourselves. They aren’t trying to kill us because they hate us. They don’t seem to want or need anything that we have. They are simply here to destroy us because, apparently, it’s their nature – or because there is something we don’t understand.

Likewise, there is a place for creatures that are simply and irredeemably malevolent by nature. Take evil lycanthropes as an example. Their aggression is not something they choose. They are driven by a curse that forces them to prey on the weak and innocent, to become the embodiment of all that we fear about wolves lingering in the woods. It’s not a choice. They don’t have the option of showing mercy. The curse drives them to kill, and there is little room for any sort of quarter in such a conflict… hence the attempted purge of lycanthropy.

But while there is a place in stories for both these forces, in general I prefer villains whose motives AREN’T mysterious. I think it’s more interesting when you can understand what’s driving the villain, especially if it’s a reasonable thing. Down below I talk about the Dhakaani warlord who is infuriated by humans robbing the tombs of his ancestors and by the fact that humanity has driven the goblins from their ancestral homelands. YOU may not have done these things (well, unless you robbed a tomb), but can you blame him for being angry about them? He simply wants justice for his people. That places him in opposition to you, and there may not be any way to find a peaceful resolution to the problem. But he’s not fighting you because he’s “evil”; he’s fighting you because of politics, history, and the needs of both your cultures. For me, that makes a more interesting story than fighting the unreasoning creature-made-for-war.

RPGs: Established Settings vs Homebrew Campaigns

Posted on by

The following question came up at one of my panels at PAX. I didn’t have time to address it there, but it’s a great topic and I’d like to hear all of your thoughts on the matter. But hey, as it’s my name on the website, I’ll start with my own…

Do you have any thoughts on the pros and cons of running a game in an established setting versus creating your own setting?

I’ve never actually run a game in any of the established D&D settings aside from Eberron. However, I’ve participated in those settings in other ways. I’ve read books set in the Forgotten Realms, and played Pools of Radiance and Baldur’s Gate. Planescape: Torment may be my favorite CRPG, though I didn’t much care for the Blood Wars CCG. I read the initial Dragonlance novels and modules, and experienced Birthright through the strange lens of The Gorgon’s Alliance.

But I’ve never run a game in one of these worlds. I’ve always created my own campaign worlds. Well, unless you count the times I’ve run Call of Cthulhu… or Stormbringer… or the year I spent as a storyteller on a World of Darkness MUSH… or the many campaigns of Over The Edge I’ve run in the default setting of Al Amarja.

Whether you look at the worlds I’ve run in or the ones I’ve simply participated in, for me the preceding paragraphs address one of the biggest draws of an established setting… the ability to participate in it on multiple levels. I’ve never run a game in the Forgotten Realms. But because of the novels I’ve read and the computer games I’ve played, I could sit down with you and have an interesting conversation about the impact of the Time of Troubles or the Spellplague. We can play Lords of Waterdeep together, and even if we’ve never played a game of D&D together, we can both recognize the people and places referenced in the game. A friend of mine told me that his favorite thing about RPGs is that they create a personal mythology shared by a group of friends… a set of stories that bind that group together. When we utilize an established setting, we are sharing that mythology with thousands of tens of thousands of other people. We can draw on the wealth of material that’s been created by others, be it canon or otherwise. This last point is important because many of us are hard-pressed to find the time to come up with this week’s adventure, let alone to develop five different Cults of the Dragon Below or a glossary of the Goblin language. In the shared setting, these things have already been done for us.

So… advantages of the shared setting include the ease of acquiring material with a minimal investment of time; the potential to engage with the world in different mediums (not all established worlds have novels and computer games!); and the opportunity to draw inspiration from existing material, among others.

And yet, one of my favorite things about roleplaying is the opportunity to create and explore new worlds. I like taking an idea and considering the ramifications of it; developing cosmologies and conspiracies; considering paths of history. And most of all, I love seeing where a group of players go with those ideas. Creating a new setting gives you the opportunity to do things that no one else has thought of yet – to offer your players a chance to experience stories that simply can’t be told in Eberron or the Realms. Ravenloft, Planescape, Spelljammer, and Greyhawk all offer completely different experiences; you can certainly come up with one that’s different from all of them.

Playing in an established setting can also be a problem if the players know too much about the world–if the moment you introduce an NPC one of them says “Oh, he’s actually a spy for Cormyr, isn’t he?” and another says “No, no, he’s really a double agent for the Red Wizards.” Worst of all is if the established setting restricts what you can do – if you end up with a player saying “Didn’t you read novel X or sourcebook Y? That’s not how that works.” Obviously this sort of thing won’t happen in your own private world.

With that said, this sort of of thing never has to happen at all… as long as you view an established setting as a source of inspiration as opposed to canon you must abide by. This was what I enjoyed about Over The Edge, and the reason it’s the established setting I’ve used the most; yes, I’ve used the framework of it, but my Al Amarja and yours are sure to be different in many ways. This same principle carried over into Eberron. From the start, we’ve said that Eberron material should be a source of inspiration, but that you should always feel free to make the world your own. Do the gods exist? What caused the Mourning? Where’s the Tarrasque fit in the world? These questions are intentionally open, but even with the things that are defined in canon material I always encouraged people to change whatever they want. Do you want the Kalashtar to be the true evil fighting the virtuous Inspired? Run with it!

You’ll see this same principle in the new setting I’m developing… and I’ll be talking about that in more detail shortly. In creating the world, I want to give you a fascinating framework for creating stories, and a foundation that you can share with other people playing in the world. But I always want you to feel that this is inspiration rather than limitation – that you have room to explore your own ideas, to overwrite canon when it suits your needs, and to share your ideas with others who may prefer them to mine. A shared world gives us a common language and history, not to mention fiction, art, and other sources of inspiration. But at the end of the day, the individual stories will be created at your own table… and you should do whatever you want to make them your own.

Now, to answer the original question… what I enjoy about using established settings is the easy access to material that can add depth to the world, and the ability for my players to come to the table with a deeper understanding of and investment in the world. What I like about creating new worlds is the ability to do something unique and to give my players an experience they can’t get anywhere else. At the end of the day, what I generally end up doing is both: if I use an established setting, I will still change things to make it my own.

How about all of you?

Any Feedback On The Site?

Posted on by

This website is very much a work in progress, and Jenn and I would appreciate any feedback you’d like to give. For example…

1. Do you prefer to have the full text of the latest post on the home page, or the current model of summaries that lets you easily see the last few posts?

2. How does the current layout work on your preferred device? Are there things you would change?

3. Are you likely to use the subscribe-by-email option, or is it all about RSS?

4. Do you prefer to find old posts by tags, categories, or monthly archives?

All suggestions are welcome – help us improve the experience!

 

Dragonmark 9/13: Cthulhu, Silver Flame, and More!

Posted on by

In the past, my posts have primarily been focused on Eberron. Moving into the future, that’s going to change. Eberron will continue to be a major topic of conversation, but I also want to discuss a broader range of gaming topics… and the new setting we’ve got in the works.

Today, however, I’m going to get to work on the Eberron backlog. There’s more questions than I have time to answer in one post, but don’t worry—I’ll get to everything eventually. As always, these answers are purely my opinions and house rules, and aren’t official in any way.

What are some of the inspirations for Eberron themes and locations (the cold war, Xen’drik and Africa or El Dorado legends?)

This could be a subject for an entire post, and I have other questions I’d like to answer today. So I’m going to keep it relatively concise, and only name a few. As with the countries themselves, there’s relatively few things in Eberron that are inspired by a single event or thing; instead, most draw on a combination of sources. With Khorvaire in the wake of the Last War, you have a touch of the malaise that followed World War One, combined with the cold war inspired by the nuclear bomb after WWII. Xen’drik takes elements from the legend of Atlantis, the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and any number of pulp movies or legends like El Dorado. Dhakaan draws on Rome and feudal Japan, blended with ideas specific to the goblins themselves. The Daughters of Sora Kell draw both on the Baba Yaga stories and the many myths that deal with three mystic sisters.

Beyond these sorts of things, you have elements of the setting that are inspired by elements of D&D itself: if medusas exist as a race, what sort of society would they create? If yuan-ti are serpentfolk, and the feathered serpent couatl are emissaries of the light, why not have feathered yuan-ti? Sending and whispering wind are useful spells for communication – what business model would arise around them?

This just scratches the surface, but again, I this could be the subject of a very long post – and should we reach a time when there’s no other questions, perhaps it will be.

Do you think it is possible to run a proper Eberron campaign using 2E rules?

Why not? I’ve run Eberron using Over The Edge rules. I know people who run it with GURPS and Savage World. It’s certainly possible. 2E uses Vancian magic, so it shouldn’t be too hard to adapt dragonmarks. I’d need to pull out 2E books to figure out how to deal with skills/feats and the degree to which it matters. But I’m sure it could be done without too much trouble.

 You’ve said The Queen of Stone is your favorite Eberron novel written by you. What’s your favorite Eberron game sourcebook penned by you?

Honestly? Probably the 4E Eberron Campaign Guide, simply because it was an opportunity to draw on many of my favorite elements of things I’d written elsewhere (for example, the Lords of Dust section draws on the “Eternal Evil” article I wrote for Dragon) and because it also highlights a few key themes of the setting that slipped by in the 3.5 ECS. So set aside the system and focus purely on the text, and it would be the 4E ECG.

Would your novel series be considered the canon Eberron series?

During the development of the setting, we decided that Eberron novels would serve as a source of inspiration as opposed to changing the setting itself. None of the novels are “canon” in terms of being material you are expected to use in your campaign, or being taken into account in future sourcebooks. For example, Pierce acquires an artifact in The Shattered Land. I present the statistics for that artifact in Secrets of Xen’drik, but never mention Pierce. If you want, you could say that Pierce exists in your version of Eberron and that he found that docent. Or you could have one of your players find Shira, using her depiction in the novel as inspiration for the role she might play in your own.

In terms of what novels are the best introduction to Eberron… I think that taken on its own, City of Towers is a fairly good choice. It brings up a number of critical elements of the setting – Sharn, the Last War, dragonmarked houses – and the appendices are useful for people who’ve never encountered the setting. However, as a series, I think that the Thorn of Breland series is somewhat more unique to Eberron. The themes – espionage in the wake of the Last War, the balance of power between dragonmarked houses and the nobility, aberrant dragonmarks – are tied closely to the setting, while The Dreaming Dark trilogy is a more traditional adventures-travel-the-world-to-fight-a-great-evil story.

As a side note, while the novels don’t transform the world, as authors we do our best to maintain continuity between the novels themselves. For example, when I was writing The Queen of Stone, I talked to Don Bassingthwaite about his plans in The Legacy of Dhakaan, and who would be a logical ambassador to Droaam in the time period of Queen of Stone.

In what ways did Cthulhu Mythos elements inspire & and appear in Eberron?

Good question. As you might have figured out from things like Cthulhu Fluxx and Cthulhu Gloom, I enjoy Lovecraft’s work. It’s certainly something that has influenced Eberron and will surely influence my future work. And really, many of the major villains of the setting has some touch of Lovecraft.

The Dreaming Dark reflect my long love of exploring dreams and the ways they can influence the world; my first published work was an Over The Edge piece called “Dreaming on the Verge of Strife” that could easily be adapted to Eberron. With that said, the idea that there is a strange dreamland you could explore? With a terrible horror at the center that can devour your soul? Filled with nightmare spirits and other terrors? There’s more to the Quori than Kadath, but The Dream-Quest isn’t a bad source of inspiration for Dal Quor adventures.

The Lords of Dust are more concrete in form than most of the Great Old Ones, and draw on mythological figures such as Mahishasura as much as Cthulhu. On the other hand, they are ancient evils older than humanity, waiting for that time when the stars are right and they can rise up and reduce everything to primordial chaos. There’s certainly an element of cosmic horror there… highlighted for Overlords like the Voice in the Night and the Heart of Winter.

The Daelkyr are horrors from beyond time and space. Some people have asked why they look so human, to which I say that they shouldn’t feel limited by the picture; that physical body is merely an aspect of the daelkyr, and may not actually appear the same way to multiple viewers. Instead, focus on the fact that they corrupt all that they touch, that they cause madness with their mere presence, and that in Xoriat they may not have humanoid forms at all.

Essentially, the Overlords are the VAST HORRORS THAT WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING WHEN THEY RISE, and the Daelkyr are so alien that mortals cannot bear their presence without suffering… two different aspects of Lovecraft’s cosmic entities.

Meanwhile, the Cults of the Dragons Below cover the full range of cult archetypes. You have groups like the Finch Family (actually created by Ari Marmell, but certainly in line with my vision), to the wilder cultists and corrupted beings like the people of the Inner Sun.

I have a question regarding the Silver Flame. It is a cosmic force that stretches all across Eberron to hold back the Overlords. However according to Five Nations, Keeper Jaela is only specially empowered by the Flame while she is in the Flamekeep cathedral. What is it that makes that location special? Is Tira Miron as the Voice of the Flame limited in a way the Flame itself is not so that she can only commune with Jaela in a particular place?

Essentially. The Silver Flame has existed since the couatl kindled it with their original sacrifice. The traditions of the Ghaash’kala orcs predate the arrival of humanity on Khorvaire, as do the Shulassakar. However, the Silver Flame can’t speak to all souls. Due to her spiritual nature and nobility, Tira Miron was a suitable vessel for its power – and her sacrifice allowed her to become the Voice of the Flame, speaking to her people. In some ways, Jaela is less the Keeper of the entire Flame and rather the mortal intermediary of the Voice of the Flame… the living conduit that allows the Voice of the Flame to speak to other mortals. Flamekeep isn’t the only place she can commune with Jaela, but it’s the only place she can channel her power to the Keeper. And incidentally, it’s also where Bel Shalor’s power is the strongest, which is why Melysse Miron is stronger there.

Are there other places of power where the Keeper would be equally empowered? Or something else entirely?

There are other places where OTHER Keepers would be equally empowered. While we’ve never spelled it out, I believe that the Ghaash’kala and Shulassakar have their own Voices and Keepers, and likely there are others as well.

Is it far-fetched to think that a follower of the Silver Flame may somehow convert Kaius or forge an alliance with him against the Blood of Vol undead?

Far-fetched? Absolutely. Impossible? No. The feud between Thrane and Karrnath is one of the strongest within the Five Nations. Kaius has already made some unpopular decisions, and even if this didn’t involve a political alliance with Thrane, it would likely be perceived that way. With that said, the purpose of the Silver Flame is to defend the innocent from supernatural evil. The church came to the aid of Aundair during the Purge. If the Emerald Claw/Blood of Vol posed a clear and obvious large-scale threat to innocents, the Church would likely offer its assistance; it’s up to you to decide if Kaius would accept it… and if, as happened in Aundair, this might give the church a stronger foothold in the region.

The Silver Flame is in my opinion the most interesting take on religion in DnD ever, and so would love you to write a novel or short story with a heroic flame paladin, since Eberron novels seem to focus on antiheroes (Thorn, Sabira or Abraxis Wren) but seldom on noble heroes and even less on flamers despite the pulp and heroic elements of Eberron apart from noir ones and the relevance of the Silver Flame.

Have you read Legacy of Wolves by Marsheila Rockwell? That has a Silver Flame paladin as a protagonist. For my part, I’d be interested in writing a story with a more heroic lead, but at this point it’s not up to me. I don’t know what plans WotC has for future Eberron fiction, and without their authorization I can’t write stories in the world.

I`m currently running an Eberron game in the Kingmaker adventure path, in which the characters build up their own nation. I had the campaign set in northern Xen`drik, ignoring that bit about “no maps of the continent” (but it could be on Q`Barra or the Eldeen Reaches). In this regard, how would the other nations react? Maybe the elves would see this as an invasion in their ancestral homeland? The Tairnadal would like to test their might against the newcomers? Cyrans would move to a new land of opportunities? And what about Dragonmark houses?

Personally, my gut for a “new nation” campaign would be to set the adventurers up in charge of a Lhazaar Principality, keeping them in the middle of things and giving lots of room to deal with intrigue and challenges from the surrounding princes. Q’barra is another option, but I prefer to use that for frontier-village Deadwood-style games as opposed to nation-building. But assuming you go with Xen’drik, my immediate thought is that the other nations wouldn’t have a major reaction. Xen’drik is largely perceived as a place that cannot be settled, and I’d think people would say “They won’t last three years” as opposed to “WE MUST STOP THEM NOW!” Now, this would change if you discovered something incredibly valuable all the other nations wanted – say, the largest field of Siberys shards ever seen – but just on its own, I don’t see declaring a nation in Xen’drik as being a cause for war. Dragonmarked houses could certainly be interested, if you seem like a significant enough force to make a real go at it, but they’d also likely want to found your relationship on better terms than the Korth Edicts. As for the Tairnadal, attacking a fledgling settlement seems like a weird way to honor your guerilla-resistance ancestors; I think it would be more likely that the Sileus Tairn might offer to help you in exchange for using your country as a home base in their new campaign against the giants and other challenges of Xen’drik.

PAX Report and future plans!

Posted on by

There’s a lot of things in the oven here at the Bakery. While I was at PAX, I did an interview with the Penny Arcade Report, and it just got posted here, so check that out. Expect to see an Eberron Q&A later in the week, along with an expanded discussion of some of the questions left hanging at the PAX panels… including “Did you announce your next big thing?”

But before it all slips through my mind, I want to take a moment to write about some of the fun things I saw and did at PAX Prime.

GLOOOM IN SPAAAACE!

Who has it worse… Imperial stormtroopers or redshirted ensigns? There’s books devoted to comparing Star Wars, Star Trek, and the other giants of science fiction, but I decided to approach the question in my own way – by designing a set of sci-fi Gloom and seeing who can survive the worst indignities. Can Wesley escape when he’s Targeted by Terminators? What happens when Han Solo Marries Troi’s Mother? While Matt Forbeck’s book shows that it’s technically possible to get something like this published, it’s just something I put together for fun. So if you want to help Data Hook Up on the Holodeck, you’ll have to catch me at a convention to play a round!

ALWAYS/NEVER/NOW

Sunday afternoon I was lucky enough to play a session of Always/Never/Now with creator Will Hindmarch. While I’d heard of Lady Blackbird, I’d never played any game using these mechanics, and I really enjoyed it. For those who don’t know it, this is a simple RPG system which a few key features. Characters have four traits that describe their major abilities; for example, mine were Escapist, Businessman, Burglar, and “Stand-Up Guy.” Each trait has a number of tags – elements that may or may not apply to a particular task associated with that trait. So for “Stand-Up Guy” I had the tags Honest Face, Wit, Guile, Charm, and That Smile. When performing an action with that trait, I’d get an additional die for each tag that applied – so I could be charming in most situations, but I’d have to work to explain how my honest face or That Smile worked over a radio.

Experience is gained through keys. Each character has a set of circumstances that provide experience each time they are met. So one character got an experience point every time other people carried out a plan he’d devised – giving him a concrete, in-game reason to try to be a strong leader. For my part, I got experience every time I made people laugh and when I convinced them of something that wasn’t true.

I had a fantastic time with the system. The keys really drew me into wanting to embrace the character concept as fully as possible… how can I turn this scene into something that will get a laugh? Meanwhile, the trait-tag system helped with the common issue of “I just want to roll Diplomacy – I don’t really want to explain how I’m doing it.” With the tags, the more detail I could add, the more tags I could justify… and it was an intriguing challenge to say “OK, how exactly can I be ‘charming’ here?”

Anyhow, if you’ve never tried the system, I suggest you check it out! A/N/N isn’t out at the moment, but will ultimately be available as a free download. Until then, check out John Harper’s Lady Blackbird!

13TH AGE

Early in 2011, I had the opportunity to work with Jonathan Tweet and Rob Heinsoo, doing some early concepting work on what has now become 13th Age. I’ve been a fan of Tweet’s work ever since Over The Edge, and I had a great time brainstorming icons and oddities with Rob and Jonathan; my favorite contribution are the Koru Behemoths, and I swear it’s a coincidence that they share my name. I was only involved in the initial concepting, and lost touch with the project when I moved to Texas, so PAX was my first opportunity to sit down and play a session with Rob.

The game bears the fingerprints of its designers. Rob calls it his “love letter to D&D”, and there’s certainly a lot of elements that will feel familiar both to D&D players in general and 4E players specifically. I played a gnome bard, and I had the familiar six stats, hit points, a form of healing surge & second wind. At the same time, there are a number of elements that are more flexible and story driven than is typical for D&D. The skill system reminded me of Over The Edge. Rather than having a specific set of twenty skills that all characters choose from, players come up with a certain amount of points to invest in backgrounds for their character. So I might say that as a child I was a Calendrian Pickpocket (and invest 3 points in it), turned that into a career as an Inquisitive (for 4 points), and that I’d always had a knack for Getting Out Of Trouble (3 points). Like the tags in A/N/N, if I can explain how my background applies to a situation, I can use the bonus. So “Inquisitive” fills the role of Search/Perception, but could also be used to justify research, knowledge of local laws, contacts in law enforcement, and so on. Obviously it’s up to the DM to approve backgrounds, so I can’t take 10 points in “Alien Supergod”… but it’s a system that helps me define my character beyond the basic combat abilities of my class.

Backgrounds fill the roles of skills, but if 13th Age has one unique thing, it’s well, one unique thing. One of the most important steps of creating a character is to come up with something truly unique that makes your character one of the most remarkable people in the world. The DM works to weave this into the world and the campaign. For example, the drow sorceress decided that her “mother” actually created her from a dragon’s tooth; as there are four very important dragons in the game, the question of which dragon would be an interesting long-term issue… and in the short term, the sorceress had the chance to exert her influence over a group of lizardfolk we encountered (despite having no concrete mechanical ability to do so). I decided my character was a figment of the imagination of a young boy given power by the nefarious Diabolist… essentially a blend of Twilight Zone’s “It’s a Good Life” and Written By A Kid. Part of my idea was that long term, my backgrounds would actually change; this time around, I had three points of “Pirate King”, but by the next adventure the kid would have changed the story and I’d have some entirely different over the top background, with no memory that it had changed.

I’m not trying to cover every single point of 13th Age here. There’s lots of other interesting things. Google it and you can find out more about the Escalation Die, the Icons, and other elements of the game. And if it sounds like your thing, you might want to take a look at the Kickstarter they’ve got running for the first expansion… back it now and you can get a PDF of the basic rules!

COMING SOON…

I’ve got a big backlog of questions, related both to Eberron and gaming in general. Over the next few days I’ll get to some of those. I’ve got a few more ideas for ongoing features for the site, but I doubt you’ll see any of those until next week. In any case, check back soon… and as always, ask questions below!