Dragonmark 4/18: The Mark of Death

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My original plan was to do a lightning round of short answers this week. However, between the release of the Bloodsails Eye on Eberron article today and the fact that this question gets asked every few months, it seems like a good time to get my answer in an easily accessible place.

As always, this isn’t canon and I’d love to hear what you’ve done in YOUR Eberron. If you’ve got comments on the Bloodsails article, post those here too! If you’ve got other questions or topics for future posts, ask in this thread.

So, the subject of the day: when I was working with Bill Slaviscek, James Wyatt, and Chris Perkins on the original Eberron Campaign Setting book, we agreed that there would be certain topics that would never have a concrete answer. No sourcebook would ever say exactly what caused the Mourning or bring back the Mark of Death. These things are hooks specifically left in the hands of the DMs – so you get to decide what the answer is and what impact it will have on your game. However, people are often curious to get my opinion. So let’s talk about the Mark of Death.

But first, a little history…

Let’s take a quick step back in the past to look at the history of Aerenal and the elves. The elves who founded Aerenal were refugees from many backgrounds and cultures. One thing linked them together: the cataclysmic loss they had suffered as a race, and the determination to ensure that the greatest elves should be preserved from death. As the new nation took shape, three philosophic and religious movements took root. One group was determined to preserve the heroes of the past by becoming their avatars in the present. These were the first of the Tairnadal, and they soon split off from the others. The second group tapped the positive energy found on the island and the reverence of the elves, and used this power to sustain the wisest and most worthy members of society beyond the grave. This was the foundation of the Undying Court. The final faction shared territory with the followers of the Court, but favored a different approach. Despite the power of the Undying Court, it relies on the continued existence of living elves and outside sources of positive energy. This other faction preferred to draw on the energies of Mabar, creating undead who could sustain their own lives by consuming the blood or life-force of others. The necromancers who created these liches and vampires were the members of the line of Vol.

The members of the line of Vol held these beliefs for thousands of years before the Mark of Death manifested among them. They weren’t alone; the Bloodsail Principality is made up of the descendants of other elven lines that were allied with Vol. Over the course of generations, the Undying Court grew more powerful and influential. The priests of the Undying Court asserted that all Mabaran undead consume the life-force of Eberron to sustain themselves – that while a lich may not require blood to survive, its mere existence is a threat to living creatures. The allies of Vol called this a ridiculous political ploy—an excuse to threaten their undead elders.

This tension continued to grow. And then the Mark of Death appeared. This cemented the line of Vol’s position among the Mabaran faction. They continued to research ways to improve their techniques and to pursue true immortality for their people. This quest led them down questionable paths, notably an alliance with a faction of dragons from Argonnessen. These dragons were concerned that the dragonmarks had appeared on the lesser races, and wanted to see if a mark could be made to manifest on a dragon.

Most likely you know where this ends: the birth of the half-dragon Erandis Vol. Things you might not know…

  • Dragonmarks don’t manifest until adolescence. Thus Erandis wasn’t immediately seen as a threat. She wasn’t the first half dragon produced in this program; she was simply the only one to manifest the mark. And yes, this means that in my version of Eberron, Erandis is physically an adolescent (albeit an adolescent half-dragon).
  • Erandis’ dragonmark is not least, lesser, or greater. It’s not even a Siberys mark. It is something more amazing than all of them… the ultimate distillation of the mark. If she had time to learn to fully harness its powers, there’s no telling what she might have been able to accomplish with it. Essentially, she was a living eldritch machine. And this is what triggered the destruction of her line.

The Undying Court had put up with the existence of the Mabarans for thousands of years, and the existence of the Mark of Death for centuries. The appearance of a dragonmark on a child of Aerenal and Argonnessen changed that. “The Sibling Kings declared that the blood of Vol was to be completely destroyed, since even a drop could destroy all living things.”

So it came to pass. Forces from Argonnessen joined with the Undying Court and battle was joined. The line of Vol was completely eradicated, and its remaining allies either slain, exiled, or sworn to abandon their Mabaran practices. Yet unknown to the Undying Court, Erandis herself survived. Together, her father and mother transformed her into a lich. Even she doesn’t know where her phylactery is; she knows only that she returns in a new location every time she is destroyed. Of course, a dragonmark has no power when carried by the undead. So Erandis Vol is the ultimate scion of her house, the cause of its destruction, and yet unable to achieve her destiny.

(Some of you may say “What was that about her phylactery? I’ve never heard that before.” That’s right. This again is MY Eberron, and that’s not a detail from a canon source. I see it as unlikely that she could have evaded the Deathguard completely for all this time. However, without locating her phylactery, even the Deathguard can’t permanently destroy her. It also means that she cannot destroy herself, and I think she may have tried in the past. And, of course, it means that PCs could find the phylactery and even she wouldn’t know what it was…)

So, history lesson over: let’s get to the main points.

I have a player who wants to have the Mark of Death, and I’m thinking I’ll allow it. What sort of powers should it have?

The Mark of Death was a “true” dragonmark, as opposed to an aberrant dragonmark. There are two things that distinguish these. First, they can be passed to offspring. Second, the true dragonmarks are almost universally constructive as opposed to destructive. There are a few marks with powers that can be used in an aggressive fashion, but the point is that the pure marks are things like making, healing, hospitality – productive, positive things. Meanwhile, aberrant marks are either destructive or in some way disturbing (for examble, Brom’s regeneration in The Son of Khyber, which is a form of healing but essentially reincarnates instead of healing, which can have unpleasant results).
My point is that the Mark of Death should be about interacting with death and the undead, but I wouldn’t make it about KILLING, because that’s an aberrant path. Things like speaking with the dead; animating the dead; controlling or even laying undead to rest; these all fit. It could be that a dragonshard focus item could be created that would harness that power in a destructive fashion – but that’s not the innate power of the mark.
Again, with Erandis Vol: bear in mind that she doesn’t just have the Dragonmark of Death, she has the ultimate expression of that mark, something beyond even a Siberys mark. If she returns to life, Erandis may be able to do things with her mark that no one else could do – raise an army of undead with a wave of her hand – but that’s because she is in essence a living Eldritch Machine.

What About Skeletal Guardian as the power of the Siberys mark?

Sounds fine to me. It’s about animating the dead, which is more in line with my views than an offensive power.

Beyond this, bear in mind that any dragonmark grants powers beyond the raw spell-like abilities… provided you know how to use them. Per standard rules, a dragonmark allows you to make use of dragonmark focus items. So you’ve got the Mark of Making? It’s nice that you can repair a construct, but it’s far more important that you can use a creation forge. The Mark of Storms makes you eligible to be an airship pilot. And so on. So the question is what tools the line of Vol created to harness and channel the power of the Mark of Death.

Likewise, in 4E, dragonmarks allow you to perform certain rituals. In my house rules, I say that you don’t need a ritual book to perform these rituals… but you have to be trained in their use (generally at the same market cost as buying it). There’s only one person out there who could train you in use of the mark, and that’s Erandis. Can you come to some sort of agreement?

I realize some of you may have been hoping for a concrete “the Least Dragonmark of Death lets you use deathwatch once per day,” but the fact of the matter is that I’ve never used it in one of my campaigns. In 4E, I will say that in addition to providing access to focus items and any logical rituals, I’d probably allow someone with the mark to perceive ghosts and to use speak with dead as a skill challenge as opposed to a ritual. I’d likely put a limit on length of death, but I’d personally have the Mark of Death involve interaction with the dead… not to be confused with the Mark of Healing, which prevents people from dying.

So a player character takes the Heir of Siberys Prestige Class and manifests the Mark of Death. Is it possible to re-establish House Vol? Would other Dragonmarked Houses approve its existence or see it as a threat?

You can’t reestablish House Vol, because House Vol never existed. The line of Vol was a noble family as opposed to a mercantile guild, and it was wiped out before the Twelve came into existence. So could you reform the line of Vol? Sure, if you had at least one living elf from the bloodline. The reaction of the dragonmarked houses would be based on whether you were cutting into their businesses in some way. Even if you came up with a mercantile niche using the mark that clashed with one of the houses (Jorasco?), unless you had a LOT of people with the mark and set up a serious commercial endeavor, it’s unlikely the houses will really care. Unlike…

Would the Aereni seek to slay this new heir even if the heir had no interest in vengeance against Aerenal? How would the dragons react to the resurrection of the Lost Mark?

Let me give you that quote again: “The Sibling Kings declared that the blood of Vol was to be completely destroyed, since even a drop could destroy all living things.” Short form: They won’t take it well. The same goes for the dragons. To be clear, this isn’t about YOU. Again, the Mark of Death was around for 600 years before the eradication, and that includes Siberys marks. The reason it needs to be wiped out is because as long as it exists, it is possible that you could produce a new abomination like Erandis. So it doesn’t matter if you’re a nice person or an evil one. It’s a question of eradicating your bloodline.

Now, obviously the game’s no fun if dragons kill you right away. So if I was going to use a returned Mark of Death in my game, I’d do it in one of the following ways:

  • Lay low. Can you keep your mark hidden? If you have to use it, can you trust the people who see it?
  • Help from above. Perhaps there’s a dragon in the Chamber who’s actively debating with the others and promoting an interpretation of the Prophecy that shows that your Mark is vital to the future. Perhaps Erandis or a Lord of Dust is working to hide you from your potential powerful enemies… though this might not be a good thing.

Of course if your goal is to go public and announce “I HAVE THE MARK OF DEATH” in fiery letters? In MY Eberron that’s just not going to end well for you. But hey, if you want to play things differently, do that.

How would the Valenar feel about a reborn Mark of Death?

The Tairnadal (the culture of the Valenar) never gave a damn about the line of Vol or the Mark of Death. How they would react to you would vary based on the individual and their ancestor.

How would Lady Vol react? Would she try to influence a person who manifested the Mark of Death?

Oh, definitely. But here, you need to decide what Erandis’s end goal is. Let me throw out a few possibilities.

  • The Happy Ending. Erandis is just sad her family got wiped out. She wants her family back, and figures that this will require the destruction of the Undying Court and Argonnessen. This is good news for you, because it means she wants you alive. The next question is how you feel about this. If you’re all for it, great! You can team up, she can help hide your mark, and you can be sent on missions to rally all her scattered allies from the good old days. If you don’t particularly like this idea, the bad news is that the best approach is to chain you in the basement and use you in a breeding program. I don’t see a lot of reason for subtlety here, although it may take her a while to find out that you HAVE the mark; one of her minions has to find out about it, pass the info along, and then she has to find you.
  • Queen of Death. Erandis believes that her destiny is to BECOME death… to replace the Keeper and claim dominion over Dolurrh and all mortal souls. The good news is that this doesn’t necessarily require her to, say “destroy all living things.” The bad news is that your reestablishing the line of Vol doesn’t help HER achieve her destiny. More likely, she’s going to try to come up with some way to use your blood, heart, or other random organs to return to life so she can unlock her Mark and use her destiny. How she’ll manipulate you is tied to what she needs to do to achieve this. Essentially, you’re part of a recipe. “Take one living heir with the Mark of Death, add paragon tier, add the gaze of Belashyrra, add a trip to Mabar, and sacrfice.” So it’s really up to the DM to decide what she needs you to do before you’re a suitable sacrifice… and how subtle she’ll have to be to accomplish these things. With that said… Again, Erandis accomplishing her goal isn’t necessarily bad; you won’t know until she does it and you find out if she makes a good Queen of the Dead. So one possibility is that you find a way to help return her to life that DOESN’T involve sacrificing you. Heck, if she goes ahead and ascends, it may be that the dragons will come to the conclusion that they were off-base in their reading of the Prophecy and leave you alone afterwards.
  • The Unhappy Ending. Remember that “even a drop could destroy all living things” line? Unfortunately, Erandis thinks THAT’S her destiny. So this is the same as the above, but the outcome is bad for everyone; there’s no helping her do it.

So the short form is that I can’t answer this. It’s up to your DM to decide what Vol is trying to do, if there’s any room for compromise, and if her best course of action is heavy-handed or subtle. With that said, if I did it, I’d definitely go the Queen of Death route and have a big list of conditions that need to be met before you’re ready for the sacrifice. It’s basically the same as having a shaper dragon interested in you as described in The Chamber article that went up last month.

Feel free to ask additional questions about Erandis or the Mark of Death, or to share your own experiences!

Dragonmarks: Ask Questions Here!

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Welcome to my website. My goal is to publish a new Dragonmark every Wednesday (by evening, Central time) with occasional time off for good behavior and travel. If you’ve got a question or topic, this is the place to ask it. However, I’d like to clarify exactly what Dragonmarks are and what they aren’t.

These articles aren’t canon in any way. This is NOT a place for me to provide the sort of Eberron material you’ll get on the WotC website. The Eye on Eberron articles I write for WotC are essentially content you could find in an Eberron sourcebook. By contrast, Dragonmarks are more what it would be like if you had a chance to ask me a question at a convention: informal and just my personal opinion. If I’m going to answer your question, it needs to fit this format. If you just say “I’d like to know more about the Lhazaar Principalities” I’m going to say “And I wish I had the opportunity to write more about them. If you say “What’s the relationship between House Thuranni and the Bloodsail Principalities?” I’ll say “It’s actually something we don’t discuss at all, but given that the ancestors of both fled from Aerenal following the destruction of the Mark of Death, I think there’s room for something interesting. I might do this…” Of course, it will still be conversational in tone, as opposed to a sourcebook-ready chunk about Bloodsails & Thuranni.

I’m also happy to have questions or issues that people want to discuss. Someone’s brought up what might happen if Boranel died. When I answer this, I’d love to see anyone else who’s had Boranel die chip in with their experiences. Where Eye on Eberron is an article, this is more of a conversation. We’ve always encouraged DMs to make Eberron their own. I’ll tell you MY answer, but I’d love to hear yours.

SO: The following questions would be great.
“Why doesn’t the Dreaming Dark kill PCs early on while they are weak?”
“Why’s the Church of the Silver Flame allow evil people to be priests?”
“What’s your favorite theory about the Mourning?”
“What’s the point of having the Mourning in the setting?
“Who do you think would win the next war?”
“Why is Queen Aurala so unlikeable?”
“Do planes like Fernia have civilizations?”

The following questions AREN’T so likely to get answered.
“Can you tell us more about the planes?”
“I’d like (game system) stats for the (insert thing here).”
“I’d like to know more about Zilargo.”
… again, either too general or too concrete (in the case of stats).

I look forward to your questions!

What have YOU done with Eberron?

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One of the core principles of Eberron is that you should make it your own. People often say “If it’s in D&D it’s in Eberron,” but the actual quote is “If it’s in D&D it has a place in Eberron” – it’s up to you if you want to put it there. You don’t HAVE to use abeil in Eberron. But if you want to, it’s a simple matter to add a lost city of bee-people in Xen’drik, to make them the Mourning-warped inhabitants of a Cyran city, or the latest creations of Mordain the Fleshweaver. It’s up to you to decide if the Sovereigns still exist or if divine magic is another form of sorcery. You decide the cause of the Mourning. And so on.

Setting aside the facts of the setting, there’s the matter of system. I know people who run Eberron with Savage Worlds and GURPS. I myself occasionally use the Over The Edge rules. I just heard about people playing it with Dungeon World.

I’d love to hear what you’re doing with the setting. Are you using it as is? Stripping pieces out for a homebrew or mashup of other published worlds? What system are you using?

And as always, if you’d like to suggest a subject for a future Dragonmark post, feel free to add it in the comments! And if you want to keep track of my other posts, I’m on Twitter as HellcowKeith and G+ as Onesmallkeith.

Dragonmarks 4/11: Religion, Faith and Souls

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As always, this blog is about how I run Eberron in my home campaign. It’s not canon in any way, and certain elements may contradict canon sources such as Faiths of Eberron. Use the version you like or come up with your own.

“They’re cheating!”

My mother read The Iliad to me as a child. I loved the story… right up until Poseidon and Hera interfere with the battle after Zeus specifically told them not to. Apparently this outrage remained with me over the years. One of the distinctive elements of Eberron is that the gods are distant. They do not directly intervene in the affairs of mortals. Clerics don’t have to match the alignment of their religion. There is no absolute proof that all of the gods people worship actually exist, at least in the form people believe they do; it’s entirely possible divine magic is simply a variation of sorcery, a way of shaping ambient magical energy through pure will.

Despite my fury at Hera’s duplicity, I loved Deities & Demigods as a child. I used to make my friends in kindergarten play Greek vs Egyptian Gods. So why did we push Eberron down a different path?

Consider two of the basic themes that drove the creation of Eberron. We always wanted it to be a noir world, a place filled with shades of gray. And I wanted it to be a place where the consequences of having magic and monsters in the world were played out in a logical manner. Now stop for a moment and think how different our world would be if it was simple fact that the gods exist and manifest in our world. That a cleric could reach out to her god with a ritual and get an immediate answer. That someone with enough power could actually go visit a deity in its home and beat it up. The divine is no longer a mystery, and with it the universe itself becomes a more mundane place. “Faith” in a god is more like supporting a football team than a true choice to trust in the unknown. Look at our history of schisms, crusades, and the terrible conflicts that have arisen over heresy and differing interpretations of the same sacred principle… and imagine what it would be like if those debating the point could literally call up the god and ask for a ruling. This is too concrete for Eberron, which is a place where good people can do bad things and vice versa. The Church of the Silver Flame can do something terrible with the best of intentions, and no god is going to manifest to stop them. A cleric’s faith grants him divine power, but he must decide how to use that power – and mortals make mistakes.

Beyond this… if Dol Arrah can manifest in our world, why doesn’t she? Why did she allow the Mourning to happen? Why didn’t she stop the slaughter of innocent shifters during the Silver Crusade? Does she hate shifters? Why didn’t she just stop Bel Shalor herself? Another core theme of Eberron is that the player characters are the greatest heroes of the age, and if something terrible happens, it’s their burden to bear; the gods won’t come down and fix it for them.

Of course, for that very reason some people have asked why anyone actually does have faith. If the gods don’t appear, why does anyone care about them? I’ll give you four reasons.

  • Look out your window. When’s the last time you had a god manifest and directly intervene in events in our world? And yet, are you going to tell me that religion hasn’t been a powerful force in the world? Shared faith helps to create community. Most people don’t go to church for a cure light wounds spell; they go to hear the sermon, to seek spiritual guidance, or simply to strengthen their bond to the people around them. A typical priestess of Boldrei isn’t a spellcaster. But she is a mediator, a source of comfort and wisdom for her community, and the person who performs weddings and other rituals that call on the favor of the Sovereigns.
  • The Sovereigns work in mysterious ways. So Dol Dorn doesn’t appear on the battlefield and fight. That doesn’t mean he’s not there. The fundamental basis of the Sovereign faith is that the Sovereigns are EVERYWHERE. Onatar is present in every forge. Arawai brings the gentle rain, and the Devourer’s hatred turns it into the destructive storm. Why doesn’t Dol Arrah get rid of the evil monster? She does – through you. She’s with you when you battle it, guiding your hand and giving you strength. Note that the faithful vassal will say that Dol Arrah is with you whether you believe in her or not. She puts the strength in your arm and the light in your soul; if you’re too stubborn to see that, more’s the pity.
  • There is more to the world than we know. Tied to the above point, faith lets people believe that there IS a purpose to their misfortunes or triumphs. That if Aureon placed this burden in your path there must be a reason. Beyond this is the question of the afterlife. People KNOW what happens when you die: your spirit goes to Dolurrh and your memories fade a way. That is concrete fact. But faith lets you believe that there is more than that miserable truth. Followers of the Sovereign Host maintain that the Sovereigns exist in a higher plane no mortal can touch, and that the fading of memory isn’t DESTRUCTION of memory, but rather a reflection of your transition to this higher plane; the soul left behind in Dolurrh is like the husk left behind by a snake. The followers of the Silver Flame say that noble souls ultimately merge with the Flame. The Undying Court seeks to keep its greatest souls out of Dolurrh, while the Tairnadal anchor their greatest heroes by tying them to the living. Eberron doesn’t have a concrete, proven happy ending for the dead; but many religions provide hope that there is a way to escape dissolution. You’ve just got to have faith.
  • Divine Power. Believe what you will about the gods: divine magic exists. The Silver Flame and the Undying Court have access to wells of pure divine power. Those who follow the Blood of Vol can find divine power in their own souls. The vassals of the Sovereign Host believe that the power of the Sovereigns is all around them, and the faithful can call upon it. To the vassal, this proves the Sovereigns are with us. Boldrei doesn’t appear herself; she’s beyond that. But she grants her faithful priest the power to aid those in need.

Now, some people assume that because clerics can have alignments other than that of the faith and because they can create new religions that clerics don’t have to actually believe in their creeds. I feel exactly the opposite is true: a divine spellcaster must have absolute faith in order to perform divine magic. A priest of the Silver Flame may be lawful evil, but if she is a spellcasting cleric, she has to believe in the principles of the Flame and that her actions are justified. Our history is filled with people who justify horrific actions in the name of peaceful religions. The cleric doesn’t have to be right; but she has to believe that she’s right. It’s all about faith; this is the fuel of the divine caster.

With that said, there’s always ways to get around this if the story calls for it. You want an agent of the Lords of Dust in the Church of the Silver Flame? Well, his faith is strong – but he’s loyal to Bel Shalor, the Shadow in the Flame, and that’s where he draws his power. Another supposed cleric might actually be a warlock or psion, disguising his powers as divine magic. Nonetheless, the key principle is that faith matters. Mortals can make mistakes. They can misinterpret doctrine and do evil in the name of good. But drawing on divine power requires tremendous conviction, even if that conviction is misplaced.

To sum up: I love mythology. I enjoyed the Illiad, and for that matter, I liked the Time of Troubles when it rolled through the Realms. But I wanted Eberron to be a place where you could tell stories that don’t make sense in a world of active gods.

Having said all that, let’s move onto some more specific issues.

EBERRON HOUSERULE: CLERICS AND ALIGNMENT

Eberron allows a cleric to have an alignment other than that of her faith. However, many aspects of divine magic are tied to alignment. Does an evil cleric of the Silver Flame get blasted when one of his comrades casts holy word? Does a good cleric of the Blood of Vol turn undead?

My answer is based on the mechanics of detect evil/good in the 3.5 SRD. By these spells, a “cleric of an evil deity” has an evil aura that is far stronger than that of an evil or good creature with no divine connection. Note the wording – not “an evil cleric,” but rather “a cleric of an evil deity.” My houserule is that the cleric’s connection to the divine power source is what determines his alignment for purposes of magical effects. So a cleric of the good-aligned Silver Flame will read as good on detect good, can prepare good-aligned divine spells, will be unaffected by holy word and blasted by unholy word, and turns undead instead of rebuking them… even if the cleric’s personal alignment is evil. His faith provides a connection to the divine force of positive energy, and that connection is so powerful it drowns out his personal aura. Likewise, the good cleric of the Blood of Vol is still blasted by holy word and rebukes undead instead of turning them.

In the case of the Silver Flame, there is the interesting fact that the Shadow of the Flame exists within the Silver Flame. The Shadow of the Flame is an evil force, but because of Bel Shalor’s connection to the Flame, I would allow someone who worships him to actually possess the magical “good” aura of the Silver Flame. Given how far ahead the Lords of Dust plan, it’s entirely possible that Bel Shalor planned this from the start – that he allowed Tira Miron to bind him precisely so he could infiltrate the Flame in this fashion.

QUESTION: Even though worshipers can have an alignment that differs from that of the worshiped entity, could one of the latter (if assumed to exist in a given campaign) punish such a worshiper directly, such as stripping him of his powers by neutralizing them with its own force or otherwise; or indirectly, e.g. by sending supernatural beings or mortals to compel him to respect the tenets of the faith he holds to have?

I imagine the answer is obvious based on everything I’ve just written, but in case it’s not, it’s spelled out on page 35 of the 3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting, “A cleric who violates the tenets of her church or deity might risk punishment at the hands of the church… but risks no loss of spells or class features and need not atone.”

For me, this is about personal faith. If the cleric truly abandons his faith, I would strip him of his powers, because his powers are derived from his faith. But acting against the tenets of the faith? It happens all the time in Eberron. I could find examples of it for pretty much every listed faith, so don’t go thinking this is all about the Silver Flame. This is the point of heresy: I can disagree with you about your interpretation of our shared faith, and yet we can both continue to wield divine power. If one of us lost our powers or if an angel appeared to smite me, it would be pretty clear who’s interpretation was correct.

Now, you might say that the idea that someone can “make up” a religion or abuse divine powers without consequences should serve as proof that the gods DON’T exist. Here’s a few arguments you might get from theologians in Eberron.

  • Faith is the channel through which you gain power, but the object of your faith may not be what you think it is. The Sovereigns aren’t selfish. You may be worshipping the Lady Pine and the Horned Rider, but the fact of the matter is that your powers are coming from Arawai and Balinor. Dol Arrah doesn’t care whether you believe in her; if your heart is pure and your faith is strong, she will give you strength. Of course, if you worship her properly you’ll get MORE strength. This syncretic principle is a cornerstone of the Sovereign faith, and has been used by their missionaries over the course of centuries.
  • The Sovereigns are aware of your actions, but want you to learn your lesson on your own. Unless you come to see your mistakes on your own, you will never truly change.
  • Divine forces are with us all, but are not perfectly omniscient. They respond to the faith of the cleric, but are not aware of each and every action taken. This is the base belief of the Silver Flame, which has never been described as a sentient, anthropomorphic force; rather, it is a pool of divine energy that empowers those who fight evil.
  • And of course, there are those who will say that there’s no proof that the gods exist. Divine magic may simply be another method of channeling the ambient magical energy of the Ring of Siberys, using faith and will instead of arcane formulas. Perhaps they’re right!

QUESTION: What are your personal views on the nature of souls in Eberron?

This is discussed in some detail in the recent Baator Eye on Eberron article. Followers of the Sovereign Host assert that there is a higher realm that mortals simply cannot reach; only a purified soul can touch it. The “fading” in Dolurrh is not the destruction of memory, but rather it’s transition to the higher realm. When all memory is gone you are essentially dealing with a cast-off snakeskin; it has the shape of the former owner, but he’s moved on. One detail you may have missed: If you look at Dolurrh on the Orrery map of the planes, its symbol is also the Octogram symbol of the Sovereign Host. Because for a vassal, Dolurrh isn’t the end; it’s the gateway to the Sovereigns.

This is theoretical; needless to say, the Blood of Vol and Undying Court maintain that destruction in Dolurrh is just that. However, the existence of souls as a concrete spiritual force cannot be denied.

  • The Silver Flame. This is a divine power source originally created from the combined souls of the couatl. Followers of the Flame maintain that when they die, their souls pass through Dolurrh and strengthen the Flame.
  • The Undying Court. The divine power wielded by the Court is drawn from the gestalt souls of the Ascendant Councilors.
  • Baator Wants Souls. Asmodeus is trying to build his own little personal Silver Flame. Step one: Divert souls from Dolurrh. Step two: Profit.

By this, the Sovereigns could be the gods that the vassals believe them to be… or they could simply be pools of soul-energy that have coalesced around those concepts and respond to faith. Essentially, each god is its own mini collective unconscious shared by those with faith in that concept. Which makes the syncretic approach of the vassals not entirely wrong – their nature deity IS the same as the Talenta one – but neither one is exactly what they think it is.
So what are MY opinions? Souls exist; there’s no question there. A gestalt of souls is a power source that can be tapped to produce divine magic. But are the vassals right about Dolurrh being a gateway, or are the seekers correct that death is the end? Honestly, I’ve never decided. What’s important to me is that the universe behaves in such a way that either one could be correct. I guess I’m most interested in the mortal experience: once I decide that the Blood of Vol are wrong, it’s harder to sympathize with them, and the same goes double for the vassals if it’s the BoV who are correct. When it comes to warforged, I’ve considered answers that I like (castoffs pulled from Dolurrh; souls snatched out of the Silver Flame; the disturbing possibility that Cannith can create a soul)… but again, so far I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve felt I’ve had to answer it. Though I imagine if I went further with Lei and Pierce, I would.

Please tell us how you portray the participation of the Silver Flame during the last war and whether there is religious discrimination or conflict against flamers in Karrnath or Breland.

This can easily be the subject of an extended post on the Silver Flame, and since I just wrote about Faith I want to wait a few more weeks until I hit religion again. So I’m just going to bullet point this.

* The fundamental purpose of the Church of the Silver Flame is to protect the innocent from supernatural evil. It’s not to promote the church or Thrane: it is to protect the innocent from harm.

* Throughout the history of Galifar, followers of the Silver Flame HAVE laid down their lives to protect the innocent, regardless of nationality. The church began in Thrane, but its templars fought across Khorvaire; one reason it’s widespread is because people who have been literally saved by the Silver Flame have often turned to the faith. Today the most zealous followers of the Flame are in Aundair, because if the church hadn’t intervened Aundair might have been wiped out my the lycanthropic plague.

* Canon sources have already established the existence of groups of the faithful who believe that the theocracy is a mistake that distracts the church from its mission and makes it more vulnerable to corruption. Leave governing to kings; the role of the church is to protect, not rule.

* Put all this together, and what you get is that MOST followers of the Silver Flame saw no conflict between their faith and fighting Thrane. Far from feeling obligated to fight for Thrane, a Brelish follower of the Silver Flame could feel that Thrane’s leaders were hijacking the faith and the Keeper, and that only by winning the war and putting Boranel on the throne can they get the church focused on its proper mission again.

In any case: When the war began, there were followers of the Flame everywhere. Some chose to immigrate to Thrane to fight in the service of the Keeper, believing that the army of Flamekeep was surely the most righteous cause. Others stood by their kings. A Brelish sergeant who followed the Flame could certainly fight and kill Thranes, because it’s a temporal battle. Now, if there was an incursion of demons during the battle, he’d stop fighting the Thranes and join forces against the supernatural threat, because THAT’S the duty of a follower of the Flame. But when the Church was founded, it wasn’t created to rule Galifar or the world – and people can be faithful to those beliefs and still believe their ruler should be the one to unite Galifar.

Is there religious discrimination against the Silver Flame in Karrnath and Breland? Breland has the highest degree of corruption, but that’s true across all of their religions; there’s priests of Aureon taking bribes, and don’t get me started on the Brelish priests of Kol Korran! So no, there’s no special discrimination against the Silver Flame in Breland. Mind you, there’s discrimination against THRANES – you can see some of this in The Queen of Stone. But you can follow the faith without being a Thrane.

Looking to Karrnath, I’ve never seen the Silver Flame as having much love there. Karrns tend to be grim and stoic. Fight your own battles. Look after your own people. The Silver Flame is fundamentally an altruistic faith, which Karrns find both suspicious, foolish, and patronizing. Add to this the fact that the Silver Flame is violently opposed to the Blood of Vol, which has had strong support in Karrnath since well before the Church of the Silver Flame existed and you get even more reason the faith never took root there. So Karrnath is where people are most likely to associate the Silver Flame with Thrane and assume your Brelish priest is an agent of Thrane, because they don’t have centuries of experience with the faith predating the theocracy, nor are they used to trusting that if something bad happens, templars may show up to take care of it.

That’s the last point I’ll make quickly. SUPERNATURAL EVIL IS REAL. Eberron is filled with aberrations, Quori, undead, rakshasa, and more. If I’m a Brelish farmer, it’s comforting to know that if werewolves attack, soldiers of the Flame may show up to protect me. Many families across Khorvaire have stories of how their ancestors WERE defended by followers of the Flame. They don’t support the theocracy of Thrane, but they’re still happy to have those local patriotic templars around to protect them from local supernatural threats.

This leads me to another question though… are there schisms in the CotSF? I recall that it has been mentioned that the Church uses excommunication, and that the faithful of Aundair tend to be more zealot than their counterparts elsewhere, so perhaps there are churches of the Silver Flame splitting from the one guided by the keeper… just some thoughts…

Certainly. Historically, the biggest schism was the Time of Two Keepers, when Melysse Miron challenged the sitting Keeper and was ultimately revealed to be the Keeper of Bel Shalor; Melysse has been kept in the stone ward of Dreadhold for the last few centuries. Meanwhile, page 79 of City of Stormreach calls out that the Keep of the Silver Flame in Stormreach was severed from Flamekeep after King Thalin’s death – and that there is a second heresy hidden deeper within it (I won’t spoil, but I will say that it’s NOT anything to do with Bel Shalor). And Aundairian Archbishop Dariznu – the governor of Thaliost and foremost spiritual leader of the Pure Flame – is definitely on a collision course with the Keeper, who despises the tortures he’s inflicted on his own people in the name of maintaining order. If there’s a split between the Aundairian faithful and Flamekeep, I’d expect Thaliost to be the flashpoint.

Beyond that, of course, you have the other cultures that have their own traditions tied to the Silver Flame. We’ve named the Shulassakar yuan-ti, the serpent cult of Khalesh, and the Ghaash’kala orcs of the Demon Wastes – but there can easily be others.

All of these are present in canon sources, but you could easily add more.

Comparing faiths and the dragonmarked houses, though, I have always had the feeling that given their powers and benefits dragonmarked may appear to be much more powerful than others, and think that Flamer characters, for instance, should receive additional benefits due to divine forces that make them stand apart from dragonmarked and perhaps even “envied” by them.

Sure! In my campaign, I call that benefit “divine magic.” You suggest that Jorasco can’t do exorcisms, and I agree. Most Jorasco healers have the mark and nothing else. They can’t call down fire or turn undead. They have no special power to smite evil. They can’t shield others from harm (that’s what House Deneith is for). A Jorasco house with a true cleric (likely dedicated to Arawai and Kol Korran) is a rare exception. Given this, I’ve never felt a need to give the faiths additional powers, because what they have is the powers that come with faith. Now, you suggest that they could benefit from miracles at the discretion of the DM, and there’s never anything wrong with that; for example, Tira Miron received divine aid from the couatl to battle Bel Shalor. No couatl’s going to pop into Jorasco House #153 to help with Farmer John’s hemorrhoids.

The main thing is that in creating Eberron, I wanted to break with the tradition I’d seen in the past of temples being places adventurers went to in order to throw money at the altar and get healed. Eberron is like our world. If you want to get healed, go to a hospital. If you want spiritual guidance, go to a church. But if you just walked into a church you’d never been to, handed the priest a thousand dollars, and said “I cut my leg, fix it” – how do you think that would work out for you? With that said, the Church of the Silver Flame does “heal for free.” They operate free clinics and do charitable work among the needy, as do some (non-Jorasco) priests of Boldrei and Arawai. The point is that this is generally use of the Heal skill as opposed to magic. In 4E, even if they COULD perform the cure disease ritual, it costs 150 gp to perform it; they couldn’t afford it to just wander around fixing the peasants. And frankly, for commoners, the Heal skill is going to handle most of their problems; it’s just not instant. Like our world, there are faith healers who can miraculously heal with a touch – but like our world, those are few in number in comparison to hospitals or clinics.  

This relates to the idea that player character classes are rare. The cleric IS that faith healer – the rare and remarkable individual whose faith is so great that he can heal you with a prayer. But the priest in the typical church isn’t a cleric; he’s most likely an expert trained in Diplomacy, Heal, History, Sense Motive, and of course Religion. He can preach; he can listen and counsel you; but he doesn’t do magic. In Jorasco, you don’t have clerics either. What I like about 4E with its rituals is that it finally allows a Jorasco heir to be a healer without ANY divine magic, which is how I prefer it. Jorasco house can heal, but they general can’t provide any other divine services – because they are businesses, not places of worship.

I’ll also point out that nothing prevents a Jorasco heir from joining the Church of the Silver Flame! In my campaign, one of the greatest healers is a Jorasco heir dedicated to the Silver Flame, who left the house to follow his faith. Beyond this, I would definitely consider letting a player character cleric learn the rituals normally restricted to the dragonmark, because that’s part of what makes her extra-holy and amazing.

Dragonmarks 4/4: Good and Evil

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First, the standard disclaimers: All of this is just my opinion and how I run my personal campaign. For official Eberron support, check the material on the WotC website (as highlighted in this handy list of links). And it’s always worth remembering that the Eberron you know is the shared work of many authors and designers – James Wyatt, Chris Perkins, Ari Marmell, C. A. Suleiman, Jason Buhlman, Bill Slaviscek, Rob Schwalb, and many more.

My goal is still to post a Dragonmark every Wednesday – we’ll see how it goes. Please go ahead and ask new questions in the comments. Questions may not be answered in the order received; I’m doing this on my own dime, so it’s all a matter of what I’m inspired to write about. So there! Now let’s get started…

How did you end up deciding against alignment constraints?

There’s a place for clear-cut struggles between good and evil, and it’s why we have forces like the Emerald Claw in Eberron. However, in my home games I’ve always preferred to challenge the players to think about their actions – to have things be less clear-cut than “We’re good, they’re evil, beating them up is the right thing to do.” From the start, film noir was called out as a major influence of Eberron, and a noir story relies on a certain level of moral ambiguity and shades of gray. It shouldn’t always be easy to decide who the villain is in a scenario… or if killing the villain will solve a problem.

Beyond this, one of the underlying principles of Eberron is that it is a world in which magic has been incorporated into society. Detect evil exists. In 3.5, paladins can use it at will. Stop and think about that for a moment. If evil was a tangible thing that could be positively identified – and if everyone who was identified as evil was unquestionably a monster with no redeeming features, while everyone who’s good is noble and pure – how would evil still exist? Over the course of two thousand years, wouldn’t we turn to paladins  and alignment-detecting magic to help us identify and weed out the bad apples until we had a healthy tree? Consider our own history of witch-hunts, inquisitions, and the like. If we had an absolute yardstick and if we knew the people who failed the test were truly vile, what would happen over the course of centuries?

Removing alignment completely was never an option. It was a concrete part of the D&D ruleset. So instead, it was about taking an approach to alignment that could work with the noir story and take into account the existence of paladins and other alignment-linked effects – to justify a world in which good and evil people can work and fight side by side, where the existence of the value that can be identified with detect evil is accepted within society.

There’s four elements to this.

Alignment is a spectrum. Round up ten “evil” people and you’ll find that their behavior and histories are radically different. Consider the following.

  • A sociopathic serial killer who will kill or rob anyone that crosses his path without any hesitation or remorse.
  • A soldier who takes pleasure in torturing citizens of enemy nations – even civilians – but who is willing to lay down his life to protect his own people, and abides by the laws of his homeland.
  • An innkeeper who consistently waters down his ale and pads the bill a little whenever he thinks he can get away with it.
  • A repo man who ruthlessly reclaims goods on behalf of his employer, regardless of the circumstances of his victim and how the loss will affect them.

In my campaign, all four of these people will read as “evil” for purposes of detect evil. They all hurt other people on a regular basis and feel no remorse for their actions. Yet the innkeeper would never actually kill anyone. And the repo man is just doing a job and doing it well; he won’t interfere with anyone who hasn’t defaulted on their payments. In my eyes, one of the key elements of alignment is empathy. All four of these people are capable of performing actions that hurt others without remorse because they don’t empathize with their victims. But again, they vary wildly in the threat they pose to society. The serial killer is a dangerous criminal. The innkeeper is a criminal, but not a violent one. The cruel soldier is a danger to his enemies but protects his own people. The repo man has turned his lack of empathy into a productive tool. All of them are evil, but they are on different points of the spectrum.

Another important example of this for Eberron comes with clerics. Eberron allows clerics to have an alignment that is different from that of their divine power source. But it is again important to realize that an evil cleric of a good faith can mean different things. One evil priest of the Silver Flame may be a hypocrite and liar who is secretly allied with the Lords of Dust or abusing the faith of his followers for personal gain. However, another may be deeply devoted to the faith and willing to lay down his life to protect the innocent from supernatural evil – but he is also willing to regularly engage in ruthless and cruel acts to achieve this. The classic inquisitor falls into this mold. He truly is trying to do what’s best, and in a world where demonic possession is real his harsh methods may be your only hope. But he will torture you for your own good, and feel no sympathy for your pain. This makes him “evil” – yet compared to the first priest, he is truly devout and serving the interests of the church.

Alignment versus Motivation. Alignment reflects the way the character interacts with the world. Empathy is an important factor, along with the degree to which the character is willing to personally engage in immoral actions. But what it doesn’t take into account is the big picture. Let’s take two soldiers. Both joined the Brelish army of their own free will. The “evil” soldier hates the Thranes, and given the chance he will carry out torture, rapine and looting. He wears a belt of Thranish ears. Yet he loves his country and will sacrifice his own life to defend it. He’s “evil” because he is willing to carry out those atrocities; but he’d never do such a thing to a Brelish citizen. On the other hand, the “good” soldier will kill Thranes on the battlefield, but will not condone the mistreatment of prisoners or civilians. He hates the war but feels sympathy for the civilians on both sides; he further recognizes that the enemies he fights are just protecting their people, and treats them with respect. Both soldiers have the exact same goal and will fight side by side on the battlefield; alignment simply provides insight into how they may act.

Expanding on this: one of the rulers of the Five Nations is a good-aligned monarch who seeks to restart the Last War. Another is an evil leader who seeks peace. Restarting the war will result in the deaths of tens of thousands of people – how can a “good” monarch support that? Again, in Eberron alignment doesn’t represent someone’s actions on a global scale: it reflects the manner in which they pursue those goals. The good ruler believes that a just war is possible and that a united Khorvaire will prosper under her rule. She won’t condone torture, the mistreatment of civilians, and so on. She will treat her prisoners and emissaries fairly. Of course, her ministers and generals may engage in evil behavior in the name of the war; she will be horrified when she hears of it. Meanwhile, the evil king pursuing peace has a noble goal, but will do absolutely anything to achieve it. Torture? Oppressive martial law? Assassination? Anything. He’d kill members of his own family if he had to. So in both cases, the personal alignment tells you how they conduct their personal affairs, but nothing about the big picture.

People know these things. If a paladin walks into a tavern and scans ten people, he may find that three of them are evil. This doesn’t require any immediate action on his part, and while disappointing it isn’t a surprise. In The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda looks at Luke and says “There is much anger in him.” Luke hadn’t done anything bad; but what Yoda could sense was his potential to do evil. That’s what the paladin gets from detect evil. He doesn’t know where you lie on the spectrum. He doesn’t know your motivations. He knows that you lack empathy for others and may be selfish or narcissistic; that you are capable of hurting others without remorse; but he doesn’t know if you have or ever will. This is a key point with the Church of the Silver Flame. They are devoted to fighting supernatural evil: demons, undead, lycanthropy, etc. These are the things to fight with sword and spell. HUMAN evil is something that should be fought with compassion, charity, and guidance. Per Flame creed, you defeat mortal evil by guiding people to the light, not by killing them.

So – once you accept this version of alignment, you can find many jobs in society that are actually better suited to evil people. A repo man who has too much sympathy or empathy for his targets is going to have a difficult time doing his job. A tax collector may be the same way. An evil politican who’s willing to play the game of corruption in order to get things done may actually be the best hope of a city – providing that his motivation is towards the greater good. Knowing someone’s alignment is a piece of a puzzle – but it doesn’t tell you everything and it doesn’t end the story.

One side note: you may look at some of these things and say “I’d probably just make the repo man neutral/unaligned.” And that’s a reasonable approach. With Eberron, I specifically narrowed the spectrum of “neutral” while broadening the spectrum of “evil,” because again, the less concrete evil is the easier it is for it to be incorporated into society. If evil people can contribute to society in a positive way, then knowing someone is evil doesn’t lock in a story… while if only villains are evil, it automatically becomes a villain detector.

OK, that was probably three times longer than anyone cared to read… but there it is. I’d certainly be interested to hear your thoughts and personal experiences! Meanwhile, I’ll add one more related question…

If Eberron assumes that there may be persons that fail to live up to the ideals of a group or ideology (e.g. as happens with the Silver Flame) or dark sides to good persons/groups and vice versa, what are the dark sides (if any) of the Kalashtar and the gray parts of the inspired. I have the feeling that they are portrayed as archetypes of good and evil aspects, respectively. Am I wrong?

You are in fact wrong. But it’s complicated.

Something I didn’t really touch on in the previous question is the fact that in Eberron many creatures that are traditionally bound to a specific alignment aren’t. By and large, creatures with human intelligence are as capable of choosing their own path as humans are. You can have good medusas and evil gold dragons. However, there are exceptions to this rule, and the most notable of these are celestials, fiends, and other spiritual entities. These beings are in essence physical embodiments of ideas. A fiend is evil personified… and as a result, it is both always evil and a much purer evil than you tend to see in mortal creatures; on a scale of one to ten, it goes to eleven. It is possible for the angel to fall or the demon to rise (as shown by the Quori bound to the kalashtar), but in these cases the spirit will typically physically transform to reflect this change. An angel that falls from Syrania will become a fiend or a radiant idol, for example. So when you meet a devil, you can generally be pretty sure it’s lawful evil, because that’s what it means to BE a devil.

The Inspired are mortal vessels directly possessed by Quori. As a result, you know that the Inspired are evil. However, as noted above, that’s personal alignment – which doesn’t tell you anything about their long-term motivation or the impact of their actions. The Dreaming Dark is an agency that is carrying out an evil agenda, and Inspired agents of the Dreaming Dark are reliably evil. But the majority of the Inspired are ambassadors and administrators maintaining an empire. A typical Inspired overseer feels no empathy for his human subjects and would feel no remorse if he had to slaughter them; but most of the time he DOESN’T have to slaughter them, and furthermore he knows that the best way to help his people accomplish their goals is to keep his subjects content. Subtlety and charisma are the greatest weapons of the Quori; they are masters of propaganda and manipulation, of tricking you into thinking you want to do what they want you to do. Which means that while they may BE evil, most Inspired appear to be benevolent rulers. They provide for the needs of their people. They will not tolerate crime or disobedience, and they will act ruthlessly and swiftly to enforce this. Nonetheless, those Riedrans who are content to follow the path assigned to them needn’t worry about food, shelter, or security. The Inspired see to their needs and protect them.

What this ultimately comes down to is that the Inspired have done a good thing: they have created a stable society whose people by and large need not worry about crime, war, disease, hunger, or even bad dreams. However, they have accomplished this by doing an evil thing – stripping people of freedom and choice. The typical Riedran doesn’t want to BE free of the Inspired… because they’ve created a society where he doesn’t have that choice. On the other hand, a Riedran farmer is likely to live a far more comfortable, stable, and secure life than his counterpart in Breland or Karrnath. So… are the Inspired purely evil? If you destroy them, you’ll throw Riedra into chaos and civil war, unleash famine and plague… is that a good act?

Now let’s look at the kalashtar. The race was created when rebellious Quori of good and neutral alignment fused with human hosts. However, that was well over a thousand years ago. Unlike the Inspired, the kalashtar aren’t directly possessed by their Quori spirits; they are merely influenced by them, and that influence comes through instinct and dream. An Inspired will always match the alignment of its Quroi spirit, because it literally IS the Quori spirit. Kalashtar, on the other hand, aren’t required to match the alignment of their Quori. If the alignment of the kalashtar is radically different from that of its bound Quori spirit, it will create emotional dissonance that will result in mental instability or outright madness… but that can still make for a very dangerous villain. This is especially relevant for orphan kalashtar who know little or nothing of the history or origins of their people; the Quori voice is part of what will shape their character, but it’s not alone. This is discussed in more detail in Races of Eberron.

So first of all, you can have literally evil kalashtar. Beyond this: Just as the Church of the Silver Flame and the Blood of Vol have groups of extremists whose actions soil the fundamental principles of their faiths, there are extremists among the kalashtar as well. Overall, the Adaran kalashtar live by principles of patience and perseverance, confident that through their actions they are pushing the cycle closer to the turn of the age and destruction of the Dreaming Dark. Overall, they have avoided acts of aggression against Riedra, not wanting to harm innocents in their struggle with the Dreaming Dark. But there are exceptions. There are atavists who believe that they must take the offensive against il-Lashtavar – even if that means killing or torturing the innocent pawns trapped in the web. They will and should stand out because this behavior is so unlike the kalashtar norm, and it may create mental dissonance. But it’s still there. Beyond this, there are kalashtar who actually envy the immortal Inspired, and want to actually become like the Quori themselves. So in the end you can find darkness among kalashtar – even among the followers of the Path of Light – and there are Inspired whose lives are devoted to ensuring the comfort and survival of civilians.

Dragonmarks 3/28: Roots of Magic

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If you’re looking for official Eberron support,the place to go is the Wizards of the Coast website. I recommend that you check out the Dragonshards archive (no subscription required!) and Eye on Eberron (subscription only). A new EoE article just went up today: The Chamber!

While I’m posting links, I’d also like to call out a far more complete list of Eberron resources maintained by Echohawk on ENWorld. It’s definitely worth checking out!

While I can’t provide official Eberron material here, I can at least answer questions and talk about things I do in my personal Eberron campaigns. If you’ve got questions, post them as comments and I’ll add them to the list. Just so you know when to check in, I henceforth declare Wednesday to be Dragonmark day – however, depending on my workload, that may be every other Wednesday! But if there is going to be a Dragonmark  update in a given week, it will happen on Wednesday.

Now, on to some questions!

Did you make Eberron from scratch or was it a home campaign?

The one-page idea that I submitted to the Fantasy Setting Search was entirely original. As it worked its way to the final stages of the search and into actual production, I ended up incorporating ideas from a number of different campaigns I’d run over the years. For example, the Zil gnomes are largely pulled from my high school campaign. Other key ideas came about after the setting had been selected, during the brainstorming sessions with James Wyatt, Bill Slaviscek, Chris Perkins, and other members of the WotC team. For example, the Talenta halflings were always set up as nomads… but it was in those brainstorming sessions that the idea came up that they could have domesticated dinosaurs (my memory of this was that it sprung from James’ son being in a dinosaur phase, but I know other people remember it differently). In any case, there are pieces of it that come from the past, and pieces that were made up at the very end of the process.

What piece of source information is your favorite?

It’s a tough call, because I’m a perfectionist and I’m always looking at books in the light of “We didn’t manage to squeeze in that detail about X.” So it’s hard to find something that I’m ever completely happy with. With that said, in terms of sourcebooks I am pleased with Chapter 1 of the 4E Eberron Campaign Guide; I feel that it sums up a lot of details that were scattered across various 3.5 sourcebooks and articles, and does a better job of capturing some of the underlying themes of the setting (such as the scars left by the Last War) than the 3.5 ECS.

What was the one thing you wanted to put in Eberron that you didn’t get around to doing (as opposed to things left on the cutting room floor)?

There are many things I wish we’d had time to squeeze into the sourcebooks. Many of these aren’t especially vital for playing in the world – which is why they weren’t at the top of the list – but help to add depth to the world, which interests me. One of the core themes of Eberron is the idea of exploring how magic as it exists in D&D would be integrated into society and shape a civilization. Given this, one thing I’d like to have is a stronger sense of the development of magic. Who were the arcane pioneers who shaped magic as we know it today? What were the key discoveries and how did each one impact the world? For example, how long has the Sivis message stone been in use, and who invented it? What’s the history of Zil elemental binding – were there some terrible disasters along the way to the efficient harnessing we have today? What about the war? We know about the warforged and the eternal wands… but what other weapons were developed in the Last War and previous wars?

This isn’t vital, because it doesn’t affect the world as we know it today: it’s a question of how we got to this point. I’d just like to add that level of detail someday.

One thing I did consider when I was thinking about this back before 4E rolled around was the idea that magical components – verbal, somatic, material – are themselves tools that have been developed over time to help spellcasters channel magical energy more effectively. In 3.5, you have metamagic feats (Still Spell, Silent Spell) that allow you to ignore components in exchange for raising the spell slot level of a spell. So… where did these components come from? If magic is treated as a science, did it spring into existence fully formed with a language of verbal and somatic components? Did the first fireball require a ball of guano?

I prefer the idea is that components were themselves innovations. When Aundair was a living person, magic was a raw force that was channeled with force of will and mental discipline. What this meant was that the spells were simply higher level. A magic missile didn’t have verbal or somatic components – and it was a 3rd level spell instead of a 1st level spell. The formulas and gestures were developed over time as tools that allowed people to channel this power more efficiently. By the present day these things have become so engrained into arcane study that people have to receive special training (IE feats) to cast without them. So if your wizard went back in time to the birth of Galifar, people would be astonished at his capacity for casting and curious about his strange words and gestures.

I warned you this wasn’t going to be especially relevant to your current game, right?

That’s all for this week – what do you want to know next?

Eberron Thoughts: Do Warforged Dream of Iron Defenders?

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As always: The material I do for Eye on Eberron is canon; anything I say here is just my opinion. Take it for what it’s worth!

Over on Dungeonmastering.com, Frank asks:

I have a quick question about the warforged from Eberron. In 4e, it is written that they only need four hours of ‘inactivity’ to regain all the extended rest benefits, however they are still fully aware and perceptive of their surroundings during this time. So i was wonder, what constitutes ‘inactivity’ per se? Would one be able to do simple tasks during this time? Specifically could they work on learning a language for the hours?

It’s an interesting question. The warforged of third edition didn’t need to sleep at all. The 3.5 ECS specifically called out that a warforged wizard had to rest for 8 hours to regain spells, but the wizard was the only class that had any restrictions. When we were working on converting the warforged to 4E, this was a subject of debate. I felt that it was very important that warforged not have to sleep, in part because it’s something that’s clearly established in the novels and something that makes them useful in the war; they are sleepless sentinels and can march on through the night.

So my first thought is this: Warforged don’t NEED to rest. A warforged can operate continuously without any rest whatsoever—marching, fighting, learning a language. It simply won’t gain the benefits of an extended rest until it does get those four hours. But if it doesn’t NEED those benefits, it can simply keep going and going and going.

But what if it does need an extended rest? What can it do during those four hours? Well, let’s look at the benefits of an extended rest:

  • Healing surges, healing surges, and action points are restored.
  • Daily powers are recharged.

To my mind, the physical benefits suggest three things. First, warforged have reservoirs of alchemical fluids. I could see these being depleted by strenuous activity and requiring downtime to be restored. I firmly believe that a warforged should be able to take basic physical actions while “resting” – patrolling, tending to armor or weapons, marching in a column – but running, engaging in combat, exerting full strength, etc should break that rest. Bear in mind that per 4E rules periods of such activity simply add to the total time you need to rest – they don’t reset your clock.

Continuing with the discussion of healing, warforged heal in two ways. First, I’ve always seen warforged as doing a certain amount of self-smithing… mending and patching while others are sleeping. However remember that warforged are in part living creatures. Even aside from the livewood tendrils, their metal components aren’t dead metal. A warforged juggernaut literally grows spikes on his armor… and pieces of metal sliced off a warforged will corrode, which is why you can’t strip adamantine-plated warforged and sell them for parts. Warforged are made of steel, leather, and stone, but all of these elements are magical in nature; they are living constructs.

Next issue: Daily powers. This varies by power source. Where do the warforged’s powers actually come from? In the case of divine classes, I believe that the warforged needs to spend those four hours in meditation and prayer, contemplating his vision of the divine and his connection to it. The warforged paladin can still patrol while doing this, but it takes up higher brainpower and would keep him from learning a language or anything else requiring a high level of focus. Ditto for the wizard, who spends his resting time considering mystic formulas and the nature of magic itself. The primal warforged meditates on his connection to the land around him, and the way in which the livewood within his body is part of the world. The warlord thinks about his allies and how he can inspire them in the day ahead.

So generally speaking, my thought is that recharging daily powers will prevent a warforged from engaging in other intellectual activities. A warforged who is purely regaining healing surges could read a book or study a lesson while doing it, though – and for a warforged bard, learning a language might actually BE the rest that restores his daily powers!