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A wizard walks into a tavern with a raven on his wrist. A Cannith heir is close behind, followed by her gleaming steel defender. The Eldeen ranger is waiting for them, with his wolf curled up under the table.
All three of these are plausible player characters in an Eberron campaign. But how do these things—familiars, animal companions, homunculi—fit into the world? How do people react to them, and what do people know about them? Would any of them actually be allowed in a tavern, and would a typical person actually be able to tell the difference between a familiar and an animal companion?
Familiars, homunculi, and animal companions play different roles in the game and in the world, and I want to explore each one of them. But to begin with, let’s answer the quick questions. In the Five Nations…
So key takeaways: People are familiar with the idea of familiars and homunculi. They largely see them as tools and will treat them accordingly. If a tiny animal behaves in an unusual manner, people may assume that it’s a familiar or otherwise being manipulated by magic. With those general things settled, let’s take a quick look at the differences between these three categories of companion…
Mechanically, familiars have a common foundation—the find familiar spell. Warlocks, wizards, and druids all acquire their familiars by using this spell, and this establishes the core rules that all familiars follow—shared senses, telepathic communication, can be dismissed and resummoned, and so on. But while this provides a concrete baseline for the mechanics of a familiar, from a story perspective the familiars of a wizard, a warlock, and a druid may be very different. While this isn’t an exhaustive list, here’s three important categories of familiar.
The most common form of familiar—the form used by most wizards and magewrights in the Five Nations—is an externally manifested aspect of the spellcaster’s personality. A few aspects of this…
In many ways, an extension is like a character in your dreams. They have distinct personalities, you can have interesting conversations with them, they FEEL real—but ultimately they’re a manifestation of your own mind. This doesn’t stop them from being fun and interesting individuals; it could be that your rat familiar embodies your sense of humor! But they can’t be killed because they’re a part of you; and conversely, if you die, they will die with you.
Extensions are the most common form of familiar in the Five Nations. They are a product of arcane science. On some levels (especially in Aundair), a familiar is both a tool and a status symbol for an accomplished spellcaster; wizards are rare, but some magewrights and demi-wizards manifest familiars for this reason. However, the most common users of familiars in the Five Nations are falconers. This is a magewright specialty that masters a narrow form of find familiar. A falconer can only summon a single shape of familiar—so if they can summon a hawk, they can’t turn it into a cat—but they can maintain telepathic communication and a sensory link with their familiar over a far greater distance than usual. The typical range of a falconer is one mile, but an exceptional falconer can go even farther. Falconers typically served as scouts and skirmishers in the Last War, and as the name suggests, most summon birds (typically hawks or falcons, though owls and ravens are also used). There are other magewrights who use this specialized form of find familiar in different ways—ratcatchers who conjure cats, even assassins who can conjure poisonous snakes. All of this ties to the basic point that people see extensions as tools—you learn to manifest an extension because you have a use for it.
When a warlock acquires a familiar, it’s generally not an extension of the warlock—it’s an emissary of the warlock’s patron, an independent entity whose services are granted to the warlock as a gift. However, this can also be an appropriate choice for a conjurer wizard or any other character who has made bargains with a powerful supernatural being. Important details about emissary familiars…
The basic question between having an extension or an emissary is whether you want your familiar to be entirely loyal and reliable, or if you LIKE the idea that your familiar may have secrets and agendas you don’t know about. An extension may have a semblance of personality, but at the end of the day it really is a puppet; an emissary is a truly independent entity who is only working with you for now, and who could have their own significant role to play at some point in the campaign.
Emissary familiars are rare. You can go to school to become a falconer, but there’s no common magewright paths that teach people to make bargains with overlords. As noted above, people generally assume that familiars are extensions, so having an imp as a familiar doesn’t automatically mean you’re making deals with demons, but to a common person what it means is that THE PROJECTION OF YOUR PERSONALITY IS A FIEND and people will judge you accordingly. And if people DO realize that no, this is an actual emissary of Sul Khatesh and you are getting advice from it, that’s not going to be great; so usually, you’re going to want your imp to be in an animal form.
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything introduces the Wild Companion feature, allowing a druid to cast find familiar by using a charge of wild shape. Such a familiar has the fey creature type. It’s worth noting that beasts summoned with the conjure animals spell also have the fey creature type. This doesn’t mean that they are from Thelanis. If you’re a Greensinger, they might be; but typically, these are primal spirits. These can be seen as native fey, in the same way the Lords of Dust are native fiends. They are essentially stories made real—the idea of a beast given temporary form. A few details…
Primal spirits are typically only found in communities with strong primal roots—the Eldeen Reaches, the Qaltiar drow, the Lorghalen gnomes. In such places, you may find the equivalent of Falconer magewrights—gleaners who can conjure a specific familiar spirit, and who can maintain their bond with it over an unusually long distance. Primal communities often also involve animal companions, but people working with living beasts will generally be much more conscientious about placing their companions in dangerous situations—whereas primal spirits suffer no lasting harm from death.
Familiars are the most common class of companion, and extensions are the most common class of familiar. Falconers and similar magewrights use familiars as practical tools, while arcanists use often familiars as companions and assistants. Emissaries are rare and thus rarely recognized for what they are, but most people won’t be thrilled if you reveal that your companion is an actual fiend given to you because you made a bargain with a malefic power.
A homunculus is a construct, typically created by an artificer or wizard. They notably don’t follow the rules of find familiar; a homunculus can’t be simply dismissed and recalled at will. The most common form of homunculus player characters deal with is the homunculus servant, which is created using an artificer infusion. The servant is a tiny construct, and notably the shape of the homunculus is up to the artificer. The intention of this is that the appearance of the homunculus should reflect the techniques of the artificer. A Cannith Traditionalist may create a steel dragonfly with crystal wings—a creature similar to a warforged, perhaps with metal threads or gears instead of root-like tendrils. An artificer from Pylas Pyrial may use Thelanian logic to create a flying teapot. And an alchemist who’s experimenting with daelkyr fleshcrafting techniques could create a tiny platypus with one eye and three wings. A Battle Smith artificer gets to create a more powerful homunculus, a steel defender. Again, what’s specifically noted is that the shape and design of the defender is up to the artificer, including the choice as to whether it has two legs or four. This reflects the idea that all of these homunculi are extremely unique. The fact that the artificer can only have one of each type of homunculus at a time reflects the idea these creatures aren’t entirely stable—that the artificer has to continue to maintain their companion and to maintain the reserve of arcane energy that sustains it. As noted, homunculi can’t be dismissed and resummoned with the ease of a familiar, but if one is destroyed it can be rebuilt.
So a key point is that the homunculi of player characters aren’t supposed to be as familiar as a raven or even an imp. They’re supposed to stand out; they’re reflections of the unique genius of the artificer character. Unlike familiars and falconers, there isn’t a class of magewrights that creates homunculi; again, familiars ultimately come from a 1st level spell, while homunculi are derived from an artificer class feature. They’re more exotic than familiars. At the same time, people understand the CONCEPT of homunculi. Sentient magic items exist. Constructs exist. The Clockwork Menagerie of Eston was one of the wonders of Cyre centuries before House Cannith perfected the warforged. And with that said, the Last War involved a constant escalation in the development of constructs leading up to the Last War. Animated weapons have been developed, ranging from the tiny arbalester to the arcane ballista. Warforged titans stormed across the battlefield decades before their smaller cousins. And House Cannith does create construct beasts; the iron defenders of House Cannith can be produced as autonomous constructs (though they are typically considerably weaker than the steel defender of an accomplished Battle Smith). These creatures are still EXOTIC, but they aren’t unheard of and people generally won’t be frightened by them. They’ll draw attention, certainly, but attention isn’t always bad. With that said, the daelkyr-inspired fleshcrafted homunculus will generate the same sort of reaction as the imp familiar; people may not run you instantly out of town for having a creepy homunculus, but they will judge you by the company you keep.
I’ll be posting a table of random ideas for homunculus servants on my Patreon as an exclusive bonus for Inner Circle and Threshold patrons later in this week, so if you’re a supporter, keep an eye out for that!
What about the ranger and his wolf? Well, beasts are a part of everyday life in Eberron. From horses and tribex to the giant owls of Sharn or the Valenar hounds, there’s nothing strange about seeing someone with an animal companion. Magewright falconers conjure their companions, but Vadalis farriers can cast animal friendship, speak with animals, and beast sense, and gleaners (primal magewrights) in the Eldeen Reaches also develop these talents. Many gnomes cultivate the gift of speaking with small beasts. Exotic beasts are often rarer in major cities simply because of the difficulty of maintaining them, but people aren’t especially SURPRISED to see a ranger with a wolf companion; the fact that there are people who can befriend and speak with animals is a simple fact of life, and has been for centuries.
Animal companions aren’t exactly tools in the same way as familiars, because they’re independent living creatures. A Beast Master can replace an companion that dies, but an animal still died… while familiars and conjured beasts can be put in harm’s way with no lasting risk. Nonetheless, to the world at large they are still largely seen as tools and treated accordingly, so the same rule applies. If the ranger is allowed to bring his sword and his bow into a place of business, he’s probably allowed to bring his wolf; and if the wolf bites someone, the ranger will be held responsible, just as if he’d stabbed the victim with a sword.
Some might wonder if the existence of speak with animals would drive an overall greater wave of ethical behavior regarding the treatment of animals. Sadly, this is not the case in the Five Nations. Speak with animals exists, but MOST people can’t cast it. People will still take a tribex-drawn carriage down to a restaurant where they’ll eat a steak, without stopping to think “Was that tribex happy? Did the cow I’m eating live a good life?” The general attitude of House Vadalis is that they’ve been granted dominion over beasts, and it is their right to exploit that power. This is quite different in wide primal societies—such as the Eldeen Reaches and Lorghalen—but in the Five Nations beasts are still primarily treated as property and tools.
That’s all for now! Thanks to my Patreon supporters for helping to choose this topic and for making these articles possible.
Previous articles have discussed the basic principles of Arcane Science, delved into Arcane History and the evolution of the Arcane Arts, and discussed Wizard Circles. But we’re still building a picture of how magic is integrated into everyday life. What is a magewright, and how does someone become one? How widespread are factories in the Five Nations, and what are they like?
The first thing to understand is that Khorvaire is actively and rapidly evolving. My original draft of the setting imagined a world that was more industrial—a world where wands and rods had largely replaced bows, where there were analogues to cars and radio. In developing the setting we made an intentional choice to pull back from that, to ensure that at the end of the day it still felt like D&D. But that world is out there, and it’s not that far away. This is one of the main reasons we’ve never advanced the timeline. In the last century we’ve seen the development of warforged and blast disks, and the rise of the common wandslinger. Lyrandar launched its first airship eight years ago, and within eight years we have docking towers in most major cities. We’ve shown some examples of airship innovation, with double-ring vessels. But again, these are innovations we’ve seen in just eight years. What will we have in another ten years? Flying fortresses? Will we triple the speed of airships, or create skycoaches that don’t rely on manifest zones? Galifar may have been a peaceful, golden age; but stability and stagnation went hand in hand. The Last War forced the nations (and the Houses supplying them) to innovate, to use every resource, to develop new tools and techniques.
Now the war is over, that spirit is part of civilian life. The world is changing. It’s intentional that people in Khorvaire ride horses, that more soldiers use crossbows than do wands. There ARE factories in Breland, but there’s still a place in the world for the independent blacksmith working at their forge. Today Breland is ruled by a king; but who knows what tomorrow will bring. The Arcane Revolution is happening NOW, and it’s up to decide how that manifests in your campaign. So there are arcane factories, but they are still new and expanding. There are still artisans who don’t use magecraft or other cantrips in their work, especially in small communities. But factories are spreading and new magewrights are being trained every day. The world is changing.
As always, the ideas I present in this article are what I do at my table and in my Eberron. This is not canon and may contradict canon material. Where there are contradictions, it’s up to you to decide which path to follow or how best to integrate these ideas.
In considering the development and impact of arcane industry, it’s important to understand that the maps we have of Khorvaire are very high level. In my opinion, they don’t show all the rivers or roads and they only call out the most important or especially interesting settlements. There are hundreds of villages in Breland; Sharn alone is surrounded by a dozen smaller communities which, among other things, produce food and other staples the City of Towers relies on. This absence isn’t an accident. While it may SEEM like a map of Breland should include every community in Breland, the practical fact is that dropping another 400 towns and villages onto the map won’t actually make it better; it would bury the existing locations in a wave of noise. Those locations that are called out are the places where things are most likely to HAPPEN. There’s always an adventure in Sharn—whereas in the Sharn-adjacent hamlet of Dane’s Rest, the most exciting thing to happen in the last century was that time Lyndimae’s sow gave birth to an aberrant-marked piglet (something those fancy Morgrave scholars still say is impossible, but they weren’t there when it burnt down the sty, now, were they?).
So where the existing maps of the Five Nations give the impression of a handful of cities spread across a largely empty landscape, I see the nations as more active and vibrant, with steady traffic on rivers, roads, and rails. There are definitely vast stretches of undeveloped land—regions such as the King’s Forest or the Dragonwood—but where you have a major city like Sharn, Wroat, Flamekeep, or Fairhaven, there’s an active community around it. Even a town like Ardev has some smaller outlying hamlets and thorps. One reason this is important is because it’s these communities that actually produce a lot of the raw materials industry relies on. The cities are where you have house enclaves, universities, and nobles hosting galas—but it’s the villages where you have the fields, quarries, and mines. If you look back to my Q’barra campaign, that was set in a small mining town that wasn’t in any canon material—because they aren’t mining dragonshards in Newthrone! So the main point is that there is more out there—there are fishing villages along the shore of Redcliff Bay and miners living in the foothills of the Blackcaps. If you need one, just call it out and add it to the map—as I’ve done with my current Threshold campaign. Threshold is a mining town that has been largely irrelevant for most of its existence and has now become important with the rise of Droaam; and so, I’ve added it to my map and my story.
So there’s a reason we don’t try to show every village. However, I do have an issue with the limited scope of the lightning rail as depicted on the current maps. While it’s easy to imagine that the rail system suffered a certain amount of damage during the war, the lightning rail has been operating for nearly two centuries; while it may have taken a century to really take root, I see it as being more widespread than is currently shown and a backbone of freight transportation. I’ll note that in my first draft of the adventure Shadows From The Last War the adventurers take the lightning rail from Sharn to Rukhaan Draal—and part of the plot rested on the idea that while Orien doesn’t currently operate other rails in Darguun, the network of conductor stones is still there and independent Orien heirs are running smaller coaches on them. Likewise, in Threshold I’ve established that the lightning rail runs through Ardev and out to Threshold… and Orien is actively negotiating to extend it into Droaam.
Part of the idea of the upcoming Frontiers of Eberron: Threshold book is to look at a smaller region in more detail. But the key point here is to understand that the economy of Khorvaire is more robust than what we’ve called out; that there is an industrial infrastructure that’s deeper than the handful of cities we’ve highlighted on the map. The focus of the existing material is always on adventure, not on establishing a clear model of the industrial economy. But the economy is supposed to be there underneath it.
With that in mind, the next step is to understand the limitations of magic and a few of the key innovations that are driving the current arcane revolution. As the previous articles have established, arcane magic behaves in a scientific manner and it’s more complicated than it appears to be. It’s simplified in play because this is a game, and we don’t WANT it do be complicated for players to use. But player characters are remarkable. The fact that an artificer can potentially create ANY magic item they feel like is an expression of their remarkable talent, and also reflects unorthodox techniques; they’re the genius creating a prototype in their garage, but those same techniques don’t work on an industrial scale. Let’s quickly review some of the historic limitations on arcane magic.
Meanwhile, here’s a host of developments which (over a significant period of time) helped to usher in the modern age.
Spellcasting Focuses and V/S Components. The ability to use a wand to focus your fireball instead of having to carry a supply of guano-balls was a key development for the widespread wandslinger, and streamlined spellcasting overall. Likewise, verbal and somatic components are a tool that have evolved over time and allowed a more efficient use of arcane energy.
The Twelve and Dragonmark Focus Items. The Twelve created a forum in which the Dragonmarked Houses could combine their talents and create tools and techniques no single house could create alone. This accelerated the development of dragonmark focus items, which amplify the powers of a mark and can be used repeatedly. A Sivis heir being able to cast whispering wind (a 3.5 spell) once per day is a novelty; the development of the speaking stone is what transformed the communications industry. However, the cost of creating focus items was an early limitation, something that would be offset by…
Eberron Dragonshards. The most common form of dragonshard, Eberron dragonshards were found to be a universal source of arcane power—allowing early artificers to bypass the traditional limitations of rare components. However, even after this discovery was made, Eberron dragonshards weren’t available in significant quantities. When the young House Tharashk realized it could use its mark for prospecting as well as bounty hunting, Eberron dragonshards became available in significant quantities.
Access to larger quantities of Eberron dragonshards was a general boon to the development of magic items. But the match that lit the fuse of the arcane revolution was the development in the mid-ninth century of the techniques for refining Eberron dragonshards into residuum, a powdered form of the shards that concentrates their power, dramatically increasing the amount of energy people could work with. You know how there’s a base cost to creating a magic item? A significant portion of that is residuum, which can be acquired from House Tharashk—and this takes the place of the exotic components (Manticore spines! Irian crystals! Dragon’s blood!) that had been required in the past. Most magic items still do require some exotic components—you can’t make an airship without soarwood—but refined dragonshards provided a universal base material and general source of fuel that dramatically increased the ability to produce magic items and dragonmark focus items on a larger scale. Which in turn led to the following developments…
So the century leading up to the war saw an increase in the available labor force, while the development of cantrips and ritual magic—disseminated through guild trade schools—enable the rise of the modern magewright. Increasingly efficient techniques for finding and refining Eberron dragonshards made it possible to produce magical items and effects in larger quantities. Most professional magewrights rely on residuum to perform their rituals; it’s not just that people didn’t have the training, it’s that in the past it wouldn’t have been possible to sustain the modern magewright economy.
The Last War diverted much of the labor force, but it also created a burning need that didn’t exist under the unity of Galifar—both to supply the armies of each nation and for constant innovation, each nation eager to find some sort of edge. A century of war strained both resources and infrastructure, which is one reason that the dragonshard deposits of Q’barra and Xen’drik are of such great interest to House Tharashk. Now, in the wake of the war, the systems that evolved to feed that appetite are being turned to civilian needs—both repairing the damage that was done and finding ways to improve everyday life.
So we have a general sense of the forces that are driving the arcane revolution, but how does it actually manifest in the world? When you’re looking for general touchstones, what we’ve said is that Eberron has more in common with Earth in the nineteenth century than the twentieth or beyond. We are starting to see factories, but for the most part these are the sort of factories you’d see during the American Civil War, not modern automation. We have the point-to-point communication of the speaking stone—which fills much the same role as the telegraph—but in canon, we don’t yet have a wide-broadcast analogue to the radio. In general, magic is being used to produce better tools and techniques for artisans and farmers, but with a few notable exceptions work is still done by individuals. A typical smith may have trained at a Cannith trade school and may pay for the license that lets them display the Cannith seal; but such licensed independents still make up a significant part of the labor force. The greater industrial forces of the dragonmarked houses—Vadalis battery farms, Cannith’s creation forges—are expanding, and it’s easy to see have these could soon transform the economy in the days ahead. But again, that’s the point; the world is changing.
Having said that, the broadly-nineteenth-century model is just that—a general yardstick. Part of the point of Eberron is that it uses different tools than our world, and that means there are things that can be done in Eberron that are impossible even in the present day. While it’s not yet an economically viable service, House Orien can teleport you from Sharn to Korth in the blink of an eye. House Phiarlan may not have access to modern special effects, but they can do things with illusion we can only dream of. Prestidigitation can heat or chill food in seconds. This is especially true when we get into eldritch machines. Lyrandar’s storm spires can control the weather, and Cannith creation forges can create life. So the Five Nations don’t have analogues to television or cars, they don’t have the internet, and airships aren’t as advanced or widespread as our airplanes. But aside from the fact that arcane science advances with every day, always keep in mind the ways in which it does differ from our technology.
Let’s look at a few specific manifestations of arcane industry…
House Vadalis and those independents licensed by the Handler’s Guild cover a range of businesses: animal husbandry, teamster services, veterinary medicine. These are generally specialized, generational fields. Redleaf Harriers breeds hounds, raptors, and other hunting beasts, while the Willowhaven Ranch outside Varna is the largest dairy farm in the Five Nations. As with any dragonmarked house, most of the largest and well-supported businesses are run by house heirs, but the Handler’s Guild also licenses countless independent ranchers and breeders. The black hippogriff seal ensures that the people in charge have Vadalis training and that beasts are cared for and raised according to house standards. So there are a few massive ranches like Willowhaven, but there are countless small farms as well.
When most people hear “Vadalis,” they think of magebreeding. This is a term that has many meanings. Let’s start with the earliest description.
The widespread use of magic on Eberron has led to the development of magical enhancements to animal breeding, particularly within House Vadalis. Some experiments in that direction have created new creatures that are actually magical beasts, with unusual intelligence and supernatural or spell-like abilities. In general, however, the aim of these breeding programs is simply to create better animals—ones that are more suited for use in the work of daily life. These magically enhanced animals are called magebred.
Eberron Campaign Setting, page 295
Today, House Vadalis identifies three distinct forms of magebreeding.
Incremental magebreeding is similar to breeders in our world trying to produce a new breed of dog. The result is a slight variation in the standard beast well suited toward a particular role: a hen that lays larger eggs, a tiger that’s easier to train, a hound that thrives in colder climates or has a remarkable sense of smell. One concrete example of this is the riding tribex. For thousands of years, the plains tribex has been bred as a beast of burden and source of food. The riding tribex is smaller and faster—sturdier than a horse and capable of enduring long, sustained trips.
Enhanced magebreeding seeks to strengthen a creature, imbuing it with minor supernatural qualities. The Magebred Animal template in the 3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting suggests the following changes:
These creatures are still considered beasts; in 3.5 D&D terms, they were limited to an Intelligence of 2. A few critical points about this template. It’s intended to reflect BREEDS of magebred animals. So Redleaf hounds all have +4 Dexterity and a bonus to tracking; it’s not as though two pups in the same litter each get to choose whether the +4 goes to Strength or Dexterity, or whether they get the boost to movement or tracking. House Vadalis created the first Redleaf hounds through active enhanced magebreeding; but ever since then, Redleaf Harriers has bred that enhanced line, while the house magebreeders have moved on to other things.
The second point is that this is a simple template that is intended to give a broad example of what can be done. The template only suggests a possible bonus to movement, armor class, or tracking checks. But I could see any of the following as being the sort of features that enhanced magebreeding could produce:
The key points here are that the general goal of enhanced magebreeding is to produce new breeds with hereditary traits and generally requires generations to produce results. They don’t take a horse and GIVE it metallic fur; they easily COULD with cosmetic transmutation, but it wouldn’t last. Instead they work to instill a trait over multiple generations, that will thereafter be passed down to offspring. Typically enhanced breeds are only available to house arms in the Handler’s Guild, and enhanced beasts are sterilized before they are sold to others. Stories say that there are all sorts of safeguards to deal with poachers—that enhanced animals will die if they aren’t feed special Vadalis supplements, that they will frenzy and turn on rustlers, that Vadalis has death squads that sneak around the world hunting for unauthorized breeders—but these are probably just rumors. Probably.
Innovative magebreeding involves the creation of either an entirely new species or imbuing an existing creature with dramatic supernatural characteristics. Popular legend holds that the house’s first act of innovative magebreeding was the production of the hippogriff; skeptics claim that Vadalis simply discovered the first hippogriff after it emerged from a manifest zone tied to Kythri. A more recent and dramatic example is the tressym, first produced just twenty-four years ago. The house is always working on innovative projects, but actual successes are far and few between; innovative creations are often sterile, stillborn, or mentally unstable. Many innovative creatures are monstrosities as opposed to beasts.
While it’s more colorful and exciting than, say, dairy farming, magebreeding is a tiny fraction of the work of House Vadalis. Ranches and kennels tied to the Handler’s Guild may perform iterative magebreeding, but enhanced and innovative magebreeding is performed almost entirely within house enclaves or in conjunction with the Twelve. The tressym was produced through collaboration with House Medani, and there are stories of Vadalis working with House Jorasco on ghastly experiments involving troll’s blood and medusa’s eyes.
So what does a magebreeding facility actually look like? What is the daily work that goes on within? The following tools are used in magebreeding.
So the point is that magebreeding facilities often look like farms or vertinary hospitals, with special chambers for performing rituals or imbuing planar energies. But magebreeding is invariably a long-term process, involving both breeding and the careful study of multiple generations. Vadalis is always searching for ways to produce swifter and more dramatic results… And these efforts often end in disaster, or at least adventure!
What about plants? One question that’s frequently come up is whether House Vadalis also magebreeds plants. On consideration, my answer is that they do not. Their expertise is limited to fauna, not flora. We have specifically called out Riedran work magebreeding plants (such as dreamlily and the pommow). We’ve talked about the fact that soarwood is a vital limited resource, suggesting that Vadalis can’t replicate it. I also see magical manipulation of plantlife as something that may end up being a strength of the Eldeen Reaches. So there are lots of interesting possibilities for magebred plants, but it’s not a field monopolized by a dragonmarked house;this is an area of the economy that hasn’t currently been locked down, leaving opportunities for independent forces to fill that gap.
A magewright is someone who uses cantrips and arcane rituals to perform their job. It’s a generic term, like technician. “Magewright” isn’t a job; the job is lamplighter or locksmith or truthteller. A typical blacksmith is a magewright, using magecraft and mending to enhance their work; but if you ask their occupation, they’ll say “blacksmith.” The point is that in the modern age, arcane cantrips and rituals are becoming standard tools of industry. If you go to a small village, you may find a smith who doesn’t know how to cast mending; but they’ll have a hard time competing with the Cannith-trained smiths who can mend a broken object in seconds.
As has been discussed in earlier articles and Exploring Eberron, most magewrights are highly specialized and use cantrips or spells that are more limited than the spells used by player characters—though sometimes limitations are balanced by specific advantages. A magewright launderer may use a form of prestidigitation that can only clean or dry, and that only affects fabric or leather—but it may affect a larger area than the standard cantrip. As noted in Rising From The Last War, most magewrights can only cast leveled spells as rituals (even spells that normally don’t have the ritual tag); these often rituals take longer than usual; and they require an additional material cost of 20 gp x the spell’s level, typically refined Eberron dragonshards. Magewrights can produce their effects over and over, but there is a cost in time and gold. Likewise, Magewrights are often proficient with very narrow slices of Arcana. For a player character, Arcana represents broad knowledge; a magewright might be an expert with Arcana but ONLY regarding illusion effects, because that’s all that they mastered in their studies.
Like the wandslinger, the number of magewrights in the world has increased exponentially over the course of the last century. This is due both to the development of improved training techniques and to the need for more services. Magewrights also highlight a crucial difference between the arcane economy and our technological economy. Arcane magic can produce remarkable effects, but it often requires a living creature to guide it. At the moment, laundry is typically done by a magewright who casts their specialized prestidigitation, not by use of a machine anyone can use. Some of the most important tools are dragonmark focus items that can only be operated by someone who possesses a specific dragonmark. Magic items exist, and as noted below exist in ever-increasing numbers—but at the moment there is a vital human (well, living) component to the economy.
Most magewrights are trained by one of the guilds tied to the dragonmarked houses. These trade schools pass along specific techniques tied to the houses, and ultimately provide the student with the opportunity to work within the guild or to license an independent business. The Arcane Congress has its own training programs, and other nations are working on their own programs, but these are typically limited to a few specific fields that until recently were critical to the war effort; again, you don’t go to “magewright school”, you train to be a tinker or a lamplighter. Aside from having the greatest expertise and deep pockets, the trade schools of the guild have the public trust; everyone KNOWS that if you want to be the best smith you can be, you should get Cannith training, not study with some Morgrave outreach program. With that said, not all Magewrights learn from schools. Especially in smaller communities, a magewright may learn their trade through a local apprenticeship. It’s also possible that a magewright could stumble onto their own unique techniques (for example, an Aundairian shoemaker who learns fey techniques for mending shoes).
House Cannith dominates industrial manufacturing, but isn’t particularly involved in the harvesting or development of raw materials. Likewise, House Cannith is known for two things: the development and maintenance of durable tools and weapons and the creation of magic items (common and otherwise). A key example of this is clothing. Cannith produces and sells looms and weaver’s tools, and it creates enchanted clothing—but it largely performs the latter function by purchasing clothing from weavers and then adding the enchantments. In the case of some of the new factories, Cannith is employing weavers to produce those clothes onsite—but it doesn’t dominate the production of clothing or the fashion industry in the same way that it dominates the creation of swords or constructs. Many expert artisans in all fields still receive Cannith magewright training, but Cannith on the whole is focused on function; fashion is another cottage industry, where independent forces like Clebdecher, Davandi, and a host of Aundairians can shine.
This ties to the general point that a great deal of modern manufacturing is still the province of individuals or small businesses. The local blacksmith may be Cannith-trained, but you still go and deal with the local blacksmith.
With that said, that is changing. Eldritch machines like creation forges and the legendary genesis forge are amazing arcane factories that allow heirs to channel the forces of conjuration and transmutation and reshape matter through magic alone. However, most Cannith factories aren’t that advanced. They employ assembly lines, with workers having focused tasks that contribute to a greater whole. They use arcane principles—using forms of prestidigitation and mending to polish and shape elements, for example—but they are still more akin to nineteenth century factories than those of the modern day. The simple fact of the matter is that I’m not an expert on manufacturing techniques, and I can’t give you a precise breakdown of what goes on in a Cannith arms factory. But I can say that if that factory is producing swords, every sword in a particular model is nearly identical in quality and appearance—and that it’s produced by an assembly line as opposed to the work of a single smith. It is also the case that a Cannith workshop is generally tightly focused and uses tools that effectively provide advantage to the production of a specific type of thing. That Cannith arms factory is able to churn out swords and halberds, but they can’t suddenly turn around and start producing wagons tomorrow; they’re metalworks, and while they might be able to shift to producing maces by changing out molds, they can’t suddenly start producing leather armor.
Cannith is also the source of the bulk of the magic items that are found in the present day. As a general rule, even common items aren’t yet MASS produced, though Cannith is working on it. Let’s consider a cloak of many fashions. First they need the base, physical cloak, which has to be produced to certain specifications (a particular material, specific total mass; given the esoteric nature of arcane magic, it’s even possible that it has to be a specific color). Assembly line workers can perform preparatory work—imbuing the material with residuum and a certain elixir; attaching a brooch, itself specially prepared—but ultimately it is a specialized magewright who performs a lengthy ritual that draws on arcane forces and binds them to the cloth. The Cannith facility is designed to help this process; the chamber that magewright works in is engraved with arcane patterns that allow them to channel the energies involved in illusion-into-cloth rituals more efficiently. This ties to the basic difference between Cannith artisans and player characters creating magic items. Cannith facilities are geared to create specific items and they can do so quicker and more cheaply than an artificer. But that workshop is entirely geared toward binding illusion into clothes—producing a specific version of cloak of many fashions, perhaps a form of cloaks of elvenkind, maybe a specific type of glamoured armor. They can’t just decide to produce a wand of magic missiles tomorrow; their speed and efficiency is tied to following a clearly established pattern.
Cannith dominates manufacturing and sets the standards of the industry, but that doesn’t mean all goods are manufactured by Cannith. We’ve always called out that Breland has the greatest industrial capacity of the Five Nations, while through the Arcane Congress Aundair has the most sophisticated facilities for producing magic items. The Cogs of Sharn are an important center for metalworking. Cannith facilities are simply better, because dragonmark focus items are cheaper and more effective than other tools and because Cannith artisans have Artisan’s Intuition; but Brelish facilities are still effective and capable of producing mundane equipment on par with Cannith’s basic goods.
Even before House Cannith created the fully sentient warforged, it developed the semi-sentient warforged titans. Homunculi have been around for quite some time, and I’ll talk about both homunculi and familiars in more detail in a future IFAQ. The principles of arcane automation are clearly on the table, and already one of the primary concerns meatbags—I mean, people—have raised about the warforged is that these tireless constructs might steal the jobs of honest folk. As it stands, the general concept is that the science just isn’t there yet. There may certainly be prototype factories where animated metal limbs perform the work that once required human hands, or where docents perform the work of enchantment. But again, this ties to the point that the world is changing. Currently, the magewright is a crucial living component of modern manufacturing; but perhaps the next decade will bring dramatic change.
This is always the key question with this type of article. Ultimately, why does any of this matter? How does any of this actually affect your adventure or your adventurer? Here’s a few things to consider.
As we start moving into the late Victorian period the first department stores begin showing up and textiles are by and large one of the most industrious industries… The smaller tailors will buy the newest patterns from France or Italy, then you’d go in and be fitted and pick out your fabrics. In larger department stores it is much the same, but instead of a dress made in your hometown it is shipped in from a more manufacture savvy city or country. I’m assuming that one could say that Cannith acts as these large department stores, and these dresses (still made to order and fit) are then brought in so that Cannith artificers can enchant them. Or would it be more of a service that Cannith does, that one can order a gown in a fine silk, and the tailor can have it sent off to Cannith to have a glamour put upon it?
There’s a few factors here. The first is that so far in canon I don’t believe we’ve discussed the existence of a classic department store in the model of Selfridge’s or Le Bon Marche. I believe that there’s a lot of room for just such a business to exist in Fairhaven or Sharn, but the point is that it doesn’t exist yet. MY inclination would be to highlight this as a key development of the world moving forward from the war—to tell a Selfridge-like story of the entrepreneur who’s trying to introduce the department store to the Five Nations. The question then comes as to whether that store would be Cannith, or whether it would be an independent—who could, therefore, be an Aurum member. Essentially, Cannith specializes in MAKING things; we’ve never said they specialize in SELLING them, and that could be a crucial distinction here.
This ties to the key question of where the dragonmarked monopolies lie. What businesses do you want to be utterly dominated by the houses, and where are the opportunities for independents and the Aurum to get a foothold? Just as I suggest above that Vadalis isn’t involved in magebreeding plants, I’m inclined to say that Cannith is focused on function over fashion. I DO think it’s reasonable to say that they enchant bolts of fabric with relevant enchantments (self-cleaning, simple glamerweave effects) and then sell them to tailors. But I don’t think that most dressmakers are Cannith. In Sharn: City of Towers, the two most celebrated tailors are Hellien Clamas Clebdecher and Thurik Davandi—both independent gnomes. In Threshold, the Cannith heir runs the smithy while Littlehand Haberdashers is independent. Personally, I like having those spaces in the world that fall in the cracks between houses. I think it IS reasonable to say that Cannith produces bolts of cloth—that tailors buy their materials from Cannith—but I’m OK with the idea that fashion is outside of Cannith, and that the department store could be a new development.
But also tied to that, in general I tend to think that fine glamerweave is often custom work. I think it’s reasonable to say that there are basic glamerweave effects that can be bound to bolts of cloth and that are seen in bulk—field of stars, flowing water, embers—but I tend to think that more dramatic glamerweave effects are usually custom work. So it could be that a tailor would make a dress and then you’d take it to a glamerweave artisan, but I don’t think that artisan would necessarily be Cannith.
Would it be House Cannith that has magewright plumbers?
Yes and no. Rather than “plumber,” I’d call this magewright trade custodian. Prestidigitation to clean; a form of mending that can be used to repair damaged masonry and wood; and potentially a speciality spell like create or destroy water, floating disk, or even some form of generating fire to dispose of refuse. Custodians could serve as plumbers in cities that have plumbing, but would also deal with general maintenance of infrastructure, remove refuse and graffiti, and so on. Again, I could definitely see that the Cannith Tinker’s Guild would TRAIN custodians, but I’m not sure that it would actually broker their services; I think custodians would probably work directly for the civic authority. However, the Tinker’s Guild might license itinerant custodians who travel between smaller villages.
What’s the role of the city of Making, which now resides on the Glass Plateau, in this? Were there any particular innovations or was it “just” a major industrial center? Was it the original home of one or more Cannith families?
The city of Making is a source of contradictory canon. In some places it’s described as “the birthplace of House Cannith.” Yet Rising From The Last War and earlier canon sources clearly establish Eston as the seat of House Cannith and the focus of its greatest works. Likewise, Rising says “A secret Cannith facility is supposed to hide in the city’s subterranean depths“—which implies that the city overall isn’t dominated by Cannith.
My answer lies in the final question—Was it the original home of one or more Cannith families? As this article notes, Cannith was formed from multiple families. The Vown family—which we’ve called out as one of the more powerful families today—was definitely associated with Eston. I’d say that the region around making was associated with both the Harn and Juran families (though the Jurans were always travelers and didn’t settle in one city). While Eston became the seat of the united house, Making remained a center of GENERAL industry within Cyre, both Cannith and other cottage industries. To tie it to the preceding questions, I’d take it a step further and say that Making might have been the center for Cannith’s textile production—so yes, Cannith had facilities in Making, but they largely produced bolts of cloth and other basic goods, whereas in Eston they have the clockwork menagerie and three creation forges. This ties to the statement that Cannith had a SECRET facility beneath Making; the point is that they had factories and facilities on the surface but that they were all devoted to peaceful production, while if there was some sort of weapons research going on in Making, it was in this hidden outpost.
As with all of these articles, there’s many more aspects of this I’d like to cover. Future IFAQs may deal with questions about the lightning rail, airships, and familiars. As always, thanks to by Patreon supporters, who chose this topic and who make these articles possible!
In my last three Dragonmark articles, I’ve discussed Arcane Science, The Arcane Arts, and Arcane History. This has raised a few questions, including…
In the last article you mentioned the Guild of Moonlight and Whispers. Could you provide the names of some of the other wizard circles and arcane orders that make up the Arcane Congress?
Certainly! Arcane orders have played an important role in the development of arcane science. and can provide both connections and rivals for spellcasting characters. Eberron: Rising From The Last War discusses the costs and benefits of arcane orders on page 158, while Sharn: City of Towers discusses them on page 146. In short, membership in an arcane order provides you with high-quality lodging, advantage on arcane research and benefits when creating magic items when you have access to the facilities of your order. But beyond that, it provides a degree of status: If you’re a member of the Esoteric Order of Aureon, you’re a REAL wizard. While these are tangible benefits, a second point is that in means that you have peers. As we’ve always said, true wizards are rare and remarkable. If you’re in an arcane order, you know other wizards and artificers. They could provide you with useful leads or insights for your adventures. You could learn spells from the order’s library; if a DM wants to limit spell access, it could be that certain orders are the only place to acquire a specific unusual spell, because Maximillian Hysian of the Esoteric Order created Maximilian’s Earthen Grasp. It can also be a fun source of rivals—whether establishing that you have a friendly rivalry with a member of your own order, or a more bitter feud with a member of another order. It is the case that not all arcane scholars use the wizard or artificer class; there could be a sage in your circle who knows 5th level spells even though they can’t cast them, or someone capable of creating magic items even though they don’t have the full abilities of an artificer.
The canon books specifically discuss the three orders known in Sharn and Breland: the Esoteric Order of Aureon, the Guild of Starlight and Shadows, and the now-shunned Closed Circle. Arcane orders are found across the Five Nations, but they began in ancient Thaliost and Aundair has more than any other nation.
As with anything I write, this is a foundation for DMs to build upon. Ignore what you don’t like, and add your own ideas to your Eberron!
THE ARCANE ORDER OF AUREON (Aundair, Thrane)
The Arcane Order of Aureon is the largest and most powerful circle in Aundair, wielding influence both within the Arcane Congress and among the nobility of the nation. For this reason it is often disparaged by the other circles, who assert that it has become a hollow shell choosing members based on pedigree rather than arcane talent… essentially, that its members are more likely to be nobles rather than sages. Members of the Arcane Order must swear to use “Aureon’s Gift” to preserve civilization and in the service of the law. While its diverse membership practice all forms of magic, the schools of evocation, abjuration, and divination have especially strong support in the order.
Though not the first wizard’s circle, this was the first circle to use the term arcane order. The Arcane Order was founded in ancient Daskara by monks devoted to Aureon, but quickly spread into Thaliost. Bound by the belief that magic should be a force for law and order, the circle were staunch supporters of Galifar I. They provided magical support during his conquest and helped enforce order across the united kingdom in the aftermath. They formed the solid foundation of the Arcane Congress and ensured the Congress served crown and kingdom. It’s worth noting that the Princess Aundair was originally a member of the Guild of Moonlight and Whispers—and that Aundair herself was instrumental in convincing the other circles to unite in the Arcane Congress, setting aside the feuds many of the lesser circles had with the Arcane Order. Those feuds continue to this day, but are conducted within the confines of the Congress.
Over the course of centuries, internal rivalries caused the Arcane Order to split along national lines. This resulted in Breland’s Esoteric Order of Aureon and the Erudite Order of eastern Cyre. The Arcane Order remained a force in central Cyre and in Thrane, though its support dropped significantly in Thrane following the depredations of Sarmondelaryx, the Year of Blood and Fire, and the rise of the Silver Flame. Today the Arcane Order maintains a single hall in Thrane, in the city of Sigilstar.
THE GILDED LABYRINTH (Thrane)
While small, the Gilded Labyrinth is the one truly respected arcane order in Thrane. Its members are more commonly known as Silver Pyromancers, and specialize in incorporating the divine energy of the Silver Flame into arcane spells. This requires a deep devotion to the Flame in addition to arcane knowledge. Mechanically, members of the Gilded Labyrinth might be Divine Soul sorcerers or Celestial warlocks, but their traditions are grounded in arcane science and members must be proficient in Arcana. The Labyrinth is an arm of the Church of the Silver Flame, operating under the broader umbrella of the Order of the Pure; more information can be found on page 152 of the Five Nations sourcebook.
THE GUILD OF MOONLIGHT AND WHISPERS (Aundair)
Said to be the first true wizard’s circle in Khorvaire, the Guild of Moonlight and Whispers was founded in ancient Thaliost by Margana Lain. The guild was dedicated to finding ways to replicating the mystical powers of the fey through arcane science. Members specialize in illusion, enchantment, divination, and magic related directly to the fey, and the Guild is an exceptional source of knowledge regarding fey and archfey.
Moonlight isn’t a large circle, in part because of its extremely high standards. However, it is the most widely respected circle in Aundair, in part because Princess Aundair was herself a member of Moonlight and Whispers. While its members are devoted to their nation, they believe that the Arcane Order of Aureon’s obsession with laws and political power undermines the pure pursuit of arcane knowledge. When someone challenges Aureon in the Arcane Congress, it usually takes the support of Moonlight to have a chance to succeed. Breland’s Guild of Starlight and Shadows was founded by members of Moonlight, and the two are generally friendly; while Starlight has less of an interest in the fey, both circles have a common interest in illusion and enchantment. Members of one of these circles will usually be admitted to the halls of the other, though not accorded the privileges of full members.
Mechanically, most members of the circle are wizards, but the guild does accept Archfey warlocks as long as they are proficient in Arcana; the circle is devoted to understanding fey magic, not simply using it.
THE ORDER OF THE ETHEREAL BLADE (Aundair)
The Order of the Ethereal Blade was founded in the fifth century (YK) as a duelist’s society, where members of other circles could test their skills and spells in battle with fellow mages. What began as a mystical fight club became the core of the original Knights Arcane, and also pioneered Aundair’s Bladesinger tradition (the Tairnadal, Greensingers, and others have their own forms of this path). Today, the Ethereal Blade focuses on the study and development of war magic, but it remains a dueling society whose members are always ready to prove their mettle in battle. Many of Aundair’s finest warmages are members of the Order, along with officers of the Knights Arcane and Knight Phantoms.
While it began as a wizard’s circle, today the Order of the Ethereal Blade welcomes Eldritch Knights, Arcane Tricksters and others who blend martial and mystical techniques. With that said, it’s still an arcane order. There are other societies that cater purely to duelists and wandslingers, including Fairhaven’s League of ir’Lain and the Darkwood Wands of Passage.
THE UNSPOKEN WORD (Aundair)
The Unspoken Word is devoted to the pursuit of ultimate arcane power. Members believe that laws and moral concerns should never stand in the way of knowledge. Just as the Guild of Moonlight and Whispers seeks to unlock the mysteries of the fey, the Unspoken Word strives to master the powers of dragons, overlords, and daelkyr. Its members are determined to unravel the secrets of the Du’raskha Tul, the moon-shattering magics of the giants, and more. What has allowed this order to survive when similar groups—such as the Closed Circle of Breland—were destroyed is the absolute insistence that such magic should never be USED: that these words will forever remain unspoken. Unspoken mages insist that fear cannot be allowed to stand in the way of progress. But an Unspoken wizard pursuing the moon-breaking magic of the giants will insist that they have no desire to shatter moons; it’s simply that if such powers can be understood, could we use them in positive ways?
Members of the Unspoken Word are often viewed with a trace of fear, and most enjoy this infamy. They like to imply that they have dreadful secrets locked away in their vaults, fell powers they could unleash if they choose to. But again, they continue to exist because they never have caused disasters… and because their members are mages of considerable skill. While most are wizards, they accept Fiend and Great Old One Warlocks, provided they are proficient in Arcana and devoted to the pursuit of arcane science.
Mordain the Fleshweaver is said to have been part of the Unspoken Word before his fall from grace, though other accounts say that he began as a member but ultimately severed ties with the order in part because he believed such knowledge should be USED. However, the order may still have relics from his time as a member, and it’s possible Mordain still sends them little “gifts” — some of which could be very dangerous.
The circles mentioned above have considerable prestige and significant resources. They have broad areas of study; while Moonlight may specialize in Illusion and Enchantment, you can still discuss evocation in the hall. But especially in Aundair, there are a host of lesser orders. Most have a narrow focus and more limited resources. Members of the Lodge of the Eternal Flame are acknowledged as some of the most accomplished pyromancers in Khorvaire, but they only accept Evokers and refuse to practice any form of frost-related magic, and they only have a single hall. Here’s a few of these lesser orders.
Again, these are just a few of the lesser orders… and these are orders that are active today, not taking into account the many circles that have fallen over time, on their own or through hostile action (like the Closed Circle of Sharn).
Arcane orders are exclusive, but generally not secret; part of the point of joining an arcane order is the prestige associated with it. While the Unspoken Word walks a dangerous line, it celebrates this and takes pride in its work. However, there are other cabals of mages that aren’t so open. The Court of Shadows is a league of warlocks and wizards inspired by Sul Khatesh. The Mosiac Committee is an Aundairian society that works to obscure the Draconic Prophecy. The College of Whispers is devoted to the Shadow, and counts both bards and wizards among its members. These are just a few examples; there are many more hidden below the surface of society.
What is the relationship between wizard circles and the dragonmarked houses? They come across like smaller, yet non-negligible businesses and start-ups standing under the shadow of much vaster megacorporations.
While Sharn: City of Towers highlights the ability to sell spellcasting services as one of the benefits of an order, this is rendered somewhat obsolete by the current implementation of magewrights and notably isn’t mentioned as a benefit of circle membership in Rising From The Last War. Essentially, while your wizard may know how to cast knock, imagine our world: if you need someone to open your door, are you going to go to the Mason’s hall and ask if someone there can help, or are you just going to go to the professional locksmith who has a store on the corner and is licensed by House Kundarak? And while the orders allow members to create magic items at a lower cost, they don’t have the facilities to produce such items on an industrial scale. It is the case that if you’re looking for a magical service no magewright can provide or a magic item Cannith doesn’t sell, the Esoteric Order of Aureon might be able to help you — but precisely because that would be dealing with services the houses can’t provide, they aren’t direct rivals.
With that said, the circles are responsible for many of the developments that have brought services that were once solely tied to the dragonmarked houses to the public domain. I believe the Guild of Endless Doors has already cracked the basic mystery of teleportation, which is why an Arcanix-trained wizard can learn the teleport spell; it’s simply that as a 5th level spell it’s beyond the ability of any common magewright and hasn’t been able to be incorporated into everyday magic, and they’re still trying to develop a more accessible form of it. Likewise, while the guilds are not run to make a profit, some receive grants from the Arcane Congress while others sell their work to the Arcane Congress; these funds have been invested over centuries and ensure the solvency of the circles.
Would the Aurum count among its number many members of arcane orders?
Yes, it’s quite likely that the Aurum includes a number of influential members of arcane orders. And it may well be that there are Aurum concordians helping to fund the work of the Guild of Endless Doors and other circles that have the potential of undermining dragonmarked monopolies.
When you say the Guild of Moonlight and Whispers has high standards, what form might that take? Do you need to be able to cast second level spells, or have at least a +7 to Arcana, or pass a series of tests (or all of the above)?
Largely this is a plot device. It’s quite reasonable to say that they’d actually require someone to be able to cast a spell of the Third Circle (3rd level) or to hit a repeated set of high Arcana checks in an extended challenge. But if you WANT a PC to be part of an order at 1st level, you could say that an influential member of the circle has sponsored them because “They can see their exceptional promise” or simply as a mysterious favor—no one knows why Syla ir’Lain broke protocols to allow her in, but some say the request was made by the Lady in Shadow herself! The main point is to say that membership is exclusive and that members must be remarkable in some way — it’s not just magewrights and wandslingers.
Can you explain the relationship between the Wizard Circles and the Arcane Congress?
The formal structure of the Arcane Congress would need to be the topic of another article. The circles are part of the foundation of the Arcane Congress and have representatives in the Congress, along with the noble families, but the Congress is a formal institution that directly serves the crown (and is funded by it). The Arcane Order of Aureon was instrumental in building the foundation of the Congress, but the Order and the Congress are two separate entities (though many members of the Order serve in the Congress).
In a sense, the circles serve as research arms of the Congress. If the Guild of Endless Doors unlocks new secrets about teleportation, it will pass those along to the Congress. In some cases circles receive research grants from the Congress, while others operate independently and sell the fruits of their labor to the Congress.
Are there similar organizations for sorcerers and warlocks?
Part of the challenge here is that WE see the world through a mechanical lens. WE see all wizards as wizards, all sorcerers as sorcerers. But the WORLD doesn’t necessarily have such ironclad distinctions. Consider this: Wizards don’t choose their Arcane Tradition until 2nd level. They all start with the same basic foundation. They are all using the same arcane science; even if they debate the merits of Externalism versus Siberyan Theory, two wizards can trade spells. Arcane Tradition is a point where they diverge, but it’s a specialization rather than a completely different path. I may be an Evoker while you’re a Diviner, but we’re still both WIZARDS… And I can still cast divinations, and you can still cast fireballs. We still have a common frame of reference. And that’s part of what wizards circles are for: for wizards to learn from one another, to collaborate on research, and so on.
By contrast, WE see all sorcerers as sorcerers, but in practice they don’t have a lot in common. This is part of why THEY choose their archetype at 1st level: because sorcerers with different origins are extremely different. Consider three sorcerers: a human with red scales and an affinity for flame, who might grow wings if they become powerful enough; a Lyrandar half-elf who channels power through their Mark of Storm; and a kalashtar orphan who intuitively wields divine energies as a Divine Soul sorcerer. What do these three have in common? What can they teach one another? What would cause THEM to think that they should form a club?
Having said that, there are some organizations for sorcerers. The biggest are called “dragonmarked houses.” The previous article on Arcane History touches on “Dragonblood” sorcerers, who DO use the trappings of arcane science to master their abilities, and I’ve given them a lesser order in the list above… But that’s because they’re TRYING to approach their powers from a scientific perspective and learn from them.
Warlocks are in a similar position. They choose their patrons at 1st level, and again, an Archfey warlock devoted to the Forest Queen doesn’t feel some sort of kinship to a Great Old One warlock working for Dyrrn the Corruptor just because they are both arbitrarily classified as “warlocks.” Warlocks with an interest in arcane science can join circles, as described above. Other warlocks generally only ally with warlocks serving the same patron, and often these covens are highly secretive (such as the Court of Shadows). So there are definitely alliances of warlocks, but they are usually driven by allegiance to a common patron, not by a shared scholarly interest in the abstract experience of being a warlock.
Also are there any other circles outside of Aundair, like Cyre and Karrnath?
The question raised was specifically about the circles aligned with the Arcane Congress, so I wasn’t covering other nations; Thrane just snuck in (since admittedly the Gilded Labyrinth isn’t part of the Congress). Breland has the Esoteric Order of Aureon, the Guild of Moonlight and Shadows, and had the Closed Circle. Karrnath doesn’t support wizard’s circles; it focused on martial orders and chivalric societies. With that said, some of those martial orders include warmages and the like; the Order of the Blackened Sky is an example of this. but they are martial orders with a magical aspect, not wizard’s circles.
Would The Unspoken Word be trying to discover the cause of the Mourning? Given that discovering the cause of the Mourning might return the world to war, might the Aurum, the Houses, or peace-loving monarchs be trying to stop them?
In my opinion, there are MANY forces trying to discover the cause of the Mourning. The Unspoken Word, the Arcane Order of Aureon, the Royal Eyes, the King’s Dark Lanterns, Rekkenmark, the Order of the Emerald Claw, the Lord of Blades, the Shadow Cabinet, every branch of House Cannith, and many more. Yes, while we don’t know the cause of the Mourning, there will be peace because we are afraid to return to war. However…
So first of all, I think the Unspoken Word is one of the top suspects among those who believe the Mourning was a weapon. Within Aundair, I think it’s entirely possible that it’s actually caused their stock to rise, either because people believe they might have caused the Mourning or because people believe they might be the key to mastering its power and coming up with a viable defense against it. The question of which they want is up to you. Do they think the best way to defend Breland is to harness this power as a weapon? Or are they actually true to their stated principles, and are determined that no one should ever USE such a weapon? The answer could determine if they’re a dangerous enemy or a valuable ally for the adventurers…
That’s all for now! Thanks as always to my Patreon supporters for posing the question and making these articles possible.
This is my third article on this topic, following Arcane Science and The Arcane Arts. Arcane magic is a part of everyday life in Khorvaire. But how did we get to this point? If you travel back a thousand years, what sort of magic did the Princess Aundair using in battle? Who were the Teslas and Edisons of Khorvaire… or, if you prefer, the Tashas and Mordenkainens?
One way to approach this would be to a big timeline of specific dates: “535 YK: First confirmed use of the phantasmal killer spell.” However, this is impractical. Among other things, there is no single path of development in Eberron. Over the course of tens of thousands of years, many different cultures have developed arcane traditions. Take fireball; the externalists of Khunan invented one form of fireball, but the Siberyan wizards of Thaliost independently created a different form of the spell, and Brelish sympathists created a different version of the spell… Meanwhile, the Sulat giants were flinging fireballs forty thousand years ago. So the goal of this article isn’t to tell you who invented fireball. Instead, it’s a broad overview of the history of Arcane Magic in Khorvaire over the course of the last two thousand years, noting a few specific developments, movements, and individuals. It is NOT comprehensive; it is a foundation for DMs to build upon. If you’re looking for older civilizations, a few are touched on in the Arcane Arts article. If you’re interested in the weapons of war, check out Exploring Eberron.
Beyond that, this article assumes you have read the two preceding articles—that you know the difference between Siberyan theory and externalist magic, and that you know that magic is more complicated than it may appear. If you haven’t read those articles yet, now would be a good time to do so.
As with the previous articles, where this article references rules, it assumes the use of the fifth edition of D&D. This specifically addresses the development of ARCANE MAGIC as opposed to psionics, divine magic, or primal traditions. And as always, this is what I do at MY table, and what follows may contradict canon material. Use what you like, ignore what you don’t!
Sorcerers and warlocks typically manipulate the same forms of energy as wizards. However, neither sorcerers or warlocks need to understand the powers that they wield. Later sections will discuss their role in history, but on the whole warlocks and sorcerers didn’t band together or seek to apply scientific knowledge to the development of their gifts; however, they served as an inspiration to those scholars who believed it was possible to replicate their powers through scientific means. While sorcerers and warlocks were scattered individuals, dragonmarks were a greater force in history; due to their hereditary nature, they served as the foundation of powerful guilds, ultimately becoming the houses that continue to shape the world today. Here’s a quick look at these three paths.
SORCERERS
Sorcerers appear in every humanoid society, spread out across history. Generally, sorcerous power isn’t as reliably hereditary as dragonmarks are, so families of sorcerers haven’t become a powerful force in Khorvaire. There are exceptions—notably the Houses of the Sun and Moon that ruled ancient Corvagura in Sarlona—but even there it is likely the case that ongoing exposure to the wild zones of the region was the primary factor in the development of sorcerous power, not simply bloodline; those few Corvaguran nobles who came to Khorvaire failed to pass their powers on to their children. There might be similar regional pockets of sorcery in Khorvaire, or families with a greater chance to manifest dragonblood talents; however, this still isn’t reliable enough for sorcerers to wield the same sort of power as the dragonmarked houses. In general, sorcerers are considered to be remarkable and unique; during the Dark Ages they were valued for their power but didn’t seek to form any sort of fellowship of sorcerers or explore the science behind their gifts. While sorcerers generally don’t need to understand the science behind their powers, the most common forms of sorcerers do map to the common theories of arcane science. Those with “Planar Power” are effectively using Externalist magic, while “Dragonblood” sorcerers are channeling Siberyan power. The other most common manifestation of sorcerers are dragonmarks themselves… though there is also the possibility of sorcerers whose gifts are in some way engineered. Here’s a quick breakdown of these paths.
Sorcerers have always been uncommon. People know they exist, but because sorcery isn’t something that can be learned it’s increasingly less common that wizardry or artifice, not to mention magewrights. With the exception of aberrant dragonmarks, sorcerers generally aren’t feared. Sorcerers have always been allowed in arcane institutions, but because of their lack of flexibility have often been dismissed as flawed students. During the last century, Iria ir’Rayne has fought for greater recognition for sorcerers and to find ways to expand and embrace the potential of sorcery.
WARLOCKS
Like sorcerers, warlocks can be found in most civilizations throughout history. This article examines warlocks in more detail, discussing both possible patrons and interpretations of the class that don’t rely on patrons. But the classic warlock is someone who draws their power from their ongoing, active relationship with a powerful patron. They don’t have to have any sort of supernatural heritage and they don’t need to understand the powers that they wield; they simply need to earn the favor of a powerful being. This has led to a largely negative view of warlocks over the course of history, for a few reasons…
This is a simplistic view, and the actual reaction will depend on the nature of the patron, the views of the people the warlock is dealing with, and local customs. In Aundair, many noble families have longstanding pacts with archfey. In Breland, the wandslinger who won magic powers by gambling with an efreeti may be celebrated for their wit rather than reviled. The members of the Court of Shadows are arcane scholars lured into the Court by a hunger for knowledge. In the Mror Holds, there are warlocks who have stolen their powers from the daelkyr rather than earning them with allegiance… but Mror purists argue that any use of such powers has a corrupting effect. One could argue whether the relationship of a warlock and patron is really so different than that of a cleric and their deity, but the general opinion is that it is—that warlocks are driven by greed and the desire for personal power, that patrons likewise seek to meddle with the natural order, while the Sovereigns are the natural order.
Warlocks with different patrons have little in common with one another; they may have access to overlapping spell lists, but an Archfey warlock who’s working for Fortune’s Fool and a Great Old One warlock drawing power from Dyrrn wield very different powers; depending on their choice of spells, it’s possible that the GOO warlock could be considered to be wielding psionic power. Aside from the differences in the nature and source of their powers, patrons may have very different goals and limitations. A particular archfey could be limited to only having a single warlock at a time; they can’t imbue another mortal with power unless they dismiss their current agent. On the other hand, a cult of the Dragon Below might grant power to anyone who swears an oath… But it might also sink hooks into the psyche of the newly minted warlock, corrupting them and remolding them in the image of the patron.
The average commoner can’t tell the difference between a sorcerer and a warlock. It’s not that a warlock will inherently be distrusted the moment they step into a room; but if they announce their status—”Well, I was talking to Sul Khatesh last night in my dreams, and she taught me this new spell… Neat, huh?”—they may have to deal with fear and prejudice. Arcanix accepts Archfey warlocks and studies other paths, and other warlocks might be allowed as curiosities—but Arcanix forbids trafficking with overlords, daelkyr, or other entities defined as malefic forces. This isn’t a crime under the Code of Galifar, and even in the Arcane Congress there are ways a scholar to defend interactions with such entities—but it can be cause for inquiry, censure, or even expulsion. This is discussed further in the section on Arcane Research.
DRAGONMARKS
A dragonmark is a lens that allows the bearer to focus magical energy for a specific purpose. From the moment it manifests, it provides certain innate gifts—a few minor spell effects, an intuitive talent for a particular skill or tool. But the potential of the dragonmark is far greater than that. Heirs who learn how to channel magical energy can use their mark to produce greater effects, as reflected by the Spells of the Mark. And as noted before, a character could ascribe their class abilities to their use of their dragonmark. A Lyrandar Storm Sorcerer might have unlocked the greater powers of the Mark of Storm, while a Jorasco Life Cleric could attribute their healing abilities not to divine power, but rather to their dragonmark. A Thuranni rogue could even class features such as Uncanny Dodge or Evasion as manifestations of their dragonmark, as they conjure concealing shadows.
There was a time when cantrips were all but unknown to the people of Khorvaire: when those tinkers who carried the Mark of Making were the only humans capable of casting mending, when the Ghallanda gift of prestidigitation was a truly remarkable gift. Likewise, there was a time when the Spells of the Mark could only be cast by those with the Mark—when knock and arcane lock were the sole provenance of the Mark of Warding. But beyond all of this, the core strength of the dragonmark has always been focus items. The idea is simple: it is easier to produce a magical effect that channels the power of a dragonmark than one that doesn’t. It’s easier to make a serpentine mirror than a crystal ball… Not to mention eldritch machines like the creation forges or storm spires. Over the course of centuries, the Arcane Congress and other mages have worked to reverse engineer these powers, discovering how to mend, to detect poison, to feather fall. By default, all such spells are now in the public domain. But again, dragonmark focus items allow heirs to provide services no one else can offer. And beyond this, while player characters can learn any spell, a DM who wants to emphasize the power of the houses can assert that magewrights are more limited—that there are rituals that can only be learned by magewrights that carry a particular mark. Looking to page 318 of Rising From The Last War, it could be that healer magewrights must carry the Mark of Healing, and that locksmiths require the Mark of Warding—or, if you want to be less restrictive, it could be that any magewright can master these rituals, but that the guild trade schools tied to Kundarak and Jorasco have the best teachers.
The key points to bear in mind when moving forward are that there was a time when most Spells of the Mark were known only to the houses, and when many useful magic items existed only as dragonmark focus items. The fact that such spells can now be learned by wizards and that such items can be created in a form that anyone can use reflects centuries of effort on the part of the Arcane Congress. The houses aren’t happy about this gradual erosion of their monopolies. But while Lyrandar may be able to suppress the development of airships anyone can pilot, not even the Twelve can block the slow and steady advancement of arcane science. It’s still easier and cheaper to produce a serpentine mirror than it is to make a crystal ball… But the Royal Eyes of Aundair have a surveillance network employing crystal balls.
When Lhazaar’s ships arrived in Khorvaire approximately three thousand years ago, they brought little in the way of arcane magic. The Khunan externalists were powerless in a land without wild zones, and the shadow lords of Ohr Kaluun didn’t join Lhazaar or the expeditions that followed her. While these explorers didn’t have wizards, they still had magic. The divine magic of the Pyrinean missionaries played an important role in ensuring the survival of the settlers, which in turn helped to cement the strong faith in the Sovereigns that remains to this day; however, the evolving role of divine magic is a topic for another article. The explorers, settlers, and reavers also counted sorcerers and warlocks among their champions. While celebrated or feared, those that followed these paths couldn’t simply teach their gifts to others, and were limited by their own heritage or the whims of patrons.
At this moment in history, none of modern nations existed; human civilization was an assortment of warlords, colonies, and small city-states. As humanity carved out its place on the continent, the first dragonmarks were appearing. The houses didn’t emerge fully formed. Each mark appeared on multiple families, and it took centuries for some houses to unlock the potential of their marks and to come together. This is discussed in this article, as well as in the 3.5 sourcebook Dragonmarked. The Scribing families were relatively quick to form the Sivis League, but the Sentinel families were actively opposed for centuries. Even before the houses were fully formed, the reliably hereditary nature of these powers meant that the dragonmarked had a degree of organization and unity—that they were able to explore their potential in ways unmatched by the warlocks and sorcerers of the age.
Another crucial element in this age was the arrival of the elves. The eradication of the line of Vol resulted in both the exile of Vol’s allies and the voluntary exodus of the Phiarlans and other elves who feared persecution. There’s a few important things to understand about this process. This wasn’t an orderly step by a nation seeking to establish colonies; it was a scattered wave of exiles and rebels. These were elves who fought against the Undying Court, or at least opposed its goals; they weren’t seeking to preserve its traditions or values. The Bloodsail Principality and House Phiarlan were the two places where these immigrants sought to retain some element of cultural identity; but the majority of exiles dispersed among the masses building nations. There are many reasons that these immigrants couldn’t raise humanity to the level of arcane sophistication seen in Aerenal. The everyday magic of Aerenal relies on an arcane infrastructure built up over tens of thousands of years. The exiles were removed from the powerful manifest zones of Aerenal, the ancient eldritch machines, the deathless mentors, and the underlying support—not to mention traditions that might call for a magewright to spend a century perfecting their skills. Even had they wished to, a single elf exile couldn’t reproduce the wonders of Aerenal in Khorvaire. Instead, most exiled wizards chose to use their talents to achieve personal power and influence. In the northeast, exiles laid the foundation of what would become the Blood of Vol. In the northwest, some helped powerful families forge ties with the local fey.
So overall, the exiled wizards of Aerenal filled the same role as sorcerers and warlocks: individuals feared or celebrated for their powers rather than the cornerstones of institutes of learning or the forces of innovation. However, merely by existing they served to inspire others—sages who recognized that these powers weren’t simply the gifts of immortal patrons or mystical mutation. Another important point is that Aereni magic hasn’t actually changed much over the last few years. So the spells of these wizards were much like those used today… and precisely because they were severed from Aereni culture (and had in many cases rebelled against it), they’re a possible source of unique spells or rituals that could be useful to a player character wizard. Consider the story of the Queen of the Burning Sky, still told in parts of Breliand even though she predates their nation. Raela Solaen was an Aereni wizard. She opposed the Undying Court and chose exile; making her way west she married Breggor Firstking of Wroat. Her arcane might was a key element of Breggor’s success; in the tales of Breggor’s siege of Shaarat (a former incarnation of Sharn), Solaen devastates the defenders with massive waves of fire. These stories may be exaggerated; Raela may have just been using fireballs and flaming spheres. On the other hand, it’s possible that the Queen of the Burning Sky developed unique war rituals—likely spells that inflicted less damage than a fireball, but with a far greater range and area of effect. As she had no interest in sharing her knowledge with others, her secrets died with her. But if Solaen’s spellshards were found today, her war rituals might be a boon to the nation that obtained them.
The key point is that in this time, few of the civilizations of Khorvaire had actually embraced the idea of SCIENCE. Warlocks and sorcerers gained their power through bargains or accidents of birth, as did the dragonmarked houses. The wizards of Aerenal were likewise considered to be enigmatic wonders; this wasn’t a path a normal person could follow. It would be centuries still before people recognized that magic was a tool that anyone could master, not some sort of divine gift.
Two thousand years ago, Karrn the Conqueror sought to dominate Khorvaire. Five strong nations emerged from this conflict: Karrnath, Metrol, Daskara, Wroat, and Thaliost. While only shadows of the powerful nations of the present day, these young realms possessed greater resources and brought together larger numbers of sages than had been possible in the past.
During Karrn’s conquest, magic was still largely a thing of wonder rather than a tool of science. Kings and warlords employed mercenary sorcerers or exiled elves. But there were a number of crucial developments in this period.
Dragonmarks: The War of the Mark and the Twelve
It was in this time that the dragonmarked houses coalesced into something resembling their modern form. Cannith and Sivis were the first true dragonmarked houses, and both actively worked to identify other houses and to encourage them to adopt similar traditions and structure. These early houses wielded far less power than they have today, in part because they didn’t have the tools they have today; there were no airships, no lightning rail, no message stones. But Kundarak could craft arcane locks, Jorasco could cast lesser restoration, and Cannith excelled both at the creation of mundane goods and at the creation of magic items—though at this time, even something we’d now consider to be uncommon would be a great treasure. The houses were still learning what they could do: but even beyond their active magic, the intuition granted by a dragonmark meant that the house heirs excelled at certain fields. An Orien heir is faster than an unmarked courier and excels at the operation of land vehicles, while even before elemental vessels, any marked Lyrandar heir has a knack for navigation. Artisan’s Intuition provides a Cannith heir with a bonus to any ability check involving artisans’s tools. The heirs of the dragonmarked houses were simply better at certain things than unmarked folk, and even as they learned the full powers of their marks, they also worked to establish their dominance in those fields.
In addition to their innate powers, the houses were pioneers in the field of wizardry. Cannith and Sivis were foremost in this. Having observed the exiled elves of Aerenal, recognizing the power of words and the fact that their own marks were manipulating a form of energy in a measurable way, the members of these houses dug deeper into arcane mysteries. Sivis explored the science of sigilry and the paths of divination and illusion, while Cannith delved more deeply into conjuration, abjuration, and transmutation. Two of the greatest pioneers were Alder d’Cannith and Lyssia Lyrriman d’Sivis. Were you to meet either of these two in combat today, their magic might not be so impressive; as discussed in previous articles, they required higher level spell slots to cast spells we know today. But it was Lyssia who developed the basic foundation of the elemental sigils—the verbal and somatic components used by most modern externalist wizards. Alder developed the earliest form of the modern magecraft spell, as well as pioneering techniques of spell preparation and aspects of artifice.
Even as the dragonmarked houses were carving out their places in the world, aberrant dragonmarks were becoming more common and more powerful. Aberrant heirs were by far the most common form of sorcerer or warlock in this age. Aberrant dragonmarks are a dangerous burden for those who bear them, but they can be mastered and wielded safely. There were places where aberrant sorcerers served in the military, or found other ways to use their destructive powers for the greater good. But any possibility for the peaceful integration of aberrant dragonmarks came to an end with the War of the Mark. This conflict occurred approximately 1,500 years ago and is covered in other sources, but it had two major effects. The first was the near eradication of aberrant dragonmarks and lasting prejudice against those who bear them. The second was to strengthen and unify the dragonmarked houses. It was in the final days of the War of the Mark that Hadran d’Cannith proposed that the houses work together to create an “institute for the application of magic“—a foundation that would study both the dragonmarks and ways to harness their power, but also other forms of arcane magic. It was Hadran’s charisma and dreams that paved the way for the Twelve, but it was Alder d’Cannith who made it a reality. It was Alder who designed the Tower of the Twelve, and who insisted on the name of the organization, and it was in this tower that Lyssia d’Sivis perfected the elemental sigils.
For the next five centuries, the Tower of the Twelve was the greatest institute of arcane learning in Khorvaire. While much of its resources were focused on the development of dragonmark focus items and other ways to harness dragonmarks, it also drove the development of wizardry and the earliest magewrights. A key point is that the Twelve didn’t seek to create forms of the Spells of the Mark that anyone could use. They weren’t interested in crafting an arcane lock that anyone could cast. But they were interested in the potential of arcane magic, and many of the spells and rituals they perfected could be learned by anyone with talent, marked or otherwise.
Hedge Wizards and Other Traditions
It’s a simple fact that magic works. Even in the Dark Ages, the priests of Aureon mastered a few basic principles of wizardry. Externalist wizards learned to tap the power of their local manifest zones, even if these spells were rough in form and only possible in specific rituals. Here’s a few figures known to history.
Beren and Heken are good examples of the wizards of this time. Both focused on narrow fields of magic. Heken’s spells were effects that can now be cast as cantrips, while Beren’s fire spells were strong but relied on a direct tie to Fernia; nonetheless, they were spells that they developed and improved in their lifetimes, and which were further improved upon by future generations of wizards. When a Brelish wizard casts Beren’s blast they aren’t actually casting the spell created by the Wroatian wizard, but they are using the pyromantic principles he pioneered.
The Mages of Thaliost
There’s a strong fey presence in the land now known in Aundair. The earlier settlers found ways to make peace with these spirits, and the great families that forged the nation of Thaliost attributed their success to their fey pacts. While this produced a number of legendary warlocks, such as Tyman Three-Cloaks and Vilina the Unseen, not all of the fey the families dealt with had the power to create warlocks—and those that did might only grant such gifts to one child in a generation. Thaliost also drew an unusual number of Aereni exiles during the Dark Ages. Some of these chose to settle in the Towering Wood, ultimately producing the first Greensingers. Others joined the ancient families, earning influence with their arcane knowledge. As noted earlier, it was no simple thing for the Aereni to share their traditions, and few wanted to; most of the exiles preferred to keep their secrets as a unique resource preserving their value. While the elf wizards and Archfey warlocks were rare, they were a part of life. Margana Lain was an early arcane pioneer, convinced that what the fey seemed to do by whim, mortals could master through will. Over the course of her life she made dramatic breakthroughs in the basic techniques of Illusion and Enchantment magic. While she was a wizard whose powers were based on arcane science, many stories that followed called her Margana the Fey, claiming that her studies allowed her to become an archfey. Arcanix-trained mages may refer to disguise self as Margana’s masque; invisibility as Margana’s veil; and minor illusion as Margana’s mirror (according to legend, Margana would weave images in a mirror, then pull them out into the world). In the present day, the ir’Lains are a proud Aundairian dynasty; Darro ir’Lain is Second Warlord of the Realm and Commander of the Knights Arcane.
Beyond her own accomplishments, Margana was instrumental in the creation of the Guild of Moonlight and Whispers, the first true wizard’s circle of the Five Nations. The Guild became an influential force in Thaliost, and soon other circles followed in its footsteps. These circles lacked the numbers or resources of the Twelve, and members were often distracted by petty feuds with other circles. But they also became an important element of Thaliost culture and fueled arcane research, ultimately forming a foundation for the Arcane Congress.
Approximately one thousand years ago, Galifar Wynarn of Karrnath succeeded where Karrn the Conqueror had failed, uniting the Five Nations under the banner of the kingdom that bore his name. A key element of his victory was the work of his daughter Aundair. Long intrigued by arcane science, Aundair studied with both the Twelve and the Guild of Moonlight and Whispers, and had come up with her own unique theories of magic—the basic elements of Siberyan theory. The people she worked with had great respect for her talents—and this in turn played an important role both in Galifar’s negotiations with the Twelve and in recruiting Thaliost mages to his cause. There was no question that Aundair would govern Thaliost in the united kingdom. As the princess took stock of her domain, she worked to quell the conflicts between the rival circles of magic. Aundair recognized that the Twelve was capable of accomplishing grander things than the little circles… but she likewise knew both that the Twelve would always approach magic with a desire for profit, and that their greatest interest would always be harnessing the power of the dragonmarks. Beyond this, she had witnessed firsthand the desire to the houses to prevent people from developing spells that replicated the Spells of the Mark; she concluded that her father’s kingdom needed an institution that would pursue arcane science for the good of the kingdom, not simply in pursuit of gold. In 15 YK, Galifar I established the Arcane Congress, which united the resources of the Aundairian circles… though the circles have always continued to exist as fraternal orders in Aundair, and additional circles were established across Galifar.
The question has come up before: If you went back in time, how would the magic used by Aundair differ from that a wizard wields in the present day? Using the terms discussed in this article, the wizardry of early Galifar had higher spell slots (1-2 level higher cost than modern spells), lengthy preparation, and limited options. Notably, it would be centuries before any form of necromancy was part of the curriculum. Likewise, in the early days there simply weren’t many spells known over 3rd level. Today, the library of Arcanix includes spells created by the prodigies of the past even though few modern mages can cast them, but in the first days of the congress it would be possible for an exceptional wizard to have a 5th level spell slot… and simply not know any 5th level spells.
Institutes of Learning
This article talks about the education of magewrights, but what of wizards? The Arcane Congress was supported by Galifar, but it wasn’t the only institute of learning… And especially in the wake of the war, other nations had to develop their own
Two other noteworthy schools were lost in the Mourning. The Vermishard Academy trained promising nobles in the arts of enchantment, while the Wynarn Institute of Art (WIA) focused on the artistic potential of illusion and conjuration magic. Like other nations, Cyre embraced the martial aspects of magic during the Last War, but its war magic programs weren’t as developed as those of Karrnath or Aundair.
If I had more time, this article would include a timeline of the development of key arcane tools, from the siege staff to the speaking stone and beyond. I’m afraid this will have to wait for a future article. But it is crucial to understand that arcane science in the Five Nations is advancing at an exponential rate. The first lightning rail went into service in 811 YK. The first true warforged was created in 965 YK. The first elemental airships took flight in 990 YK. The Last War dramatically ramped up the pace of innovation, and saw more widespread training in the use of offensive cantrips (resulting in the more widespread presence of wandslingers). Beyond this, House Tharashk’s ever-greater ability to gather dragonshards and evolving ability to refine them has helped to support the more industrial role of magic—something that will be discussed in the upcoming article of Arcane Industry.
This article suggests a number of alternate names for spells tied to historical figures; a Brelish evoker might refer to flaming sphere as Beren’s blaze, while an Aundairian illusionist could refer to invisibility as Margana’s veil. The goal here isn’t to replace names and demand that you use these new names. Rather, it’s an example of the fact that spell names—like fireball— are largely generic and that different nations and cultures may have their own names for them. A Cyran wizard might cast an externalist form of fireball they call Fernia’s fury, while a Karrn evoker might use a Siberyan form called red dragon’s wrath. Spells are tools, and it’s not like there’s only one version of a sword in the world. But the key point here is that I’m never going to come up with a complete list of unique Brelish spell names… and that it’s always ok to just call a fireball a fireball. Use my suggestions if you like, but as a player or DM you should always feel free to name your own spells. If you don’t want to just cast ray of frost, YOU can decide you call it ice drake’s tooth… though, or course, you may have to tell your DM “That’s ray of frost.”
The same principle applies in reverse to any spell in D&D that HAS a proper name attached, like Tasha’s hideous laughter. One option is to simply drop the proper name; the spell is hideous laughter. Another is to replace it with someone from Eberron; Tenser’s floating disk could be Heken’s floating disk. A third option is to create Eberron versions of these common characters…
I had hoped to incorporate a more lengthy list of innovators and a timeline of some of the major developments, such as the everbright lantern and the siege staff. However, the fact is that this article has already taken more time than I have available—and that if I were to add every detail I’d like to add, it might be weeks before I could complete it. The next article in this series will cover Arcane Industry, and if time allows I’d love to do a shorter article speicifically about innovators and innovations—but time is always the enemy. I will note that Arcane Industry will cover the questions about the regulation of magical research that’s come up in the past.
Thanks to my Patreon supporters for choosing this topic. It’s your support that makes these articles possible, and that determines the amount of time I can spend on them. I’ll be posting a poll for the next new topic soon!
Magic is a part of Eberron. The world is drenched in eldritch power—the force that flows from the Ring of Siberys, the energies of the planes, enigmatic divine power sources. Like wind, tide, iron or fire—magic is a resource waiting to be harnessed.
This is the second in a series of articles. The previous article covered the THEORIES of arcane magic. This article delves deeper into the practical evolution of magic—the concrete elements of a spell and how less advanced forms of magic differ from what we cast today. Subsequent articles will deal both with the specific evolution of arcane science in Khorvaire—including specific innovators and key discoveries—and arcane industry in the Five Nations. However, to understand how magic has evolved we need to understand the elements of magic in more detail.
Where this article references rules, it assumes the use of the fifth edition of D&D. Also, as with the previous article, this specifically addresses the development of ARCANE MAGIC as opposed to psionics, divine magic, or primal traditions. In fifth edition, the distinction between these is more story-driven than mechanical; nothing’s stopping you from describing your bard as using primal magic. But this is about the development of arcane science as described in my previous article—and with that in mind, primarily focused on artificers and wizards. As always, this is what I do at MY table, and what follows may contradict canon material. Use what you like, ignore what you don’t!
To understand how arcane magic has evolved, we have to look under the hood and understand exactly how it works today. The rules of Dungeons & Dragons deal with the game mechanics of magic. For a wizard to cast a fireball, they must prepare the spell during a long rest. It takes an action to cast the spell, burning a 3rd level spell slot and requiring verbal, somatic, and material components. That fireball has a range of 150 feet and inflicts 8d6 fire damage. These are the FACTS of the fireball, and it doesn’t matter if the wizard is drawing on the essence of Fernia, using sympathetic magic, or focussing the Blood of Siberys to produce this effect: Fireball is one action; V S M components; 3rd level spell slot.
Those are the facts of the fireball. But what does any of that mean? What IS a spell slot? What are components? What does it mean to “prepare a spell”? What is the STORY behind these things, that explains what your wizards is actually doing? As described in the Arcane Science article, the basic principle of arcane magic is that the spellcaster is harnessing a particular power source—perhaps the emanations of the Ring of Siberys or the power of the planes—through scientific principles. They have mastered reliable, repeatable techniques that allow them to alter reality in specific ways. Let’s take a closer look at each element of spellcasting.
PREPARING SPELLS
Both wizards and artificers have access to a wide range of spells. Artificers have access to the full artificer spell list, while wizards can cast any spell in their spellbooks. But they have to prepare a specific subset of those spells during a long rest, and these are the only spells they can cast until they go through a second round of preparation.
It’s easy to overlook the importance of preparation. It’s something that happens between adventures. But the point is that while a wizard or artificer may know how to cast dozens of spells, that knowledge is useless to them without proper preparation. And this is a key part of recognizing the complexity of arcane magic. Yes, it only takes a wizard six seconds to cast fireball… But that’s because they have spent hours preparing to cast fireball. For the artificer, this is a little more obvious; they produce their spell effects using tools, and they are literally preparing those tools. When an Alchemist artificer prepares cure wounds, they are mixing up a base salve that can be triggered to generate an instant healing effect; the salve they’d use for alter self is entirely different, and if they haven’t mixed it up during the long rest, they can’t prepare it in the middle of an adventure. This same principle applies to the wizard. They aren’t preparing physical tools, but they are performing a host of minor rituals and formulas that are required to be able to cast that swift spell. When a wizard prepares fireball, they might first need to mediate on the twelve principles of fire, running through a series of equations in their mind. Next, they build on that to establish a source of power. This could be forging a connection to Fernia, or it might be igniting a spark within their own spirit—an ember forged from the Blood of Siberys that they carry within. Think of the actual casting of the spell as turning on the gas to a gas stove; it doesn’t do anything if you don’t have the spark prepared to ignite it. But even then, there’s ANOTHER series of rituals that need to be performed—to protect the caster from the powers that they are channelling. Consider how dangerous it is to work with other sources of power in our word—electricity, fire, nuclear power. Arcane power is no different. A wizard who casts fireball without proper precautions could spontaneously combusts, or simply boil the blood within their brain. Part of preparing fireball is preparing the wards that protect you from the dangers of casting the spell. To be clear, this is a very specific set of wards that only protect you from CASTING the spell, and that are shielding you an arcane level—reinforcing your aura, not your flesh. Consider also that these preparations are distinct for each spell. You may use the same arcane spark to ignite your fireball and burning hands, but the fact that you have to prepare those two separately shows that each one has its own unique set of required rituals. All of which is to say that this preparation is extremely specific; preparing fireball doesn’t automatically protect you from FIRE, it just protects you from the very specific dangers involved in casting fireball.
The main point here is that as a wizard, you do most of your actual WORK during your long rest. You likely don’t get as much sleep as your comrades, because you’re going over Fernian formulas in your mind and tracing draconic sigils in the air, gathering the forces you will unleash the following day. Your power doesn’t come without effort; you put in a lot of work to prepare your spells.
COMPONENTS
I talked about components at length in this article. The short form is that components may vary and will reflect the arcane tradition you’re following. A Siberyan wizard will speak a few of the hundred Draconic words for fire, while an Externalist chants in Primordial. Components serve two purposes. They trigger the effects the caster spent hours preparing, and they also help to focus and channel that power. The key point is that the components are the trigger that invokes the previous preparations; they don’t produce the effect on their own.
SPELL SLOTS
If you think of a spell as a gun, the components are the trigger. The preparations are the bullet, carefully loaded in place and ready for use. The spell slot is the powder—the surge of energy that imbues the bullet with deadly force. So it is with spells. Someone can perform all the proper steps, say the words of power, trace the proper sigils in the air, but it’s all meaningless unless they can channel the POWER that enforces their will upon reality.
Spell slots reflect the maximum amount of energy a particular spellcaster can draw on in an instant (their maximum spell slot level) as well as their overall endurance (total number of slots). A low level wizard could understand the principles behind fireball, but they can’t grasp the power required to cast it. Possessing a spell slot means knowing both how to channel this degree of power, but also how to channel it safely. Again, arcane energy is like electricity, like fire, like radiation; it is dangerous, and there are limits on how much of it any one person can handle. When a wizard has exhausted their spell slots, they have pushed their mind and spirit to dangerous levels; they just can’t marshal the mental focus required to weave the threads of magic, and even attempting it could kill them.
WHAT ABOUT RITUALS AND CANTRIPS?
Performing a spell as a ritual allows the spellcaster to draw on the energies slowly and evenly, without taking the same physical or mental demand on the spellcaster… which is why spells cast as rituals don’t use a spell slot. Meanwhile, cantrips channel trivial amounts of arcane energy, which is why they also don’t require spell slots.
NPC arcane magewrights and wandslingers can typically only perform rituals or cantrips, though some may know one or two spells they can cast once per day. The flip side to this is that magewrights can often cast spells as rituals even though those spells don’t have the ritual tag. First and foremost, this reflects a deep and absolute dedication to a small set of spells. It’s not JUST that they have spent years honing those few spells; an elf wizard could do that. It’s that they focus on those things to the exclusion of all else. The arcane locksmith can’t spend a few more years and become a lamplighter as well; learning to cast continual flame as a ritual would cause them to lose the focus on locks that allows them to cast arcane lock as a ritual. Which is why player characters can’t learn these magewright rituals: the very act of being an adventurer would distract from the intense focus required to be a magewright. And as noted in Rising From The Last War, magewright rituals have an additional component cost, typically paid with refined Eberron dragonshards; it’s a specialized form of spellcasting that’s quite different from the flexible casting of a wizard.
SCHOOLS AND SPELLS
A PC wizard can cast any wizard spell. They may have an affinity for a particular school of magic, but a Diviner wizard can cast any wizard spell, and spells of all schools are taught at Arcanix. However, this reflects the remarkable talent and flexibility of PC wizards and the fact that Arcanix is the pinnacle of centuries of arcane research. The different schools of magic are different branches of science, and few people can master them all. An NPC evoker might not be able to cast divination, illusion, or enchantment spells; they’ve learn to conjure, to abjure, and to evoke powerful forces, but they simply can’t grasp the softer schools. A particular branch of the Esoteric Order of Aureon may not have any members who can actually perform necromancy. This same principle applies to spell selection. In general, PCs are allowed to learn any spell from the wizard spell list. But a DM could choose to limit certain spells, saying that they haven’t actually been developed by the character’s culture. Here’s a few ways to approach this…
Personally, I wouldn’t do too much of this with spells of third level and below. There are places stronger in different schools of magic—for example, Atur is the best place to learn about necromancy—but 1st-3rd level spells are supposed to be easily accessible, and I wouldn’t want to place restrictions on a PC wizard early in their career. It’s in getting to higher level spells that AREN’T supposed to be common in Khorvaire that I’d put more emphasis on the wonder involved in acquiring them. There are very few wizards in the Five Nations who can cast a 7th level spell, so they’re shouldn’t BE a vast library of such spells just sitting on the shelf in Arcanix; acquiring such power should feel dramatic, whether the character is scribing their own spells, uncovering ancient secrets, or working with an enigmatic mentor. Having said that, wizards and artificers shouldn’t suffer for the story; the point is not to limit their access to spells, but to highlight how remarkable such characters are.
WHAT DOES ALL OF THIS MEAN?
Magic as it exists in the rules of fifth edition reflects the current state of the art. It didn’t begin this way. More primitive forms of arcane magic could have a number of limitations, and such things could be encountered through time travel or simply when dealing with some sort of primitive culture. Here’s a few ways to represent more primitive magic; I’m numbering them so that you could roll a d12 if you want to randomly generate a flawed form of magic.
The basic point to all of this is that magic as we know it is quite sophisticated. The reason the Aereni, the dragons, and the wizards of Arcanix all use the same basic techniques is because it’s about as good as it gets. The Aereni wizard is a higher level wizard than the typical Arcanix graduate, which means that Aereni wizard has more spell slots and can cast spells that are beyond the ability of the students of Arcanix. But the techniques—the casting time, the components, the ease of concentration and preparation—are generally equivalent. With that said, part of the point is that it’s the PLAYER CHARACTERS who can perform this sophisticated magic. The tradition of the magewright is more limited: spells have Lengthy Casting (ritual only), Expensive Components (dragonshards), and Lengthy Preparation (well, in fact, NO ability to swap spells). The common wandslinger requires a focus. Beyond that, the general idea is that cantrips themselves are a relatively recent development in the mystical history of Galifar—which is why wandslingers were first fielded during the Last War. This in turn reflects the idea that the Five Nations are still evolving… while Aerenal, for example, has surely had cantrips for thousands of years, if not tens of thousands.
WHAT ABOUT ADVANCED MAGIC?
The previous section suggests ways that primitive magic could be inferior to magic as presented in the rules. Does that mean that the magic of advanced societies—such as Aerenal, Argonnessen, or the Venomous Demesne—should break the rules in other ways? If a primitive fireball is a 6th level spell, should an advanced one be a 1st level spell? While there is a certain logic to this, it’s not the path we’ve taken in the design. Given that player characters can COME from Aerenal or the Demesne, changing the rules of magic for that culture creates all sorts of issues—either story problems if you need to explain why the player character doesn’t use those superior rules, or balance problems if you allow them to. So what marks an advanced society isn’t that the rules are different; it’s that spellcasters are higher level.
What we’ve established in Khorvaire is that magic of 1st-3rd level is incorporated into everyday life, magic of 4th-5th level is rare but possible, and spells of higher level than that are all but unknown. Meanwhile, the rarity of a magic item is fairly accurate; common items are common, rare items are possible but rare, and legendary items are in fact legendary. By contrast, in Aerenal magic of up to 5th level is part of everyday life, while up to 7th level is known, and Aereni crafters can produce rare and very rare items. In part this applies to wizards and artificers, but the same principle applies to Aereni magewrights and adepts; even if they don’t actually use spell slots, they have access to spells of higher level than mages of the Five Nations. Go to Argonnessen, and great wyrms can cast spells of 9th level—or higher! So the point is that advanced civilizations don’t use different rules, but rather that powerful effects or more widespread. A player character from Aerenal CAN master the magic of their homeland by simply gaining enough experience; it’s simply that there are more NPCs that wield similar power there.
With that said, it’s certainly the case that advanced magical civilizations may have access to tools or rituals that don’t adhere to the rules—eldritch machines, or rituals such as the Du’rashka Tul or the spells the giants used to destroy the 13th moon. Like magewrights, these are things that exist outside the standard rules for player characters. The moon-breaking ritual of the giants wasn’t something that was cast by a single giant and it wasn’t a standard spell; it was something channeled through an eldritch machine and that required multiple mages—and quite possible a planar conjunction—to work. The magic wielded by player characters is reliable and convenient; the point of the eldritch machine is that magic doesn’t always follow those rules.
In the vast swath of time since the Age of Demons, many civilizations have harnessed arcane power. Delving deeply into these civilizations is beyond the scope of article, but it’s useful to explore a few of them at a high level, to have some concept of what’s gone before and what wonders player characters might discover in their adventures. Most of these civilizations are (or were) more advanced that the Five Nations in at least some ways; this is why their relics are valuable, and not simply something you could buy from Cannith. But there’s a number of important things to keep in mind. First of all, many of these civilizations existed for thousands—in some cases tens of thousands—of years. It’s not that these civilizations were in some way innately superior to humanity, capable of grasping secrets the Five Nations could never unravel on their own; it’s that they had time to unravel those secrets. This ties to the second point. It’s a common mistake to think that many of the great arcane innovations of the last millennium—for example, elemental binding and the warforged—were simply stolen from past civilizations. In both cases, these developments were inspired by discoveries made in Xen’drik, but the simple fact is that most advanced magic items can’t easily be duplicated by less advanced civilizations. You can’t just take the wand of Orcus apart and figure out how it works. An artificer can look at a Sulatar firesled and tell that it’s using a bound elemental. But how is it bound? What’s maintaining the wards? How was it constructed? Is it using unfamiliar materials—materials harnessed from a manifest zone, harvested from a creature never seen in Khorvaire, or created through transmutation? Was it created using an eldritch machine, in which case we’d need access to that machine to fully understand it? Did it use dragonshards refined with an unknown technique, or altered in some way (like the dusk shards of Q’barra)?
The point here is that it’s generally possible to identify the function of an alien magic item and to find a way to attune to it or use it, but that doesn’t mean it’s possible to duplicate it. It could be a wizard’s life work just to duplicate the material used on a firesled… which would be a crucial insight into the overall arcane science of the Sulat League. As is, the point is that the Zil binders were inspired by their discoveries of Sulat artifacts, but they developed their own, unique tradition of elemental binding based on that inspiration. Notably, the Sulatar drow do not have airships, and the Zil don’t currently have small vessels like firesleds. The same thing is true of House Cannith and the warforged. The discovery of the quorforged inspired Merrix and Aaren’s work, but quorforged weren’t sentient and weren’t created using the Mark of Making. If a team discovered an ancient Sulat FACTORY and were able to hold it for an extended period of time, they might be able to unlock its secrets and employ those techniques. But generally ancient relics are a source of inspiration as opposed to being the key to transforming society. Which means that if your fighter gets a vorpal blade from the ruins below Stormreach, it’s not irresponsible of you to hold onto it instead of handing it over to Cannith; they’d be impressed by its enchantments, but they couldn’t just turn around and start mass-producing them tomorrow. Having said all that, there ARE sages in Arcanix, Morgrave, and Korranberg who are studying all of these ancient cultures and working to unlock their secrets; but it’s not a trivial challenge.
The following list doesn’t cover all of the advanced arcane societies of Eberron, because there are a tremendous number of them. This doesn’t deal with the dragonborn empire that once spread out from Q’barra, the Umbragen drow below Khyber, or the countless civilizations that have risen in Xen’drik and been consumed by the Du’rashka Tul. But it covers a number of arcane civilizations, some long fallen, others still thriving. Likewise, this is a brief overview; it’s up to the DM to expand and add details to if one of these civilizations plays a major role in a campaign.
The Lords of Dust
The overlords of the Age of Demons possessed immense mystical power. They didn’t need SCIENCE to reshape reality; they simply did it intuitively with their own raw power. The same is largely true of their lesser minions. While rakshasa and other fiends often possess supernatural powers, these generally aren’t arcane; they are simply harnessing their own personal power. They’re more like sorcerers than wizards; they don’t need to understand their powers to use them. So it’s a fact that the overlord Katashka created the first (draco)liches through his own transcendent power, but he couldn’t teach mortals how to make liches on their own; they had to discover that over time.
A key element to this is that relics and artifacts of the Age of Demons are immensely powerful but largely can’t be replicated today. This is the origin of the name the Lords of Dust; because the rakshasa themselves dwell in the ruins of their masters’ citadels, and couldn’t repair them even if they wished, because it was the near-divine powers of the overlords that raised them. So magic items tied to the Age of Demons can be extremely powerful—artifacts, legendary, very rare—but there’s little to be gained by studying them, because they weren’t created using scientific principles and can’t be replicated without the power of an unbound overlord. Relics of the Age of Demons are usually tied specifically to the sphere of the overlord they are associated with; Rak Tulkhesh created many horrifying weapons of war, but didn’t create healing potions or things that soothed pain. This is a reason that most spellcasting agents of the overlords are warlocks rather than wizards; they may be granted direct power in exchange for their devotion, but they don’t learn scientific principles.
There are, of course, exceptions, and the most notable of these is Sul Khatesh. Known as the Keeper of Secrets and the Queen of Shadows, Sul Khatesh embodies dangerous secrets and the threat of magic. Sul Khatesh can teach magical secrets to her servants, provided that such secrets are dangerous. It’s worth noting that Sul Khatesh is bound and effectively dreaming. Her Court of Shadows is spread across Khorvaire, but she doesn’t always use it in ways that would seem to maximize its value to her; her actions are essentially reflexive, driven by her own subconscious, a dream that she may forget within an immortal moment. So when Sul Khatesh offers to teach a spell to a wizard in Aundair, you can be sure that the knowledge is dangerous… but that doesn’t mean that the offer is somehow tied to the schemes of the Court of Shadows in Karrnath. Beyond Sul Khatesh herself, her minions possess far greater arcane knowledge than most of the Lords of Dust. The rakshasa Hektula—who calls herself “The First Scribe”, though her enemies called her “The Bloody Scribe” due to her penchant for using the blood of dragons to write her spells—is the keeper of the Library of Ashtakala, and may be the greatest expert on arcane knowledge in existence. It is Hektula and her servants who create new magic items for the Lords of Dust… though largely, Hektula is absorbed with her endless work cataloguing and maintaining the library. Hektula could be an interesting patron for a wizard or artificer; for all her knowledge, Hektula doesn’t possess the mortal ability to innovate, and it could be that she sees a mortal’s potential to develop something entirely new.
The Dragons of Argonnessen
The dragons have been working with magic for a hundred thousand years. They have forgotten secrets lesser civilizations have yet to learn, and they can perform rituals that can devastate continents. In considering draconic magic, there’s a few important things to keep in mind.
Now, the dragons CAN teach magic to lesser creatures, as shown by Vvaraak teaching the Gatekeepers and the dragons sharing knowledge with the giants of Xen’drik. But the point is that in doing this they aren’t teaching the same techniques THEY use, because a giant doesn’t have the innate power of a dragon. Rather, it’s that over the course of eons, the loredrakes of Argonnessen have studying arcane science (and primal magic, as shown by Vvaraak) in depth. Unlike the elves of Aerenal, the dragons aren’t stagnant; they ARE always interested in learning more about how the world works. However, after the disastrous experience with the giants, they have sworn never to share their knowledge with lesser creatures.
The upshot of this is that the dragons of Argonnessen are the most advanced civilization on Eberron and possess immense arcane knowledge. However, they don’t share this knowledge with lesser creatures and they rarely interact with the world beyond Argonnessen. Beyond this, even for dragons, a hundred thousand years is a long time. The dragons could have forgotten or forbidden various magical techniques; adventurers could find the lair of a rogue dragon, now long dead, who’d been working on something forbidden by the Conclave. Likewise, just because the dragons are so advanced and have been studying magic for so long doesn’t prevent a player character from stumbling on something that somehow, no dragon has ever learned. The question is whether the Chamber would take an interest in such a development, or if they would choose not to meddle with humanoid civilization.
The Giants of Xen’drik
Long ago, the dragons of Argonnessen taught the first secrets of magic to the young giants of Xen’drik. Today, this is known as kurash Ourelonastrix (“Aureon’s Folly”), and has resulted in the Conclave of Argonnessen forbidding dragons from sharing knowledge with lesser creatures. But a key point here is that the dragons couldn’t share their full secrets; as noted above, draconic magic draws on the inner power of the dragon. Instead, they taught the giants the basic principles of arcane magic—the fundamental building blocks of artifice and wizardry—and what followed was the result of tens of thousands of years of giant innovation. With that said, the early giants weren’t giants as we know them today. They were highly intelligent, powerful beings—closest to the modern cloud and storm giants, though even more intelligent and advanced. It’s known that their greatest leaders with something even greater—titans, or in 5E terms, empyreans. What’s unclear is whether these empyreans were always empyreans—if they were immortals infused with this power in the first age of the world—or if they were born mortal and somehow attained empyrean power. The latter theory is implied by a number of sources, but as of yet no one has recovered any information about how a giant could become an empyrean—and whether modern giants, or even other humanoids, could make use of these techniques.
The giants were never a single monolithic culture. Beyond that, over the course of tens of thousands of years, many cultures rose and fell within Xen’drik. Three cultures have been called out in canon sources, but keep in mind that this isn’t supposed to be a comprehensive list. These are examples of giant cultures, and perhaps the greatest of them. But it’s possible that there were others before them—and certain that there were others that rose after their fall, only to be destroyed by the Du’rashka Tul.
One notable point is that none of these cultures employed necromancy. it could be that they dabbled with it and chose to turn away from it, or it might be that they simply never mastered this field of arcane science. It’s known that the Cul’sir Dominion feared and despised the Qabalrin elves (described later in this article) and that the Qabalrin practice of necromancy was part of this.
In general, the relics of the giants are a powerful draw for explorers and sages. Unlike the tools of the fiends and dragons, the giants relied on scientific principles (albeit arcane science) and as such there’s more that can be learned from their tools and their spells than those of the elder civilizations. However, as noted earlier, this doesn’t mean that it’s a simple matter to simply duplicate a Cul’sir technique or tool; there’s still a vast amount that modern sages have yet to unravel, and there’s a common belief that they may have used some form of dragonshard—either artificially created, or something naturally occurring that has been lost in the intervening millennia—that has yet to be identified. Nonetheless, the ruins of the giants can provide inspiration for modern artificers and wizards… and their artifacts and relics are more plentiful than those of the Age of Demons.
Ancient Sarlona
If you support my Patreon, this article goes into detail about the ancient nations of Sarlona. For the most part, these nations used techniques that are considered primitive today, but they had their own strengths. Here’s a quick overview.
The Qabalrin
The very existence of the Qabalrin is something hotly contested by modern scholars. Many suggest that the very idea of the Qabalrin—an isolated city-state of elves wielding such vast arcane power that they were feared by the Cul’sir Dominion—is a ludicrous myth, at odds with the proven existence of elf slaves and wild tribes. And if these mighty elves existed, why didn’t they leave a greater mark on the world? Others point to elements of this civilization that have persisted in Aerenal—the calendar known as the “Qabalrin Wheel”, certain techniques used by the line of Vol. The primary source on the Qabalrin is the Ouralon Fragments, a set of damaged Cul’sir spellshards. The Fragments include the following details…
Part of the point of the Qabalrin is that they are essentially unknown—so it’s up to the DM to decide the absolute truth of the legends. Were they an independent civilization that evolved over the course of tens of thousands of years, which would disprove the idea that the elves were created after the Cul’sir Dominion sacked Shae Tirias Tolai? Or might the heart of their great city have been another stranded feyspire, perhaps one that chose to anchor itself to the material plane?
The concrete facts are that the Qabalrin were an isolated nation of elves located in the region of Stormreach now known as the Ring of Storms. They are said to have bargained with the Shadow (which could have been an overlord like Sul Khatesh), and the Qabalrin faction known as the Unspoken had extensive dealings with both native fiends and the denizens of the planes. A second faction, the Shapers of Night, worked with the powers of Mabar to unlock the secrets of necromancy, creating the first vampires. These two factions were rivals; the Unspoken considered the first vampires to be an unforgivable corruption of the elven spirit. Long feuds finally ending in open conflict. The Unspoken sealed the vampire lords of the Shapers of Night in prison tombs… but as they celebrated their victory, the sky began to fall. An early rain of Siberys shards devastated the city, culminating with a massive shard that devastated the region and utterly destroyed the Qabalrin. Before the end, the Unspoken performed an epic ritual that drew the spirits of the Qabalrin from their bodies, binding them together in a well of power not unlike the Silver Flame (on a far smaller scale). This power is the Umbra, the force harnessed by the Umbragen drow.
The upshot of this is that the Qabalrin were almost entirely destroyed, and that the greatest minds among them were either imprisoned in the depths or drawn into the Umbra—so those few who did survive the devastation and fled their home weren’t masters of their society’s great powers. So while it is the case that the Line of Vol had Qabalrin roots, those “roots” were tied to a handful of refugees who had likely been children or servants; the techniques they passed down were the simplest and most basic techniques. With that being said, the first vampires of the Qabalrin are still buried in the Ring of Storms, and one possibility—suggested in some canon sources—is that one or more of these ancient vampires could have been released, and could be influencing or assisting Lady Illmarrow, House Thuranni, or some other force.
In terms of magic, the Shapers of Night were the greatest mortal necromancers ever known. Beyond the initial guidance they received from “the Shadow,” they harnessed the power of Mabar in ways that no-one has managed since, and forged alliances with the dark power known as the Bone King. They crafted eldritch machines, spires that drew the power of Mabar directly into Eberron, draining the life from vast swaths of the Ring of Storms and sacrificing thousands of their own people in their question to master undeath. It is these acts that turned their own against them, and that ultimately resulted in their defeat at the hands of the Unspoken. It’s worth noting that they are primarily celebrated for creating the first VAMPIRES; it’s entirely possible that liches were a later innovation that the line of Vol developed tens of thousands of years later (though it’s also worth noting that the overlord Katashka created the first dracoliches during the Age of Demons)… and possible that the first oathbound (mummies) were actually the product of, say, Ohr Kaluun, meaning that the modern Blood of Vol reflects a blend of many traditions. Likewise, the Qabalrin created the FIRST vampires, but that doesn’t mean that all vampires are tied to the Qabalrin; they were simply the first to do it, but different strains of vampire were created at later times across the world, each with their own particular traits. Nonetheless, the Shapers of Night could be the source of epic necromantic rituals and artifacts, along with magic items that drain life, channel the power of Mabar, or command undead.
The Unspoken were peerless conjurers and abjurers, known for their bargains with fiends and powerful spirits. Their numbers may have included warlocks as well as wizards, but largely they bargained with dark forces as equals as opposed to pledging their services. Their artifacts and relics could be tied to summoning or binding spirits, such as the iron flask, or tied to planar travel, such as dream of the blue veil. Adventurers could encounter spirits bound by the Unspoken, or mighty beings who dealt with them in the distant past. A Qabalrin journal might include secrets about one of the Lords of Dust that could be invaluable to those fighting them. beyond this, the Unspoken still linger in the force known as the Umbra—though this is a gestalt entity, and it’s questionable if the spirits within it still possess any sense of individual identity.
Other Civilizations
Aerenal, the dwarf nation of Sol Udar, the Eternal Dominion of the Sahuagin, and the Empire of Dhakaan are all described in more detail in Exploring Eberron. The next article will explore a number of “primitive” techniques that rose in Khorvaire and are still practiced in places. There are far more—the Umbragen drow, for example—but this is all I have time to cover in this article.
Now that we’ve explored the nature of magic and the advantages of the modern style, the next article will look at the specific evolution of arcane science in Khorvaire, including the role of the Dragonmarked Houses, the Arcane Congress, and traditions that were abandoned over the passage of time. Thanks as always to my Patreon supporters, who are the only reason I can afford to spend time writing these articles! In addition, starting in January I’ll be running the first session of my Threshold campaign for Patreon supporters, so if that’s something that’s interesting, check it out!
It’s the last hours of 2020 as I post this, and I do just want to thank all of you for making this a wonderful year for Eberron. It brings me joy to see people building their own adventures within the world, and the ongoing support for Exploring Eberron and for my Patreon—which allows me to spend time on this website—means the world to me. So thanks to you all, and I hope 2021 will bring even more adventures (and, I hope, happier times) for all of us.
Arcane magic is a form of science. There are predictable rules that shape reality, and with proper study and force of will, anyone could potentially perform arcane magic. This is what makes arcane magic the foundation of civilization in the Five Nations: it can be taught, and once learned, it is entirely reliable. Arcane magic involves channeling ambient magical energy—the powers of the planes, the emanations of the Ring of Siberys—and focusing it to alter reality. The components of a spell—like verbal incantations, somatic gestures, and focus items—help this process, but the most important element of spellcasting is mental focus. Though a fighter could perfectly duplicate the words and gestures of a wizard, nothing would happen. You must cast the spell in your mind, harnessing and shaping mystical energy, and this is dangerous and exhausting; this is why most spellcasters are limited in how many spells they can cast each day.
Spellcasting using Intelligence is grounded in knowledge and logic. For these characters, casting a spell is like solving an equation—harnessing and carefully channeling the precise quantity of mystical energy required to produce the effect you’re looking for. A wizard may use words of power and mystic gestures to generate power, while an artificer instead relies on tools. But either way, you fundamentally know what you’re doing, which is why both artificers and wizards can prepare new spells each day. Arcane magic is a science, and you’re a scientist.
Exploring Eberron
The idea that arcane magic is a form of science is a fundamental principle of the Eberron campaign setting. It’s something you see in the everyday magic of Khorvaire in 998 YK. We have airships. There are warforged and sending stones. The streets are lit with continual flame. What’s missing is a clear sense of how we got to this point. Imagine that your group of adventurers travels back in time a thousand years and gets caught up in Galifar’s War of Unification. What sort of magic are people using back then? How has magic CHANGED over the course of a thousand years? We’ve called out a few key developments—the first airships went into service in 990 YK, while the first true warforged were developed thirty years ago. What were other key developments? The streets of Galifar are lit with continual flame… But WHEN did that innovation take place, and what were things like before that?
This is an academic discussion, which is why it hasn’t been covered in detail before. What matters most in 998 YK is how things work in 998 YK. If I’m running a modern-day spy thriller I don’t actually NEED to know the history of electric lighting; I just need to know that there is electric lighting. You might decide to do that time travel adventure, but time travel isn’t an integral part of the campaign, and as a general rule we don’t need to know how magic worked a thousand years ago. But it’s still interesting to consider. Beyond that, understanding how magic has evolved helps us to understand how magic can evolve—what we can expect to see in the future. Beyond this, having a clear sense of the state of magic in Khorvaire helps to understand how magic items and spells fit into the game. The rules tell us, for example, that a broom of flying is an ‘uncommon’ item with a flight speed of 50 feet. But they don’t tell us who—if anyone—makes them in Khorvaire or if they need to look like brooms. Even ‘uncommon’ is primarily a description of how powerful the item is and how expensive it should be, if it can even be purchased; it’s up to us to decide if it’s actually uncommon or if it even exists in the world. People often ask me how to add creatures to the world—Where do tabaxi fit into Eberron? How would you add Illumians?—the exact same principle applies to magic items and spells. The fact that we we have rules for something simply means that we COULD use it in the world; it doesn’t mean that it has to be here.
This is a big topic and it’s going to take three articles to cover it. This article is the most abstract, examining the theory of arcane magic within the world. Later in the month, I’ll write about arcane industry—both the role of magic in general industry, and the industry of magic and magic items. The final article will look at the history of magic in Khorvaire, considering how we got to where we are today and where we could go from here. As always, these articles are kanon—what I’m doing do at MY table, regardless of what’s said or not said in an official book. It’s entirely possible something I say here will contradict some aspect of Magic of Eberron, or something you’ve established in your own campaign, and that’s fine in both cases. Eberron lore is intended to be a source of inspiration, not something that limits you; use what’s inspiring, change what gets in the way.
Arcane magic involves the manipulation of vast, ambient mystical energies that permeate Eberron. These forces are largely omnipresent and invisible, not unlike gravity; they’re fundamental elements of the world, and in the course of time most cultures find some way to harness and manipulate them. Like most forms of science, there are different theories about how this science works, and specifically what force is being manipulated.
SIBERYAN THEORY
Siberyan theory is the dominant arcane tradition of the Five Nations. This asserts that arcane magic taps energies that flow from the Ring of Siberys. This power—sometimes called the blood of Siberys—is the same fundamental force the Progenitors used to shape reality; arcane magic essentially reshapes reality to produce the desired result. Certainly, the blood of Siberys can be used to create a fireball; once upon a time, that same power was used to create THE SUN.
Siberyan magic is in some ways the most scientific approach to magic, and can in a sense be seen as analogous to programming; the wizard is rewriting the code that defines reality. Its invocations are words of power that activate specific energies—fire, vast, distance—while its gestures shape and focus those energies. But ultimately, the forces flow through the spellcaster and it is a mental exertion—both intense calculations and an exertion of will—that generates the change. This explains the various limitations of a wizard, both spell slots and spell level. A wizard can look at a spellbook and understand the theory behind a higher level spell. They can gather the right materials, make the appropriate gestures, say the right words. But if they don’t have enough experience and talent, they can’t perform the mental work required; they understand the concept but they can’t do the work required to produce the result. Meanwhile, spell slots reflect the mental and physical toll of spellcasting. While there is no other effect—spellcasters don’t gain levels of exhaustion from casting spells—the idea is that channeling arcane power takes a toll, and their comes a point where you just don’t have it in you to grasp and shape that power. If your spellcaster is completely out of spell slots, you don’t suffer any penalties, but it still means that you are spent, and that’s something you could choose to work into your roleplaying.
Siberyan theory is the most widespread form of magic, used across the Five Nations and in Aerenal. However, it’s a broad field of magic and there are different techniques within it. The wizards of Aerenal and those of Arcanix both use verbal components that invoke the same, fundamental words of power. However, the Aereni techniques are highly formalized and precise—it’s a highly effective technique, but it takes decades to master. Since most humans don’t have decades, Arcanix helps students develop idiosyncratic techniques—to figure out what resonates with them. This works, but the Aereni find it disturbingly sloppy and haphazard.
The commonly accepted theory is that arcane energy—”the blood of Siberys”—was part of the Progenitors. According to the primal myths, the Ring of Siberys IS Siberys; this energy is simply the residual primordial power of a cosmic entity. This is supported by the fact that siberys dragonshards are highly effective at focusing arcane energies. Many spellcasting focuses use siberys shards in some way; the crystal is obvious, but a staff may have an embedded dragonshard sliver that helps focus power. However, there is an academic faction that asserts that there is no reason to believe that the Progenitors were cosmic dragons or even immortal. These sages believe that the Ring of Siberys might have predated the Progenitors, and that they could have been a trio of mortal wizards of exceptional skill—wizards who used the same basic principles a modern wizard uses to create a fireball to shape a sun. Those who follow this path generally assert that the Sovereigns were either remarkable mortals or that they were simply immortal entities—like the celestials and fiends—created by the mortal Progenitors as part of their vast work. These scholars believe that this shows the limitless potential of arcane magic—that wizards who unlock its greatest secrets could create new worlds or even shape planes of existence.
Siberyan verbal components are grounded in the Draconic language, though there is more to a verbal component than simply speaking in Draconic; ultimately it is about the invocation of words of power that aren’t used in everyday speech. A wizard doesn’t have to understand Draconic to perform magic, but it helps provided deeper insight into the workings of a particular spell.
EXTERNALISTS
The energy of the planes permeates Eberron, and Externalist wizards shape their spells by drawing on this power. Where a Siberyan harnesses ambient energy and shapes that into fire, an Externalist draws primal fire directly from Fernia. The elements of this magic—the components—are similar to those used in Siberyan magic. Words of power summon specific energies and eldritch gestures help to shape those forces, and ultimately it is the mind of the wizard that weaves these elements together and channels the power. But the Externalist asserts that the most effective source of power isn’t the blood of Siberys; it is the energy of the planes.
Primitive Externalist techniques require a direct connection to the planes. Such magic can only be performed in or near a manifest zone or during a coterminous period. This is an important factor in the overall dominance of Siberyan magic; the people of Sarlona discovering that their spells no longer worked in new lands, and developing new approaches. However, the energies of the planes do permeate the world, albeit to a lesser degree… and more important, creatures are themselves tied to the planes. This is most clearly demonstrated when a mortal creature dreams—passing along its innate connection to Dal Quor—but can also be seen in the conscripts of Shavarath and the shadows of Mabar, echoes of mortals in the planes. So sophisticated Externalist wizards don’t require access to manifest zones or gain additional benefits from them (aside from whatever benefit the zone provides to all spellcasters); it’s primarily an academic point that the energy is flowing from an extraplanar source.
Externalist verbal components draw on elements of planar languages; depending on the power being shaped, it could use root syllables from Primordial, Celestial, Abyssal, or even Quori. As with Siberyan theory and Draconic, the spellcaster doesn’t have to understand these languages.
SYMPATHETIC MAGIC
This arcane theory maintains that an effect produced can be magnified; to create a fireball, burn a ball of flammable guano. A secondary aspect is the idea things that have once been in contact maintain a connection—a leaf is still connected to a tree, a lock of hair is still connected to the creature it came from—and magic can flow along this connection. Sympathetic magic still relies on words of power for its verbal components, but its material and somatic components are often quite different from the preceding techniques; rather than tracing sigils in the air, a sympathist wizard might light a match to produce a fire bolt, or plunge a needle into a wax figure to cast crown of madness.
Sympathetic magic isn’t taught at Arcanix. It’s generally seen as a primitive form of Siberyan magic—that the wizard is channeling the Siberyan energy, but using the sympathetic focus as an alternative to the more complex Siberyan techniques. This is effective, but not as versatile; it relies on the ability to create a sympathetic construct of the desired result. As a result, sympathetic magic is often found used by self-taught “hedge mages” or clans or tribes that have stumbled onto these techniques in isolation. Again, they are effective, but practitioners may be limited in their range of spells or ability to incorporate new ideas.
A second form of sympathetic magic is tied to the magical thinking approach to artifice mentioned in Exploring Eberron. Rather than being a different approach to Siberyan magic, magical thinking is actually a form of Externalist magic that draws on the power of Thelanis to temporarily enforce fey logic on reality. The main thing is that this is more often associated with warlocks and sorcerers than with wizards. As a warlock or sorcerer, a character knows a specific trick that always works. A wizard has the ability to change out their spells and to learn from other wizards. Does that seem plausible with this character? Or would they be better represented as a warlock?
Verbal components in sympathetic magic vary based on the powers being wielded. A fundamentally Siberyan approach may use Draconic syllables, even if the caster has just stumbled upon the sounds that produce effective results. Magical thinking could use Sylvan phrases. On the other hand, sympathetic magic can also involve a chant or a poem describing the desired outcome; essentially, it’s a longer and less efficient process that combining three syllables of power, but it’s something someone can stumble onto even when they don’t know those syllables of power.
DOMINION THEORY
Dominion theory walks the line between arcane and divine magic. It has some broad overlap with Siberyan magic, using word and gesture to channel ambient arcane power. However, it asserts that all magic flows directly from the Sovereigns. It is still approached in a scientific manner; the difference between the Vassal cleric and the Dominion wizard is that the cleric asks the Sovereigns to grant a miracle, while the wizard employs formulas that let them draw on the fires of Onatar’s forge or Aureon’s law. The Dominion wizard doesn’t need faith in the same way that a cleric does, which is why their spells are cast using Intelligence instead of Wisdom. But if they see arcane magic as manipulating the pieces of a great machine, they believe that the Sovereigns ARE that machine, and their verbal components generally invoke one or more of the Sovereigns by name. So they don’t REQUIRE faith—but they still have it.
Dominion theorists can be found in the Five Nations, even in Arcanix. However, this theory is usually dismissed as superstition by both Siberyan mages, who say that Dominion spellcasters are simply drawing on Siberyan power and adding unnecessary ritual. While the Sovereign Host is the dominant faith of the Five Nations, the standard vassal tradition incorporates the myth of the Progenitors. Siberyan vassals believe that Aureon (or the Shadow) guides those who use magic, but that Aureon isn’t actually the SOURCE of magic… That Aureon can show the wizard how to create fire with a spell, but that the fire isn’t drawn directly from Onatar’s forge. So many wizards are also faithful vassals; Dominion theory is an unusual extreme.
OTHER TRADITIONS
Siberyan theory is the dominant tradition of the Five Nations. Externalism has significant support and is a respected tradition. Sympathetic and Dominion techniques are fringe techniques, more often found in isolation. But there are many other theories. Here’s just a few…
Most “respectable” arcane scholars focus on the ultimate source of power—as such, sympathetic magic is generally seen as a Siberyan technique, while magical thinking is Externalist.
WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?
All of this may sound interesting, but what does it actually mean? What difference does it make whether YOUR wizard is a Siberyan or an Externalist? At the end of the day, not much. These aren’t class archetypes; you can be an evoker or an illusionist regardless of whether you’re relying on Dominion Theory or Siberyan. More important, under the core, basic rules your Siberyan wizard can copy a spell from the spellbook of a Dominion wizard; you’re able to adapt the principles of their spell to your preferred style of magic.
However, there’s a number of important things to consider here. The first is that it’s always been a basic, core principle of Eberron that player characters are remarkable and that most NPCs don’t have the abilities of player characters. Most arcane spellcasters aren’t wizards; they are variations of magewright. I’ll talk more about this below, but the key principle of this is that just because your player character can copy a spell from an NPC’s spellbook doesn’t mean that an NPC can. Most magewrights don’t even USE spellbooks; they spend years learning to cast a single ritual. The idea that a PC wizard can just grab someone’s spellbook and say “Mmhhm, mhhm, I see what you’re doing there, yes, I can do that” is supposed to reflect an exceptional aptitude for arcane science. So with that in mind…
So the main point is that “Siberyan” and “Externalist” aren’t concepts that have a concrete mechanical effect. They’re things that can add flavor to a story—whether a wizard calls out the Draconic name of fire and trace a sigil in the air when they cast fire bolt, or whether they strike a match and command their victim to burn! You don’t HAVE to do anything with any of this; it all means exactly as much—or as little—as you want it to.
The idea of “Arcane Science” primarily applies to wizards and artificers: Intelligence-based spellcasters whose flexibility reflects their ability to apply scientific principles in new ways. Sorcerers and warlocks may manipulate the same forms of energy, but at the end of the the day they don’t truly understand what they’re doing and are limited in the effects they can produce. A sorcerer has an innate aptitude for specific effects, while a warlock is either taught specific spells or granted supernatural powers by their patron; but two warlocks can’t trade spellbooks and learn each other’s spells. Given that, let’s take a look at the different characters who do use these scientific techniques.
WIZARDS
Whatever your preferred source, the fact of the matter is that there is an invisible, fundamental force that suffuses Eberron—a power that can be harnessed to reshape reality. A sailor harnesses the wind and water. A smith works with earth and fire. As a wizard you channel the fifth element, bending reality to your will.
The basic point of Eberron is that the people of Khorvaire know this power exists and have harnessed it to help in their everyday lives. But most people can’t master more than a few spells. It takes years for a magewright to learn the spells that define their trade; the arcane locksmith can’t just spend an evening reading a book and wake up as a lamplighter. At the end of the day, this is because the magewright has only learned how to cast their few spells; they don’t truly understand the deep principles beneath them. It is this deeper understanding combined with remarkable talent that gives a wizard their full flexibility. A magewright has learned to play a few songs on the piano; a wizard is Mozart or Beethoven, able to envision new symphonies.
With that said, perhaps that’s not how you see your character… and that’s fine. As a wizard you possess talents and flexibility other spellcasters don’t… but that doesn’t mean you fully appreciate your own talent. And let’s face it, at first level you ARE quite limited in your capabilities. It’s remarkable that you CAN copy any spell from a spellbook you find, but at the moment you can only CAST first level spells, and you haven’t found a how lot of spellbooks. So perhaps your evoker operated arcane artillery in the war, or your diviner planned to make a living as an oracle. Here we even hit the limits of the wizard: Magewrights lack flexibility, but they are very good at those few things they do. As a player character, your diviner wizard isn’t quite as good at augury as the magewright oracle; you just can’t seem to push beyond that 30 minute window. So your character could even see themselves as a failure… because you haven’t yet had the experiences that will reveal your amazing potential.
So that’s certainly something to consider in making your wizard. Do you know you’re better than a magewright, or will you be surprised by your limitless potential? Do you believe that you’re a prodigy, or did you expect to be a simple magewright? Do you love exploring the mysteries of arcane science… or is it just that you happen to be remarkably gifted, though you yourself don’t really appreciate how gifted you are? Here’s a few ways to approach a wizard…
ARTIFICERS
Magic is an invisible force that’s all around us. A wizard grasps the power directly, binding it with word and gesture. But it takes deep training even to become a magewright, let alone a wizard… and that’s why we have magic items, tools that can allow anyone to benefit from the power of magic. And a world that relies on magic items needs people to create and repair them—engineers and inventors, the people who develop and maintain the infrastructure that drives modern civilization.
A central difference between an artificer and a wizard is that the artificer uses tools. They use tools both to produce magical effects, and also imbue tools with magical power. The wizard molds magic with word and gesture alone; the artificer creates a wand or potion. Part of the point is that that as a player character, an artificer is capable of jury-rigging temporary versions of the reliable tools we see every day. A wand or a potion is a completed, stable tool. But when an Alchemist artificer uses their alchemist’s tools to cast fire bolt, they may be whipping up an instant, unstable potion. An Artillerist essentially creates a temporary wand, something that only works for them. So in the Artillerist we see the science of the wand at work, and in the alchemist we see the potion. One path of established arcane science that doesn’t yet have an archetype is that of sigilry, the science of scrolls. This is what you see in an artificer who uses calligrapher’s tools as a spellcasting focus; their spells are produced by enscribing mystic symbols, it’s just that it takes more effort to stabilize that power into the final form of a spell scroll.
Page 29 of Exploring Eberron discusses a few traditions of artifice, and these overlap with the broader arcane theories. Cannith Traditional is essentially Siberyan theory: a set of established principles, creating items that draw on the ambient energy of the Ring of Siberys. Planar Influences relates to the Externalist Theory, while Magical Thinking is likely drawing specifically on Xoriat, Thelanis, or perhaps Dal Quor. An Actual Science artificer may be pioneering something entirely new. And this ties to the same point as the wizard: as a player character, an artificer is remarkable. NPCs who perform artifice are functionally magewrights: they may be able to create a specific type of potion or maintain cleansing stones. The Cannith tinker can perform magecraft and mending. But as an artificer you’re not just a a magical electrician: you’re Tesla, or Tony Stark. You are brilliant and unorthodox, and the methods you use—whether you’re creating a temporary infusion or a permanent item, whether or not you recognize your full talent and potential—are a product of your own unique genius. I’ll talk more about this in the discussion of Arcane Industry, but the crucial point is that just because your artificer can do something doesn’t mean that normal people can do it, or that your techniques could be translated to mass production. You’re the genius in your garage, making a working palantir out of coconuts and lint; it MIGHT be possible to translate that idea into a viable product, but it’s not a trivial thing.
Exploring Eberron examines different possible paths for artificer characters, so you can find more ideas there.
MAGES, MAGEWRIGHTS, AND ARTIFICERS
What we’ve said from the start is that most spellcasters aren’t wizards and clerics—they’re magewrights and adepts. The idea of arcane science is that it IS A SCIENCE. It’s a rational, reliable tool, which means that anyone has the potential to master it with sufficient time and training. But that doesn’t mean that anyone can become a wizard or an artificer. Anyone can learn to play the piano, but not everyone can be Mozart. Magewrights devote themselves to mastering specific spells. This devotion pays off in various ways. Magewrights don’t need spellbooks. They cast spells as rituals, even spells that don’t normally have the ritual tag; the drawback is that aside from cantrips, they can ONLY cast spells as rituals. And, as noted, they may be able to cast enhanced versions of spells, such as the augury that can predict events farther in advance. The player character wizards is a brilliant jack of all trades; the magewright is a master of a very specific set of skills.
The NPC wandslinger falls into a similar mold. A typical wandslinger essentially has the benefits of the Magic Initiate feat: they know a few cantrips—usually combat-oriented—and may be able to cast one or two low-level spells on top of that, surprising an opponent with burning hands or a shield. Generally, an NPC wandslinger needs an arcane focus to cast spells or cantrips; again, they are more limited than PCs. This training and techniques have become more common in the wake of the Last War, but they are still more limited than player characters.
But what about NPCs who ARE better than wandslingers or magewrights? What’s the point of a wizard being able to copy new spells from a spellbook if NPCs don’t use spellbooks? First of all, just because MOST NPCs don’t have the power of a player character doesn’t mean that NONE do. The Monster Manual and Volo’s Guide has stat blocks for NPCs with full caster abilities. The point is simply that anyone who has the full abilities of a PC is a remarkable individual. Such people make worthy rivals and foes for PCs; the point is just to recognize that they, too, are remarkable, not common.
And finally there is room for that middle ground: People who have powers far beyond the typical magewright, but who don’t have the full capabilities of a PC class. A professor at Arcanix may have the ability to cast cloudkill. Another may be able to cast summon fiend—but only as a ritual, and with a far greater component cost. Even looking to the NPC caster blocks, you might say that there’s an NPC evoker, and that they do prepare spells from a spellbook—but that, like the Sulatar I mentioned before, they can’t prepare spells that deal with cold or lightning. They have many of the abilities of a PC, but they are still fundamentally limited; they don’t have the flexibility or broad genius of a player character. In my campaign, I call such characters mages. They can have significant POWER, and may actually be able to do things PCs can’t—but they still don’t have the full flexibility of a wizard or artificer.
Why is Siberyan Theory the dominant theory? Wouldn’t Aerenal or Karrnath rely on Externalist magic because of their use of Irian or Mabaran manifest zones?
There’s a few things to consider here. The first is that many arcane traditions evolve in isolation. Externalist magic is easier than Siberyan magic if you’re drawing on one specific form of magic. So for example, there were SURELY Externalist necromancers in pre-Galifar Karrnath, because all that Mabaran power is right their waiting to be used. The problem is that you can’t use that Mabaran energy to light a fire or to generate light at all… And further, if you’ve based your system of magic off easy access to that manifest zone, when you go somewhere else you suddenly don’t have that power and your magic doesn’t work. Siberyan energy is universal—it pervades Eberron—and can be used to produce any sort of effect, whether it’s animating the dead, creating a fireball, or generating light. So essentially, it is more reliable and versatile, and thus more widespread. Now, what I’ve suggested is that if you want to PLAY an Externalist wizard, you can say that you’re using more advanced Externalist techniques that draw on residual planar energies or on your personal connection to a plane and thus you don’t lose your magic when you’re not by a manifest zone. But the point is that the more basic forms of Externalist magic DO have those limitations, while Siberyan magic doesn’t.
However, there’s a second point: manifest zones don’t care what kind of magic you’re using. As called out in Exploring Eberron, many manifest zones enhance a particular form of magic. It’s easier to animate the dead in a Mabaran manifest zone, regardless of whether you’re a wizard, a sorcerer, or a cleric. An Externalist draws ALL of their power from the planes; but a Siberyan wizard—or a divine spellcaster, or a warlock—will all still find their abilities enhanced by the energies of the manifest zone. So looking to Aerenal, their overall tradition of magic is Siberyan, but their traditions are also tied to unique rituals that are only possible because of the Irian zones. Their tradition isn’t based on Irian; it just incorporates it. Likewise, modern Karrnathi necromancers rely on Mabaran manifest zones and have created rituals that can only be performed in those zones, but that doesn’t mean that their overall tradition is Externalist; it’s largely Siberyan, with certain rituals that rely on an additional infusion of Mabaran energy.
That’s all for now, and again: this is what I do in my campaign, and if you don’t like it, don’t use it! Arcane Industry and Arcane History will come later in the month. And thank you as always to my Patreon supporters, who chose this topic: articles like this take a lot of time, and I simply couldn’t afford to spend that much time on this without your support. The Wandslinger image above is one of the player characters in my Threshold campaign, which will be starting later this month; thanks against to those of you who have been supporting and participating in that!
It’s been over a month since the release of Exploring Eberron, and I’m working on something new—a shorter project we’re currently calling “Fool’s Gold.” However, as time permits, I like to answer interesting questions from my Patreon supporters; here’s one raised by patrons Joseph and Tiernan.
In your Eberron, do you have photography—or at least, an arcane equivalent?
We’ve often called out that Eberron is closer to the late nineteenth century than it is to the twentieth century. It’s reasonable to imagine a form of arcane photography that works with principles of, say, illusory script to cast an image onto parchment. So I think there is a LIMITED form of arcane photography in the Five Nations, but the key there is LIMITED — closer to the tintype photography of the eighteenth century than to a digital camera (or even a Polaroid). Key points…
Because this is a form of ILLUSION magic, I could imagine the image having brief animation, as with the photographs in the Harry Potter series, but I’d leave that to the DM. The main point is that this is an evolving tool and it is currently limited. In the Thorn of Breland series, Thorn is a spy, and she’d LOVE to have something like a digital camera, but she doesn’t; while I think that camera equivalent exists, it’s too bulky and too slow to be of use to her in her missions. So the Korranberg Chronicle may have pictures of a royal coronation, but it isn’t a trivial, widespread technology; you probably still need to copy the inscriptions you find in the Dhakaani tomb, not just take a photograph. With that said…
You’ve called out before that House Phiarlan uses magic to project plays in other parts of the world. Could it be something akin to this technology?
House Phiarlan doesn’t PROJECT plays to other parts of the world. A Phiarlan crystal theater uses a dragonmark focus item similar to a limited crystal ball to SCRY on the stage, and then that image is projected from that crystal focus to the local screen. So the core “technology” here isn’t a broadcast device, like a television; it’s a limited crystal ball that can only scry on a few preset locations (channels, if you will).
However, House Phiarlan DOES have the image projector, mentioned in Magic of Eberron, that allows them to record a short scene and replay it as an illusion. With this in mind, I think it’s quite reasonable for PHIARLAN (and Thuranni) to have a focus item that allows them to record images, and to transfer that image onto parchment or a similar surface. Personally, I’d see this as something like this:
SHOL EYE
Wondrous item, common (requires the Mark of Shadow)
This is a small stone disk bearing a sliver of siberys dragonshard and engraved with the Mark of Shadow; it can easily be concealed in the palm of one hand. While holding the Shol eye, a creature with the Mark of Shadow can use an action to record an image in the eye. This can be the full vista of what the bearer can currently see, or it can be focused on a specific individual or object within line of sight. A Shol eye can only hold a single image at a time. If a creature with the Mark of Shadow works with the eye for the duration of a short rest, they can transfer the stored image out of the eye and onto a sheet of parchment or similar material.
This is a common item; a more powerful item could store multiple images. This ties to the basic idea that the houses have access to tools that others do not, and it would be a definite edge for Phiarlan spies. However, as with many unique dragonmarked tools, I’d expect other forces to be working to duplicate the effect. The slow and bulky tintype equivalent would be the first step toward this. But I could see, for example, the Trust having a way to record a short audible illusion—a simple, limited voice recorder.
In any case, that’s what I would do: call it out as something that exists but in a limited form, with Phiarlan having access to superior tools and other organizations actively working to improve their capabilities. The main issue about making photography more commonplace is to consider the ways it will impact a campaign. Can adventurers take a picture of an an ancient inscription instead of having to take the time to copy it down? How easy is it for them to record evidence of wrong-doing—or to be caught red-handed themselves? If I was running a campaign in which the adventurers WERE chroniclers, I could definitely imagine giving them a camera equivalent but playing up the challenges of working with its limited capabilities: it takes four rounds to capture the image and it’s not small. CAN they keep the target talking long enough to get the image, and what happens if they spot the camera? As with anything, I’d want to make sure it makes the story more exciting and fun.
Thanks again to my Patreon supporters for making these articles possible. Have you used photography in your Eberron campaigns?
When did dragonshards become important as magical fuel? House Tharashk was discovered in 498 YK. The lightning rail went into operation in 811 YK, but Tharashk only stepped up mining in the Shadow Marches & Q’barra in the past decade? What delayed them so long?
There’s two significant questions here: When did dragonshards become important and why did it take Tharashk so long to start major mining operations in Q’barra?
The spells, items, and services available in 998 YK represent the pinnacle of arcane science. Like any form of science, these things didn’t emerge into the world fully formed. The lightning rail of 811 YK was the result of decades of research and development—and it was quite different than the lightning rail of 998 YK. It originally used volatile Fernian ash as its fuel, and both the binding and the conductor stones had flaws.
Eberron dragonshards are found across Eberron. Xen’drik, the Shadow Marches, and Q’barra are especially rich sources of dragonshards, but there are dragonshard deposits across Khorvaire. Eberron dragonshards are an important element in the creation of magic items and in maintaining ongoing magical effects—such as the lightning rail and elemental airships. Eberron shards can be refined into a powdered form that can be used in place of any spell component with a cost.
So: it’s possible to perform most forms of arcane science without dragonshards; it just takes a range of different substance, which are usually more exotic and specific to the effect being produced. However, this uses refined Eberron dragonshard powder (also known as residuum). Raw dragonshards can be used, but unless they are processed and refined it’s inefficient; you’re significantly better off using the other alternative. Because of this, the process of refining dragonshards to create residuum was a crucial breakthrough that had cascading effects across the magical economy. While creating magic items still requires a range of additional rare elements, the universal nature of refined dragonshards allowed Cannith and others to dramatically increase both the range and scale of production. Using processed dragonshards as an energy source made the lightning rail safer and allowed Orien to operate more carriages. But again, this process of refining was a breakthrough that occured less than two centuries ago, and it’s a process that continued to be explored.
So: Eberron Dragonshards have always been a valuable source of magical energy, but it wasn’t until the last two centuries that they became as valuable and universal as they are today. Eberron dragonshards CAN be found across Khorvaire, and initially, that supply was sufficient to meet demands. But within the last century that demand has steadily grown—which has in turn driven people to find richer pools to draw on.
This brings us to House Tharashk. Why are their operations in Q’barra only a decade old? House Tharashk began as a house of hunters, not prospectors. For centuries its primary focus was on inquisitive work and bounty hunting. Prospecting is a relatively new path that arose both with the increased demand for dragonshards mentioned above and crucially with the creation of the prospector’s rod. As with many houses, the base powers of the dragonmark aren’t as important as the focus items that channel that power. As the speaking stone is to House Sivis, the prospector’s rod is to Tharashk: it is this tool that expands the powers of the mark beyond the simple scope of casting locate object and allows prospecting on an industrial scale.
In my Eberron, it’s a mistake to say that prospecting in the SHADOW MARCHES only began ten years ago. Dragonmarked calls out that House Sivis originally came to the Shadow Marches in search of dragonshards, and that the mineral wealth of the Shadow Marches has always been a secondary source of wealth for the house. That effort may have increased over the past decade as the house as a whole has realized that there’s more wealth and influence to be gained from dragonshards than bounty hunting, but it’s been something that has been scaling up over the course of the past century.
Q’barra, on the other hand, IS a new development. The world’s a big place, and Tharashk hasn’t been able to search all of it. Prior to the Last War, Q’barra was a shunned backwater thought filled with hostile scales. The Dragon articles call out that it was only ten years ago that settlers discovered rich deposits of dragonshards in Q’barra. Tharashk responded quickly to this discovery and has ramped up its efforts ever since. But why didn’t they go there earlier? Because they already had a rich source of dragonshards in the Shadow Marches and were still expanding their operations, and because no one knew there were dragonshards in Q’barra. It’s entirely possible that there are other rich deposits in Khorvaire that have yet to be discovered!
Ultimately, the key takeaway here is that the arcane industry in Eberron is just like industry and science in our world. It evolves and expands. The current state of things in 998 YK reflects the latest developments; drop back to 498 YK or 811 YK and the world will be a much different place.
Thanks as always to my Patreon supporters for keeping this blog going! I’ll be posting a poll to the inner circle soon to determine the subject of the next article.
Hello, world!
I’ve been off the grid for a month: dealing both with a host of mundane challenges and working on Morgrave’s Miscellany, which will be released in November. This has kept me from posting much here. I will be back online next month, but for now I wanted to do a quick lightning round with some questions from my Patreon supporters.
Manifest zones are often portrayed as this Venn diagram overlap between Eberron and another dimension/world, with the overlap recurring cyclically like the orbits of planetary bodies. Assuming that’s an accurate depiction of what you intended them to be… are manifest zones subject to continental drift, ocean levels, etc.?
This isn’t an entirely accurate description; it’s combining two separate ideas.
Manifest Zones are permanent locations: places where the influence of another plane can be felt in Eberron. This isn’t cyclical; it is ongoing and reliable. Sharn is built on a manifest zone that enhances spells tied to levitation and flight, and this supports the great towers and enables skycoaches; if that connection were to fade or be severed, the towers could collapse. Likewise, Dreadhold is built on a manifest zone, and this is tied into its security. Manifest zones are reliable. They are (super)natural resources, like rivers and veins of precious metal; thus many of the great cities and institutions are built to take advantage of them. Generally speaking we haven’t suggested that manifest zones are subject to effects such as tides or rising ocean levels. I think that the location of the manifest zone is static; if the land beneath it drifts or rises or lowers, the zone will remain constant. We’ve presented manifest zones that are small points high in the air or underwater, so they aren’t tied to soil.
Coterminous and remote planes are the result of the constant shifting of planar influence on the world. This is something that occurs cyclically, like the orbit of planetary bodies. When a plane is coterminous, it strongly influences Eberron, causing broad effects not unlike what a manifest zones can produce—but universally across the world. When its remote, the influence of that plane is far weaker.
You could say that while a plane is coterminous, the effects of a manifest zone are increased. So for example: you might say that tieflings may be born when a child is conceived in a manifest zone during a coterminous period. But that;s a double whammy, and critically the effects of a manifest zone continue even while the plane is remote.
The 4e ECG says that some manifest zones are permanent, and others may appear where no one was before.
It’s entirely reasonable to say that a manifest zone can appear unexpectedly or that an existing manifest zone could suddenly fade. My point is simply that this isn’t how manifest zones USUALLY work. The ebb and flow of planar power—remote to coterminous—is a part of the setting, but it is a separate thing from the functioning of manifest zones, and that’s what I wanted to clarify. But there’s nothing wrong with having a new manifest zone appear.
Are there zones that respond to stimulus at a lower level of magic than eldritch machine?
We often say that manifest zones are a requirement for creating eldritch machines or for performing powerful magical rituals. But it’s not that the zone responds to the machine; it’s that the machine harnesses the existing power of the zone. Most manifest zones have perceivable effects at all times, just not as dramatic as the powers of an eldritch machine.
When I have more time, I’d certainly like to give more examples of manifest zones and the sorts of effects they can produce.
Is there any specific listed canon method to shut off a manifest zone?
In canon? No. Manifest zones also aren’t uniform in size, shape, or power, so I doubt that there’s a single method that would apply to all manifest zones; I’d also expect the method using to have to relate to the plane involved.
With that said, the idea that it can be done has certainly been presented. My novel The Son of Khyber involves an attempt to destroy Sharn using a Cannith weapon that would disrupt the manifest zone. Again, this isn’t canon (Eberron novels are suggestion, not concrete fact); and it is a weapon that critically had to be used in a very specific location and required a massive amount of arcane power. So when it has come up, it’s presented as a difficult challenge. But yes, it’s certainly POSSIBLE.
Could a tinkering arcanist build a music box that opens a foot-sized manifest zone?
Sure. Anything is possible if it’s a story you want to involve. But something that CREATES a manifest zone certainly isn’t a trivial effect. It’s not something that people casually do. Again, manifest zones are things that must be found and harnessed; they aren’t created (if they could be easily created, we’d have more cities like Sharn). But if you WANT to say that this particular NPC has made some sort of bizarre breakthrough and created an artifact that produces a tiny manifest zone, why not?
Do the deathless need the manifest zone of Irian to stay “alive,” or just need it for their creation?
Deathless require an ongoing supply of positive energy to sustain their existence. There’s two primary sources of this: manifest zones to Irian, and the devotion of loyal followers. So Shae Mordai is located on a powerful Irian manifest zone, and that means that even if all the living elves were wiped out, the Court could survive. But a deathless who spends an extended amount of time outside manifest zone needs to have a pool of positive energy to draw on, which means devoted followers. The deathless counsellor in Stormreach is sustained by the devotion of the local Aereni community, and if they all left, she’d have to leave too.
This was the fundamental divide between the Line of Vol and the Undying Court. Positively charged undead can’t take the power they need to survive; it has to be freely given. Negatively charged undead consume the lifeforce they need; even if every living elf died, the vampire or lich will continue. So Vol asserts that Mabaran undeath is the only way to ensure the survival of the finest souls; the Undying Court asserts that all Mabaran undead consume the ambient lifeforce of the world, and that creating them is unethical and ultimately a threat to all life.
How do you imagine ID systems in Khorvaire? Who checks them, how are they authenticated?
We’ve generally suggested that Eberron is at a rough level equivalent to late 19th century earth, NOT 20th century. When you get into magical wards you can have more advanced forms of identification. But when it comes to ID papers, it’s NOT supposed to be on par with our modern day systems of databases, biometrics, or anything like that.
House Sivis fills the role of the notary in Eberron. Originally, arcane mark was one of the powers of the Mark of Scribing. The idea is simple: each Sivis heir can produce a unique arcane mark—a sort of mystical signature. A Sivis heir goes through training and testing to become a notary, and their mark is on record in the house. Like a modern notary, a Sivis notary would make a record of all documents they notarize and this would be held by the house. So: ID papers would be notarized by a Sivis scribe, who would review all materials before placing their mark. An arcane mark is difficult (though not impossible) to forge. A border guard is primarily just going to look at your ID papers and say “This appears to be you, and you’ve got a valid Sivis mark.” IF there was some reason to question things, the papers could be confiscated and referred to a Sivis enclave, who could use a speaking stone to check with the primary house records to confirm that ht papers were legitimately notarized. But that’s a very big step. Generally it’s a question of if you have a valid Sivis arcane mark.
Fifth Edition doesn’t have arcane mark, so instead we added in the scribe’s pen as a dragonmark focus item that allows a Sivis heir to inscribe mystical symbols. This would still work the same way: a Sivis heir would have to go through a process to become a notary, their personal mark is recorded, and records are made of every document they notarize.
So getting all the way to the point: 95% of the time, verification will essentially be on a level of what could be done in the 19th century: a cursory check for obvious signs of forgery, confirming that the material in the document is accurate (IE, it says you’re a dwarf but you’re clearly an elf), and that it has a Sivis mark. Forgery is thus entirely possible; the challenge is forging the arcane mark, because that’s a glowing magical symbol and you’d have to have some sort of magical tool to pull it off.
How do mundane craftsmen and martial characters stay relevant in an increasingly magical world like the Five Nations? I feel like the Houses and magewrights crowd out trade and spellcasting ability seems borderline required going forward for spies and fighters alike.
Magewrights don’t crowd out trade; magewrights are the future of trade. It’s essentially saying “Does a washing machine drive people who are washing by hand out of business?” Sure, so that launderer probably wants to invest in a washing machine. I still have a large article half-written that talks about the general concept of what it means to be a magewright. Essentially, as a blacksmith your life is simply easier if you can cast mending and magecraft (which I see as a skill-specific version of guidance). Now, those two cantrips on their own aren’t that much of a job; it’s the combination of those cantrips and mundane skill that make a good blacksmith. So I’m saying that in Eberron, most successful craftsmen will KNOW a cantrip or two.
With that said, you can also say “Why didn’t the microwave drive chefs who use longer cooking techniques out of business?” Prestidigitation allows you to heat food instantly, but you could certainly say that food snobs think that food produced through mundane means is BETTER.
The critical point here is that Eberron in 998 YK is based on the idea that civilization is evolving. The wandslinger is something new, a reflection of improved techniques developed during the Last War and now spreading out to the civilian population. Magic isn’t supposed to be a static force that’s remained unchanging for centuries; we are at a moment in time where people can ask “Can you really be a good spy without knowing magic?”
As I said, I’ll certainly write more about this in the future.
You’ve said that nothing in Eberron is born evil. Does that include aberrations created by the daelkyr, like the dolgrim, dolgaunts, and dolgrue?
My short form is that entirely natural creatures aren’t bound to an alignment; their alignment will be shaped by their culture and experiences. UNnatural creatures can be either forced into a particular alignment (like celestials, fiends, and lycanthropes) or strongly driven in a particular direction (like a vampire, who is driven towards evil by their connection to Mabar)…though you can have good vampires and even fallen celestials.
First of all, I don’t think you can make a single canon ruling on all aberrations. Beyond that, we have given examples of beholders and illithids who are at least neutral in Eberron. I think I see it as the equivalent of the vampire. A dolgrim or illithid is pushed in a particular direction. It’s gone alien brain chemistry. Its mind literally doesn’t work the way the human or dwarf brain does. However, I think that MANY aberrations have the ability to ultimately follow a unique path—that they aren’t absolutely locked into a particular form of behavior.
So let’s imagine a baby dolgrim raised by peaceful goblin farmers. I don’t think it would be just like any other normal goblin child, because IT’S NOT NORMAL. It’s brain was physically shaped in a particular direction by an alien geneticist. It’s tied to Xoriat and likely has vivid visions and possibly hallucinations pushing it in a particular way. And it has two unique (and yet merged) consciousnesses. So it wouldn’t just present as any old goblin that happens to have two mouths. But I don’t think it would necessarily be EVIL; it could find a unique path.
I know that werewolves transform when any moon is full, but do the twelve moons effect them differently in any noticeable way?
Not that we’ve said in canon so far, but I think it’s an excellent idea to explore and develop. In the past we’ve suggested that Olarune is the PRIMARY moon that influences lycanthropes. But if I was exploring the idea in more depth, I’d love to present ways in which different moons influence lycanthropes, suggesting that each moon pushes a particular time of emotion or behavior.
If their ships were made airtight, what’s to prevent House Lyrandar from flying into space? What would they find when they got there?
That depends. How are you viewing space? Are we using spelljammer concepts or modern science? Could a fire elemental exist in a vacuum, or would it be extinguished? Are we going to consider the stresses of re-entry that a rocket actually deals with and the sort of speed and forced required to break escape velocity, or are we going to saying that in THIS universe, magic propulsion overrides gravity? Or that there’s a universal gravity, and that when your Lyrandar airship sails into space people can still walk around as if there was gravity?
Essentially: I like the idea of an Eberron space race, though I’d likely start by exploring the moons. But if I was to propose such a campaign I’d need to stop and answer a lot of questions about the physics of the universe that we haven’t yet answered… and I’d want to think carefully about it before I do. For example, let’s just look at the moons. I can imagine the moons being fantastic wonderous locations, like Barsoom in Edgar Rice Burroughs novels. But I could ALSO imagine the revelation that the moons aren’t celestial bodies at all; they’re actually massive planar portals, allowing an airship to physically sail into another plane. I’d want to think about which story feels more interesting and which I’d like to explore. But as of now, there is no canon answer.
Would you ever allow a player to play as an escaped Chosen vessel?
Sure. I think there’s stats for them in Secrets of Sarlona. But the main issue is that the Chosen have no voluntary say in being possessed. Chosen vessels are genetically designed to be possessed by a particular quori. So my question is how your PC vessel deals with this. Are they a ticking time bomb who could be possessed at any time? Have they been given some sort of Adaran artifact that keeps them safe as long as they don’t lose the item? Or has the particular quori tied to their line been bound?
Were a particular quori to be made incapable of possessing its Inspired hosts, whether by destruction or imprisonment, would it be possible that the Chosen and Inspired of that particular line be “reassigned”? Would Dal Quor remove the Inspired as well if they removed the quori? Would an “unused” Chosen be given to a new quori or share the fate of the “used” Inspired?
The principle that’s been established is that the bond between quori and vessel is in some way biological. So Dal Quor can’t simply reassign a Chosen line; they’d have to breed a new one. With that said, Chosen CAN be possessed by any quori; it’s simply that they have to ALLOW themselves to be possessed, while they have no choice when dealing with the quori bound to their line. So there could easily be Chosen who are serving as voluntary vessels for other quori; it’s just that it can’t be forced.
That’s all for now! If you have questions related to these topics, post them below!