One of the core principles of Eberron is that you should make it your own. People often say “If it’s in D&D it’s in Eberron,” but the actual quote is “If it’s in D&D it has a place in Eberron” – it’s up to you if you want to put it there. You don’t HAVE to use abeil in Eberron. But if you want to, it’s a simple matter to add a lost city of bee-people in Xen’drik, to make them the Mourning-warped inhabitants of a Cyran city, or the latest creations of Mordain the Fleshweaver. It’s up to you to decide if the Sovereigns still exist or if divine magic is another form of sorcery. You decide the cause of the Mourning. And so on.
Setting aside the facts of the setting, there’s the matter of system. I know people who run Eberron with Savage Worlds and GURPS. I myself occasionally use the Over The Edge rules. I just heard about people playing it with Dungeon World.
I’d love to hear what you’re doing with the setting. Are you using it as is? Stripping pieces out for a homebrew or mashup of other published worlds? What system are you using?
And as always, if you’d like to suggest a subject for a future Dragonmark post, feel free to add it in the comments! And if you want to keep track of my other posts, I’m on Twitter as HellcowKeith and G+ as Onesmallkeith.
I have been running DnD adventures in Eberron for the past four years. It is my go-to campaign setting for many, many reasons, and I have certainly made (and am continuing to make it) it my own. At the time I am writing this, I have progressed the Eberron timeline by 20 years. The passage of these two in-game decades have seen, among other things, the death of Lady Vol and the reappearance of the Mark of Death; the assassination and resurrection of the Lord of Blades, who turned out to be a much deluded Merrix d’Cannith turned Warforge; the destruction of the progenitor wyrm, Khyber, by a newly deified progenitor wyrm named Lacronia; and the emergence of a now 18-year conflict between the Khraal-Dhaakani (“New Dhakaani”) Empire (comprised of everything west of Thrane and Breland) and the Karrnathi Protectorates (comprised of Karrnath, Breland, Thrane, and Forgedhaven–formerly Mournland–under King Kaius III). There are a great many things that have unfolded in my campaigns besides these few highlights, and many more I am still planning in the future. I would just like to offer you my thanks, Mr. Baker, for developing such a rich and intriguing campaign setting. I have lost count of the hours, the NPCs, the PCs, and the plotlines that I’ve been privileged to put into it since I first came across it in a secondhand gaming store in 2013. I am keeping a weather eye out for the 5e iteration to make the scene in what I hope will prove to be the not-too-distant future. Best of luck on your present and future endeavors!
Thanks, Cody! I’m glad you’ve had some amazing stories with Eberron.
I’m actually really excited for FFG to come out with their fantasy rule set, I’ve really enjoyed their narrative dice pools and I plan to convert as much as I can from/to Eberron.
As for setting I honestly have loved it as is from the get go and also really enjoyed the 4e update. Most campaigns I’ve run I’ve enjoyed intertwining and so like Cody up there my timeline has also progressed but only by a few years. I could write for days about my plans and ideas but also wanted to say thanks for such a solid and amazing foundation.
I’m glad you’ve had fun with the world!
My Eberron Pathfinder campaign just started, we had three sessions so far and a lot of preparation over Discord. The player characters largely grew up or met up in a fictitious town in south-western Cyre, I called Regal, famous for its perfumes, spices and refined cuisine.
The Dwarf in the party is quite young, and an artificer who learned his trade from his father who passed away a few years ago. He had problems keeping up with the bills to keep up the business and take care of his mother and sick younger sister until he was approached by the Aurum. In exchange for a monthly fee, he sent reports to the Aurum about everything that might interest them and was recently sent a magically sealed package he was told to give to an Aurum field agent that would pass through.
The Shifter was freed by the town’s Baron from slave fighting pits in Darguun. In his possession is a testamential letter in Orcish he cannot read and a family heirloom amulet of an Orc that became kind of a father to him in the fighting pits. With his last breath the Orc asked him to deliver the amulet and the letter to the Orc’s brother in the Shadow Marches.
The Warforged is rather newly produced and somewhat curious about his place in the world. After his construction he was approached by another Warforged, a follower of the Lord of Blades, and handed a magical compass that always points in the same direction somewhere in Cyre, and the words “There will come a signal as clear as day that will show him that the time has come to throw off the shackles of oppression.”
Finally the Aasimar comes from a dysfunctional family. His father, a human, was a drunkard who hit his mother until finally one night she killed him and herself, leaving him as an orphan. The Aasimar’s thumb on his right hand is on the wrong side of the hand, and he has a family heirloom that unbeknownst to him is a Rhaktavarna Rhakshasa, determined to throw each generation of the PC’s family into misery, because one of of the PC’s ancestors slew his last incarnation disgracefully and thus made him come back in this lowly form. The corruption of the Rhakshasa over the generations of the family has manifested in the PC’s arm. The PC is quite fond of the shapeshifting heirloom and somewhat corrupt without the player knowing what is actually going on.
In the first session, the PCs were drafted into the fyrd/militia of the town to defend it against a Karrnathi army contingent marching towards Regal with the Cyran army busy striking into Karrnath. The baron, an elderly war hero and bard, has paid a tribe of goblins from Darguun to fortify the militia in the upcoming battle. Before the battle I had him recite a nice adapted rendering of the monologue from Shakespeare’s Henry V, act 4, scene 3.
During the battle, the Mourning happens and the PCs are only saved by the Baron using a scroll of Antimagic Field. After dealing with a few remaining undead Karrnathi soldiers and a living spell, the survivors split up. The PCs decide to go back to Regal, because the Dwarf insists on having to search for his family, whereas the Baron decides that the crown prince in Regal must be informed of what happened.
Back in Regal, they find a dead city, the Aurum package is gone. As in my version of the Mourning there was a column of pale light over each settlement in Cyre, the Dwarf starts to believe the package might be responsible, especially as he has dreams about it whereas the Warforged begins to wonder, whether this was all done by the Warforged. After the burials of their friends and loved ones in the town, they decide to leave Cyre behind and follow the Baron. The town’s Sovereign deacon that accompanied them into Regal, contacts the Baron via sending and learns that he was captured by Goblins and Darguun.
After having reached Darguun, the PCs decide that they want to free the Baron, but get imprisoned themselves. They learn that they were imprisoned by the remaining tribe of the mercenaries the Baron hired, all of whom died in the Mourning. The tribe is led by a greater barghest and her son, who have lost their spouse/father this way and blame the baron for it. The baron makes a deal. He will bring his family treasure from Regal to the barghests in exchange for his people’s lives. The barghests accept but demand that the baron and the deacon will not be freed, only the rest. The deal goes through as promised, and the PCs are freed as the Baron and his goblin escort return with a cart full of treasure. The baron tells them to go to Sharn in his stead and hand the crown prince a letter. As they leave the goblin settlement, they learn that the Baron and the Deacon are to be devoured by the barghest son, yet the baron told them to flee and not to look back. I want to make the barghest a recurring villain later on.
In Gathering Stone they finally meet a human (in reality Changeling) merchant “the magnificent Darius, trader extraordinaire” that is willing to take them to the Zilargo border in his magical carriage should they help him to loot an ancient temple he has found a few weeks ago in the mountains on the way.
The temple is not a temple, but a tomb of a Dhakaani king, whose regalia – depending on who gets their hands on them, may decide the fate of Darguun as they may legitimize the government or help a warlord to press his own claim. But this is where the campaign is now. The characters on their way to the temple.