Post/Author/DateTime	Post
FenrysStar 06-23-07, 03:07 AM	I just got a Dragon Mech book and pre-ordered the second Monsternomicon this week and my mind has started thinking of a few things for Eberron along with a few questions. I am thinking of adding aspects of DragonMech and Iron Kingdoms to Eberron. Guns are available but only in the Eldeen Reaches where they were developed by the Ashbound to compete with magic without using magic. Unfortunately some secrets are getting out and certain places, most notably Aundair are developing Gun Mages. Now Mechs are a little trickier. I want them to be in development and running on Dragon Shards, like the lightning rail to a degree and other things as part of the shadow war and a preview of what will come in the next big conflicts when it comes. Now who would be the most likely culprit in developing them? House Cannith? I'm also thinking of adding in the 'Jacks of IK as a way of getting around that pesky edict from Breland about shutting down the creation forges. Jacks are not sentient in any way shape or form. So House Cannith can go about creating and experimenting with them willy nilly without breaking the law. Although in some ways they are breaking the spirit while upholding the letter of the law.
Alex_ 06-23-07, 04:02 AM	Do remember that Eberron is not a world of steam, clockwork, or gears. It's a world of magic and alchemy. Whenever trying to solve a problem try looking at it like, "How can I do this with as few moving mechanical parts as possible". As far as IK's Warjacks and Mechs are concerned, they would occupy a role similar to the already existing Warforged Titan. Essentially big walking engines of destruction. They were the predecessors of the smaller and more intelligent Warforged. As far as firearms are concerned, try to keep them mechanically simple. Although complex or machined parts are generally out, firearms are essentially power ad a projectile in a tube with some means of lighting it. Actually not that hightech, and there exist rules for Smokepowder as a magical or alchemical substance. Simple firearms could exist (gonnes, ribauldequin, etc), but I'd avoid stuff like flintlocks or anything like revolvers. Druids using smokepowder to start fires, blow things up, and crafting the equivalent of early firearms sounds interesting though. Although if your setting is generally moving towards more clockwork and steampowered things in general, the above doesn't really matter.
FenrysStar 06-23-07, 03:40 PM	In some ways the campaign as I am envisioning it is moving more towards steam and clockworks. House Cannith is the main impetus behind this as I see them as the most likely culprit. Among other things I have been listening to the D&D podcasts as of late and in one of the podcasts was an interview with Keith Baker that I found quite enlightening. Steampunk and Cyberpunk are two genres of Science Fiction that I find most fascinating. Mister Baker remarked in his interview that the Houses are in some ways set up like corporations, a factoid that really made me sit up and take notice, Corporations are a huge fixture in Cyberpunk games that started my mind rolling. Now of all the Houses, Cannith is the one that strikes me as the closest to being an industrial type. What I am thinking of doing is making them push the envelope more and more away from traditional magic towards steam and their particular brand of alchemy. Certain nations are not exactly enthused with this, notably Aundair which is rather mage heavy if I'm reading the books right. Sharn in particular has the heavy labor jacks running around under the supervision of House Cannith operatives. It also has IK type firearms carried by a bunch of folks. House Cannith continues to do a brisk business with the Ashbound sect and the Eldeen Wolves. The latter group they use to keep Aundair too busy with border skirmishes to pay much attention to the development of the mechs (created using Dragon Mech rules) that they are creating. Or at least that's what House Cannith hopes is happening. I may also adopt some of the ideas from another thread on here about Chaositech. All in all I am drawing inspiration primarily from 3 anime sources: Full Metal Alchemist, Last Exile and Escaflowne.
killthemoles 06-23-07, 04:54 PM	I think House Cannith sounds like the perfect culprit for your mechs. I don't quite know much (aka nothing, seems interesting though) about DragonMech but after the creation forges were shut down, where are all those Warforged Artificer/Engineers going to go? So the House Cannith makes sense in that aspect, but if you don't want every country to have access to them and have them built in complete privacy you probably wouldn't want House Cannith making them. For privacy you could probably stick them in the center of the Mournland and have a terror plot by the Lord of Blades. That's my default place I tend to stick all my uglies from the Monsternomicon. The benefit to that is if your PC's commandeer an enemy mech they wouldn't really know how to use it. Again I have no knowledge on what a mech in DragonMech is or how it functions, so if that didn't make sense to you please disregard it:weep: .
evil_jester 06-23-07, 05:07 PM	iv used DragonMech in Eberron the mechs worked very well but i was only using the animated mechs in DragonMech but the whole gunpowder thing has poped up a few times with my friends to use in Eberron
FenrysStar 06-23-07, 09:19 PM	I am trying to be carefull which mech types I am using. In certain ways they are building on the designs they made for the floating fortresses they made for Breland and the Lightning Rail more than the airships and submarines. I eventually need to complete my collection of Last Exile and FMA. My knowledge of Escaflowne is far less than I would like it. I am tempted to get into Scrapped Princess too if I can find DVDs of it and see if it has anything worth stealing for Eberron. But as it stands now, there is only one military that the mechs are being built for and that's Breland. Although I may float some unsubstantiated rumors that Karrnath is making necromantic mechs.
evil_jester 06-24-07, 02:07 AM	hmm necro mechs that never come to mind but it sonds so good that way u got undead mechs to destroy and who dosnt like to destroy undead
FenrysStar 06-24-07, 05:34 PM	I want to read through my books again, I know they were at least mentioned in Dragon Mech but I forget whether or not they were given much in the way of stats or methods of construction. Thus I want to have the idea of them floating around but never seen. And of course we all know if a mech were to be constructed using necromantic means, what country would do it.
Moosh Nailo 06-24-07, 06:35 PM	I just got Dragonmech too, great book. I was thinking about how to incorporate it as is into Eberron, in all it's steampunk glory. My best idea was that the warforged and the Lord of Blades in the mournland could be developing steam tech instead of magic, possibly due to the twisted nature of magic in the Mournland. There would be coglayers working overtime to develop anything and everything, with an emphasis on the mechs. Once they had been created, the first mech jockeys would emerge, those warforged with the reflexes necessary for the job. They would be creating these steam powered mechs (and maybe even clockwork mechs), because without access to creation forges (rumours aside) they couldn't do much else to increase their power other than gather followers. By working in a huge mech each warforged could be more effective, and less vulnerable. In my mind, the biggest problem for the LoB cult is that the warforged population in the world is not growing (crazy Merrix aside). No way to create more warforged, thanks to the Treaty. So encasing them in a powerful new body, built of iron and stone, seems a logical choice in the line of self-preservation as a race. Think of the assimilated PrC (a class that bonds you with your mech, physically and then mentally) working with construct-minded 'forged. Nothing fits better :D. Tacking on a couple levels of the steamborg class to a bunch of 'forged also allows them to make individual warforged more powerful (as far as physical bodies are concerned), without having to resort to costly magic components. And the reason steamtech is relatively unknown (so far) is simple; the xenophobic nature of the LoB cult, the fact that steamtech is so new, and the mournland itself. Ah, I can just smell the chaos and panic that would ensue when a company of warforged-assimilated mechs with warforged riders stomps out of the mournland and begins to smash every living thing they encounter. The horror on the mages' faces when their disjunctions do nothing to stop the enormous monstrosities! Hell, you can even use Dragonmech with the Godforged. Rather than working to create a simple powerful (and bloody enormous) body, the godforged are trying to create a city-mech! A mech a thousand plus feet in height, built to serve as a mobile home for it's creators, as well as having defensive and offensive capabilities. I think it's a win-win situation.
FenrysStar 06-24-07, 09:06 PM	one thing about warforged and some of the other mechs, the ones in Dragonmech that the orcs use run on the backs of hundreds of thousands of slaves. I could see the LoB using some of his followers in this fashion and those 'forged at the workings would do so as tirelessly as they could working towards this promised tomorrow of paradise. In some ways I see the LoB as a cross between Joe Smith/Bringham Young of the Mormons and Dr. Doom of Marvel. A lot of good and interesting ideas.
Moosh Nailo 06-24-07, 09:12 PM	I figure the slave-powered mechs would be in use by the LoB in the very beginning of the idea, but only really until steam tech and clockwork mechs are operable. Or maybe having the biggest mechs be slave-powered, but the smaller ones be steam and clockwork until the technology is adapted to the larger sizes.
FenrysStar 06-25-07, 04:25 AM	a lot of interesting ideas are possible with DragonMech especially when you combine them with Eberron
Moosh Nailo 06-25-07, 11:57 AM	Oh, and the necromantic mechs are given stats (page 78-79), just like the other mechs in the book. There is only one example, though (The Slaughtergore, page 115). I think it'd be fun to have one walk up a battle the PCs are engaged in, unload a bunch of skeletons and zombies, then turn around and walk off. The PCs have the choice of sitting and hacking corpses, or they could follow the necro-mech and "solve the mystery" kinda thing.
FenrysStar 06-25-07, 01:03 PM	Or even make them a random encounter either in Karrnath or near it's borders.
Romulus LoneWolf 06-26-07, 08:50 PM	I'd introduce Mechs mostly as a plot device like in Metal Gear Solid.. Something the Big Bads are trying to build to take over Khorvaire, and which the PCs have to stop, but don't get to own. ...As for Guns... I just don't see the Ashbound doing anything so unnatural. Explosive power, maybe, but guns? Not so much.
Manyfist 07-04-07, 05:20 PM	I could see Ashbound using Cannons made out of hallowed out tree trunks. Using druidic magic, it could be as hard as steel so it wouldn't explode. Then stuff the "Cannons" with forest trash (Pinecones, branches...etc.) and then light the gunpowder. Or maybe a wooden balls with ironwood spell on them (or the tree from overseas). All natural components, and with druid magic, I bet it would be common for these things to roll out of no where and start fireing. After the damage is done, they gather the balls that aren't damaged, and then use wood from the houses they destroy to make more ammunition.