Post/Author/DateTime	Post
greatfrito 02-23-05, 01:55 AM	Okay, in the spirit of these other threads, dealing with inspirations for Eberron material coming from movies and films (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=263064&highlight=inspiration) and novels (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=317543&highlight=inspiration) respectively, I felt that I should share as best I can (or at the very least, pimp some very cool things now that I've gotten around to them). I'd just like to bring to attention for those who haven't had too much exposure, the wonderful synergy of comic-books and Eberron. While in many cases, comics provide high-action stuff that can be useful to -any- DnD campaign and world, there are quite a few that react extremely well with Eberron's dark and noir-tastic (that's a word now) nature. If you can thank hollywood's constant grabbing of comic rights for anything, it's bringing good comics to the public eye that perhaps wouldn't be seen except by comic-gurus and those they can preach the 'word' to - I wasn't so lucky to have any of those around myself. A few great Graphic Novels/Comic Books have reached the mass public in the last few years that are excellent choices: Hellboy: While the movie's pretty good, it, like many things, just can't possibly do justice. Hellboy's characters, villains, and plots all work wonderfully well in both the Urban Arcana world that it's set in - and in the "magic replacing technology" world of Eberron. It has the essentials here: wonderful characters, trully vile villains, and Nazis! Nazis man! The prepondrerance of the Lovecraft Mythos also would give a great incentive to turn a standard game of Eberron into something more "Call of Cthulu"-esque (again, a word). Marvel: 1602: For those of you who haven't seen this, 1602 has already done half of the work for you if you'd like to weasel in some Marvel characters into a fantasy setting. The comics are a "what if" of sorts: What if the Marvel Universe, in all of its glory, occured in 1602 in England instead of in 20th century America? Awesomeness ensues. And if nothing else, it gives a great example of how to change the location of modern characters while keeping their inherent natures in tact. Batman: At its best, Batman is noir incarnate, and even when it's not, it's good dark action. Plus... Batman is an awesome (maybe my favorite) hero... his power is being crazy! C'mon, that's just too cool not to incorporate! John Constantine: Hellraiser: Okay, if you've seen the movie, understand that it's pretty different (from what little I've read), and takes a much more action-oriented approach. That said, both the comics and the film are great inspiration. Haven't read enough to say much more (which is a fact I'm trying to remedy), but still, it'd fit, I swear. Witchblade: Actually, I've not read this, so uh... don't take my word for it. But I watched the TV show (hey... that's a little bit, right?) and it'd go pretty well. Sin City: Yeah, okay, had to edit to add this one, but I shouldn't have. You want noir? This is it. You want dark and gritty? This is deffinately it. Best used as inspiration for a campaign set in Sharn I guess, but no matter what, these books are an awesome source of powerful (but human) characters with no "super-powers". Well, okay, it's just a few, but they're all great reads, and great sources of plotline or character ideas, or whatever. Bear in mind that "superheroes" really need to be toned-down to fit into Eberron (or anything with Players really), and it's best if the rules are only slightly bent in their creation (no YOU'VE made the B.P.R.D. in Eberron) Anywho, if anyone can suggest different stuff for me to read, I'd also be gracious. *Bows* PS - Oh, and you could make a case for The Sandman too, but that's perhaps a tad bit too epic for Eberron.
Graz'zt, Prince of Shadow 02-23-05, 09:04 AM	PS - Oh, and you could make a case for The Sandman too, but that's perhaps a tad bit too epic for Eberron. Sandman may be a little too "meta" for Eberron. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a good fit, though. The Authority could fit, but only in the "what would someone with these powers do in the real world" approach, not in the stories, which would definately be too epic for Eberron. Overall, I find Eberron more "Marvel" then "DC" (with the very obvious exception of Batman).
talion09 02-23-05, 01:08 PM	I've been wanting to make up a batman-esque character for my players to encounter in sharn. A monk who went into the urban soul prestige class in races of destiny... And Sharn itself is just begging to have a Dark Knight swinging and leaping around all those skybridges and towers to bring down evil.
talion09 02-23-05, 01:17 PM	And a more general response to comics and eberron... As for eberron being "more marvel than DC", I can see the general point, but I think there are plenty of DC heroes/teams that could be easily transported. Aside from the Batman example, you could probably forget about using the rest of the JLA, but I think the JSA or Outsiders would transfer pretty easily. Especially the JSA, since you could always rule that they were a team of heroes who fought for Breland (or someone else) in the Last War. The Outsiders/Titans could of been brought together to fight a shadow war against the Emerald Claw or Blood of Vol. Green Arrow obviously fits in pretty easily, and so do Arsenal/Hawkeye. And from Marvel comics turned Movie franchises, you can't forget about Blade. I think that character perfectly fits into the pulp feel of eberron, just replace vampire conspiracy with the Blood of Vol, and you have a great avenging hero running around slaying vampires and possibly getting aid from King Kaius, but also having to avoid the Silver Flame fanatics. I've got one player in my campaign who essentially is trying to make his artificer be a Tony Stark/Hank Pym character (Iron Man/Giant Man from the avengers) So far he has been "inventing" items to make him enlarge in combat, and he has big plans for the future and building enough gear to make an iron man style suit that grants improved strength, flight, toughness, power blasts, etc...
SirLoin 02-23-05, 01:33 PM	Darkhorse did the Indiana Jones comics, so that is a given. Grendel is pretty dark, gritty, lots of action and has different character themes. Warforged Grendel...hmmm????????
Xyrcai 02-23-05, 02:16 PM	You guys can't forget to add things like.. The Manchurian Candidate - Some may hate the new version, but the more sinister force puppeteering in the background is very Eberron style in my opinion. Any Star Wars movie - I still stand by my belief that Kalashtar are Jedi and Inspired are Sith. Leprechaun - Okay, maybe not.. But I really would be quite amused to face an insane Leprechaun in battle.. Maybe make him a Barbarian so he can rage. Walking Tall - Everyones crooked. In my opinion, the friend gone enemy is the best kind of enemy. Because there is more to the fight. They fight with more anger, more determination, and more passion for what they fight for because they know that which they oppose so much better. The Punisher - I don't care if you hate Anti-Heroes.. The comics, the movie, whatever. The Punisher is Eberron style.
Xyrcai 02-23-05, 02:17 PM	I've been wanting to make up a batman-esque character for my players to encounter in sharn. A monk who went into the urban soul prestige class in races of destiny... And Sharn itself is just begging to have a Dark Knight swinging and leaping around all those skybridges and towers to bring down evil. See: Complete Adventurer. Vigilante Prestige Class.
talion09 02-23-05, 02:31 PM	See: Complete Adventurer. Vigilante Prestige Class. True, I considered that PRC as well, but it would be really hard to give a character both and not have him be a 18th-20th level character. Either would work for a batman type of guy, but I like the urban soul a bit better, and just substitute sharn for gotham, and it is very batman-esque. But if he had both PRC's and was therefore of a pretty high level... I don't think that would fit the "feel" of eberron very well, at least not for a campaign where the PC's themselves were low-average level.
greatfrito 02-23-05, 05:08 PM	You guys can't forget to add things like.. The Manchurian Candidate - Some may hate the new version, but the more sinister force puppeteering in the background is very Eberron style in my opinion. Any Star Wars movie - I still stand by my belief that Kalashtar are Jedi and Inspired are Sith. Leprechaun - Okay, maybe not.. But I really would be quite amused to face an insane Leprechaun in battle.. Maybe make him a Barbarian so he can rage. Walking Tall - Everyones crooked. In my opinion, the friend gone enemy is the best kind of enemy. Because there is more to the fight. They fight with more anger, more determination, and more passion for what they fight for because they know that which they oppose so much better. These are all movies, I'm guessing? (I've seen Star Wars, out of the lot). I'd think they'd fit better over in the movies and film thread (that got resurrected, weee!). The Punisher does indeed fit very well, and leads me to one of my points today. Number One: ------------------------------------------ Moving any comic book character over to Eberron (or any DnD game) will require at least some adaptations - either sacrificing/changing aspects of the character to better fit the world, or creating custom game elements to allow the character to fit better unchanged (with the optimal choice being a combination of the two). Some things are pretty simple - Blade is a fighter, who kills vampires (maybe with the Half-Vampire template from Libris Mortis, maybe not, depending on how you wanna work it) - The Punisher is an ex-military man who exacts a brutal (and deserved) type of vengence. Some, however, are either too powerful in the "normal" incarnation (Professor Xavier from X-Men, Green Lantern/Superman from DC) or simply have to bend the rules (okay, well, most characters fit here). And some still are better left redeveloped from the ground up for the setting (our version of "Spider-Man"... Peter Parker, human druid and Child of Winter with a penchant for spiders). Really, heavy consideration is best, and which route one may want to go with including -any- of these materials or ideas needs to be thought out more than just "Let's put this character here!" in order to make it feel like a genuine part of the world, not some tacked-on fanboy-ism (I love new words!). Number Two: ------------------------------------ You can only do so much. I mean, Eberron is a big place, but you can't justify throwing former "superheroes" around all over the place. You have to be pretty sparse with your sprinklings, or the magic of the concept is lost. Throwing the whole Marvel universe in would probably be a Very Bad Idea - but taking a few characters, throwing them about relatively unchanged in concept (but lowered to mortal status) wouldn't be too bad. You can always get around this by changing a character so much that the players won't catch on for a very long time (unless they're very familiar already), while you get to enjoy the knowledge of what's going on (and just how awesome you really are). For players, the modern world have few sources of heroic concepts as readily available as comic books. Scour them for ideas, not just for how to make a cool character stats-wise, but how to roleplay an interesting character too! Comics are often the, ahem (please don't kill me for this analogy), soap-operas for the teenage+ male community (c'mon man, look at the Spiderman plots for God's sake!), so there's plenty of character and emotion in all of those things. ======================================== === Anywho, enough rambling. We were looking at Batman too, but were going to go with some combination of artificer ("Where does he get those wonderful toys?")/rogue/monk. Keep him low level too - none of that crazy "I'm batman, who is uber" stuff - he'd just be your regular old bad-ass crazy-man vigilante. The most fun to figure out stats for so far were Peter Parker and Venom though. And I keep everything below CR 10! Wooo!
Dagda Mor 02-23-05, 05:29 PM	True, I considered that PRC as well, but it would be really hard to give a character both and not have him be a 18th-20th level character. Actually, that's pretty much what level Batman is right now. Ever read JLA?
talion09 02-23-05, 06:06 PM	Actually, that's pretty much what level Batman is right now. Ever read JLA? True, to the extent that he is portrayed in JLA. (and the superman/batman series) But he is portrayed differently in the "bat family" comics. He is portrayed as having a much lower power level in Gotham when battling joker, two-face, random criminals, etc than he does when fighting white martians, alien supervillians, etc. I was going for the lower power level batman rather than the uber-powerful batman, because I thought it fit the overall them of eberron better. Kinda more like detective comics or gotham knights rather than JLA or Superman/Batman. Besides, in either case he is going to be supremely intelligent, and should be able to take down pretty much anyone without having to resort to brute force tactics.
talion09 02-23-05, 06:09 PM	Hmm... having mentioned white martians in that last post, I think I'm going to go reread the JLA arcs with them, and see about incorporating some of those ideas into my eberron campaign, with the Quori as the White Martians, and the green martians being the kalashtar... And I already have a kalashtar inquisitive in Sharn that the PC's have met...
Naudachu 02-23-05, 06:35 PM	Yeah, it seems most super heros would need a level or two of monk (or at least Improved Unarmed...but then you only do subdual damage...I'm pretty sure). This would be a easy explanation for all the whackos in strange suits...a monastery/sanitarium that sends its protectors out to gather escaped patients, the criminally insane. Come to think of it, it could be similar to the Valenar, wearing masks of their ancestors to become them/infused with their power. Hm.
Naudachu 02-23-05, 06:49 PM	I was just reading the House Phiarlan Dragonshard and I thought of Hydra, nemesis group of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Marvel). Just pick up an "Official Guide to the Marvel Universe" to read up on them. Not sure if they are in any current story arcs, but they keep popping up. And Serpentine Table -> Hellfire Club from X-Men. Not sure if they're in the headlines lately (besides Emma Frost), but you can pick up Classic X-Men during the Phoenix saga (soon to be seen in X-Men 3?). Great stuff.
Arcane Guyver 02-23-05, 07:02 PM	Crazy thought that wouldn't work in everyone's version of Eberron: The upcoming new Thor series has a bunch of kids 'inheriting' at the same time the persona of a deity from the norse pantheon. So...imagine this, only with the Sovereign Host & the Dark Six.
Fedifensor 02-23-05, 07:18 PM	Don't forget Battle Chasers (http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/phoenix/1999/1999-12-10/living/liu.html)! It even has warforged...er, wargolems.
Marshall Stone 02-24-05, 02:33 AM	A while back DC comics did this thing they called Tangent comics. Basically they took all the same names from the D.C. universe but with completely different backstories. Nightwing (which would also work well in Eberron) was an organization/syndicate of nefarious magic-users The Flash was a teenage girl with the power to control light and an inept father who is part of an evil organization, secretly looking for away to steal his daughter's powers. The Joker was a crime-fighting vigiliante, similar to Batman in that She was rich and had resources but with an entirely different approach. You might consider doing something similar in Eberron. Take some comic book titles and re-invent them in Eberron. The Doom Patrol - On the day of Mourning a group of 5 P.O.W's finally manage to escape thier prison only to enter a bigger one. Having fallen unconscious when the mists came, they awaken 2 years later...changed. They travel through out the Mournland until they come to the Cyre/Brelish border. They travel through the grey mists into Breland only where soon they learn that outside the Mournland they can't heal naturally. Somehow they've become a part of the Mournland. Oargev ir'Wynarn, the Prince of New Cyre, "hires" them to explore and retrieve items from the Mournlands and in return he'll do everything he can to "fix them". The Green Lantern - "It's said that the couatl gave up thier lives to bind the demons within Khyber. But the Cults of the Dragon Below seek to undo the bindings. Mara an artificier, was once such a cultists until a failed attempt at unbinding a demon exposed her to an emerald light. The light of wisdom that the couatl which gave up it's life for the binding drove Mara to repentence. In her new found fervor to do good she crafted a Green Lantern in homage to the Couatl that would drive demons away. So that even In brightest day, in darkest night, no evil shall escape the sight, Let those who worship evil's might, beware the power of Green Lantern's Light. It is a great and terrible responsibility to carry the light, but perhaps you are worthy." Or something like that.
Just another user 02-24-05, 06:38 AM	A related thread, with a number of examples. http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=282532
DBlizzard 02-24-05, 08:01 AM	PS - Oh, and you could make a case for The Sandman too, but that's perhaps a tad bit too epic for Eberron. Actually, Sandman Mystery Theatre would be great inspiration for Eberron. It's very 1940's noir. You could even do the character. Give him an eternal wand of sleep instead of the gas gun. Have Wesley be a Kalashtar, who doesn't know he is one. His dreams are explained by his link to the Quori spirit.
okaynowa 02-24-05, 09:45 AM	You could do something Gen 13-ish with a group of Dragonmarked heirs (I'm a fan of the Adam Warren stories). What do you do if you're a young, undisciplined person with above average stats and a few magical perks? And you hang out with a similar bunch of overpowered slackers? And your powers make you a trouble magnet? Why, you go adventuring, of course. (Quick! Must re-establish comic geek respectability!) Uh, you could also do something with Will Eisner's "The Spirit" for low-level Inquisitive type stuff.
BoneLord_TheUnliving 01-13-06, 08:49 PM	Colossus from X-Men would have the spell like ability to cast Iron body on himself. I really need to get out and get some more expansion books....so what If I need to save money for school! :surrender
BoneLord_of_Skullthrone 01-13-06, 08:55 PM	ahhh.....that's sooo much better. :D
talion09 01-14-06, 02:19 AM	Actually, Sandman Mystery Theatre would be great inspiration for Eberron. It's very 1940's noir. You could even do the character. Give him an eternal wand of sleep instead of the gas gun. Have Wesley be a Kalashtar, who doesn't know he is one. His dreams are explained by his link to the Quori spirit. I like this idea, although I don't know about the gas gun being an Eternal wand. I'm pretty sure Dodds had to use it far more often than twice a day during most of the comics... Anyways, your post reminded me of my earlier idea for the JSA in eberron... it actually wouldn't be that hard to do. They be Brelish veterans, since I figured Breland is the closest equivalent to America with the "open" society and nascent democracy... except for maybe Cyre, and I don't want to open up that can of worms. Sandman you already covered. The Hawks would be easy enough. Morgrave scholars who found an artifact in the ruins of Xendrik, a set of wings that gave them the power of flight. Now if you wanted to get really convoluted and work in the reincarnation thing, the winged artifact isn't from the Giants themselves, its actually an ELVEN artifact from the Great rebellion. And make the Hawks both Khorovar half elves... who are descended from heroes that fought against the Giants, and who are worshipped by the Valenar. So the Hawks explore in Xendrik, get drawn to the winged artifacts, and then discover their "Valenar" warrior/hero heritage. Dr Fate & Green Lantern would be wizards who found the appropriate magic item (Aureon's Spellshard carved like a lantern, gold helmet, etc) that both gives them a nice power boost and instantly raised them from the "common" ranks of the magewrights into the elite company of wizards with class levels. Starman I'm not so sure about, but I'd probably go with the Skymage PRC out of the Sharn book, just to add a little variety. Wildcat would be a Reaping Mauler from the Complete Warrior. Hourman is a little harder. I figured he could be a monk/artificer, who makes potions of Enlarge, Heroism, etc to substitute for the miraclo drug. The Flash is too hard to do in DND terms, so I'm not even going to try. Black Canary and Dr Midnight are bland enough that I'm gonna skip over them too. Thats a good enough chunk of the classic wartime JSA for now. How did they all get drawn together? Well, after thier individual origins, the government of Breland (read Dark Lanterns) recruited them to stop a plot by the Order of the Emerald Claw (IMHO, the perfect Nazi equivalent) to destroy the towers of Sharn by disrupting the manifest zone using an eldritch machine forged with artifacts from Xendrik. After this initial adventure, the team fought all over Breland (and beyond) in defence of King and country.... After the war was over (Thronehold) the Dark Lanterns got nervous about such a powerful group that was only nominally under government control. The JSA had all used masks and secret identities to keep their loved ones safe from reprisals, and the Dark Lanterns threatened to "leak" knowledge of their identities to the public if they JSA didn't come under direct government control. In response, the JSA simply disbanded rather than risk becoming a Dark Lantern hit squad, altough they have "re-united" several times when Sharn has been threatened by danger since the War ended, or when past adventures have had repercussions on the present.