Post/Author/DateTime	Post
alchemyprime 06-06-07, 09:27 PM	Okay, in two weeks, I'm starting a new Eberron campaign. I will be buying new books and introducing them over the summer as cool things other people have. However, I had a few questions on how to fit things before I get started. How to fit content I have: Magic of Incarnum: I was thinking just a Totem Giant, but if anyone else had an idea, I'd like to know it. I'm going to use a skarn monk first as an NPC that they'll meet in Aundair. Fiend Folio: Most of the monsters had a strait-forward fit, but the maugs didn't without over-shadowing the warforged. I was thinking maybe older model warforged? Any other ideas would be welcome. Oriental Adventures: I remember seeing an Oriental continent for Eberron on these boards. Does any have the link? How to fit what I'm getting: Tome of Magic: Pact Magic: Some of the vestiges are Greyhawk-specific, in that I can't figure how to change them. How can I move this around? Make a few Eberron vestiges? A first warforged? Shadow Magic:Made sense to me. I'll just move this in as a Khyber/Plane of Shadow thing. Truespeech: I was thinking that this is actually a very ancient form of draconic, the language spoken by Syberis, Eberron and Khyber. The dragonmarks are actually Truename characters, and that Dragonmarked individuals have these odd characters in thier Truenames. Thnx in advance!
UnderworldLord 06-07-07, 12:17 AM	With shadow magic, Mabar the Endless Night will probably be your answer. I think your 'oriental' continent might be what some originally saw Riedra/Sarlona as being.
yrogerg 06-07-07, 12:55 AM	With shadow magic, Mabar the Endless Night will probably be your answer. I think there's a sidebar in ToM that outlines the relationship between negative energy and shadow magic. Based on that, I'd keep Mabar as the negative energy plane, and associate shadow magic with the Plane of Shadows, instead. (Incidentally, I have associated the transitive planes with the three progenitors, as well) As far as the rest of ToM, you can find a few old threads about vestiges in Eberron in the archives, both for creating new, Eberron-specific vestiges, and adapting the written ones for Eberron. You are correct that many of them are very Greyhawk- or FR-specific by default. And your idea for truespeech is almost word-for-word my thinking on the matter. I don't use much of MoI, but I definitely give Giant Magic an incarnum-like flavor. Don't have many suggestions for either it or FF, unfortunately.
Soltares 06-07-07, 09:23 AM	Fiend Folio: Most of the monsters had a strait-forward fit, but the maugs didn't without over-shadowing the warforged. I was thinking maybe older model warforged? Any other ideas would be welcome. Maug are crazy good, and Warforged are, IMO, a tad weak. I'm not sure I'd want to put them in the same world, just because they are so glaringly different. (Maug, for instance, have +7 natural armor *and* can wear plate mail.) One possibility would be to have Cannith Artificers have somehow captured or bound a few Maug, and used them somehow as templates to create the Warforged back in the day, making the Maug an unwilling progenitor of sorts. Some Maug might resent the Warforged, as a reminder of what Cannith did to them. Other Maug might consider them equally innocent victims of what was done in the past, and even consider them like a child-race that they need to guide. Yet others might consider them half-living freaks, an abomination that should be destroyed... The existence of Maug, a pre-existing race of sentient constructs, would probably mess with the whole search-for-identity going on among the Warforged. It might be better to leave them out entirely, to preserve the tone of the setting.
Edymnion 06-07-07, 09:45 PM	Truespeech: I was thinking that this is actually a very ancient form of draconic, the language spoken by Syberis, Eberron and Khyber. The dragonmarks are actually Truename characters, and that Dragonmarked individuals have these odd characters in thier Truenames. Thnx in advance!http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?p=12511692#post12511692
alchemyprime 06-10-07, 12:58 AM	Okay MoI: still wishing for help. FF: I really hate it when one of my favorite monsters ruins flavor. I was thinking maybe that maugs could be the step after the Warforged Juggernaut, but they were thrown onto Shavarath (sp?) after Merrix disliked their expensiveness. OA: No, I know Sarlona is a desert continent. I'm using that as a Nazi Germany/Soviet Union thing (or at least Ridera), and Adar is going to be much more friendly and holistic. No, I meant a guy created a whole Oriental continent for Eberron and posted it on the boards. I just don't know where. Shadow: I already figured that out. Thanks. Pact: I link to those Eberron articles would be much appreciated. Truename: I like that everyone else saw a connection with truenames and dragons. Cool. So, links wuld be they main reason for me asking now. Thanks again!
MDosantos 06-10-07, 02:36 AM	Oriental continent? You are talking of Sir Elton's Secrets of Kharaka, it's in the archives... here's the link http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/t-791015.html
alchemyprime 06-10-07, 02:36 PM	Thank you, MDosantos. That was exactly what I was talking about!
Eled_the_Worm_Tamer 06-10-07, 03:00 PM	Incarnum in my setting is the second great mystery of the Warforged, every so often the forges produced one glowing blue in ornate phantasmal regala that swiftly faded, such warforged were harder to train, but still tractable, and developed suprising powers chaneling souls. As the war dragged on they refined the abilitys and some cannith even learnt from them, Tarenta halflings and some reachers quickly modified the war forged secrets, becoming totemists.
Edymnion 06-10-07, 09:52 PM	MoI: still wishing for help.Can't/won't help ya there, sorry.
davethebrave371 06-10-07, 09:58 PM	Can't/won't help ya there, sorry. Wow, that was helpful. Thanks for that. A contribution to top all contributions. Instead of simply not posting about Incarnum, you post of your intention not to post. The definition of useful.
davethebrave371 06-10-07, 10:01 PM	MoI: still wishing for help. The Player's Guide to Eberron is the closest you'll get to an official ruling on it, though most people on the boards don't consider it official. Personally, I'd go with it if you want to plop Incarnum into your game. If you don't have PGtE, long story short the rilkans and skarn inhabit an island not that far West from Stormreach in Xen'drik. As to totem giants, that is a really easy way to drop it in, as you could say there was a civilization of giants who used Incarnum almost exclusively in ages past, and now they are reduced to an isolationist tribe of totem giants. It may be that the rilkan and skarn on the island to the north of Xen'drik might have been originally created by the ancestors of these giants. That help?
gaerfindel 06-11-07, 07:20 AM	Magic of Incarnum: I was thinking just a Totem Giant, but if anyone else had an idea, I'd like to know it. I'm going to use a skarn monk first as an NPC that they'll meet in Aundair. Some links you might find useful: Magic & Incarnum (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=842131postcount=4) -- Okaynowa's ideas about which cultures might have traditions of using incarnum & essentia. The Caldyn Fragments (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebxe/20070604a) -- Wizards article about the scattered ramblings of a scholarly genius who proposed that the magic used by the skarn has ties to the Draconic Prophecy. (I've also started a thread (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=863632) to discuss what this may mean...)
yrogerg 06-11-07, 08:39 AM	Oriental continent? You are talking of Sir Elton's Secrets of Kharaka, it's in the archives... here's the link http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/t-791015.html See, as much as I recognize that OA is a quality setting in its own right, I kinda balk at the idea of having an Oriental continent that contains all the Oriental cultures of a setting. In my mind, the "here's an Oriental continent, and here's a Meso-American one, and here's an Arab one, etc. etc. etc." design mentality was never a particularly good one, as it reinforced that "default" D&D was just an analogue for Medieval Europe, and everyone is by default white, and that's just the way D&D is. What I see in Eberron is a conscious attempt to break that mold. Most cultures in Eberron consciously draw on multiple sources, and flavor from a particular RL culture tend to be parceled throughout multiple peoples in Eberron. The intent is not to make a fantasy analogue for real-world nations and peoples, but to create unique and interesting, if relateable-to, FANTASY cultures. And even still, people over-identify Karrnath with Nazi Germany, the Silver Flame with medieval Catholicism, and so forth, in ways that really dumb down the setting and make it far less interesting or original a setting to use.
retillin 06-11-07, 10:27 PM	MoI. I use it as a giant and elf magic. The elves worship their dead, and well that's what I think MoI draws heavy on. Or even a small enclave on Sarlona. Something the dreaming dark has tried to get rid of. And dont listen to Edymnion, if he doesnt like something he treats it like crap.
alchemyprime 06-11-07, 10:30 PM	I actually identify Sarlona with Nazi Germany, but that's just me. I just don't want every samurai to be a goblin or dwarf is all. I have my own way of looking at things. I want to keep it that way. Incarnum... yeah, I'll work with it this way... Skarn now live in Kharaka, Rilkan have the island but wander Khorvaire, normally joining the Aurum, (i'm nixing dusklings), Azurins are an odd birth defect that eliminates all forms of DragonMarks, and Elves and giants are known for using it. Also, I'm going to say that warforged work very well with incarnum, especially as Soulcrafters. For more information on soulcrafters, look up the incarnum guide in my sig. (Last Spoiler Box) Hm... but anyone else's ideas will be appreciated.
Alex_ 06-11-07, 10:56 PM	I just don't want every samurai to be a goblin or dwarf is all. They don't have to. Not any more than every Ranger has to be a Valenar Elf, every Barbarian has to be from the Seren isles, or every Paladin has to be devoted to the Silver Flame. But characters from strongly lawful aligned cultures (especially clan based or feudal) with rich martial cultures with relatively less reliance on magic tend to lend themselves well to the Samurai class. Speaking of which, the warlords of Karnnath would also make nice candidates for the Samurai class.
alchemyprime 06-11-07, 11:08 PM	I know, but I tend to look at things in how societies have affected them. Karrnath, yes, would seem to have samurai, but I could only see them as being Deniths, as their would have to be a large amount of military training, and also the funding to do such work. Hence, Denith. Goblins, it is a part of thier culture. Dwarves, they have this large discipline factor as is. Humans, especially Denith, I could see adopting that. Maybe even the Aernal elves, what with the Ancestral Daisho and their ancestor worship. But to see, say, a changeling samurai, would not make much sense, unless he came from a land like Kharaka. You could always play an acception to the rule, but I want to know what's common where.
Alex_ 06-11-07, 11:27 PM	I know, but I tend to look at things in how societies have affected them. Karrnath, yes, would seem to have samurai, but I could only see them as being Deniths, as their would have to be a large amount of military training, and also the funding to do such work. Hence, Denith. Karnnath is all about large amounts of training. It's history is stepped in tales of warlords and capable military leaders, and military service amongst family lineages is very common. There are military colleges in Karnnath attended by individuals from all over Khorvaire. In Karnnath, many of the highest political positions are held by people with military experience. Military service is -mandatory- amongst the general populace. I also believe the highest level fighter in Khorvaire was a Karnnathi. But to see, say, a changeling samurai, would not make much sense, unless he came from a land like Kharaka. Or Karnnath. If he grew up there, he would have a minimum couple of years in the military, and its quite possible that he was as good a melee fighter as another Changeling is a rogue.
yrogerg 06-12-07, 01:29 PM	I actually identify Sarlona with Nazi Germany, but that's just me. More like a combination of Oceania from 1984 and the society from Brave New World, really. It's hard to compare it to any R-L society, but fictional utopias actually do get at the feel pretty well, IMO. The comparison between Karrnath and Germany comes from a far-too-literal reading of Keith likening of the Emerald Claw to the Nazis from Indiana Jones, the fact that it's currently under martial law, and that it does have *some* Germanic qualities to it. That said, I *could* picture an extremely Return to Castle Wolfenstein-like adventure taking place in Karrnath. Maybe even the Aernal elves, what with the Ancestral Daisho and their ancestor worship. I actually think the Valenar would be a better fit, as they are both more martial, and more apt to venerate and emulate the feats of their dead ancestors, rather than literally preserving them as deathless and the like. But to see, say, a changeling samurai, would not make much sense, unless he came from a land like Kharaka. But, again, not everyone in the Nations is human, and as others have pointed out, Karrnath's strong martial tradition and feudalistic society actually makes it a rather excellent choice in its own right. Likewise, we have a completely wiped-out nation that at one point had its own distinct culture that has yet to be fleshed-out in any sourcebook. If you needed to construct a new culture, I'd rather do so from whole cloth in Cyre than creating another setting with an "Oriental Continent" tucked off in the corner with no real reason to interact with Kourvaire and no real reason for Kourvaire to interact with it. Y'know, ocean currents aside for the moment. The thing is, you don't need an entire "Oriental Continent" to include OA material or flavor. Heck, you don't even need an "Oriental Culture". When you strip away the flavor from the mechanics, there's little enough that *requires* these to be things that only exist in such a culture, and it seems far truer to Eberron's design to simply find ways to incorporate them where they blend reasonably into the cultures in the world. Want a Eunuch Sorcerer? Make him come from a self-mutilating sect of the Dark Six. Want the Shadowlands? The Mournland's reasonably easy to adapt, otherwise, you can create a new Manifest Zone. Want the various clans? Again, it's easy enough to make them Darguul clans, Valenar warbands or ancestry lines, Xen'drik or Seren tribes, or any number of other things. The problem, IMO, comes from wanting a culture that has Samurai AND Ninja AND the specific OA clans AND the Shadowlands, AND Hengeyokai, all the other stuff from OA at the same time, and yes, you really can't expect that without getting Roukagon, and there's really no way to add Roukagon to a setting without dropping the continent in the middle of the ocean, and then pasting it and its human population into the setting history somehow.
alchemyprime 06-13-07, 10:26 AM	True enough. I did already find a fix for non-Oriental Shugenja, albeit it does steal a bit of the sorcerer's thunder: descendant of an elemental, much how sorcerers claim to be decendant from dragons. Ninja I've turned into stealthy assassins and spies normally trained in monasteries, but House Phairlan and Thuranni do train ninjas as well. And I did tease the idea of a samurai who is just a warrior with strong ancestral ties, which would well fit any dragonmarked charater or elf from Valenar. Okay, your right. The crunch doesn't need to match the fluff. I already knew that. I was just looking for a way that there could be even a psuedo-Oriental culture thats NOT Sarlona, because about half of my players are complete and total otaku (anime fans) and would want to play the "Asian guy". I guess I could just stop trying to do that and make some small island for the hegenyokai, make the Vanara live in the trees of Xen'drik, and fit everything else somewhere else. Iajutsu Focus could easily be used like the Mortal Draw technique from Twilight Princess. Okay, well, thank you to everyone. If I have any other questions, I'll be sure to post them.
davethebrave371 06-13-07, 11:02 AM	Okay, your right. The crunch doesn't need to match the fluff. I already knew that. I was just looking for a way that there could be even a psuedo-Oriental culture thats NOT Sarlona, because about half of my players are complete and total otaku (anime fans) and would want to play the "Asian guy". Keith Baker has said that Sarlona itself was basically a giant melting pot of climates, skin pigmentations, etc. Anyone and everyone could be Asian in appearance. Or African. Or Native South American. Or Native North American. Or Aboriginal Australian. So if any of your players wants to look Asian, that's not a problem. If it's just a cultural thing, Ancient Dhakaan was sort of a weird (and awesome) mix of Ancient Rome/Ancient China/Ancient Japan in a lot of ways. And the Shadow Marches are quite obviously inspired by Vietnamese culture in a lot of ways. The first time I saw that Orc with the hat on stilts in the ECS, with all the stilt-houses in the background, I was like, "Vietnam?! Never seen that in a game before." But I gather by "Asian" you meant "Japanese", so your otaku players probably don't want to play Vietnamese-inspired humans or orcs or half-orcs. So again, culture-wise, Dhakaan is a good way to go. It's such a Rome/China/Japan blend, but you could easily have one tribe or another have more of a Japan feel than a China/Rome feel. I know the shaarat'khesh seem to me to be more Ancient Japan than Ancient China or Ancient Rome. Since my players read these boards, I'm not going to say what it's for, but I had my players roll up some 7th level Eberron characters (their current characters are level 11-12) for a future...thing...in my campaign, and one of them is playing a Shadow Hand Swordsage goblin from the shaarat'khesh. So far, his background is shaping up to be fairly ninja-esque. In fact, the traditional ninja, who has several false identities and doesn't let on that he has these crazy skills. Of course, adventuring with a party he's smart enough to realize he'll eventually need an explanation for his crazy skills. So the identity he's crafted for the group is one of an ex-Deneith mercenary from the War who was part of a recon group. Explains his rogue-ish style and his penchant for assuming different identities, and makes it seem like maybe he has a couple levels of fighter for his combat craziness. If they just want to play an Asian human, they're in Khorvaire to (likely) equal proportions with European, African, etc. people. I believe little Jaela lolipope of the Silver Flame is described as dark-skinned in Five Nations, and the human representing "Aundair" in the first few pages of 5N is also black. You'll find more white people represented in the art, though, since when artists think "fantasy setting" they think "Europeans" which is understandable as most settings are modeled off a medieval Europe, not a medieval Africa or Asia, etc. I think the artists should be given art direction to diversify a little for Eberron, as it's supposed to be fairly representative. Maybe include a party composed of a warforged, an Asian shifter, a black human and an Incan or Mayan looking kalashtar. The human descended races (apart from changelings) would likely show the sorts of pigmentations and whatnot of their human ancestors, to a point. But I digress. If they want Japanese culture, a Dhakaani clan of your own invention which fits that (complete with ninja, samurai, shugenja and wu jen) still fits the setting to a large extent, and if they want to play an Asian, they're all over the place. Hell, they could even mix it up and have a human who had been adopted into the ways of a Dhakaani clan. But that's pretty lame sounding, as Dhakaani are fairly racially isolated. Even the shaarat'khesh only accept goblins (not hobgoblins or bugbears or other goblinoids, just goblins) into their ranks, and even then if they're not from the clan, it's difficult to attain the respect of the clan. The rare non-goblin might get in, but it'd probably be a hobgoblin or other goblinoid.
alchemyprime 06-13-07, 11:10 AM	Yeah. I see everything you said there Davethebrave. Another thought came into my head as I reading some other threads to pass the time: Not every anime is set in Japan. Most of them are sci-fi or steampunk, but Eberron is plenty anime as it is. Just more long the lines of "Aura Battle Dunbine", "Cowboy Bebop", "Trigun", or "Steam Detectives" than shows like "Ruruoni Kenshin" or "Tenchi Muyo". I'm just going to reflavor all of the Oriental classes. If we later want to run an OA campaign, and someone wants an Eberron race, I'll use Kharaka. But for now, I'll use the reflavored ones. Thank you though. I do like the realisation of the Shadow Marches being Vietnam (I can't beleive I forgot the Shadow Marches. The orc with stilts is my favorite picture in the book!) and the decadent Dhakaan Empire being so Roman towards the end. For now, I'm going to focus more on vestiges and Eberron. Where can I find an Eberron Vestige?
davethebrave371 06-13-07, 11:16 AM	I had a thread about this before the purge, but it seems it got purged from a quick scan of the boards. Here's the archive of it. (http://boards1.wizards.com/wotc_archive/index.php/t-654779) We had some pretty good ideas on there. I might re-post it on the Magic boards and see what people can do with it.
Edymnion 06-13-07, 09:24 PM	Wow, that was helpful. Thanks for that. A contribution to top all contributions. Instead of simply not posting about Incarnum, you post of your intention not to post. The definition of useful.Actually, it was very useful. It saves me from getting a bunch of PMs asking about it. I get a lot of PMs like that, and while I don't mind helping out most of the time, I can't stand Incarnum, so I wanted to stop any and all PMs before they got sent.
davethebrave371 06-13-07, 11:27 PM	Do you post that in every thread on the Eberron boards where an Incarnum question is asked?
retillin 06-14-07, 10:10 AM	Yes he does. But go with Incarnum. The power of the souls of the dead. Just screams elves RP wise, but the -2 con really kills them. But even having WF using it, mostly do to the fact that they are powered by souls. But where did those souls come from? Very, very intresting plots could grow from that. So yes, even tho some dont like it, if you like it put it in there where ever you want.
alchemyprime 06-14-07, 10:48 AM	I love incarnum. I'm totally using it. Here's what I have so far: Azurins are considered as having a birth-defect that makes them unable to gain a dragonmark. The fact that warforged can use incarnum as baffled Cannith artificers for two decades now. (Incarnum never showed up in the first batch of warforged.) Silver Flame followers do NOT like totemists at all. Binders are also out of the question. (Working on ToM as well. I hope to have it is a week or two.) Shifters find a natural draw to being a totemist (working on substitution levels.) Rilkan do travel everywhere in Khorvaire. House (Jorasco or Ghandala, the Hospitable house) has Medium sized rooms even in small sized taverns called "Rilkan rooms", because Rilkans make much better guests than everyone else. They have the cash. That's all I have so far. Thinking of how to make Eberron vestiges and soulmelds. Thinking of artificer related melds.
Rechan 06-14-07, 07:37 PM	Before I make any suggestions (which really are a summation of others have said here): 1) The Lhazaar Principalities are an area rife with potential. After all, their cultures are pretty much unfilled in. Keith has wrote a few articles on them, but a few islands there could have appropriate cultures to facilitate whatever. 2) Shugenja have lots of possibilities. They revere the elements, right? Well, who reveres the elements? Gnomes of Zilargo (who deal with binding elements), and the Giants whom the gnomes stole the Elemental binding techniques from. Also, since the Dhakanni had no set divine casters, Shugenja may have been their idea of Wise Men On The Mountain. You might also have a few Drow who follow this notion as well. Lessee. Keith has all ready put up a dragonshard saying that Goblin monestaries had Ninja. You have the Houses of Shadow employing Ninja. Samurai: Valenar, House Deneith, the orcs in the Labyrinth in the Demon Wastes, Karnath (It is a martial country), and The Silver Flame also all have reasonable areas to produce samurai. I would suggest splitting up the different Clans of Samurai between these areas - for instance, the Horseback samurai and two-weapon samurai is more likely going to be Valenar, the Crab and Bear are the Dwarven version, the Scorpion clan would likely be Draguun in design, etc.
ArcTan 06-16-07, 03:06 PM	Okay, in two weeks, I'm starting a new Eberron campaign. I will be buying new books and introducing them over the summer as cool things other people have. However, I had a few questions on how to fit things before I get started. How to fit content I have: Magic of Incarnum: I was thinking just a Totem Giant, but if anyone else had an idea, I'd like to know it. I'm going to use a skarn monk first as an NPC that they'll meet in Aundair. My favorite flavor for Incarnum was that this was the forbidden magic -- "soul magic" -- the Giants discovered on their own that they used to do whatever terrible thing they did to Dal Quor and to make war on the Dragons (who invented regular arcane magic, which is a debased offshoot of the original Truename Magic). The Incarnum-using races would thus be debased or diluted descendants of the high priest class of the Giants who mastered Incarnum. Fiend Folio: Most of the monsters had a strait-forward fit, but the maugs didn't without over-shadowing the warforged. I was thinking maybe older model warforged? Any other ideas would be welcome. *Definitely* not older-model Warforged produced by House Cannith in Khorvaire. Perhaps a horrible variant of Warforged produced by the Warforged's original inventors in Xen'drik, or a mutation produced by the Sulatar Drow (like the Warforged Scorpions). Oriental Adventures: I remember seeing an Oriental continent for Eberron on these boards. Does any have the link? I really, really protest at the idea of either making Sarlona the "Oriental continent" or making up a new continent to be the "Oriental continent". The whole idea of taking a single stereotype about a part of the real world and making it a place in the game was one of the things I hated about FR. If you want to start a whole campaign setting like Rokugan based on stereotypes about Oriental mythology the way D&D-ish fantasy was originally (very loosely) based on northern European mythology, that's one thing. But no, you do not and should not have a big "The Orient!" border around one place in a campaign setting like Eberron for it to stick out like a sore thumb. I would recommend scattering OA stuff loosely around Eberron if you plan to use it -- in general, if you want OA stuff to feel "exotic", it should go with non-Five Nations races and cultures, but that doesn't mean they all have to be clustered on an "Oriental Continent". The Mror Dwarves have a culture perfectly suited to something like OA's Samurai, one for each clan; high-ranking operatives of House Phiarlan would make a lot of sense as people who used the Ninja mechanics; the Wu Jen could be an ancient form of arcane magic predating wizardry that still survives in parts of the Lhazaar Principalities; etc. How to fit what I'm getting: Tome of Magic: Pact Magic: Some of the vestiges are Greyhawk-specific, in that I can't figure how to change them. How can I move this around? Make a few Eberron vestiges? A first warforged? Making new vestiges is fine. There's a thread up right now about converting some of the vestige flavor to Eberron. Shadow Magic:Made sense to me. I'll just move this in as a Khyber/Plane of Shadow thing. Various places it could go could be an ancient form of magic practiced by House Phiarlan that they brought to Eberron and keep secret as a form of heresy; heretic mages in Droaam who see Shadow Magic as the magic of The Shadow, the dark counterpart to Aureon (who wrote the laws of arcane magic); etc. I would stay away from making Shadow Magic linked to objectively evil sources like the Cults of the Dragon Below (the link between Shadow and Khyber in Eberron is pretty weak). Truespeech: I was thinking that this is actually a very ancient form of draconic, the language spoken by Syberis, Eberron and Khyber. The dragonmarks are actually Truename characters, and that Dragonmarked individuals have these odd characters in thier Truenames. Yeah, and the Truespeech learnable by humans is a rough reconstruction of the immensely powerful magical language used by the Dragons in the Prophecy.
ArcTan 06-16-07, 03:09 PM	Maug are crazy good, and Warforged are, IMO, a tad weak. I'm not sure I'd want to put them in the same world, just because they are so glaringly different. (Maug, for instance, have +7 natural armor *and* can wear plate mail.) One possibility would be to have Cannith Artificers have somehow captured or bound a few Maug, and used them somehow as templates to create the Warforged back in the day, making the Maug an unwilling progenitor of sorts. Some Maug might resent the Warforged, as a reminder of what Cannith did to them. Other Maug might consider them equally innocent victims of what was done in the past, and even consider them like a child-race that they need to guide. Yet others might consider them half-living freaks, an abomination that should be destroyed... The existence of Maug, a pre-existing race of sentient constructs, would probably mess with the whole search-for-identity going on among the Warforged. It might be better to leave them out entirely, to preserve the tone of the setting. Actually, it is now established fact that Cannith did not *invent* the Warforged per se, but based the Warforged off of preexisting creatures discovered in Xen'drik. The stats for these creatures -- the Quorcraft Warforged -- are in Secrets of Xen'drik, but you can totally replace them with the Maug if you like, or -- more interestingly -- have the Maug be some kind of intermediate state or offshoot from the Quorcraft Warforged. (I can totally see, for instance, having the Quorcraft Warforged be the original creations of the quori to serve as their hosts, and the Maug being created by the ancient Giants to oppose them.)
ArcTan 06-16-07, 03:13 PM	Okay, your right. The crunch doesn't need to match the fluff. I already knew that. I was just looking for a way that there could be even a psuedo-Oriental culture thats NOT Sarlona, because about half of my players are complete and total otaku (anime fans) and would want to play the "Asian guy". The kind of crap people usually want from "Asian guy" characters -- "I come from a mysterious culture that's millennia older than yours with all kinds of exotic customs and traditions and martial arts that make yours look clumsy and stupid!" -- fits equally well with a character who's a Valenar Elf, a Dhakaani Hobgoblin or a Sarlonan Human. There's no reason you *can't* import random Asian tropes to reinforce this idea any more than there's any reason that you can't make the Five Nations look European or the CotSF look Catholic in order to make it seem more familiar to your players. I especially like using the Dhakaani for this purpose, since it undermines a lot of the stupid expectations people have that Hobgoblins are a "monster" race and therefore stupid and worthy of no respect.
alchemyprime 06-17-07, 01:27 AM	I like Arc Tan;s take on Maugs. That seems to be what I'll go with, but tweaked a bit. The maug won't show up for a few weeks. Again, I'm using Kharaka, but I'm tweaking that too. But I'm also using reflavored versions of everything. So far, we have a ninja and a sohei. The sohei is a warrior monk, raised in Adar, trained to be a member of the Sun Blades (opponents to the Dreaming Dark), but eventually joined another organization, the Lights of Madness (a group of aberrations and humanoids who are dedicated to using the powers of Xoriat and Dal Quor for good, not evil.). His other cabal (squad) members are a lecherous paladin, another paladin that is afraid of killing anything, a half-illithid ferral gargun fighter, and a human paladin who is greatly based off of Changed Daily. The ninja is a human who grew up in the Lhazzar Principalities. Her mother was a former pirate, and her father was a fisherman. She learned to respect water from them, and became a water ninja as she was taught by her monk/rogue mother, but developed her own techniques. (In my campaign, different monk schools have different alignment restrictions.)
ArcTan 06-17-07, 04:03 AM	Pleeeaase don't use Kharaka. If you must use Kharaka, just use Rokugan itself rather than a lame ripoff of Rokugan that basically is Rokugan with the serial numbers filed off and the imaginary names replaced, inappropriately, with real names from real places. If you *must* drop Rokugan somewhere on the far side of the world where no one has ever explored it before, then do so. Please don't just drop Rokugan into civilized Eberron and try to retcon it so it's always been there, becuase that really doesn't work very well. My preference, if you absotively posilutely had to do this kind of thing, would be to have Rokugan exist as what it *actually is* -- another world in another plane -- and have the Rokugani PC arrive in Eberron through planar travel by shadow walking or something like that. That at least really reinforces the fish-out-of-water exotic thing. (I hate to sound like a raging jerk about this, but Kharaka is not actually an idea. Kharaka is cutting out paragraphs from OA and history books and taping them to Eberron and saying "Oh, and they, er, traded with Khorvaire and stuff, yeah". It offends me on a very deep level.)
alchemyprime 06-18-07, 01:12 PM	Okay, okay. I wanted to leave the "other worlds" stuff out until I did a SpellJammer campaign. And when I said tweakig on Kharaka, I meant a LOT of tweaking. I'm only using the name. It's going to be a blended culture, I am leaving out the real-world deities, instead creating Oriental names for the Sovereign Host, Dark Six and The Path of Light (I'm saying Silver Flame, Blood of Vol, Undying Court, Becoming God and Lord of Blades have no reason to be popular there.) The clans from OA, I will use, but I've made some new clans, and each will have a race and weapon combination attributed to each I'm going to make incarnum a strong form of magic for them, and the occasional aberrant mark will pop-up. Samurai clans Scorpion- Humans and changelings. Uses a Ninja-to and Wakizashi. Unicorn- Human and half-orc. Uses a Katana and Wakizashi. Most use bows, too. Going to feel very Shadow Marches-y. Dragon- Gnomes. Use a wakizashi and kambiya (dagger). Phoenix- Half-Elf. Katana and Wakizashi. Crab- Dwarven. Uses a Katana and a handaxe. Kuwagata (my creation)- Half-elf, half-giant, xeph, shifter. Was once four minor clans, until a man formed from a forbidden daliance between a Scorpion human and a Phoenix half-elf borught together these four small clans. Lion- Human and shifter. Crane- Elf. Tentamushi- Halfling. Focuses on performing and feinting. Uses a scimitar and wakizashi. For no reason other than they can. Shugenja I'm making into a more favored soul favored type of class, but elemental. Ninja are going to be much more... theatrical. Let's leave it at that. Shaman... No. No shaman. I'm using the Mystic from Dragonlance, with some tweaking, to be the Shaman. No SPirit Shaman either. Wu Jen will be very hermity. Because I like hermits. Sohei are going to be like monks. Leave it at that. That's all I got. Oh, the reason for Kharaka just showing up: The had a trade embargo on Khorvaire. Like Japan did with the West for a very long time. And dodn't correct my history references.
davethebrave371 06-18-07, 01:23 PM	That's a little too hodgepodge for me, but if your players like it, and you like it, who am I to argue?
ArcTan 06-20-07, 02:18 AM	Okay, okay. I wanted to leave the "other worlds" stuff out until I did a SpellJammer campaign. And when I said tweakig on Kharaka, I meant a LOT of tweaking. I'm only using the name. It's going to be a blended culture, I am leaving out the real-world deities, instead creating Oriental names for the Sovereign Host, Dark Six and The Path of Light (I'm saying Silver Flame, Blood of Vol, Undying Court, Becoming God and Lord of Blades have no reason to be popular there.) Why should they have "Oriental names"? It's not like those names are "Occidental names"; they're not names from the real world at all, they're made up. It's the idea that there's a real split between "West" and "East" that carries over into imaginary worlds that makes me upset, as I've said before. Maybe Dol Arrah would be called something different on another continent, but since Dol Arrah isn't a name from any real-world "Western" language, I don't see why we have to "translate" it into some imaginary "Eastern" language. That's all I got. Oh, the reason for Kharaka just showing up: The had a trade embargo on Khorvaire. Like Japan did with the West for a very long time. And dodn't correct my history references. How about the fact that civilization on Khorvaire has been around for thousands upon thousands of years, and the idea of a "trade embargo" continuing to exist for that period of time with *no* information passing in or out being highly implausible? The *idea* of Kharaka would still have had a huge impact on the other nations of the world, after all. Also, it's just making Kharaka into a crappy secondhand Sarlona. Sarlona *already* has the "foreigners aren't allowed here" bit, only with real *history* behind it and real granularity and variation (if you've read Secrets of Sarlona). The flavor for Sarlona is ample evidence of how a real-world "embargo" can *never* constitute an absolute barrier between two different cultures. Again, if you *must* have an "Oriental" continent, Sarlona already fits the bill. It's not rigidly stereotypically "Oriental", but why would you want it to be? That'd be like asking to change the Church of the Silver Flame so it feels more like the real Catholic Church so players can have more stereotypes about it.
alchemyprime 06-20-07, 12:41 PM	But I don't want Sarlona to be the Oriental continent. I've said that again and again. And the embargo doesn't need to have been for thousands of years. How long was Khorvaire around, and they still only have one city in Xen'Drik? Also, The only Eberron books I have are the ECS and Dragonmarked. I don't have any Secrets books, nor the PGtE, nor MoE or FoE. And I didn't mean that the "oriental names" would be lifted from Japanese or anything, just an alternate name thing. How often has the Soveriegn Host said "Oh, yeah, that's just OUR god in disguise"? Look, I like Eberron, as should be evidenced by my running a campaign there. I love the mafia family/tycoon family aspect of the Dragonmarked houses. I like the paralels of the CotSF and the Catholic church. So, I'ts going to be that in MY Eberron, there will be a small archipalago off of the coast of Xen'Drik. The total land mass is half of Aernal, but scattered and islandy. And on it, there will be an amalgamtive culture of Japan, China, India and a touch of Russia. Vietnam is the Shadow Marshes, and the Arabian nights feel I leave to Sarlona. Again, this is MY Eberron. Not yours. Do with your books and campiagns as you wish. If you ask for suggestions, I may give them. If I like an idea, I like it, and it takes an idea I like better to make me ignore it. So, Arc_Tan, Thank you for your help, but I'd like to leave my wu jen and shugenja out of Sarlona. Sohei and samurai can stay. Their fine there. But wu jen, and opium dens, and black markets, and mysterious magic items that have horrible, demonic curses on them sold to you by an old man who occasionally sells you clippings from exotic plants, and sold you that weird plant that appeared after a total eclipse of the sun that one time, that will be MY Kharaka. Not Sir Elton's Kharaka, set in SIr Elton's Eberron, but My Kharaka in My Eberron.
RedGlacier 06-23-07, 12:19 PM	So, I't's going to be that in MY Eberron, there will be a small archipelago off of the coast of Xen'Drik. The total land mass is half of Aerenal, but scattered and islandy. And on it, there will be an amalgamtive culture of Japan, China, India and a touch of Russia. Not bad, I must say. Depending on where and how far off the coast of Xen'drik it is located, you might not even need a trade embargo as the reason for Khorvaire's lack of knowledge about the archipelago's existence. While the northern part of Xen'drik is fairly well known, not much seems to be known in Khorvaire about its southern part. The Dark Sea is virtually unexplored, and the Sea of lost souls is perilous at best, so if Khorvaire knows anything about southern Xen'drik's geographical shape, it will be from sailors who have stayed near its coastline for safety while exploring(and even that might not have been possible in the Dark Sea, given sailors' claims that some regions of that sea have strong tidal currents that send ships crashing against reefs or rocks near land). So if your archipelago is situated far away enough from Xen'drik's coast, it might simply never have been spotted before, and its inhabitants might have only recently discovered safe passageways through the rough seas around the archipelago(the waters near the archipelago, however, would be safe enough to allow for the development of the civilizations you wish for). Some ideas: Human, dwarve, half-giant, xeph, and shifter tribes could have gotten there in a long ago(think tribal times) migration from Sarlona that left them stranded there. Elves could have gotten to the Archipelago during the great migration (-39,000) from Xen'drik(not all of them might have headed for Aerenal), and once there, contact with humans would have produced half-elves. There are hints in some Eberron books that there were other monstrous realms in Khorvaire before the rise of the Goblinoid empire(-38000); Maybe doppelgangers had a realm of their own and fled the goblinoids(through ships or maybe portals) to your archipelago, bringing gnome, halfling, and orc slaves with them. Changelings later appeared at the same time as they did in Khorvaire and Sarlona. If you do not use them on the Archipelago, the doppelgangers and orcs(after mingling with humans long enough to give birth to a sustainable number of half-orcs) could have been wiped out in a distant(or not-so-distant) purge.
yrogerg 06-23-07, 01:46 PM	opium dens, Huh. My "opium" dens are a significant fixture in Sharn, since that's where S:CoT puts them. Again, pretty prominently. For that matter, black markets, and mysterious magic items that have horrible, demonic curses on them sold to you by an old man who occasionally sells you clippings from exotic plants, and sold you that weird plant that appeared after a total eclipse of the sun that one time Yeah, you'd find that there, too. What exactly about these things makes them need to be, or enhanced by being, in an "Oriental" continent?
alchemyprime 06-23-07, 08:00 PM	Okay. Old man with items and odd plant, that could be Sharn. I was thinking Southern Xen'Drik in the Sea of Lost Souls, actually. I like how you explain races got there, RedGlacier. I'm also going to put there the vanara (natives), hegenyokai (interbreeding between certain native fey and humans), korobokuru (as an exhiled dwarf race), skarn (immigrants from Azure Island, where all skarn originated), rilkan (from wherever rilkan come from, beside rilkan mommys and rilkan daddys), spirit folk (As is, the spirits are from Lamnia), rishi (aasimar by any other name...), xephs (cause they fit), and nezumi (natives). I'm going to use Ghostwise halflings from FRCS here too. I use the "different subraces can have aberrants, but not true dragonmarks" ruling, except with azurins, who I say can only gain aberrant dragonmarks if from an aberrant bloodline (so Azurins from a DMkd House could get Favored in House, but not the DMk that goes with the house.) Oh, and also, for my Oriental culture, again, it will feel somewhat more... Avatar-ish (the multi-oriental feel)than most settings, except I'm trying to make 13 Fiefdoms to occupy the reigon (I'm lifting the Rokugani Seven, and add in my Tentamushi and Kuwagata... I need five more. I'm thinking a Turtle Clan, a Denonychus Clan, a Jaguar Clan, a Wasp Clan and the Mantis Clan. The head guy claims to be one who can hear the voices of the Devitas (spirits) and the Deva Pir Eisan (Dol Arrah). What he is really hearing, however, I will leave up to anyone who wants to steal the idea. (I'm leaning towards mind flayer or a vestige, but that's just be.)