Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Mookie37 02-06-07, 09:56 PM	So I am planning a campaign soon based around plane hopping between alternate material planes as well as the Outer and Inner Planes. I wanna involve Eberron, especially since one of my PCs is a Warforged, but I need a way to convert the planar cosmology to fit in with the Great Wheel, so I figured I'd come here. Any help from the experts?
law 02-06-07, 11:03 PM	Well one way to tie things together is by using the back door method. As in these: The World Serpent Inn (Dragon Mag #351) Union (Epic Level handbook) Though Union would like open once a year in sharn or some such so the world serpent inn is the best way to quickly go back and forth to each game world (the once they can shift just one other hope to the plane they need to get too).
Belabras 02-07-07, 01:19 PM	The other option is to go through the Plane of Shadow, which goes everywhere. Getting from the Great Wheel to Eberron would involve going pretty deep into the place though, so you'd want to make it real dangerous.
Mookie37 02-08-07, 09:23 AM	Thanks for the ideas, guys. I think I know what I'm gonna do for all this now.
StarFyre 02-20-07, 07:24 AM	Another option is just use the 2E standard variation.... Regardless of what people from their own worlds' believe, all settings with 2 exceptions are all part of the standard material plane...so thru sigil you can get their directly. (Darksun and Ravenloft are the exceptions) Sanjay
yrogerg 02-20-07, 08:12 AM	The other option is to go through the Plane of Shadow, which goes everywhere. Getting from the Great Wheel to Eberron would involve going pretty deep into the place though, so you'd want to make it real dangerous. You could also use the Far Realm, which flavored as existing *outside* most other planar cosmologies, but, of which, Xoriat could simply be the closest edge to Eberron. Or travelling through the Dreamheart from another cosmologies' Dream Realm (you could decide that such a place exists for dreaming creatures of each plane, even if it's not a "plane" in the Great Wheel sense) and ending up in Dal Quor. Obviously, these are all super-dangerous, as well. You could also use the other variants on the transitive planes, possibly, and create Material color pools in the Astral, or allow the Deep Ethereal to connect Material planes.
Belabras 02-20-07, 11:38 AM	I'd say travelling through the Far Realm/Xoriat is so mind-twistingly dangerous that it should effectively be considered impossible. Otherwise, I agree. Cool ideas.
Kreistor2 02-20-07, 12:59 PM	Regardless of what people from their own worlds' believe, all settings with 2 exceptions are all part of the standard material plane...so thru sigil you can get their directly. I have no idea how you can believe that. "Eberron lies within its own Material Plane." Page 92 of the ECS.
yrogerg 02-20-07, 10:49 PM	I'd say travelling through the Far Realm/Xoriat is so mind-twistingly dangerous that it should effectively be considered impossible. Otherwise, I agree. Cool ideas. Well, yeah. All the explicit and implied ways to use planar travel to get between cosmologies are impossibly dangerous or unlikely. The Deep Ethereal is described as an "Ocean" of which the Ethereal is a shore, and reaching another plane through the Plane of Shadow is not only very dangerous, but *extremely* unlikely, as well. Really, that's sorta the point, from a meta-game perspective. If travel between cosmologies ever happens, it happens because the DM wants it to, and if it ever happens a second time, it's by the DM's hand as well. It's not supposed to be something that the players "just decide" to do.
ripvanwormer 02-22-07, 03:54 AM	I personally think that in a Planescape-style campaign (as opposed to a campaign based exclusively or primarily on Eberron) it's best to ignore the Eberron cosmology entirely and replace it with the Great Wheel. In an Eberron campaign, it's useful to have a distinctive cosmology in order to give the campaign its own "feel" and to reinforce that world's Rule of Thirteens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eberron#The_number_13). But in a campaign where Eberron is just one stop in a much larger planar journey, who cares about any of that? It's better to open the world to the other planes as much as possible, because trivialities like the Baker's Dozen rule are meaningless distractions from yugoloth politics, Sigil's factions, and other things that people other than clueless berks care about. Sharn's Manifest Zone is an astral conduit leading to Mount Celestia (the gate-town of Excelsior has flying castles for the same reason Sharn does). Dal Quor is the same Region of Dreams that every other world connects to. Xoriat is the Far Realm, Kythri is Limbo, Fernia is the Elemental Plane of Fire, Lamannia is the Beastlands, and Shavarath is Acheron. There are no caveats to this: they're exactly the same planes. Even though the people of Eberron think "Shavarath" has tanar'ri and archons fighting on it, they're simply wrong. Someone from Eberron saw a squad of trumpet archons or a pack of lost bar-lguras in Acheron once and jumped to a silly conclusion, that's all. The stuff about planes waxing, waning, or becoming coterminous with Eberron is simply the cycle of astral conduits. It's unlikely to come up in a few short adventures, anyway. And then it's back to the planes! If it helps, maybe this is an "alternate" Eberron that's like the "true" Eberron in every way except its planar connections. But it's good enough if it's just part of your campaign, rather than the center of it. This strategy doesn't just make it easier to get to and from Eberron, but it also makes it easier for Eberron's natives (and its distinctive planar creatures, like the quori and the daelkyr) to get to other campaigns. This can only be a good thing, unless you're very concerned with watering down what makes Eberron distinctive. I'm not, personally - I'd rather see other places Eberronized than worry about concentrating all the Eberronness in one place - but to each their own.
AvonRekaes 02-22-07, 11:19 AM	You can always make the same exceptions that were made for Dark Sun or Ravenloft. Perhaps Eberron is just a vast experiment of the draconic pantheon and Io (who is actually an Overdeity, regardless of what the Draconomicon tells you) barrs almost all access to it. In this case Eberron would be a set of 16 demiplanes. 1 Material-demiplane, 13 outer-plane-mimicing demiplanes, and demiplane "bubbles" of the Astral and Shadow plane. Being demi-planes, they would all be suspended in the Deep Ethereal, lost and hidden somewhere by Io.
Belabras 02-22-07, 11:51 AM	You can always make the same exceptions that were made for Dark Sun or Ravenloft. Perhaps Eberron is just a vast experiment of the draconic pantheon and Io (who is actually an Overdeity, regardless of what the Draconomicon tells you) barrs almost all access to it. In this case Eberron would be a set of 16 demiplanes. 1 Material-demiplane, 13 outer-plane-mimicing demiplanes, and demiplane "bubbles" of the Astral and Shadow plane. Being demi-planes, they would all be suspended in the Deep Ethereal, lost and hidden somewhere by Io. I really like that explanation. Cool idea AvonRekaes.
StarFyre 02-22-07, 05:57 PM	the thing in PS though, overdeity's aren't that big a deal. Beings such as the Lady, Asmodeus, Jazeran, Mediator predate them. And are much more powerful even. As everyone in PS knows, overdeity's, deity's...no big deal..they come and go allthe time. So the easiest way is to just make eberron another world...and have gates go to and from it...however, the World Serpent Inn already does this, and has gates to and from every setting...and it can be reached easily from Sigil..so that works :) Sanjay
yrogerg 02-23-07, 12:01 AM	I personally think that in a Planescape-style campaign (as opposed to a campaign based exclusively or primarily on Eberron) it's best to ignore the Eberron cosmology entirely and replace it with the Great Wheel. In an Eberron campaign, it's useful to have a distinctive cosmology in order to give the campaign its own "feel" and to reinforce that world's Rule of Thirteens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eberron#The_number_13). But in a campaign where Eberron is just one stop in a much larger planar journey, who cares about any of that? It's better to open the world to the other planes as much as possible, because trivialities like the Baker's Dozen rule are meaningless distractions from yugoloth politics, Sigil's factions, and other things that people other than clueless berks care about. Sharn's Manifest Zone is an astral conduit leading to Mount Celestia (the gate-town of Excelsior has flying castles for the same reason Sharn does). Dal Quor is the same Region of Dreams that every other world connects to. Xoriat is the Far Realm, Kythri is Limbo, Fernia is the Elemental Plane of Fire, Lamannia is the Beastlands, and Shavarath is Acheron. There are no caveats to this: they're exactly the same planes. Even though the people of Eberron think "Shavarath" has tanar'ri and archons fighting on it, they're simply wrong. Someone from Eberron saw a squad of trumpet archons or a pack of lost bar-lguras in Acheron once and jumped to a silly conclusion, that's all. The stuff about planes waxing, waning, or becoming coterminous with Eberron is simply the cycle of astral conduits. It's unlikely to come up in a few short adventures, anyway. And then it's back to the planes! If it helps, maybe this is an "alternate" Eberron that's like the "true" Eberron in every way except its planar connections. But it's good enough if it's just part of your campaign, rather than the center of it. This strategy doesn't just make it easier to get to and from Eberron, but it also makes it easier for Eberron's natives (and its distinctive planar creatures, like the quori and the daelkyr) to get to other campaigns. This can only be a good thing, unless you're very concerned with watering down what makes Eberron distinctive. I'm not, personally - I'd rather see other places Eberronized than worry about concentrating all the Eberronness in one place - but to each their own. I'm not actually sure how this isn't going even further, though, and simply *removing* all the things that make Eberron unique, and replacing them with Planescape. Honestly, it doesn't really impact the Planescape cosmology -and it makes Eberron immensely lamer- if Eberron is simply populated by especially especially clueless Primes, who really just don't realize that only a subset of Evil people go to Dolurrh (which would be, by conversion, the Grey Wastes), or are equally incapable of realizing that Archons aren't actually a major force on Shavarath. Not to mention the extent to which you're removing the complexity of alignment or religious belief that many people enjoy about Eberron by re-inserting the Upper and Lower Planes and the Powers. Honestly, in the scheme of things, Eberron's planar cosmology, and its influence on how everyday people see their world is a much bigger part of what makes it unique than the handful of new creatures that it introduced.
Darth Syntax 02-23-07, 03:27 AM	Allow me to leave behind my rabid, There shall be no connection of any kind at all, ever, between the Great Wheel and Eberron stance for the smallest of moments and share some ideas. I. Travel from The Wheel to Eberron I would make use of either the Deep Ethereal or the Plane of Shadow to get to Eberron from the 'normal' cosmology. At the present moment, I seem to be favoring the Deep Ethereal, so let's go with that then. The trek through the swirling fog and mists of the Deep Ethereal to (or from) Eberron is not an easy one, and most who have attempted the journey have been either lost or killed. The Ethergaunts are partly to blame for this high mortality rate, and the general hostility and confusing nature of the Ethereal account for all the rest. II. The Effects of Travel on "Foreigners" Natives to other material planes find Eberron a very hostile and dangerous environment. The same is true of Eberronians when they are "abroad". Physics, chemistry, magic, and other forces simply do not work the same way for Foreigners. This translates into needing magical assistence to survive abroad. The air of Eberron is difficult for foreigners to breath, they gasp for breath as though they were at high elevations. Eberronians choke on the air of the "normal" material plane, for the air is too thick for them. Simple planar adaptation spells can over come this issue, but until these are put in effect, survival is difficult. (I would treat this as being fatigued and possibly flatfooted until appropriate spells can be put in place) Divine magic can be a bit of a problem for foreigners to Eberron, as their gods have no power on that plane. Foreign Divine casters loose all ability to cast spells upon first arriving on Eberron. Eventually spells may be cast, but only after the caster learns that it is faith, not the gods that grant divine magic in Eberron (represented by needing to gain another level in a divine casting class). Conversely, Eberronians abroad do not suffer from impeded divine magic, for they carry their source with them in the form of their devotion. However, Eberronian Divine casters abroad are usually the target of divine agents who see them as heretics, blasphemers, and targets of divine wrath. As a result, Eberronian divine casters abroad are vulnerable to such abilities as Smite Evil (regardless of their actual alignment), turning (regardless of type), and spells and abilities of that nature. Once they learn how to hide their "other" nature (by gaining a level in their divine casting class) they are considered to be normal divine casters of their class. Arcanists, I imagine, would have similar problems. Possibly Wild Magic, or impeded, or even empowered and maximized magic. -- Anyway, just some thoughts. And I imagine that the effects of being abroad would differer from plane to plane. Until Next Time, I'm Darth Syntax . . .
Sir Elton 02-24-07, 01:08 PM	There is a gate to Xoriat in the Eldeen Marches.
mhacdebhandia 02-24-07, 04:52 PM	I have no idea how you can believe that. "Eberron lies within its own Material Plane." Page 92 of the ECS. Yeah, but what StarFyre described was the Second Edition standard. Although, he's not entirely correct. Sometimes Dark Sun was described as existing within an impenetrable crystal sphere on the same Material Plane as everyone else; sometimes it was given its own cosmology. Likewise, Ravenloft existed within the normal Great Wheel setup - true, it was a demiplane rather than a world on the Material Plane, but it was perfectly simple to get there. Leaving was the hard part.
ArcTan 02-24-07, 05:39 PM	Divine magic can be a bit of a problem for foreigners to Eberron, as their gods have no power on that plane. Foreign Divine casters loose all ability to cast spells upon first arriving on Eberron. Eventually spells may be cast, but only after the caster learns that it is faith, not the gods that grant divine magic in Eberron (represented by needing to gain another level in a divine casting class). Conversely, Eberronians abroad do not suffer from impeded divine magic, for they carry their source with them in the form of their devotion. However, Eberronian Divine casters abroad are usually the target of divine agents who see them as heretics, blasphemers, and targets of divine wrath. As a result, Eberronian divine casters abroad are vulnerable to such abilities as Smite Evil (regardless of their actual alignment), turning (regardless of type), and spells and abilities of that nature. Once they learn how to hide their "other" nature (by gaining a level in their divine casting class) they are considered to be normal divine casters of their class. Whoa. The problem is that many Eberronians are, themselves, unaware that it is faith, not the gods, that grant divine magic in Eberron. Opinions about the gods are more varied in Eberron, but belief in the literal existence of the gods and the gods' voluntary role in granting divine magic to the world is still the majority opinion among Eberron Clerics. The only change for a Forgotten Realms Cleric would be the weird historical phenomenon of finding out that none of the Eberron deities had ever manifested on earth in avatar form -- and, perhaps, noticing that Eberron's Clerics seem to become corrupt or heretical more easily than those of other realms. But I don't think what a *typical* FR Cleric (who wasn't actually there for the various incidents when a god walked on earth) has a fundamentally different idea of who her god is and what her god does than a typical Eberron Cleric. That's part of the point. The different rules about gods are something metagame, for the DM to know about -- within the world itself no one in Eberron is conscious that Eberron is a world without gods of D&DG, nor do most Forgotten Realms Clerics actually know about how the gods work according to D&DG rules.
Darth Syntax 02-24-07, 05:49 PM	The point I am making here is that Divine casters in Eberron exist without necessary benefit of the gods. All they require is faith, regardless of what they believe about the nature of divine magic. They are not bothered by the fact that their gods' do not muck about in the world, they don't expect to ever see the gods. By contrast, a Greyhawk or FR divine caster would become very disturbed and frightened if they could not longer contact their god or see its works mad manifest in the world. On a functional level, Eberron Divine casters do not need gods at all. They don't need anything other than devotion and strong belief. They can have whatever opinions they want about the nature of the magic, but it's ultimate origin is in their faith. Thus they take their source with them wherever they go.
AvonRekaes 02-24-07, 07:08 PM	I like using the Deep Etherial method of reaching the Great Ring, since it meshes so well with my suggestion of making the eberron cosmology a bunch of demiplanes. I wouldn't go so far as to penalize characters going to and from the "Great Orrery" though. Seems needless to me. Just make the etherial journey hazardous enough that it's rare, and thats all the deterrent you'd need. As for deities not being all that powerful, you could just as easily make Eberron guarded by a trio of "archdragons", draconic beings an order of magnitude more powerful than dragonic gods (Like Asmodeus is an order of magnitude more powerful than normal fiends and possibly evil gods). These, of course, are Khyber, Eberron, and Siberys and jealously guard their experiment from most interference by Factions, sects, and other powers.
DyloniusFunk 02-24-07, 11:34 PM	The point I am making here is that Divine casters in Eberron exist without necessary benefit of the gods. All they require is faith, regardless of what they believe about the nature of divine magic. They are not bothered by the fact that their gods' do not muck about in the world, they don't expect to ever see the gods. By contrast, a Greyhawk or FR divine caster would become very disturbed and frightened if they could not longer contact their god or see its works mad manifest in the world. On a functional level, Eberron Divine casters do not need gods at all. They don't need anything other than devotion and strong belief. They can have whatever opinions they want about the nature of the magic, but it's ultimate origin is in their faith. Thus they take their source with them wherever they go. I can't help but find it ironic that Eberron, a setting where divine spellcasting is absed on faith alone with no proof that dieties even exist, cannot mingle with Planescape, a setting where entire planes of reality can be changed by strong faith or belife in a concept or idea.
oneiromorph 03-02-07, 12:07 AM	On a functional level, Eberron Divine casters do not need gods at all. They don't need anything other than devotion and strong belief. They can have whatever opinions they want about the nature of the magic, but it's ultimate origin is in their faith. Thus they take their source with them wherever they go. Yeah big whoop. Clerics don't need gods in Planescape (see Athar), Darksun, and Mystara. Also they can believe in Alignments or recieve spells from the Planes. Anyway, I'm chiming in too late I know. But what's the big deal? Even if Eberron was hard to get to, Sigil is the city of Doors. There has to be at least one that leads to Eberron.
Darth Syntax 03-02-07, 01:47 AM	While the Athar are indeed an excellent example of divine casters without gods, they tend to be viewed as more than just a little bit barmy but the other. Most divine casters have gods, gods that muck about and physically exists. As for what the "issue" is in connecting Eberron to the normal cosmos, its really an issue of thematic consistency more than anything else. If there were a means of getting to Eberron from the normal cosmos, this raises the question of why the normal gods are not worshiped there, or at least known about. As it stands the whole theological/philosophical/esoteric scheme of Eberron is fairly well opposed to the normal cosmos. Making any travel between Eberron and the normal cosmos possible tends to make Eberron "just another setting", but by keeping it separate, its own unique flavor is allowed to intensify. I wouldn't want a reference in Planescape to Aureon or the Prophesy any more than I want Pelor or the Blood War in Eberron.
DyloniusFunk 03-04-07, 12:49 AM	Yeah big whoop. Clerics don't need gods in Planescape (see Athar), Darksun, and Mystara. Also they can believe in Alignments or recieve spells from the Planes. Anyway, I'm chiming in too late I know. But what's the big deal? Even if Eberron was hard to get to, Sigil is the city of Doors. There has to be at least one that leads to Eberron. The big issue is that in 3.5 all the settingd were given thier own cosmologies, and are no longer connected via The Great Wheel. So the days of Spelljammer and going from Oerth to Toril via Sigil are gone sile The Realms uses the Tree cosmology. So in order to get from Sigil to Eberron you would have to have a portal between the actual universes themselves. Which could make for a very interesitng campagin consideirng the differences between the two worlds
StarFyre 03-04-07, 01:03 AM	I don't understand why this is so hard... Just add portals in sigil to eberron. You can go anywhere via Sigil..one way or another. Also, the World Serpent Inn DOES have ways to get to sigil and Eberron. All you have to do is state that you prefer to the 2E cosmology better. How it is in 3E according to WotC means NOTHING for your campaign. You are the DM. I make all sorts of changes that we prefer. And I also use the PS cosmology.... ALso doing a PS campaign in 3.5E :) (but with quite a few changes here and there for what we prefer from 2E or unique stuff that we thought was better than the 3.5E system) :) Sanjay
androkguz 03-06-07, 11:45 PM	I have to agree with everyone who has said they don't wanna see Eberron conected to any other cosmology because I don't wanna see Eberron conected to any other cosmology. The thing is that Eberron diferent from the core 3.5 dnd in many more ways than just names (people, places, spells), and story. It's a setting you normally play different because the rules themselves are diferent: clerics can get corrupt, gods don't walk any plane, alingment is unespectable... C'mon, some Eberronians would get action points while the natives of the standard material plane can't get them? In truth, I really concieve each setting as a unique class of dnd, a way of playing almost, rather than as an alternative cosmology. That's why I don't like to see them conected. It really makes me mad when the X-men appears on the same story as Spiderman, but in this case, I think this is like having the fantastic four end up in the world of Dragon Ball.
Darth Syntax 03-07-07, 12:08 AM	I agree, although I would say that having the normal cosmology bleed over into Eberron would be (to me at any rate) having Lancelot show up in The Maltese Falcon.