Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Cendragon 07-11-07, 12:12 PM	I've just been reading about all of the Tiamat spawn in MM IV and it has a section talking about Tiamat in Eberrron. I also have Faiths of Eberron and the ECS and I can't find any mention of either Tiamat or Bahamut. I assumed they don't fit into the Eberron cosmology where dragons, IMHO, are handled much different than in FR or generic D&D un terms of alignment and locale. In Eberron all of the dragons make up their own society and alignment, as I understand, are a lot more loose and a silver dragon may be evil as easily as a black dragon could be good. Tiamat as the chromatic deity/queen of evil dragons doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me in Eberron's cosmology. I see this as not wanting to let a lot of new monsters not be accessible to people playing in Eberron. For me, however, it ruins the new feel of Eberron that was being attempted. Is there anywhere is in Eberron's books that Tiamat is talked about other than MM IV? What about Bahamut? Do others find her inclusion inconsistent? If not, where does she reside and how do you explain the alignment system differences (i.e. not all color dragons are evil, or even the majority)
Identitystolen 07-11-07, 01:44 PM	Its all basically the result of tying in new monsters in a miniature set that came out. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndmin/950520000
Belabras 07-11-07, 01:58 PM	Uh, no. Both Tiamat and Bahamut are actually implied to have a place in the setting in the ECS (see some of the constellations). However, we won't have the explicit information on their roles until Dragons of Eberron comes out this year. Hellcow has said that the dragons have a religion outside of the whole Host + Dark Six mechanic that includes the Draconic dieties though.
MJMurtha 07-11-07, 03:59 PM	Hi All, Though this may eventually conflict with published stuff for the time being in my campaign Tiamat is the "Dragon That Fell." During the Age of Demons and the war between the Dragons/Coault and the Fiends she betrayed her fellows joined the fiendish side. While there may have been others she is the one that many stories have been told about, she still exists as some type of fiendish dragon and is trapped along with the Rajahs. She can be called as an avatar, not as in of a diety but using the stats for an avatar of Tiamat, and may even do something for the person calling her but again may not. :devil: This allows for LoD and Cults of the Dragon below that employ her minions and the use of those minis.
Identitystolen 07-12-07, 12:46 AM	Uh, no. Both Tiamat and Bahamut are actually implied to have a place in the setting in the ECS (see some of the constellations). However, we won't have the explicit information on their roles until Dragons of Eberron comes out this year. Hellcow has said that the dragons have a religion outside of the whole Host + Dark Six mechanic that includes the Draconic dieties though. And until that book comes out to give me a good explanation, I'm calling it a cheap tie in.
Edymnion 07-12-07, 08:43 AM	And until that book comes out to give me a good explanation, I'm calling it a cheap tie in.Even after that book comes out, it will still be a cheap tie in. But I would rather the cheap tie ins like that be religated to the monster manuals where they can be easily dismissed/ignored than to find them mentioned in an actual Eberron book (I'm looking at you, PGtE sidebars). But yes, the dragons are said to worship the draconic pantheon, and there are rumors that the sovereign host are corruptions of the draconic pantheon, as you'll notice that the host are also represented by dragons, who's colors match up fairly well with the draconic pantheon. My personal take is that the draconic pantheon isn't made up of actual gods, but of ancient and very powerful dragons that took the Ascended Dragon PrC and gained divine rank that way. Sort of like Stargate, the Ancients aren't really gods, although they have godlike powers, they just ascended to a higher plane of existance.
Bocamb 07-12-07, 09:37 AM	The only way I use Tiamat in my campaign is as an idol or image among draoconist worshippers of the Dark Six. In my campaign, the draconist sects in Xen'drik have taken to depicting the Dark Six as a five-headed dragon whose heads correspond to the colors of the Dark Six's symbol (as desc. in Faiths of Eberron). Followers of the Dark Six interpret the image as follows: the colored heads correspond to the Shadow, the Mockery, the Fury, the Keeper, and the Devourer while the body is traditionally interpreted as representing the Traveler. Whether the draconic sects developed the image independent of the dragons or adopted it from the religious texts of the dragons of Argonnessen is a matter of dispute.
heirodule 07-12-07, 03:43 PM	I wonder if it will be explained, or if it is consistent to see tiamat and dragon gods as some of the OTHER progenitor dragons. Remember the 3-"ber"s are the "most powerful of" the progenitors, implying others.
Werebat 07-12-07, 07:33 PM	The only way I use Tiamat in my campaign is as an idol or image among draoconist worshippers of the Dark Six. In my campaign, the draconist sects in Xen'drik have taken to depicting the Dark Six as a five-headed dragon whose heads correspond to the colors of the Dark Six's symbol (as desc. in Faiths of Eberron). Followers of the Dark Six interpret the image as follows: the colored heads correspond to the Shadow, the Mockery, the Fury, the Keeper, and the Devourer while the body is traditionally interpreted as representing the Traveler. Whether the draconic sects developed the image independent of the dragons or adopted it from the religious texts of the dragons of Argonnessen is a matter of dispute. Interesting, but I'd think of the Traveller more as Tiamat's SHADOW (a Shadow dragon?) Also I'm fair certain that some of the Host are represented by chromatics, so this doesn't work completely... - Ron ^*^
Dragom 07-12-07, 07:50 PM	Tying the Tiamat spawn in as the work of a mad transmuter that mannaged several successful egg raids deep into Argonessan soil a century ago, and then sold off the results to the highest evilist bidders he could find is much more Eberronish to me. Of course this would make Tiamat a Brand name. Possibly branded into the hides of the creatures. Tiamat being an abreviated form of Tiaburn Matarcle, an elderly male Elf who's sole surviving apprentice is Mordain the Flesh Weaver. Wow, that would make a nice Campaign wouldn't it?
ripvanwormer 07-14-07, 12:16 PM	Eberron Campaign Setting, page 129: "Farther still, the moons give way to stars gathered in constellations, each named for a dragon lord of legend, the eleven now worshiped as gods by the dragons of Argonnessen." So Tiamat, as one of those constellations, is a "dragon lord of legend," now worshiped as a god in Argonnessan. This has been part of the setting since the beginning, and can't be blamed on a later miniature set. Perhaps she's a mortal dragon of extreme age, or a dracolich. She's worshiped as a god, but she may not be one. The Monster Manual IV seems to indicate that she's aware and alive, but what manner of being she is isn't clear.
Hellcow 07-14-07, 12:54 PM	As the person who wrote the Tiamat material for Dragons of Eberron, I'm actually quite happy with her role in the setting (though, of course, there's always the chance it'll be changed during the editing process). As ripvanwormer says, she's present in the ECS. So the question to be addressed in DoE is "Why?" If the dragons have placed her in the sky, if they consider her a goddess - why do they do this? What is her role in a setting where chromatic dragons aren't always evil? She's been there from the start; in delving into the details for DoE, my goal was to make her a Tiamat uniquely suited to Eberron, just like the gnomes of Zilargo, the Talenta halflings, and the Valenar elves are all quite different from their counterparts in other settings. She remains a force the dragons fear. But she is a force tied to the history of Eberron, not just thrown in as an excuse to use some miniatures. We do come back to the point that "There's a place for everything in Eberron." There should BE a place for Tiamat, all the more so because she's mentioned in the ECS. She's a part of core D&D, something I remember back from first edition, from the cartoon, and today from Three Dragon Ante (for all that 3DA's assumption of good and evil dragons isn't an accurate match to Eberron). The trick is making it a GOOD place - something that feels logical, and not just throwing her in because "I wanna use my aspect of Tiamat mini". And that's what I believe we've done with Dragons of Eberron.
ArcTan 07-14-07, 02:50 PM	Eberron Campaign Setting, page 129: "Farther still, the moons give way to stars gathered in constellations, each named for a dragon lord of legend, the eleven now worshiped as gods by the dragons of Argonnessen." So Tiamat, as one of those constellations, is a "dragon lord of legend," now worshiped as a god in Argonnessan. This has been part of the setting since the beginning, and can't be blamed on a later miniature set. Perhaps she's a mortal dragon of extreme age, or a dracolich. She's worshiped as a god, but she may not be one. The Monster Manual IV seems to indicate that she's aware and alive, but what manner of being she is isn't clear. You have to admit that saying that Tiamat just up and decided her dragons were *too* focused on that Prophecy thing and should, er, reignite the war between Chromatic and Metallic Dragons was incredibly annoying.
Hellcow 07-14-07, 02:58 PM	You have to admit that saying that Tiamat just up and decided her dragons were *too* focused on that Prophecy thing and should, er, reignite the war between Chromatic and Metallic Dragons was incredibly annoying. I'll just say that in writing the material for DoE, the book I considered was the ECS. The MMIV material has some problems in terms of consistency with the setting and even internal consistency with the different spawns, and my concern was creating something that I believe made sense within the setting, made sense in regards to the new material being presented in the book, and that would bring something new and interesting to the world, even if it might be a step away from other portrayals of Tiamat (just as the Zilargo gnomes have little in common with the traditional tinker gnome, but they are both gnomes)... not something based on that MMIV entry. Again, I can't rule out that it won't get changed in editing to match the MMIV material, but given that the MM sidebars have often been questionable in terms of canon (MM III suggesting an emnity between orcs and elves, for example), I doubt it will happen.
heirodule 07-17-07, 04:03 PM	Hey, does everyone generally recognize that its 50%/50 whether any dragon is good or evil? Or are there vast stereotypes in existence, based on general character traits? You can think of stereotypical views of human races, and perhaps assume that most humans have the same view of the dragons. Those golds are quite intelligent, though, a bit greedy! The reds are a bit prone to violence, don't you think? Blues will mate with anything, I say. No scruples. The stereotypical dragon personalities are already a part of D&D rules, and the alignments are just an overlay of that anyway
JiCi 07-17-07, 07:12 PM	The MMIV has snippets on Tiamat in the "Spawn of Tiamat in Eberron". According to the paragraph, Tiamat is not quite please that most of her children spend their lives studying the Draconic Prophecy. However, she still attracts followers of her conquest ideals, but this gathering is not as important as other settings.
Altar_Boy 07-17-07, 09:17 PM	Well, this may be invalid once DoE comes out, but you could translate Io, Bahamut, and Tiamet into reborn/children of (respectively) Eberron, Siberys, and Khyber. Essentially, Tiamet is the Draconic anti-Christ.
Amaril 07-20-07, 04:59 PM	Races of the Dragon suggested renaming Spawn of Tiamat as Spawn of Khyber and to refer to the Dragonfall Wars as the Demon-Dragon Wars (or something like that).
turalisj 07-20-07, 08:36 PM	My personal take is that the draconic pantheon isn't made up of actual gods, but of ancient and very powerful dragons that took the Ascended Dragon PrC and gained divine rank that way. Sort of like Stargate, the Ancients aren't really gods, although they have godlike powers, they just ascended to a higher plane of existence. Perhaps the dragon gods exist on a yet unrevealed plane, or on the moons.
Dragom 07-20-07, 09:16 PM	Perhaps the dragon gods exist on a yet unrevealed plane, or on the moons. Or on the Ring of Syberies its self.
Nevarre 07-21-07, 01:16 PM	Just spotted this today, and it's not been mentioned so far in this thread - Tiamat, Bahamut, and a number of other Dragon deities are all described in the 'Constellation Power' of the Dragon Prophet in Magic of Eberron (p64).
Ravenstein 07-22-07, 12:13 AM	I was running a game a year back where the Dragon Below were the main foils to my group of adventurers. The adventurers had strayed way off the path of what I intended and really screwed up; they were supposed to stop the Dragon Below from summoning their dark master...but let's jus' say my group of players tend to be highly ineffectual when it comes to saving the world (deus ex machina has become a common game saver, heh). Anyways, I had jus' gotten the Tiamat mini like a week before this incident and needed something to represent Khyber. Thus I slapped the Tiamat mini on the mini-map. Here is what ensued: Player - "Holy crap! That's Tiamat!" Me as DM - "No, that's Khyber." Player - "You mean Tiamat..." Me as DM - "No, Khyber, Dragon of the Below, big bad nasty." Player - "We screwed up bad didn't we?" Me as DM - "Yeah, something like that." So needless to say, Tiamat is the representation of Khyber in my games, and Bahamut is Siberys. It just seemed to make sense that way. I never realized that they had actually been mentioned as their real selves in the source material for Eberron somewhere. Frankly, I don't think I'm keen on that. I think I'll just go with my "Tiamat = Khyber" theory.
Dvaczilla3 07-22-07, 10:36 PM	When I first read the MMIV, I had the same predicament, however, there are many great validations of the Tiamat in eberron thing. Just because dragons have a looser system of alignments in Eberron doesn't mean that a 5-headed powerful chromatic dragon can't be evil, and that a silver couldn't be good, right? There are exceptions and validations of the old stereotypes. There's about eberron that says a greedy red dragon can't swoop down and breath fire all over some unsuspecting town. It's just that the former case isn't nessecarily true. And I think the "in eberron" sidebars given in the Spawn's entry is illuminating on the subject. For instance, the Bluespawn Godslayer is almost universally hated by dragons, good and evil. Also, Tiamat is mentioned in the secrets of Sarlonna, as well as the other dragon gods. Finally, it's been said a million times, but doesn't seem to get through, it's always up to you what you leave in and take out. No one is twisting anyone's arm to use a particular monster or purchase miniatures. It really doesn't even matter what any campaign sourcebook says, if you want to, you can just change it, that's sort of the point and people do it all the time anyway. So if you think that Bahamut and Tiamat in Eberron are cheesily tacked on, then by all means, just leave them out if it ultimately leads to you having more fun.
Amaril 07-22-07, 10:53 PM	One thing I've personally noticed about Eberron's loose alignment with dragons is that there are almost no examples of this with the exception of Vharak. Every other example of a dragon that I have seen has followed the chromatic/metallic dichotomy. Sometimes I wonder if it would hurt Eberron much to say that dragon alignments typically divert from the norm only as far as neutral, but rarely, if ever, to an opposite alignment, which would allow for Vharak's role to still hold firm as a nuetral dragon protecting Eberron.
ArcTan 07-23-07, 01:02 AM	The Storm Guardians are Good Blue Dragons.
Amaril 07-23-07, 06:55 AM	OK, two examples so far,and giving the storm dragons a neutral alignment or changing them to bronze dragons would suffice.
ArcTan 07-23-07, 07:26 AM	OK, two examples so far,and giving the storm dragons a neutral alignment or changing them to bronze dragons would suffice. That's only because we never hear about Dragons anyway, since Dragons of Eberron hasn't come out yet and until then everything's supposed to be mysterious. I mean, you can say that about anything. Even if there were an army of Good Red Dragons that had their own country you could just say "Well, change them to Brass and it still makes sense".
Amaril 07-23-07, 08:22 AM	I mean, you can say that about anything. Even if there were an army of Good Red Dragons that had their own country you could just say "Well, change them to Brass and it still makes sense".That's not what I'm trying to convey here. My point is that it wouldn't break the setting if someone wanted to use the dichotomy of good metallic dragons vs. evil chromatic dragons for the sake of the Dragonfall War, dragonborn, and dragonspawn.
The Dreaming Duck 07-23-07, 03:49 PM	OK, two examples so far... In the short story "Principles of Fire", there's a red dragon who certainly seems to be good. Beyond that, there's actually a bunch more, right in the ECS. Aureon is a lawful neutral blue dragon. Balinor is a neutral green dragon. Dol Arrah is a lawful good red dragon. Kol Korran is a neutral white dragon. Olladra is a neutral good black dragon. Sure, as gods these aren't physical beings in the world - nonetheless, Olladra is both a good deity and depicted as a black dragon. (Interesting side note: There's more chromatic dragons among the Sovereigns than there are metalics. If you add the Mockery in as the only member of the Dark Six to have a traditional dragon form - albeit half-fiend - the count increases to 6-4 chromatic.) It's also implied (to me, at least) that Rhashaak's line of black dragons, the guardians of Haka'torvhak, were originally good, but were corrupted by the force they were guarding. As I see it, the issue is that Eberron asserts that dragons are capable of making their own choices, as humans are. The green dragon Vvaraak was good; the Emerald Claw, also a green dragon, was evil. Olladra is a depiction of a good black dragon; Rhashaak is an evil one. You could certainly change it, and it wouldn't BREAK the setting - but it is an established part of the setting. I also assume we'll see more about dragon alignments in Dragons of Eberron, but who knows.
turalisj 07-23-07, 04:51 PM	I want to see dragon types unique to Eberron.
ArcTan 07-23-07, 08:00 PM	That's not what I'm trying to convey here. My point is that it wouldn't break the setting if someone wanted to use the dichotomy of good metallic dragons vs. evil chromatic dragons for the sake of the Dragonfall War, dragonborn, and dragonspawn. It would be *annoying*, though, to take away something the setting specifically wanted to change -- making Dragons not be about all the crap Dragons are about in other settings, but something new and different -- and shove all the old crap back in. The MMIV wording is basically a way of saying "Tiamat, like us, is tired of the Eberron dragons doing their Eberron thing with the prophecy, and wants them to focus on the chromatic/metallic war again so we can sell the same books to Eberron players".
Amaril 07-23-07, 08:06 PM	It would be *annoying*, though, to take away something the setting specifically wanted to change -- making Dragons not be about all the crap Dragons are about in other settings, but something new and different -- and shove all the old crap back in. That's subjective.
turalisj 07-23-07, 08:29 PM	From what I've read, there never was a dragonfall war. Syberis created the dragons and Khyber created the fiends. The two fought, and that was the war.
Amaril 07-23-07, 08:38 PM	From what I've read, there never was a dragonfall war. Syberis created the dragons and Khyber created the fiends. The two fought, and that was the war. If you read through the thread, you'll see that this has been covered already. Races of Eberron treats renames the Dragonfall War as the Dragon-Demon War. While the ECS says one thing, a DM is perfectly within his or her right to say that yes there was a Dragonfall War with whatever backstory he or she likes. For example, any DM could sayt he Dragonfall Wars took place in an era long before the Age of Demons. After all, we have no idea how much time had passed between that point in history and the creation of the world. Personally, I'll probably leave the loose alignment of dragons as is. I would probably just claim that for whatever reasons, chromatic dragons have a trait that metallic dragons do not carry,and that trait allows for the creation of dragonspawn. Additionally, dragonborn can only be created with metallic dragon traits.
ArcTan 07-24-07, 01:57 AM	That's subjective. Sure it is. However, it's generally the case that people who like a variant setting like the things about it that differ from the core setting more than they like things that they could've just gotten from the core setting.
Amaril 07-24-07, 06:52 AM	Sure it is. However, it's generally the case that people who like a variant setting like the things about it that differ from the core setting more than they like things that they could've just gotten from the core setting.Oh, you mean "That's not Eberron! You're supposed to play Eberron the right way! Why don't you go play something else?" Right, makes sense, because obviously allowing any DM to tinker with his version of the setting isn't acceptable on these forums. I won't even mention how reverting dragons to traditional alignment breaks the entire setting despite keeping the loose alignments for everything else. Let's not even get into how it would eliminate the pulp and noir in locations such as Sharn and Xen'drik. And what would we do with lightning rails, airships, dragonmarks and warforged? Please, this is right up there with suggesting that playing in Sarlona only without dragonmarks and lightning rails is not Eberron.
ArcTan 07-25-07, 04:10 AM	Oh, you mean "That's not Eberron! You're supposed to play Eberron the right way! Why don't you go play something else?" Right, makes sense, because obviously allowing any DM to tinker with his version of the setting isn't acceptable on these forums. I won't even mention how reverting dragons to traditional alignment breaks the entire setting despite keeping the loose alignments for everything else. Let's not even get into how it would eliminate the pulp and noir in locations such as Sharn and Xen'drik. And what would we do with lightning rails, airships, dragonmarks and warforged? Please, this is right up there with suggesting that playing in Sarlona only without dragonmarks and lightning rails is not Eberron. I'm not saying it would singlehandedly destroy the setting. I am saying it's legitimate to be annoyed when an official sourcebook starts nudging Eberron to be a little more generic to make things easier on itself when it tries to introduce ideas like the dragonspawn, instead of simply admitting "The dragonspawn don't really fit in Eberron at all". It's the kind of thing that feels like an ominous trend.
Neutronium_Dragon 07-25-07, 05:00 AM	Dragonspawn would make perfect sense as the creations of the Cults of the Dragon Below, or the Daelkyr, or even the rakshasa or ol' Mr. Fleshweaver. It's just that they don't make sense as the minions of a meddling god who is put out over events that never happened. I can only conclude that whomever wrote the adapatation entries thus didn't truly understand the setting very well, because the cult/daelkyr/etc ideas seem blatantly obvious to me (and many others).