Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 dulsi Dec 11, 2009 10:54:36	There is a Dragonlance supplement called Legends of the Twins which has alternate timelines for the Dragonlance setting.  Has anyone done anything similar for Eberron?  What events do you think would be interesting to have a alternative series of events?
#2 weenog42 Dec 11, 2009 19:03:40	Man, what can't you do with alternate timelines?  Here's a technique - Find something that intrigues you.  Now put the word "No" in front, and contemplate the consequences. No Mourning.  In this timeline the Mourning never occurred, and so the Treaty of Thronehold was never reached.  Korvaire could still be at war to this day, or perhaps one of the many factions managed to eke out a victory, transforming the eco-socio-political landscape entirely depending on which faction that was.  Maybe the conflict has raged on so long that weaker factions (Droam, Darguun?) were able to take advantage of the Five Nations' weaknesses, and are now the major powers.  No Mourning also means that the Feyspires never became trapped on Eberron. No Last War.  King Jarot left a recognized heir, and the Kingdom of Galifar remains united. No Dragonmarks.  Humanoids never developed dragonmarks.  There are no dragonmarked houses.  As a result magic is much less common, and any real arcane secrets are those that are gleaned from the ruins of the giant empire in Xendrik.  The dragons of Argonessen probably view the "lesser" races as insignificant at best.  There is no House of Vol, and consequently no Blood of Vol (although a similar ideology may persist without such a figure head). No Schism.  The Schism never occurred between the Sovereign Host and the Dark Six, and practitioners of the faith continue to worship all aspects of the pantheon. This is just for starters...
#3 dulsi Dec 11, 2009 19:43:57	No Morning could be a lot of fun.  Especially if you could show the war ravaged world and then give them the option of stopping the Morning in their timeline. Instead of no dragonmarks I was thinking of perhaps having the giants defeat the dragons.  When the dragonmarks start showing up, the giants and their agents hunt them down. Don't know enough about Eberron to really understand the effects of no Schism.  I have thought it would be interesting to do something different with lycanthropes but not sure what. Another idea I had is to Xoriat not be closed off.  The Daelkyr could have defeated the orcs/goblinoids.
#4 veltharis_ap_rylix Dec 12, 2009 1:05:15	An interesting line of thought... I can't help but consider a "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni" type of story, with powerful beings (The Chamber/Lords of Dust and their agents) manipulating events in a small, out-of-the-way Cyran village in a battle of Prophecy that inevitably results in the Mourning (regardless of which side "wins" the battle), with a small group of locals fighting to break an seemingly endless cycle of struggle, death, and resurrection.
#5 Duke5150 Dec 12, 2009 1:34:16	There is a Dragonlance supplement called Legends of the Twins which has alternate timelines for the Dragonlance setting.  Has anyone done anything similar for Eberron?  What events do you think would be interesting to have a alternative series of events? Ahem, since I happen to be a fan of dragonlance and also happen to own legends of the twins, I think alternate timelines are a lot of fun. I'v had a few ideas for adventures based on alternate timelines, such as, 1. the giant empire of xen'drik defeated the dragons and put down the rebellion, shattering argonnessen and khorvaire in the process.(xendrix becomes the center of gameplay) 2. The overlords were never imprisoned within the flame as too many couatl's were slain by the overlords, making the needed ritual impossible. (the campaign centers around the discovery of a new ritual in order to trap the overlords) 3. The mourning did not stop the last war, resulting in the karrnathi domination of khorvaire, with king kaius III as the puppet king, sitting on the throne of thronehold, having his strings pulled by Vol, the true ruler of khorvaire. (the players in this campaign must liberate khorvaire from the oppression of Vol, or defeat the opposition and claim the throne for themselves) 4. The warforged create a new nation in the mournlands, after stabilizing it, creating giant mechanical cities. The walking god, now fully formed, is under the control of the lord of blades and is used to create legions of advanced warforged in order to amass the greatest army ever seen on eberron. The walking god is a mobile genesis forge. The rest of khorvaire unite and begin  to eliminate all warforged they can find. The only chance at peace rests in the hands of bulwark, who ends up challenging the lord of blades. (the pc's can either aid bulwark or the lord of blades) 5. The seals are destroyed and the gatekeepers are slain. Xoriat's orbit is restored and the players must either find new gatekeepers, become the new gatekeepers, restore the seals or help usher in a new age of madness. 6.  The dragonmarked houses turn on the five nations just after the day of mourning. They succeed in subjugating the continent, although their rule is not as tormenting as one might think. Infighting keeps the houses from the level of progression they could attain by working together and a new house arises to fight against the oppression of the marks.  The people of khorvaire begin to secretly aid the new house and enclave by enclave, the aberrant freedom fighters begin to weaken the iron grip of the dragonmarks. The players have to pick which side they fight for. Just a few ideas I'v been tinkering with.
#6 lordinsane Dec 15, 2009 18:29:11	''Peace without Mourning'' What it says on the tin- an alternate timeline where the Mourning did not occur, but peace still came- more specifically, to avoid infringing on the second post's No Mourning concept, a *Thronehold peace. In other words, it's like ordinary Eberron, except... No Feyspires. No Empresses in the Mournland. No/Different LoBster organization Even more tenous peace Surviving Cyre Admittedly, getting a peace that isn't a victory probably still requires strengthening the peace factor somehow... hm, strengthening Breland seems a good step- their isolationist tendencies and their king make it seem as if they might be the best choice for a nation that might be willing to not go for total victory even if they are in a much stronger position than they are in the original timeline, but instead push for a fair peace.
#7 Sarlax Dec 15, 2009 19:06:11	The feyspire that brought elves (then eladrin) to Xen'drik was never breached, so giants never had elven slaves. This produces several timelines. The absence of elves in Eberron produces a different relationship between Eberron and Dal Quor, and the quori do not feel compelled to invade. As a consequence, the dragons do not prepare the giants with magic, and the giant nations remain primitive to this day. The quori still invade, but rather than focusing on inhabitable construct soldiers to operate against giants and elven footsoldiers, they work something like the Path of Inspiration on the giants, leading to a race of psychic titans that dominate Xen'drik and Khorvaire. The quori invasion is quite similar and is similarly stopped with borrowed dragon magic. With no mass slave uprising, giant society is stable for many more centuries, until its discovery by the Dhakaan goblins, leading to enslavement of various goblin breeds and eventual war between the two continent-states. Without Aerenal being colonized by elves, it is eventually discovered and exploited by the goblins, who uses the manifest zones to breed an endless variety of enhanced goblin soldiers. A Silver Flame cardinal is secretly infected with contagious lycanthropy in 833 YK, leading to the destruction of the Church hierarchy and the eventual failure of the Silver Purge. Without a 50 year war of extermination, lycanthropes were never driven to political or spiritual extremes, and they live in nomadic tribes across Khorvaire. House Vadalis ties with lycanthropes allowed them to create mercenary forces of werebears, werewolves, etc. during the Last War. Because these forces were so effective, other monsters were never in widespread use as mercenaries during the war. As a result, Darguun and Droaam are never established, while House Vadalis has eclipsed Deneith as the preminent supplier of mercenaries. Without the Church to stem the tide, infectious lycanthropy sweeps across Khorvaire. Galifar crumbles due to the plague and Khorvaire is ruled by werebeast nations. Those who are uninfected are hunted for food and humanoids are reduced to survival by simple gathering. Erandis of House Vol is never conceived. Without Erandis to draw the mutual hatred of elves and dragons, the war between these two races escalates to the point of mutual near-extinction. The Mark of Death spreads to Khorvaire. Human kings of the proto-Five Nations are offered immortality through necromancy. Khorvaire is now a collection of hundreds of small kingdoms ruled by undead lords. Rather than creating a half-dragon elf, the Vol line instead creates dracoliches, which give elves a decided advantage against dragons. The dragons are horrified by the prospect of being made undead and draconic morale falters, allowing the elves to dominate. Without the skills they honed in hunting down all elves with the Mark of Death, the elves of Phiarlan don't master their espionage proficiency, and Aerenal is eventually destroyed by the dragons. Lhazaar's expedition to Khorvaire fails. Humans don't reach Khorvaire until they are driven by the Inspired. Without human civilizations, meager goblin nations are spread across the land, except for a subtle expansion of territory by the Zil gnomes. When humans arrive in the West, the orcs are much less accomodating, and humans are enslaved. The Shadow Marches are governed by orc warlords and druids. Goblin civilization isn't disrupted by humanity and eventually manages a recovery. Although not as grand as Dhakaan, the goblinoids develop an alliance of nations. When the dragonmarks appear, Sivis gnomes become state bureaucrats of the nation. Goblins become desperate and seek a new beginning. A bold hobgoblin leads a sailing expedition to the east and discovers Sarlona. The goblins decide to trade with the humans, creating a merchant empire that dominates the cultures of both nations to this day. The discovery of these lands unites the goblins under the banner of war, and thousands of ships are sent to Sarlona bent on conquering. A new nation is created in western Sarlona which blends the best of human and goblin civilizations. It spreads across the continent. The diversity of races and unique style of government proves very difficult for the quori to disrupt, and the attempt to colonize Sarlona fails.
#8 yakman Jan 15, 2010 7:27:11	Here's one: While in the current timeline, the Inspired were able to take over Sarlona and create the Riedran Empire, in large part by dividing their non-human enemies and hitting them one by one, driving them into the corners and shadows of Sarlona. But there's no reason why that had to happen.  What if the Inspired had faced a united coalition of their most dangerous opponents?  Even after the Sundering and the establishment of Riedra, an Inspired victory was by no means certain. Suppose a grand coalition, led by the Kalashtar (who actually started talking to their natural allies rather than hole up in their monasteries) and joined by the Akiak, the half-giants, the dromites, and the Heirs of Ohr Kaluun (and perhaps the Yuan-ti, the eneko, or the Lords of Dust?) had chosen to face down the Inspired and destroy them? Let's suppose that this causes the change of the age in Dal Quor.  without the belief and the psionic channeling of millions of riedrans focused on those monoliths, the dark spirit at the heart of Dal Quor cannot sustain itself and dies. Could Khorvaire be the target for a new invasion from an even darker power than il-ilvashtar (i think that's it's name)?  What does Sarlona look like:  perhaps a "riedra" ruled by the Heirs of Ohr Kaluun who betrayed their kalashtar allies?  or maybe the old kingdoms re-established themselves?  what of the kalashtar... are they bound to eberron like the ancient proto-warforged in xen'drik, or are there no more kalahstar because of the new age?  has khorvaire still been isolated as a result of the events in Sarlona or is there much greater exchange between the two continents (in this timeline, the Inspired are defeated AFTER the Sundering, meaning that the migrations to Khorvaire have already occurred). So there's a thought.
#9 dulsi Jan 15, 2010 10:01:53	After creating the Kalashtar Population thread, I started wondering about what if the Kalashtar and/or Inspired chose a different host than humans.  The escaped criminals are supposed to have created the blue from goblin hosts.  I don't know enough of Eberron history to know of another possible race to use.
#10 gladiusstormhand Jan 18, 2010 21:04:07	I've been working on a fanboy Spelljammer 4e reboot called The Thirteenth Planet, and I just started running it over at myth-weavers.com. Most of the early adventures are based on published works with some tweaks to fit into my campaign, but once the players reach Paragon level they'll be out and about in space and I'll have quite a bit of adventure to write. The basic idea is that Spelljamming is very new to Eberron, and there is a 1960s style space race between competing nations to find the thirteenth planet in Shardspace. (SPOILER ALERT! If you're playing in the campaign, stop reading now!) Ok with that out of the way, instead of finding the thirteenth planet, the PCs find a space leviathan (first depicted in SJR1 Lost Ships accessory by Ed Greenwood). In a nutshell, these immense ships are warforged spelljammers (a.k.a. xenforged for Xen'drik warforged) that were created by the giants as a form of magical von Neumann probe turned Berserker. When the elves rebelled 40,000 years ago, the giants issued a recall order to the xenforged. The giant-sized warforged were able to ignore the recall order but their ships weren't able to, so the xenforged abandoned them and the abandoned ships became known as space leviathans. Hopefully that's enough background to get a sense of the alternate timelines going on that are part of the adventure... Timeline One 998 YK: On the Day of Mourning, NPC Party 1 (NPCP1, NPC versions of the player characters) dies at the Battle of Saerun Road. 1020 YK: Xenforged assault scout ("Angel Ship") is discovered in the Mournland and artificers begin reverse-engineering its technology to eventually unlock the secrets of spelljamming. 1030 YK: Spelljamming invented as a collection of rituals to generate gravity, air, heat, and radiation protection, as well as an eldritch machine to provide spelljamming speed. The space race begins as competing nations attempt to out do each other. 1048 YK: Space leviathan is discovered and activated using components salvaged from the angel ship. It wipes out Eberron. Original crew of Wild Blue Yonder (the ship that found it) tries to go back in time to change history by using an eldritch machine located at Whitehearth. They screw up the time machine operation and get scattered through time. Timeline Two 984 YK: Edison d'Cannith (one of the crewmembers scattered in time), arrives in Zilargo along with Curtis ir’Patterson. Curtis thinks he can control the space leviathan so he sets out to dig up the xenforged ship decades before it was first uncovered. Edison is too old to stop him directly so he makes use of his extensive artifice knowledge to recreate spelljamming artifice so he can build a ship and hire a crew to stop him. He’s going to need money so he begins “discovering” new schemas and patenting them to build up a power base. He founds the Zilargo Astronomical Society and introduces spelljamming a scant five years after the first prototype airship flies in 988 YK. (note: admittedly contrived and I'm still working on this part) 994 YK: NPCP2 is ordered to investigate the tower near Saerun road. They see the Angel Ship emerge from concealment and fly off. They barely escape the Day of Mourning. Little do they know that the bodies of NPCP1 materialize on the battlefield. Mournland is timeless... 998 YK: NPCP2 goes on the adventure. Edison has a secret group of ASCANS in training to intercept the angel ship. Emerald Claw sabotages their sub and it implodes upon reaching collapse depth. NPCP2 is selected to take their place. Edison keeps their mission a secret so that the timeline doesn’t get further corrupted, but he plans to give them instructions once they reach the leviathan. Emerald Claw tries to sabotage the mission and fails, but they nab the instructions. NPCP2 discovers the space leviathan, angel ship arrived shortly before them. Space leviathan activated using components salvaged from the angel ship, and it wipes out Khorvaire (the Mournland once again remaining intact), but the NPCP2 pieces together enough to realize that they must go back in time to change the past. Timeline Three - current adventure 984 YK: Edison arrives in Zilargo along with Curtis ir’Patterson. Curtis thinks he can control the space leviathan so he sets out to dig up the xenforged angel ship decades before it was first uncovered. Edison is too old to stop him directly so he makes use of his extensive artifice knowledge to recreate spelljamming artifice so he can build a ship to stop him. He’s going to need money so he begins “discovering” new schemas and patenting them to build up a power base. He founds the Zilargo Astronomical Society and introduces spelljamming a scant five years after the first prototype airship flies in 988 YK. 994 YK: NPCP2 arrives a couple hours before the PC adventurers are ordered to investigate the tower. NPCP2 manages to avoid detection by their PC counterparts. PCs witness the xenforged ship’s launch. NPCP2 realizes that they have four years to stop them. That should be plenty of time because they know about the ship’s autopilot and that there is a communications tower in the Xen’drik ruins where they investigated the Xulo schema. All they need to do is order the ship onto a different course, such as into the sun.   995 YK: On their way to the ruins, they’re ambushed by some powerful enemies and perish. Some of their personal effects are left behind for the PCs to find. 998 YK: The PCs start the main adventure and encounter déjà vu many times as well as the clues left behind by NPCP2. Edison has a secret group of ASCANS in training to intercept the angel ship. Emerald Claw sabotages their sub and it implodes upon reaching collapse depth. The PCs are selected to take their place. Edison keeps their mission a secret so that the timeline doesn’t get further corrupted. But he plans to give them instructions once they reach the leviathan. Emerald Claw tries to sabotage the mission and fails, but they nab the instructions. PCs discover and board the space leviathan, angel ship arrived shortly before them. Space leviathan is activated using components salvaged from the angel ship, and it wipes out Khorvaire, but the PCs piece together enough to realize that they must go back in time to change the past, using clues left behind by NPCP2 in the PCs’ own handwriting. The latest use of the time machine proves to be its demise. Timeline Four 994 YK: The PCs travel to the past, arriving while NPCP3 is investigating the tower. They witness the xenforged ship’s launch, shortly before the Mourning occurs and engulfs the tower they explored. NPCP3 dies. The PCs know that they have four years to stop the Angel Ship. They travel to Xen’drik where they’re ambushed by powerful enemies. Unlike NPCP2, they manage to defeat the bad guys, and then the boss mobs before ordering the angel ship into the sun, and thus save the world (no components avaiable to activate the space leviathan). 998 YK: Four years later, the PCs are united and about to embark on a mission to find the Thirteenth Planet. They have been training in secret for the mission (essentially taking the place of the doomed ASCANS). The adventure ends at the start of their press conference.