Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Hashwin Jan 18, 2015 20:12:15	Howdy all. I'm using the published adventures as a way to get back under the DM hat, and after reading through HDQ once & scanning RT, it appears some real work will be necessary to make it more Eberron-ish. I thought I'd use this space to make some notes and invite commentary from those who've burned calories on this notion already. Places - It seems that the the locales as described in HDQ need to be isolated, and in the northern half of Knorvairre. Is there something about the Western, Central, or Eastern regions that would favor one over the others? Transportation - A months-long wagon train doesn't seem to mesh well for a continent with mass-transit. What changes when I convert all the wagon encounters to lightning rail & elemental ship encounters? Factions - Which national agencies, and which Dragonmarked houses, should replaces the Harpers/Red Wizards, etc.? People - Are there canon Eberron folks I should sub in? Does the flying castle need to be controlled by something other than a giant, considering the Giant/Dragon dynamic in Eberron? Is there already an aspect of the Prophecy which would lend itself to the Cult of the Dragon's interpretation? This question leads into... Is Tiamat infernal-influenced or aberrant-influenced? I know she's usually depicted as being in the Abyss, allied with or plotting against demons, but would she work better as the pentultimate avatar of Khyber's madness? No sane, healthy dragon has multiple heads after all. Thanks in advance for your two cents.
#2 EnderXenocide0 Jan 19, 2015 7:23:34	Hashwin wrote:
(Reply to #2) EnderXenocide0	So I borrowed my friend's copies to take a look at them. Here's some ideas:   The Dragon Masks play a big role in the adventures, it looks like. In the Forgotten Realms, Tiamat is down in the Abyss with other demons. In Eberron, she's trapped within a massive Khyber shard in the Pit of Five Sorrows. You could say that these Dragon Masks were made from pieces of her prison and come up with a part of the Draconic Prophecy that states she will be released from the Pit upon them being reunited.   The Cult of the Dragon is essentially just the Talons of Tiamat (which also exists in Forgotten Realms, I believe... so I'm not certain why both exists, buy hey, that's not too important here). So I'd use the Talons as the Eberron equivalent (more information can be found in Dragons of Eberron). They've made a deal with a splinter group of the Red Wizards that are planning to stage a coup against Szass Tam. This splinter group sees dragon magic and power as the way of the future and they think helping reease Tiamat will give them the strength they need. There's a few ways to handle this that I see:   1. There's a splinter group of the Order of the Emerald Claw that seeks to overthrow the Queen of the Dead (Erandis d'Vol, but they shouldn't necessarily know who she is) because she seems to hate dragons whereas they want to use them to further their goals. In this way, you can work Erandis' background into it if you feel like it. Perhaps her view of dragons has blinded her to their use and some of the Emerald Claw is fed up with that.   2. The Emerald Claw is the splinter group off of Karrnath. They want to overthrow Kaius (which they probably do want anyway) and Erandis views freeing Tiamat as gaining her revenge against the dragons that helped destroy her family. With this option, Karrnath becomes the analogue of Thay. Now... Thay is pretty unambiguously evil, whereas Karrnath isn't, in my opinion. They are militaristic and okay with working with undead, but they're not exactly trying to rule the world. Kaius is no Szass Tam. So you might need to work on that a bit.   3. The splinter group becomes a Cult of the Dragon Below that worships Katashka/The Keeper. Perhaps the Lords of Dust have a tenuous working relationship with the Talons of Tiamat and are using this splinter group for their own purposes. I don't know exactly what, but it could work. This is particularly useful if later adventures introduce a dracolich at any point, because then you've got the one holes up in the Lair of the Keeper that some claim is an avatar of The Keeper / a creation of Katashka.   A good portion of the adventures seems to take place on the Sword Coast, I believe. Personally, I would extend the playing field to all of Khorvaire. The Rise of Tiamat works under the assumption that a lot of the world is aware of the Cult of the Dragon. If you're using the Order of the Emerald claw as their analogue, that's easy. All of the five nations recognize the Order as terrorists. If you're using the Talons of Tiamat, you may need to make it apparent that there's been recent activity with them and they've become a known threat. Maybe they recently enacted some major attack that caught the attention of the nations. Regardless, you need something that brings the nations together despite their post-war attitudes toward each other. The relationship can, and probably should, still be strained. Maybe Thrane and the Church of the Silver Flame are still blaming Karrnath, even though they denounced the Order. Where are they getting all those wizards? It must be the Aundairians and the Arcane Congress. The villains have a floating fortress? I'll bet Breland supplied them with one. Play up that tension.   The Zhentarim are now mercenaries, I believe, having lost their nation. They could be House Deneith, or maybe Prince Oargev rallies the remaining Cyrans to take the charge against this cult while the other nations are continuing to bicker. They know what could happen if Tiamat is released and even though they don't know who did it or how... they don't wish another Mournland on anyone. In place of the Council at Waterdeep, maybe the Five Nations meet at Thronehold. The Twelve might send representatives as well. In Stage 2 of Rise of Tiamat, I'm seeing a section Metallic Dragons, Arise. I'd say that the Light of Siberys should be the ones spearheading any aid, or, perhaps, a faction of the Chamber that feels there's a section of the Prophecy saying they should help. Clearly, not all of Argonessen should come to the aid of the players. There should be a reason why they don't. Most likely, the Prophecy.   I'll take a look at this some more when I get a chance, but that's some initial stuff I thought of.
#4 Beoric Jan 27, 2015 8:09:33	I don't know the adventure, and I'm not as familiar with the setting as most, so my advice is more general.  Don't feel like you have to keep anything from the original adventure, pretty much everything is open to change.  You aren't stuck with Tiamat, or any of the monsters, or any of hte NPCs.  I often keep little but the plot and the adventure sites that I like.    For instance, I am running a heavily modified version of Scales of War, starting with about the third adventure.  It starts in Darguun, replaces the dwarven culture with hobgoblin, uses kasashtar and inspired rather than githzerai and githyanki, changes the rebirth of Bahumat to the rebirth of Taratai, removes most of the planar travel, and I am planning to skip whole sections of the adventure path that don't fit what I am doing.   I would deconstruct the adventure look at each element, figure out how it fits into Eberron the best, and then rebuild it into something new.   Also, keep in mind that overland maps usually have very little relevance to the adventure.  Unless for some reason you must have overland travel from point A to B, without reaching C first, you really don't have to care about translating the overland map.   Ditto for travelling distances.  You need to worry about translating distances between locations in the adventure only if the time it takes to travel between points is important.  But also keep in mind (since the overland map isn't important) that you can set elements on different continents - which could fix problems for you if travel time is important to the adventure.    So if the floating tower can be in Xen'drik, I would keep the giant.  If it needs to be in Khorvaire, I might put it in Sharn (where it is hardly unique), or have it part of Arcanix, and scrap the giant element (I can't remember, is the Tower of the Twelve a floating tower?).  Does it really need to be floating?  If not, it can be anywhere, populated by anything.  If it does need to be floating, it could be one of Breland's floating fortresses (like Argonth), lost during the Last War.  Or it could be in the Mournland, with its floating nature being just one more oddity of that place.   And while Ender is right, and the Talons of Tiamat seem a natural fit, there is no reason why you can't substitute a different Overlord, or a daelkyr, or the Dreaming Dark, or even Erandis Vol if the plot suits the villain.
#5 Hashwin Jan 21, 2015 10:55:10	Thank you both! Those are all excellent details and exactly the sort of overhead perspective I was looking for. Heh, it might be a shorter list if I stuck with the things I have to keep! I'm not very familiar with Eberron outside of Darguun and Zilargo and this series looks like a good way to go cross/intercontinental. Thanks again!
#6 PaladinNicolas Jan 22, 2015 1:31:14	I considered this a while ago, and my ideas are the following: the adventure could start taking place in Q'barra: it has isolated and vulnerable villages in Hope, you could play the tension between it and new Galifar; there are reptilian and draconic inhabitants as kobolds, a certain dragon corrupted by Khyber's influence that could be relevant for your adventure; and House Orien's slow process of gaining influence means that the most developed means of transportation in Khorvaire are either absent (lighting rail) or scarce. As to factions, I thought that the order of the gauntlet could somehow be replaced by the Church of the Silver Flame, with certain changes; perhaps instead of a non-state organization as the harpers you could have Breland's dark lanterns; the emerald enclave could be replaced by any druidic organization from the Eldeen Reaches or elsewhere; as to the lords alliance, perhaps the signatories of the treaties of Thronehold should discuss if they cooperate or take advantage or the risk to direct it against their rivals and weaken them (oh my, Eberron is so much more fun than other settings), and for the Zhentarim you could have the Aurum, why not? Just a few ideas.
#7 Hashwin Jan 26, 2015 20:30:34	I'd forgotten about Q'barra, but I like that! For the Lords Alliance I was actually thinking the Aurum, and then some faction, or all, of the Arcane Congress in place of the Zhentarim.