Hello all,
I have been away from D&D for quit some time and have recently dug out all the old Eberron books. I always loved the way Eberron subverted the classic D&D tropes and gave them fresh spins as well as opening up the world to world to many role playing styles
As I have been rereading them I have been taking notes on the changes I want to implement for My Eberron. So far I have managed to reread most of the 3.5 Campaign Guide and all of the 3.5 Players Guide, 5 Nations, Faiths of Eberron, and Forge of War. I have also read about 2/3s of the old online Dragonshards.
I would love to get a read on some of my ideas from a community of fans and any pointers on additional resources. I am also not so thin skinned that I have a problem with someone pointing at any glaring flaws/logical fallacies I might have missed.
I am planning on using GURPS for the system - personal choice and no particular comment on the values of any other system.
Campaign wise, I am planning on using the standard 998 start date, and some of these campaign notes involve the general future of the world
Campaign Tone - Societal change play a larger role in the campaign. Instead of being post Medival, they campaign is closer to Post Renaissance, with a stronger themes of growing middle and industrial class. Industrial techniques introduced in the Last War have led to a growing conflict between the skilled magewright cottage industries and the lower class industrial workers. The growth of widespread news services throughout the last century has also empowered the middle and lower classes to be far more involved and have opinions on issues they were never involved in before the Last War.
The Last War - Overall I am going to downplay the emphasis on a the possibility of another continent wide war breaking out and move much more towards a cold/proxy war emphasis. After two years of peace, recovery is just beginning. Antiwar sentiment is much higher among the lower and middle class, especially since they have seen absolutely no benefits from a century of war.
Aundair - Planning to emphasis bigger divide between the nobility in power (who still hunger for conquest) and the middle and lower class, who while proud of their nation have a strong current of resentment towards the nobility for the numerous losses suffered during the war, Thaliost more so than the Eldeen Reaches. The nobility is largely oblivious to this resentment and will likely face a revolution if future conquest is not handled extremely carefully (Viva La Aundair!)
Karrnath - Emphasizing the King/Warlord divide, Karrnath will likely spiral into a civil war in the near future as Kaius continues to work to move his people towards a more industrial base and the Warlord continue to try to hold onto their power and seek further conflict. When civil war does break out, they will both be surprised by the warforge uprising lead from the Mournlands
As the only surviving instigator of the Last War, Kaius has a keen understanding of exactly how much has been lost, how much has changed, and that there is no going back, only forward.
The Mournlands - Although I doubt any players will learn this, here is how my Mournlands happened. The Mournlands are a direct result of a last ditch effort by Cyre to preserve itself. With almost every nation having combatants on Cyre soil, the Queen approved a plan to use planar energies to wall off the Cyre, sealing the border. If it had worked, the invading forces would have had their supplies cut off and Cyre would have eventually been able to defeat them. After regrouping, the sealed board would have been expanded and Cyre would have conquered Khorvaire one bite at a time. House Phairlan was aware of the plan to seal the border and moved most of the house elders out of Cyre so they could continue to run the house, not because they knew a disaster was coming. House Cannath was involved in manufacturing part of the eldritch machine, which had two poles, one at Making and one at the palace in Metrol, which is why there are reports that the mists came from both locations. The vast majority of House Cannith was unaware of the highly secret project and there may not be anyone from the house alive that is aware of it. Obviously, none of it went according to plan, but in the end the death of Cyre is Cyre's own fault
The Lord of Blades - I haven't decided if he is Bulwark yet or not. Regardless, he will be a warforged that witnesses the Day of Mourning and went insane seeing all the organics around him die. All warforged in Cyre on the day of Mourning survived, and many are led by the Lord of Blades who fully believes that organic sentient life has no place in the world because they are destined to destroy it if not stopped. (There are twelve models). As the campaign progresses, the primary targets of the Lord of Blades will be Karrnath and Thrane. He will seek to co-opt the indentures warforges. Once thing heat up in Karrnath, it will become the primary military target, as the LOB will seek to eliminate not only a fractured opponent, but also the only enemy that has as easily renewable forces (undead) as he does. He does have a functioning creation forge.
Warforged - The campaign arc will lead to heightened prejudice against the warforged, first as reminders of the Last War, then as job stealing automatons, and finally as a serious through to organic life. For Khorvaire it will be an emphasis on the Sins of the Last War coming to roost (which is inline with the overall campaign themes as well). For the warforged that do not buy into the anti-organic rhetoric (which will be most), the emphasis will be on the increasing hard ships involved in finding their place in the world while distance from the Last War simultaneous teaches them more about who they are as sentient beings
Gnomes - full disclosure - I hate gnomes - they are gone
Kobold - full disclosure - I love kobolds - All hale the new House Sivis. Almost anything written as canon for gnomes/House Sivis/Zilargo now applies to Kobolds instead. They are the scaly, ultra civilized, conniving glue that holds the continent together.
House Sivis - In additional to cannon, they are also the continent publishing giants. Removable type printing presses are in common use. Book and broadsheets are rarely hand written.
Zilargo/Kobolds - While Karrnath is the center of paper production through industrial means, the Kobolds of Zilargo have long had access to naturally harvested paper. Kobolds have a long history of domesticating mounts, with three broad categories of beast riders predominating. The terrestrial dire weasel riders, the aquatic giant otter riders, and the aerial wasp riders. Once of the byproducts of the giant wasp domestication is access to the paper hive husks used to birth new wasps. After use, the natural husks can be separated into three layers, a tough waterproof outer layer, a super fine center layer, and a course inner layer. The inner and center layers have long been used to document the written word, and the outer layer long been used for various industrial purposes (from waterproof panchos to packaging for goods that need to be shipped). In addition, various smaller varieties of wasps are used to produce other paper products
Languages - Between the kobold knowledge hoarding and control of publishing and communication, Draconic is the predominant language of scholarship and the arcane. Old Sarlona is liturgical language for the Soverign Host. Elven is a heavily upper class language, dating back to the intermarriages of House Pharlian that created the Khorvaire half elf race.
The Silver Flame/Demons - Demons are not bound by the Silver Flame. The Couatls sacrifice accesses the Silver Flame and it burned the demon lords from existence, unmaking them. They will never come back, however the power of the Silver Flame burning them from existence metaphysically left a imprint of their evil burned into existence. Unknown to everyone, this is what various cultists commune with and gain power from. The imprint allows evil to gather and be manifested in the real world. While the demons overlords are gone, the negative imprint will always remain and allow for more (if weaker) evil to enter the world. The reason the Silver Flame manifests at the Flamekeep is because a great evil from the planes entered the world and the Couatl and the paladin tried to burn it from existence too. They were not strong enough. They are still locked in battle with the demon able to bind, but not destroy it. Those who think the Church of the Silver Flame is corrupt are correct, the couatl and paladin barely hold the demon in balance, and above and beyond the moral failings of sentients, this balance does lead to corruption at the heart of the Church. Good news is that the right person(s) sacrificing themselves to the flame could finish the process and burn the demon from existence. It will also put out the manifestation of the Silver Flame, which could lead to some really interesting stories in Thrane as the Flame seeming ceases to exist
Sarlona/Dreaming Dark/Inspired - I still have reread very little about them, but am thinking of pushing them more into a grey area. With an entire continent pacified, I am thinking that the Dreaming Dark may have encountered a catch 22. A pacified continent and the golden age off Galifar meant less anxiety/nightmares from mortals, meant less power from the Dreaming Dark, creating a power stall or downward spiral. The Dreaming Dark is now on Khovair because the increased nightmares of the Last War have reenergized them, but they don't want to conquer and pacify, as that will lead to the same power stall. They want to sow chaos to increase their power. The Inspired may have other thoughts, since they do gain temporal power from the worship of the monoliths. Finally I am thinking of creating a conflict of their own creation situation with the common Sarlona belief that reincarnated are born into the Inspired start happening, with a fifth column among the Inspired of non Quori. All this is subject to change once I finally get around to rereading Secret of Sarlona of course
Dragonmarked Houses/Treaty of Thronehold - One big change that happened during the treaty of Thronehold the Dragonmark Houses calling in various favors and forgiving certain debts to formally acknowledge a few changed to the restrictions they have faced. The biggest being they Houses now have the right to formally own land. Zarash'ak, Korunda Gate, and Stormhome are all free cities under the governance of House Tharashk, Kundarak and Lysandar respectively. House neutrality and bans from holding offices in foreign powers are still upheld. House can maintain Defensive military forces for house enclaves and assets.
Guns - Early black powder weapon exists and was introduced in the last 10 years of the Last War. It is considered a mostly untested technology with unproven military applications. A sufficient market exists that experiments with the technology are ongoing, but advancement is slow due to the many other technology tracks that exist.
Dhakaani - I have some early thoughts of making the mature Dhakaani empire a regimented class conscious, but basically democratic egalitarian society. Most of what is known about the Dhakaani Empire is actually from the later decline period when the Empire had shifted to a more dictatorial war time footing to deal with the Daelkyr War. It could lead to some interesting stories as it is slowly revealed that the goblins once had a far more enlightened society than any of the characters have in the current campaign. It might also be interesting for the fledgling democratic movement in Breland to find an ancient Dhakaani Bill of Rights in the bowels of a Sharn dungeon. This could also lead to some interesting stories in Drarguun.
Whew, OK - That's it for now, I am sure I will think of other campaign hacks i want to incorporate as I reread more of the source material.
Anyone that made it this for - thanks for reading my ramblings.
Rags
Initial thoughts:
I love the switch of kobolds for gnomes. I find a lot of players have the same reaction to gnomes that you do, and there is something particularly unpleasant about gnomes that connive as a way of life like they do in Zilargo. Honestly, for most of my players I think Zilargo is the last place on Eberron they would willingly go. For some reason, conniving kobolds seem a whole lot more likeable. With that said, however, don't think I would adopt it for my Eberron because of all of the unintended consequences to other aspects of the setting. I just can't see a dragomarked house of kobolds getting enough respect to take the place of a House Sivis run by gnomes. I can't see people entrusting their correspondence to kobolds, or hiring kobold barristers, or respecting a university run by kobolds. I guess likeable isnt everything.
I already use draconic for all things arcane. Draconic is like ancient greek or latin.
As for the warforged in Cyre, there should be 12 +1 models. I would be tempted to call them "Cyrelons".
Don't like the idea of giving dragonmarked houses the right to own land or keep armies, but that's begause I have storylines I really like that are based on houses trying to find workarounds to those restrictions. Plus it weakens the aristocracy to the point of near irrelevance, which I feel would require too much retconning in order to be plausible. Khorvaire would essentially be an oligarchy with, in my mind, an increase in restrictions on freedom that would make adventuring more difficult - Sarlona already fills that role if that is what you are looking for.
It is something I might consider if I advanced the timeline, however. Rather than change things as at 998 YK I would think about what events led to that change, how long it took, and what other consequences arose from those events.
I'm with you on the Dhakaani empire. It spans such a long period it must have gone through a lot of changes, and in my mind for much, if not most, of its history it was likely not united. I would expect to see a cycle of dictatorship to monarchy to democracy to dictatorship as least once during its history.
Beoric,
First thanks for the response, I greatly appreciate it. As I have been rereading the setting information so many ideas have been bouncing around my head that its good to get them out and then get feedback.
The Kobold/Gnome switch - over the last two days I finished reading both the Orb of Xoriat and Blood and Honor, Both of which have prominant gnome characters. Neither of them was particularly trusted by any of the other characters. For me, and the way I plan on presenting kobold mapped onto gnomes is much the same. Zilargo will be where kobolds channeled their latent hording instict and cooperative spirit towards a civilization that works with other sentients. They will have a cooperative but transactionary realtionship with others. While there will be kobolds that entertain for a living, kobolds as a whole will not be presented as in any way bumbling. There is a long history of those who push the Kobolds too far being quietly poisoned or meaneuvered into situations that are rather deadly for them. Finally, it is more than my dislike of gnomes that makes me want to eliminate them and switch in Kobolds. It is the mix of races that have dragonmarks. I really want to have some non-mammal/non-standard humanoids represented. Eberron is a cosmopolitan setting and it seems odd to me that there wasn't one reptilian race represented among the Dragonmarked. Again, completely understand your thoughts, just working through how it would work in my Eberrron.
Along those lines, I have also been toying with the idea of another race switch among the Dragonmarked houses. Possible gnolls for house Vadalis or centaurs for House Orien, but I haven't worked through the various implications or reread Dragonmarked yet, so those ideas are in their infancy. I am intriged with the idea of advancing gnoll society to a civilized level, and I have always though centuars great potential to bind together a fantasy society.
I completely understand where you are coming from with the Dragonmarked Houses for existng campaign stability. For me, some of the Dragonmarked houses are the only public organizations that can even remotely be called winners in the Last War. They literally profitted. House Kundarak and the Mror Clans are holding debts over the heads of the other nations. For me, turning the 3 cities into Free Holds governed by those three houses represents tangible gains and real political capital spent by the Houses, as well as acknowledgement of the on the ground reality of those cities. The right to own land is a by products for the other houses and not a guarentee. The political intrigues involved will not be around work arounds at this point, but in securing the gains and moving existing holdings from rental to ownership status. I can easily see intrigue based scenarios for the PCs around securing the right leverage to get a house out from under one of the royal landlords. House Orien and Passage with the Aundair queen comes to mind. The right for defensive force for holdings is already implied thoughout the setting, in this case it just is more explicitly out in the open. I am not planning on the restrictions on offensive military build up being changed. Guards are necessary expenses, armies are resource drains. The only I see the dragonmarked houses even wanting to maintain armies is if they could get someone else to pay them for it <Cough> <House Deneith>.
Thank you on the Dhakaani thought. I love the idea of the goblinoids quietly (or loudly as the case may be) working throughout the continent to recover their heritage to find such as diveristy of information. Then seeing how it impacts their reemerging society. I am planning on reading the Legacy of Dhakaani series of novels next and see what inspiration that gives me.
My Mournlands.
So I had some further thoughts on My Mournlands. To really set up the game changing roleplaying opportunities, I am going to tie the eldritch machine to the Cyrian bloodline. The Queen is the one that triggered the border sealing device. I could build a campaing around PCs determine this and eventually revealing that the only way to eliminate/shut down the machine is to eliminate the Cyrian branch of the royal bloodline. This would create the moral catch 22 of having to kill Prince Oargev ir'Wynarn for begin the process of saving Cyre. What if the Prince hired them and now knows this? What if over the course of the campaign the Prince has marries and had children (evil thought, with one of the PCs). Are there illegitimate heirs out there that also survived. Great moral grey areas to play.
If nothing else, it could remain a background element in the world and when someone assassinated him and the mists suddenly clear there could be a on continent wide scramble to figure out what happened. Just because the mists lift doesn't mean Cyre isn't still a magical wasteland.
Finally, while this is my Mournland explenation. I am not saying this is not anything more than the first layer of the what happend. I sitll have plenty of room for other parties to have manipulated things to this out come.
As always - Thanks for reading my ramblings.
Rags
Ragusta wrote:
Syltorian,
Thanks tons for the post, several things you brought up I hadn't thought about...
Syltorian wrote:
They couldn't have had that much impact or the warforged would not have been freed, creeation forges would be legal and there would have been reparations for Orien's lost lines.
Kundarak's current power assumes the Nations don't reneg on their debts.
Beoric wrote:
See, I'm not certain the Houses would have had any official role at Thronehold. That's like expecting to see Coca Cola at middle east peace talks or the UN. Especially because they want to be seen as neutral. Denieth would be represented in each delegation protecting diplomats, Phiarlan or Thuranni spying for them, Medani catching spies, Sivis writing speeches or representing delegations, Orien and Lyrandar providing transportation, etc. Each might have a delegate's ear behind the scenes. But none were parties to the War. And the Nations would likely be jealous of their sovereignty in the circumstances and resist any official role for the Houses.
Also consider that if Cannith and Orien don't start out in a weakened position (from a story point of view) they will be disproportionately powerful. Cannith controls all manufacturing and post-War would naturally turn to both consumer goods and reconstruction. Given the limits on airships, those goods and building materials would have to be moved by Orien. Those two Houses,together with Kundarak, would dominate the continent economically. If you want that to happen, you don't need to give them anything at Thronehold, just unite the factions of Cannith and give someone with money a reason to want to rebuild the White Arch Bridge. Once the boom starts, Tharash prospecting takes off, as does sea travel. As the economy becomes more based on commerce and less on agriculture, the feudal aristocracy that depends on land for its wealth naturally loses power.
I fully concede that even in my Eberron they wouldn't have an official role at Thronehold except as advisors(also I have no idea why I have been spelling it Thornhold this entire time).
A couple of points for my Eberron. DM Houses are not Guilds. They are mature transnational corporations whos economic welfare depends on the conditions on the continent and who are comfortable welding their influence (after all they have been doing it longer than most nations on Earth have existed). My view all along is that my Eberron is far closer to a true early industrial society, not just "post medieval." I will freely admit that my knowledge of European history around the early industrial revolution is not strong (and it only serves a good example in this because of the number of nations involved), but I do have some knowledge of the era in North America. Industrial power houses were incredibly involved in the politics of the day and had many politicians in their pockets. They vast majority of them had no desire for political office because it did not make them money. Politics did affect them though, so they bought, bribes, and stole whatever votes/politicians they needed to build their financial empires. As an example, William Randolph Hearst is widely believed to have used his considerable influence to effectively kill hemp as a cash crop because it would compete as a cheaper paper source than the timber and paper interest he already controlled for his publishing empire.
This is largely how I view the DM houses. For the most part they do not want soverignty because its not how they make money, but they do want economically benificial conditions. If you look at the progress of the various railroad companies and that industry, they needed to secure land rights, organize labor, secure and move supplies, influence local and state politicians for support, and those are just some of the factors in laying track. My view isn't that they DM houses were involved in the negotiations of nation soverignty rights. My view is that in my eberron they were heavy involved in lobbys with various factions at the talks to safeguard their interests. Logically some of those issues would lead to gains or losses for the various houses. To use your example, they are the oil companies that have supplied campaign funds to the negotiatiors at the table of the middle east talks. Even apparently unconnected industries would pay attention. I have not been to Iran, but I have bought a coke in Egypt. I fully expect that if coke is not in Iran now, when trade restrictions ease they will be negotiating to be there as fast as possible.
A current example "Like any interest area that wants to influence the federal government, the food and beverage industry has spent a lot of money lobbying -- most recently on issues that directly affect both Coca-Cola and Pepsi. The industry's lobbying skyrocketed in 2009, reaching almost $60 million, as these interests successfully fended off proposals to institute a "soda tax" as part of health care reform initiatives." https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/09/the-cola-wars-in-washington.html
$60 million dollars to affect one item in one massive bill in just one country to save an industry billions, yeah, that is how i see the more organized DM houses working. DM houses can toss around that level of money. I seem to remember warforge being mentioned as costing between 4k and 6k each. Sharn is listed as has having 1500 warforge two years after the war. That is a minimum 6 million gp investment walking around free in one city. Cannith is crippled now as a unified house, but before they Day of Mourning their net worth must have been staggering, even if the majority of it was tied up and not available as liquid assets.
I agree completely with the current position of House Cannith and Orien. It makes sense for both to have suffered major losses at the end of the Last War. I could actually see Orien pushing behinds the scenes form 994-996 for the peace talks so they can have time to recover.
Finally, I do fully intend my Eberron to be on the cusp of agrarian to industrial change that you mentioned, with all the expected societal changes. As times progresses I expect the landed classes to see their economic futures affected.
All of this plays into some of the reason I will eventually use GURPS for the campaign rule set. It is not an XP driven advancement system. It allows (in my opinion) easier exploration of society issues if that is the direction some of the game goes. It also allows a more organic (again in my opinion) growth of power levels that I feel plays well to the campaign world.
I am not smart enought to create whole cloth a fully realized world that makes complete sense across all areas, but with where i want my eberron to be at technologically and societially, I cannot believe the DM houses would not have had influence at Thronehold. Admittedly alot of it would be boring economical stuff like trade routes and efforts to combat post war inflation, but just because these things are not explicity called out in the campaign guide doesn't mean they wouldn't be happening between the negotiating nations. My contention is that the DM Houses would have lobbied for those nations to look out not only for their economical advantage but also the DM Houses.
I really appreciate the comments by the way - in some cases they are changing my minds and in others they helping me to (hopefully) more fully articulate my thought processes.
With much respect,
Rags
I agree with pretty much everything you said.
I had a reply which talked about how I deal with the Mourning, but unfornately it got lost in the ether. I'll see what I can remember of it. My Mourning was a result of planar magic gone wrong, someone trying to replicate or alter what the giants used that got Xendrik into such a mess. It caused a temporary conjunction of spheres (and may have messed up their cycles if there is a later story reason for doing so). I came to this conclusion because of all f the new manifest zones that opened up in the Mournland, because of the impact on the feyspires, and because it was a nice solution to a story problem I was having.
My Phiarlan knew about the experiments, had an idea about the dangers, and knew when the fateful experiment was scheduled. I run several parallel campaigns, all of which affect each other, and all of which (so far) have commenced before the Mounring. Three of them have Phiarlan PCs or NPCs. Anyone who maintained contact with the House received a missive shortly before the Mounring assigning them to travel forthwith to some centre that was outside of Cyre. Not sure if I will ever do anything with it, but it is a thread for a player to pull if any want to.
Edit: One thing I forgot to mention is just what the phenomenon of the Mourning is. My Mourning is essentially a scab, protecting a damaged part of Eberron while it heals, and the various mutated creatures fill the role of white blood cells. I have thougth about what happens when the Mourning ends in 400 years or so (and if any of my players ever bite at the Blood of Vol hooks I keep throwing them I might even be running a campaign during that period), and have toyed with the idea that all of the people who died or were transformed in the Mourning wake up as though nothing had happened (provided nothing interfered with them in the interim).
There's lots of interesting ideas here. Sadly I don't have time to delve into it in detail, but a quick thought on the Dragonmarked Houses...
In my Eberron, the issue of the balance of power between the houses and the nations is a critical theme. Like Beoric, I like having the Korth Edicts in place precisely as a bridle that the houses are now bucking at - I think it's more interesting to have them starting to break the Edicts in various ways and to have nations challenged by how to react than to simply remove the Edicts and give them free rein.
With that said, to the question of how the Treaty of Thronehold could enforce significant restrictions on Cannith if the balance is so precarious, it's critical to remember what's happened to Cannith in the last decade. Cannith's leadership and their greatest forgeholds were based in Cyre and were destroyed in the day of Mourning. The house still doesn't have a universally accepted leader, and it's not at all unreasonable to think that it could split into three houses. Thirty years ago, the nations likely couldn't have imposed those restrictions on Cannith... but Cannith is in crisis, and it was considerably worse at the time of the Treaty. And bear in mind that there are others among the houses who are happy to see Cannith taken down a peg.
Tied to that and the point of centaur couriers, bear in mind that this is exactly what House Tharashk is doing through its connections to Droaam: brokering the services of "monsters", getting you ogre laborers, gargoyle messengers, and gnoll mercenaries. It's something that many of the Five Nations are having trouble adjusting to, and something that is treading on the toes of many of the other houses - Orien, Vadalis, and Deneith among them. So you certainly could make Orien centaurs (though I agree that you'd then have to make things like the lightning rail designed to accomodate centaurs)... or you could have Denieth's new "Centaur Express" as a new development that's challenging traditional Orien couriers.
Syltorian pointed to The Queen of Stone and my gnoll article, but Droaam is certainly one of my favorite parts of the setting, and I agree that I prefer to highlight the differences between Droaam and the Five Nations than to seamlessly blend them together. The Znir Pact ARE a civilized people - they just have a completely different culture and civilization than the Five Nations, and I like exploring that.
Anyhow, I hope you have fun with your campaign!
PS Beoric, you get a 
for "Cyrelons." That's awful. In a good way.
Hellcow wrote:
That's how I use Tharashk . I figure "half orc" can include one-quarter orcs, seven-eights orcs, half orcs that can pass for human, half orcs that can pass for full orcs, you name it. And I think Hellcowonce suggested (not in this context) that the other half of a half-orc did not have to be human. And full orcs are already full, if unmarked, members of the House. I've spent some time considering orc culture and it would definitely be out of place in the 5 Nations.
I'm enjoying following this thread as I have myself set up a group to start DM'ing in eberron again. We start on feb 21st. I'm currently planning on having the campaign start up with the module Seeker's of the Ashen Crown and then delving into custom made stuff. fun fun fun 
Noctaerm - Awesome, I hope you and yours have a blast.
Luckily, I have several months before the my group will finish up the current campaign, which is why i have plenty of time to hack my own version of Eberron (or overthink it as one my friends says <grin>).
So, I've finished rereading Sharn: City of Towers and read the novel Queen of Stone.
My thoughts on changes to Sharn - I love the concept of Sharn, but some of the execution bugs me. The constant references to streets, alleys, and even cobblestones pulling me out of the city concept of towers. To keep the tone, I think I'm going to want to emphasis a different language - balconies, passages, vaulted cealing, bridges, ect.
I think I am also going to draw a sharper distinction between lower, middle and upper divisions. Lower will be the all artificial lights, towers that have completely grown together and evoke the feelings of artificial caverns. Think I will draw some inspiration from photos I have seen of old abandoned industrial complexes. Hot, muggy, and stale air. Large areas of forgotten an unused space.
Central is going to be dim and perpetual shadowed unless an area has aritficial lights. Central is hot and sluggish with the breezes that make it through appreciated. Plazas have been constructed that are supported by flying buttresses that span the space between some towers. I am thinking of adding in giant floating sun crystals that bring in daylight to wealthier areas of central.
Upper is the classic towers with a web of bridges between them. Rooftop plazes are prized open spaces, as well as massive open air levels that are built with structural columns instead of tower walls to allow light and breezes through. The politics of "view" and "natural light" as a resource will play heavily into city tower expansion. If someone doesn't want the light blocked for their tower, in upper they have the money to hire adventurers to sabotage the efforts of another tower to raise up another level. Sharn will also be more teired, with upper central and menthis being higher and having better views than the surrounding upper areas.
Resource/Maintance levels exist throughout Sharn. The massive ones at the bottom still exists, but cistern levels exists through out Sharn for mutiple reasons, not the lease of which is physics and the energy costs of moving water miles up instead of from a local cistern).
I am thinking of adding an order of city druids that maintain the areas few green areas, constantly fighting the uphill battle to keep those areas healthy with crappy light level, soil constantly being depleated of nutrients and other unhealthy conditions.
Something else I am planning of providing far more light to is the surrounding area, Sharns farming footprint must be huge, with much of it still run as manorial estates by the high and mighty of Sharn. Country Estates and time away from the big city managing these resources should be an important part of Sharns lifes blood. House Lyrandar will have another import place here as it helps maintain the weather needed to the massive city and surrounding areas from starving.
I really liked alot of Queen of Stone and it pretty much summed up my personal feelings for Droaam. I absolutely loved the confrontation between the Medusa Queen and the Breland ambassador and his body guard. Her position that of course she would act in a civilized manor and that the humans prejudice and bigotry was blinding them was pretty perfect. I also loved how the novel shifted several times and the end goals had nothing to do with the intitial goal of the protagonist. Fits my feel that while a staight forwards story can happen in Eberron, it should also be just as likely that there is always more going on beneath the surface.
If I do another race swap in the DM Houses, part of the trick will be how long has the race been a part of the power structure of the 5 nations. With the kobolds of Sivis, my intention is that they have been fullly intigrated into society. They are not a "monster" race any more than the dwarves are. There are unique cultural facets to the kobolds and specific biological differences from the mammalian DM Houses, but Sivis has been a DM House for so long these are not strange or scary to anyone in the 5 nations.
The races of Droaam have a lot of strikes against them in the 5 nations, not the least of which has been that they have been the proverbial barbarians at the gate since humans landed on Korvaire, but being able to interact as civilized beings doesn't seem to be inherently something that is insurmountable. I like this aspect of Eberron, it is rich roleplaying fodder, so the races of Droaam are definately out for any race swaps. This leaves me at a loss as to which others race I could fold into the 5 nations as a DM House that provides enough biological/cultural divergence that is enhances role playing opportunity. Part of me still cycles back around to centaurs, but I am less sure of them now.
Thanks,
Rags
Ragusta wrote:
All points well taken - and the next book I'm rereading is the Dragonmarked book. This should help me see what has already been created for them.
I do like what has been said about Tharashk, and they definately seem a good choice as a bridge between the unknown and the known that drives so many human fears.
One of the interesting things about most fantasy takes on the longer lived races is the bizarre (to me) idea that a race that lives hundreds of years would have an extended childhood (as opposed to an extended adolescence). For the most part, biologically gestation is tied to the size of an animal, and though maturation to breeding age can vary greatly and is not tied to species size, it is inherently counter to species survivability to not reach breeding age relatively quickly. Because of this I have always played that gestation is tied to species size (smaller equals quicker) and that all sentient species reach physical maturity within the first 20 years (with some variance). The real difference for me has always been cultural maturity. I do not believe that elves and dwarves would experience ennui the way a long lived human might because they have a longer adolescent phase and cultural traditions that teach them how to deal with a longer lifespan.
My take on elves has always been that their chaotic nature ties into an extended adolecence. I can easily see your points regarding elven religion and its emphasis on overcoming death resulting from this. The long life and cultural training that resists the nihilistic effects of ennui could easily result in a culture that as a whole believes in extending life indefinately.
I have, sadly, lost several people in my life to cancer. In each case the person stuggled long and hard and at the end, was at peace with moving on. They were ready. I don't see elves as ever being ready. They have the life span, perspective, and culture to continue on indefinately. I doubt I could.
As for what it means to have a Dragonmark - interesting thoughts. I've always views the skill bonuses as a bit of a weird bennie for the marks, but I could see them being a result of a deeper connection from the marks. I'll need to think some more on it and its implications.
I really need to read up on Vadalis, I have seen several comments on magebreed humans, but for the life of me I can't remember anything about them from when I first read the books 7 years ago or so.
Again, Thanks - I am looking forward to rereading Dragonmarked
Rags
I also give elves an extended adolescence. The story reason is that I had players whose backstory needed then to be very young during the shadow schism. The in-setting justification is that as a slave race they would have been bred for a short period of childhood (when they cannot work effectively). It is a pretty poor slave who has to be fed for most of a century before they are productive. This is one way I differentiate them from eladrin.
Since I already have four pages of notes and have only made it through 3 of the houses in Dragonmarked, I thought I would go ahead and get these thoughts out instead of waiting until I have finished rereading the book. That said, all of these ideas are first pass and subject to change.
Cannith - Wow, lots here. Some of this is less changes to the House and more campaign arc ideas.
My first thought was nailing down to a certain degree exactly how much Cannith lost in the Day of Mourning. With the Cyre being its ancesteral home I am going to peg its loss at well over 50% of house assets and personel. Cannith is portrayed as being well represented and spread throughout the 5 nations, but with the area around Cyre being their home for 3500 years, the infrastructure they had build there must have been amazing.
Some cultural aspects for the house as a whole that I would like to incorporate. Innovation vs Recovery. Before The Day of Mourning pure innovation and research were more highly praised. New discoveries brought alot of house prestige, while adapting recovered works was important, but seen as something for the less skilled. Since the huge losses of the Day of Mourning, recovery and adaptation have become far more important in the house because of how much has been lost. I want to introduce items/innovations into the campaign that the House simply can't reproduce because there is no one left that knows how. Also, this shift in focus has lead to some hard feelings with pure innovators. It is now entirely possible for an innovator to hire outsiders to impeed a Cannith recovery operation if it threatens to upstage the innovator's original research.
Decommisioned Forgeholds. Forgeholds had to exist in each nation. I cannot see any nation letting troops be produced in their territory and then transported to enemy territory. So throughout the war Cannith build forgeholds in each nation as commisions that were at least partially financed by the nations themselves. Once they were decommisioned by the Treaty of Thronehold, Cannith removed proprietory arcana and the various forgeholds meet different fates. I will assign those fates as the campaign needs, but it gives me a ready source of interesting military bases, abandoned locations, or dungeon settings, all with ties to Cannith and various nations. Also it leaves the recovered arcana out their as McGruffins for either rogue Cannith, Artificers, or warforge seperatists to go after.
Campaign arc wise, I don't seen the 3 branches reuniting in my Eberron. We are four years past the shattering, and I see each branch developing specific themes.
South/Merrix is leaning towards supporting future peace in the 5 nations and would like the house united, but it it not the houses primary goal. If the other DM Houses are cousins, then East and West are future brothers and sisters. I feel this fits well with the theme of Merrix's experimentation and secretly supporting warforge efforts to find their place in the post war world. Because of the secret forgehold, I see Merrix working to create a southern institure of learning/training for his branch, leaving the influence in the Twelve to be squabbled over by East and West. I hate the mechanics of the Cyre Scout, instead of the Mark of Making producing effects completely unrelated to it existing powers, anyone following this archtype will instead be supported by Cannith South specially produced gear that is designed to overcome the effects of the Mournlands.
As an aside, since I plan on using GURPS, prestige classes will be collections of Advantages/Disadvantage/Perks that can be slowly bought up once a PC is either part of the correct organization or has access to the training needed. I have no intintion of converting every prestige class, but will instead develope any as needed by PC interest or story needs.
West/Jorlanna will support anything that she believes will lead to her being able to reunify and gain control of the House. She is neutral on the question of peace in the 5 nations. Her influence in the Twelve will lead to conflict with the East faction and early maneuvers between East and West will play out in this institution. This could also drag other DM houses into the conflict as pawns or proxies as the two sides struggle for influence. Also to grab a Shadowrun stapple. East and West may each hire adventurers to extract valuable house members from one side for the other. Both defectors and involuntary extracties are possibilites. Finally, regarding the Lords of Dust, I am pondering the possibility that as time passes for the the West branches Mark somehow be corrupted by Jorlanna's lover. It could lead to an interesting joining of forces between South and East as a mini War of the Mark is reinacted against West.
East/Zorlan is prowar and pro him being in charge. As much as he would like to focus his efforts on gaining control of House Cannith, my planned civil war in Karrnath will draw East into that mess, dividing its efforts. I am on the fence on how to play out the Blood of Vol/Emerald Claw ties, and it will be a tough act to balance selling to both sides of the conflict. It might be interesting to eventually have Cannith East break neutrality and declare of one side or the other, which could eventually lead to the other DM Houses officially declaring house East disbanded and excoriate.
Whether the PCs pull any of these thread and head into Cannith's growing conflict or not, it will be interesting background chatter for the campaign
Deneith - Less immediately pops out at me for Deneith, but like Cannith, one of the big issues that will face the house is the situation in Karrnath
I like the idea of growing pressure for Deneith to declare loyalty to Karrnath. Alot on this theme will depend on how I decide to present the looming civil war between king and the warlords. Baron Breven will want to use the conflict to emphasis the need for neutrality between nations and provide troops for the king as he is able to play, and will not want to aid the rebelling warlords until they have some form of recognition. The Deneith war faction will feel the opposite and see this as an opportinuty to claim house leadership and eventually rulership. Ultimately, I think Baron Breven side (whether he survives or not) will win control of the House once the Warforge march out of the Mournlands and start attacking both sides of the conflict.
Along this theme, Deneith may explore the possibility of undertaking the massive effort to move their home enclave into neutral territory to avoid calls for them to be play favorites for the nation they inhabit. Something like this could be a huge story/world impact. This might also be an interesting way for the House to counter Tharashk's growing influence. If Deneith could find appropriate neutral ground to move to that also gave them a stronger mercenary base to draw from it could be worth it to the House in the long run. Of course lots of factions would have strong reactions to this and it would be rich fodder for intrigues. If Sentinel Tower was lost in the Karrnath civil war, this would be far more likely a possibilty as well.
On thing I am going to emphasis about Deneith is that it is the premier skill trainer in the campaign. Rekkenmark may be the best officer academy in the 5 nations, but Deneith has been training warriors and mercenaries for over 3 millenia. They have the best drill instructors anywhere and can have a raw recruit ready for the battlefield faster than anybody. Anyone that wants to learn a martial skill and learn it fast goes to House Deneith trainers. Some out of the box thinkers in Deneith will also be looking at ways to expand their training regiments into other fields to increase their ability to complete with Tharashk. Far in Eberron's future, I could see Deneith as the best at training factory workers in a fully industrial world and the primere effeciency experts.
In addition to Sentinel Tower being the ancesteral home, I think I am also going to make it the Sentinel Marshals central base of operations. They just seem to need a home "scotland yard" to me.
Ghallanda - Just a few thoughs.
I think I am going to use them as natural in setting fixers. Riffing a little on the pick up a job from a prospective employer at a tavern fantasy trope, in setting it is well known that if you are looking for out of the box work that you talk to the local Ghallanda. For a small fee that will look out for appropriate work or put you in contact with already available jobs. Also each Golden Dragon Inn has a notice board that anyone can post to for a small fee, and these often have adventure possibilites.
One of the items that does seem to be missing from Eberron (unless I missed it) is a gypsy group. I am thinking about developing a splinter group of House Ghallanda, with out the stellar reputation, that is similiar to the Wandering Inn, but much further reaching and a full blown ethnic varient on the planes halflings. Traveling anywhere, they will have ditched the traditional dinosaurs due to cold northern weather and use tribexs or other beast better suited to a wider range of climates. They will be the Ghallanda that wanted to see the wider world but never wanted to settle down like the classic Ghallanda. Other than that I need to find some strong theme elements for them to be a gypsy culture. The tinker role is already covered by the Cannith guilds (although they no longer travel), they can't be too larcenious or they would damage the core Ghallanda reputation too much (although the possibility that the entire group could be excoriate and completely outside DM house structure is an interesting possibility), and I am not sure if i want to go the mystical gypsy route. I kind of do see them as premier smugglers though. I'll need to think on it more....
EDIT: Ok, just has a thought for the gypsy Ghallanda, what if in their wanderings they have mapped and found many of the natural planar portals. They sometimes spends years at a time in other planes, and when they are on Eberron their travelling caravans host exotic marketplaces with planar tradegoods. They Mark of Hospitality helps them survive in exotic locals, they are a natural source of Gallandra adventurers, and possesse exotic valuable knowledge. Special training (i.e. prestige classes) teach further ways to use the Mark of Hospitality for planar survival. And they still know the best ways in out of nations along back trails due to their wandering nature. Kind of digging this idea...
As always, thanks for reading my ramblings,
Rags
Wow, a lot has happened since I last had the time to take a look at this thread!
Ragusta wrote:
Syltorian wrote:
Ragusta wrote:
It does partly negate the idea Keith mentioned, that even a young elf has been around for longer than the Last War, though it still leaves open that possibility.
Syltorian wrote:
Keith, I agree with pretty much everything in your post, it makes sense works great with the Eberron setting.
Hellcow wrote:
OK, back to the Dragonmarked...
Ghallanda - I am going to run with the planar gypsy concept. Here are some of the ideas that have been popping into my noggen. Different familiy groups will focus on different planes, with the majority of familes visiting at most two different planes. This will allow a wide range of variance and specialization. Each family will have their gear designed to handle the rigors of the planes they visit. For example a familiy that mostly visits Risia might have large sled wagons with trained polar bears to pull them. Each families most prized possessions will be their wagons, which will be dragonshard focus items that use the Mark of Hospitality to project safe zones around the wagons/camps. Kind of an inside out Secure Shelter effects. The wagons can be circles/joined together to create larger safe zones. Families trade members that want to visit different planes, but gear stays with the family group. Each group often travels with a strange array of planar creatures they have meet. When in Eberron the camps are places of wonder to visit, but the classic gypsy mistrust is still there because the famlies are just so exotic to normal folk. The families trade heavily in planar goods, and often have agreements in place with circles of wizards to exchange planar components for the gear they need to survive in the planes. Meetings between the families are hugely weird events that are full of creatures from mutliple planes, stories, entertainment, and news. Finally, stranded planar travellers always have the possiblity of running across friendly Ghallanda Travallers that can lead them back to Eberron (for a price of course).
Jorasco
I think I will emphasis a little more than in canon that Jorasco lost a fair amount of personel in the Day of Mourning, both those stationed with all the factions and all their enclaves in Cyre. I am thinking of making Resthold the most recent House center, with the previous one lost in Cyre during the Day of Mourning. With the high turnover of House Patriarch/Martriarchs I am tempted to make it that the House center always moves to the new Patriarch/Matriarchs home enclave and that Resthome became the new center when the last Patriarch/Matriarch was lost in the Cyre.
I am going to give Jorasco one free service that they will always provide on request. The tradition of the Mercy Blade. If a person requests it they will always end their suffering through euthanasia. I want to tie it in as part of their ancient customs from when they were nomadic and there were times they simply couldn't help people. At times, some healers will have broken and become the equivalent of modern day mercy killers, something abhorent to the House. The Last War will have produced more of these than at any other time in the history of the house and only now, after the end of the war are they being revealed coming to light more publicly.
Funeral rites - the House has a tradition of training its healers in being able to provide basic funeral rites to those that cannot be saves. These are simple denominational prayers at a patients death when approriate. Full blown services can be arranged for a fee, but for the most part this services is not used because the Jorasco are not believers. They are simply honoring the last wishes of their paying clients.
Some Jorasco do set up trade agreements with settlements for services. This us usually a situation where the settlement agrees to cover any expenses and the settlement as a whole settles up periodically. If the the settlement doesn't pay up, services stop for the settlement, including individual services. Magical services a not usually covered by these deals, are only set number of castings are covered.
Jorasco trains in a highly specialized Healer's Cant that is based off Halfling. It is incomprensible to anyone not trained in its use and focuses on the healing arts.
Jorasco has many highly prized medical manuals that are house treasure that they train from. They are all written in Healer's Cant
I am toying with the idea of have a branch of Jorasco looking to discover the secrets of organic constructs, and possibly already being masters of making Flesh Golems.
Also there is a lot of potential for some halfling gothic horror with Jorasco. Our heroes recuperating at a lonely isolated Jorasco spa only to discover that Victor Jorasco needs one final part from the party for his Golem to be ALIVE! while Sigmund Jorasco is brainwashing another hero into being his loyal servant while treating his mental issues and Josef Jorasco wants to run medical experiments on the remaining heros.
Kundarak -
A clear distinction need to be drawn between the Mror Hold banking concerns and Kundarak banking concerns. Kundarak will never engage in economic terrorism. It's reputation and honor is simply too valuable. That said, they will be vary upfront and public about the consequences of any defaults on debters obligations to them. I view it as analogious to how S&P downgraded the US credit after the debt ceiling debacle. You don't pay back your loans and everyone in Korvaire is going to hear about it. The Mror Holds clans however will apply subtle pressure by giving or denying favorable loans/status/credit to projectst that help their interests or hurt their rivals.
Along those lines, any contract with Kundarak will clearly state that they have a right to collect on defaults. To this end I will expand the role of the Silver Keys so they also act as a collections agency. I am almost possitive I have seen a picture somewhere with a theif leaving by a window with a "Debt: Collected in Full" not nailed to the wall, and that's how I see this working. You default on a debt, after a certain point a Silver Key will be sent to collect whatever is of valure that will cover the debt, plus interest. To this end Silver Keys will also be master appraisers, something that is also another small revenue stream for the house.
Auctions - I am going to handle defaulted vaults this way. Kundarak will auction off defaulted vaults after nonpayment once the vault has been in default for the full time it was payed for. So if a noble house has had payed for a vault for a hundred years, it would take a hundred years of nonpayment before Kundarak would open the vault and auction the goods. No vault can be accessed while it has an outstanding debt. To ensure a return, anyone that wants to bid on a vaults contents must pay 5% of the outstanding debt for the vault. This ensure Kundarak get some return and only attracts motivated buyers. I like this idea, because it always alot of long lost treasure to come up as McGruffins from a wide range of time periods. PCs can either end up shopping for themselves or be sent after their patrons must have items that has only now become available.
The Iron Gate has the Platinum Guards, ceremonial guards decked out to the nines that are used to guard symbolic locations and are oddly huge tourist draws. Nobody is quite sure what is hidden under their ridiculously huge fur hats, but they hats almost double the height of these dwarves.
Lyrandar
It has been over 20 years since I read Frank Herbert's Dune, but I am struck by the parallels between the book and the house. You have the mythic leader (Paul/the First Born) who guides a marginal people to a place of prominance (Fremen/Khoravar) and transforms into a huge mythic totem animal (Worm/Kraken). I am not sure of there are other parallels to draw, but for some reason I did find it striking. I am not sure of this is really a common Archtype.
Pictures seem to depict the House using alot of rapiers, but with the nautical themes of the House, I am going the emphasis the cutlass as a house weapon.
I am so giving House Lyrandar a hidden island base somewhere where they are working on developing the secrets of elemental binding. Disaster or success are up in the air, probably both eventually.
I also am going to give Stormhome a big prestigious cultural even for the continent. The Stormhome Regatta. Those with the DM of Storm are forbidden from participating, but any other non-offensive magic or technique is allowed. House Lyrandar awards prizes up to and including house or guild membership to the winners and watchs the Ragatta closely to see any techniques they want to steal for their own house interests. Its the best sort of industrial espionage for the house, they literally have potential competitors show off their innovations.
I considered the possiblity of submersible elemental crafts, but since submarines serve more of a military function than an economic one, I don't see any huge focus from the house in this direction.
That's it for now - Peace,
Rags
Ragusta wrote:
Syltorian wrote:
"Rebellion" was a poor choice of words for the point I was making. Again, to me the point is about fluid intelligence versus crystalized intelligence. Fluid intelligence governs our ability to adapt to new and unexpected situations, and to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty. It's the gift that makes children so adept at learning languages and adapting to new tools - as shown by the two year old who can master an iPhone that baffles his grandfather. In humans, fluid intelligence peaks in young adulthood and then declines. Crystalized intelligence is our ability to make use of the knowledge and skills we have acquired. So the grandfather who has trouble learning to use the iPhone may be a brilliant man in all other ways and a master of his craft; he just has trouble adapting to entirely new paradigms.
My point with the elves is to say that their rate of decline in fluid intelligence is exactly the same as humanity... though by contrast, their crystalized intelligence doesn't decline as swiftly. So by the time an elf is 20 years old, his fluid intelligence has peaked. The difference is that twenty years is a significant part of a human lifespan... while the elf may go on to live another six centuries, and that's assuming that he doesn't get raised to the Undying Court. The result of this is that elven culture is driven by crystalized intelligence. It is driven by tradition, by using established knowledge, by honing old methods instead of devising entirely new ones. A two-hundred year old elf may only be the equivalent of a 28 year old human in terms of how long he has left to live... but he's the equivalent of a two hundred year old human in terms of how set he is in his ways.
The point of all this being that humans are ultimately more adaptable and more driven to try new things and solve problems in new ways. We all seem to agree that elves spend a lengthy amount of time preparing before going out into the world. My point is that by the time they go out into the world, they are VERY set in their ways; the 20 year old human is far more flexible than the hundred year old elf.
As I've said, to me this is the key to limiting the power of the elves and their culture. If an elf has a LONGER period of fluid intelligence than a human, I would expect them to have considerably more innovation and to have advanced farther than humanity could ever hope to match; again, the Undying Court alone has been around for many times the length of human civilization. Instead, they are mired in tradition and in perfecting the old ways. We don't need to learn to program the VCR, because we make the finest books you can ever imagine. Even looking to the Valenar, I feel that they are less about being able to quickly adapt to an unexpected scenario and more about studying war so thoroughly that they have an answer to whatever comes up. Ambushed in the desert? Caeralonia's Precepts of Sand has that covered. Attacked from above and below? Use Jaerdon's kata. The twenty year old human soldier hasn't had TIME to master all those techniques... but he's better at quickly adapting to the unexpected.
Keith, I have to say, your Avatar/Icon is one of my all time favorites. I remember seeing it back when I initially followed Eberron years ago, and its kind of comforting to see it still out on the interwebs.
A few random follow-up points...
I'm not trying to trivialize the accomplishments of the elves in any way. The Valenar are, pound-for-pound, the finest soldiers on Khorvaire, largely because the typical Valenar soldier has spent over a century devoted to studying the art of war. I'm just saying that they approach things in a very different way than humans. Again, that Valenar soldier has spent a century studying war. He has perfected hundreds of techniques and drills, and memorized thousands of accounts of previous Tairnadal heroes. When he encounters an unexpected situation, he's not at a loss for what to do - because over the course of forty thousand years, the Tairnadal have encountered almost every situation imaginable, and he will have SOMETHING to fall back on in his lessons. It's simply that he focused on it in a crystalized manner, using the skills and lessons he has mastered and honed. A human in the same situation might not HAVE a dozen historical accounts and three martial techniques specifically designed to deal with this situation; but he runs with instinct, adrenaline, and extrapolating from the things he DOES know. Even when a human and a Tairnadal are the same class and level, they will feel very different. The same holds true for wizards. An elf wizard who's been studying magic for three centuries approaches it in a very different way from a 40-year old human. Even a skilled human is still on some level MacGuyvering magic, taking shortcuts driven by pure willpower and tricks that he's discovered that work well for him. The elf wizard has literally spent a decade mastering somatic components alone, and his gestures are a work of art. His accent on his verbal components is identical to that of the wizard who first recorded those words of power twenty thousand years ago... and he may have been taught by that wizard. It's simply the case that you can acheive the same results by finding a unqiue accent that resonates with YOUR aura, and that's what the human has figured out. If you take a hundred human wizards and a hundred elf wizards, more of the humans will experiment with personal techniques... whereas most of the elves will focus on honing known techniques until they are absolutely perfect.
With that said, the elves have had certainly had great innovators and inventors throughout their history. There are always people who break the mold and try new things. These people inspire future generations, and become the patrons of future Tairnadal or join the Undying Court. I'm just saying that they tend to be RARER among the elves than among humanity, because the weight of tradition and the influence of the past are such palpable forces in their culture.
... At least, that's how it is in my Eberron.
But if you don't extend adolescence somewhat you miss out on the puckish eternal teenager trope that you see in many fairy tales - Robin Goodfellow is a good example. I tend to agree with Ragusta that a good deal of how adolescence shapes up would be societal.
Adolescent Aerenal elves might be like many of the privileged kids I knew in high school and university - self-absorbed and utterly irresponsible, who later grew up into ultra-conservative lawyers, bankers and captains of industry with no tolerance for the sort of behaviour they used to indulge in. I mean, really, what do adolescent Aerenal really have to be concerned with? However, elf children are rare, and as a small demographic adolescents have little impact on society; they are so decadent and undisciplined during those years that nobody takes them seriously, and the dominant personalities in their society are generations old. So Aerenal would be as changeless as you suggest.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have tribal elves in the northern Eldeen Reaches (I think I read a reference to such), who don't expect to die of old age, and for whom there is a cultural expectation of contributing to the tribe as soon as they are able to do so, and who would be exected to settle down, marry and reproduce as soon as possible. Responsibility comes early to them, and they will behave in an appropriate manner. Their adolescents will still be impulsive, which might exhibit itself in raiding, but the impulsivemenss would be tempered by responsibility and the harsh realities of their environment.
Urban Khorvairan elves live in a human dominant society that values innovation, but in which their peers will be maturing much faster than them. I imagine their adolecents would live much like the "confirmed bachelor" who sees this friends marrying and having children but hasn't quite got them himself. My friends like that generally claim they have no interest in it, but often seem a bit wistful around committed couples and children. I expect these probably end up marrying soon after they become "of age" for an elf. I believe I have ready that Khorvairan elves generally have the values and loyalties of the nations they com from. Elder elves may not be well equipped for change, but given the company they keep they would likely see the value of flexibility and would adapt by being a flexible as a mature elf can be in the rapidly changing human world. It is also a question of resources. It takes a lot of money to be irresponsible for a century, so there would likely be pressure to al least hold down a job.
They would be different from the Phiarlan and Thuranni elves who I see as being more like the Aerenal, with the eternal, monolithic House filling the role of the Undying Court. Its roots are in Aerenal, after all. However, their youths are probably more responsible, since the houses are economically driven and likely won't put money into you unless they expect to get something out. My guess is, as long as you are going to "art school" and learning zen calligraphy they will pay your ticket. Otherwise you had better go out and sing. Mind you, itinerant musicians are not generally perceived y society as particularly responsible.
Tairnadal adolescents' energies are easily focussed in the direction that their elders wish. In fact, an extended adolescence can explain why so many seem to interpret "following in the footsteps of my ancestors who fought for their freedom from the giants" as "going out and picking a fight with the toughest S.O.B. I can find". Their ancestors probably were more like the elf tribes I described above, because both as slaves and as freedom fighters they would not have had the luxury of goofing off. The Tairnadal adolescent's elders encourage this activity because it teaches them skills their society values. They have an outlet for their rebellion and may be more receptive to learning traditional techniques, particularly since those techniques are so successful in combat. Plus there are decades of religious indoctrination in a very tradtional religion. As they grow older they may gain a more nuanced appreciation of what it means to emulate their ancestors - but I have to admit I have never seen the Tairnadal as being particularly wise or sophisiticated as a society (let's outsource government to a Dragonmarked house run things so we can spend more time beating the crap out of stuff). Their society has always seemed a bit adolescent to me.
Elf adolescents living near the Twiight Demesne would likely be puckish to reflect the influence of Thelanis.
With apologies to any itinerant musicians, lawyers, bankers, captains of industry or Tairnadal elves who may read this.
Beoric wrote:
HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT, there is one path I could DEFINITELY see a "Puckish" elf taking out of Aerenal... and that's if there is a Tairnadal patron ancestor who is a legendary trickster and fool. If such an individual exists... and I see no reason why he couldn't... than those he chooses are dutybound to be the best puckish, eternal teenagers they can be!
At the risk of derailing the thread, the Tairnadal are one of those aspects of Eberron that I feel have far more potential than is usually explored. Essentially, they have many of the same hooks as the Kalashtar, except that Kalashtar lineage is purely genetic and comes with far fewer expectations. As a Tairnadal, you have to earn your patron and you then have a religious duty to emulate them. This can create all sorts of interesting roleplaying hooks. Consider the character who is gentle by nature, but whose patron ancestor was a ruthless assassin; the character who wanted to be a warrior but who was chosen by a poet; the coward nonetheless chosen by the bravest of the heroes. One Valenar ranger player in my game decided that all the men of his line had been chosen by a particular swordsman for generations... but that his character was chosen by a legendary female archer. Refusing to accept this, he'd stolen his family blade and fled to Khorvaire. His story arc was about his struggle with this - whether the Archer was the spirit he belonged with, whether he should embrace her guidance and the ways of his people, or whether he held to the sword in defiance of tradition.
As the article says, to me "the Valenar always want a fight" is just the easy conclusion most outsiders come to when the truth is considerably more complex. Likewise, the Tairnadal are an extremely spiritual culture; it's simply that their religion is so different from the Host or the Flame that people often don't recognize it.
Hellcow wrote:
Wow - spend a couple of days entertaining family and friends and avoiding the internet and you never know what interesting debates will happen!
First, I have no problem with thread derailment, as long as it is interesting, and I certainly think this one is. This conversation is exactly why I do not need 15 differant versions of each races in my world. Cultural variance is far more interesting as a distinquisher among a people, than what stat bonus changes for them because they are vanilla vs varient.
Second, Keith, thanks for the link to Lee Moyer, there where several Eberron maps and art pieces there that I don't remember ever seeing.
As far as the elves and adolescence. I think both the cultural and the biological play important roles in how their development play out.
I tend to think of it this way, If you are marrooned on an island by yourself and all you have is a soccer ball named Willson you...
- are a human who after learning to catch two fish keeps trying to find a way to catch three, all the while building a raft to get back to civilization as quickly as possible
- are a mature elf who learns to catch two fish because even though you've never fished you want to eat, but then are content to eat two fish for the rest of your life on the island if you have nothing else pressing to do
- are a young elf who learns to catch two fish, and is content to 5 years on the island exploring it before building a raft
Simplistic, but illustrative. Need drives innovation, no matter what type of intelligence you possess. Culture and biology should focus innovation. Agriculture changed extremely slow on most of Earth not because it was perfected, but because nothing drove a need for change. But when there was a need you ended up with things like Incan farming terraces.
The elves have already had their great innovative period. It happened when they were the giant's slaves, broke those bonds, and then had to adapt to Aerenal. This has formed the basis of of their cultural bias towards stagnentation. Culturally, this should have a huge impact on society and adolescence
In the context of this discussion, I view adolescent is a biological stage that a sentient goes through leading to physical, mental, and cultural maturity. For elves, I have always viewed physical maturity to occur within the first 20 years, but the majority of elf cultures to not view mental/cultural maturity to have occured until much later. As an aside, since I also believe elves would be just as fertile as any other race, this is why I also believe elves are big into birth control and planned parenting. I have been advocating a metal maturity that lasts thorugh the first 100 years or so. Culture would shape that mental maturity in various interesting ways.
I tend to agree with Keith that I don't see a spoilt out of control nature among the Aereni youth. I had the privelege one time of taking a sushi class from a skilled Itamae (Sushi Chef) who had gone through a traditional apprenticeship. He had seven years of training before he was allowed to advance past preparing the rice. This is partly how I see the Aereni, intensely precises apprenticeships, but where the human Itamae works 10-12 hours a day at a resteraunt learning his ancient tradition, the Aereni youth learns it a few hours a day over 50 years, while still having time to experience adolescence with his friends. Any society will develop acceptable adolescent activities that further its goals. For me, that means the Aereni spends his "spare" time with his friends hearing stories and traditions of his elders, hunting, exploring the areas around his home, learning traditional home crafts to support his parents and siblings, and yes gettting a little drunk and fooling around with others his age at times. A 200 year old Aernai may look back on his youth a 100 years ago wistfully at times, but he no longer has a strong mental desire for that level of a carefree existance. His focus has increased to the point where his pride is in perfecting whatever his craft is.
For me, the Tairnadel, are definately more on the spiritual side. Where they differ from the Aereni for me, who seem to follow their traditions/training/apprentiships through family lines, is their almost totemic ancester relationship. When a young elf discovers her ancestor totem, she becomes a part of a tradition that has nothing to do with her previous family. That spiritual revelation is what drives and focuses her training. Each ancestor totem would have a small organization built up that preserves and teachs all the known lore of that ancestor. Finding out one's ancestor totem would serve as a Tairnadel's adulthood rite, marking the end of childhood. They take the human adolescent need to belong to an extreme, as they focus all the energy, adaptability, and learning of youth into becoming an embodiment of their ancestor. As a whole, I do not view the Tairnadel as a akin to a military academy, although certain ancestors groups certainly would be that way.
As an aside, with the Tairnadel's ancester reverence, and the fact that most of them were actively fighting to free their people from slavery, I am a little suprised that that aspect hasn't been used as more of a hook.
Rags
I did get some reading done over the weekend. I finished up Son of Kyber am half way though Bound by Iron, and have notes on 3 more of the Dragonmarked Houses from Dragonmarked.
Medani
One of the things I want to introduce for the Medani is that they still have concealed bloodlines out in the world. As a group they were initially reluctant participants in the DM house system, and kept a few groups concealed. Just to give them a name, for now I am calling them the very unimaginative "Silent Ones." In modern day Eberron they are somewhat analogous to an amish branch of the house. They keep to themselves living simple lives alongside the rest of society, but seperate from the Houses. Their youth can choise to leave the community and join the greater house or maintain the Silent tradition. To maintain their secracy as DM Heirs, the Silent ones have developed spells/techniques <?> that allow them to shift the placement of Dragonmarks.
The house has a tradition of the Adamant Seal. There are times when a Medani discovers a secret or truth that she feels should never be known. The decision to take the Adamant Seal is always left to the descretion of the person who discovered it. If the discoverer feels a secret is catastrophically dangerous they go to the House patriarch and request the seal. The patriarch can never refuse the sealing. Rituals are used to bind the secret to the sealed, who can then never involuntarily or through coersion be forced to reveal the secret. The sealed can always voluntarily reveal a secret. Once the Adamant Seal is adminstered, the sealed leaves House Medani and joins the Silent Ones. The final act before this voluntary exile is to give the patriarch a question that will lead to the answer the sealed is protecting. The question is recorded and House Medani will never take a commision to discover the answer to that question.
I want to finish Dragonmarked first, but I think I may add a part of the house that specifically acts as monster hunters. With their focus on revealing conspiracies, parts of the house may feel they are the only group in place to deal with certain menaces. It could serve as a good background for certain narrowly focused hunters.
Baron Trileb is well aware of the antimonarchist forces in Breland. I am up in the air how I will play this out for the future of Breland though.
Orien
I want to do some research on London and its lightrail system, but since I am planning on Sharn having some emphasis on it outlying areas, I think I am joining to make Orien's maneauvering to build a network of light lightning rail transports around Sharn to be a major polical backdrop to any Sharn campaign
I am also going to de-emphasis all the lightning discharges around lightning rail coach to make wild west style train jackings and hobos more of a possibility. All the economic factors are not present to really replicate hobo culture in Eberron, but some of it can be squeezed in with out of work soldiers and other possible rail jumpers.
Sivis
I have already mentioned alot Sivis changes, but here a couple more
One of the things that always bugged me about the Mark of Scribing Arcane Mark is that in a notary business you end up with a unique mark for each heir. With that in mind I am making this change to the way the arcane mark from the Mark of Scribing works. The arcane mark placed by the Mark of Scribing has several unique properties. First, the arcane mark always appears as the least, lesser, or greater dragonmark possed by the Sivis. Second, anyone bearing a dragonmark can touch an arcane mark made by a Mark of Scribing to reveal a second mark, which is the personal sigal of the individual Sivis that placed the mark. House Sivis maintains catalogues of cross referenced marks that they can reference in the event that they need to identify the individual who make a specific mark. While marks have been counterfeited before, no one has yet been able to counterfeit the unique dual mark feature revealed by the touch of a dragonmarked. Traditions of the 5 nations dictate that the more important a document is the greater the mark needs to be to noterize it. Travel documents and identifications only need a least arcane mark, while royal announcements and loans between nations would need a greater arcane mark.
Sivis uses a varient of thier arcane mark ability to produce the signet rings of the DM houses. The signet ring is often given to a new heir as part of a cermony that Sivis is present at. At the ceremony, Sivis uses a varient DM power to infuses the signet ring with the new heirs DM. This also infuses the signet ring with the dual properties of the Mark of Scribing, showing the DM of the other house (including type), and the the personal mark of the initial bearer when willed. When a DM's power increases, a new ring and ceremony is often commisioned. Rings showing outdated marks are often used by trusted agents of the heir as identifiers. Signet rings of house members that have passed away are either kept as heirlooms or destroyed depend on individual house tradition.
Sivis is closely connected with a third guild. The Writers Guild, which dominates publishing, production of printing presses, and other related fields.
Sivis believes in the integrity of information, and while they were not able to defeat censorship during the Last War, they did come up with one ingenious work around. The kobolds of Zilargo have long loved both competition and language, and have been playing a game called Draconic Labyrinth for centuries. (Crossword puzzled to us poor humans). Through the Kronneberg Chronicle intellectuals and common men both had become addicted to the puzzles and wordplays in the kobold Draconic Labyrinths. Because of their complexity, when the 5 nations began censoring and editing local editions of the Chronicle, the Labyrinths were left unaltered. Sivis and the Chronicle began using this clues and answers in the Labyrinths report accurate information across national lines. Even after the war this tradition continues and Sivis heirs remain particular adept at picking up information from these addictive word games.
Reflecting their kobold origins, the Sivis houses are now called clutches.
More a kobold thing, than a Sivis thing, but a word on the art of kobold calligraphy. One of the highest artforms in Zilargo is calligraphy. Master calligraphers often have the tips of their claws carved into specialized pen nibs and can write with the fingertips. The greatest masters of the calligraphers art have multiple claw tips carved into nibs and create artwork with multiple fingers each dipped in differnt inks all at one time. A masterwork calligraphy by a two claw artist if more valued by a master work from a one claw artists, and ect. Some artists have their claws enchanted with endless ink or the ability to change ink colors. Minor magics like prestidigitation used to clean claw nips and dry calligraphies. Finally, with their love of knowledge and the written word, religious art in Zilargo largly escues representative figures of the gods in focuses on beautifully calligraphied passages/sayings from religious works. (This is largely inspired by the calligraphy artiwork I bought in Egypt).
As always thanks, and feel free to critique,
Rags
@Ragusta: I am not sure where you are going with the Sivis and arcane mark thing. Are you saying that the default power for all Marks of Scribing is arcane mark? If so I don't know that it needs to be that inflexible. The variety of 3e feats, and the basic mechanics of the 4e feats, suggest that some dragonmark powers can be trained, I expect arcane mark could be like that.
@Hellcow: I entirely accept everything you said about the Aerenal, Khorvairan, Phiarlan and Thuranni elves. One of the reasons I appreciate your continuing involvement in these boards is that you help to fill in the gaps in the source material and show how the disparate elements of Eberron fit together.
I’m not sure Im there yet with the Tairnadal. I remember the Vadallia & Cardaen article, but I also remember how Saer Vordalyn behaved in Queen of Stone. And while some of the ancestors may have been great poets, given their history the majority must have been warriors (clearly not many of them were urban administrators, since they have outsourced those functions to Lyrandar).
Your descriptions in the article may be the ideal, but in my experience few people live up to, or even understand, the ideal of whatever religious or secular ideology they espouse. I can't shake the sense that a great many adolescents would use their ancestors as excuses to indulge in bad behavior (I see this happening in real life all of the time, with teens and adults), and a great many adults would take a very simplistic and conventional view of their ancestor’s activities.
I think it was in the Vadallia & Cardaen article that you discussed how there could be different interpretations of the behavior of a given ancestor. I feel is would be a rare and exceptional Tairndal who would recognize from the nuances of the writings of his famous-general ancestor that the man struggled with his temper and considered klling to be a tragic but unavoidable evil. I expect the average Tairndal would focus on the acts of physical bravery and tactical skill, or on the perception that he was an aggressive hothead; they may refer to killing as a “necessary evil”, but that is a platitude they don’t really feel. They may have a duty to understand their ancestor, but for most people that understanding will be a traditional/conventional one, especially if they are as hidebound as you suggest.
Having read what I have written, I don’t know that I even disagree with you about the Tairnadal per se, but only with respect to what proportion will really try to understand their ancestors in a nuanced way, and what proportion will choose easy, conventional interpretations, or unconsciously fudge their interpretations to justify behavior they wish to indulge in.
Beoric wrote:
So, I dashed the last post off very quickly last night before bed, but it got me thinking some more about the nature of the dragonmarks and Eberron's history.
While it is a lot of work to switch the game to another system (GURPS), it does allow me to look at parts of the world in a different way. I have already planned on using the base GURPS magic system with some tweaks. I particularly like how it focuses specillization in spell casters and is skill based as opposed to the classic vancian spell system.
With that said I am wondering about the powers the DMs bestow. In the setting are they really duplicates of existing spells or are the rules just being used to describe abilities that are simliar to existing spells. If they really are identical to existing spells, which came first, the DM power or the codified spell that casters use. Mechanics wise I completely understand the duplication, I am only wondering about the in setting ramifications.
If the DM power came first, does that mean the associated spells are all recent inventions in Eberrons history? There is certainly plenty of evidence that the DM powers have spurred plenty of magical innovation. Does it mean that the magical traditions of previous ages didn't have these spells in their arsenals?
If the spells came first, then why with only a few exceptions do DM powers mimic existing spells? Seems pretty vanilla in setting for something that is supposed to be as fundamentally prevalent yet mysterious as the DMs.
Since I am freed up from the D&D rule sets, I am personally leaning towards the idea that in setting the DM powers are similar but fundamentally differnent to the spells that casters use. They are magical effects bestowed by some mysterious agency (commonly believed to be the Draconic Prophecy). I like this approach because it also help to explain the unique relationship the dragonmarked have with focus items, and why any caster able to cast say locate object can't use a prospector's rod. Mechanical this will probably mean that a spellcaster uses a detect poison spell, while a Medani dragonmarked will be built with a Detection advantage keyed to poison as part of a package of advantages that define a least mark of detection.
Assuming DM powers are similiar, but fundamentally different effects that mimic existing spells, there is still some interesting questions regarding Eberron's magical history. The setting is heavily invested in the twin themes of Innovation and Recovered Secrets. The sourcebooks have numerous references to innovators working on new applications of magic and explorers recovering new to us applications of magic. So I am wondering, are the innovators of Khovaire actually inventing anything new at all? Do the elves of Aerenal look at everything on the continent and think, been there already? Or is the fusion of cultures in Khovaire actually creating new things that not even the dragons have ever seen?
My initial thought was that DM focus items had to be something new to Eberron, but maybe not. The wheel of wind and water is still a control device for an elemental vehicle, something that if I remember right apparently existed before on Xendrik.
It really wouldn't have any bearing on a campaign at the micro level, but I am interesting in the question in the grand scheme of things. If there really are new magics being produced in the modern age, if there really have never been DMs before in the history of Eberron, could this indicate a change in the cycle of a civilizations rising and the facing catacylism on Eberron? It's all purely speculative since cosmic level themes aren't really what I want to explore in my game, but still interesting from a world building perspective.
Thanks,
Rags
This is partly how I see the Aereni, intensely precises apprenticeships, but where the human Itamae works 10-12 hours a day at a resteraunt learning his ancient tradition, the Aereni youth learns it a few hours a day over 50 years, while still having time to experience adolescence with his friends. Any society will develop acceptable adolescent activities that further its goals. For me, that means the Aereni spends his "spare" time with his friends hearing stories and traditions of his elders, hunting, exploring the areas around his home, learning traditional home crafts to support his parents and siblings, and yes gettting a little drunk and fooling around with others his age at times.
Hellcow wrote:
I don't want to derail the thread - which is about Ragusta's Eberron - going into detail on the elves in mine, and I'd also like to take that discussion to a wider audience; so I've put up a new post on my website. Syltorian and Beoric, I've addressed your most recent points there.
Ragusta wrote:
With that said I am wondering about the powers the DMs bestow. In the setting are they really duplicates of existing spells or are the rules just being used to describe abilities that are simliar to existing spells.
Re: magical printing presses, you might want to look at the 4e Adverturer's Vault 10th level magic item Spymaster's Quill, which allows a page to be recorded as a standard action, and to be duplicated as a standard action. You could concievablly created the same page 10 times per minute with that item. I would be inclined to make it only work with the Mark of Scribing, though.
For 3.5, doesn't amanuensis (Spell Compendium, as a cantrip; available via the Dragonmark Prodigy Feat for Sivis 2/day) do just this? A dragonshard focus like the Spymaster's Quill shouldn't be too difficult to built on that.
Syltorian wrote:
A Spymaster's Quill does reproduce images.
"You pass the quill over an amount of text or an illustration equivalent to a single parchment page. The image or text is magically recorded within the quill for later reproduction. Recording another page with the quill erases the page already recorded. ... You point the quill at a sheet of parchment or paper and mentally command it to reproduce the illustration or text recorded within it. No matter what the medium of the original (charcoal on paper, runes scribed in stone, and so on), the reproduction is rendered in normal ink. The reproduction created by the quill is identical in appearance to the original, but the quill cannot record magical properties."