In response to the recent Dragon #388 article on the Heir of Siberys epic destiny, AvonRekaes offered, “I disagree with anyone that thinks (Dragonmark) house politics are a relevant story element in the Epic tier.”
I believe I understand where AR is coming from on this issue. The previous edition of the Eberron campaign setting had a reputation for population scarcity in the upper levels. The current edition explicitly offers the Lords of Dust as appropriate (though not the only) epic adversaries, and dragons of The Chamber as example paragon threats.
The Dragonmarked Houses may have a measurable population of paragon champions (each mark gets its own paragon path), but if they’ve got any sort of epic assets, where were they during the Last War? Why haven’t the Houses made better use of them? Also, epic characters are well on their way to becoming legends, divinities, and forces of nature. What can the politics of a mortal mercantile dynasty possibly offer them, and vice versa?
I’m not out to refute AvonRekaes, but his comments definitely got me thinking. How would I go about keeping the Dragonmarked Houses relevant from 1st to 30th level? How can I involve the Guilds and Heirs as level-appropriate adversaries past 20th, but maintain familiar mortal societies? How can I get epic without leaving Khorvaire proper?
These are brainstorms in response.
First: motivation. What can the Dragonmarked Houses do, what can they want that gets epic?
Mad Science: House Cannith, House Sivis, and the inter-House mages’ roundtable, The Twelve, are all potential sources of arcane ambition that gets out of control. Heck, for all we know, Cannith’s forges in Metrol could have been the source of the Mourning. At heroic levels, the arcanists play the part of innocuous Q-section. At paragon level, they start flexing their influence within the House hierarchy. At epic level, experiments run amuck and the
The Prophecy: Studying the Prophecy takes centuries. Fortunately, most of the Dragonmarked Houses have been around for centuries. In particular, the seers of House Medani and the long-lived elves of Houses Phiarlan and Thuranni could have sufficient grasp of the Prophecy to turn paragon talent to epic advantage. At heroic levels, bearers of the Marks of Detection and Shadow provide the PCs with adventure hooks and exposition. At paragon levels, they enlist the PCs in shadow wars against continent-spanning conspiracies. At epic levels, the PCs are wrestling with the Houses themselves over fate, causality, and the future.
Classic Conquest: Yeah, yeah, everybody wants to rule the world. The Inspired, Vol, the Lords of Dust, the Daelkyr . . . the Dragonmarked Houses can take a number-- a very large number-- and get in line. And yet! The Daelkyr don’t want to rule so much as consume. The Lords want the world, but don’t care about the inhabitants. Vol mostly wants revenge. Meanwhile, the Dragonmarked Houses already have Khorvaire’s economy in their pockets, and money is half-way to tyranny (/pinko). I’m drawing on 3.5 edition sources, but Lyrandar and Deneith definitely have temporal ambition, and Kundarak and Sivis are used to back-bench rulership. Throughout the heroic and paragon levels, the Houses get the PCs to take out competing power blocs-- gangs, the Aurum, Aberrant marks, dissenting factions. Once things hit epic, the Dragonmarked Houses starting taking on each other and the nations, starting a new War of the Mark.
The “conquest” idea brings up the second big issue: epic adversaries. What sort of epic threats can the Dragonmarked Houses field, and where have they been the whole time? Some ideas:
Quantity Has a Quality All Its Own: Individually, the elites of the Houses are probably no match for epic PCs. However, why fight them individually? With a little creative application of the swarm trait, you can turn a squad of Deneith Blademarks into a Huge creature with stats appropriate for 21+ level. A little palette swapping, and and a solo blue dragon becomes a storm skiff crewed by House Lyrandar. In these instances, the epic math represents epic numbers of foes.
I Learned From Watching You: There may not be any epic NPCs ahead of the PCs when they start, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be any right behind them once they reach the top. As the PCs are leveling up, show how the Houses are benefitting from the party’s discoveries and exploits, following their example, and training a new and better generation. Then, sic ‘em.
Home Court Advantage: In the 3.5 edition ECG, the Speaker of the Flame had the stats of a 3rd level cleric while on her own, but the stats of an 18th level cleric while within Flamekeep. That got me to thinking: the Barons and seneschals of the Houses may be bean counters, but if they’re standing at the heart of their operations, with the wealth and artifacts and plans of generations around them, how tough might they be? Imagine trying to fight even a couple Kundarak keybearers at the heart of Kudarakhold. Imagine trying to pin down an Orien Swiftblade in the enclave in Passage. Imagine a Cannith artificer commanding a forge with raw elements and fully-formed servitors popping right off the line every round. Done right, such showdowns would be like fighting an ancient wyrm in its lair, if the wyrm were mostly the lair.
Like I said, these are just brainstorms. I’ll probably come back and flesh out a few of them (I have a more specific 3-tier story arc in mind, for example), but mainly I just wanted to get the conversation started. I’d like to thank AvonRekaes for giving me something fun to think about. Cheers, AR! Maybe it was a horse, maybe it was a hide drum. 
I’d like to thank AvonRekaes for giving me something fun to think about.
Hey! Right back at you! The idea of using dragons to represent an entire crew of Mark of Storm heirs and their airship is particularly inspiring, as well as the Cannith Foregmaster commanding his forge.
You know what they say, "never say never". I guess I don't object to the Houses being relevant in Epic on general principle. If it works, it works!
A possible three-tier campaign, keeping the Dragonmarked Houses front and center. . .
The Set-Up
The campaign starts at the default, a couple years after the Treaty of Thronehold. Khorvaire is still in post-Last War disarray. The major cities have problems with crime and refugees, and smaller communities have trouble with disrupted roads and communication. Demobilized soldiers and displaced people have turned to banditry. Mechanically speaking, Epic resources and NPCs were exhausted by the war-- no Siberys marks have appeared in a decade or two. Paragon resources and NPCs are scarce, and tied up with stabilizing things at the national level. Improving life “on the ground” is going to take someone closer to it . . . someone like the player characters.
The Party
This campaign assumes that the player characters are all associated with or interested in the Dragonmarked Houses. Marked heirs will have the greatest stake in what happens, but guild members and hangers-on should also find incentive. Characters with Aberrant marks would require the DM to tweak certain social options, but there’s big potential for them later on.
Heroic Tier: Back to Business
The Dragonmarked Houses and/or their guilds get the party involved in rebuilding Khorvaire. Roads need rebuilding and alternate routes need exploring, contact needs to be re-established with isolated communities, and offices need opening in new post-treaty countries. The party’s main adversaries will be bandit groups, criminal gangs like the Boromar, and corrupters like the Aurum, all trying to take advantage of the post-war chaos. Monstrous threats will be plenty, as habitats are disturbed and great tracts of territory go unpatrolled.
The Dragonmarked Houses can definitely be a force for good at this point, but grumbling about the validity of the Edicts of Korth foreshadow trouble to come. As the tier draws to a close, the characters have connected the “points of light” with “threads of light,” giving the common people of Khorvaire hope and impressing the House hierarchies.
Paragon Tier: Skirmishes in the Shadows
At this point, characters have probably started on paragon paths which confirm their commitment to some Dragonmarked House(s), but even without mark-specific PPs, the party’s talents make them VIPs to be courted. And courted they will be.
The relative stabilization of Khorvaire has greatly increased the Dragonmarked Houses’ influence . . . and their daring. They begin to chafe under the Edicts of Korth, setting up new enclaves and expanding their business interests without oversight. Pretty soon, even the conservative heirs are involved in resource rushes on Xen’drik, the wild parts of Sarlona, and un-enforced regions like Droaam. The party’s adversaries at this point will be high-level conspirators working for the Daughters of Sora Kell, agents of the Inspired, Vol cultists, and mysterious bearers of Aberrant marks. The party will also find themselves facing off against other Houses’ agents for the first time, though unliveried, or officially denied as “rogue elements.”
By the end of the tier, the party (and their counterparts in other Houses) are achieving new breakthroughs in power that ripple all the way down. The PCs have exposed and quelled most of the malign forces lurking in Khorvaire. Thanks to competition between the guilds, commerce is at an all-time high, and the standard of living is rising to levels not seen since before the Last War. The Dragonmarked are the new nobility, the new royalty, in all but name. But if the Last War proved that five crowns were four too many, how long can twelve agree to terms?
Epic: The New War of the Mark
The points and threads of light the PCs have been nurturing are turning into full-on luminous bands spanning the continent, but just when Khorvaire seems on the brink of a new golden age, something goes wrong. If they haven’t been dealt with already, perhaps the bearers of the Aberrant marks step up and demand a place among the Dragonmarked Houses. Maybe House Deneith finally decides to stop guarding Thronehold and start ruling from it. Which faction starts things and how (and why) really depends on the party’s composition and alliances to date, but the end result is the same: the Houses drop all pretense of mere economic dominance and start claiming territory (or, if someone holds the secret to the Mourning, denying territory to others).
Now, it’s tempting to make this a simple story of Houses A and X vs. Houses B and Y. However, I think it’s much more interesting if the conflict is between multi-mark factions: maybe Korth traditionalists vs. radicals, Silver Flame adherents vs. mad arcanists, pro-Aberrant vs. anti-Aberrant. Given their by now legendary power, the PCs are likely to find themselves the head of their own faction, with a very real say in the shape of Khorvaire’s future. The party’s adversaries will primarily be the elites of other factions, including from within their own House(s), and whatever dragons/rakshasas/magebred pets the Houses can throw in their path. Big set piece encounters will take place in the Dragonmarked capital enclaves, with epic artifacts and the pinnacles of dragonshard innovation brought to bear. With each encounter, the winners assert a new order, and the losers more often than not disappear without a trace. Ultimately, the PCs will have a chance not just to redraw the map of Khorvaire, but also to define its society and culture, deciding the destiny of millions.
I tend to treat the Houses and their constituent guilds like Shadowrun AAA megacorps. Their first solution to any problem is to throw money at it until it goes away, and if that doesn't work, throw money at research to make the problem go away.
The Twelve has a nearly-complete stranglehold on the economics of Khorvaire -without them, the Five Nations would collapse into starvation and anarchy in short order. They know this fact well, and it's made them arrogant, but also paranoid. I don't believe for a moment that, for example, the Tower of the Twelve doesn't have the capability to retaliate against Crownhome's big guns (which the Tower is well in range of) or that Stormhome couldn't utterly devastate any incoming sea- or airborne attack.
Tangling with the D'Mark houses in Epic doesn't mean dealing with individual scions -it means dealing with Blademark regiments, airships armed to bomb cities to ash, custom-brewed Vadalis monstrosities (Skaravojen can't be the only weird syncretism in their stables), and all of the other nastiness they can muster. What's more, is the combinations of these things -Sentinel Marshals acting as anvil to Thuranni or Phiarlan commando team hammers, teleported into exactly where they need to be, riding custom monstrous mounts, covered from the air by the weather itself (and the Lyrandar warship riding in the center of the storm), armed with the best Cannith gear, with perfect Medani, Tharashk and Sivis intel, bolstered by Jorasco and Ghallanda field support and effectively immune to any security measures erected against them.
And, come on, with all of the conspiracies running around Eberron, at least one of the Houses has to have a dragon, or demon, or quori, or something else nasty somewhere in its ranks.
I had more, but... geh. tired.
M4kitsu: As someone who recently completed a Masters, I can sympathize. FINALS SUCK.
I mentioned palette adjustments, but right now I'm also trawling through the D&DI filters looking for epic humanoids that would make plausible Dragonmarked threats or affiliates. For example, I remembered the "Human Insane Noble" (Level 23 elite skirmisher) from reading through Monster Manual 2. I had previously considered such a foe to be playing fast and loose with plausibility, but if this were instead some sort of warped Dragonmark Heir... now I'm willing to entertain the idea (with the addition of a few thematic elements).
A comment on epicness: for me, 'epic' doesn't refer to big numbers alone. Epic also means memorable, profound changes in the setting (at least as played by one group or another). For example, I think getting Houses Phiarlan and Thuranni to reunite could be epic. Changing the structure of the Houses from mark-homogenous to mark-heterogenous would be epic. Remember how the designers talk about epic destinies breaking the rules? I think epic stories can/should "break" a setting the same way. In that respect, the Dragonmarked Houses offer all sorts of tempting story targets.
Alternately, let's say Jorasco and Vadalis, working together, come up with a virulent plague that spreads like wildfire. They're trying to create a regenerating serum and instead they create a straight-out-of-Resident Evil zombie apocalypse. Sure, INDIVIDUALLY these zombies are nothing to your epic level characters. But can you figure out a way to contain the outbreak before it destroys all civilization on Khorvaire? Can you rebuild society afterwards?
Of course, that's not about Dragonmarked politics - it's the houses screwing up. Going back to politics: Vadalis is an excellent target for the Dreaming Dark. The DD doesn't want to conquer Khorvaire by force; they want to conquer it from within. Creating magebred quori hosts is an interesting option in its own right. But how about magebred-Quori-Host clones of existing rulers? And that's just because you've got the magebreeding going on; any house could be touched by Quori infiltration, as shown by Sharn: COT. Or leave the Dreaming Dark out of it, and simply have Vadalis produce magebred humans that are a sustainable, superior form of life. They DON'T want to conquer the world. But they are biologically superior to humans. They've got inbred magical or psionic powers. They are essentially mutants from the X-Men - can you figure out what to do with them before it reaches true disaster? Can you deal with the Vadalis Magneto when he appears? This is more interesting if it's revealed that one or more of the PCs are unknowingly part of this Vadalis Magebred program - and that this is one reason they ARE epic characters in the first place.
This ties back to Alas' "Everything I Know I Learned From You" suggestion. It's a good one. The houses may not be epic powered as a base. But there's no reason they can't BECOME epic powered as a result of the events of the game. And remember, you can change the rules. It could be that a PC's house has a hold on him that he knows nothing about, to which I'll simply point to Lei's discovery in the end of The Gates of Night. You're the epic Vadalis guy and you think you can ignore your house. Which sounds great, until they reveal that they've bred something into you from the time you were a child that will shut down your brain unless you do thing X. Remove Affliction won't help you. Resurrection won't help you. Because it's not a curse - it's part of who you are. They just didn't think it was worth making use of until now.
So, they might be driven by evil. They might threaten the world as the players know and like it in the name of progress. But there's lots of ways they can stay relevant.
* A societal advance that places the houses in a clear position to overthrow the balance of power (IE, cheap resurrection) - but is fighting it the right thing to do?
* An actual attempt at physical conquest by the armies of the Twelve - which would involve both overcoming such an army, and the impact on the world of having the services of the houses that support the infrastructure of society removed if the PCs are victorious. A smaller-scale thing could involve a Valenar/Lyrandar alliance or Tharashk/Droaam alliance.
* House project going wildly out of control, IE zombie apocalypse or new magebred/warforged nation.
* Revelation that Lords of Dust/Dragons/Dreaming Dark are behind one of the houses and about to use in for terrible purpose.
* Revelation that Vadalis replaced the royal families of Khorvaire years ago, and have been ruling the Five Nations ever since. What are you going to do about it?
* House produces new epic level threat. Vadalis creates NEW daelkyr... or for that matter, an army of clones of the PCs, each themselves epic level.
* House produces epic level villain capable of going toe-to-toe with PCs. Secret corps of Siberys marked NPCs that have been coordinating the actions of the Twelve, and who engineered the Mourning as the first step of conquest... and who are ready to produce a second Mourning.
That's five minutes' worth of ideas from me, but I'm sure y'all can do better.
That's five minutes' worth of ideas from me...
Have I mentioned this is why I like Eberron? That's a years' worth of campaign fodder right there.
How can I involve the Guilds and Heirs as level-appropriate adversaries past 20th, but maintain familiar mortal societies? How can I get epic without leaving Khorvaire proper?
The most powerful characters can be level 1 minions. Station in life is much more important then level IMO. Have the Dragonmarked Houses be the man behind the curtain. Yes, you can kill the man, but his followers might keep going regardless.
Also there should be severe repercussions even for level 30 characters in killing a powerful member of a Dragonmarked House. Sure no-one might be able to kill you, but you can be shunned by society and find yourself spiralling down into the underworld where you're asked to do worse and worse criminal acts. If you're players want to be heroes, having the world react to them as monsters is a good way to say "yes, you can set yourselves up as despots and rule with an iron fist. There are those who would be more than happy to help you achieve this goal. But here are the repercussions of your actions."
I'm also a big fan of deliberately leaving NPCs unstatted until the players actively put them on the "part of the problem" list. Still, it'd be nice to know ahead of time what sort of resources are available if/when the dramatic conflict turns martial. An epic party waltzing into Passage and running roughshod all over Orien's non-combatant elders' council is not a scene that would appeal to me. An epic party conducting a running battle with squads of Orien Swiftblades as they try to navigate the Passage enclave's activated teleport hubs (Scooby-Doo style!) to force a confrontation with the elders . . . that would interest me. The elders still wouldn't need stats, but the players will want something they can roll dice at. I'm just brainstorming about what that "something" could be.
Or even better, what if the Dragonmarked Houses in a combined status make a very different big play? With Deneith Throne Wardens and Sivis barristers, they can maybe declare legitimacy for a particular king or queen to become head of the five nations. Or have Phiarlan, Lyrandar, Thuranni, Vol, or any combination thereof move to make Aerenal a dangerous force on Khorvaire. Throw in the Dragons who may just burn a city rather than clean it out of the elves, and the Dragonmarked Houses can make big moves with little trouble.
My general stance is what can you put a House Scion in charge of? Lyrandar can lead any huge aquatic beast as the sons of the Kraken. Sivis can bind elemental creatures of any sort by epic levels, including demons, archons, and other things reserved for Primordial use in generic games. Cannith can build Colossi. Vol or any allied house can have access to dangerous experimental undead. Vadalis can breed horrible creatures, especially with Daelkyr help, which can match Abominations in danger. And anything involving the Prophecy can lead to epic level dragons as easy as the Paragon level Chamber, as Siberys marked PCs or NPCs are worth extra observation.
And while the end-game creatures are generally gods, primordials and demon lords, which usually only translate to the Rajahs, try to take a different view to them. An eldritch machine or two can make godzilla equivalent dangers. Vecna, God of Secrets, is perhaps the ascended form of a Sivis Gnome. Is Demogorgon a Daelkyr or the true form of the first Lyrandar, his half elf heritage split into two heads and personalities? The upcoming Lolth is normally Drow-based, but the shadows of Phiarlan, Thuranni, or their missing assassinated sub-family (Paelyion? can't remember their name) may take drastic measures from ancient elven powers to take such terrible power, perhaps stealing the power of the Devourer form of the Scorpion himself?
1) If the last edition taught us anything it's that magic is the great equaliser: Pack enough buffs on and a level 1 commoner can indeed slay the dread lord diazapam, or a level 14 orien swordsman can become a decent chalenge for a group of level 26 pcs, at least for the 36 seconds he'll be onscreen. Give the buffs crippling aftereffects and you have a good excuse why they aren't used all the time and your pcs don't have access. If magic isn't to your taste, try drugs instead.
2) The Bane Principle. Going up against an ancient lich-dragon with the power to extinguish all life on the continent is a lot less scary when wielding weapons containing fragments of the seal that bound it for a thousand years*. The higher level your pcs are, the more likely it is that thier opponants are going to possess equipment and tequniques that are anaethema to them.
3) Super-Soldiers. What with warforged components, elemental grafts and magebreeding at least one of the houses is going to be working on them. Plus everyone knows that super-soldiers always go insane and turn on their creators. They've got plot built right in!
4) I know this has been said before, but Swarms are wonderful for epic play. There's nothing more evocative of epic-level play than sending your pcs against an entire army consisting of thousands of individuals at once. The fact that this can be an actual balanced encounter is just icing on the cake.
*Yes, I played in this campaign. We were railroaded into negotiating him down. We got a magic feed bag for our horses as loot. Worst. Ending. Ever.
... Except maybe the time we fought our way down the undead-infested river, bravely made our way through to the source where an demonic-witch was casting her ritual, and got to watch as a river-djinn trod on her. Yaaaaay.
Is Demogorgon... the true form of the first Lyrandar, his half elf heritage split into two heads and personalities?
When I wrote up conversion notes for The Savage Tide adventure path, I suggested that Demogorgon was a lieutenant of the Overlords of the Age of Demons, bound in a demiplane within Khyber (something that led to the current 4E idea that you can get to the Abyss through Khyber). But I love this idea. Change the baboon heads to a human head and a elf head, and that's gold.
1. Deal With The Devil: In Eberron, Asmodeus is a so-called deity of tyranny with a major servitor who deals in greed, among other charming fellows in his employ. The Faustian bargain is a classic tale, and one I can see the Houses going off in multiple directions. Suppose someone in House Deneith signs a devil's bargain for the services of the Infernal Legions. Not only do you have to deal with the fact that there are devils running around right now, you've also got to figure out who was responsible, prove it, find them, and haul them in front of someone with the jurisdiction to handle it without accidentally starting a small (or not so small) war in the process. Maybe Vadalis is trying to breed cambions into a superior breed. Or maybe Cannith is simply borrowing infernal techniques in forging some truly unpleasant creations. At lower levels, you could simply have to deal with small infernal cults rooted in the Houses, but at epic levels, the possibility of an arch-devil showing up personally because the PCs have tossed a wrench into the works of a major deal can't be discounted.
2. Sealed For A Reason: Sooner or later, someone is going to have the bright idea of pushing the Gatekeepers (or the orc tribes in the Wastelands, etc.) off their seals and tinkering. Out of character, we all know this is going to come to a bad end. That may not be as clear to the Houses, or they may simply not realize what they're messing with - as some of the most powerful forces in the game, there's a lot of reason for them to assume they can handle whatever it is while still being wrong about that assumption. This can be worked into plots such as the unification of the Shadow Marches into a real nation, the politics of the Reaches, an impetus to charging into the Demon Wastes and trying to clean the place up, or even a showdown between the Church of the Silver Flame and the Houses if someone is feeling really ambitious.
3. Shadows of War: Thuranni and Phiarlan stop playing around and basically move to an all out open war against each other. (The Bloody Shadows might be the instigators here.) One side or the other courts the Aberrant Marks. The other Houses start taking sides, taking notes, or taking cover. The eladrin may get dragged in if someone pushes the Phiarlan offshoot in Taer Syraen, possibly also bringing Karrnath in because of that particular political dispute. For additional mayhem, consider having the Dragon's Path do something spectacular, potentially drawing major attention from the Lords of Dust or Argonnessen - whether this is a side quest or the lean in to an apocalypse is up to the DM. Depending on how things develop, Aernal might come into things, if only by leaning on people. Remember that both Houses have a lot of expertise in espionage and illusion, opening the door to a lot of non-combat hijinks that can have serious implications for the party.
Alternately, the BBEG could be a guy in Deneith who thinks that Deneith should sit on the Throne, and when his house disagreed with him, began gathering his own infernal legions. You can, of course, bring in the Dreaming Dark and the special Deneith enclave in Sharn, but that is veering away from the focus of this thread.