In all of the literature from the books I've read it uses the word "destroy" not "ban" or "make illegal." Everything else in the lore heavily implies that they are banned but I can't find anything specific.
I ask because one of my players asked if a skilled enough artificer could gather up pieces of broken creation forges and build a working one. I assumed that a skilled enough artificer could accomplish such a feat but that they would face extreme political and legal backlash. But if they're not banned from being used, isn't it just political scorn they'll face?
Anyone know anything specific from the canon material that specifies their legality?
That said, there are rumored to be at least two functioning creation forges in Khorvaire. The first is in possession of Merrix d'Cannith in Sharn. Hidden away, it's believed that he continues making Warforged, including new kinds, and releasing them into the world as experiments and viewing them more as his children than as merchandise to sell or tools to use.
Then there's the Lord of Blades and his possible forge hidden somewhere in the Mournlands. He's supposed to use it to make new Warforged to add to his radical forces.
I doubt the actions of either are smiled upon by the majority of the peoples of Khorvaire.
Here's my take: I think the most interesting way to do it would be to decide that it was worded in such a way that the legality of assembling a new creation forge from the bits of old ones is highly disputable (i.e. the Treaty didn't consider that possibility and strong arguments could be made either way for it.) This way, the whole thing can spiral into a political/legal maelstrom when word gets out, keeping the PCs on edge but potentially buying them time (and requiring them to make politically powerful allies who can champion their side.)
Let's see...
...excerpted from the Treaty of Thronehold, final draft...
17.a All of the creation forges still in operation shall be dismantled. Anyone found to be attempting to reactivate one of these forges will be held to be in violation of the Treaty and subject to international prosecution.
I just made that up on the spot. Looking at the wording, one could easily make the argument that it only applies to the forges that were currently operating at the time of the treaty, thus excluding a new one built from the remains of the old; but one could also make the argument that such an interpretation is clearly violating the spirit and intent of the treaty.
Another possibility is building a forge in Xen'drik, where the Thronehold accords do not apply.
And I think I remember back in 3.5 there were hints that something akin to primitive creation forge exsisted in Xen'drik.
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The Quori made very primitive non-sentient warforged when they invaded Eberron and fought the giants in Xen'drik. They don't use them anymore because they're outdated but the ruins of the forges are likely still there.
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Many of the really old warforged components, including many docents and unusual components such as the tauric belt, were found in Xen'drik. I must presume there still exist functional creation forges in the Forgotten Land, most likely gone into disuse since the giants of Xen'drik shattered Dal Quor's orbit and their quori operators were no longer able to operate it.
As far as the resources required to restart one, it could be that their dismantling did not require the absolute destruction of every part of the forge. Perhaps they were only required to remove or destroy "key components", and the destruction of some components could have been as limited as breaking them into pieces that would just happen to be possible to reassemble.
This way, the PCs could find a creation forge with all the big parts intact (or mostly intact, with some cracks and holes that can be fixed) and all they have to worry about getting are the smaller key components to make the thing run. These might include high-quality dragonshards (like a Siberys shard to channel the operator's Mark of Making), crafted magic items, rare materials, or discovered components (like some old creation patterns). Each of these can be a MacGuffin to lead the party to another adventure.
True but this specifically applies to a newly formed warforged nation in a recently restored Cyre....to add even more layers of ambiguity.
In that case, yeah, I think he could rebuild a 'forge without interferance, though I'd think he would need to do extensive research to so so successfully. And since any new warforged nation wouldn't have been a signatory of the Thronehold Accord, that particular rule doesn't apply to them. The artificer, on the other hand, will almost certainly be wanted by the Sentinal Marshals for violating the Accords, and could still be tried as such if his identity becomes known.
In that case, yeah, I think he could rebuild a 'forge without interferance, though I'd think he would need to do extensive research to so so successfully. And since any new warforged nation wouldn't have been a signatory of the Thronehold Accord, that particular rule doesn't apply to them. The artificer, on the other hand, will almost certainly be wanted by the Sentinal Marshals for violating the Accords, and could still be tried as such if his identity becomes known.
Ooo, good point. I'll have to remember that.
What about a displaced cyran who happens to also be cannith heir(5) building a creation forge in New Cyre, with the blessing of both the prince and merrix.
Assume that Cyre will grant full citizenship, and that house cannith (at least south) have fully taken warforged into their ranks as equils. (ie a warforged can take the favored in house cannith feat)?
Technically the city is Soverign Cyre Territory, as are the farms around it. Therefore, if the Forge was build underneith the farms should be fine, and the reason for build the Forge below the farms would not be secrecy it would be simply to preserve as much of the Cyran territory for growing crops or living. The warforged would each have to spend a decade farming or two years in service to repay the cost of their creation.
I havnt read anywhere if the House's signed the Treaty or if it was just most of the kingdoms, does anyone know?
As far as I can tell that Forge would be not against the Treaty as it reads.
IRL the geneva convention only applies to signing national armed forces, I think. my character looks at the Treaty the same way. On of his closest companions is a warforged warrior/cleric.
I crunched the numbers from the eberron campaign setting book. For every 1 warforged there are 48 half orcs, almost 8,000 humans. There are 332,000 people classified as "other races" so there coule be as many as 334,000. In our campaign we are assuming that all of the "other" in Karrnath are all Undead of some sort.
My guy sees the warforged as an endangered species, both he and his uncle merrix speculate one the spoilers above infomation but have yet to be able to confirm it, none of merrix's missions to old cyre or down to the giant ruins have been able to confirm or disprove that thought process so both of our goals are to open an active forge anywhere, we have enough land in stormreach and in two other places down on 'Xen to build forges. We are both Lawfull so are trying to find a way either around the Treaty or a way to have it not apply.
Any thoughts?
edit1: some typos that i noticed.
Assuming the houses were not present in the discussions.
We would have been forced economically to abide by it because almost all of our holdings are within the signing kingdoms. They could very well have threatened a ban on All Cannith produced goods.
It be a differance of the house profits being cut by three quarters or take a loss for the first time since before Galifar was founded.
why would Cannith bother to comply?
Assuming the houses were not present in the discussions.
We would have been forced economically to abide by it because almost all of our holdings are within the signing kingdoms. They could very well have threatened a ban on All Cannith produced goods.
It be a differance of the house profits being cut by three quarters or take a loss for the first time since before Galifar was founded.
or revoked the Edict of Korth, seizing Cannith holdings, breaking up the guilds, and shattering the power of the House for all time?
the Dragonmarked Houses are strong, but they aren't strong enough to resist one of the 5N who decided on that course of action.
and remember, CAnnith was, and is, in a state of disarray. they were in no way able to make a unified stance against anything that the 5N were insistent upon in the Treaty.
Actually, that's up for interpretation. However you want to run the political situation in Khorvaire is cool, including one where the 5 Nations can still effectively enforce the Korth Edicts.
However, another interpretation is that the Dragonmarked Houses are on the rise, and the power of the individual nations to enforce the Korth Edicts is wanning. If one nation strikes at Cannith so, all it's done is cripple it's industrial output compared to the other nations. Or if Cannith sees the nation about to strike, Cannith can just scoff in their faces and tell them "Just try it.", and then threaten to cripple their industrial output if they don't back off.
Either way is cool, but both are options.
If one or even many of the nations refused to trade with cannith, what is going to happen to all their magical supplies, mundane arms or armor, heck what bout the new plowshares. Let alone if we turned all the Everbright lanterns into Everdark, stopped maintaining the conduct stones for the lightning rail, stopped working with the high binders to build elemental ships or even used our build in controls to release any that we wished. The quori have a huge psonic network, why couldnt we have a simular magical one. After all who wouldnt build a safeguard into a weapon they gave to someone else that could be used against us at some point.
maybe the chamber too would do something, after all the world is still dealing with the last attempt at wiping out a dragonmark (2600 yrs ago).
Far as the house being fragmented, true. But I would think that an attempt to destroy one of the three factions would unite all three factions (50% chance) or at the very least unite atleast two of the three sides.
Iirc Cannith basically controls the 12, specially with jorlanna's influence, so west is fairly safe.
cannith east well is very close with the blood of vol and the undead in karrnath, they too are safe.
in south we all have the warforged under sharn if you beleave the rumors, so we should be safe.
then there is the rumor that aaron and the lord of blades are in league.
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i dont mean to write in first person, but im reall attached to my guy and its easer to right about cannith from his prespective then not.
Actually, that's up for interpretation. However you want to run the political situation in Khorvaire is cool, including one where the 5 Nations can still effectively enforce the Korth Edicts.
However, another interpretation is that the Dragonmarked Houses are on the rise, and the power of the individual nations to enforce the Korth Edicts is wanning. If one nation strikes at Cannith so, all it's done is cripple it's industrial output compared to the other nations. Or if Cannith sees the nation about to strike, Cannith can just scoff in their faces and tell them "Just try it.", and then threaten to cripple their industrial output if they don't back off.
Either way is cool, but both are options.
does striking at Cannith really hurt industrial output?
I've been thinking about the Edicts of Korth for awhile... and it seems to me that they were as much to the D'marked house benefit as it was to the ir'Wyrnarns.
Think about it--it recognized that there would be only ONE HOUSE for each mark. That's one single voice, one organization, and the guilds serve only that house. Complete monopolies. Unified control. Self-governance. They don't interfere in politics and the politicians don't interfere with them.
Now, let's say that Aurala (just as an example) says "screw it." She orders her soldiers to seize Cannith properties, disband the guilds, and force House members to swear loyalty to her. Now what? Well... not much. Cannith is already disbanded as a unified house. Aurala may well promote new, younger members of Cannith, to form House d'Aundair-Cannith, which may or many not have complete control over the guilds or their former members. She might not do this... and the former members of the house go off on their own--forming new businesses, trying out new business models, competing with each other... regardless, what she's really done is just make the guys on the top poorer and give the poor saps who do the actual work a chance to shine.
It might work, it might not. But it may well give Aundair an advantage over the other 5N--there would be one less D'marked House to oppose her ambitions. It may well make other D'marked Houses toe the line more strictly in Aundair. Regardless, the actual guild members aren't going to pick up stakes and leave town just because there are no more price controls and they don't have to send half of their profits to a Guild. Industrial output may well not be impacted much at all by the disbanding of the guild.
Just a thought.
Long story short.
Staying with fabricators guild ensures that all materials will cost 1/3 of fixed market price. 1/3 of price to guild, 1/3 to mats, 1/3 to crafter. using a long sword for example, 1 sword takes 1 week. 4 weeks in a month. 15 gold market price of a long sword. 20 gold mat cost a month. If he were solo profit could be as high as 40 gold, assuming he can sell his blades for the former fixed price and got his mats for the same cost he could get them from the House.
Assume the smith is living in sharn (only eberron book with residence prices in it)
The Average residence costs 10g per month to rent and 1500 to buy.
To own an average quality smithy he would need to make 1 sword a month for rent, 1 sword a month to save up to own buy the smithy. In 12.5 Years he will have enough gold saved up to buy the residence. If he spends the other two weeks each month also making a long sword he will have made 3000 gold in profits, assume all costs remain stable. This also assumes he will actually sell 4 long swords in every given month.
The same smith working with in the Guild. either lives on an enclave or the guild owns the smithy where he is stationed so he is rent free, again with a cheep average appartment. he will have saved 3000 gold, from Rent alone. He makes the other two long swords as well every week for 12.5 years. This smith would have made himself 6000 gold OR twice the profits of the independent. in other words enough to purchase 4 cheep average smithys. You also have to figure in that the guild smith living in the enclave eats free there and can get all basic tools/supplies for the smithy from the guild at cost allways.
My math may be fuzzy, im to lazy to write it out and do it in my head.
Maybe I am overthinking it here yakman, but i just cant see the profit it in for the guild smith to go independent, too many now fixed variables that cant be counted upon. Cannith will currently pay the smith for the blade and sell it for them as well. So thats a very good business deal for both.
From the Dragonmarked book, member of cannith in game: "...Cannith NPC's are proud, often bordering on arrogant. They are also practical, looking at situations and people---from a standpoint of profit and loss."
If however you are correct and Jorlanna's branch is wiped out by Aurala there is lot of things that could come into play.
Her "lover" that demon guy, his master the Lords of Dust have something going on there, would they allow an investment like That to be just destroyed?
2600 years ago there was this huge war that took place last time a d'marked house, this one named Vol of Death, was attacked by a nation. Lady Vol is still around, as are her followers the Blood of Vol. 2600 years ago. 130 Human Generations. 20 Elven Generations. Thats along time.
She would certainly make an enemy of cannith south, east as well more than likely.
Jorlanna all but controls The Twelve, well she holds more influence there then anyone else. So you can not count their involvment out. That floating tower they have in korth, im sure its capable of combat. The Twelve has had centures to research offensive and defensive abilities and skews of artificers to impliment the changes/upgrades.
There are also simple thing to consider as well.
If there is no Cannith West. The Everbright Lanterns will fade. The conductor stones for the Light Rail network will also cease to function if they are not maintained by cannith tinkerers. The Elemental ships that cannith repairs for Lyrandar up in Stormhome no longer get maintained, or worse cannith west releases all the build elementals to wreck havic in the land. Not to mention the Shivis Message stations cease to function since cannith isnt there to maintain them.
Perhaps like the quari's monoliths the everbight lanters form a magic network instead of psionic that crosses the lands. If all the lanterns in Aundair were turned to radiate Darkness instead of Light, that could cause some problems as well.
Of this all harkens back to cannith west being the branch that goes activly producing warforged, not south like i had been thinking.
Sharn is in an even worse state. all of Merrix's "children" that are below the cogs.
This isnt to say that Cannith or the Houses are all powerful. Not by far. I just think, from what I have read that the Houses in general, and Cannith in particular are more powerfull then Some of the New Nations, and perhaps as powerfull as 1 or 2 of the Galifarian Nations. Certainly if all the Houses were 100% behind the twelve and united behind in a cause.
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This is why I love this world, My ECS book has traveled across the country with me many times, the only dnd setting book ive held onto and not given away. Never yet played in eberron till this past november-now. But ive takens parts of it to incorporate into a homebrew world that ive been using for years. sharn in particular though its got a different name in my world since its in the middle of a desert.
There is so much more potentual here that I can see then the other "official" settings. I have "lived" in Dragon Lance, Mystra, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Red Steel, and of course the Realms. But never have I been more connected to an official world then here in Eberron. I even feel more connected to this world then any of the four that ive made myself over the years. Kudos for that.
Personally I don't think the Houses had a official representative at the negotiations, but no nation ever ignored the wishes of the Houses and there sure were non-official agents present. Removing the creation forges was a minor sacrifice to appease the nations, especially since it wouldn't surprise me if many people within House Cannith feared warforged just as much as the general masses.
In fact, I doubt the other Houses would do nothing when a nation tries to break the hold of one Dragonmarked House. Even if the political consequences of allowing a government to destroy a House is not enough, the majority of the other houses are simply too dependend on Cannith for their own operations. It is not to say that such a conflict is impossible. It just means that the stakes must be very high for both sides, and any such conflict has a serious risk of escalating into a continent wide war. It would make a great focus for a campaign, but it is not something that would happen on the sidelines.
INdeed. The Houses are NOT united, either internally or amongst themselves. Some Houses benefitted tremendously from the War--Deneith, Tharask, Vadalis--but many others suffered enormously--Ghallanda, Orien, Phiarlan, perhaps Kundarak (all the debts they forgo payment on for a century, the loss of their clientele and vaults in Cyre). The Twelve do not stand united. Now, perhaps one of the 5N moving aggressively against a single House might provoke a joint response (more likely political rather than military), but I do not think that this is certain. After all, the Houses all flaunt the Edicts of Korth, and may well be wanting to move away from them formally as well as informally.
Personally I don't think the Houses had a official representative at the negotiations, but no nation ever ignored the wishes of the Houses and there sure were non-official agents present. Removing the creation forges was a minor sacrifice to appease the nations, especially since it wouldn't surprise me if many people within House Cannith feared warforged just as much as the general masses.
No House was likely seated at the Table--although particular House members may well have played the role of mediators and go-betweens (I'm thinking Sivis, but maybe Medani as well). Their concerns were almost certainly voice privately however.
The destruction of House Cannith's leadership and the division amongst its successors may have meant that its voice was given little consideration--I can't imagine that Merrix would ever have voluntarily disbanded his forges. But also, one should remember that the bulk of the Creation Forges may well have been within Cyre. As such, it wasn't a terrible sacrifice to eliminate all of them in one fell stroke. And in the interests of peace, the surviving D'marked might have told Cannith's successors that they would act against them if they opposed the banning of new Warforged.
does striking at Cannith really hurt industrial output?
I've been thinking about the Edicts of Korth for awhile... and it seems to me that they were as much to the D'marked house benefit as it was to the ir'Wyrnarns.
Think about it--it recognized that there would be only ONE HOUSE for each mark. That's one single voice, one organization, and the guilds serve only that house. Complete monopolies. Unified control. Self-governance. They don't interfere in politics and the politicians don't interfere with them.
Now, let's say that Aurala (just as an example) says "screw it." She orders her soldiers to seize Cannith properties, disband the guilds, and force House members to swear loyalty to her. Now what? Well... not much. Cannith is already disbanded as a unified house. Aurala may well promote new, younger members of Cannith, to form House d'Aundair-Cannith, which may or many not have complete control over the guilds or their former members. She might not do this... and the former members of the house go off on their own--forming new businesses, trying out new business models, competing with each other... regardless, what she's really done is just make the guys on the top poorer and give the poor saps who do the actual work a chance to shine.
It might work, it might not. But it may well give Aundair an advantage over the other 5N--there would be one less D'marked House to oppose her ambitions. It may well make other D'marked Houses toe the line more strictly in Aundair. Regardless, the actual guild members aren't going to pick up stakes and leave town just because there are no more price controls and they don't have to send half of their profits to a Guild. Industrial output may well not be impacted much at all by the disbanding of the guild.
Just a thought.
Why would Cannith heirs willingly give up everything that they know, being members of a Dragonmarked House, just because Aurala says so? Did a nation just take full military action against a Dragonmarked House? Because the other Dragonmarked Houses might take very large exception to that, including all the Cannith holdings outside of Aundaire.
Should Aundaire seize Cannith forgeholds within its borders, the Canniths elsewhere are going to gather as many resources as they can, including the full might of the unified houses, and do something about it.
How much they can do about it remains open to interpretation. Obviously in your interpretation, the answer is "not much".
Another interpretation is "The Twelve unleash holy hell on Aundaire with battalions of Denieth Blademarks, Tharashk War Troll mercenaries, Cannith War-Constructs, Lyandar Stormships while disrupting Aundaire's countermeasures with Phiarlan saboteures and eliminating key military strategists with Thuranni assassins. Then after they're done oblitterating Aundaire, the Dragonmarked Houses turn to the rest of the nations and declare that they found Aundaire to be in violation of the Korth Edicts, so they have lawfully seized it, and now it's borders are the newst, largest Dragonmarked enclave. Does anyone have anything to say about that?"
(Also, point of fact: The Dragonmarked Houses might not always have each other's best interests in heart, but they *are* unified through the Twelve. The Twelve exists to foster cooperation amongst the houses and determine what's best for all of them. If a nation takes military action, wholesale, against one of the houses, the Twelve would/could be the unifying force necessary to get all the Houses to see he danger. "First it's Aundaire seizing Cannith forgeholds. What's next, Breland attacking Tharashk because they cooperate with Droamm? And after that, Karrnath attacks Thuranni for fear of elves in its shadows? We must all take action, or we will be picked off one by one.")
Why would Cannith heirs willingly give up everything that they know, being members of a Dragonmarked House, just because Aurala says so? Did a nation just take full military action against a Dragonmarked House? Because the other Dragonmarked Houses might take very large exception to that, including all the Cannith holdings outside of Aundaire.
Should Aundaire seize Cannith forgeholds within its borders, the Canniths elsewhere are going to gather as many resources as they can, including the full might of the unified houses, and do something about it.
How much they can do about it remains open to interpretation. Obviously in your interpretation, the answer is "not much".
Another interpretation is "The Twelve unleash holy hell on Aundaire with battalions of Denieth Blademarks, Tharashk War Troll mercenaries, Cannith War-Constructs, Lyandar Stormships while disrupting Aundaire's countermeasures with Phiarlan saboteures and eliminating key military strategists with Thuranni assassins. Then after they're done oblitterating Aundaire, the Dragonmarked Houses turn to the rest of the nations and declare that they found Aundaire to be in violation of the Korth Edicts, so they have lawfully seized it, and now it's borders are the newst, largest Dragonmarked enclave. Does anyone have anything to say about that?"
(Also, point of fact: The Dragonmarked Houses might not always have each other's best interests in heart, but they *are* unified through the Twelve. The Twelve exists to foster cooperation amongst the houses and determine what's best for all of them. If a nation takes military action, wholesale, against one of the houses, the Twelve would/could be the unifying force necessary to get all the Houses to see he danger. "First it's Aundaire seizing Cannith forgeholds. What's next, Breland attacking Tharashk because they cooperate with Droamm? And after that, Karrnath attacks Thuranni for fear of elves in its shadows? We must all take action, or we will be picked off one by one.")
i'm not arguing that Cannith heirs would be expelled or their holdings seized indefinitely. I am saying that the idea of "House Cannith," unified across the continent would no longer exist.
Rather, Aurala (or whoever) would force House members to swear fealty to her (essentially ending the Edicts of Korth in her realm as regards Cannith). Members of the House who are enthusiastic about this idea would be granted Forgeholds (younger, more aggressive members who are angry at their elders for neglecting their hard work or jealous of their hereditary wealth). The Guild structure may fall apart, or be split up between Forgeholders. Maybe she re-establishes a House d'Aundair-Cannith, where the formerly Galifaran House is now localized in her country. Maybe she doesn't, and instead the various Forgeholders compete amongst each other for contracts--moving Aundair away from the economic oligarchy of Galifar and making it a more mercantile, competition-driven economy.
The model I'm thinking of is Henry VIII's seizure of Church properties in England, or in Germany during Luther's Reformation. The Anglican Church supplanted the Catholic one, but it was suborned to the Throne. Land was dealt out to nobles (something that can be done in Khorvaire), monks were turned out of the monasteries (Cannith heirs being tossed out to seek fortunes on their own), and there was a great deal of political fallout.
Now, maybe the Twelve react aggressively. Maybe they don't. But it would certainly be an interesting series of events if one wanted to explore the politics of House Cannith and the D'marked Houses in a campaign (I don't
)On another note though, Aurala wants to unite Galifar under her rulership. Why would she want to alienate the Houses? She needs their help to achieve her goal, or at the very least, their neutrality.
The church reforms only worked because a large majority of the locals were dissatisfied enough with the Catholic church to ignore the edicts of the Pope. The transition was also far from painless and involved persecutions and wars. But yeah, if the local Cannith side with Aurela AND the other Houses do not make a stance AND the other nations do not get involved, Aurela will be able to pull it off. The question though is that really going to happen? Because if the conflict does escalate, Aurala has a big problem.
On another note though, Aurala wants to unite Galifar under her rulership. Why would she want to alienate the Houses? She needs their help to achieve her goal, or at the very least, their neutrality.
i just picked Aurala's name out of a hat. you could easily substitute Krozen or Kaius or Boranel.