Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Syltorian Jun 29, 2014 3:35:50	One of the great mysteries of Eberron is the Mourning, which killed all the Cyrans (and invading armies) caught up in it or transformed them into something unreckognisable. But it seems to have left the warforged completely untouched. Do the warforged know more about what happened during the Mourning, having actually lived through it? Obviously, they do not know the reason, but they may have observations that could help find out the cause and origin of the catastrophy.   Also, what happened to Karrnath's undead troops in Cyre when the cataclysm hit? Were they likewise unaffected, being already dead, or were they changed too? What did they do after the Mourning killed their officers (apart from the Dread Marshals, who seem to be NCOs rather than higher-ranking commanders)? Did they also stand around like the warforged, waiting for orders, or did they give in to their killing instinct and try to win the battle by pushing through the borders or trying to seize key locations? Also did Karrnath employ "higher forms" of undead - say vampires, as commanders and bone knights, who may have remained behind to command the undead troops?
#2 EnderXenocide0 Jun 29, 2014 8:28:55	Syltorian wrote:
(Reply to #2) Syltorian	You know, Ender, I cannot find anything to confirm that the warforged actually lived through the cataclysm unchanged and unaffected. Thanks for pointing that out! So this would be another question: what happened constructs (living and other), as well as to undead?
#4 Beoric Jun 29, 2014 14:00:16	The warforged who are there now have, at the least, adapted.  I have always assumed that the initial event must have had the same effect on warforged as everybody else.  Otherwise, I expect that the warforged on both sides of the Field of Ruin would have continued fighting.    If the Cyran warforged were in the majority (as seems likely), they would have carried the day and then either followed existing protocols or returned to command.  Either way, we would have heard form them by now - unless they were co-opted.  Do we know who the ranking warforged officers would have been on either side or that battle?
#5 Tiarn Jun 30, 2014 1:46:02	The warforged that were in Cyre on the Day of Mourning did not fare any better than anyone living did.  They were wiped out as well.   The thing about warforged is, (and most of this stems from 3.5 lore, since mechanics worked differently back then) they didn't need healing in the same way, so they fare better now in the Mournland for the following reasons:   1) Cure spells and the like, don't work in the Mourning (or are half as effective, I really forget now).  But Warforged already only recieved half healing from Cure spells.  So they didn't lose out a whole lot there. 2) Natural healing doesn't work in the Mournlands at all.  But warforged already don't heal naturally, so this is something they are already used to dealing with. 3) Repair spells work normally in the Mournlands.  Repair spells heal warforged just fine.   So while a human walks into the Mournlands and suddenly has all these spells she's used to stop functioning upon her... a warforged is no better or worse off.  Leading to them having an advantage.   Now, I don't remember anything at all about the undead.
#6 Syltorian Jun 30, 2014 2:42:15	Thanks for the replies!   Beoric wrote:
(Reply to #6) Beoric	I say we would have heard from the warforged had they (a) survived and (b) not been co-opted because I think we can make assumptions about how the average warforged is going to behave in the circumstances.  They are conditioned to behave as soldiers, and without many of the outside distractions that other soldiers have.  I feel that the majority would, firstly, continue to pursue their mission objectives, if possible.  Failing that, they would seek a local ranking officer to receive new orders.  Failing that, they would seek information regarding the current situation, and report back to command to debrief and receive new orders.  I think it is reasonabe to assume that at least some surviving Cyran warforged would either end up in Metrol, or would cross the mist to scout the situation in Darguun/Breland, and seek officers in POW/refugee camps.  Surviving Brelish warforged would definitely head back to Breland.  I note that the Brelish warforged named Bastion commanded a force of 2,000 heavy foot on the Fields of Ruin.   "Surviving" undead are different, because they are controlled directly, as opposed to by military conditioning and discipline.  I think it is reasonable to assume that once noone was controlling them, they would behave as ordinary, uncontrolled undead, and would have no interest in achieving mission objectives once they were free to pursue their own interests, each according ot its nature.  After the Mourning there would be no living left to fight, other than warforged, unless they turned around and attacked the living in Karrnath.    The other thing (and here I am drifting into my personal interpretation of the Mourning) is that the undead receive their animus form Mabar, and the Mourning seems to be a place of planar upeaval.  There are a few new manifest zones after the Mounring, notably the Glowing Chasm; fey creatures, which are connected to Thelanis, have been twisted into mistlings; and as of 4e, the feyspires have been torn from Thelanis.  I would suggest that undead could easily become creatures of the Mourning for this reason.   By contrast, warforged are creatures of Eberron.  Their nature is not determined by a connection with a planar archetype.  They have free will, although many would not immediately realize that they had free choice, or that they could pursue personal objectives outside of their mission.  Until that realization set in, I believe they would use imagination and creativity in the pursuit of their mission objectives.    So for me it is unlikely that warforged were untouched by the advent of the Mounring simply because at least some of them must have reported back otherwise.  The Cyrans had 9,000 heavy foot who were described as "mostly warforged".  That is a lot of survivors to keep off grid for no apparent reason.  So either they died, or there is some other compelling reason for their silence.
#8 Syltorian Jul 01, 2014 3:48:10	Beoric wrote:
#9 Beoric Mar 13, 2015 16:30:48	Oh, I think Cannith would like to train the imagination and creativity out of warforged, and do their best to do just that, but as Hellcow pointed out in one of his recent posts, warforged have all sorts of traits that Cannith wishes they didn't.    Anyway, part of the reason I treat warforged the way I do is for story reasons.  I see the warforged as essentially child soldiers, stunted by being thrown into harsh training and battle before they have a chance to "grow up".  Given time (which they have lots of) they can heal enough to explore a different side of themselves.  Eberron gives a unique opportunity to explore those themes while avoiding a certain amount of squick.
#10 Syltorian Jul 01, 2014 8:08:24	I agree that Cannith is less in control of their creations than they wish. Warforged seem to develop strange facets that were not planned. Still, I believe that what Cannith is essentially doing is brainwashing the warforged. If they have indeed a certain childlike nature, we may want to look to real-life child soldiers, conditionned to take orders and die for their cause or country; the more totalitarian regimes have been quite efficient at rooting certain types of behaviour out (and I would not put it above Cannith to eliminate any 'failures' in their training - only the original creator of the warforged, and Merrix his son seem to show any real feeling for their creations). Perhaps, taking the child image a bit further, the best parallel would be the Ottoman janissaries, who were taken away as children to be indoctrinated and raised as soldiers - though again, the janissaries were well educated in matters beyond hacking at the enemy and dying when told.     Keith's input would be great, of course, but I believe he is rather busy. Maybe he'll respond, or include the question(s) in the next mailbag he answers - in the meantime, I am very happy about discussing this with you and others.   My reason to have the warforged survive the Mourning is also due to story reasons, partly as part of a character background (not an essential part, considering it's about the character meeting warforged for the first time whilst scouting the Mournland in the immediate aftermath of the Mourning - along with Karrnathi undead, though I can easily convert those into expeditionary forces just like the one the char is on); I also like the idea of an entire regiment standing to attention without realising no order will come, ever (unless someone 'captures' them reassigns them to their own army), though I can clearly see the potential in the Mourning either killing or changing them, too.
#11 Beoric Jul 01, 2014 15:44:31	If they were in a bunker, whole units would have survived.  It is clear that there were some survivors of the Mourning, although the exact mechanism (other than those who were in underground complexes) is often a bit vague.  Empress Donata and the Mournland Magebred humans in Clifftop come to mind.  So you don't have to decide yet whether any warforged that are encountered are the exception or the rule.
#12 Syltorian Jul 02, 2014 4:12:03	Interesting. Where do you find that people in bunkers would have survived? Apart from the story about the Mournland Magebred, which indicates that Clifftop was right on the border (and thus may have survived because it was at the very edge, rather than underground, or that parts of the underground complex reached across the border)? Having a vault or bunker with survivors would make for a nice story, but also make the Mourning less terrible, since it would provide a means to evade it (like modern nuclear shelters, even if it's no fun to spend the next two generations in a closed room, and most shelters don't have the facilities to hold out for that long, anyway).
#13 Beoric Jul 02, 2014 9:01:28	My memory might be a bit faulty, because I couldn't find much.   In the adventure Shadows of the Last War (of which Keith was the author), part of the advenature takes place in Whitehearth.  "On the Day of Mourning, the energies that created the Mournland swept acorss Whitehearth.  May of the researchers and support staff were killed instantly.  They were the luck ones - others were destroyed by arcane experiments thrown out of control.  Now chaos and death fill the halls of Whitehearth."  [Emphasis added]   I also note that the Mourning could not have been 100% efficient, or there would have been no refugees.  Given the speed that the mists overcame the Fields of Ruin, if they were that fast everywhere, and if they were 100% fatal, there would have been no refugees to be slaughtered by the Darguul and Valenar.  (Although I note that Five Nations says the mists spread slowly, which belies descriptions about what happened at the Fields of Ruin).   In Shadows, there are a couple of living spell created by the Mourning; an awakenened dire wolf which appears to have been awakened by the Mourning, and ordinary wolves that appear to be unaffected.   The eladrin of Shaelas Tiraleth survived, although admittedly they would have been protected by powerful magic, and are partly bound to Thelanis.
#14 Syltorian Jul 02, 2014 9:26:42	Beoric wrote:
#15 Beoric Jul 02, 2014 9:51:25	Re:  the speed of the mists, I suppose people actually fighting might have been too distracted to escape.  I ran an encounter on a ridge where the PCs are engaged in a battle at the border with Darguun.  At the end of each round I gave one of the PCs a flashback to earlier in the day (basically character development), which included a hint of the approaching mists.  As the last few rounds of the battle approached, the PCs realize that the mists are about to overcome them, and the race is then to disengage and get over the ridge to safety before the mists engulf them.  It may have been the best session I ever ran.
#16 Syltorian Jul 02, 2014 10:18:04	This sounds interesting, but I'm not quite sure I follow your chronology here. The PCs are fighting on the Day of Mourning, engaged deeply enough to ignore the appearance of the mists. But the flashback already included the mists, so they must have been advancing for some time now, and quite slowly. But to make the chase exciting, they must have advanced fast.   I do wonder, though, what the mists must have looked like to make people flee. I get the feeling this was more of a massive sandstorm like cloud than a simple wall of mist. Unless people saw others touched by the mists go down first, and took the hint.
#17 Beoric Jul 02, 2014 11:51:01	The first clue was, that morning, the Phiarlan in the group receiving a coded message to abandon the Cyran camp and depart for Sharn immediately (in my Eberron Phialran had knowledge that something was about to go very wrong).  The next flashback was to noon, while they were on the march, and the rank and file was looking nervous about flashes of lightning to the east, and a long gray bandsretching across the eastern horizon.  There were other flashbacks, but no clues dropped during them.   At this point in the battle the PCs start noticing confusion in the lines ot the east, and with a hard perception chek they notice patches of fog in that direction.  At the end of the next round I started using the descriptions from the 4e adventure "Mark of Prophecy", which made it clear that something bad was happening and that they needed to escape.   I think I read somewhere that the wall of mist is about 100' tall.  Taking into account the curvature of the planet, and the fact that Eberron is smaller than Earth, it would have first been spotted when it was somewhat less than 100 miles away.  However, I took some liberties with timing and speed in order to increase dramtic tension - I didn't really worry about how fast the mists would have to travel to be visible by midday if the Mourning started around Metrol in the morning, or how fast it would travel to get to the Fields of Ruin by the afternoon.  During the battle, the mists travelled exactly as fast as they needed to in order to drive the PCs over the ridge without actually killing them.   On average, the mists would have been going at a pretty good speed to have made it from Metrol to the edge of Cyre over the course of, say, eight hours.  This assumes there was an origin point and that they didn't spontaneously appear everywhere at once.  At the least, they would have to be too fast to outrun without a head start, or more people would have escaped; but slow enough that the alert you received from the cries of the dying would be sufficient to make it to the border.
#18 Syltorian Jul 05, 2014 5:38:36	That's a great scenario, Beoric! The Phiarlan order to withdraw is a nice little touch. I agree that Phiarlan knew something was going to happen, though I doubt they foresaw the Mourning as such.   Incidentally, one of my characters (yet to be played) delayed with the evacuation through the shadow portals to rescue a lost child, then got caught up in the mists when she tried to escape via her shadow walk Mark, and got tied to the Shadow Plane (acquiring the Shade Template, 3.5)   Lightning flashes in the east is also nice. It makes the entire thing look vaguely like a volcanic erruption, where fires and the like mingle with the ash. I'm not sure whether that is how Mark of Prophecy describes it. Do you reckon it would be worth buying that book for someone who doesn't play 4E, simply for the descriptions and settings lore?   I also agree that the mists advance as, I believe, Terry Prachtett said, at the speed of plot. As for where they had their origin, so far as the confused descriptions can be pieced together, they started in Metrol (the palaces of Vermishard) and Making as well as from the Glowing Chasm - though some of those reports may be flawed. You are right though to point out that they must have travelled fast to cover all of Cyre within one day, even with multiple points of origin. Good points there.
#19 Beoric Jul 06, 2014 9:07:10	I don't know if it is worth your money, but it is worth you time to read. There is a fair amount of new content, mostly new NPCs but also a few big factions like the Feyspires or the Mourning Magebred.  There are details on a few Droaam warlords.  Even the old cotent is worth a read, there are often new gems contained in the write-ups, and they often are more clear or have a slightly different spin.  I quite like the section on Vol, it is my go-to when I need to refresh my memory.   Make sure you get the 4e Campaign Guide and not the Player's Guide.  There is not much for you in the Player's Guide.
#20 Syltorian Jul 06, 2014 9:18:10	Whoops. I did not realise Mark of Prophecy was the adventure at the back of the 4e Campaign Guide. I got that one (the only 4E book I ever bought), and you're right, it's well worth the time to read (apart from the change to cosmology), in particular the section about Droaam. I like the feyspires and, as a Vadalis fan, the Mourning Magebred too. I just never checked the adventure out. Thanks anyway for the advise, and for making me think about that starter adventure.
#21 Tempest_Stormwind Jul 08, 2014 14:08:50	...Has it ever been said, anywhere, that the mists spread at a constant rate? I always assumed it varied, from multiple starting locations (though probably not simultaneous ones - like multiple geysers from the same geology), and spread out very rapidly from there (perhaps fast enough to be effectively instant in some places, like the Field of Ruins, but also slow enough in other places to allow for a larger tide of refugees than an instant apocalypse would have normally provided). I also usually imagine it spreading slower as it went westward - in effect, giving farmers and villagers on the western borders time to escape with the clothes on their backs but little else, while citizens to the east and north were wiped out quicker; this is largely to give Breland a reason to be more nationally motivated to deal with Cyran refugees than simple national character, admittedly. (If you want to cast Breland as a villain in your story, even though Boranel seems personally concerned with the plight of the refugees, it's easy enough to make the rest of Breland's government motivated to deal with them solely because they happened to be on Brelish soil.)   For what it's worth, I subscribe to the theory that the Mourning wiped out most of the warforged and undead in Cyre - people here have discussed what would have happened had it only hit the living, fleshy people, and it isn't entirely consistent with the Mournland as we know it. However, you can also exploit a simple bit of the 3.5 rules to explain why the warforged grew to dominate the area (without appealing to story-based mutations (as in living spells or carcass crabs), and with all of the usual elegance of the comparison to warforged and healing, above) - undead are utterly destroyed at HP 0, while warforged remain inert and deactivated (and, critically, not actually dying or bleeding out) until -10. It's quite possible that several warforged bodies were found by survivors (either from bunkers or from migration into the Mournland), still in reparable state (say, at negative HP but higher than -10), and repaired. You can't do that with undead without powerful magic (something quite rare in Eberron), but all it takes to bring a warforged back to full strength is a bit of time and some basic tools. Thus, all the warforged already in Cyre when the Mourning hit could still remain potential "citizens" of the Mournland even if the Mourning wiped them out, so long as they left an intact and inert body, simply by being repaired and brought up to speed by followers of the Lord of Blades or somesuch. (This could also explain quite a bit of indoctrination - how would you feel if you woke up from, say, a coma after several months or years have passed, and the people bringing you up to speed follow a philosophy such as his? Without outside information, and with warforged conditioning towards obedience, I think that this could easily explain the LoB's numbers.)   Mind you, I'm writing all of this from memory, so I'm perhaps off the mark a bit. I'll check my books again when I get the chance.
#22 Syltorian Jul 15, 2014 3:19:47	I like the idea of warforged being rendered inert and, if lucky, repaired by those who found them. It's already been established in RoE (I think) that they change side pretty easily once and insert themselves in whatever command structure is available. Your explanation for them joining the Lord of Blades makes a lot of sense in this context. Thanks for the idea!   I don't think it has ever been stated that the mists spread at the same time, no. It would make sense, as you describe it, to have them move at different speeds, to allow people being driven to Breland (where they were dealt with fairly) and Darguun and Valenar (where they were massacred or enslaved). Still I also like the idea that Thrane, in particular, failed to help them - especially since I prefer Five Nations (where Thrane and Cyre are allies) to Forge of War (where they are enemies). Since I tend to ignore the way Thrane is presented in FoW in general, it wouldn't be a common thing for Thrane to react in an unbecoming manner, though they would have tried to get rid of the refugees as soon as possible.
#23 Beoric Mar 13, 2015 20:48:08	I decided to necro this thread because His Infernal Bovine weighed in on the topic in his blog:  http://keith-baker.com/dragonmarks-31215-origins-authors-and-thrane/   Plus the Eberron boards aren't getting enough love these days.