Faiths of Eberron

"Godless detail for a godless world"

Overall score:

When Wizards introduced the Eberron campaign setting, I was (at best) skeptical. I was a staunch supporter of Faerun and I loved that world. My friends suggested I give Eberron a try since it was going to be the ‘official’ world of D&D. I read the campaign book and I was impressed by the world and how it had a very different flavor from that of Forgotten Realms. I dove in headfirst and Eberron has not disappointed me except for one fundamental flaw: religion.

Eberron is a world where there are no gods that exist as actual beings, only belief systems, and semi-gods that are actually just somewhat powerful monsters. Having come from a campaign world where the deities actually entered the campaign world in physical form, the ‘religions’ of Eberron were a huge letdown. That Wizards even produced the book Faiths of Eberron (by Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, Ari Marmell and C.A. Suleiman) came as a shock to me, but it was no shock to discover that it simply expanded the empty shell that was introduced in the Eberron Campaign Setting.

The struggle between good and evil is a staple in the fantasy genre: Sauron vs The Fellowship, The Empire vs. The Rebellion, etc. While Eberron offers evil forces to fight against, some seem to lack the same spark that was offered in other worlds. To explain, think of the drow of Forgotten Realms with their worship of Lolth, Queen of the Demonweb Pits. Lolth is this immortal, super-powerful being, always hovering over their society and hiding behind every plot, a constant threat to both non-believing drow and PCs alike.

Now imagine the same drow society as the ‘Spiders are Cool Club’. There is no ‘real’ Lolth, she is simply a possible ‘force’ that may or may not be able to actually effect the real world. Her clerics are not ‘granted’ their powers. Divine magic comes from within; clerics cast spells due to their extreme personal faith (regardless of where it is placed). The vast majority of ‘priests’ and believers cannot wield divine magic in any form due (apparently) to their lack of faith, not because their deity sees them as undeserving or the power unwarranted.

The ‘gods’ have no say in the use of their ‘divine power’. A character who is of evil alignment can be a cleric of good deity with no repercussions whatsoever. While I enjoy the Eberron tenant of more fluid alignment systems (goblins are not necessarily ‘evil’ for example), I find this total lack of consequence assigned to ‘good’ and ‘evil’ to be somewhat disconcerting and makes the lash of the good-evil struggle feel watered-down.

I had hoped that Faiths of Eberron would somehow fill in the gaps that seemed to exist in the religious aspect of what is an otherwise fascinating world, but I was sorely disappointed. The book details each major faith (The Sovereign Host, Dark Six, Silver Flame, etc.), and many of the smaller cults (Blood of Vol, Dragon Below, Druid sects, etc.), identifying their holy days, sketching out their religious rites and identifying their core values and goals.

This may sound promising, but the book is also ripe with sarcasm and is demeaning of most of the religions in its overall tone. For the most part, worshippers of good deities are mostly either self-delusional, arrogant, goody-two-shoes or crazy, over-zealous crusaders who do as much harm as they do good. Worshippers of evil deities are treated much more kindly, being portrayed mostly as pragmatics who recognize their own evil and band together to further it.

It's not all useless information and there are interesting tidbits especially amongst the smaller cults that promise for interesting role-playing, but for the most part, the book offers very little to any campaign that focuses on religion (especially for good-aligned PCs). There are a few new prestige classes, feats, etc that are interesting, but why would you want to play a cleric in this godless world, where your character is at best a delusional, but faithful person and at worst an arrogant buffoon who wields his religion like a club. Nothing in Faiths is good enough to making slogging through the rest of the sarcastic diatribe worth valuable time or money.

If you are interested in more information about the ‘dark side’ of religions in Eberron, then Faiths might be worth your time. I suspect most players, however, will be very disappointed in their $29.95 investment. No miracles here…give this one a pass.

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Written by Nytwalker on September 12th, 2007