Eberron

Overall score:

At first glance at Eberron is liable to come across as too much—dinosaurs and mystic robots and jungle ruins and magic trains and dragon tattoos and on and on and on. Eberron is the result of the “create your own setting” contest, after all, and you can almost feel the creator’s desperation to make his setting as cool as possible by tossing in as many things as he can. That’s at first glance. Then you stop and say, “Wait! This game has dinosaurs and mystic robots and jungle ruins and magic trains and dragon tattoos! Awesome.” Bringing so many elements together into a cohesive setting would be very hard, but the results would be very cool if the designers were able to pull it off. In my opinion, Eberron pulls it off with flying colors.

Core to the setting’s effectiveness is its well-formed cosmology. There is a strong creation myth and a simple yet intriguing model of multiplanar relationships, which have a strong effect on the world and its function. The 12 planes which touch Eberron “move” around it in a sort of orbit, like a dimensional solar system, and as the planes get closer to or farther away from the world they create odd magic effects (impeding or enhancing certain spells, for example). Some of the planes get so close that they create manifest zones in which the planes actually touch; a few of the planes are inhabited by empires of evil villains who use these manifest zones to invade the world, though thankfully those planes only touch Eberron once every several thousand years. This planar model, then, affects not only the history but the geography and politics of the world, providing recurring villains and cultural events and several opportunities for adventure. Or, if you find it too confusing, you can just ignore it.

The history of Eberron is well-formed and interesting, starting with a creation myth that establishes three mega-powerful dragons (Eberron, Siberys, and Khyber) as the three facets of the world (earth, or the surface; heaven, or the sky; and hell, or the interior of the planet). Through thousands of years of fairly detailed history, the world has changed to a point where humanoid races, and a handful of goblinoids and fiends, rule a bunch of feudal kingdoms in a world rich with magic and forgotten secrets. The main continent, Khorvaire, has just finished a 100-year-long war that shook and shattered the status quo, and now the leftover countries are striving to establish themselves in the new age. Magic is so abundant as to practically become technology—bound elementals are used to power airships and trains, while war-fueled advancements in golemancy have given rise to a new species of living constructs known as the Warforged. Mysterious hereditary “tattoos,” known as Dragonmarks, provide twelve Houses across the continent with easy access to spell-like abilities that, while not typically exciting, provide the fantasy-based culture with a lot of modern-day conveniences—including mail service and notarized personal identification. The long and twisted history of Eberron means that they have lost just as much as they have gained over the years, if not more, so the world is full of secrets to discover and mysteries to explore.

The two words most often used by the book in describing itself are pulp and noir, which is half true—I suspect that the authors used the word noir merely because they’ve heard other people use it, and not because they know what it means. Pulp, on the other hand, it has in great abundance—the setting has a very Indiana Jones-meets-Conan kind of tone to it that can only be fully appreciated by reading the fiction and the included adventure; it’s one thing to read about a world’s rules and history, and quite another to see them in action. The world is brimming with exotic locations that ache to be used in a game: the jungle continent of Xen’drick is covered with vast ruins of a kingdom of giants, and explorers are constantly delving through it for treasure and lost magic. The metropolis of Sharn, called the city of towers, is built on a foundation of goblinoid cities so old that nobody knows how deep the levels go. The deserts of Talenta are ruled by nomadic clans of Halflings riding dinosaurs. The fallen kingdom of Cyre lies in a cursed limbo where nothing grows, nothing heals, and nothing rots; it is called the Mournland, and its cause and purpose are the greatest mystery of the age. The ease of travel via trains and airships enhances the pulpy feel by allowing you to hop easily between distant and disparate places, often in the middle of an adventure.

One of the basic tenets of Eberron, stated on the very first page and reiterated several times, is that “if it has a place in D&D, it has a place in Eberron.” This is a very good thing in terms of source material, because you can re-use all of your other D&D books in Eberron without feeling out-of-flavor. It is a very bad thing in other ways, however, since it gives the setting a subtly hackneyed feel by forcing you to play with all of the same old stuff. A good example of this is the gnomish kingdom of Zilargo, which has no interesting background, no compelling story, and no reason to exist other than as an excuse to include gnomes in the game. The game does not need gnomes—just as it does not need a number of other D&D staples—and the game suffers a bit by forcing itself to include them at any cost.

At the same time, however, the authors have managed to produce some extremely innovative takes on a few of the old fantasy standards, most notably the elves. Dwelling primarily on the jungle island of Aerenal, just off the coast of Xen’drick, the elves are an advanced tribal people who take ancestor worship to new levels—through a form of positive-energy necromancy they are able to raise their fallen elders as Deathless, who walk among them and continue their life’s work beyond the bounds of life. The look and feel of the elven culture is a fascinating blend of Aztec, African, and Caribbean Voodoo, resulting in what is not only cool but arguably the best use of elves since Tolkien; it’s certainly the most original. (Even the splinter group of elves who live on the mainland avoid the typical elven clichés by embracing atypical ones, in this case a Scythian culture obviously inspired by Tolkien’s Rohirrim.) That this unique elven culture sends ripples of influence throughout several other cultures and nations and villains across the world is a testament to how cohesive that world really is.

Eberron augments the existing D&D foundation with four new races, the most interesting of which is almost certainly the Warforged mentioned previously. Created as disposable yet powerful soldiers in the war that ravaged the continent, the Warforged have since been granted the “rights” of a sentient species, though many are still used as slaves or indentured servants. One of their cooler features is their ability to tinker with their own construction, swapping out key modular components and building in new upgrades—including mysterious artifacts from Xen’drick, which leads many to believe that the Warforged technology is far older than originally believed. Other races include the Changelings, a hybrid species with the ability to make minor changes to its appearance, and the Kalashtar, psychic half-humans stemming from the plane of Dal’Quor. Personally, my favorite new race are the Shifters—a hybrid of humans and lycanthropes that has become, over hundreds of generations, a unique species. Each race (though not so much the changelings, unfortunately) is directly tied to multiple facets of the world’s history and politics, which helps solidify them as real parts of the world instead of just random fantasy ideas (like the gnomes).

Eberron also offers a new base class, the artificer, who specializes in creating and repairing magic devices. If your team includes a Warforged then an Artificer is almost a necessity, since the constructs can’t be healed by normal means. Artificers are much more than robot-healers, however, with access to a lot of magic and a pretty interesting way of infusing into weapons and machines. The prestige classes are all fairly cool, helping to flesh out the setting’s more interesting options such as the Dragonmarks and new races. There’s also a selection of feats and spells and blah blah blah—all of it useful and well-presented, but not especially exciting.

One of the more amusing aspects of the game, at least to me, is how closely the map and location descriptions resemble a MMORPG—it’s fairly clear which zones are intended for which levels, and it’s easy to see which locations or stories will become the major quests. Every zone contains an epic-level encounter of some kind, as well as an array of basic shops and NPCs. It makes sense—it is, after all, a game—but there's a stronger parallel here than I’ve ever seen before. In my opinion it's a very good thing, since it makes the GM's job easier and more intuitive, and adds some built-in suspense for any players who have read the book (if you know about the half-fiend dragon Rashaak in the ruins of Haka'torvhak, then you'll be on your toes if the GM ever says you're going to that part of the world).

In talking to a friend recently, the subject of D&D campaign settings came up and he said, “what does it matter? Regardless of the setting we’ve used in each campaign, all of my D&D games have always been the same.” At the core, this is still true—if you're very set in your ways, then there’s nothing inherent to Eberron that will shake up the way you play (the addition of action points might, but it also might not). One level 6 encounter is really the same as another level 6 encounter, mechanically speaking, regardless of where it takes place. That said, you’d almost have to go out of you way not to find something intriguing about Eberron—it offers a lot of richness and a lot of options that have never existed in D&D before. The politics are ripe for intrigue, the mysteries are waiting to be explored, and the tone of the setting is fresh and exciting. The game does not go as far as I would like—they could have done much more with the industrial magic concept, for example, and they would ideally have based more decisions on “what the game needs” than on “what D&D is supposed to include.” Still, it’s a fascinating world ideal for adventure gaming, and I would recommend it to any fan of roleplaying or pulp fantasy action.

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Written by Fellfrosch on July 31st, 2004