Guys, I am slightly confused by this. I have always had The Traveller in my realms games. Reading about Changelings though, I noticed that the Traveller created them. This got me thinking, when did the Traveller cross over into Eberron - I started searching around on Google, only to find that the Traveller seems to actually be an Eberron deity in the first place.
So now I am really confused because I seem to remember him being a realms deity but I cant find any of that information anymore.
Which world setting does he come from, Realms or Eberron?
Can you guys please help me out here because I am totally confused.
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Unsurprisingly, he travels around a good bit. I've heard he is known to at least a few of the people of Exandria as well.
What has me flumuxed though is I thought Eberron was closed off from everywhere else. I didn't realise there was ways of travelling between realms and eberron. This could be interesting because if the Traveller can move between the two, this could be how the shifter character I have been working on got from Eberron into Realms. I have been trying really hard to find a way to explain how a Shifter exists in a Realms setting, but this could be it.
I could write this complicated backstory about how she was the illegitimate child of a princess and a Weretouched lover and he family tried to kill her to cover things up but the Traveller took her away and placed her in the care of the Druids of the realms to protect her. It wouldn't really matter how complicated her Eberron backstory was because the campaign is in realms not Eberron, so as long as her childhood in realms made sense, that's all that would matter.
Hey, thanks lol your answer has actually unexpectedly helped me with a character lol. Good job I was reading about shapeshifters now - everything happens for a reason, right!
What has me flumuxed though is I thought Eberron was closed off from everywhere else.
Are you thinking about Dark Suns perhaps. That's the only major setting specifically closed off from the rest of the multiverse, as far as I'm aware.
Eberron has its own unique cosmology that is different from the Great Wheel, but it exits, and travel between planes, while possible, is very limited. That unique cosmology is more of an issue to planar travel than actually doing it. Like, if you used a spell to get to Sigil, the city of doors, how would you reconcile all that with the pseudo-solar system cosmology of Eberron? Especially the unique planes without an easy analogue in the Elemental/Outer planes?
I have been trying really hard to find a way to explain how a Shifter exists in a Realms setting, but this could be it.
Rather than a complicated backstory, or travel between realms, why not just have it be a half-lycanthrope, or a half-doppleganger? The Eberron races were designed just because the writer wanted playable were-animals and dopplegangers. Its not like these are unique, unrepeatable situations, after all. Parallel evolution is a thing.
The Traveler/s has been around way longer then Eberon but was officially introduced in the Eberon setting. He or they were created through chain letters to TSR as way to give clues to players as a mysterious stranger who could just pop in and out of games. So he was just a DM tool whose lore would vary from DM to DM. He or they kind of become planes walkers and then a deity in Eberon.
I hadn't heard about the Traveler having any pre-Eberron history, but that's interesting. Eberron wiki says that according to Matthew Mercer, the Critical Role version is based on but a distinct entity from the Eberron one. Forgotten Realms wiki has no article on the Traveler? It's usually the most thorough D&D wiki (it has more information on some settings like Spelljammer than those settings' own wikis). Do you know what source you got Realms-Traveler from? Might've been ported over along with Changelings, which I'm fairly certain were created for Eberron.
Regarding multiversal travel, Eberron's policy is to minimize its importance to general lore so that you don't need to understand other settings to use Eberron, but it's definitely allowed. I vaguely recall encountering a Spelljammer reference somewhere, and there's the Mourning Rail in Ravenloft. (Eberron can't interact very closely with Planescape other than Sigil portals because it fortunately doesn't use the Great Wheel and has a more rational looser relationship to the alignment system.) However, Eberron does make a point of it being somewhat ambiguous whether its gods actually exist and what they are, so it may not gel very well with the more active Realms gods. Still, Eberron's ambiguities are usually treated more as an opportunity for the DM to fill something in, so it's not contradictory for the Traveler to wind up on a different world, just... unusual.
Just been playing for a long time. A number of DMs have used the "Traveler" in a number of games I've played in. He's been a faceless man in a modern black suit, a creep jester, and my favorite, the NPC of many faces. Just fyi, the last example was after Eberon was released
I have been playing DnD longer than most of the published game settings have been around. I personally had never heard of the Traveler until Eberron was released. Not that the idea of the Traveler couldn't have existed before then. And why not in any settings? He was one of my favorite gods to portray from Eberron (even though the gods were never meant to exist as nothing more than icons and metaphors). I personally run Eberron as a closed reality but that does not mean others have to.
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I live my life like a West Marches campaign, A swirling vortex of Ambitions and Insecurities.
That's the beauty of it, the concepts will always be adapted to each game and style of play. Even those who claim to run campaigns and rules as written.
I love the idea that the traveler despite all that they were, became tired of the self imposed limitations of the gods and their hypocrisy. As such the traveler shattered themselves into many mortal souls each tasked with being a subtle saboteur to their divine counterparts schemes while also being shepherds along the road.
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Guys, I am slightly confused by this. I have always had The Traveller in my realms games. Reading about Changelings though, I noticed that the Traveller created them. This got me thinking, when did the Traveller cross over into Eberron - I started searching around on Google, only to find that the Traveller seems to actually be an Eberron deity in the first place.
So now I am really confused because I seem to remember him being a realms deity but I cant find any of that information anymore.
Which world setting does he come from, Realms or Eberron?
Can you guys please help me out here because I am totally confused.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Unsurprisingly, he travels around a good bit. I've heard he is known to at least a few of the people of Exandria as well.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
What has me flumuxed though is I thought Eberron was closed off from everywhere else. I didn't realise there was ways of travelling between realms and eberron. This could be interesting because if the Traveller can move between the two, this could be how the shifter character I have been working on got from Eberron into Realms. I have been trying really hard to find a way to explain how a Shifter exists in a Realms setting, but this could be it.
I could write this complicated backstory about how she was the illegitimate child of a princess and a Weretouched lover and he family tried to kill her to cover things up but the Traveller took her away and placed her in the care of the Druids of the realms to protect her. It wouldn't really matter how complicated her Eberron backstory was because the campaign is in realms not Eberron, so as long as her childhood in realms made sense, that's all that would matter.
Hey, thanks lol your answer has actually unexpectedly helped me with a character lol. Good job I was reading about shapeshifters now - everything happens for a reason, right!
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Are you thinking about Dark Suns perhaps. That's the only major setting specifically closed off from the rest of the multiverse, as far as I'm aware.
Eberron has its own unique cosmology that is different from the Great Wheel, but it exits, and travel between planes, while possible, is very limited. That unique cosmology is more of an issue to planar travel than actually doing it. Like, if you used a spell to get to Sigil, the city of doors, how would you reconcile all that with the pseudo-solar system cosmology of Eberron? Especially the unique planes without an easy analogue in the Elemental/Outer planes?
Rather than a complicated backstory, or travel between realms, why not just have it be a half-lycanthrope, or a half-doppleganger? The Eberron races were designed just because the writer wanted playable were-animals and dopplegangers. Its not like these are unique, unrepeatable situations, after all. Parallel evolution is a thing.
The Traveler/s has been around way longer then Eberon but was officially introduced in the Eberon setting. He or they were created through chain letters to TSR as way to give clues to players as a mysterious stranger who could just pop in and out of games. So he was just a DM tool whose lore would vary from DM to DM. He or they kind of become planes walkers and then a deity in Eberon.
Francis Cornell
I hadn't heard about the Traveler having any pre-Eberron history, but that's interesting. Eberron wiki says that according to Matthew Mercer, the Critical Role version is based on but a distinct entity from the Eberron one. Forgotten Realms wiki has no article on the Traveler? It's usually the most thorough D&D wiki (it has more information on some settings like Spelljammer than those settings' own wikis). Do you know what source you got Realms-Traveler from? Might've been ported over along with Changelings, which I'm fairly certain were created for Eberron.
Regarding multiversal travel, Eberron's policy is to minimize its importance to general lore so that you don't need to understand other settings to use Eberron, but it's definitely allowed. I vaguely recall encountering a Spelljammer reference somewhere, and there's the Mourning Rail in Ravenloft. (Eberron can't interact very closely with Planescape other than Sigil portals because it
fortunatelydoesn't use the Great Wheel and has amore rationallooser relationship to the alignment system.) However, Eberron does make a point of it being somewhat ambiguous whether its gods actually exist and what they are, so it may not gel very well with the more active Realms gods. Still, Eberron's ambiguities are usually treated more as an opportunity for the DM to fill something in, so it's not contradictory for the Traveler to wind up on a different world, just... unusual.Medium humanoid (human), lawful neutral
Just been playing for a long time. A number of DMs have used the "Traveler" in a number of games I've played in. He's been a faceless man in a modern black suit, a creep jester, and my favorite, the NPC of many faces. Just fyi, the last example was after Eberon was released
Francis Cornell
I have been playing DnD longer than most of the published game settings have been around. I personally had never heard of the Traveler until Eberron was released. Not that the idea of the Traveler couldn't have existed before then. And why not in any settings? He was one of my favorite gods to portray from Eberron (even though the gods were never meant to exist as nothing more than icons and metaphors). I personally run Eberron as a closed reality but that does not mean others have to.
I live my life like a West Marches campaign, A swirling vortex of Ambitions and Insecurities.
That's the beauty of it, the concepts will always be adapted to each game and style of play. Even those who claim to run campaigns and rules as written.
Francis Cornell
I love the idea that the traveler despite all that they were, became tired of the self imposed limitations of the gods and their hypocrisy. As such the traveler shattered themselves into many mortal souls each tasked with being a subtle saboteur to their divine counterparts schemes while also being shepherds along the road.