Eberron started as a black hole and pulled in 3 dragons one of which was a powerful Chronurgist and they killed each other and made Eberron and stabilized the black hole but it still pulled things in and warped them including a powerful storm that caused the mourning and the beings that became deities and it also pulled in everything in Eberron.
also good quori and thus most kalashtar are forced to be lawful good
also warforged are robots with souls bound to them
is that a good take on the lore also tell me why or why not
The first thing that stuck out to me was the change to warforged, possibly my favorite payable race. I think changing them from a race of created beings that think and feel and (depending on your viewpoint) *are* alive, which is rife with potential for storytelling, and change them to shells that have an already existing soul bound to them, you limit yourself in the respect that Ebberon is supposed to be ambiguous and noir.
My next example of that issue, is that in your revamped origin you codify the existence of the gods in a way that is not done in the main lore. Just like with Warforged, this removes a lot of ambiguity that is almost unique to Ebberon; do the gods actually exist? Do warforged have souls? Does anyone? These are interesting questions that only really exist, or at least are only focused on, uniquely in Ebberon. This subjectivity of viewpoint is one of the main themes of the campaign setting, and I would really question why you'd want to change it, and what you want your Ebberon to be without it.
From a storytelling perspective it works about as well as any fantasy story, except I don't see the connection between the Mourning and the progenitor dragons that you've implied. If the Mourning is a result of Ebberon's creation, why does it not happen until the end of the Last War? Or has there always been a Mournland? In which case, how has the politics of Khovaire evolved differently without ever having had a Cyre or a Galifar kingdom? It just seems to lack a kind of internal storytelling logic. As a side-note about the Mourning, everyone who runs Ebberon has a different explanation for it so again, narritively yours is as good as anyone's, but consider its gameplay functionality. The Mourning was a big story event that ended the Last War and ushered in the current steady state world of tenuous peace with an undercurrent of impending war. That peace is based off of the threat the Mourning poses; but what caused it? Could it happen again? Was it the war? As Ebberon is a world that is full of intrigue and political complexity, I feel personally that the answer to possibly the most important question in the setting have a similar level of intrigue and complexity behind it. The answer to What Caused the Mourning should have capital-I *Implications* for the world. "It happened at the dawn of time" has fewer opportunities for such intrigue and I think ultimately lessens the impact. I suppose you could go the route of "someone is trying to keep secret the fact that the Mourning wasn't caused by the war" for intrigue, but removing any kind of will being the event itself seems passive and implies less drama.
My last note is less constructive criticism and more personal preference, but regarding your decision to make all three of the progenitor dragons dead, again I think you're killing off a lot of the Ebberon lore that makes it so vibrant. Is there still a Cult of the Dragon Below if Khyber himself is dead? The theme of constant struggle of the dragon Ebberon to contain the threat of Khyber within themself is also gone, as well as the eerie beauty/tragedy of the ring of Siberys supposedly being the remains of The Dragon Above.
Tl;dr: my main concerns mostly boil down to changing fundamental themes of the world. Is there any particular reason you wanted to play Ebberon without them? Do you have a sense of what it would be like with its core themes retreaded? Is there any reason not to homebrew a new campaign setting simply using the remaining bits of lore? Do you feel the changes are creatively necessary?
One of Ebberon's main selling points is that it is a less traditional fantasy setting, whereas from my perspective the changes you've suggested would render it more in the direction of traditional fantasy.
Obviously though, to each their own, these are just my thoughts.
The first thing that stuck out to me was the change to warforged, possibly my favorite payable race. I think changing them from a race of created beings that think and feel and (depending on your viewpoint) *are* alive, which is rife with potential for storytelling, and change them to shells that have an already existing soul bound to them, you limit yourself in the respect that Ebberon is supposed to be ambiguous and noir.
My next example of that issue, is that in your revamped origin you codify the existence of the gods in a way that is not done in the main lore. Just like with Warforged, this removes a lot of ambiguity that is almost unique to Ebberon; do the gods actually exist? Do warforged have souls? Does anyone? These are interesting questions that only really exist, or at least are only focused on, uniquely in Ebberon. This subjectivity of viewpoint is one of the main themes of the campaign setting, and I would really question why you'd want to change it, and what you want your Ebberon to be without it.
From a storytelling perspective it works about as well as any fantasy story, except I don't see the connection between the Mourning and the progenitor dragons that you've implied. If the Mourning is a result of Ebberon's creation, why does it not happen until the end of the Last War? Or has there always been a Mournland? In which case, how has the politics of Khovaire evolved differently without ever having had a Cyre or a Galifar kingdom? It just seems to lack a kind of internal storytelling logic. As a side-note about the Mourning, everyone who runs Ebberon has a different explanation for it so again, narritively yours is as good as anyone's, but consider its gameplay functionality. The Mourning was a big story event that ended the Last War and ushered in the current steady state world of tenuous peace with an undercurrent of impending war. That peace is based off of the threat the Mourning poses; but what caused it? Could it happen again? Was it the war? As Ebberon is a world that is full of intrigue and political complexity, I feel personally that the answer to possibly the most important question in the setting have a similar level of intrigue and complexity behind it. The answer to What Caused the Mourning should have capital-I *Implications* for the world. "It happened at the dawn of time" has fewer opportunities for such intrigue and I think ultimately lessens the impact. I suppose you could go the route of "someone is trying to keep secret the fact that the Mourning wasn't caused by the war" for intrigue, but removing any kind of will being the event itself seems passive and implies less drama.
that was saying it happened across time and it got pulled in at that time and i am mostly not changing the story at all
My last note is less constructive criticism and more personal preference, but regarding your decision to make all three of the progenitor dragons dead, again I think you're killing off a lot of the Ebberon lore that makes it so vibrant. Is there still a Cult of the Dragon Below if Khyber himself is dead? The theme of constant struggle of the dragon Ebberon to contain the threat of Khyber within themself is also gone, as well as the eerie beauty/tragedy of the ring of Siberys supposedly being the remains of The Dragon Above.
they were all reincarnated into new but very different beings and the cult of the dragon is to these beings
I still feel like the warforged bit is regressive where the original story was progressive, dealing with an entirely new class of beings that are personally and socially clean slates vs them being old souls with new packaging/memories. I still feel like that version lends itself more to stories about "who was i?" rather than "who am I? What am I? What does it mean to be?" Warforged as they exist now are interesting to me because it's a high-concept sci-fi element in a fantasy setting, which circles back again to Ebberon's non-traditionality.
Not to mention it still codifies the existence of souls, which again in Ebberon is not a given the way it is in other settings like the forgotten realms, where the gods are known for a fact to exist and supernatural powers are known to truck with the souls of mortals. If the gods exist, they play very hands-off with the world of Ebberon, to the point where belief in there existence is a matter of pure faith. Therefore, having the question of "do we have souls? Do we matter?" being answered (especially to the scale of it being incorporated into their industrial magic economy) not just for the warforged, but for everyone, is again a narrative step back rather than forward. I don't see what there is to be gained narratively from that change.
Again, the time traveling Mourning works fine, but I still don't find it particularly dramatic. All its implications for the world are passive, there's nobody behind it, it's not very impactful. Again, I'd recommend thinking in terms of what it adds to your story. And also consider, if your campaign doesn't concern the Mourning much, and you don't think your players are going to dig into that mystery too much, then you don't even really need to explain what/why it happened. It's just a mystery that adds tension to the world. If your story does concern the Mourning and its origin, then you want it to be more of a climax when they get to the bottom of the mystery. "It happened at the beginning of time and got here through a wormhole" isn't very climactic.
Compare this to the change that, after you've elaborated a little, I do find very cool, the idea that the progenitor dragons have been reincarnated back into the world. That adds a really cool element of just these wandering god-level beings that you could stumble across and maybe not even realize. There's a lot of room to include these mysterious npc's that may guide or help the players over time and have this air of untold wisdom behind them and then at some climactic moment you find out the true name of this wise old wandering hermit lady is Siberys or something, that's dope, I like that.
Going forward, consider what you're adding to the world vs what you're taking out of it when deciding if you think you should change stuff.
I still feel like the warforged bit is regressive where the original story was progressive, dealing with an entirely new class of beings that are personally and socially clean slates vs them being old souls with new packaging/memories. I still feel like that version lends itself more to stories about "who was i?" rather than "who am I? What am I? What does it mean to be?" Warforged as they exist now are interesting to me because it's a high-concept sci-fi element in a fantasy setting, which circles back again to Ebberon's non-traditionality.
i get this and i am linking it to all of the other d&d worlds because one of the people i play with transferred a character to ebberon
Again, the time traveling Mourning works fine, but I still don't find it particularly dramatic. All its implications for the world are passive, there's nobody behind it, it's not very impactful. Again, I'd recommend thinking in terms of what it adds to your story. And also consider, if your campaign doesn't concern the Mourning much, and you don't think your players are going to dig into that mystery too much, then you don't even really need to explain what/why it happened. It's just a mystery that adds tension to the world. If your story does concern the Mourning and its origin, then you want it to be more of a climax when they get to the bottom of the mystery. "It happened at the beginning of time and got here through a wormhole" isn't very climactic.
Time travel because it happened in the past but is effecting the present, seemingly without effecting the intervening years. Wormhole because it's a means of something traversing time and space from point A (the dawn of time) to point B (The Day of Mourning). That's what it sounded like you were saying with it happening "across time" before getting "pulled in."
As far as porting a character from another D&D world into Ebberon, I don't see why it's necessary to change the lore to accommodate them. Do you have your copy of Rising from the Last War handy? There's a section towards the beginning specifically about tying in other game worlds and having characters from the larger multiverse. Vi, that gnome artificer from the original cover, is one such character, as she comes from Sigil and is not an Ebberon native herself.
Unless you're saying your player is playing as a warforged who's inhabited by the soul of a dead person, and wants to still fit in with the lore. You can do that, sure, if that'll make the player happy, but it shifts the lore ultimately to a less thought-provoking place. I don't really see 'how warforged work' as changing anything fundamentally for this other character, especially since it's not like that's how warforged work anywhere else in the multiverse either. I would need specifics to suggest an alternative, but I'm sure there's a way to accommodate your player without fundamentally altering the setting.
Time travel because it happened in the past but is effecting the present, seemingly without effecting the intervening years. Wormhole because it's a means of something traversing time and space from point A (the dawn of time) to point B (The Day of Mourning). That's what it sounded like you were saying with it happening "across time" before getting "pulled in."
As far as porting a character from another D&D world into Ebberon, I don't see why it's necessary to change the lore to accommodate them. Do you have your copy of Rising from the Last War handy? There's a section towards the beginning specifically about tying in other game worlds and having characters from the larger multiverse. Vi, that gnome artificer from the original cover, is one such character, as she comes from Sigil and is not an Ebberon native herself.
Unless you're saying your player is playing as a warforged who's inhabited by the soul of a dead person, and wants to still fit in with the lore. You can do that, sure, if that'll make the player happy, but it shifts the lore ultimately to a less thought-provoking place. I don't really see 'how warforged work' as changing anything fundamentally for this other character. I would need specifics to suggest an alternative, but I'm sure there's a way to accommodate your player without fundamentally altering the setting.
no it is not from dawn of time and how many times do i need to say this?!
As far as porting a character from another D&D world into Ebberon, I don't see why it's necessary to change the lore to accommodate them. Do you have your copy of Rising from the Last War handy? There's a section towards the beginning specifically about tying in other game worlds and having characters from the larger multiverse. Vi, that gnome artificer from the original cover, is one such character, as she comes from Sigil and is not an Ebberon native herself.
i have a copy of E:RftLW and i just got an idea from it and liked it
Unless you're saying your player is playing as a warforged who's inhabited by the soul of a dead person, and wants to still fit in with the lore. You can do that, sure, if that'll make the player happy, but it shifts the lore ultimately to a less thought-provoking place. I don't really see 'how warforged work' as changing anything fundamentally for this other character, especially since it's not like that's how warforged work anywhere else in the multiverse either. I would need specifics to suggest an alternative, but I'm sure there's a way to accommodate your player without fundamentally altering the setting.
one player is but i made him that way because the player forgot to make a backstory and i have low contact with the player and so did it last minute and i wanted to add backstory and i also wanted to make all my players different than typical adventurers
While I applaud your creative re-imagining of the Eberron backstory, I have two comments:
1) Why mess with success? The current backstory is exquisitely well detailed, and contains extensive tendrils that link the story into locations and lore that would all be upset if they were changed. To redo the creation story would be to also need to redo may other elements to the Eberron landscape and lore. It would be more beneficial to create new supporting stories that work off of the main known evidence. Or if you still want to use your ideas, use them to populate a cult (I see you have one listed in your signature) that misunderstands the world of Eberron the way flat-earthers misunderstand our own current solar system. That kind of "world in a bottle" would work perfectly, and could set up a dynamic where your players could either believe such a background, or actively work to change the cult/religion's perspective.
2) The other comment I would make is your use of a black hole. Many people think of a black hole as a big vacuum cleaner, which is wrong. Because of its gravitational effects, even a small black hole inside a solar system would spell the eventual destruction of the system, either slowly through distorted orbits and gravitational effects, or much quicker if a bigger one were involved. A true black hole rips apart matter over an inconceivably long period of time. There is no way to "stabilize" one, nor is there any way to travel into one, as we know it, in our lifetimes, or the lengthier lifetimes of dragons, or even those of 3,000-year-old elves.
I understand there is interest in the new Chronomancer class, but I hope it doesn't promote the misunderstanding that a black hole is somehow similar to a worm hole, which is itself not well understood. Even real magic, including the Vancian system used by DND all the way back to its founding, relies on at least partially-grounded science and physics.
Gravitational anomalies, yes. Black holes, under personal control? That might be a little hard to accept, even in a world of magick.
While I applaud your creative re-imagining of the Eberron backstory, I have two comments:
1) Why mess with success? The current backstory is exquisitely well detailed, and contains extensive tendrils that link the story into locations and lore that would all be upset if they were changed. To redo the creation story would be to also need to redo may other elements to the Eberron landscape and lore. It would be more beneficial to create new supporting stories that work off of the main known evidence. Or if you still want to use your ideas, use them to populate a cult (I see you have one listed in your signature) that misunderstands the world of Eberron the way flat-earthers misunderstand our own current solar system. That kind of "world in a bottle" would work perfectly, and could set up a dynamic where your players could either believe such a background, or actively work to change the cult/religion's perspective.
it does not touch the landscape and i am trying to add twists mostly to it
2) The other comment I would make is your use of a black hole. Many people think of a black hole as a big vacuum cleaner, which is wrong. Because of its gravitational effects, even a small black hole inside a solar system would spell the eventual destruction of the system, either slowly through distorted orbits and gravitational effects, or much quicker if a bigger one were involved. A true black hole rips apart matter over an inconceivably long period of time. There is no way to "stabilize" one, nor is there any way to travel into one, as we know it, in our lifetimes, or the lengthier lifetimes of dragons, or even those of 3,000-year-old elves.
I understand there is interest in the new Chronomancer class, but I hope it doesn't promote the misunderstanding that a black hole is somehow similar to a worm hole, which is itself not well understood. Even real magic, including the Vancian system used by DND all the way back to its founding, relies on at least partially-grounded science and physics.
Gravitational anomalies, yes. Black holes, under personal control? That might be a little hard to accept, even in a world of magick.
i made sibyris the most powerful Chronomancer and the ring of sibyris stabilizes it but black holes do warp time and it the stabilization makes it not sucking everything into the hole itself but towards the hole
Time travel because it happened in the past but is effecting the present, seemingly without effecting the intervening years. Wormhole because it's a means of something traversing time and space from point A (the dawn of time) to point B (The Day of Mourning). That's what it sounded like you were saying with it happening "across time" before getting "pulled in."
As far as porting a character from another D&D world into Ebberon, I don't see why it's necessary to change the lore to accommodate them. Do you have your copy of Rising from the Last War handy? There's a section towards the beginning specifically about tying in other game worlds and having characters from the larger multiverse. Vi, that gnome artificer from the original cover, is one such character, as she comes from Sigil and is not an Ebberon native herself.
Unless you're saying your player is playing as a warforged who's inhabited by the soul of a dead person, and wants to still fit in with the lore. You can do that, sure, if that'll make the player happy, but it shifts the lore ultimately to a less thought-provoking place. I don't really see 'how warforged work' as changing anything fundamentally for this other character. I would need specifics to suggest an alternative, but I'm sure there's a way to accommodate your player without fundamentally altering the setting.
no it is not from dawn of time and how many times do i need to say this?!
Unless you're saying your player is playing as a warforged who's inhabited by the soul of a dead person, and wants to still fit in with the lore. You can do that, sure, if that'll make the player happy, but it shifts the lore ultimately to a less thought-provoking place. I don't really see 'how warforged work' as changing anything fundamentally for this other character, especially since it's not like that's how warforged work anywhere else in the multiverse either. I would need specifics to suggest an alternative, but I'm sure there's a way to accommodate your player without fundamentally altering the setting.
one player is but i made him that way because the player forgot to make a backstory and i have low contact with the player and so did it last minute and i wanted to add backstory and i also wanted to make all my players different than typical adventurers
The way you worded it at the beginning; "Eberron started as a black hole and pulled in 3 dragons one of which was a powerful Chronurgist and they killed each other and made Eberron and stabilized the black hole but it still pulled things in and warped them including a powerful storm that caused the mourning and the beings that became deities and it also pulled in everything in Eberron" makes this all sound like it's happening simletaneously, the "powerful storm" that is the Mourning and the dragons creating Ebberon from a black hole. If that's not the impression you want people to come away with, I would consider re-wording.
As for the player, I still don't see how that requires making changes to the world, especially when you're the one creating their backstory. Why not then just create a backstory within the world? And if you want your warforged player to be special, maybe they specifically were part of a secret Cannith project to use necromancy to infuse warforged soldiers with life energy (that can be read as "soul" but isn't explicitly stated as such) that was ultimately scrapped or was destroyed, with the player character the only result? Then you have a fun, unique backstory for that character, they're different from typical adventurers, and you didn't have to change the lore of the world.
Unless the reason you changed the lore is just that you wanted to. That's a perfectly valid reason to do stuff, but if you're not on the fence about it then I have to wonder at the reason for this thread. If you want to do it and you know you're going to, then why should my opinion matter? Not trying to appear stand-offish, I'm legitimately curious.
Time travel because it happened in the past but is effecting the present, seemingly without effecting the intervening years. Wormhole because it's a means of something traversing time and space from point A (the dawn of time) to point B (The Day of Mourning). That's what it sounded like you were saying with it happening "across time" before getting "pulled in."
As far as porting a character from another D&D world into Ebberon, I don't see why it's necessary to change the lore to accommodate them. Do you have your copy of Rising from the Last War handy? There's a section towards the beginning specifically about tying in other game worlds and having characters from the larger multiverse. Vi, that gnome artificer from the original cover, is one such character, as she comes from Sigil and is not an Ebberon native herself.
Unless you're saying your player is playing as a warforged who's inhabited by the soul of a dead person, and wants to still fit in with the lore. You can do that, sure, if that'll make the player happy, but it shifts the lore ultimately to a less thought-provoking place. I don't really see 'how warforged work' as changing anything fundamentally for this other character. I would need specifics to suggest an alternative, but I'm sure there's a way to accommodate your player without fundamentally altering the setting.
no it is not from dawn of time and how many times do i need to say this?!
Unless you're saying your player is playing as a warforged who's inhabited by the soul of a dead person, and wants to still fit in with the lore. You can do that, sure, if that'll make the player happy, but it shifts the lore ultimately to a less thought-provoking place. I don't really see 'how warforged work' as changing anything fundamentally for this other character, especially since it's not like that's how warforged work anywhere else in the multiverse either. I would need specifics to suggest an alternative, but I'm sure there's a way to accommodate your player without fundamentally altering the setting.
one player is but i made him that way because the player forgot to make a backstory and i have low contact with the player and so did it last minute and i wanted to add backstory and i also wanted to make all my players different than typical adventurers
The way you worded it at the beginning; "Eberron started as a black hole and pulled in 3 dragons one of which was a powerful Chronurgist and they killed each other and made Eberron and stabilized the black hole but it still pulled things in and warped them including a powerful storm that caused the mourning and the beings that became deities and it also pulled in everything in Eberron" makes this all sound like it's happening simletaneously, the "powerful storm" that is the Mourning and the dragons creating Ebberon from a black hole. If that's not the impression you want people to come away with, I would consider re-wording.
As for the player, I still don't see how that requires making changes to the world, especially when you're the one creating their backstory. Why not then just create a backstory within the world? And if you want your warforged player to be special, maybe they specifically were part of a secret Cannith project to use necromancy to infuse warforged soldiers with life energy (that can be read as "soul" but isn't explicitly stated as such) that was ultimately scrapped or was destroyed, with the player character the only result? Then you have a fun, unique backstory for that character, they're different from typical adventurers, and you didn't have to change the lore of the world.
Unless the reason you changed the lore is just that you wanted to. That's a perfectly valid reason to do stuff, but if you're not on the fence about it then I have to wonder at the reason for this thread. If you want to do it and you know you're going to, then why should my opinion matter? Not trying to appear stand-offish, I'm legitimately curious.
i guess but i wanted to make things darker and this was the result
I'd say Ebberon is already one of the darker campaign settings out there, especially of you own into the pulp noir campaign themes and the moral ambiguity inherent in it. You've got a world still reeling from the horrors of the Last War (much like how we IRL reacted to the unprecedented death and destruction of WW1), you've got necromancer terrorist cults, the Overlords, the Delkyr (read any lore about them and YIKES), the brutal warrior elves of Valenar, the followers of the Blood of Vol and the Dark Six, etc.
It may not have the extreme grimdark nihilism of a setting like Dark Sun, but I'm of the opinion that the allows the dark elements to really shine (pardon the pun), whereas true grimdark settings lack impact imo because all the elements tend to get lost among themselves in a soup of one-tone grittiness.
That would be my main caution towards changing things to try and make them darker. Ebberon has a really good balance of Dark and light elements that compliment each other, and tipping the scale to one side can actually lessen its intended effect rather than increase it.
I'd say Ebberon is already one of the darker campaign settings out there, especially of you own into the pulp noir campaign themes and the moral ambiguity inherent in it. You've got a world still reeling from the horrors of the Last War (much like how we IRL reacted to the unprecedented death and destruction of WW1), you've got necromancer terrorist cults, the Overlords, the Delkyr (read any lore about them and YIKES), the brutal warrior elves of Valenar, the followers of the Blood of Vol and the Dark Six, etc.
It may not have the extreme grimdark nihilism of a setting like Dark Sun, but I'm of the opinion that the allows the dark elements to really shine (pardon the pun), whereas true grimdark settings lack impact imo because all the elements tend to get lost among themselves in a soup of one-tone grittiness.
That would be my main caution towards changing things to try and make them darker. Ebberon has a really good balance of Dark and light elements that compliment each other, and tipping the scale to one side can actually lessen its intended effect rather than increase it.
i see your point but i do provide a few light things to balance it
@charlestheplant I basically agree with everything you said
@aralia cool ideas, but they need to be fleshed out a little. Maybe focus more on atmosphere and character development if you wanna make things darker. That being said, I like your thoughts and I’d love to hear more if you have any more ideas. I love Eberron.
@charlestheplant I basically agree with everything you said
@aralia cool ideas, but they need to be fleshed out a little. Maybe focus more on atmosphere and character development if you wanna make things darker. That being said, I like your thoughts and I’d love to hear more if you have any more ideas. I love Eberron.
I already started playing it a few weeks ago but ask me anything about my Eberron and I'll say it.
@charlestheplant I basically agree with everything you said
@aralia cool ideas, but they need to be fleshed out a little. Maybe focus more on atmosphere and character development if you wanna make things darker. That being said, I like your thoughts and I’d love to hear more if you have any more ideas. I love Eberron.
I already started playing it a few weeks ago but ask me anything about my Eberron and I'll say it.
Cool. I’m just reading thru E:RFtLW rn, but if I have any questions I’ll ask.
I'm a bit of Eberron aficionado and I think it's a great twist, but as CharlesThePlant said, You're not supposed to know how some things happened, but the setting is very open to interpretation, and you should do you.
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Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.
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Eberron started as a black hole and pulled in 3 dragons one of which was a powerful Chronurgist and they killed each other and made Eberron and stabilized the black hole but it still pulled things in and warped them including a powerful storm that caused the mourning and the beings that became deities and it also pulled in everything in Eberron.
also good quori and thus most kalashtar are forced to be lawful good
also warforged are robots with souls bound to them
is that a good take on the lore also tell me why or why not
I am leader of the yep cult:https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/adohands-kitchen/82135-yep-cult Pronouns are she/her
The first thing that stuck out to me was the change to warforged, possibly my favorite payable race. I think changing them from a race of created beings that think and feel and (depending on your viewpoint) *are* alive, which is rife with potential for storytelling, and change them to shells that have an already existing soul bound to them, you limit yourself in the respect that Ebberon is supposed to be ambiguous and noir.
My next example of that issue, is that in your revamped origin you codify the existence of the gods in a way that is not done in the main lore. Just like with Warforged, this removes a lot of ambiguity that is almost unique to Ebberon; do the gods actually exist? Do warforged have souls? Does anyone? These are interesting questions that only really exist, or at least are only focused on, uniquely in Ebberon. This subjectivity of viewpoint is one of the main themes of the campaign setting, and I would really question why you'd want to change it, and what you want your Ebberon to be without it.
From a storytelling perspective it works about as well as any fantasy story, except I don't see the connection between the Mourning and the progenitor dragons that you've implied. If the Mourning is a result of Ebberon's creation, why does it not happen until the end of the Last War? Or has there always been a Mournland? In which case, how has the politics of Khovaire evolved differently without ever having had a Cyre or a Galifar kingdom? It just seems to lack a kind of internal storytelling logic. As a side-note about the Mourning, everyone who runs Ebberon has a different explanation for it so again, narritively yours is as good as anyone's, but consider its gameplay functionality. The Mourning was a big story event that ended the Last War and ushered in the current steady state world of tenuous peace with an undercurrent of impending war. That peace is based off of the threat the Mourning poses; but what caused it? Could it happen again? Was it the war? As Ebberon is a world that is full of intrigue and political complexity, I feel personally that the answer to possibly the most important question in the setting have a similar level of intrigue and complexity behind it. The answer to What Caused the Mourning should have capital-I *Implications* for the world. "It happened at the dawn of time" has fewer opportunities for such intrigue and I think ultimately lessens the impact. I suppose you could go the route of "someone is trying to keep secret the fact that the Mourning wasn't caused by the war" for intrigue, but removing any kind of will being the event itself seems passive and implies less drama.
My last note is less constructive criticism and more personal preference, but regarding your decision to make all three of the progenitor dragons dead, again I think you're killing off a lot of the Ebberon lore that makes it so vibrant. Is there still a Cult of the Dragon Below if Khyber himself is dead? The theme of constant struggle of the dragon Ebberon to contain the threat of Khyber within themself is also gone, as well as the eerie beauty/tragedy of the ring of Siberys supposedly being the remains of The Dragon Above.
Tl;dr: my main concerns mostly boil down to changing fundamental themes of the world. Is there any particular reason you wanted to play Ebberon without them? Do you have a sense of what it would be like with its core themes retreaded? Is there any reason not to homebrew a new campaign setting simply using the remaining bits of lore? Do you feel the changes are creatively necessary?
One of Ebberon's main selling points is that it is a less traditional fantasy setting, whereas from my perspective the changes you've suggested would render it more in the direction of traditional fantasy.
Obviously though, to each their own, these are just my thoughts.
they have souls but lost memory
that was saying it happened across time and it got pulled in at that time and i am mostly not changing the story at all
they were all reincarnated into new but very different beings and the cult of the dragon is to these beings
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I still feel like the warforged bit is regressive where the original story was progressive, dealing with an entirely new class of beings that are personally and socially clean slates vs them being old souls with new packaging/memories. I still feel like that version lends itself more to stories about "who was i?" rather than "who am I? What am I? What does it mean to be?" Warforged as they exist now are interesting to me because it's a high-concept sci-fi element in a fantasy setting, which circles back again to Ebberon's non-traditionality.
Not to mention it still codifies the existence of souls, which again in Ebberon is not a given the way it is in other settings like the forgotten realms, where the gods are known for a fact to exist and supernatural powers are known to truck with the souls of mortals. If the gods exist, they play very hands-off with the world of Ebberon, to the point where belief in there existence is a matter of pure faith. Therefore, having the question of "do we have souls? Do we matter?" being answered (especially to the scale of it being incorporated into their industrial magic economy) not just for the warforged, but for everyone, is again a narrative step back rather than forward. I don't see what there is to be gained narratively from that change.
Again, the time traveling Mourning works fine, but I still don't find it particularly dramatic. All its implications for the world are passive, there's nobody behind it, it's not very impactful. Again, I'd recommend thinking in terms of what it adds to your story. And also consider, if your campaign doesn't concern the Mourning much, and you don't think your players are going to dig into that mystery too much, then you don't even really need to explain what/why it happened. It's just a mystery that adds tension to the world. If your story does concern the Mourning and its origin, then you want it to be more of a climax when they get to the bottom of the mystery. "It happened at the beginning of time and got here through a wormhole" isn't very climactic.
Compare this to the change that, after you've elaborated a little, I do find very cool, the idea that the progenitor dragons have been reincarnated back into the world. That adds a really cool element of just these wandering god-level beings that you could stumble across and maybe not even realize. There's a lot of room to include these mysterious npc's that may guide or help the players over time and have this air of untold wisdom behind them and then at some climactic moment you find out the true name of this wise old wandering hermit lady is Siberys or something, that's dope, I like that.
Going forward, consider what you're adding to the world vs what you're taking out of it when deciding if you think you should change stuff.
i get this and i am linking it to all of the other d&d worlds because one of the people i play with transferred a character to ebberon
where do you get time traveling or a wormhole
also thanks for the feedback
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What a cool idea
A New DM up against the World
Time travel because it happened in the past but is effecting the present, seemingly without effecting the intervening years. Wormhole because it's a means of something traversing time and space from point A (the dawn of time) to point B (The Day of Mourning). That's what it sounded like you were saying with it happening "across time" before getting "pulled in."
As far as porting a character from another D&D world into Ebberon, I don't see why it's necessary to change the lore to accommodate them. Do you have your copy of Rising from the Last War handy? There's a section towards the beginning specifically about tying in other game worlds and having characters from the larger multiverse. Vi, that gnome artificer from the original cover, is one such character, as she comes from Sigil and is not an Ebberon native herself.
Unless you're saying your player is playing as a warforged who's inhabited by the soul of a dead person, and wants to still fit in with the lore. You can do that, sure, if that'll make the player happy, but it shifts the lore ultimately to a less thought-provoking place. I don't really see 'how warforged work' as changing anything fundamentally for this other character, especially since it's not like that's how warforged work anywhere else in the multiverse either. I would need specifics to suggest an alternative, but I'm sure there's a way to accommodate your player without fundamentally altering the setting.
glad you like it
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no it is not from dawn of time and how many times do i need to say this?!
i have a copy of E:RftLW and i just got an idea from it and liked it
one player is but i made him that way because the player forgot to make a backstory and i have low contact with the player and so did it last minute and i wanted to add backstory and i also wanted to make all my players different than typical adventurers
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While I applaud your creative re-imagining of the Eberron backstory, I have two comments:
1) Why mess with success? The current backstory is exquisitely well detailed, and contains extensive tendrils that link the story into locations and lore that would all be upset if they were changed. To redo the creation story would be to also need to redo may other elements to the Eberron landscape and lore. It would be more beneficial to create new supporting stories that work off of the main known evidence. Or if you still want to use your ideas, use them to populate a cult (I see you have one listed in your signature) that misunderstands the world of Eberron the way flat-earthers misunderstand our own current solar system. That kind of "world in a bottle" would work perfectly, and could set up a dynamic where your players could either believe such a background, or actively work to change the cult/religion's perspective.
2) The other comment I would make is your use of a black hole. Many people think of a black hole as a big vacuum cleaner, which is wrong. Because of its gravitational effects, even a small black hole inside a solar system would spell the eventual destruction of the system, either slowly through distorted orbits and gravitational effects, or much quicker if a bigger one were involved. A true black hole rips apart matter over an inconceivably long period of time. There is no way to "stabilize" one, nor is there any way to travel into one, as we know it, in our lifetimes, or the lengthier lifetimes of dragons, or even those of 3,000-year-old elves.
I understand there is interest in the new Chronomancer class, but I hope it doesn't promote the misunderstanding that a black hole is somehow similar to a worm hole, which is itself not well understood. Even real magic, including the Vancian system used by DND all the way back to its founding, relies on at least partially-grounded science and physics.
Gravitational anomalies, yes. Black holes, under personal control? That might be a little hard to accept, even in a world of magick.
it does not touch the landscape and i am trying to add twists mostly to it
i made sibyris the most powerful Chronomancer and the ring of sibyris stabilizes it but black holes do warp time and it the stabilization makes it not sucking everything into the hole itself but towards the hole
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The way you worded it at the beginning; "Eberron started as a black hole and pulled in 3 dragons one of which was a powerful Chronurgist and they killed each other and made Eberron and stabilized the black hole but it still pulled things in and warped them including a powerful storm that caused the mourning and the beings that became deities and it also pulled in everything in Eberron" makes this all sound like it's happening simletaneously, the "powerful storm" that is the Mourning and the dragons creating Ebberon from a black hole. If that's not the impression you want people to come away with, I would consider re-wording.
As for the player, I still don't see how that requires making changes to the world, especially when you're the one creating their backstory. Why not then just create a backstory within the world? And if you want your warforged player to be special, maybe they specifically were part of a secret Cannith project to use necromancy to infuse warforged soldiers with life energy (that can be read as "soul" but isn't explicitly stated as such) that was ultimately scrapped or was destroyed, with the player character the only result? Then you have a fun, unique backstory for that character, they're different from typical adventurers, and you didn't have to change the lore of the world.
Unless the reason you changed the lore is just that you wanted to. That's a perfectly valid reason to do stuff, but if you're not on the fence about it then I have to wonder at the reason for this thread. If you want to do it and you know you're going to, then why should my opinion matter? Not trying to appear stand-offish, I'm legitimately curious.
oh sorry for the confusion
i guess but i wanted to make things darker and this was the result
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I'd say Ebberon is already one of the darker campaign settings out there, especially of you own into the pulp noir campaign themes and the moral ambiguity inherent in it. You've got a world still reeling from the horrors of the Last War (much like how we IRL reacted to the unprecedented death and destruction of WW1), you've got necromancer terrorist cults, the Overlords, the Delkyr (read any lore about them and YIKES), the brutal warrior elves of Valenar, the followers of the Blood of Vol and the Dark Six, etc.
It may not have the extreme grimdark nihilism of a setting like Dark Sun, but I'm of the opinion that the allows the dark elements to really shine (pardon the pun), whereas true grimdark settings lack impact imo because all the elements tend to get lost among themselves in a soup of one-tone grittiness.
That would be my main caution towards changing things to try and make them darker. Ebberon has a really good balance of Dark and light elements that compliment each other, and tipping the scale to one side can actually lessen its intended effect rather than increase it.
i see your point but i do provide a few light things to balance it
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@charlestheplant I basically agree with everything you said
@aralia cool ideas, but they need to be fleshed out a little. Maybe focus more on atmosphere and character development if you wanna make things darker. That being said, I like your thoughts and I’d love to hear more if you have any more ideas. I love Eberron.
I already started playing it a few weeks ago but ask me anything about my Eberron and I'll say it.
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Cool. I’m just reading thru E:RFtLW rn, but if I have any questions I’ll ask.
I'm a bit of Eberron aficionado and I think it's a great twist, but as CharlesThePlant said, You're not supposed to know how some things happened, but the setting is very open to interpretation, and you should do you.
Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.