Eberron

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An Elemental-powered airship

A setting for Dungeons and Dragons.

Since Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition was supposed to be a fresh new game, Wizards of the Coast set up a contest to allow a bunch of freelancers to submit ideas for a fresh new campaign setting. A dude called Keith Baker sent them Eberron and won. Unlike the Forgotten Realms, which is known for its distorted canon, Eberron's timeline will never progress and none of the novels are considered setting canon. This is a welcome change due to the ridiculousness that ensued due to the Drizzt novels among others, and allows the PCs to influence things without mucking up canon.

The one exception was the 4e adaptation, which progressed things by exactly one year to make room for dragonborn. It was controversial, but not disastrous.

The setting tries to steer away or at least subvert many of the D&D (and fantasy in general) stereotypes. It features dinosaur-riding halflings, jungle dwelling Drow who look like saints compared to their other counterparts, non-evil monster races, a fantasy equivalent of World Wars I & II, magic-powered trains and a more pulp, Indiana-Jones-esque approach to high fantasy adventuring. It also focuses heavily on intrigue, which is usually based around either the nations that survived the Last War or the Dragonmarked houses. The Last War was initially caused by a succession dispute that eventually erupted into a century long conflict which devastated the continent, broke up the Kingdom of Galifar, and obliterated the Kingdom of Cyre. The Dragonmarked houses are organizations that control various aspects of life in Ebberon due to the magical nature of the specific dragonmark that manifests on an individual.

Also a lot of tech is powered by enslaved elementals, like that airship. Eberron is a generally very "human" setting, where magic is ubiquitous, cheap, and readily-used by the world's inhabitants to make their lives better.

One popular change instituted by Eberron is a relaxed approach to alignment. Clerics of good gods can be Evil, and vice versa, opening up tons of fresh storytelling opportunities that would normally be restricted by the nature of the system, like corrupt or misguided clerics of turning benevolent faiths to evil ends, or deluded followers of evil scam-cults being all bright-eyed and idealistic about the religion they were born into. Racial alignments by-and-large do not exist. From orcs to goblins to gnolls, all the "monster" races have actual cultures and shit rather than just being blood-bags full of XP for PCs to murder, and while lots of them are evil, many of them are not, just like humans.

TL;DR: Halflings on dinosaurs. Pulpy Action. Fantasy Indiana Jones. Politics. Lots of awesome.

Also has a loli as the pope of the Church of the Silver Flame.

The birth-setting of the Shifter, the Changeling, the Kalashtar, and (most famously) the Warforged PC races.

History

Age of Dragons

Basically, in the dawn of time, there were three great progenitor dragons: Siberys (good and/or celestial), Eberron (neutral and/or natural), and Khyber (evil and/or fiendish). They either created or discovered the Prophecy, which is a cosmic force that seems to equate to destiny and fate. The dragons fought over the Prophecy, which shattered both it and the world. Siberys was broken into a thousand pieces in orbit around the world, Khyber was bound into the depths of the Underdark, and Eberron merged with the physical world to heal it. In the process of this, each of the dragons basically materialized as crystalline fragments that are harvested and used to empower certain magic items and effects.

From their godlike positions in the cosmos, they also create living beings. Siberys creates the dragon races, which includes the couatls. Eberron creates most of the bulk of the other beings - beasts, humanoids, etc. Khyber creates fiends, most notably the rakshasas.

Age of Demons

The fiends basically overrun the world about 10 million years back and create a "Hell on Earth" where they keep dragons and other beings subjugated. After about 8 million years, the dragons finally rediscover the Prophecy, which gives them the drive to resist the fiends. The other common races basically cower at the magical armageddon happening. In a truly legendary effort, the couatls use powerful magic to permanently bind the most powerful demond lords and other fiends down to Khyber, trapped by the crystalline fragments of that ancient dragon. The dragons mourn the loss of their allies, and withdraw to Argonnessen to contemplate the mysteries of the Prophecy, leaving the world open to everyone else.

Age of Giants

With the fiends both gone, the giant races of the continent called Xen'drik rise up and start establishing their own civilization. This is a pretty crazy time of the world, lasting for 40,000 years or so, with the giants creating this vast empire where they enslave elves (including, specifically, the drow; yes, I'm sure the authors were well aware of the racial connotations there). The giants eventually learn magic at the feet (claws?) of the dragons, and pass some of that knowledge down to the elves/drow so they can do the busy-work of spellcasting, but they hold back some of the big magic so the elves can't get strong enough to free themselves.

Things are great for a while, and the giants create some amazing shit, including new types of magic items (schema) and even new kinds of magic (artifact spells, plus it is heavily implied that it was giants who discovered and/or perfected Artificer magic on their own). In comparison, the ancient giants of Eberron were basically like the Netherese of Forgotten Realms, building floating structures, flying ships, and other vast artifact-level shit using techniques unknown to "modern" spellcasters.

And then they started exploring other planes and it all went to fuck when they breached into Dal Quor, the Plane of Dreams. That plane, you see, has thousands-year cycles where it switches between light and dark phases where the inhabitants are either good or evil, respectively, and when the cycle turns, every inhabitant basically dies and is reborn without any knowledge of the past cycle. It was, at the time the giants invaded, in a "dark/evil" phase, and the inhabitants, the sinister psionic spirits known as quori, had no intention whatsoever of fucking dying. They saw opportunity to attain some kind of immortality by invading and conquering Eberron, so the giants had a war on their hands.

By all evidence in the game, the Giant-Quori War was the first use of magic as a form of mass destruction. The quori actually created the first warforged in this era, as mass-produced mindless constructs used to act as foot soldiers. Based on the existence of the psionic warforged (aka psiforged), it is also very possible that the quori were attempting to create something that their spirits could possess, in order to anchor to Eberron and ride out the destruction cycle of Dal Quor.

The giants, whose magic was not quite powerful enough to completely and totally guard their minds and spirits as they slept, saw themselves fighting a loosing battle against the equivalent of a kind of eldritch horror from an alien plane of existence. In desperation to close the bridge between Eberron and Dal Quor, the giants decided to do something... creative. Using (literally) earth-shattering powers, they actually kicked Dal Quor out of its planar orbit, causing it to float off into the Astral Plane and be more or less "lost". Unfortunately, if you're thinking "but wouldn't destabilizing the multiverse have cataclysmic results?", you'd be correct. The power the giants unleashed shattered their continent: huge sections slid off into the sea, manifest zones (areas where other random planes seep into the Material Plane) sprung up spreading chaos in their wake, and basically they unleashed an arcane armageddon upon their empire.

Remember all those enslaved elves who also knew some magic? They decided this was their best chance to rebel against the giants. The giants, naturally, decided "fuck it" and started up more magic to basically do total genocide upon the elven race. The dragons, already pissed as hell about the giants' actually tearing the planescape apart and having no regard for either their own, the dragons', or Eberron's safety, decided enough was enough. Essentially, every dragon in Argonnessen took to the skies and as a race, dragonkind rained all their destructive power down on Xen'drik.

Let's stop a second and think about that. This includes all the ancient-ass dragons with access to epic spells. As in, the kind you make from the 3.0 Epic Level Handbook. The ones that can do impossible shit like the Netherese in Forgotten Realms used to do, such as sheering off mountain tops to make them into flying cities. The dragons basically added to the already-terrible cataclysm the giants did to themselves by throwing down a lot more destruction and stuff. The shattered planescape, the elven rebellion, and the dragons' wrath basically spent 1,000 years turning the world's greatest magical empire into a bunch of broken, forgotten ruins.

Aside from the strange, twisted landscape of Xen'drik itself (which makes the Amazon, the Sahara, and Siberia all look like a bunch of national parks by comparison), there are two main after-effects of the cataclysm. The first is the Traveler's Curse, which causes a slight warping of space and/or time when traveling the continent. It gets less bad if you know where you're going, or have someone who knows where they are going lead you there, but otherwise it's a real crap-shoot whether or not you get somewhere quickly and accurately, or stumble into the hands of a drow tribe who enjoys having you for dinner (get it?). The second effect is Du'rashka Tul, or "the madness of crowds", which says that if any settlement reaches a certain size or sophistication, the entire population is gripped with homicidal rage and starts killing until they die; there's evidence this is true, but there's also questions about how Stormreach has resisted this effect despite growing in size.

The Age of Monsters

After the giants get their collective dicks kicked, the goblinoid kingdoms on Khorvaire start rising up. They build up the Dhakaani Empire (named for their most powerful tribe), and while the orcs do rise up in the western areas of the Shadow Marches, they never really threaten the united goblins. (Keep in mind, alignment is slippery in this setting: goblins and bugbears aren't automatically or even frequently Chaotic here.) Things are okay with them until they deal with another type of eldritch horror monster, the daelkyr, who created pretty most of the aberrations in the setting. (The odd thing being, the actual daelkyr themselves are humanoid with vaguely charismatic-looking faces. A very weird touch for creatures who like to make things like beholders and mind flayers...).

The goblins try hard, but lack the knowledge of how to actually fight these things, so after the Daelkyr War cripples their empire, it falls apart as various tribes squabble over controlling the remains. So why wasn't the world overrun with horrific aberrations and madness? Well, those orcs off to the west, they had some druids called Gatekeepers who knew this shit was about to happen, so they prepared accordingly and marched off in small bands (not unlike some Warhammer witch hunters) to attack, defeat, and seal up the aberrations behind a bunch of mystical seals and stuff. That's right, boys and girls, the orcs fucking saved Eberron from the evil horrors. Nothing like lampshading tropes, huh? They didn't even try to make much of it; they just fucked off back to the Shadow Marches, where they live quietly waiting for signs of daelkyr shit getting free again. Eberron orcs are good folks.

While all this was happening, the dragons got a burr up their ass and started attacking the elves of Aerenal. But here's the weird part: they didn't actually "try" to destroy them, not totally like they did the giants. This has been happening for, more or less, about 26,000 years. The elves know the dragons could rightly snuff them out of existence, but why the dragons don't do it is one of the many mysteries of the setting. In the meantime, the elves built up a fucking strange culture that looks like a mixture of traditional D&D elven and no-shit Aztec-Incan level stuff. The elves don't use necromancy, but instead create beings called the Undying. Instead of negative energy that sustains undead, they use positive energy to force life into their withered bodies, creating a type of creature called the Deathless (first seen in the Book of Exalted Deeds). It's a bit of a strange thing for both DMs and players to wrap their heads around, but it certainly adds a truly unique cultural touch to the game setting. Oh, also, Aerenal grows all kinds of weird-ass plants, including this unique type of tree called soarwood that is actually buoyant in air... something that will become vitally important a few millennia later.

Oh, and the dwarves migrate from the Frostfell up north down to the Ironroot Mountains, setting up their little shop. But they don't become important for a while; at this point, they're kind of like Conan the Barbarian types, only shorter and beardy.

The Kingdom of Galifar

Just over 3,000 years before the official start of the Eberron campaign, various races starting being born with mystical tattoos on their bodies, giving them access to strange powers depending on the complexity of the tattoo. These dragonmarks were called that because the dragons who actually spoke to lesser beings about them said they were a manifestation of the Prophecy that they obsess about. However, one of the dragonmarks, the Mark of Death, is wiped out because an elf and a dragon made sweet, sweet love and produce a half-dragon with the mark, which was considered a total abomination.

That's right, kids, all you dragon-kin types who think it would be so cool to be a half-dragon in D&D? Best keep that shit to yourself in Eberron: you are a living insult to the purity of dragons and the Prophecy (and, apparently, elves if that's your other parent), and you will be ethnically cleansed from the world. This isn't a joke, it's part of the setting. Certain other draconic races may or may not be treated similarly. Kobolds are basically the same (though they come in three breeds based on Siberys, Eberron, and Khyber that only other kobolds can tell the difference of), and spellscales are seen with confusion and annoyance (they are basically a kind of mutation found mostly among arcane practitioners who have kids), but half-dragons are basically a big no-no. Dragonborn of Bahamut are okay, though the dragons do grumble that Bahamut doesn't really need their kind running around.

Anyway, while this dragonmark shit is happening, this chick named Lhazaar leads a shitload of refugees and/or colonists from Sarlona to Khorvaire. Lhazaar first lands in a bunch of eastern islands (which will collectively be named after her one day), and humans start spreading out. Fast forward a thousand years, and this human named Karrn the Conquerer goes out, kicks nine kinds of goblin ass, and created the nation of Karrnath. (Making him a much more ambitious sort than Conan. I mean, I love that goofy Cimmerian, but he did dawdle a bit on becoming king. Karrn went out and got shit done.) Karrn tries to conquer everyone else, but they aren't having his shit, so he fucks off back to Karrnath. But his efforts do basically establish dozens of human city-states and nations around the continent, so there's that.

A thousand years after, a guy named Galifar is born, and at the ripe age of 45 has taken control of the Five Nations and established a kingdom in his name. His kids each get control of a single nation. This is basically the "golden age" for humanity, because under Galifar, magic is used not just as a weapon but a kind of utility. The dragonmarked Houses start to realize they can create magic items that really "do" stuff, like empower vehicles to travel faster, or send messages instantly, or whatever. Keith Baker keeps saying this isn't a magi-tek society, but he's just trying not to seem cliche with Final Fantasy.

Which he wasn't, because he actually explores the social aspects of this technology... like the Last War.

The Last War

The sad part is, the Last War only started 100 years - probably only about 5-6 generations - after the Kingdom of Galifar was created. It started when King Jarot dies and three of his kids rejects the ascension of Mishann, the ruler of Cyre (which was basically the most magi-tek nation of that time). They all fuck off back to their nations and start agitating for war, which lasts 100 years. No, not constant actual battles that would have rightly ruined the landscape; it's more like they fought a major battle or two each year with different peoples, spend a couple of years recouping their losses, and do lots of espionage and diplomacy, but all while in a declared state of war against one another.

This is where things start getting really dicey with using magic as technology. Karrnath suffers famine and starts using undead troops as a "temporary" measure that becomes permanent. This triggers a religious uprising in one of their enemy nations that causes a theocratic nation to splinter off from one of the original Five Nations. Cyre, big on magic but low on actual troops, starts hiring mercenaries from the elves... who end up turning stag and fucking over Cyre by creating a new elven nation. The druids of the western Eldeen Reaches get pissed about the despoiling caused by the nations, and splinter off as well into a new nation. Breland gets it the worst in a way: they get fucked over both in the east by a resurging goblinoid nation trying to reclaim the glories of their ancestral empire, as well as the every-other-monstrous-humanoid-type army in the west who carves their own nation as well. Refugees sick of war flee east to a colony. And the original Lhazaar pirates and smugglers basically play everyone and everything off against each other.

During all of this, magic technology continues development. The gnomes (who also splintered off from Breland, but under much more favorable conditions and terms to both sides) steal the secrets of elemental binding from the Sulatar drow in Xen'drik (and we're all sure that's never going to come back and bite them in the ass, no sir) and begin using those secrets to bind elementals to all kinds of shit. Then some crafty nutjobs realize if they use soarwood from Aerenal and big fucking elementals, they can "push" a ship faster over water. Then they realize they can do it right through the air as well, creating the Eberron airships which we all know and love for their fairly unique approach (in both design and concept; Forgotten Realms sort of copied the idea in the game Neverwinter during the Elemental Evil module when the air-elemental forces used dirigibles empowered by air elementals). There's also levitating trains, self-powered sleds and wagons, etc.

But then, House Cannith, who are the artificers and craftsmen of the setting, did something even more interesting. In Xen'drik, they find these huge creation forges used to make the ancient quori-made warforged. They bring them back, tinker with them, and create the modern warforged as sentient living constructs (aka magi-tek droids). They produce thousands for the war effort, and since they also already were making most of the weapons, armor, and other materials, they become war profiteers on a rather interesting scale.

The Day of Mourning

One day during the war, Cyre just...went up in a giant ball of mist. It's never explained what it was, whether it was some fantasy-equivalent of an atomic bomb, some mass-necromancy ritual gone horribly wrong (or possibly right), or even just a demon deciding to shack up in Cyre. The reason never gets explained, but its results were immediately palpable: Cyre ceased to be. A massive number of its citizens just died, crops withered to nothing, and all sorts of terrible mutations came about as a result of whatever rampant madness claimed the nation. Even years after that event, the land refuses to grow and any life that inhabits it suffers from the land sucking away any life.

Life practically became uninhabitable, thus any survivors of that terrible event fled - Breland eventually allowed them to form their own little refugee colony known as "New Cyre".

The terrible and unexplained event was enough to scare all the other nations into settling down for a diplomatic talk. These talks culminated in the drafting of the Treaty of Thronehold, a truce that effectively ended all the hostilities within Khorvaire.

5th Edition

For the longest time, Eberron went untouched in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, outside of an early-released Unearthed Arcana conversion document of dubious quality. That all changed on July 23rd 2018, when WoTC announced that they were allowing Keith Baker to produce his own translation of Eberron to 5e - a document called "The Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron" - on the DM's Guild. This was described as a "first step", with the Wayfinder's Guide being described as a singular point to "collect feedback on adjusted races, dragon marks, new backgrounds and more". The implication-by-hope here is that WotC will release their own fully official printed copy of a 5e Eberron based on the feedback given to Keith Baker's "test book".

The fanbase was... split... on this decision. On the one hand, the fact Eberron was finally returning was a source of celebration. On the other hand, the fact that the first Eberron book was basically a glorified Unearthed Arcana from a legal viewpoint - and one that you were paying $20 US for to boot - was a source of outrage, especially given the simultaneous announcement that Ravnica was going to get its own campaign setting book.

Still, this decision meant it was finally legal for fans to put their own Eberron-based content on the DM's Guild, and the Unearthed Arcana for that month was a free preview of the racial writeups from the Wayfinder's Guide.

Gallery

This section contains PROMOTIONS! Don't say we didn't warn you.

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  Shifters and Warforged, two of the races Eberron added to D&D

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  Welcome to the jungle, where you can play a Drow however you want