Dread Metrol

This article related to Dungeons & Dragons is a stub. You can help 1d4chan by expanding it

Dread Metrol: Into the Mists is an Eberron splatbook released by Keith Baker for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition in July 2021, as part of Baker's "KB Presents." Like everything else under KB Presents, it's not technically canon but is treated as being as official as a third-party supplement can be. It imagines the Cyran city of Metrol as a Domain of Dread with Queen Dannel as its Darklord. To those inside the city, the Day of Mourning was the day an impenetrable mist rose up around the city, totally cutting it off from all outside interference. Every night since then, the city has been attacked by near-endless hordes of undead that they believe to be Karrnathi, forcing them into a drawn-out and hopeless siege where the atrocities committed by the desperate people within the city are nearly as terrible as the horrors attacking them.

Tonally, it's nowhere near as Grimdark as the typical Ravenloft fare, leaning more towards Nobledark like the rest of Eberron (albeit with a greater emphasis on the "dark" part). There's a mostly-heroic resistance movement working against Queen Dannel, Dannel herself is motivated largely by a genuine belief that the atrocities she is responsible for are necessary sacrifices made to save her people, and the book gives a way for players to potentially even redeem Dannel and return the city to Eberron.

The book is separated into two sections. The first, The Domain of Metrol, goes into detail of what the city of Metrol is like as a domain of dread and how to run games set in it. The second part, The Mourning After, is a level 1 to 4 Weekend in Hell-style adventure where the PCs get dragged into the city.

Part 1: The Horrors of War

This section details some of the horrors brought to bear by the attacking undead, as well as the more mundane horrors brought about by the fearful and desperate population.

Part 2: The Shape of Metrol

This section details the layout of the city.

Part 3: Queen Dannel: Darklord of Metrol

Dannel is Watching

Ever since she was a child, Dannel has heard a voice whispering to her from the dark. The voice told her of her destiny, that she and she alone could lead Cyre to victory. And it revealed the secrets of the people around her—revealing just how weak the people she trusted and respected truly were. At first she had doubts, but everything the voice told her proved true, so she gradually began to trust and believe it. She could see that King Connos was failing to lead the nation to victory as it deserved. While she loved her father, she also saw all of his flaws — and decided to take Cyre’s future into her own hands. While the people believed that Connos’s death on the battlefield was by enemy hands, in truth his squire Marson killed him on Dannel’s orders and according to her plans, allowing her to rise to the throne. In the public eye, Queen Dannel was charismatic and brilliant. But the voice still whispered to her, revealing the weaknesses of those around her and reminding her of every betrayal. It promised that she alone could lead the nation to victory — but only if she was willing to walk a bloody path.

A masterful Artificer, politician, and military leader, Dannel truly and honestly loves her people and wants to lead them to greatness and prosperity, and was beloved by her people in turn before Metrol was taken by the mists. But faced with an endless and unwinnable siege, her refusal to admit defeat and absolute certainty that she alone can save them all has caused her to become the iron-fisted tyrant she is now -- quite literally, since an attack by a blue dracolich forced her to replace several of her body parts with magical prostheses. She does understand, on some level, that she is feeding the people she loves to a terrible war machine and it would probably be better for them to just surrender at this point, but her own arrogant pride and desperate pursuit of victory at any cost means that she largely ignores this fact.

Dannel is explicitly immortal. Even if her body is destroyed, a new, fully-mechanical one will just be built in one of her workshops. Even if all of those are destroyed, some heretofore-unknown workshop hidden under the city would do it instead. The only way to truly defeat her is to break through her obstinate ignorance and force her to recognize that the price of her victory would just be too high, making her understand the cost of her actions and realize that the survival of her people means more to her than victory. Doing so would likely cause the mists to lift and Metrol to return to Eberron, and though that would mean the city would be dumped right in the middle of the Mournland it would still be a massive improvement.

While she has done many terrible things in pursuit of victory, exactly how far she'd gone before the Mourning is up to the DM. Maybe it takes hundreds of Cyran souls to power a Warforged Colossus, or perhaps the death of her first son -- the infant Prince Brusst -- was part of some scheme by her. She may have been responsible for the Mourning, whether accidentally causing it due to her recklessly ignoring the dangers of her actions or even intentionally -- that inner voice showing her her a path that would mean she would never have to surrender even if it meant destroying all of Cyre.

The identity of the voice she's heard all her life is up to the DM, and there are three possibilities specifically brought up by the book. The first is that it's truly only Dannel's inner voice, and that she and she alone is responsible for her own actions. Another is that the voice is that of Tul Oreshka, known as the Truth in the Darkness — an overlord known for revealing secrets that unhinge even the strongest minds. If that's the case, its possible it was manipulating Dannel as some plot to free itself, which may have been what caused the Mourning. The strangest possibility presented is that it's the voice is that of a future Dannel, guiding her younger self to become the Darklord she is now.

Part 4: Forces in Metrol

Details the factions within the city, which the players are likely to end up working with or against.

The Army

The army of Metrol is an omnipresent force due to the siege, and is largely made up of civilian volunteers - or those who got volunteered by press-gangs. Since civilian volunteers and conscripts can't really be expected to stand up to an endless tide of the undead, the backbone of the city's army is in the Iron Tide. While the Iron Tide was once made up of elite soldiers and exceptional warforged troops, the horrors necessitated by the siege have caused the line between the two to blur. House Cannith, lacking a creation forge but knowing that being unable to keep their warforged fighting would likely mean the fall of the city, has fitted maimed soldiers with warforged grafts and repaired damaged warforged using alchemically infused organs and limbs to create creatures called the Reconstructed. These grafts are so extreme that it's often difficult to tell whether any given Reconstructed began life as flesh or as a warforged. While they serve in the army, there are always rumors that Lord Starrin d’Cannith has implanted subtle enchantments while working on the Iron Tide—and that should it ever suit his needs, the Gorgon could seize control of the soldiers.

Players could choose to work with the army, but as the army can never really win the siege there isn't much point to it. They're more likely to act as an obstacle of some kind, though they're even more likely to remain a largely background element while the players mostly interact with the other factions.

The Fifth Column

Throughout the siege, there has been persistent rumors of a society of Karrnathi spies hidden within the city, working to undermine Metrol and destroy all its citizens hold dear. While it is likely that this "fifth column" is nothing more than a straw-man used by the Queen's Watch to justify raids since after four years any spies that were in the city would have almost certainly either been caught or achieved something significant, the DM might choose otherwise.

Part 5: Adventures in Dread Metrol

Gives tips to DMs on running adventures in Metrol, including quest hooks, a few

Part 6: Adventurers from Metrol

Gives players ideas on how to play a PC who has been suffering through the siege for the past four years and reflavor certain class or racial features to reflect the state of the city. It also includes a new Artificer Specialization.

The Mastermaker specializes on integrating flesh and artifice, allowing the player to turn into a weird magical cyborg. They gain free proficiency on heavy armor and smith’s tools, and the bonus spells of absorb elements, thunderous smite, enhance ability, lesser restoration, blinding smite, haste, freedom of movement, stone shape, banishing smite, and greater restoration. At third level they get Prosthesis Expertise, which lets them make free magical prostheses, and Battlefist, which is a special magical prosthesis that functions as an arcane focus and a simple melee weapon that deals 1d8 damage (up to 2d8 at 9th level) and uses Int for attack and damage rolls. You get Extra Attack at 5th and Improved Battlefist at 9th, which gives a variety of improvements such as making your Battlefist count as a shield and letting you put a second infusion on it for free. At 15th level you get Construct Apotheosis, which gives resistance to poison and psychic and immunity to the poisoned condition, lets you choose to count as a construct instead of whatever other creature type you are when you get hit with a spell or effect, and lets you cast Investiture of Stone and Antilife shell for free 1/long rest each.