Eberron

A world forged by dragons and torn apart by war. A world of evil villains, brave heroes, and the people caught in between. A world of adventure—the world of Eberron. An uneasy peace lies over the land. Intrigue, unrest, the schemes of dark powers, and open warfare interrupt this peace. Many groups struggle for power.

Many of them plan and execute cunning plots out of the public eye. Even as the Church of the Silver Flame works to erase evil from Eberron, the Lords of Dust plot to wipe out civilization.

Magic is infused into the land. Everyone sees the gifts of magic. Magical technology is everywhere: everburning streetlights, elemental airships, and the speeding lightning rail. ("An Adventurer's Guide to Eberron" by Logan Bonner and Chris Sims)

Setting Overview:

Our campaign will be set in the D&D 5th Edition world of Eberron. We may not always stay there, but this is where we're grounded. Eberron is huge and largely unexplored -- ripe for adventures and littered with mysteries.

It is also a world balanced on a knife's edge, ravaged not only by a century of war, but also from a continent-shattering cataclysm that ended it only two years before when we begin. The fragile peace belies a land whose economy is in ruin, where desperate poverty exists alongside unimaginable wealth and power. It is a world where the fundamental magic forces of the universe have been harnessed into mechanical, steampunk-like devices.

The use of these magic-powered clockwork devices has largely been reserved for industry or the rich and powerful. But as technology has advanced, that barrier is beginning to crumble. In fact during the war, powerful artificers event invented a new race of warriors powered by magic but imbued with intelligence, souls, and independence. Magic for the masses will have unpredictable results for what order remains.

Creating Your Characters

We will start with you all in a caravan on the road heading south toward Sharn, the glorious and exhilarating City of Towers. As you create your characters, you do need to decide what your motivation is to make the trip. Whether you’re fleeing something (or someone) you’ve done, going to meet your betrothed, planning to pull off a big heist, hoping to hold your dying mother’s hand one last time… whatever. You decide. It’s also up to you whether you have been there before, it’s your first time, or maybe you were even born there.

Although the campaign will have elements of intrigue, exploration, diplomacy, and so on, the most common element is still going to be combat — ideally every session will have two to three fights — and with a corresponding focus on going up levels and increasing power. Given the premise, characters should be willing to go on this kind of mission and stick with it. Some of the missions may get into noir-ish moral shades of grey, and if some people want to make evil characters this is a-ok by me.

The intended genre is a cross between the James Bond novels and the Maltese Falcon — typical missions might involve exploring ancient ruins, sneaking into an enemy stronghold to defuse a magical doomsday device, or finding out why an agent stopped sending in reports (was he brainwashed? kidnapped? or eliminated by his superiors for finding out too much?). The intended feel is classic D&D — every session will have combat encounters, the PCs will start out relatively weak and inept and grow powerful, and treasure and character advancement will be important parts of the game.

The Characters: Although the campaign will have elements of intrigue, exploration, diplomacy, and so on, the most common element is still going to be combat — ideally every session will have two to three fights — and with a corresponding focus on going up levels and increasing power. Given the premise, characters should be willing to go on this kind of mission and stick with it. Some of the missions may get into noir-ish moral shades of grey, and if some people want to make evil characters this is a-ok by me.

The Rules: Obviously, we're talking d20 with some Eberron-specific things I'll get into later. The Wikipedia page has some information on new setting features, which I can give you more details on. This being d20, I have enough rule notes and house rules to put them onto a separate page (this also covers character creation info).

Links:

The wikipedia page is a good general summary. Dragonshards are a bunch of columns written by the author on various topics. A medium-sized map and a very large map.