Ways To Make Your Game Feel Like Eberron

I moved my game to Eberron a few weeks ago. So, I thought, how do I make my game feel like Eberron? What is it that makes an Eberron campaign feel like it takes place there, and not in a generic world? For me, it’s not about noir or pulp, you can do that anywhere you want…..it’s about automatons, the war and its effects, and NPCs. For NPCs, this is about two things: Your alignment is about how you act, not what you were born as; the specific factions, houses, and nations.

Automatons in Eberron

Let’s look first at “robots” and why I don’t use that word…..

I call them automatons or clockwork devices. Choosing the right word or words for these devices helps…..don’t call them robots! Robots makes your players think about modern things, real things. Once you use the word robot, your players won’t stop. Plus, a lot of what is built in Eberron or similar worlds aren’t really robots per se, they might not be powered at all. I highly recommend you use the words clockwork and automaton.

Now, let’s look at some automatons that I have included….

The first inn that the characters visited had two automatons, a primitive warforged that cleaned the bar, and a round clockwork item that cleaned the floor (like a modern auto-vacuum). I made it clear the bar cleaning automaton was more primitive than a modern warforged, that you could see the gears and that it was not intelligent. The floor cleaner moved around, and I described the noise it made (though I should have done that more, to indicate they could hear gears and whatnot). Now, in this village, something is wrong with the automatons (on a seasonal basis), so I also described that (that’s in another page, coming later).

Next, when the characters got to the first dungeon, I replaced an existing monster with a clockwork wolf. At the second dungeon, I added clockwork giant frogs (though they did not interact with them to see what they did, alas). Also, the Essentials Kit comes with a gnome adventure with barrel crabs. That’s a great example of clockwork or tech, but that is not a robot.

When they get back to town, we’ll be adding more clockwork items to the scene. I’m thinking there is something that helps the blacksmith move hot metal, and a mechanical horse pulling a wagon or two will roll into the village. I’m going to add clockwork and science/fantasy items to the descriptions of all the locations. Just small tidbits, like lamps that automatically go on when it is dark.

Warforged, Factions, and Cultures

Another thing about Eberron that makes it different than most other D&D worlds is that there are Warforged, orcs and gnolls aren’t all evil, and the continent just came out of a long lasting war.

One of the characters is a warforged, and we’ve already had one person in town have a “no warforged allowed” sign in their shop window. It’s hard for me to get the player not to say robot, but we’re working on it. The warforged have great back stories, being built for a war, and then gaining sentience and in some (most?) countries, freedom. But, they aren’t common, and people will fear them and think of them as agents of war. Built for war. Violent by nature. Figuring out how people and cultures react to and talk about warforged makes the world come alive.

Let’s talk about the factions….the main ones in my world will be the Gatekeepers, the Dragonmark houses, and the nations of the Khorvaire. Oh, and the Daelker…….Now, that doesn’t mean we won’t mention other factions, mentioning things that happen in other parts of the world make the world come alive. So, we’ll mention the Lords of Dust or some other factions at times, but they won’t be the main point of the story I plan to tell (that said, if the players don’t want to go the way I plan, we’ll find a way to tell a different story). I’ve made the druid in Lost Mine of Phandelver a Gatekeeper, and I’m changing Venomfang to be a former druid that was corrupted when she tried to use symbionts to fight aberrations…..

The many books and websites on Eberron are filled with lore and information….there is no way I could keep it all straight. That’s why I am focusing on a few things (that I can know deeper), but mentioning other things. I’m not going to plan out all the details, no way the players will do what I expect…..but I will have specific NPCs and locations and rumors and stories about the above factions that the characters learn about over time. Little details about a faction, like a newsboard in town with a story that one of the members of one of the houses just died, that kind of thing is easy to do, but adds a bit of immersion to the world.

Then there are the nations. One way I have them coming to life is by having some of the combatants clearly be part of the military in the last war. The goblins in one cave all wore uniforms of one of the nations. Some of the villagers want to be part of the Eldeen Reaches, some do not. Having the players at least hear those conversations makes the world more alive. If they choose to engage in them, even better. I’ve put the first village just inside the new Eldeen Reaches border, they’ll have to hear about the war and the nations disagreeing about the border (or even Eldeen existing…..).

Magic and Alchemy

The last way I’m working on making Eberron feel like Eberron is thru magic and alchemy. The PCs haven’t experienced any of this yet, but daelker simbiots and alchemy will be coming to their lives soonish. As I said above, I’m going to have a former druid in their way soon, one that uses simbiots. She succumbed to the evil in them…….

Another way I’ll use magic to make it feel like Eberron is thru dragonmarks. Each of them will develop an aberrant mark soon, and the houses will NOT like that. This allows me to give them a bit of magic, and also to bring in the houses as factions. Will they be able to control these marks better than the druid could the simbiots? Tying a piece of each character to how the factions feel about them makes it about Eberron, not about “elves don’t like dwarves”.

Alchemy….I’m not sure yet how that will work, but artificers and alchemists are different than normal magic, and I want to play that up. Any suggestions would be appreciated. But, like the clockwork items, villages and homes and castles and caves will have alchemy items in them.

The Last War

Let’s talk about The Last War. This is a great way to increase immersion. First, some of your PCs may have fought in the war, or have relatives that did (and maybe died). That should have a huge impact on your players. The warforged in our campaign is a cleric because he saw too many friends die (that, and he can’t recall the war…we’ll be using that backstory a lot…..he already had PTSD symptoms when encountering a gibbering mouther). So, use that. Have a uniform remind them of a time they were in the war, or that their sister was wearing the last time they saw her…..

Also, the last war is a great backdrop for all the events that happen off screen. You could have rumors of battles starting up (most likely false….), or troop movements, or troops massing on the boarder. You could have news of how the Mourning is part of the predicted end of the world, or how some nations are trying to use the Mourning to hurt their neighbors. You should certainly have NPCs and off screen events that talk about the impact of the war. Villages they go through should be destroyed, or being rebuilt. The village my group is starting in was destroyed early in the war, for example, and is just now being rebuilt.

In the end, the goal of all of this is to make Eberron feel like a fantasy world, but not the one they real-life people are used to. I’ll be updating this as I add more things to the campaign…..