Eberron is a very different setting from your normal D&D worlds. Eberron probably can be best described as something like magic punk pulp noir. That’s a lot of terms thrown together, but it’s very much what Eberron is. If you want to hear about a game run in the setting and talk about the setting quite often, checkout Total Party Thrill podcast. They do talk about other things as well, but you can track down their thoughts on the setting there. If you’re up to a quick read, I got some thoughts on it as well.

Eberron is a complex setting where you can delve the depths of intrigue, go on crazy adventures, and take magically powered trains to different places in the world. In the world, it has always just come out of a long war which was ended by the Day of Mourning. What happened in the day of Mourning, there is no canonical answer, but whatever it was, the people of the world are scared into a peace that is shaky, but no one wants it to happen again. So the nations are at peace and the families/corporations are doing their things which can be travel, body guarding, healing, and several different things. And that’s just the main lands, then there is a jungle section with many ancient giant ruins, an island where the dragons live, the underdark, and a monstrous city/country where you can easily play monstrous characters.

Eberron is really a setting that is created to let you play almost anything. Whereas the Forgotten Realms were more standard fantasy, Eberron is always going to be colored by the magic punk nature of the setting and this pulp style where you are better and more powerful than most people. The best example to give of this is that magic is common in Eberron, magically powered airships and trains are a thing, but it’s generally lower level magic, so when you get to be a PC casting 4th level spells, you’re more powerful for than a normal spell caster, and probably even earlier than that. So you get to do the heroic things that the heroes of pulp fiction do, the genre not the movie. You’re going to be able to interact with dragons without just being eaten, go exploring giant ruins or venture into the Mournland in hopes of finding out what happened on the Day or Mourning.

In the land, there are also new races, War Forged who were created for the war and now are on their own, what does that mean for them and for them in society is something that is struggled with, because they are sentient but they are also made for war. Changlings and Shifters are two more races that can show up, Changlings can look like other people and change their shape, while shifters are almost were-people, but not quite. Plus races like Goblins, Orcs, and Hobgoblins are playable in this world and something that might not be quite normal to see around the main city on the main continent, but also aren’t out of the normal. So you can really play whatever you want to play in Eberron. And there’s even more for races that you can play.

And there is also a new class that has been added to fifth edition for Eberron and that’s the Artificer. The artificer is basically a magical tinkerer. They are going to be creating magical contraptions, potions, etc. that can help them in combat or in other encounters. It might be mundane and just be something that looks cool, but it could also be that they have a turret in their backpack that’ll blast magical bullets at their enemies or shield them from attacks. It really helps build up that magic punk feel of the setting to have that class that almost is steam punk, but it’s really more based off of magic.

Eberron is really a fun setting and one that I’m looking forward to running a game in. There’s a lot that you can do from that massive explorations into the ruins of a giant civilization. Or maybe it’s a crime story that is happening in the vertical city of Sharn. Maybe the party is going to go into the Mournland to try and find the cause of the Day or Mourning and find out what happened to the land of Cyre. Or perhaps there is something that the Church of the Silver Flame is doing that you need to help with or stop. You have a ton of different options from if you want it to be a more epic adventure to a more contained story, and it’s up to you what you play. But whereas the Forgotten Realms places it so that you can do all of those things but doesn’t add flavor in to help with that, in Eberron it’s created and there are places that make sense for different types of campaigns so that the campaign is going to feel more special.

Have you played a game in Eberron? If so, what type of game was it? If not, is Eberron a setting you’d want to play in?

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