What Eberron feels like
- Magic is industry. Trains run on bound lightning elementals, airships ride rings of fire, street lamps burn with continual flame, and a clerk might cast a cantrip to stamp your papers. Magic is common, but high-level wizards are as rare as anywhere.
- The war just ended, and nobody won. A century of civil war broke the old kingdom into rival nations. The peace is two years old and it’s fragile. Everyone has lost someone.
- Noir, pulp and intrigue. Spies, cartels and corporate dynasties matter as much as dragons. Heroes are often morally grey, and villains often have good reasons.
- The gods don’t answer in person. Clerics get spells and miracles happen, but no god has ever walked Eberron. Faith is a choice, not a fact.
- Good and evil are what people do. A black dragon can be a scholar; a paladin can be a fanatic. Don’t assume a race or a nation is “the bad guys.”
History in brief
| Era | What happened | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|---|
| Age of Demons (unthinkably long ago) | Fiends ruled the world. The dragons and couatls bound them away, at great cost. | Old evils are buried, not gone. Ruins and cults still remember. |
| Giants of Xen’drik (~40,000 years ago) | A giant empire on the southern continent was shattered by its war with the quori, the spirits of the plane of dreams. | Xen’drik is a land of ruins and treasure hunters. The quori still exist. |
| Empire of Dhakaan (~16,000–7,000 years ago) | A goblinoid empire ruled Khorvaire until an invasion from Xoriat, the plane of madness, broke it. | Goblins and hobgoblins have a proud heritage. The Daelkyr’s aberrations still lurk underground in Khyber. |
| Dragonmarks appear (~3,000 years ago) | Families began to bear magical birthmarks. They became the dragonmarked houses. | The houses now run most of Khorvaire’s trade. |
| The War of the Mark (~1,500 years ago) | The houses united to destroy the bearers of aberrant marks. Sharn fell and was rebuilt. | Aberrant marks are still feared. Some aberrants have never forgiven the houses. |
| The Korth Edicts | The houses agreed that no house may hold land or noble title or raise an army. | Houses are corporations, not kingdoms. In theory. |
| Galifar unites the Five Nations (~1,000 years ago) | Galifar ir’Wynarn forged Aundair, Breland, Cyre, Karrnath and Thrane into one kingdom. Each royal heir governed one nation. | The Wynarn bloodline still sits on most of the thrones. “Galifar” is everyone’s lost golden age. |
| The Last War (894–996 YK) | King Jarot died and his heirs refused the succession. A century of war followed, fought with magic, warforged soldiers and every house selling to every side. | Almost every adult has a war story. Soldiers, refugees and profiteers are everywhere. |
| The Day of Mourning (Olarune 20, 994 YK) | Cyre was destroyed in a single day by an unknown magical catastrophe. It’s now the Mournland: a dead-grey mist, a wasteland of living spells and unhealing wounds. | Nobody knows who or what caused it. Fear of another Mourning ended the war. |
| Treaty of Thronehold (996 YK) | Peace. Twelve nations were recognised. Warforged were declared free people. | Peace is two years old and every nation is rearming. |
Recent events: what everyone is talking about (998 YK)
Public knowledge and rumour only
Your character may know more depending on how they join the campaign. Ask the DM privately.
- The Moonriser attack (Rhaan). Terrorists tried to crash a lightning-rail train from Wroat into Sharn. Most say it was the work of House Tarkanan, a criminal gang of aberrant-marked folk named after a hero of the War of the Mark.
- Sharn’s government collapsed. Lord Mayor Cathan ir’Demell and much of the city council were exposed as mind-controlled thralls of something living under the city. Breland has put the City of Towers under martial law. The council seats are empty.
- Sharn’s underworld changed hands. The Alley Vipers gang was smashed in a week of violence. The halfling Boromar Clan now runs the lower wards more openly than ever.
- Club Elysium burned (early Sypheros). A famous Sharn nightclub was destroyed in a raid by Breland’s crown agents, supported by a warship overhead. Official word calls it a strike on a “royalist conspiracy.” Many nobles and house heirs are missing, dead, or arrested. Some say an airship tore out of the sky that night and vanished.
- Trouble in the King’s Forest. Fort Tansend, a Brelish fort in the King’s Forest, has gone silent. The nearby villages were evacuated. Rumours speak of a massacre, soldiers with glowing eyes, and a dead knight who walked.
- Princess Haydith ir’Wynarn, Kaius III’s sister and the Karrnathi diplomat whose diplomacy helped forge the Treaty of Thronehold, hasn’t been seen in Korth in months. Some say she’s travelling in secret. Some say she’s in danger.
- Breland’s succession. King Boranel is old. His heirs, Parliament and the Dark Lanterns are all positioning for what comes next. Some Brelish wonder aloud if Breland should keep a king at all.
- Aundair and Thrane are glaring at each other over Thaliost. Everyone says Aundair is rearming fastest.
- The Mournland stirs. Rumours of a warforged warlord, the Lord of Blades, gathering followers in the grey.
- Fey doors in the Eldeen. Druids whisper that more paths into Thelanis are opening than any year in memory.
- “Master Farson.” In Sharn’s lower wards, everyone knows the name of an information broker who arrived after the war from somewhere no one can place. He’s said to wear many faces and partner with the Boromars. Those who’ve made deals with him say he always collects.
From the Eberron Player Primer. Public knowledge and rumour only.