What Must I Know?

[Noble Savant]

I've decided to run a game in the Eberron setting, because it has always interested me. Now, I know most of the basic setting information, but I understand that Eberron has huge amounts of lore that goes with it. Hence my question.

What books should I read in order to have a solid handle on the setting, enough to run a proper game in it?

[hivedragon]

I've decided to run a game in the Eberron setting, because it has always interested me. Now, I know most of the basic setting information, but I understand that Eberron has huge amounts of lore that goes with it. Hence my question.

What books should I read in order to have a solid handle on the setting, enough to run a proper game in it?

All you need is the eberron campaign setting.
Races of eberron- Pretty good fluff for eberron races, the crunch is mediocre except for changelings.
Sharn city of tower- Don't buy this

[Psyren]

ECS of course, you should know back and front. Five Nations is another great resource that covers the most major regions of Eberron, if you can get it. Races and Faiths of Eberron will give you a lot of insight into the lives of the people - and not just the ones crazy enough to take up the mantle of "adventurer."

You should be all set with just those. If you want to branch out into other areas - e.g. Sarlona and Xen'drik - you will most likely want those books as well. Magic of Eberron is nice too, but that's more crunch than fluff.

[supermonkeyjoe]

It depends on what kind of game you are running and where it takes place.

Going to Xen'drik? I'd recommend Secrets of Xen'dric and/or City of Stormreach.

Dealing with the Quori? Secrets of Sarlona and magic of Eberron

political intrigue within the houses in Sharn? Dragonmarked and Sharn: City of Towers

[Greenish]

After ECS and PGtE, Dragonmarked and Five Nations are probably the central ones (if you're focusing on Khorvaire, which is likely).

I really liked the Forge of War, which goes over the Last War in considerable detail. Then again, I also liked Sharn, The City of Towers, so make of it what you wish.

Outside Khorvaire, Secrets of Sarlona is way better than Secrets of Xen'Drik.

Faiths of Eberron shoehorns all of the religions into a tight formula of entry, which doesn't work for all of them, but the details on how the different religions view themselves were interesting.


This is not to say you'd need all of those to run an Eberron game, of course. ECS and PGtE are very thorough on the basics, most of the rest is filling in the details.

[Darrin]

Pretty much everything you need to know is in this picture:
http://i440.photobucket.com/albums/qq128/Mando_Knight/EberronMotivational.jpg

[Veyr]

Magic of Eberron is cool from a player's perspective (a fair few new options worthy of consideration), but unless you're going heavy with the Quori or Daelkyr in your plots, probably not so useful to a DM.

[Undercroft]

Dragonmarked is great to help you get your head around the assorted houses. The Five nations is also good for the same reason (except nations instead of houses). Player's Guide to Eberron is okay for some of the fluff stuff, but nothing really major to rave about. If you can grab a cheap copy then sure get one, but ideally grab one of the other books as i think you'll get more milage out of it.

Depending on your players you may not need to read everything too in depth. My players aren't that concerned with politics and inter-nation relations, so i can kinda skimp on those details and focus more on dungeon settings (and focusing more on Xen'drik tomb raiding or expeditions down into Kybher, etc).