Eberron Advice

[Deimess]

In the near future I am going to be DMing two Eberron campaigns for two different groups. Both groups' campaigns will be going on in the same world at the same game time, but they will have little in-game interaction.

First, I would really appreciate any advice from people who have played in Eberron before, from both players and DMs. Anything that was rocky lore wise or in Eberron RAW.

The first group/campaign will take place almost exclusively in Droaam or southwestern Khorvaire. Each of the players ended up there for various reasons, and the campaign will basically be the players gaining power and influence, as well as forts and most notably, a large army (inspired partly by Daenerys Stormborn/Targaryen).

The other group/campaign will take place in Stormreach/Xen'drik. The idea is that after The Last War, the Dragonmarked Houses are looking to the lost giant civilization or Xen'drik as a crazy source of income. The PCs are one of several competing mercenary or extreme explorer bands and they have to deal with the other groups and Dragonmarked politics.

Eventually, group B will discover that the Draconic Prophecy is something with the number 13, and the return of the Quori and Giants. Since Khorvaire has little to no army due to The Last War, group B will need to find an army fast. Then, I will combine the groups in one massive session in real life, and group B will have to convince group A to give up their army to essentially save the world (and that the end of the world is indeed coming).

What will eventually happen due to the story I have planned: What they may or may not tell group B (or even find out) is that this will most likely result in the death of all of group B, because the actual Draconic Prophecy is something like "When there are 13 planes there can only be 12" meaning when Dal Quor re-overlaps with the Material Plane (now 13 planes instead of 14) there can only be 12 and the world/material plane will end, and the Dragons (who have spent millenniums planning for this) will commit genocide on the Quori, and remake the world on Dal Quor while Eberron falls to pieces. While group B's army holds back legions of Giants and Drow, dragons will be shuttle-busing humanoids to the new world.

I suppose my secondary question is asking for advice on running multiple campaigns in the same world at once. Has anyone done this/how did it work out?

Thank you in advance for any help!

[fishyfishyfishy]

In the near future I am going to be DMing two Eberron campaigns for two different groups. Both groups' campaigns will be going on in the same world at the same game time, but they will have little in-game interaction.

First, I would really appreciate any advice from people who have played in Eberron before, from both players and DMs. Anything that was rocky lore wise or in Eberron RAW.

The first group/campaign will take place almost exclusively in Droaam or southwestern Khorvaire. Each of the players ended up there for various reasons, and the campaign will basically be the players gaining power and influence, as well as forts and most notably, a large army (inspired partly by Daenerys Stormborn/Targaryen).

The other group/campaign will take place in Stormreach/Xen'drik. The idea is that after The Last War, the Dragonmarked Houses are looking to the lost giant civilization or Xen'drik as a crazy source of income. The PCs are one of several competing mercenary or extreme explorer bands and they have to deal with the other groups and Dragonmarked politics.

Eventually, group B will discover that the Draconic Prophecy is something with the number 13, and the return of the Quori and Giants. Since Khorvaire has little to no army due to The Last War, group B will need to find an army fast. Then, I will combine the groups in one massive session in real life, and group B will have to convince group A to give up their army to essentially save the world (and that the end of the world is indeed coming).

What will eventually happen due to the story I have planned: What they may or may not tell group B (or even find out) is that this will most likely result in the death of all of group B, because the actual Draconic Prophecy is something like "When there are 13 planes there can only be 12" meaning when Dal Quor re-overlaps with the Material Plane (now 13 planes instead of 14) there can only be 12 and the world/material plane will end, and the Dragons (who have spent millenniums planning for this) will commit genocide on the Quori, and remake the world on Dal Quor while Eberron falls to pieces. While group B's army holds back legions of Giants and Drow, dragons will be shuttle-busing humanoids to the new world.

I suppose my secondary question is asking for advice on running multiple campaigns in the same world at once. Has anyone done this/how did it work out?

Thank you in advance for any help!

While I have been DMing an Eberron campaign for over a year now, the advice I have to offer is not specific to any setting...

Be prepared to scrap your plans.
Seriously.

The players are going to do things you can't predict, and railroading them into your perfect little story isn't going to go over well. Even if they are all on board for this at first, things can and probably will change midway through the campaign. Have a story you wish to see happen, give your NPC's and villains motivation and personality and let things happen organically.

Be prepared to "wing it".

As for running two games in the same setting, I recall that Chris Perkins had a weekly article on the Wizards of the Coast website called The Dungeon Master Experience in which he talks about his two D&D groups that he ran in his own homebrew setting Iomandra. (http://community.wizards.com/wiki/Dnd:Iomandra_and_the_Dragon_Sea) He had a lot of great advice to give out to DM's, both new and veteran. I highly suggest you check out the articles. (https://www.wizards.com/dnd/archive.aspx?category=all&subcategory=dmexperience)

For your game, I suggest you get a hold of the books Secrets of Sarlona and Secrets of Xen'drik. You'll get a lot of mileage out of these books. With your theme of crossing the planes, I also suggest Faiths of Eberron. If only to have the book containing the Planar Shepherd prestige class.. It's stupid powerful, but the fluff works perfectly. A cabal of NE Druids tied to Dal Quor would be a serious threat.

[Deimess]

Thank you for the advice, I will look into all of these!

That planned plotline is certainly not how I expect things to go. I have been DMing for long enough to know that your plans never work out exactly the way you see them. That was merely how I roughly predict they will react to the information. The only "facts" so to speak are that Dal Quor will eventually overlap with the material plane and the Dragons are rallying to end them. I am excited to see how my players will react and I plan on being very flexible in the plot :smallsmile:.

[Greenish]

That looks like a pretty cool plot, but, well, many PCs have a habit of derailing plots. If yours don't, though, it'll be plenty epic.

Though,

Since Khorvaire has little to no army due to The Last War, group B will need to find an army fast.Everyone in Khorvaire has been re-arming like crazy after the Last War, certain that there will be another round. Plus, if you told the Valenar elves that an overwhelming army of giants is coming to destroy them, they'd wet their pants from excitement and demand to be teleported to frontlines right away (Valenar religion is all about fighting superior enemies, preferably giants).

[Prime32]

The idea is that after The Last War, the Dragonmarked Houses are looking to the lost giant civilization or Xen'drik as a crazy source of income. The PCs are one of several competing mercenary or extreme explorer bands and they have to deal with the other groups and Dragonmarked politics.I should point out that the idea of looting Xen'drik artifacts is nothing new. People were doing that all throughout the Last War, and reverse-engineering them is where warforged came from. But maybe their employer stumbled across an amazing new find...


Eventually, group B will discover that the Draconic Prophecy is something with the number 13, and the return of the Quori and Giants.The Prophecy isn't a singular thing. It's lots of unconnected statements in the form "if X happens, Y will happen". So this would be a particular section of it.

And yeah, Khorvaire is in a state of cold war rather than true peace. Basically the Five Nations are invincible as long as they stand together, which is why most of the villainous factions try to turn them against each other. If there's an invasion, then it should seem to be a threat to only one nation so that the others have reason to ignore it. At least at first; successfully conquering a nation might give the invaders access to e.g. magical locations that make them way more dangerous.

And the quori "returned" long ago, so to speak, as the Inspired. They've got a plan in place to inflitrate Khorvaire society and culture over the course of a few hundred years, which should eventually guarantee their victory. What made them decide to throw out subtlety and switch to a direct invasion that risks pushing all their enemies to join forces against them?