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View Full Version : What are the Quori's motives (Ebberon)



CowardlyPaladin
2016-05-21, 08:00 PM
Ok so the Quori are these beings of dreams who possess people and create dystopic societies ruled over by creepy Tranquil people and maintain order with their Path of Inspiration but my question is...why? Like I understand the motivation of most evil Outersiders, they are made out of evil, its what they do. Demons want to torture everybody because that is hilarious, Devils want to establish absolute law because they like everything to be neat and tidy, Daemons just want to make all of the money in the world, evil Gods want all the worship they can get, Daelkyr just want to make the pretty flesh things dance, but what is the Quori end game? I mean they aren't pathologically evil the way Exemplars are, we see that they can choose not to be a bunch of jerks, but why do they want to possess everybody? Do mortals somehow mess up their dream world? Are the good ones dreams and the bad ones nightmares? Do they want to severe the dreaming world from the waking one? It just seems like they want to take over the world because...its what you do if your an outsider in Ebberon? I know they don't think like people, but they have some sort of goal they are working towards right?

I've been trying to find more information, but most of the Ebberon books focus on how they are taking over the world, not the why, and a lot of it is just repeated information, does anybody have any idea of what their eventual goal is?

Fable Wright
2016-05-21, 08:44 PM
The Quori are afraid. That's their motivation.

Around 40,000 years ago, a cycle for the Quori was about to end. The heart of the dream in Dal Quor was about to change, to mark the turning of the age. As part of this, every single Quori in Dal Quor would be killed, and reborn as a new being in the midst of the chaos. The quori were understandably terrified. They liked who they were, and they didn't want to die just because some cosmic clock told them to. So when Eberron was coterminous with Dal Quor, they invaded the material plane, seeking bodies to hide in, a place of refuge where the turning of the dreamheart wouldn't affect them. A place where they could survive.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be Xen'drik, and we all know how that battle turned out.

Fast forward decamillenia later. The Quori have figured out that the dreamheart will turn again, but they pinpointed a cause. It was the dreams of mortals that caused the change. As they can no longer fight a war, with Dal Quor so far removed from the material plane, the Quori instead decided to take on a much harder task: Put the mortals into stasis. Ideological, cultural, technological stasis, so that the age will never change, and the Quori must never fear for their life again. To do this, through pulling the strings of dreams, they bred vessels that they could inhabit even during the waking day, and they engineered the downfall of the sorcerous kingdom of Sarlona so they could step up and rebuild it from ashes. It's now a place where everyone is dreaming the same, stable, safe dream. The turning of the age is further away.

There is something of a schism between the Quori now. Some believe that this net will keep them safe; so long as this much of the world will never change, they will be safe from the turning of the age. Some believe that it is not enough, and they must control the dreams of all sleeping people, just to be safe; these seek control over Khorvaire so they are free to redesign it as they need. They seek to erect the giant crystal monoliths that create the shared dreams, and to take away the individuality and risk of innovation from the continent, for fear of such things altering the stasis of the world.

Nevertheless, the driving motivation of the Quori is clear: They don't want to die. They don't care that the changing of the age might lead to peace on Khorvaire, they don't care that it's a natural cycle, and they certainly don't care that they're hurting mortals to stay alive. They're doing all they can to survive, and if that means taking over the world, it just means they have a clear goal to strive towards.

Max_Killjoy
2016-05-21, 09:00 PM
So they... have an actual motivation?

Other than "for the evulz"?

Outstanding! (No sarcasm, I mean it.)

CowardlyPaladin
2016-05-21, 09:29 PM
The Quori are afraid. That's their motivation.

Around 40,000 years ago, a cycle for the Quori was about to end. The heart of the dream in Dal Quor was about to change, to mark the turning of the age. As part of this, every single Quori in Dal Quor would be killed, and reborn as a new being in the midst of the chaos. The quori were understandably terrified. They liked who they were, and they didn't want to die just because some cosmic clock told them to. So when Eberron was coterminous with Dal Quor, they invaded the material plane, seeking bodies to hide in, a place of refuge where the turning of the dreamheart wouldn't affect them. A place where they could survive.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be Xen'drik, and we all know how that battle turned out.

Fast forward decamillenia later. The Quori have figured out that the dreamheart will turn again, but they pinpointed a cause. It was the dreams of mortals that caused the change. As they can no longer fight a war, with Dal Quor so far removed from the material plane, the Quori instead decided to take on a much harder task: Put the mortals into stasis. Ideological, cultural, technological stasis, so that the age will never change, and the Quori must never fear for their life again. To do this, through pulling the strings of dreams, they bred vessels that they could inhabit even during the waking day, and they engineered the downfall of the sorcerous kingdom of Sarlona so they could step up and rebuild it from ashes. It's now a place where everyone is dreaming the same, stable, safe dream. The turning of the age is further away.

There is something of a schism between the Quori now. Some believe that this net will keep them safe; so long as this much of the world will never change, they will be safe from the turning of the age. Some believe that it is not enough, and they must control the dreams of all sleeping people, just to be safe; these seek control over Khorvaire so they are free to redesign it as they need. They seek to erect the giant crystal monoliths that create the shared dreams, and to take away the individuality and risk of innovation from the continent, for fear of such things altering the stasis of the world.

Nevertheless, the driving motivation of the Quori is clear: They don't want to die. They don't care that the changing of the age might lead to peace on Khorvaire, they don't care that it's a natural cycle, and they certainly don't care that they're hurting mortals to stay alive. They're doing all they can to survive, and if that means taking over the world, it just means they have a clear goal to strive towards.

So let me get this straight. Mortals dream, and this dreaming causes the Realm of Dreams to change, which eventually every 40,000 years causes all of the Quori to die and change. The only way to preven this is to cause all motals to cease to deam, which is what happens in the creepy nation they set up? Did I get that right?

Kish
2016-05-21, 09:36 PM
Keith Baker, when he answers questions like this, always makes it clear that he leaves a lot of villains' ultimate motivations vague so that the DM can decide them. And when he suggests ideas, he always makes sure to put in at least one "why everyone else should agree they need to be stopped" and one "what they're trying to do is arguably quite noble, though being evil means they'd cheerfully rip your heart out to accomplish it, and they're unlikely to be interested in looking for a compromise."

CowardlyPaladin
2016-05-21, 09:54 PM
Keith Baker, when he answers questions like this, always makes it clear that he leaves a lot of villains' ultimate motivations vague so that the DM can decide them. And when he suggests ideas, he always makes sure to put in at least one "why everyone else should agree they need to be stopped" and one "what they're trying to do is arguably quite noble, though being evil means they'd cheerfully rip your heart out to accomplish it, and they're unlikely to be interested in looking for a compromise."

Which kinda sums up my problem with Ebberon that's very lazy writing. Anybody can just come up with a vague threat and say "they are bad because of reasons", its kind of a web 2.0 approach to game design and it shows in Ebberon, like how the Cosmology is basically nothing more than "3 interesting ideas and 10 simplified Planescape concepts" or the non evil gods (except for the Silver Flame) are just so bog standard that its tempting to just scrap the whole thing and make up something entirely new.

I've always founded the appeal of a campaign setting rather than just writing up my own is seeing other people's creativity and imagination at work, which when Ebberon is good is the most fun part about it (the Dragonmarked Houses, the Deathless worshiping elves, the Blood of Vol) because their actual motivations makes sense. Ebberon always has this "character concept" feeling that robs it of the engagement that you can find in other settings, though admittedly I haven't read all of the side material.

Fable Wright
2016-05-22, 01:35 AM
So they... have an actual motivation?

Other than "for the evulz"?

Outstanding! (No sarcasm, I mean it.)

Yep! Eberron is surprisingly good about having clear motivations for all of its major players, though it has some serious issues with making them easy to find for someone new coming into the setting.


So let me get this straight. Mortals dream, and this dreaming causes the Realm of Dreams to change, which eventually every 40,000 years causes all of the Quori to die and change. The only way to preven this is to cause all motals to cease to deam, which is what happens in the creepy nation they set up? Did I get that right?

Mostly right. We do not know the exact time frame of Dal Quor's cycle, only that the last shift occurred 40,000 years ago. Keeping mortals from dreaming altogether would result in the Quori going extinct, which is problematic, but all the individual dreams cause turmoil that causes the plane to slowly shift from one phase to another. The solution has been to create one Quori-moderated dream that all Sarlonan citizens have every night, courtesy of the crystal monoliths. They are seeking to covertly plunge Khorvaire into another great war so they can come in and help reconstruct afterwards with their superior psionic technology, being hailed as heroes rather than conquering tyrants.


Which kinda sums up my problem with Ebberon that's very lazy writing. Anybody can just come up with a vague threat and say "they are bad because of reasons", its kind of a web 2.0 approach to game design and it shows in Ebberon, like how the Cosmology is basically nothing more than "3 interesting ideas and 10 simplified Planescape concepts" or the non evil gods (except for the Silver Flame) are just so bog standard that its tempting to just scrap the whole thing and make up something entirely new.

Erm. There's a bit more to it than that. One of the things that Eberron does right that Forgotten Realms has problems with is room to do stuff. There are mysteries without answers, uncharted sections of the map, and enemies that can have some unclear motivations. Surprisingly, though, there is a good deal of depth to everyone in the setting, which the first printed 3.5 products did a terrible job of showing off well.

Granted, you're right, most of the Eberron planes are just there to allow DMs to pull Planescape material into their games; that was one of the requirements Wizards of the Coast imposed on the setting. That said, there's a fair bit more to some of the '10 simplified Planescape concepts' than meets the eye. Syrania's Angels, for one, have a unique culture where they all know they were created by the Sovereigns, but none have actually seen them. No new Angels can be born, and some eventually think too hard about the meaning of their existence and fall to heresy before they're stripped of their wings and literally fall into Sharn as Radiant Idols, the ultimate source of the spiritual corruption of the city. The plane of Good only remains so because it pollutes everything nearby with the evil it doesn't want. Shavarath is the entire Blood War boiled down to a single plane devoid of lawless heroism, where the Devils are the wildcards who are the only ones who can possibly ally with either side to cut down a victor. Thelannis got a lot of 4e love, though I've been pointedly been ignoring that because 4e. Unfortunately, very little of the other planes has been allowed to get much attention, much like places like Droaam and the Thunder Sea have been criminally ignored because of Wizard's content plans.

The religion of Eberron is also rather interesting, in that the very concept of 'gods' is just one religious system. Yeah. Each of the sovereigns is dead boring. They have almost no character because they probably don't exist and we've seen none of their actions. The Dark Six are the ones with characterization, because they've been distinguished and ostracized from the others and believers demand a reason. That whole dichotomy is the Sovereign's schtick and internal conflict, and they don't get more attention because they're supposed to play along with the other mixed-bag religions. Like the Blood of Vol, the Path of Light, the Path of Inspiration, the Silver Flame, the Keepers of the Past, and the Undying Court.


I've always founded the appeal of a campaign setting rather than just writing up my own is seeing other people's creativity and imagination at work, which when Ebberon is good is the most fun part about it (the Dragonmarked Houses, the Deathless worshiping elves, the Blood of Vol) because their actual motivations makes sense. Ebberon always has this "character concept" feeling that robs it of the engagement that you can find in other settings, though admittedly I haven't read all of the side material.

The setting is surprisingly well fleshed out in ancillary material. The 4e Eberron Campaign Guide is probably the most essential reference for the game, as it provides the best top-down overview of all the players in the setting, from the big goods to the big bads and most things in between, covering their motivations and their means. If you ignore the scant mechanics there, it's probably the most satisfied I've been with a Wizards of the Coast product ever, as it's a great compilation of all of Eberron's best ideas with the hindsight to arrange it into a clear and concise format.

Yora
2016-05-22, 04:57 AM
So they... have an actual motivation?

Other than "for the evulz"?

Outstanding! (No sarcasm, I mean it.)

That's what makes them one of the coolest demon races in D&D.

ScrivenerofDoom
2016-05-22, 05:17 AM
Ebberon

Eberron.

Eberron.

One B. Two Rs.


Which kinda sums up my problem with Ebberon that's very lazy writing. Anybody can just come up with a vague threat and say "they are bad because of reasons", its kind of a web 2.0 approach to game design and it shows in Ebberon, like how the Cosmology is basically nothing more than "3 interesting ideas and 10 simplified Planescape concepts" or the non evil gods (except for the Silver Flame) are just so bog standard that its tempting to just scrap the whole thing and make up something entirely new.

I've always founded the appeal of a campaign setting rather than just writing up my own is seeing other people's creativity and imagination at work, which when Ebberon is good is the most fun part about it (the Dragonmarked Houses, the Deathless worshiping elves, the Blood of Vol) because their actual motivations makes sense. Ebberon always has this "character concept" feeling that robs it of the engagement that you can find in other settings, though admittedly I haven't read all of the side material.

Wow, this "Ebberon" you're referring to is very different to the Eberron on my shelves. Lazy writing? Not at all. It's quite the opposite, in fact. There's an open acknowledgement that a group may have more than one motivation. "Lazy writing" would leave each group with a single motivation because coming up with one motivation is a lot lazier than coming up with multiple possibilities.

Kish
2016-05-22, 05:21 AM
Which kinda sums up my problem with Ebberon that's very lazy writing.
...That's a point of view, I suppose, but if you see it that way why are you running a game set there?

shadow_archmagi
2016-05-22, 07:42 AM
Yeah I really enjoy the writing style of "There's a vampire king and he's probably up to one of these three things." Having THREE possible motives is three times the adventure ideas for me, and it means I can be very familiar with Eberron, join another DM's game, and still make new discoveries. Is her Karrnath as sympathetic as mine? Are her gnomes more devious? Will I ever be in a game where the Aurum does something?

hamishspence
2016-05-22, 09:44 AM
And if the three things don't quite match up to what you want - you can mix and match to get something a bit better.

CowardlyPaladin
2016-05-25, 04:35 PM
Yep! Eberron is surprisingly good about having clear motivations for all of its major players, though it has some serious issues with making them easy to find for someone new coming into the setting.



Mostly right. We do not know the exact time frame of Dal Quor's cycle, only that the last shift occurred 40,000 years ago. Keeping mortals from dreaming altogether would result in the Quori going extinct, which is problematic, but all the individual dreams cause turmoil that causes the plane to slowly shift from one phase to another. The solution has been to create one Quori-moderated dream that all Sarlonan citizens have every night, courtesy of the crystal monoliths. They are seeking to covertly plunge Khorvaire into another great war so they can come in and help reconstruct afterwards with their superior psionic technology, being hailed as heroes rather than conquering tyrants.



Erm. There's a bit more to it than that. One of the things that Eberron does right that Forgotten Realms has problems with is room to do stuff. There are mysteries without answers, uncharted sections of the map, and enemies that can have some unclear motivations. Surprisingly, though, there is a good deal of depth to everyone in the setting, which the first printed 3.5 products did a terrible job of showing off well.

Granted, you're right, most of the Eberron planes are just there to allow DMs to pull Planescape material into their games; that was one of the requirements Wizards of the Coast imposed on the setting. That said, there's a fair bit more to some of the '10 simplified Planescape concepts' than meets the eye. Syrania's Angels, for one, have a unique culture where they all know they were created by the Sovereigns, but none have actually seen them. No new Angels can be born, and some eventually think too hard about the meaning of their existence and fall to heresy before they're stripped of their wings and literally fall into Sharn as Radiant Idols, the ultimate source of the spiritual corruption of the city. The plane of Good only remains so because it pollutes everything nearby with the evil it doesn't want. Shavarath is the entire Blood War boiled down to a single plane devoid of lawless heroism, where the Devils are the wildcards who are the only ones who can possibly ally with either side to cut down a victor. Thelannis got a lot of 4e love, though I've been pointedly been ignoring that because 4e. Unfortunately, very little of the other planes has been allowed to get much attention, much like places like Droaam and the Thunder Sea have been criminally ignored because of Wizard's content plans.

The religion of Eberron is also rather interesting, in that the very concept of 'gods' is just one religious system. Yeah. Each of the sovereigns is dead boring. They have almost no character because they probably don't exist and we've seen none of their actions. The Dark Six are the ones with characterization, because they've been distinguished and ostracized from the others and believers demand a reason. That whole dichotomy is the Sovereign's schtick and internal conflict, and they don't get more attention because they're supposed to play along with the other mixed-bag religions. Like the Blood of Vol, the Path of Light, the Path of Inspiration, the Silver Flame, the Keepers of the Past, and the Undying Court.



The setting is surprisingly well fleshed out in ancillary material. The 4e Eberron Campaign Guide is probably the most essential reference for the game, as it provides the best top-down overview of all the players in the setting, from the big goods to the big bads and most things in between, covering their motivations and their means. If you ignore the scant mechanics there, it's probably the most satisfied I've been with a Wizards of the Coast product ever, as it's a great compilation of all of Eberron's best ideas with the hindsight to arrange it into a clear and concise format.

1) Ok, so...Why does the Plane of Dreams randomly kill all of its natives? I mean that isn't really what I associate with Dreams, normally Dreams are something in the domain of Fruedian imagry or something more like Silent hill, why does it randomly destory their own desigens.

2) Ok so...where is all this material. I checked the Wiki and it doesn't have much and the limited books I have (including the main Setting and the Players book) don't provide much detail at all. I mean I don't have that many FR or Planescape or Ravenloft books but I can normally get most of the details online with a quick google search, but if I want to see anything in Ebberon expanded beyond the sort of introductions level I don't know where I can find it. Your mentioned the Angels but I haven't see any mention of that on any of the immediate online resources that come up
http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Syrania
http://eberronunlimited.wikidot.com/syrania

is there some other resource that I should be using that has all the interesting details

3) I don't understand the design philosphy behind Ebberon, the Silver Flame, Undying Court and the BLood of Vol are the most interesting religions in the setting so...why not cut the boring one. Unless there is some bonus material that I"m unaware of, I don't see why having seven really basic archtypical gods means anything. I see the value of "Distant unknowning deities" to be different from FR, thats fine, its distinct from how D&D normally roles, but when their theology and practices and beliefs aren't fleshed out beyond "this is the smith god, people worship him for smith things" and "This is agricultural goddess, we worship her for agricultural things". Ebberon's major appeal is that it is really dynamically different from D&D while still being D&D and I respect that with stuff like the Deathless (seriously I love that entire nation) the stuff that is just....meh really feels meh. To go back to the Quori, I really liked the notion of evil outsiders from the realm of dreams who are trying to take over the world, its different and distinct from the way evil outsiders have been treated thus far in D&D, but finding any material like motives, long term goals, internal social structure, relationship to dreams etc is almost impossible because I can't find any of this information online. I mean I don't think that the Devils are that clever, but their motivations make sense, I know what they represent, I know what their goal is, I know how they interact with each other and I know what they are currently doing.

I mean even in the base book, they did this with the BLood of Vol, I love those guys, I know where they stand, I know what each group wants, I know who knows what and how much deception is going on, and they aren't cliche villians. Same with the various rulers of the 5 nations. So your first statement seems to be true, the villains motivations are complicated, but I can't find where they are.

4) What is this about Wizards screwing with the setting I never heard that. I wouldn't be surprised though


I fully admit that if I had easier access to the supplementary material I might like Eberron a lot more, a lot of the ideas are good, I just find the design choice (which I think is intentional on Baker's part) to not flesh things out extremely limiting and very poor design choice. If he is fleshing the world out and I just can't find it, then I stand corrected, the Quori having an actual motive is really cool, if he was deliberately leaving it vague I'd just be annoyed. I mean it makes sense for hte Mournlands because they aren't an active agent, but for things that are active knowing their motivations or at least their general disposition is very important.


Follow up question, the Kalashtar are mentioned to be worshiping some kind of Quori god, and the Quori worship a different one, who do these religions actually work? What are their theologies? Do these entities exit or are they more like vague representations? In fact do the Quori have leaders or do they just organize themselves haphazardly or are they democratic? They aren't all of like mind because of the Kalashtar thing
but they clearly were able to take over a continent fairly effectively. I know that dream versions of people can hurt Quori but Quori can only end the dream, so with the likely millions-billions of mortals dreaming how do they handle that?



on that note, is there anything on the Lords of Dust? Apart from being Evil, do they have much in terms of motives? Having them being led by Rakshasa is cool because they are really underutilized in D&D proper, but sadly they don't seem much more fleshed out than they were in the original D&D (seriously in D&D proper they were basically just "Shape shifting Tiger jerks), does Ebberon do something cool with them and the winged serpents to make them more interesting.


Again I don't dislike Eberron, I just dislike that one how hard it is to find information



Yish- I'm mostly just pillaging ideas, I like the 5 nations, D&D WWI is pretty cool, its always in the details where I have trouble because everything feels like a rough draft and I can't just go online to find perienate world information.

CowardlyPaladin
2016-05-25, 04:48 PM
Eberron.

Eberron.

One B. Two Rs.





Does anybody care? Seriously, who cares, its a fantasy game with a fantasy wording, is anybody honestly going "I don't know what he is referring too". I'm ESL, I mixed up the B and the R of the word that doesn't exist in the English language, who cares? I also occasionally write Abir Torel on occasion, and I think at one point I called Tyranids Tryanids. Who knows, I might spell Khyber with an I next time

And the less said about Drowtale spelling the better



Wow, this "Ebberon" you're referring to is very different to the Eberron on my shelves. Lazy writing? Not at all. It's quite the opposite, in fact. There's an open acknowledgement that a group may have more than one motivation. "Lazy writing" would leave each group with a single motivation because coming up with one motivation is a lot lazier than coming up with multiple possibilities.

Multiple motivations are fine, i just need to know what they are. I know what the BLood of Vol is up too, I know what Asmodeus motivations are, I know what the Leaders of the 5 nations wants, I know what the Undying Court wants, I don't care if their are multiple motives given, but in the books that I have and according to the Wikis (which evidently don't hold a lot of the pertinent information for reasons past understanding), the Quori don't have an end goal, its just mentioned that they are malicious and want to turn all of the world into a creepy totalitarian state. And I wanted to know why because it wasn't brought up. Now I know, they want toe create some sort of creepy hive dream, that makes sense, I can get behind that, now their motives make sense. I kind wish I could understand how their society functions, how they relate to each other, but for now at least I know what their end goal is. Which if it was explained in some book I didn't get, thats fine, I was just told that Baker was keeping their motivations completely obscure for its own sake, which is very lazy

Fable Wright
2016-05-26, 02:08 AM
1) Ok, so...Why does the Plane of Dreams randomly kill all of its natives? I mean that isn't really what I associate with Dreams, normally Dreams are something in the domain of Fruedian imagry or something more like Silent hill, why does it randomly destory their own desigens.

Think about world history for a moment, and what life was like back then. Back in the 1600s to the early 1900s, for example, there was a lot of that whole 'imperialism' fever going around. After the Great War, but especially after World War II, people were thinking a lot about how just one or two countries going bad could doom the entire world. We give those eras names like 'the age of colonialism' or 'the cold war era.'

Now understand that the time when all the inhabitants of Dal Quor die is called the 'turning of the age', and you might begin to understand. It occurs when a radical shift of ideas catches on with enough of the population that people begin to think and dream of very different things. If Dal Quor were in our cosmology, for example, the natives of the Plane of Dreams would have a lot to do with colonial spirit from the 1600s to early 1900s, and be spirits of paranoia and conflict in our modern times. A dream spirit of colonialism would seem silly and outdated, wouldn't it?


2) Ok so...where is all this material. I checked the Wiki and it doesn't have much and the limited books I have (including the main Setting and the Players book) don't provide much detail at all. I mean I don't have that many FR or Planescape or Ravenloft books but I can normally get most of the details online with a quick google search, but if I want to see anything in Ebberon expanded beyond the sort of introductions level I don't know where I can find it. Your mentioned the Angels but I haven't see any mention of that on any of the immediate online resources that come up
http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Syrania
http://eberronunlimited.wikidot.com/syrania

is there some other resource that I should be using that has all the interesting details

The wiki is in a sad and shabby state, I will admit. It hasn't been around as long as the other two settings, and the followers aren't as numerous or devotes on the whole as much as FR/Planescape/Ravenloft's are. Information on the Angels is scattered; there are references in Keith Baker's blog, a chunk of content on Syrania's angel-dumping culture in Sharn, City of Towers, and a few scattered references over the other books. Unfortunately, there is no centralized location for all the interesting details, aside from a fan of the setting who's read a lot of the material.


3) I don't understand the design philosphy behind Ebberon, the Silver Flame, Undying Court and the BLood of Vol are the most interesting religions in the setting so...why not cut the boring one.

Because sometimes people want a boring religion for their lives, and sometimes the Sovereigns are important in ways that really aren't obvious from a limited view of material. The Dragons of Argonnessen are the source of the religion of Sovereigns, and following the archetypes left by them is deeply important to the culture of many of them, to the point where they're almost like Unknown Armies (different setting) Avatars trying to jockey for position in controlling the mystic future of the world. Aureon is strongly implied to be (at least inspired by) the dragon that discovered the Draconic Prophesy in the first place, and the sovereigns as a whole are important for remembering the ancient struggles that allowed civilization as we know it to exist. They have a definitive place in the history of the setting, and it's important that they get remembered.

There are also some important cultural ramifications, as well. Particularly with the Dark Six. The Shadow, for example, is credited with creating the monstrous races and dark magic of the world, and for that he's shunned and hated by followers of the Sovereigns. Conversely, in Droaam, the Shadow is revered as the creator deity that allowed them all to exist; this allows for another reason why Droaam is having troubles integrating with the rest of the world, and is important as a unifying cultural aspect that helps their nascent attempts at creating a melting-pot society.


To go back to the Quori, I really liked the notion of evil outsiders from the realm of dreams who are trying to take over the world, its different and distinct from the way evil outsiders have been treated thus far in D&D, but finding any material like motives, long term goals, internal social structure, relationship to dreams etc is almost impossible because I can't find any of this information online. I mean I don't think that the Devils are that clever, but their motivations make sense, I know what they represent, I know what their goal is, I know how they interact with each other and I know what they are currently doing.

Aye. All of the information you've asked for is described in Secrets of Sarlona, a dedicated resource for the Quori and the continent they've claimed. There are definitive answers, but they're not immediately clear online because dumping it directly onto the wiki is copyright infringement, passing around PDFs is piracy, etc.


4) What is this about Wizards screwing with the setting I never heard that. I wouldn't be surprised though

Wizards allows content as it feels best fits its schedule. Eberron got scant few releases in fourth edition, and in 3.5, it has almost no content released for the Sahuagin empires underneath the Thunder Sea that span across the world, very very little on Droaam, the Demon Wastes, and Khyber, and nothing outside of short blurbs scattered around for the mundaner parts of its non-great-wheel cosmology.


Follow up question, the Kalashtar are mentioned to be worshiping some kind of Quori god, and the Quori worship a different one, who do these religions actually work? What are their theologies? Do these entities exit or are they more like vague representations? In fact do the Quori have leaders or do they just organize themselves haphazardly or are they democratic? They aren't all of like mind because of the Kalashtar thing
but they clearly were able to take over a continent fairly effectively. I know that dream versions of people can hurt Quori but Quori can only end the dream, so with the likely millions-billions of mortals dreaming how do they handle that?

The current spirit of the age in Dal Quor is called il-Lashtavar; it's the central heart of the plane, and it's responsible for the reincarnation of every Quori in existence, and it holds an odd form of pseudo-consciousness. It's not a Quori god, but it's the only thing keeping the Quori as they are, and the Quori respect it as the thing that determines if they are incarnated into a higher or lower caste when their current form dies. The ones who actually formulate and give orders, at the top, are a group of 12 (used to be 13, but one got imprisoned) Quori around the same order of power as Balors or Pit Fiends, who order around the next lower caste, and so on down the line. They are almost monolithic, and the Kalashtar thing was one of the 13 going rogue before getting shredded to oblivion.

The Path of Light, as followed by the Kalashtar, is a belief that the next spirit of the age in Dal Quor will be il-Yannah, a much more benevolent force guided by the peace of mind that the Path of Light teaches. They hope that if they believe hard enough, and spread the belief wide enough, the turning of the age will come and il-Lashtavar will become il-Yannah, and the Quori will be remade as spirits of light instead of darker emotions.

With regards to how they manage dreams, the thing to remember is that individual dreams touch on the fringes of Dal Quor, but most Quori never go out that far without a specific purpose, that time moves 10 times faster there, and most dreams (aside from their Sarlona project) are never touched by a Quori, ever.


on that note, is there anything on the Lords of Dust? Apart from being Evil, do they have much in terms of motives? Having them being led by Rakshasa is cool because they are really underutilized in D&D proper, but sadly they don't seem much more fleshed out than they were in the original D&D (seriously in D&D proper they were basically just "Shape shifting Tiger jerks), does Ebberon do something cool with them and the winged serpents to make them more interesting.

Hoo, boy. There's a lot of information here, and it's very far spread. To just hit on the salient points...

1. When a Rakshasa dies, it's reincarnated. With full memories, most of the skills it gathered over its lifetime, and a grudge towards whoever killed it. In fact, this is true of all evil outsiders native to the Material Plane.

2. This was a problem a few million years ago, when the demons were at the height of their society. They conquered all the other lifeforms, including and up to dragons. The biggest lynchpin they had in controlling reality were Overlords, or Rakshasa Rajahs, that strongly influenced all mortals within mile radii of them.

3. The Coatl also reincarnated in the same manner, but they were much fewer than number, and they had no Rajahs. When the dragon who would be deified as Aureon discovered the Prophesy, he hatched a plan with a powerful allied Coatl. With the aid of the prophesy, the dragons and Coatl would lay traps for the Rajah. The Coatl would sacrifice themselves to become pure soul energy that would bind, not kill (so as to prevent reincarnation) the Rajah and many of their servants, and over the course of millenia the Silver Flame was born and the Overlords imprisoned to a one.

4. At the end of this, the Rakshasa were scattered and had no real leader. They managed to learn about the Prophesy, and how to pilot its murky waters themselves, and they realized that doing so was the only way that they could free their leaders and return the world to the dark ages where they alone ruled the surface of Eberron.

5. In the end, the Rakshasa essentially split into many different cults, each working on freeing one of the 30-some overlords. They maintain relatively cordial relations with another, but fighting between cults is not uncommon. Each cult has truly massive resources at its disposal from millions of years of investments, both capital and political, but without a Prophesy about their overlord they are powerless to bring them back, and they are limited chiefly by their limited manpower, for they do not trust mortals. The only threats they even perceive are rival cults, who may be trying to hijack a prophesy for their own ends, and the dragons of Argonnessen, whose mastery of the prophesy may exceed their own, and whose agents are individually more powerful than their own. Mortals are just drops in the bucket to them; easily killed or manipulated, but they cannot for the life of them bring up the effort to register an adventuring party as a legitimate threat to them. They'll just reincarnate if they die, and if there's a confrontation at all, it's only because the rakshasa planned it.



Again I don't dislike Eberron, I just dislike that one how hard it is to find information

Amen to that. To figure out how the setting worked I had to put aside a college spring break and dedicate it solely to hitting the Eberron books, followed by a month of lighter study. There's a lot of information, but it's scattered and the references are not that helpful.


I kind wish I could understand how their society functions, how they relate to each other, but for now at least I know what their end goal is. Which if it was explained in some book I didn't get, thats fine, I was just told that Baker was keeping their motivations completely obscure for its own sake, which is very lazy

Their society, culture, end goal, and relations to each other are spelled out in Secrets of Sarlona, as mentioned above. I don't know who told you Baker was keeping their motivations obscure for obscurity's sake, but they were wrong. Pretty much everything except a handful of big secrets has at least one strongly implied motivation or cause in the setting, down to the Baker's Dozen and (as mentioned) Sharn's corruption.

CowardlyPaladin
2016-05-26, 02:39 PM
Think about world history for a moment, and what life was like back then. Back in the 1600s to the early 1900s, for example, there was a lot of that whole 'imperialism' fever going around. After the Great War, but especially after World War II, people were thinking a lot about how just one or two countries going bad could doom the entire world. We give those eras names like 'the age of colonialism' or 'the cold war era.'

Now understand that the time when all the inhabitants of Dal Quor die is called the 'turning of the age', and you might begin to understand. It occurs when a radical shift of ideas catches on with enough of the population that people begin to think and dream of very different things. If Dal Quor were in our cosmology, for example, the natives of the Plane of Dreams would have a lot to do with colonial spirit from the 1600s to early 1900s, and be spirits of paranoia and conflict in our modern times. A dream spirit of colonialism would seem silly and outdated, wouldn't it?


Ok, so this isn't a regular thing? Earlier it seemed like it was every 4,000 years or so, like a leap year, but its instead based upon the ideals of mortals? Ok, that is more like dreams I admit, so how exactly does this work? When an entire society is disillusioned with a certain world view or societial dream, does that trigger the overthrow? Does it have to be the majority of mortals? I mean the 5 nations are pretty big, but that's on continent out of 6 i believe, is that enough? What exactly classifies the death of a dream, I mean without getting too much into real history, if WWI shattered the world's notion of Normal, would the Great Depression, WWII, and the End of the Cold War all be new rotations?

Thats a very intriguing idea, and it means the Quori kinda reminds me of the Angels from "Angels in America" with the whole "Humans need to stop moving" obsession they have.



The wiki is in a sad and shabby state, I will admit. It hasn't been around as long as the other two settings, and the followers aren't as numerous or devotes on the whole as much as FR/Planescape/Ravenloft's are. Information on the Angels is scattered; there are references in Keith Baker's blog, a chunk of content on Syrania's angel-dumping culture in Sharn, City of Towers, and a few scattered references over the other books. Unfortunately, there is no centralized location for all the interesting details, aside from a fan of the setting who's read a lot of the material.

Ok, assuming I have very limited income and between me and a few friends can scrounge up maybe 5 Ebberon books, is there anyway I can get a closer look at some of this material?

Also why is the fanbase less devoted, I mean its a new setting, but it got a far more mainstream release than say Spelljammer, an MMO, and the last few Monster Manuals kept talking about it, and from what I can tell its quite popular.



Because sometimes people want a boring religion for their lives, and sometimes the Sovereigns are important in ways that really aren't obvious from a limited view of material.

I don't really think any world' religion's theology is boring, I mean again without getting too much into real life forms of worship, I just don't see what they add to the setting in the specifics. Boring doesn't seem like a very interesting design choice for a setting unless there is some sort of deeper meaning to it.



The Dragons of Argonnessen are the source of the religion of Sovereigns, and following the archetypes left by them is deeply important to the culture of many of them, to the point where they're almost like Unknown Armies (different setting) Avatars trying to jockey for position in controlling the mystic future of the world. Aureon is strongly implied to be (at least inspired by) the dragon that discovered the Draconic Prophesy in the first place, and the sovereigns as a whole are important for remembering the ancient struggles that allowed civilization as we know it to exist. They have a definitive place in the history of the setting, and it's important that they get remembered.

There are also some important cultural ramifications, as well. Particularly with the Dark Six. The Shadow, for example, is credited with creating the monstrous races and dark magic of the world, and for that he's shunned and hated by followers of the Sovereigns. Conversely, in Droaam, the Shadow is revered as the creator deity that allowed them all to exist; this allows for another reason why Droaam is having troubles integrating with the rest of the world, and is important as a unifying cultural aspect that helps their nascent attempts at creating a melting-pot society.


Again, all of of those religions you mentioned are cool, because they are distinct and interesting, and have tons of role playing opportunities. The idea of the Sovereigns as a unified pantheon itself is an interesting one (see the Seven from Song of Ice and Fire) but they are so vague and undefined that all of the other religions just them forgettable.



Aye. All of the information you've asked for is described in Secrets of Sarlona, a dedicated resource for the Quori and the continent they've claimed. There are definitive answers, but they're not immediately clear online because dumping it directly onto the wiki is copyright infringement, passing around PDFs is piracy, etc.

Yeah limited income, that would have to wait for awhile. But all of my questions are answered there?

Eberron needs something like a Questions thread here for fluff (obviously posting mechanics would be illegal)




Wizards allows content as it feels best fits its schedule. Eberron got scant few releases in fourth edition, and in 3.5, it has almost no content released for the Sahuagin empires underneath the Thunder Sea that span across the world, very very little on Droaam, the Demon Wastes, and Khyber, and nothing outside of short blurbs scattered around for the mundaner parts of its non-great-wheel cosmology.

Ah so a good chunk of the things I dislike about the setting can all be laid firmly at Wizards feet. I shouldn't be surprised.



The current spirit of the age in Dal Quor is called il-Lavashtar; it's the central heart of the plane, and it's responsible for the reincarnation of every Quori in existence, and it holds an odd form of pseudo-consciousness. It's not a Quori god, but it's the only thing keeping the Quori as they are, and the Quori respect it as the thing that determines if they are incarnated into a higher or lower caste when their current form dies. The ones who actually formulate and give orders, at the top, are a group of 12 (used to be 13, but one got imprisoned) Quori around the same order of power as Balors or Pit Fiends, who order around the next lower caste, and so on down the line. They are almost monolithic, and the Kalashtar thing was one of the 13 going rogue before getting shredded to oblivion.

The Path of Light, as followed by the Kalashtar, is a belief that the next spirit of the age in Dal Quor will be il-Yannah, a much more benevolent force guided by the peace of mind that the Path of Light teaches. They hope that if they believe hard enough, and spread the belief wide enough, the turning of the age will come and il-Lavashtar will become il-Yannah, and the Quori will be remade as spirits of light instead of darker emotions.


I thought that it was 60+ who went rogue to join with the Kalashtar. But ok, very strict hierarchy with little tolerance for dissidents, and the spirits don't show any actual will power right? They are just sort of vague powers without any orders?

Ok so what does the Path of Light have in its orthidoxy beyond the base belief? Like if I were convert in universe, what do I have to do.



With regards to how they manage dreams, the thing to remember is that individual dreams touch on the fringes of Dal Quor, but most Quori never go out that far without a specific purpose, that time moves 10 times faster there, and most dreams (aside from their Sarlona project) are never touched by a Quori, ever.

So despite coming from the Plane of Dreams, they aren't very dream like, in fact actively avoid dreams, thats an interesting design choice.



Hoo, boy. There's a lot of information here, and it's very far spread. To just hit on the salient points...

1. When a Rakshasa dies, it's reincarnated. With full memories, most of the skills it gathered over its lifetime, and a grudge towards whoever killed it. In fact, this is true of all evil outsiders native to the Material Plane.

Wow....that sucks. So is there any way to permanently get ride of a Rakshasa? And does this only apply to the evil ones



2. This was a problem a few million years ago, when the demons were at the height of their society. They conquered all the other lifeforms, including and up to dragons. The biggest lynchpin they had in controlling reality were Overlords, or Rakshasa Rajahs, that strongly influenced all mortals within mile radii of them.


So the Rajahs are a bit like Archdukes or Demon Lords, except maybe more like a Dicefreaks take on them. Ok, so why do they want to take over the world, is it just because they are Evil Demon and Devil style? And speaking of the D&D (I made a funny), do the Demons and Devils and Yugoloths I suppose, do they just serve the Rakshasas because the non native Outsiders just aren't as big of a deal in this world?



3. The Coatl also reincarnated in the same manner, but they were much fewer than number, and they had no Rajahs. When the dragon who would be deified as Aureon discovered the Prophesy, he hatched a plan with a powerful allied Coatl. With the aid of the prophesy, the dragons and Coatl would lay traps for the Rajah. The Coatl would sacrifice themselves to become pure soul energy that would bind, not kill (so as to prevent reincarnation) the Rajah and many of their servants, and over the course of millenia the Silver Flame was born and the Overlords imprisoned to a one.

Ok....why do the Coatl not get Rajahs? Evil just wins I suppose
Wait hte Silver flame is where all the Rajahs are? I thought it was just one.......thats big



4. At the end of this, the Rakshasa were scattered and had no real leader. They managed to learn about the Prophesy, and how to pilot its murky waters themselves, and they realized that doing so was the only way that they could free their leaders and return the world to the dark ages where they alone ruled the surface of Eberron.

5. In the end, the Rakshasa essentially split into many different cults, each working on freeing one of the 30-some overlords. They maintain relatively cordial relations with another, but fighting between cults is not uncommon. Each cult has truly massive resources at its disposal from millions of years of investments, both capital and political, but without a Prophesy about their overlord they are powerless to bring them back, and they are limited chiefly by their limited manpower, for they do not trust mortals. The only threats they even perceive are rival cults, who may be trying to hijack a prophesy for their own ends, and the dragons of Argonnessen, whose mastery of the prophesy may exceed their own, and whose agents are individually more powerful than their own. Mortals are just drops in the bucket to them; easily killed or manipulated, but they cannot for the life of them bring up the effort to register an adventuring party as a legitimate threat to them. They'll just reincarnate if they die, and if there's a confrontation at all, it's only because the rakshasa planned it.

So they spend most of their time fighting each other rather than unifying to achieve the goals that shouldn't be difficult for them, and people say Eberron doesn't have the Blood War. And they basically are just evil for its own sake then? (that isn't a criticism, they are basically demons after all). Apart from the reincarnation thing and being native outsiders, what makes them distinct from Demons/Devils?

Also....can they be beaten? I mean if they reincarnate that is pretty limiting.



Amen to that. To figure out how the setting worked I had to put aside a college spring break and dedicate it solely to hitting the Eberron books, followed by a month of lighter study. There's a lot of information, but it's scattered and the references are not that helpful.



Their society, culture, end goal, and relations to each other are spelled out in Secrets of Sarlona, as mentioned above. I don't know who told you Baker was keeping their motivations obscure for obscurity's sake, but they were wrong. Pretty much everything except a handful of big secrets has at least one strongly implied motivation or cause in the setting, down to the Baker's Dozen and (as mentioned) Sharn's corruption.

OK, that's a relief, so the information is out there....somewhere. So if I want to get an understanding of the books I need to hunt down and read every single Eberron book and then hit up Keith Baker's blog to get a proper understanding of the setting. At least the setting isn't' being deliberately obscure, I stand corrected on my earlier criticism.

Thanks for all your help, this is mind boggling

Fable Wright
2016-05-27, 03:37 AM
Ok, so this isn't a regular thing? Earlier it seemed like it was every 4,000 years or so, like a leap year, but its instead based upon the ideals of mortals? Ok, that is more like dreams I admit, so how exactly does this work? When an entire society is disillusioned with a certain world view or societial dream, does that trigger the overthrow? Does it have to be the majority of mortals? I mean the 5 nations are pretty big, but that's on continent out of 6 i believe, is that enough? What exactly classifies the death of a dream, I mean without getting too much into real history, if WWI shattered the world's notion of Normal, would the Great Depression, WWII, and the End of the Cold War all be new rotations?

It's not a regular thing at all, and no one, not even the Quori, know what triggers it, or how often the cycles are. We know for a fact that there was one 40,000 years ago, because that's the only one that's left evidence so far. We know that one has not happened since the devastation of the sorcerous kingdoms of Sarlona, because all the Quori were moving with the same idea from then to now. Other than that, all the details are in the air, because no one survives who remembers the last Quori shift. (Except, maybe, an ancient quori locked up in a trap in Xen'drik.)

That said, no, WWI through the modern age would all be one era of Quori. Human perception is that there's still One Big Bad Guy to fight, whether that's America, militant religious sects, Russia, or whatever have you. That's enough to keep the Quori as they are.


Ok, assuming I have very limited income and between me and a few friends can scrounge up maybe 5 Ebberon books, is there anyway I can get a closer look at some of this material?

It depends on what, specifically, you're looking for. If you want the motives and means of each of the big bads and leaders, a centralized summary of every faction, and some interesting details? The 4e Eberron Campaign Guide is the best resource. Otherwise, it really depends on what, specifically, you're looking for. Keith Baker's blogs, especially the Dragonmark entries (http://keith-baker.com/?s=dragonmarks&submit=Search), as a free way to get some of the most interesting details. Those are the two most important sources.


I don't really think any world' religion's theology is boring, I mean again without getting too much into real life forms of worship, I just don't see what they add to the setting in the specifics. Boring doesn't seem like a very interesting design choice for a setting unless there is some sort of deeper meaning to it.

Again, all of of those religions you mentioned are cool, because they are distinct and interesting, and have tons of role playing opportunities. The idea of the Sovereigns as a unified pantheon itself is an interesting one (see the Seven from Song of Ice and Fire) but they are so vague and undefined that all of the other religions just them forgettable.

The Sovereigns exist as one religious system. They get the same amount of space in books collectively as the Blood of Vol or the Silver Flame gets. You're getting very little information on the difference between those who venerate Onatar and Kol Korran, especially because there's a lot of overlap and relatively few formalities. That said, Faiths of Eberron provides some more in-depth details to make them much less vague and undefined.


Yeah limited income, that would have to wait for awhile. But all of my questions are answered there?

Eberron needs something like a Questions thread here for fluff (obviously posting mechanics would be illegal)

All your Quori questions are answered in Secrets of Sarlona. Your Sovereigns questions are answered in Faiths of Eberron. Other questions are tied to different books.


I thought that it was 60+ who went rogue to join with the Kalashtar. But ok, very strict hierarchy with little tolerance for dissidents, and the spirits don't show any actual will power right? They are just sort of vague powers without any orders?

I may be wrong, but I recall one of the 13 main spirits spearheading the effort and getting the mother of all smackdowns for it. It wasn't that spirit alone, but they were the driving force.

The spirits all individually show willpower, depending on how high up they are. If they're CR 4 Quori, they exist to fight and die for il-Lashtavar in the hopes of being promoted and getting new will. Put them somewhere they can't do that, and they're more or less lost. The CR 12 Quori, on the other hand, might enjoy hobbies and perhaps deviate a bit from its mission to spread some fear, because it likes to do that.


Ok so what does the Path of Light have in its orthidoxy beyond the base belief? Like if I were convert in universe, what do I have to do.

It's more like Taoism or Buddhism than Christianity. The important thing is that you believe and try to emulate its ideals. If you're into it, they can teach you all about meditation and proper rites and stuff like that, but to convert in universe, you just say that you're willing to believe, the Kalashtar smiles and bows his head, and welcomes you to the religion.


Wow....that sucks. So is there any way to permanently get ride of a Rakshasa? And does this only apply to the evil ones

Permanently? No. Long-term imprisonment? Certainly. Soul Bind, Silver Flame, other forms of imprisonment, all good for dealing with Rakshasa indefinitely.

This reincarnation does not only apply to Evil native outsiders, as Coatl not being used in the silver flame can attest, but it's impossible for a Rakshasa to convert to being Good and remain a Rakshasa.


So the Rajahs are a bit like Archdukes or Demon Lords, except maybe more like a Dicefreaks take on them. Ok, so why do they want to take over the world, is it just because they are Evil Demon and Devil style? And speaking of the D&D (I made a funny), do the Demons and Devils and Yugoloths I suppose, do they just serve the Rakshasas because the non native Outsiders just aren't as big of a deal in this world?

Rajahs don't want to take over the world. That implies effort is required to do so. They're CR 35-40+ outsiders with abilities in the range of miles around them. They just do whatever they want within their sphere of influence, messing with mortals they grew grudges against while they were imprisoned, and just generally do what they want. It's just that being Evil, that usually turns the area around them into apocalyptic hellholes that are difficult for mortals to live in.

Demons, Devils, and Yugoloths really don't care about the Rakshasa. At all. Demons and Devils exist almost exclusively on Shavarath, and tend to give roughly zero ****s about the material plane. Some live on other planes, and have very different agendas—a Balor on Fernia just wants to set everything on fire, and doesn't care at all about what some uppity furball on the material plane wants. A Mabarian succubus just wants to drain as many mortals away to the sweet embrace of death because they enjoy it. On the whole, native and non-native outsiders have little interaction, and fewer reasons to interact.



Ok....why do the Coatl not get Rajahs? Evil just wins I suppose
Wait hte Silver flame is where all the Rajahs are? I thought it was just one.......thats big

Each Rajah is bound in a different location, with the Silver Flame binding all of them. Bel Shalor was just the only Rajah to break out in recent memory, and it was the only one in the area.

As for the Coatl... they might have Rajah, but if they do, theirs cannot leave outer space. If they don't, it would be because Siberys is dead. Khyber is alive, and its blood created the Rakshasa. Its children were the Rajah. Coatl were born from Siberys's corpse, but Siberys can't have children now that he's dead. Evil wins because it got the crucial surprise round millions of years ago.


So they spend most of their time fighting each other rather than unifying to achieve the goals that shouldn't be difficult for them, and people say Eberron doesn't have the Blood War. And they basically are just evil for its own sake then? (that isn't a criticism, they are basically demons after all). Apart from the reincarnation thing and being native outsiders, what makes them distinct from Demons/Devils?

Also....can they be beaten? I mean if they reincarnate that is pretty limiting.

Actually, 99% of the time, they're scouring the world for the Prophesies that can be used to wake one of the Overlords up. Such things don't grow on trees. They spend about 80% of the rest of their time trying to set those prophesies into motion, and the last 20% of their time dealing with interferences, be those from rival cults, adventurers, or dragons. Most of the time, they won't step on each others' toes; they know infighting is bad. But sometimes, they really do butt heads and mess things up for each other. They can be beaten primarily by figuring out that there is a prophesy in place, and thwacking it down. That can set a cult back by centuries or even millennia. Really, the prophesies they can use really don't come about often.

Also, the Blood War definitely exists, it's all just been moved to Shavarath.

As for their reasons... the Rakshasa are kind of evil for evil's sake, but they're distinct from demons and devils in that they are very human in their evil. They enjoy things like companionship with each other, ruthlessly torturing the ingrates who messed with them one too many times, enjoying a nice Phoenix foie gras or unicorn veal, and so on. It's just hard to practice these around mortals, who tend towards the torches and pitchforks, so they're trying to bring back the days when the Rajah subdued the mortals just by being awake, so the Rakshasa are free to indulge their desires as they see fit.


OK, that's a relief, so the information is out there....somewhere. So if I want to get an understanding of the books I need to hunt down and read every single Eberron book and then hit up Keith Baker's blog to get a proper understanding of the setting. At least the setting isn't' being deliberately obscure, I stand corrected on my earlier criticism.

Thanks for all your help, this is mind boggling

I'm here for any questions you have. Not all the books are strictly necessary; you can get a lot by asking around and just reading the blogs with a good central resource to help piece things together. But yeah, there really should be a better central repository somewhere. I'd start an Eberron Q&A thread, but I doubt it would get too much interest.

Faily
2016-05-27, 01:24 PM
I'm here for any questions you have. Not all the books are strictly necessary; you can get a lot by asking around and just reading the blogs with a good central resource to help piece things together. But yeah, there really should be a better central repository somewhere. I'd start an Eberron Q&A thread, but I doubt it would get too much interest.

I would love an Eberron-info thread!

The more I learn about Eberron, the more I'm interested in the setting. Sure, I've learned more and more about it as I've played DDO for some years now, but I still want to know more. :smallsmile:

sktarq
2016-05-27, 09:18 PM
Okay I just reread the 3.5e Secrets of Sarlona and don't see where you get the idea that it is due to the dreams changing. Also in the Secrets of XenDrik book it is implied that the Quori are searching for clues for why and how by searching for ruins of the Giant/Quori War. It seems it imply a regular cyclical thing to me and the dreaming darkness wants to stop the cycle and preserve the quori that exist. Same basic idea that the quori want to survive by stopping the destructive nature of the plane they exist in.

that said 4e or 5e could well have changed that.

Regitnui
2016-05-28, 02:28 AM
The quori want stasis. If the dreams of the material plane don't change, then il-Lashtavar will very likely not turn. All quori are just pieces of il-Lashtavar; metaphysical children; and as such they would be absorbed and reborn when Quor Tarai changes from il-Lashtavar. The kalashtar and other followers of the Path of Light want the turning of the age to become il-Yannah, and the intelligent docent Shire implies that the Quor Tarai was more optimistic before.

The rakshasa rajahs want nothing more than conflict. Destructive, unnecessary conflict. While it would be the first prize for them to free the Overlords and plunge the world into another Age of Fiends, they're really quite content to keep steering the world towards chaos and destruction. It's .kre fertile ground for them and their further manipulations, you see.

Erandis Vol (as a separate entity to the religion she founded, the Blood of Vol) is essentially an immortal, lonely, frustrated teenage elf. She wants her birthright; the power inherent in her Dragonmark, revenge on the Undying Court and the Dragons that killed her family, and whatever she can do to make both of those a reality. Also, she likes knitting.

The Cults of the Dragon Below don't want anything. They're not unified enough to have any motivation beyond the individual, and may not even be your traditionally evil cult. Not until an aberration or other fiend wants to use one, and even then it might be to crush an opposing fiend/aberration/cult.

The daelkyr, strictly speaking, have no comprehensible motivations. The are just living pieces of insanity that want to 'play' with the Material Plane. As they are crazier than a cat on meth stuck in a washing machine on spin dry, that leaves very little possible Good outcomes; even a Good-aligned daelkyr would probably think mutating every living human into mongrelfolk (or worse) is a perfectly moral act on the grounds of "making them better".

I think that's most of the possible Big Bad Evil Factions. I'm not Keith Baker himself, but I do have all the books and I have read a lot of the supplementary material. Dolurrh, I even have a calendar for the moons...

Fable Wright
2016-05-28, 06:36 AM
I would love an Eberron-info thread!

The more I learn about Eberron, the more I'm interested in the setting. Sure, I've learned more and more about it as I've played DDO for some years now, but I still want to know more. :smallsmile:

I will see about putting one up then; most likely in the D&D 3.5 subforum later today.

EDIT: Here you go (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?489584-Eberron-Q-amp-A-Thread-By-Popular-Demand&p=20828891).


Okay I just reread the 3.5e Secrets of Sarlona and don't see where you get the idea that it is due to the dreams changing. Also in the Secrets of XenDrik book it is implied that the Quori are searching for clues for why and how by searching for ruins of the Giant/Quori War. It seems it imply a regular cyclical thing to me and the dreaming darkness wants to stop the cycle and preserve the quori that exist. Same basic idea that the quori want to survive by stopping the destructive nature of the plane they exist in.

that said 4e or 5e could well have changed that.

Have you checked the sidebar "The Struggle of Dal Quor" on page 15 of Secrets of Sarlona? That's the primary source for the cataclysmic changes of Dal Quor for me, and the right hand column of that combined implies that a shared dream would bring stability to Dal Quor. Combined with the write-up of the Path of Light in Faiths of Eberron, particularly Heirarchy on page 127, it's implied that a strong shared dream of peace in the heart of Riedra weakens il-Lashtavar. Bits and pieces of everything else, including Keith Baker's blog, imply that the turning of the age does come from a change in dreams, which may be the cause of or caused by natural cycles in Dal Quor.

As for why I believe it's not regularly cyclical, Faiths of Eberron states that there have been three turnings of the Age, and Secrets of Sarlona places the last one being at the beginning of the Age of Monsters. Over millions of years since the creation of Dal Quor, then, we had two changes. I'd guesstimate them at, oh, the beginning of the Age of Giants, and the discovery of the Prophesy. So that's turnings 40,000 years ago; 100,000 years ago; and 1.5 million years ago.

Doesn't look regular to me, and they're coinciding with times when the dreams of mortals are fundamentally changed by world-defining events. Hence my speculation. It's not official, but that's what I've got.


Erandis Vol
*snip*
Also, she likes knitting.

Do you have a source on the knitting? I vaguely recall it in one of Baker's blog posts, but I'd be interested in any more information.


I think that's most of the possible Big Bad Evil Factions. I'm not Keith Baker himself, but I do have all the books and I have read a lot of the supplementary material. Dolurrh, I even have a calendar for the moons...

But what about the Aurum? [/joke]

Regitnui
2016-05-28, 08:56 AM
But what about the Aurum? [/joke]

Gaaaahhhh! I new I forgot something.

But really, they're the easiest. If there's money to be made or a rival to be undermined, they're involved. Don't be salty, it's just business.

Wouldn't a setting flavour thread be better suited here? Considering the flavour is agnostic of the system.

Fable Wright
2016-05-28, 09:11 AM
Gaaaahhhh! I new I forgot something.

They're the punchline of the setting, so all is forgiven.


Wouldn't a setting flavour thread be better suited here? Considering the flavour is agnostic of the system.

It might, but I'm posting to the 3.5 subforum for three reasons. First is that Eberron has had no new material released since 3.5e, except for a fractional amount in Dragon Magazine and Eberron Campaign Guide. Second is that the vast majority of people who play Eberron will be on that forum, and it experiences significantly higher traffic than the general RPG forum; the goal is to open up the Q&A thread to the most people who would have use for it, and unfortunately few people check here. The third is that there's precedence for holding a mechanics-less questions thread in the subforums, as the Afroakuma Planar Questions Threads demonstrated, and I'd hate to break that tradition.