The Day of Mourning

[PlatinumJester]

So what exactly happened? How did it start? What happened? What did it look like?

I have 5 Nations but just find it too confusing.

[MandibleBones]

The Last Issue of Dragon (No. 359) has Keith Baker's notes on the many things that could have happened - but part of the fun of Eberron is that there IS not hard-and-fast Canon for the DoM.

[Nerd-o-rama]

A Wizard did it.

But seriously, there is no official explanation. It's up to the individual DM to determine. Or not.

What it looked like was a massive wave of opaque grey mist expanding out from some central point - some observers say Making, some say the capital (whose name escapes me), some say another spot in the countryside - to the then-current borders of Cyre. The area within there became the Mournland almost instantly: hundreds of thousands died, plants and animals withered or became twisted monsters, the dead began rising from their mass graves...ugly stuff.

[PlatinumJester]

Ok, so there is no reason why it happened but what did it look like? Was there a big akira style boom and then mist or was it like Nagasaki where it was just a hige mushroom cloud?

[Nerd-o-rama]

Editted in the description when I read your post more closely. Technically, I'm pretty sure there was no boom, just the Dead-Grey Mists expanding out to their current location and stopping, transforming Cyre into Mournland as they went.

'Course, I've never seen Akira, so it could have been like that. Certainly not an explosion large enough to encompass the country; probably just the city or secret Cannith facility or whatever where it started.

[PlatinumJester]

Sounds like a nice day for a picnic. So anyone touched by the mist died or were they killed by monsters in the mist?

[Nerd-o-rama]

I actually don't recall exactly...I think most humanoids, at least, just keeled over and are sitting there as preserved corpses and/or undead. Warforged may have been immune - anyway, they don't seem to mind living there now, and I imagine most of the fauna were warped into monsters.

This could be entirely wrong, though. Five Nations and The Forge of War are probably the places to look it up.

[MandibleBones]

Technically, I'm pretty sure there was no boom, just the Dead-Grey Mists expanding out to their current location and stopping, transforming Cyre into Mournland as they went.

I would argue that there WAS some sort of an explosion, since a large area of Cyre turned into a glass factory on the DoM.

[PlatinumJester]

Yeah I think it was more of a hugesurge of arcane energy rather than an explosion.

[bosssmiley]

A Wizard did it.

...or an Artificer. :smallwink:

...or a Dhalkyr.
...or a Lord of Dust.
...or Eredis d'Vol.
...or a Dragon.
...or Merrix D'cannith.
...or the Lord of Blades.
...or the Gnomenati of Zilargo.


But seriously, there is no official explanation. It's up to the individual DM to determine. Or not.

What it looked like was a massive wave of opaque grey mist expanding out from some central point - some observers say Making, some say the capital (whose name escapes me),

Metrol, IIRC. Although I have no idea why... :smallconfused:


some say another spot in the countryside - to the then-current borders of Cyre. The area within there became the Mournland almost instantly: hundreds of thousands died, plants and animals withered or became twisted monsters, the dead began rising from their mass graves...ugly stuff.

+1 everything Nerd-o-Rama said.

There's a really spooky thing in about the Day of Mourning in "5 Nations". It goes on about how the Mournland mists erupted across Cyre and stopped exactly at the borders of the country. I mean ~exactly~ at the borders. If you were standing on a pier in the river, or on a harbour seawall, the mist didn't wash over you. You were safe. Until you tried to walk into the mists that is. Anyone who did that on the Day of Mourning was never seen again.

Makes me think of Robert Graves' stories about gas attacks during WW1. He says you'd just see this oily mist floating gently and silently over the trenches...and then the screaming started. :smalleek:

[Nerd-o-rama]

The "stopped exactly at the current borders" thing also leads to interesting conversations between Cyrans who lived in lands taken over by the seditionist Valenar elves earlier in the war.

Cyrans: "Pointy-eared bastards betrayed our country and took our land."
Valenar: "Which we let you keep living on, and was no longer part of Cyre on the Day of Mourning."
Cyrans: "..."
Valenar: "You're welcome, honorless dogs. Now go fetch the raw meat for my horse."

[CockroachTeaParty]

Ah, the Mournland... a wonderful excuse to introduce taint mechanics, or any freaky new undead /aberration from a new monster manual.

I always liked the idea of an 'Akira' -esque explosion at the epicenter of it all, probably where the glass plateau or the great scar formed. I find it odd, though, that everyone died in the mist on the Day of Mourning, but people can now enter the mist and explore the Mournland without keeling over (barring monsters, disease, etc.). What happened?

[CASTLEMIKE]

Sounds like one of those Eldritch Machine doomsday artifacts devices page 273 ECS the BBEGs are always making sorta worked trying to destroy Cyre but was destroyed in the process by arcane explosion in a multiple couterminous zone which created a permanent couterminous zone partially linking Cyre with Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead (Entrapping and Timeless Trait (All those bodies that never rot)) and Mabar, the Endless Night (Utter blackness, gloom, minor negative dominant with enhanced magic spells that use negative energy are maximized and spells that positive energy are impeded (Limits the healing and curing in the Mournlands) the two planes that both exhibit characteristics of the Mournlands.

[Saucy_Ninja]

Listen to you people! This whole issue could be avoided if you just played Forgotten Realms! :smallwink:

[Nerd-o-rama]

"I wish the respectfully disagree with that sentiment."
-Vestige of Karsus

[CASTLEMIKE]

Listen to you people! This whole issue could be avoided if you just played Forgotten Realms! :smallwink:

I like Toril and the FRCS but really miss Zakhara. That big continent beneath Faerun with millions of civilized and enlightened people just a few thousand miles away. In ECS there would be regular trade and travel with another civilized nation.

In Faerun it is easier to go on a planar adventure (Infinite Stairway, The World Serpent Inn, Gate or Portal) than to adventure in Maztica or Shou Long or Zakhara places in the same world.

Curious how Wizard's will introduce the Points of Light for Faerun with 4E next year. It will probably need a great war and plague involving the empire of Shade, the Alhoon, Phaerimm and artifacts destroying most of civilization this time instead of the Time of Troubles along with Mystra incorporating the Shadow Weave defeating Shar with the aid of Selune and resetting the magic rules like she did after Karsus.

Halaster and Khelbhan are dead. Curious how many of the metropolis will survive like Waterdeep, Suzail and Amn? Sure hope psionics survives this time. I was playing a psion at the Time of Troubles but psionics didn't work after the Time of Troubles not even for existing players. Sounds like Wizard's is doing a magic reset that will include magic itmes and classes that will include sorcerers and wizards.

[Leshan]

Listen to you people! This whole issue could be avoided if you just played Forgotten Realms! :smallwink:

But that's the whole point! It's so much fun to come up with different theories to answer the mysteries that pop up in Eberron. There's quite a bit that's left to the imagination; to answer in a way that fits your group best.

Now I've only casually looked at the Forgotten Realms, but it seems that unless you break from cannon that most of the major events that have happened are througly explained and catalogued. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's nice to have a few major plot points that you can easily write to fit your campaign.

Personally, I think the Day of Mourning had something to do with Canith performing experiments with a Dhalkyr. It's said the creation forge the Lord of Blades controls has suffered damage and produces uncontolled mutations in the produced warforge. Maybe they added a component they shouldn't have; an extra planar material :smallamused:.

Edit: And to address CASTLEMIKE's talking about the Forgotten Realms and the "Points of Light", I was under the impression they had nothing to do with each other. Points of Light will be the default that's referred to in the core books, but not an actual setting. While I believe they've said there will be a major event as it shifts to 4th edition, I don't think it will be shifting it to the Points of Light setting. But I could be wrong.