Eberron lore incongruencies!

[Powerdork]

So Eberron was designed for 3e, and it was designed to use all the core elements of the Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master's Guide.

It introduced dragonmarks to encourage players to be just simple races from the PHB.
It had a selection of 13 planes (one of which was displaced) that served interesting worldbuilding purposes while sticking to a format like those in the DMG.
It supposed that in Eberron, an elf was an elf, and tried to explore what that meant, and supposed that elves weren't a monoculture or assimilated into The Empire like so many fantasy game settings have it.

The concessions that were forced because of the creative decisions in the core of 4e are something else. Siberys is the Astral Sea and not that band of sparkling lights you see in the sky? Eladrins share the Mark of Shadow with elves? Baator???

Dolurrh is the plane, religious scholars argue, that you go to when you die so you can be converted to something worthy of joining the Sovereigns. Who would dare think that of the Shadowfell?

The map scale change is also something else.

When you try to reconcile the canon to find what's true about your Eberron, what do you find yourself discarding, revising, or adopting wholeheartedly from the 4e version?

Personally, I'm certain that if there are in fact eladrins (an assumption of 4e design that I can't bother to hack out), then Erandis Vol is one, and from a narrative standpoint, the Mark of Death and the associated dragon enmity is for eladrins, with the Mark of Shadow and the house feud belonging to the elves.

[Tvtyrant]

I don't know about he fluff, but mechanically I think 4E goes together with Eberron much better than the other editions. Pulpy steam punk and 4E are like peanut butter and chocolate.

[Powerdork]

What about Eberron is steam?

[Tvtyrant]

What about Eberron is steam?

Airships, lightning rails, sailess ships, primitive robots/mechs, factories. A lot of it is steampunk with a paint job. Eberron came out at the height of the steampunk craze, and it shows its origins (although less so then say Dragonmech.)

Kind of like how Darksun and Ravenloft were heavily late 80s/early 90s settings, one being the post apocalypse wasteland setting and the other being gothic horror.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Technical term is "dungeonpunk" IIRC. Steampunk tone and to an extent aesthetics, but powered by magic.

[Beoric]

The concessions that were forced because of the creative decisions in the core of 4e are something else. Siberys is the Astral Sea and not that band of sparkling lights you see in the sky?

Nope. There is still a Ring of Syberis. Some of the core planes are said to float in the Sea of Syberis, but that is just an alternate model of the cosmos. The 3e conception of the cosmos does not describe the literal mechanics of the cosmos, it is a model which scholars on Eberron use to try to explain how it works and make predictions. The Sea of Syberis and Elemental Chaos of Khyber is just a different model which explains different things about the cosmos. It is sort of like how sometimes light behaves as a wave and sometimes as a particle. I am sure there are scholars at Korranburg trying to come up with a grand unified theory of the planes, but it hasn’t happened yet.



Eladrins share the Mark of Shadow with elves?

Nope. Dragonmarks are attached to bloodlines, and so far in canon the elf bloodlines that have dragonmarks are different from eladrin bloodlines. Plus eladrin are from Thelanis, not Eberron, and wouldn’t be developing dragonmarks anyway.


Baator???

Is a demiplane, not one of the core planes that has a large influence on Eberron. Not the first demilplane to show up in the setting, Khyber is full of them.



Dolurrh is the plane, religious scholars argue, that you go to when you die so you can be converted to something worthy of joining the Sovereigns. Who would dare think that of the Shadowfell?

Some elements of the Shadowfell are in Dolurrh, and some are in Mabar. Also, only some scholars think you ascend to join the Sovereigns. Others think your soul gradually fades away into nothingness. Still others think you can prevent the soul from fading if you keep the memory of the person alive (sort of, I'm simplifying).


The map scale change is also something else.

The 4e map scale is closer to Keith Baker’s original intention, which was that Khorvaire be more like Europe in scale. Countries in the 3e maps are unrealistically large when you consider that most traffic is still be foot or horse.


Personally, I'm certain that if there are in fact eladrins (an assumption of 4e design that I can't bother to hack out), then Erandis Vol is one, and from a narrative standpoint, the Mark of Death and the associated dragon enmity is for eladrins, with the Mark of Shadow and the house feud belonging to the elves.
If you want, but eladrin were established to be from Thelanis in 3e, and continue to be from Thelanis in 4e and 5e. 4e introduced the concept of eladrin stranded on Eberron, but they have only been there for two years, and Erandis Vol died 2600 years before the founding of the Kingdom of Galifar.