Eberron coming soon? (KEEP IT CIVIL, DAGNABBIT!)

[Boci]

These are mutually exclusive, but still all true. The nature of reality in the Great Wheel is that the belief and narrative importance of these stories makes it real. That you can’t understand that, that it doesn’t make sense to you, that your logic says they can’t all be true at the same time... limitations of your mortal mind when trying to understand the true mutable nature of existence and time

I'll take "Signs the designers know they've written themselves into a corner" for 500.

[War_lord]

I'll take "Signs the designers know they've written themselves into a corner" for 500.

Actually, it comes from OG planescape, which was the first serious attempt (Spelljammer originally being a joke setting) to tie everything together. When bashing a bunch of mutually exclusive creation myths together you do have to use "from a certain point of view" a lot. My personally favorite example being that a Sumerian god went from being the king of devils to being just a god who hangs out in a palace in the 9 Hells claiming to be the king who Asmodeus lets stay there for some reason. D&D has been trying to pull the splinter of creating a united setting for that long.

[Nifft]

Actually, it comes from OG planescape, which was the first serious attempt (Spelljammer originally being a joke setting) to tie everything together. When bashing a bunch of mutually exclusive creation myths together you do have to use "from a certain point of view" a lot. My personally favorite example being that a Sumerian god went from being the king of devils to being just a god who hangs out in a palace in the 9 Hells claiming to be the king who Asmodeus lets stay there for some reason.

Asmodeus doesn't want to learn the Sumerian filing system.

Job protection via bureaucratic obfuscation: invented in Hell, perfected on Earth.

[Naanomi]

I'll take "Signs the designers know they've written themselves into a corner" for 500.

‘Belief shapes reality’ is one of the cornerstones of Planescape; and existed conceptually well before most of those stories about Corellon were written. The idea is also the model for oWoD stuff (especially ‘Mage’); and are parts of some real world philosophies as well. Popular in later Platonic models, and often discussed as a ‘thought experiment’ in constructivist thinking in the 80s/90s (which is likely how it find it’s way into Planescape)

No, when you write yourself into a corner you throw the Abyss into the Inner Planes and say that reality broke, everything is different without need of explanation, so any contradictions, (including the stark motivation changes in the guy who threw the Abyss to begin with) are because of that cosmic retcon.

[JoeJ]

I mean it's you doing the handwaving of the fact that the revelations that one Spelljammer ship could bring to the people of Eberron would totally destroy their worldview. But honestly I don't think it's that problematic since, as Eberron doesn't have a metaplot, its citizens won't ever encounter a spelljammer, and don't have to deal with the cultural effects of finding out everything they thought they knew about the world is wrong, and you won't have to worry about the mass conversion of the elves and the manifestation of the Selderine in the Eberron sphere.

I'm still thinking that Eberron's sphere is out of the way and hard to find in the flow. In an archive on the Rock of Bral there's probably a record from 300 years ago about an explorer who found it and reported that the ring is dangerous and hard to navigate, the natives were mostly hostile and the planet had little worth exporting. They left with a load of dragonshards, but discovered that they didn't function outside Eberron space. Selling the shards as curiosities didn't pay enough to justify a return trip.

Since then, maybe half a dozen other ships have visited, with similar results. There are only a handful of people on Eberron who have even heard that Spelljamming is possible, and not all of them believe it. The dragons probably know, but something in the Prophecy has warned them not to get involved with it.

This way has the advantage of allowing PCs to visit Eberron, while still keeping the setting intact.

[Naanomi]

Looks good to me. Drop a crashed Spelljammer in the ocean somewhere as a potential plothook (I like the idea of Sahuagin building a palace out of a dwarven Citadel ship) and call it a day, leave the planar mechanics details and Cosmology questions to the greybeards in Sigil (and Planescape) and just leave it as a spot on a distant map for Spelljammer

[Nifft]

Looks good to me. Drop a crashed Spelljammer in the ocean somewhere as a potential plothook (I like the idea of Sahuagin building a palace out of a dwarven Citadel ship) and call it a day, leave the planar mechanics details and Cosmology questions to the greybeards in Sigil (and Planescape) and just leave it as a spot on a distant map for Spelljammer

Maybe some races even appeared on Eberron thanks to such a crash.

For example, Gnomes being ancient alien immigrants would make the Dragonmark lore slightly more consistent.

[JoeJ]

Maybe some races even appeared on Eberron thanks to such a crash.

For example, Gnomes being ancient alien immigrants would make the Dragonmark lore slightly more consistent.

Maybe the giant space hamsters were all killed in the crash, leaving the poor gnomes unable to repair their ship and return to space. So somewhere there's a fully functional but hamsterless gnomish helm (with an Arcane major or minor helm hidden somewhere within the mechanism as usual) just waiting to be discovered.

[Nifft]

Maybe the giant space hamsters were all killed in the crash, leaving the poor gnomes unable to repair their ship and return to space. So somewhere there's a fully functional but hamsterless gnomish helm (with an Arcane major or minor helm hidden somewhere within the mechanism as usual) just waiting to be discovered.

I don't know enough Spelljammer to understand what that means, but I love the idea of a giant hamster wheel in a secret temple under Zilargo.

[Tetrasodium]

Looks good to me. Drop a crashed Spelljammer in the ocean somewhere as a potential plothook (I like the idea of Sahuagin building a palace out of a dwarven Citadel ship) and call it a day, leave the planar mechanics details and Cosmology questions to the greybeards in Sigil (and Planescape) and just leave it as a spot on a distant map for Spelljammer

Suahogain in eberron have a vast undersea empire with little interest in the surface tht that goes way back. There are much better places to crash one

Eberron has an antarctica likepolar cap with basically nobody there got obvious reasons
The entire continent of xen'driik was left with a fairly nasty curse that causes any civilization there they reaches a certain level of advancement to wipe itself out. The landscape itself shifts so you could be travelogs river thst goes from. A hot sticky day to your boat frozen in ice to lava as one of the examples.

The mournland is basically an irradiated wasteland of arcane forces gone out of control is very nasty.

Khyber has dimensional pockets & is located underground

Shavarath is a plane of battle, just showing up there would be bad faster than most other places on eberron itself

Eberron itself has 12 moons +1 destroyed/lost one in orbit along with a ring of siberyis dragonshards.

[JoeJ]

I don't know enough Spelljammer to understand what that means, but I love the idea of a giant hamster wheel in a secret temple under Zilargo.

Gnomes have "invented" their own spelljamming helms, most of which include giant space hamsters running on wheels to provide power. They claim that their helms are an independent invention, but anytime a functioning gnomish helm is examined closely there always turns out to be an actual Arcane helm somewhere buried within the mechanism.

[Jama7301]

Gnomes have "invented" their own spelljamming helms, most of which include giant space hamsters running on wheels to provide power. They claim that their helms are an independent invention, but anytime a functioning gnomish helm is examined closely there always turns out to be an actual Arcane helm somewhere buried within the mechanism.

This makes them sound like used car salesmen, and I enjoy that mental image.

"Our inventions are top of the line. Can't go wrong with good ol' Gnomish engineering" *bangs on the side of the device twice, causing the plating to fall off and revealing the Arcane Helm beneath*

[Naanomi]

Suahogain in eberron have a vast undersea empire with little interest in the surface tht that goes way back. There are much better places to crash one in

I like the quasi-Roman aesthetic of Eberron Sahuagin; and have a fondness for underwater 3-D dungeons... so I’d definetly drop it in the Thunder Sea somewhere. Fully admitted personal biases at play for there

[Tetrasodium]

As a note: the Outer Planes predate the existence of the Gods; none saw the ‘birth of Hell’ (though did see the current takeover of Hell by the Baatezu from their unnamed precursors)

And divination magic *does* fail when looking too far back; specifically to the period of the War of Law and Chaos (because of the effect the War had on the Temporal Prime); though we do have a few reliable witnesses that still exist that predate that time period, notably the Aboleth but a handful even older than that.

As an aside, even if we don’t want to connect Eberron to other campaign settings (which is a fine option); Spelljammers would presumably exist in some form right? I mean... “If it exists in D&D, then it has a place in Eberron.” is right there in the Eberron design schema


Although note Athas exists connected to other campaign settings, has no Gods, and has never been colonized from space (though the Gith tried at least once)

People love to point at that bolded bit and stop reading, I can't exactly blame them given the fact that WotC did the same thing during 4e. There are nine more points after that one... the truly sad part is that it ignores the rest of that point

• 1. If it exists in the D&D®world, then it has a place in Eberron_ Eberron is all about using the core elements of the D&D world in new ways and interesting combinations, with some unique elements thrown in. It's still a D&D setting, so anything that appears in another D&D book-from the classes and races in the Player's Handbook to the monsters that will appear in Monster Manual5 should fit right in to your EBERRON campaign.

so no, if it exists in d&d it can not be copy/pasted carelessly over top of everything in eberron exactly as it exists in $other setting with all of its associated lore from that setting... because it's a dofferent setting. The next nine points talk about how to convert those things that exist in d&d so they fit into eberroninstead of just making a wide magic faerun or whatever. Here they are:

Spoiler

Show

• 2. Tone and attitude. Eberron takes all the cinematic action and swashbuckling adventure of traditional D&D games and adds in a strong dose of mystery and scheming. In this campaign, stories don’t always end well, and there isn’t always a right answer to every problem. The Last War turned old allies into bitter enemies and destroyed an entire nation, leaving terrible scars behind. Crime and corruption lurk in the largest cities. Your character’s allies might become his or her enemies in the blink of an eye, and well-known agents of evil might provide assistance when it’s least expected. Hidden dragons shape the course of history. Sinister fiends influence the dreams of the unwary. An army of horrors lingers just beyond the edge of reality, struggling to break through. Nothing is exactly what it seems.
  
• 3. A world of magic. The setting supposes a world that developed not through the advancement of science, but by the mastery of magic. Magic allows for conveniences and services undreamed of in traditional medieval fantasy. Bound elemental creatures power elemental airships, rail transport, and high-speed ocean vessels. A working class of minor mages uses ritual magic to provide energy and other necessities in towns and cities. Advances in magic item creation have led to everything from self-propelled farming implements to sentient, free-willed constructs.
  
• 4. A world of adventure. From the steaming jungles of Aerenal to the colossal ruins of Xen’drik, from the towering keeps of Sharn to the blasted hills and valleys of the Demon Wastes, Eberron is a world of action and adventure. Adventures can draw your character and your allies from one exotic location to another across nations, continents, and the entire world. The quest for the Mirror of the Seventh Moon might take you from a hidden desert shrine to a ruined castle in the Shadow Marches and finally to a dungeon below the Library of Korranberg. Through the use of magical transportation, your heroes can reach a wider range of environments during an adventure, and thus deal with a diverse assortment of monsters and challenges.
  
• 5. The Last War has ended—sort of. The Last War, which plunged the continent of Khorvaire into civil war more than a century ago, ended with the signing of the Treaty of Thronehold and the establishment of twelve recognized nations occupying what was once the kingdom of Galifar. At least overtly, the peace has held for just over a year as the campaign begins. The conflicts, the anger, and the bitter pain of the long war remain, however, and the new nations seek every advantage as they prepare for the next war that they believe will inevitably eventually break out on the continent.
  
• 6. The Draconic Prophecy. The dragons, long-lived and patient in all things, seek meaning in the patterns found in the world and the heavens. These patterns play out in the Prophecy, a record of things to come that has been emerging since the creation of the world. The Draconic Prophecy is as complex and unfathomable as the dragons themselves. It hints at events of doom and dread as often as it helps push the world toward exalted events. It seems to point toward transformation rather than destruction, but to most people, the Prophecy remains as alien as the dragons themselves.
  
• 7. The Five Nations. The human-dominated civilizations on the continent of Khorvaire trace a lineage to the ancient kingdom of Galifar, which was made up of five distinct regions, or nations. These were Aundair, Breland, Cyre, Karrnath, and Thrane. Four of these nations survive to the present day as independent countries; Cyre was destroyed before the start of the campaign. The devastated territory it once occupied is now known as the Mournland. A common oath or exclamation among the people of Khorvaire is “By the Five Nations,” or some version thereof. The Five Nations refers to the ancient kingdom of Galifar and evokes a legendary time of peace and prosperity.
  
• 8. A world of intrigue. The war is over, and the nations of Khorvaire now try to build a new age of peace and prosperity. Ancient threats linger, however, and the world desperately needs heroes to take up the cause. Nations compete on many levels—economic might, political influence, territory, magical power—each looking to maintain or improve its current status by any means short of all-out war. Espionage and sabotage services create big business in certain circles. The dragonmarked houses, temples both pure and corrupt, crime lords, monster gangs, psionic spies, arcane universities, royal orders of knights and wizards, secret societies, sinister masterminds, dragons, and a multitude of organizations and factions jockey for position in the afterglow of the Last War. Eberron teems with conflict and intrigue.
  
• 9. Dragonmark dynasties. The great dragonmarked families are the barons of industry and commerce throughout Khorvaire and beyond. Their influence transcends political boundaries, and they remained mostly neutral during the Last War. The heads of each house, not technically citizens of any nation, live in splendor within their enclaves and emporiums located throughout Khorvaire. These dynastic houses of commerce derive their power from the dragonmarks—unique, hereditary arcane sigils—that manifest on certain individuals within the family, granting them limited but very useful magical abilities associated with the trade guilds the family controls. Dragonmarks are said to be the Prophecy written on mortal flesh—a supposition that incenses the dragons.
  
• 10. Dragonshards. Ancient legends and creation myths describe Eberron as a world in three parts: the ring above, the subterranean realm below, and the land between. Each of these world sections is tied to a great dragon of legend—Siberys, Khyber, and Eberron, respectively. Each section of the world produces dragonshards, stones and crystals imbued with arcane power. With the aid of dragonshards, dragonmarks become more powerful, elementals are controlled and harnessed, and magic items of all sorts are crafted and shaped. These shards, however, are rare and difficult to come by, making them expensive and often the goals of great quests and adventures.

[Tetrasodium]

I'm still thinking that Eberron's sphere is out of the way and hard to find in the flow. In an archive on the Rock of Bral there's probably a record from 300 years ago about an explorer who found it and reported that the ring is dangerous and hard to navigate, the natives were mostly hostile and the planet had little worth exporting. They left with a load of dragonshards, but discovered that they didn't function outside Eberron space. Selling the shards as curiosities didn't pay enough to justify a return trip.

Since then, maybe half a dozen other ships have visited, with similar results. There are only a handful of people on Eberron who have even heard that Spelljamming is possible, and not all of them believe it. The dragons probably know, but something in the Prophecy has warned them not to get involved with it.

This way has the advantage of allowing PCs to visit Eberron, while still keeping the setting intact.

eliminster sez that bolded bit is wrong. We know that because WotC couldn't help themselves opening a bleeping borehole from faerun into a game set in eberron so they could introduce faerun style drow instead of delving into the almost entirely ignored eberron flavor of drow. Rather than any of the eberron groups getting involved in such a portal, they treated the whole thing like faerun yet again until openly going there in an eberron game that had long been growing into what might as well been called waterdeep online.

Don't take my word for it though, you can listen to eliminster himself say it to someone glowing with dragonshard powered items while standing in faerun here either spelljammer tech is not nearly as complicated & the arcane not nearly as advanced as people are making them out to be... or dragonshards work fine in other spheres. ;)

The suggestion is simple yes, but it dives headfirst into "eberron's lore & fluff shall be completely ignored in order to fit $otherSetting's into eberron as it is in $otherSetting".

A secretive handful of people?... sure... that's not the sort of safely tooling around khorvaire willy-nilly in a spelljammer ship problematic to eberron.

Someone mentioned spelljammer ships being grown & all. Horrid beasts, magebred animals, bleeping warforged... eberron has been toying with genetic engineering for a long time

[Tetrasodium]

I like the quasi-Roman aesthetic of Eberron Sahuagin; and have a fondness for underwater 3-D dungeons... so I’d definetly drop it in the Thunder Sea somewhere. Fully admitted personal biases at play for there

I don't entirely disagree that there would be benefits to it, but WotC does not have a good track record of importing things from other settings. Dropping it in those places I mentioned would probably be relatively harmless to the setting. Dropping it on them could resalt in us finding out that WotC is willing to finally publish something about the sahuagin in eberron only to result in using it to add depth to something from another setting as it exists in that other setting instead.

[JoeJ]

eliminster sez that bolded bit is wrong.

Elminster says a lot of stuff. Most of it is best ignored.

[Naanomi]

People love to point at that bolded bit and stop reading, I can't exactly blame them given the fact that WotC did the same thing during 4e. There are nine more points after that one... the truly sad part is that it ignores the rest of that point

• 1. If it exists in the D&D®world, then it has a place in Eberron_ Eberron is all about using the core elements of the D&D world in new ways and interesting combinations, with some unique elements thrown in. It's still a D&D setting, so anything that appears in another D&D book-from the classes and races in the Player's Handbook to the monsters that will appear in Monster Manual5 should fit right in to your EBERRON campaign.

so no, if it exists in d&d it can not be copy/pasted carelessly over top of everything in eberron exactly as it exists in $other setting with all of its associated lore from that setting... because it's a dofferent setting. The next nine points talk about how to convert those things that exist in d&d so they fit into eberroninstead of just making a wide magic faerun or whatever. Here they are:

Spoiler

Show

• 2. Tone and attitude. Eberron takes all the cinematic action and swashbuckling adventure of traditional D&D games and adds in a strong dose of mystery and scheming. In this campaign, stories don’t always end well, and there isn’t always a right answer to every problem. The Last War turned old allies into bitter enemies and destroyed an entire nation, leaving terrible scars behind. Crime and corruption lurk in the largest cities. Your character’s allies might become his or her enemies in the blink of an eye, and well-known agents of evil might provide assistance when it’s least expected. Hidden dragons shape the course of history. Sinister fiends influence the dreams of the unwary. An army of horrors lingers just beyond the edge of reality, struggling to break through. Nothing is exactly what it seems.
  
• 3. A world of magic. The setting supposes a world that developed not through the advancement of science, but by the mastery of magic. Magic allows for conveniences and services undreamed of in traditional medieval fantasy. Bound elemental creatures power elemental airships, rail transport, and high-speed ocean vessels. A working class of minor mages uses ritual magic to provide energy and other necessities in towns and cities. Advances in magic item creation have led to everything from self-propelled farming implements to sentient, free-willed constructs.
  
• 4. A world of adventure. From the steaming jungles of Aerenal to the colossal ruins of Xen’drik, from the towering keeps of Sharn to the blasted hills and valleys of the Demon Wastes, Eberron is a world of action and adventure. Adventures can draw your character and your allies from one exotic location to another across nations, continents, and the entire world. The quest for the Mirror of the Seventh Moon might take you from a hidden desert shrine to a ruined castle in the Shadow Marches and finally to a dungeon below the Library of Korranberg. Through the use of magical transportation, your heroes can reach a wider range of environments during an adventure, and thus deal with a diverse assortment of monsters and challenges.
  
• 5. The Last War has ended—sort of. The Last War, which plunged the continent of Khorvaire into civil war more than a century ago, ended with the signing of the Treaty of Thronehold and the establishment of twelve recognized nations occupying what was once the kingdom of Galifar. At least overtly, the peace has held for just over a year as the campaign begins. The conflicts, the anger, and the bitter pain of the long war remain, however, and the new nations seek every advantage as they prepare for the next war that they believe will inevitably eventually break out on the continent.
  
• 6. The Draconic Prophecy. The dragons, long-lived and patient in all things, seek meaning in the patterns found in the world and the heavens. These patterns play out in the Prophecy, a record of things to come that has been emerging since the creation of the world. The Draconic Prophecy is as complex and unfathomable as the dragons themselves. It hints at events of doom and dread as often as it helps push the world toward exalted events. It seems to point toward transformation rather than destruction, but to most people, the Prophecy remains as alien as the dragons themselves.
  
• 7. The Five Nations. The human-dominated civilizations on the continent of Khorvaire trace a lineage to the ancient kingdom of Galifar, which was made up of five distinct regions, or nations. These were Aundair, Breland, Cyre, Karrnath, and Thrane. Four of these nations survive to the present day as independent countries; Cyre was destroyed before the start of the campaign. The devastated territory it once occupied is now known as the Mournland. A common oath or exclamation among the people of Khorvaire is “By the Five Nations,” or some version thereof. The Five Nations refers to the ancient kingdom of Galifar and evokes a legendary time of peace and prosperity.
  
• 8. A world of intrigue. The war is over, and the nations of Khorvaire now try to build a new age of peace and prosperity. Ancient threats linger, however, and the world desperately needs heroes to take up the cause. Nations compete on many levels—economic might, political influence, territory, magical power—each looking to maintain or improve its current status by any means short of all-out war. Espionage and sabotage services create big business in certain circles. The dragonmarked houses, temples both pure and corrupt, crime lords, monster gangs, psionic spies, arcane universities, royal orders of knights and wizards, secret societies, sinister masterminds, dragons, and a multitude of organizations and factions jockey for position in the afterglow of the Last War. Eberron teems with conflict and intrigue.
  
• 9. Dragonmark dynasties. The great dragonmarked families are the barons of industry and commerce throughout Khorvaire and beyond. Their influence transcends political boundaries, and they remained mostly neutral during the Last War. The heads of each house, not technically citizens of any nation, live in splendor within their enclaves and emporiums located throughout Khorvaire. These dynastic houses of commerce derive their power from the dragonmarks—unique, hereditary arcane sigils—that manifest on certain individuals within the family, granting them limited but very useful magical abilities associated with the trade guilds the family controls. Dragonmarks are said to be the Prophecy written on mortal flesh—a supposition that incenses the dragons.
  
• 10. Dragonshards. Ancient legends and creation myths describe Eberron as a world in three parts: the ring above, the subterranean realm below, and the land between. Each of these world sections is tied to a great dragon of legend—Siberys, Khyber, and Eberron, respectively. Each section of the world produces dragonshards, stones and crystals imbued with arcane power. With the aid of dragonshards, dragonmarks become more powerful, elementals are controlled and harnessed, and magic items of all sorts are crafted and shaped. These shards, however, are rare and difficult to come by, making them expensive and often the goals of great quests and adventures.

Which I didn’t say... I said that even if you don’t want to connect Eberron to other settings, that finding *somewhere* to fit Spelljammer ships into the setting is a good thing... because they are part of DnD and if they are part of DnD they are part of Eberron

[Knaight]

Which I didn’t say... I said that even if you don’t want to connect Eberron to other settings, that finding *somewhere* to fit Spelljammer ships into the setting is a good thing... because they are part of DnD and if they are part of DnD they are part of Eberron

This is an overly literal reading - we're not looking at legal text here, we're looking at something between advertising copy and a very minimalist very abstract design document. "Part of D&D" probably shouldn't be interpreted as "literally anything that has made even one appearance in one setting", but instead about thoroughly covering the central D&D elements, and fitting said central elements in anywhere. That's core material more than anything, and even then there are edge cases (does every single example item on various lists with no attached mechanics really need to make it over?).

Plus the actual quality and coherence of a setting really needs to take priority over high level design decisions. Sometimes when you're in the weeds you need to break established best principles made in a vacuum.

[Arkhios]

Which I didn’t say... I said that even if you don’t want to connect Eberron to other settings, that finding *somewhere* to fit Spelljammer ships into the setting is a good thing... because they are part of DnD and if they are part of DnD they are part of Eberron

I'm going to have to disagree here. In a bigger picture, Spelljammer is just one more separate D&D rule set. There's absolutely no reason to assume that everything which is essential to Spelljammer has to be essential in every other setting. And this goes both ways. If there's something essential in Eberron (the way how their cosmos and creatures came to be) or Faerun (Overdeity Ao > the rest of the setting), let them have what's theirs and don't try to shoehorn them into other settings by saying that "because it's D&D, it has to be D&D in every setting".

They all have existed on their own just fine. They all can still exist on their own just fine.

There's no need for WotC to suddenly force every possible setting to conform to some universal thruths, just because one setting or ruleset says "this is possible". It's totally up to the DM's own prerogative to decide whether they want to include rules from other settings into their own settings, or other existing settings. WotC don't have to tell us to do that. In fact, they shouldn't do that.

[Tetrasodium]

Which I didn’t say... I said that even if you don’t want to connect Eberron to other settings, that finding *somewhere* to fit Spelljammer ships into the setting is a good thing... because they are part of DnD and if they are part of DnD they are part of Eberron

Uhh... we are having the discussion because WotC (not some individual gm) seems to be doing that & I pointed out some problems with open widespread spelljammer ships tooling around the main continent openly accepted in relative safety. WotC has twice tried to merge other settings with eberron* & neither of those were handled with any concern for the lore history & fluff of the eberron setting whatsoever since copying over the lore & fluff of the original setting was more important than even taking the quarter second & ounce of understanding for the setting's lore that would be needed to ask "is this even necessary?" or "should this be done differently here"


As to the bolded bit, look back over this thread. I pointed out why having spelljammer ships tooling around khorvaire would be bad & why, people jumped in with lore from other spheres to explain why eberron's own lore/fluff/baselines would not apply even within eberron's own sphere itself. More than one person has suggested that kind of lore from other spheres should absolutely apply to eberron within eberron's sphere and that if eberron were to visit other spheres that everything unique to eberron as a setting would no longer apply in some kind of bizarre one sided viral infection of eberron.

You don't want spelljammer ships in eberron, you want spelljammer complete with all of its lore bolted onto eberron like some kind of 1980s movie post apocalyptic car & boom box component "armor" & have resisted every reason why the "as in spelljammer" version would be problematic in eberron's lore. Spelljammer already has multiple spelljammer capable races/spheres & more than one of them capable of building ships that can do that, but the idea of eberron doing that on their own after having it forced into the sphere itself despite explanations for why it would be a bad thing was too much for you to accept because nobody has done it before.

*A: 4e's wtf inspiring replacement & addition of planes, changing the role/nature of fiends in ways that significantly clash with the setting in many ways, etc just to explain tieflings in a setting with bleeping native fiends & so much fiendish influences through its history that they are just called demons.... and B: ddo opening a freaking portal from faerun... so they couldindroduce lolth worshipping drow & eleminster instead of eberron's drow or any eberron group who would be front & center in hiring mercenaries/taking charge over that sort of thing) in a game set in eberron.

[Tetrasodium]

I'm going to have to disagree here. In a bigger picture, Spelljammer is just one more separate D&D rule set. There's absolutely no reason to assume that everything which is essential to Spelljammer has to be essential in every other setting. And this goes both ways. If there's something essential in Eberron (the way how their cosmos and creatures came to be) or Faerun (Overdeity Ao > the rest of the setting), let them have what's theirs and don't try to shoehorn them into other settings by saying that "because it's D&D, it has to be D&D in every setting".

They all have existed on their own just fine. They all can still exist on their own just fine.

There's no need for WotC to suddenly force every possible setting to conform to some universal thruths, just because one setting or ruleset says "this is possible". It's totally up to the DM's own prerogative to decide whether they want to include rules from other settings into their own settings, or other existing settings. WotC don't have to tell us to do that. In fact, they shouldn't do that.

I agree completely & dpn't have much interest in seeing wotc publish the next version of faerun(or whatever) as the newly colonized world under the twelve/five nations, I point out these kind of things to show the absurdity of people regularly insisting that eberron's lore/fluffhistory/etc be ignored in order to fit $otherSetting's lore/fluff/history influenced stuff grafted into eberron as they exist in $otherSetting.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

You don't want spelljammer ships in eberron, you want spelljammer complete with all of its lore bolted onto eberron

You can't fit a bigger box into a smaller one, and Spelljammer and Planescape are the biggest boxes D and D has. If there's to be any interaction between Spelljammer and world-based setting x, setting x is going to be subsumed somewhat. That's just the nature of the beast, I'm afraid.

[Naanomi]

It’s fine if you think that Spelljammer ship rules will have absolutely no place and no utility for Eberron (though I think they will, even it is just as defining rules for ship models and ship-to-ship 3D combat for various skyships)... but even at the base understanding of ‘everything has a place in Eberron’ means new Spelljammer material means (in some, Eberronized form) things like Arcane, Giff, Clockwork Horrors, Gammeroids, Witchlight Marauders... perhaps mostly as inhabitants of the other 13 Planes instead of Eberron itself

[Sigreid]

I would interpret the bit about everything in D&D having a place in Eberon as a permission slip to use anything you want in your Eberon campaign, for those DMs that think they need one.

That permission slip goes both ways though. A DM is not obligated to use even stock setting material in their campaign.

[PhoenixPhyre]

A DM is not obligated to use even stock setting material in their campaign.

This is important--I heavily modify everything (especially racial and cosmological lore) for my setting.

Although spelljammer would work (sort of, with some translations). I've taken the "yes, that's what people in <X> setting think" approach--no setting material is authoritative, even the Gods themselves aren't omniscient (or honest) narrators. It may all be true, it may be true somewhere, or it may all be dreams. Effectively putting an additional meta setting on top of the meta setting, embedding the "conventional D&D multiverse" into a higher-meta manifold where it forms a piece (a large piece, but just a piece) of the whole.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I would interpret the bit about everything in D&D having a place in Eberon as a permission slip to use anything you want in your Eberon campaign, for those DMs that think they need one.

That permission slip goes both ways though. A DM is not obligated to use even stock setting material in their campaign.

Endorsed, strongly, and Wizards is very clear about this in all of their published materials. If you as the DM want to change some aspect of the setting, go ahead and change it. You have their full faith and endorsement. And that's not just saying 'eh, we don't have giff in this world'; it's even stuff like saying "yeah, this adventure takes place on the Sword Coast, but I just switched the locations of Waterdeep and Calimshan so deal with it".

[Boci]

Endorsed, strongly, and Wizards is very clear about this in all of their published materials. If you as the DM want to change some aspect of the setting, go ahead and change it. You have their full faith and endorsement. And that's not just saying 'eh, we don't have giff in this world'; it's even stuff like saying "yeah, this adventure takes place on the Sword Coast, but I just switched the locations of Waterdeep and Calimshan so deal with it".

THat's going too far in the opposite direction. Players might not be interested in Calimshan and prefer the Sword Coast setting. DMs can certainly make that change and more, but "yeah, I just did that, deal with it" is a good way to lose players.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

THat's going too far in the opposite direction. Players might not be interested in Calimshan and prefer the Sword Coast setting. DMs can certainly make that change and more, but "yeah, I just did that, deal with it" is a good way to lose players.

Sure, and it's a fairly extreme example. The point is the same - the settings exist to serve the stories individual DMs want to tell and are flexible to that end. They are not inviolable Holy Writ.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Sure, and it's a fairly extreme example. The point is the same - the settings exist to serve the stories individual DMs want to tell and are flexible to that end. They are not inviolable Holy Writ.

Supporting text:

Even if you use an existing setting, such as the Forgotten Realms, it becomes yours as you set your adventures there, create characters to inhabit it, and make changes to it over the course of your campaign.

There are others in the PHB and elsewhere--they all boil down to "There is no binding canon. The only restrictions are what your group will tolerate."

The existing settings are there as a skeleton (more or less fleshed out) to be used; they're a convenience. Nothing more. The novel/video game settings are explicitly an alternate continuity that should have no effect on your campaigns unless you wish them to. And yes, that applies to FR as much as Eberron (or wherever). The DM is the master of the world; the books are not.