History Headscratchers / Eberron

** This fact holds true in 3e and 5e. While plenty of people in Eberron aren’t playing with a full deck, your average Dragon Below Cultist left their cards at home and elected to bring burned sandwiches instead.

*** This fact holds true in 3e and 5e. While plenty of people in Eberron aren’t playing with a full deck, your average Dragon Below Cultist left their cards at home and elected to bring burned sandwiches instead.

*** "Not using underhanded tactics" seems like a rather lose qualifier for Good alignment. Look guys, I started a war that got hundreds of people killed. But I didn't use assassins, so I'm a good guy. Also Boranel stays a good ruler without wanting to start a massive war, why couldn't Aurala?
** From her perspective, she doesn't want to restart a war. She's convinced this peace agreement will not last (And it's a VERY tenuous agreement, so she's not necessarily wrong) and thus war is inevitable. So to her, she's not starting a new war, but simply preparing for a war that's temporarily paused, so it's better to begin on the offensive.

*** "Not using underhanded tactics" seems like a rather lose qualifier for Good alignment. Look guys, I started a war that got hundreds of people killed. But I didn't use assassins, so I'm a good guy. Also Boranel stays a good ruler without wanting to start a massive war, why couldn't Aurala?

** She's unwilling to use underhanded tactics like assassination to win, and few of the countries have rulers even close to as benevolent as she is. Her winning would be a genuine step up for most of the continent.

* How in the world can queen Aurala ir'Wynarn count as ''neutral good'' when she is actively trying to restart a war that will claim thousands of lives? Even if she thinks it's for the greater good, she was alive during the Last War, she knows the consequences of war, if she was truly good, she should not be in favor of restarting it. At least Kaius has the excuse of being a WellIntentionedExtremist and vampire to justify his alignment.

** Erandis wasn't all ''that'' young when she died; WordOfGod suggests she was at least a fledgling wizard at the time.

** Eradnis wasn't all ''that'' young when she died; WordOfGod suggests she was at least a fledgling wizard at the time.

** It could also be that she magically altered her body to appear more mature, both to throw off suspicion to her true identity, and insecurity about being seen as a child.

** Yes, the obvious answer is "artistic license" or, less generously, "fanservice."

* Why do the Cults of the Dragon Below worship the Daelkyr and other abberations? Those creatures aren't the children of Khyber, they're invaders from Xoriat banished to Khyber by the Gatekeepers. Khyber's spawn are Demons, Devils, and the Rakshasha. Wouldn't Cults of the Dragon Below be demon worshippers, not Lovecraftian cultists?
** While I can't speak for all the editions (I only have a fourth edition book), the cults of the Dragon Below are ''completely'' out of their rocker. There is no single unificating element amoung them other than they worship the beasties which are currently imprisoned in Khyber (as such, it's entirely possible that there are cults worshipping demons - especially in the Demon Wastes). Which is why the common folk call the cults that. However, the Rakshashas and their kin tend to hide in the shadows, operating behind the scenes. They have little use for a group of cultists who run around screaming their patron's name as they burn down villages (though they may, from time to time). If there are demon cults, they, like their masters, tend to be sneaky about it. Which means the cultists worshipping Lovecraftian thingies from Xoriat are more commenly encountered, colouring the public perception of the cults as a whole.

** Worth noting that very few druid sects worship The Dragon Between (i.e. Eberron) as a deity, instead being as fragmented in their theologies as the many cults of The Dragon Below. Your average Gatekeeper or Warden of the Wood has little in common with an Ashbound or the Children of Winter. The Greensingers are also very unusual, being as much focused on fey powers as on mundane nature.

** Poorly Informed Extremists? Maybe we need a trope for that...

** As far as most people in the world probably know, the Daelkyr and aberrations ''are'' of the Dragon Below. Specifically, the Daelkyr in Eberron have been trapped in Khyber for something like 9,000 years, while humans have only been on Khorvaire for about 4,000 years. Nor were most of the other non-goblinoid races anywhere nearby when the Daelkyr wrecked the western continent. From the modern humanoid perspective, it's not really worth making the distinction because they've been a fixture of Khyber from beyond living memory.

** [[WordOfGod Keith Baker]] has also said that "Cult of the Dragon Below" is a mostly academic label and that few groups that would be commonly considered as such actually call ''themselves'' that. Daelkyr-worshippers, demon-worshippers, and those that worship Khyber itself as a divinity all get lumped together by outside observers.

** While I can't speak for all the editions (I only have a fourth edition book), the cults of the Dragon Below are ''completely'' out of their rocker. There is no single unificating element amoung them other than they worship the beasties which are currently imprisoned in Khyber (as such, it's entirely possible that there are cults worshipping demons - especially in the Demon Wastes). Which is why the common folk call the cults that. However, the Rakshashas and their kin tend to hide in the shadows, operating behind the scenes. They have little use for a group of cultists who run around screaming their patron's name as they burn down villages (though they may, from time to time). If there are demon cults, they, like their masters, tend to be sneaky about it. Which means the cultists worshipping Lovecraftian thingies from Xoriat are more commenly encountered, colouring the public perception of the cults as a whole.

** While I can't speak for all the editions (I only have a fourth edition book), the cults of the Dragon Below are ''completely'' out of their rocker. There is no single unificating element amoung them other than they worship the beasties which are currently imprisoned in Khyber (as such, it's entirely possible that there are cults worshipping demons - especially in the Demon Wastes). Hence the name. However, the Rakshashas and their kin tend to hide in the shadows, operating behind the scenes. They have little use for a group of cultists who run around screaming their patron's name as they burn down villages (though they may, from time to time). If there are demon cults, they, like their masters, tend to be sneaky about it. Which means the cultists worshipping Lovecraftian thingies from Xoriat are more commenly encountered, colouring the public opinion of the cults as a whole.

** While I can't speak for all the editions (I only have a fourth edition book), the cults of the Dragon Below are ''completely'' out of their rocker. There is no single unificating element amoung them other than they worship the beasties which are currently imprisoned in Khyber (as such, it's entirely possible that there are cults worshipping demons - especially in the Demon Wastes). However, the Rakshashas tend to hide in the shadows, operating behind the scenes. They have little use for a group of cultists who run around screaming their patron's name as they burn down villages. If there are demon cults, they, like their masters, tend to be sneaky about it. Which means the cultists worshipping Lovecraftian thingies from Xoriat are more commenly encountered, colouring the public opinion of the cults as a whole.

* Why do the Cults of the Dragon Below worship the Daelkyr and other abberations? Those creatures aren't the children of Khyber, they're invaders from Xoriat banished to Khyber by the Gatekeepers. Khyber's spawn are Demons, Devils, and the Rakshasha. Wouldn't Cults of the Dragon Below be demon worshippers, not Lovecraftian cultists?

* What bugs me about Eberron isn't the setting itself, which I think is great, but the tendency of the supplemental material to shy away from the complicated morality that makes the whole thing so interesting. Example: King Kaius III may well be a ruthless [[TheChessmaster chessmaster]], but in "Five Nations" it's observed, as an example of said ruthlessness, that "he killed his own wife in vampiric bloodlust." This conveniently neglects the fact that Vol the lich ''triggered'' his vampiric bloodlust when Kaius refused to become a mindless puppet of the Blood of Vol cult and that, when he discovered he'd killed his wife, Kaius went into exile for eighty years and broke all ties with said cult in an effort to atone and regain control of his nation. It's sort of like calling someone ruthless for shooting his wife while failing to mention that someone else put the gun in his hand and physically forced him to pull the trigger. Meanwhile, the Silver Flame comes across as squeaky-clean, their tendency toward zealous extermination completely glossed over. It's as if the writers who came along later were more comfortable with the black-and-white morality of previous campaign settings. It's irritating.
** I concur. In fact, many of the new and exciting additions from the original campaign setting are skewed in the supplemental works. The two most glaring: Orcs and Dragons. Orcs passed from being a new take on the AlwaysChaoticEvil into becoming a neutral race of Druids and Shamans leaving in the swamp with a rich history and a destiny to defend the realm from nameless horrors, along with belonging to one of the Houses and acting as bounty hunters and adventurers. In 4e, they were regressed into the RapePillageAndBurn assholes but explaining that those in the campaign are (the extremely low) exceptions. Then Dragons passed from being a powerful race of draconic wizards who had played eons long schemes to invincible [[PhysicalGod Gods]] who could conquer the world in an instant [[CreatorsPet if they so much wished]]. The examples they take are the destruction of Xen'drik (which, if one remember, it was done ''after'' the Giants had defeated an entire race of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s and were in the middle of a CivilWar) and their attacks to Aerenal were {{Retcon}}ned into a love letter. Instead of the Dragons attacking the Elf for mysterious reasons and the Elves having enough strength on their home turf to fend them off, it resulted that the Dragons were sending their weakest younglings to ''train'' the Elves into some nebulous battle in the future... [[KeanuReeves Wo]] [[FlatWhat ah!]]. It's like they were scared of becoming originals.

** I concur. In fact, many of the new and exciting additions from the original campaign setting are skewed in the supplemental works. The two most glaring: Orcs and Dragons. Orcs passed from being a new take on the AlwaysChaoticEvil into becoming a neutral race of Druids and Shamans leaving in the swamp with a rich history and a destiny to defend the realm from nameless horrors, along with belonging to one of the Houses and acting as bounty hunters and adventurers. In 4e, they were regressed into the RapePillageAndBurn assholes but explaining that those in the campaign are (the extremely low) exceptions. Then Dragons passed from being a powerful race of draconic wizards who had played eons long schemes to invincible [[PhysicalGod Gods]] who could conquer the world in an instant [[CreatorsPet if they so much wished]]. The examples they take are the destruction of Xen'drik (which, if one remember, it was done ''after'' the Giants had defeated an entire race of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s and were in the middle of a CivilWar) and their attacks to Aerenal were {{Retcon}}ned into a love letter. Instead of the Dragons attacking the Elf for mysterious reasons and the Elves having enough strength on their home turf to fend them off, it resulted that the Dragons were sending their weakest younglings to ''train'' the Elves into some nebulous battle in the future... [[KeanuReeves Wo]] [[FlatWhat ah!]]. It's like they were scared of becoming originals.

** I concur. In fact, many of the new and exciting aditions from the original campaing setting are skewed in the supplemental works. The two most glaring: Orcs and Dragons. Orcs passed from being a new take in the AlwaysChaoticEvil into becoming a neutral race of Druids and Shamans leaving in the swamp with a rich history and a destiny to defend the realm from nameless horrors, along with belonging to one of the Houses and acting as bounty hunters and adventurers. In 4e, they were regressed into the RapePillageAndBurn assholes but explaining that those in the campaing are (the extremely low) exceptions. Then Dragons passed from being a powerful race of draconic wizards who had played eons long schemes to invincible [[PhysicalGod Gods]] who could conquer the world in an instant [[CreatorsPet if they so much wished]]. The examples they take are the destruction of Xendri'k (which, if one remember, it was done ''after'' the Giants had defeated an entire race of EldritchAbomination and where in the middle of a CivilWar) and their attacks to Aerenal where {{Retcon}}ed into a love letter. Instead of the Dragons attacking the Elf for mysterious reasons and the Elves having enough strengh in their home turf to fend them off, it resulted that the Dragons where sending their weakest younglings to ''train'' the Elves into some nebulous battle in the future... [[KeanuReeves Wo]] [[FlatWhat ah!]]. It's like they were scared of becoming originals.

** I concur. In fact, many of the new and exciting aditions from the original campaing setting are skewed in the supplemental works. The two most glaring: Orcs and Dragons. Orcs passed from being a new take in the AlwaysChaoticEvil into becoming a neutral race of Druids and Shamans leaving in the swamp with a rich history and a destiny to defend the realm from nameless horrors, along with belonging to one of the Houses and acting as bounty hunters and adventurers. In 4e, they were regressed into the RapePillageAndBurn assholes but explaining that those in the campaing are (the extremely low) exceptions. Then Dragons passed from being a powerful race of draconic wizards who had played eons long schemes to invincible [[PhysicalGod Gods]] who could conquer the world in an instant [[TheWesley if they so much wished]]. The examples they take are the destruction of Xendri'k (which, if one remember, it was done ''after'' the Giants had defeated an entire race of EldritchAbomination and where in the middle of a CivilWar) and their attacks to Aerenal where {{Retcon}}ed into a love letter. Instead of the Dragons attacking the Elf for mysterious reasons and the Elves having enough strengh in their home turf to fend them off, it resulted that the Dragons where sending their weakest younglings to ''train'' the Elves into some nebulous battle in the future... [[KeanuReeves Wo]] [[FlatWhat ah!]]. It's like they were scared of becoming originals.

* What bugs me about Eberron isn't the setting itself, which I think is great, but the tendency of the supplemental material to shy away from the complicated morality that makes the whole thing so interesting. Example: King Kaius III may well be a ruthless [[TheChessmaster chessmaster]], but in "Five Nations" it's observed, as an example of said ruthlessness, that "he killed his own wife in vampiric bloodlust." This conveniently neglects the fact that Vol the lich ''triggered'' his vampiric bloodlust when Kaius refused to become a mindless puppet of the Blood of Vol cult and that, when he discovered he'd killed his wife, Kaius went into exile for eighty years and broke all ties with said cult in an effort to atone and regain control of his nation. It's sort of like calling someone ruthless for shooting his wife while failing to mention that someone else put the gun in his hand and physically forced him to pull the trigger. Meanwhile, the Silver Flame comes across as squeaky-clean, their tendency toward zealous extermination completely glossed over. It's as if the writers who came along later were more comfortable with the black-and-white morality of previous campaign settings. It's irritating.