Eberron: Gunpowder and Item Rarity
Posted by Keith Baker in Eberron FAQSep 16th, 2010 | 15 responsesThere’s a lot of message boards out there where people talk about Eberron, and try as I might to keep my web presence up, my time is limited and I can’t be everywhere. You’ll still see me on the boards, but if you want to get my thoughts on something, send your questions here (or reach me as Hellcowkeith on Twitter). Every week or so I’ll sift through the pile and answer a few questions.
Bear in mind that this is entirely unofficial and in no way canon. Looking to my recent post on Dragonshards, there’s always the chance that it will work into a DDI article and become canon… but anything posted here is just my personal thoughts. And hey, even I may change my mind in a week.
So, on to a few questions…
How come Eberron hasn’t discovered gunpowder? It seems far less complicated than a myriad of other things in the world.
It’s a fair question. The short answer: I don’t want gunpowder in the world. When I originally pitched Eberron, the one-pager called out a crucial difference between Eberron and Shadowrun, Arcanum, Castle Falkenstein, and similar things. Eberron is a world in which magic has evolved to fill the role technology serves in our world. It’s not supposed to be a world in which magic and technology exist side by side, as they do in Arcanum. Partially, this is because in many of those games, one of the central theme is an innate conflict between technology and magic, and I didn’t want that here. I wanted to explore advanced civilizations based on magical principles; mixing sophisticated technology would dilute that and complicate it. And if one wants that, it’s out there in Iron Kingdoms, Arcanum, etc – so it’s not something I felt Eberron needed.
So. That’s the REAL reason: personally, I don’t WANT gunpowder in Eberron. Which brings us to the second half of the question – but in what way is it realistic that someone hasn’t developed it?
On the one hand, you can go with the idea that people have simply never discovered it. They know how to make things explode: you use a fireball or a magic missile. if you’re in Zilargo, you bind a fire elemental to a cannon. These things aren’t limited to a tiny handful of people; any magewright can use an eternal wand. The fundamental principle of how to blow things up exists and is based on magic; scholarly efforts are based on improving those mystical techniques as opposed to developing new chemical methods.
This is OK, but with the diversity of culture, one might still wonder if a culture that’s advanced but weak in arcane magic – some of the Heirs of Dhakaan, for example – wouldn’t have worked on gunpowder. And the short answer, is that if you want them to, do it. A Dhakaani clan armed with gunpowder weapons would be an intriguing shift in the balance of power… and fun to have it be the goblins who are the most technologically advanced nation, while we have the magical culture of the Five Nations and the psionic culture of Riedra. On the other hand, once these things are being used, other people will copy them, and presto, you’ve changed the flavor of the world. And again, personally, I don’t want that. I want to explore warfare with wizards, warforged, and undead. I want to explore ways in which MAGIC can be used in war – not just use the same tools we use.
Which brings us to alternative two: The hand-wave. Why hasn’t Eberron discovered gunpowder? Because the gunpowder reaction simply doesn’t work. One of the central ideas of magic in Eberron is that it involves manipulating the ambient magical energy radiating from the Ring of Siberys. Essentially, the world is flooded with a strange form of energy that can be manipulated to alter reality. Given that this energy is magical, there’s no reason to say that it can’t literally change the laws of physics – that there are ways in which Eberron is simply fundamentally different from our world, and there are a number of basic things that just don’t work there – that if you took a gun to Eberron, it simply wouldn’t work.
Handwavy? Unquestionably. But good enough for me. There’s no gunpowder in Eberron because I don’t want gunpowder in Eberron; whether that’s due to a lack of scientific interest, a fundamental change in the nature of reality, or the fact that there’s a Rajah of Gunpowder who possesses anyone who makes a gun and drives them into a murderous rampage doesn’t really matter to me. I want to keep that chocolate out of my peanut butter. Again, though, if YOU think it tastes great, make yourself a gunpowder peanut butter cup – it’s just not something I’d ever want officially. I’d rather see an improved eternal wand designed so anyone can use it, or a golem-built-into-a-crossbow allowing for autofire.
Given Essentials magic item rarity rules, how would this affect House Cannith? Schemas allow creation of uncommon items?
Personally, I like the idea of rarity for magic items. It gives more reason for adventure and puts a bit of a sense of wonder to magic again – it’s not simply “If I had enough money I could buy that” – but rather finding a sword forged in the Age of Dhakaan using techniques no human has ever mastered, a blade blessed in the font of Flamekeep, and so on. So here’s what I’d say in my game.
Common items are easily produced by magewrights. House Cannith mass-produces many common items, and these are the things that are integrated into everyday life in major cities.
Rare items are things with stories. They don’t have to be indestructible artifacts with super-powers and ancient legends, but there are tales to them. This amulet was made by Sora Katra using the bones of a wizard who foolishly challenged her to a duel. This is the flail of Khaas Dhakaan, which was bathed in the blood of Dyrrn the Corrupter and holds a spark of his hate. This dagger is made from the fang of the dragon Sarmondelaryx, cut from her mouth in her battle with Thrane. Cannith could produce a rare item – but it would likely be an experimental prototype, using priceless components or an inexplicable breakthrough. This is a docent created by Merrix d’Cannith when he managed to trap an angel within the orb; now the forces of Syrania debate whether the mortal must be punished for his impudence.
Uncommon items occupy the middle ground. Can Cannith use schemas to produce uncommon items? Yes and no. What’s a schema? A schema is, essentially, a blueprint. It’s a guide that helps an artificer produce an item he couldn’t create on his own; it’s also the key to employing the Cannith forges, which allow things to be produced more efficiently. So essentially, Cannith can use schemas to create uncommon items – if some brilliant artificer or wizard has made the deductive leap that allows the creation of that schema to begin with. Tesla the Artificer may come up with a schema for a teleforce weapon, and a forgehold can use that to produce and sell teleforce weapons that can’t be made by anyone else. But that doesn’t mean that Tesla can produce an instant fortress or cube of force tomorrow.
Essentially, any uncommon item is a form of breakthrough – something that COULD be duplicated, but not necessarily by you. This is where I would put things like weapons made by a particular Dhakaani clan, using special alloys the Five Nations have yet to produce, and using techniques that this clan has been honing for thousands of years. A smith of the Five Nations COULD produce such a blade, but he’d have to spend decades learning the Dhakaani techniques and he’d have to find a source of the ores they use to make his alloys. Likewise, Tesla’s teleforce weapon could use a particular combination of resources that are hard to come by – whether this is simply a particular type of dragonshard or something as exotic as the blood of an elder black dragon. This could lead to adventure, as PCs may be hired to procure the difficult-to-acquire substances the house needs to continue experiments. Alternately, you could say that an artificer has unlocked new potential using the Dawn Shards found in Q’barra – thus exacerbating the shard rush.
So what it comes down to for me is for the DM to decide what uncommon items can be manufactured, who is capable of manufacturing them, and what keeps them uncommon in this case (IE, more exotic components). The Dhakaani have access to these things; the Valenar produce these; the Thranes forge silver flametongues in the armories of Flamekeep; House Cannith produces this uncommon item, but only at this forgehold; and so on. Keep the uncommon aspect of it as part of the flavor – you’ll only acquire this type of item by defeating a Valenar champion, or by being appointed a blessed knight of the Flame. And sure, you can decide that these ten items are available from Cannith… but that these ten haven’t been discovered yet, and if you want one, you’ll have to explore the unknown.
Last word: It’s always been my point that PCs are remarkable characters. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I say that the feat Ritual Caster is an example of this – that most magewrights can only perform a few specific rituals, and the ability to pick up a book and cast any ritual in it is a sign that the PC is a prodigy. With this in mind, I’m fine with saying that the PC artificer IS a Tesla… and that he may be able to create an uncommon magic item himself. However, this is something that should take time and be part of the adventure. He should be thinking about things in advance of when his level is appropriate, so it can be worked into the adventure. As the DM you can say “You’ll need to find a manifest zone to Irian; you’ll need the blood of a virgin basilisk; you’ll need red dragon scales… no, now you’ve tried those, it’ll have to be blue.” Make it like the building scenes in Iron Man – yes, he’s a genius, but it won’t always work the first time. So acquiring what he needs for his work becomes part of the adventure; it’s simply that at the end of the day, instead of finding the awesome item in the dungeon, he acquires what he needs to make it himself… proving that he is the most brilliant artificer of the age.
15 Responses to “Eberron: Gunpowder and Item Rarity”
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I am a big fan of your stance on gunpowder. For me, gunpowder has absolutely no place in D&D at all. To hear your take on Eberron is refreshing, especially since I have spent a ridiculous amount of time arguing with people on the Wizards Community boards about gunpowder.
Like you, I prefer magic to be the tool. My favorite component of fantasy is magic. Anyone can learn to fire a rifle with practice, but only a prodigy will learn to smite his enemies with a Fireball.
Anyone can learn to fire a rifle with practice, but only a prodigy will learn to smite his enemies with a Fireball.
Which unfortunately is the basic argument as to why people WOULD develop gunpowder in Eberron – because not everyone can use magic.
With that said, it essentially comes down to where you place Eberron in our history. Because the facts are this:
* Anyone capable of using arcane magic – including magewrights – can use an eternal wand.
* We’ve never said that you have to have some innate gift in your blood to learn to be a magewright. It’s a profession. It’s something that requires diligence and certainly intelligence. But it’s not like a dragonmark – it’s a skill that can be taught.
With this in mind, the magewright with an eternal wand essentially becomes an early musketeer. He is an elite soldier whose training allows him to use an expensive but powerful tool. That tool lets him have a dramatic impact on the battlefield but is limited in frequency of use. As it requires a certain level of training and resource, it has not yet replaced the sword and bow. However, if they are able to ratchet it up from the two-shots-a-day model to more shots… perhaps six to begin with, then twelve, an ultimately a truly eternal wand that anyone can use… it could replace the sword and bow, just as the evolution of firearms in our world.
So my point is that people are pursuing arcane solutions to the problem we solved with gunpowder. They are well on their way to doing that. If you look at the first firearms in our world compared to what we have today, one can see that it takes a while; they just haven’t produced a modern firearm analogue yet. But in siege staves, eternal wands, and whatever else Cannith is working on, they are on their way – and I do believe that any modern army has a corps of magewrights for this purpose. It’s a strength of Aundair – but even in Breland we see this in the Blackened Book of Sharn. We’ve also talked about the elemental weapons of Zilargo but never shown them; in my mind, this is the fire-elemental-artillery and the like. So in siege staves, elemental weapons, and such, we have counterparts for artillery and such; they have these things, they’ve just taken a different route to them and thus haven’t had to fill that need through technology.
With that said, at the end of the day it’s just what I prefer in my game. Eberron was originally based on the idea of exploring the impact of magic on a society. I don’t have an interest in adding gunpowder to that mix.
Another thought on the lack of gunpowder…
Can people ‘own ideas’ in Eberron?
In the real world, Invention (with a capital I) didn’t take off until people could own ideas with copyrights and patents. Before that time, technological development was almost always driven by a system of patronages usually funded by the aristocracy/nobility/who-ever-has-money-and-power.
I don’t know Eberron, I believe most of the states already have significant magical might and would have no need or interest in patronizing the mundane science.
Many thanks for the answer, Keith! Sadly, the solution that the gunpowder reaction doesn’t work in Eberron has the problem that the reaction that causes gunpowder to work is also the same reaction that is the basis for many aspects of life. So, if you get rid of that, then you necessarily have to get rid of life… if you’re a stickler for actual science, but it is a magical world.
Another potential solution is that potassium nitrate (saltpetre) is not common in that form due to a native Eberronian microorganism that feeds on the stuff and breaks it down into just potassium and nitrogen. Because it’s not common, it’s difficult to experiment with it and the people of Eberron may not even know of potassium nitrate as a compound.
The easiest way I use to explain it to people is to just tell them that “chemistry” just doesn’t exist. It isn’t physically possible in the world of Eberron to have atoms and molecules interact with each other in such a way as to produce real-world chemical events. For all we know, in Eberron atoms and molecules don’t exist. Matter and energy are just matter and energy… not these weird scientific properties based upon science.
Why did we in the real world develop chemistry? Because magic as a force does not exist. Why did people in Eberron develop magic? Because chemistry as a force does not exist. Simple as that.
Another potential solution is that potassium nitrate (saltpetre) is not common in that form due to a native Eberronian microorganism that feeds on the stuff and breaks it down into just potassium and nitrogen.
Which is really more what I was thinking as opposed to saying that gunpowder exists, but just doesn’t explode – simply that there is something about the world itself that makes gunpowder unfeasible. But for me the critical point is that people are pursuing other avenues to solve the same problem; the Magewright Wand Corps are a form of musketeer. But I’m all for having a logical explanation for why they went this way – or more importantly, why a nation like the Dhakaani didn’t develop it – and this makes sense.
Why did we in the real world develop chemistry? Because magic as a force does not exist.
I personally haven’t taken things quite so far as to say chemistry simply doesn’t exist, but this is the basic idea to Eberron: Magic does exist; it behaves in a manner similar to other sciences, but manipulates a force that doesn’t exist in our world; the civilizations of the Five Nations evolved around magic. This was the tool their early savants and inventors latched onto, and effort went into improving the techniques of magic as opposed to finding ways around it. Again, they HAVE artillery in things like siege staffs, so they have a way to blow up an enemy far away. Yes, it takes a magewright to work the staff… but magewrights are part of their society. Sure, it would be convenient to make a siege staff anyone could use – but they are working on exactly that at the Arcane Congress. They’re just accomplishing this by improving the science they know – magic and elemental binding – as opposed to pursuing a completely new and different path.
Can people ‘own ideas’ in Eberron?
We’ve never suggested the existence of an actual patent office, in part because PCs can invent new things and we don’t want to weight them down with paperwork. However, we have said that there are groups with proprietary techniques that will take steps to defend their monopolies – most notably the Zil elemental binders. The fact that we’ve said that their actions would involve pressuring you personally or destroying your work as opposed to taking you to court suggests a more primitive set up than one might expect for such a civilized society… but on the other hand, as adventures go, it’s a little more interesting for PCs to deal with gnome assassins than to have five adventures worth of court cases resulting in them having to pay out 1,000,000 gp. The Dragonmarked Houses have proprietary tools in the objects that can only be used with a dragonmark – the message stones of House Sivis, the creation forges of Cannith.
“Make it like the building scenes in Iron Man – yes, he’s a genius, but it won’t always work the first time.” Immediately the idea of a wearable warforged comes to mind…
Back in the 90s the question of gunpowder came up in my game a lot, so I put quite a bit of thought to it. In the end, I wanted to have fireworks available for various reasons, so I didn’t go the unfeasible-gunpowder route.
I realised several things about my game world at that point:
1. Most of the people who might be inclined to research gunpowder for firearms would be wizards anyway. They’re the ones playing with chemistry.
2. The effectiveness of the first firearms pales pathetically in comparison to the effectiveness of magic.
3. Guns would be really expensive.. making a gun barrel, even un-rifled, is no mean feat.
4. Basically the sole reason they became popular in the real world was because they gave light foot a better knight killer. If your enemy can use magic to shield their knights, it no longer makes a lot of sense to spend so much resources on guns.
So, of course, I decided to hand somebody a flintlock pistol anyway
It got some decent bonuses to hit certain armor types, but still only did 1d8. I’m pretty happy with those numbers, by the way, since the English longbows at Agincourt would do 1d8 in DnD terms too. After not too long it was pretty much forgotten as an oddity that was more trouble than it was worth. (try getting a blacksmith to make bullets, for example.)
Mike, bear in mind that this is one of the possible explanations we’ve given for the Lord of Blades (in this Dragonshard) – that he’s Aaren d’Cannith in a warforged suit. It would be interesting to expand this by saying that the warforged suit is itself a sentient warforged – so the Lord of Blades is both Aaren AND Warforged working together. By that model, the warforged “shell” could be a pure fighter who takes over when martial skill is required – while Aaren within is a brilliant artificer.
(This doesn’t match the published statistics for the Lord of Blades in the 4E ECG, but the LoBster has always been one of those characters I’ve wanted people to feel free to explore in different ways.)
I guess I’m the exception. I do use firearms and gunpowder in Eberron (it’s not really gunpowder, but more of a stinking tarry resin that nearly any artificier/alchemist can produce, which has a pretty much identical effect as black powder).
I use a lot of ideas and themes from Enlightenment Europe in my campaign, one of them being the breaking of the ancien régime, colonialism, and the rise of empiricism, and firearms kind of slot into that in a way that I and my players really like, and that seems consistent with the bigger themes already built in to Eberron.
Far from being an elite weapon, pretty much anyone can use a gun in my campaign – flintlock pistols are in the Simple Ranged Weapon category, slightly cheaper and lighter than a crossbow equivalent, doing about the same damage. Muskets do about the same damage as a longbow, over the same range. Reloading takes a Standard Action, so players usually carry about 4 pistols. Ammo is cheap (1gp for 20 paper cartridges) and easily made.
They still use their swords, shields and crossbows. There hasn’t been any need to nerf firearms or prohibit their spread because part of the symbolism of guns is how effective they are even in untrained hands (at range) and how quickly they become ubiquitous. When I started my campaign I didn’t trickle-feed guns into it – I produced them in a deluge, which made more sense given that it was the end of a war and there would be an oversupply of cheap mass-produced weapons. In one of their first encounters they find wagonloads of muskets, pistols, gunresin and ammunition just abandoned at the bottom of a gully.
It works for us, but it might not work for everybody. Just thought I’d mention it.
There hasn’t been any need to nerf firearms or prohibit their spread because part of the symbolism of guns is how effective they are even in untrained hands (at range) and how quickly they become ubiquitous.
Which is more or less exactly why we DIDN’T include them in the campaign setting. Again, my goal with the design was to explore ways in which magic would affect a society in lieu of technology; once you have mass-produced guns and cannons, you have less need for fireballs and magic missiles. I wanted something more like flashstones in Steven Brust’s The Phoenix Guards – a magical solution to a problem we addressed through technology. Nonetheless, that was MY goal with the design, and another of the basic principles of Eberron is that YOU should be free to do what you enjoy – so I’m glad you’re having fun with it!
That’s cool. I want to make it clear that I never felt Eberron was missing anything – it’s a fantastic setting (pun intended). By the same token, I never felt including firearms made it dramatically different: Guns are already in D&D, except they’re called crossbows and they don’t go bang (unless they’re magic). And having a gun which doesn’t go bang can be very useful sometimes. But other times you want the bang.
The choice of whether or not to have firearms in D&D is really one of tone and flavor. So in Eberron it seems like magic IS the technology, and one of the things that happens in my campaign is that there is a technology ‘race’, where a constant stream of new and weird artisanal magical devices – many of them untried and unreliable – are being deployed to keep up with the ubiquity of the flintlock. Crawling caltrops. A clockwork ‘taser’. Exploding toads. Flails with flower-blossom heads. Everything is still very much in flux, and the forces that want to pull the technology in the direction of elegant and artful fireballs and flashstones and away from loud, smelly muskets and cannon have a great many tricks up their sleeve.
As I said earlier, none of this is to imply Eberron was lacking in any way. We just took what you gave and ran with it, and you have our gratitude.
As I said earlier, none of this is to imply Eberron was lacking in any way.
No worries! I didn’t take it that way.
We just took what you gave and ran with it…
Which is what we’ve always wanted people to do. My point with this article was simply to explain the design process that led to canon Eberron not having gunpowder – but what happens in YOUR Eberron is always up to you. I’m glad that you’re enjoying the world!