It’s time for more quick questions. Let’s jump right in. This may be a bit of a personal question, but I’d like to hear your thoughts on the effect of winning the setting contest on your life. From the outside, it looks like your life took a major turn at that point. Do you think so as well? What do you think you would have done if you had not won that contest? Do you think you would have been on the same path, just slower and more fraught, or do you think you would be doing something completely different? I knew I wanted to make games for a living when I was in high school. I just...

This began as a side discussion on the Dragonmarked house post, but it’s expanded far enough that I’m moving it to a separate post. Feel free to add questions or comments about aberrant dragonmarks here! I was always perplexed about the detail of the War of the Mark. First, there is an apparent lack of public opposition to the persecution of aberrants. Hundreds or even thousands of them must have been killed across the continent for no other reason than manifesting the wrong version of the dragonmarks. Of course, the Houses’ propaganda painted them as evil, but there is just...

The concept of magic as an industrial force is at the heart of the Eberron campaign setting, and the dragonmarked houses are an integral part of that. From the start, the idea was that the dragonmarks were hereditary traits that had allowed the families that possessed them to gain monopolistic power over a particular aspect of the magical economy. Tied to this is the idea that back in the day, a united Galifar was able to impose sanctions on the dragonmarked houses… but that with the advances in arcane sciences and the collapse of Galifar, it is an open question whether any nation is prepared...

As always: my answers her are my personal opinion, are not canon in any way, and may contradict canon sources. These are my thoughts and how I run my personal campaign, nothing more. If you have a question you’d like to ask or a topic for a post, please leave it on this thread. There’s been some great questions so far, though I’m afraid many of them will require a full post to address. However, a few only require short answers. So today I’ve put together a list of those and we’re going to zip through them, starting with a question I know has been on your mind… In...

Having just posted a piece on the Mark of Death, I thought I’d throw this up here. This is a collection of excerpts from a conversation on the WotC Eberron forum. You can find the full thread here; this concerns my thoughts on Erandis and liches. How have you depicted Erandis in you campaign? What’s your opinion on liches? (DoctorBadWolf ) So, I don’t really get the whole Lich = Hideous corpse thing to begin with. They’re more powerful than vampires, and their magic can’t keep them looking like living people if they want, without illusion magic? I know in Eberron...

My original plan was to do a lightning round of short answers this week. However, between the release of the Bloodsails Eye on Eberron article today and the fact that this question gets asked every few months, it seems like a good time to get my answer in an easily accessible place. As always, this isn’t canon and I’d love to hear what you’ve done in YOUR Eberron. If you’ve got comments on the Bloodsails article, post those here too! If you’ve got other questions or topics for future posts, ask in this thread. So, the subject of the day: when I was working with Bill Slaviscek, James Wyatt,...

Welcome to my website. My goal is to publish a new Dragonmark every Wednesday (by evening, Central time) with occasional time off for good behavior and travel. If you’ve got a question or topic, this is the place to ask it. However, I’d like to clarify exactly what Dragonmarks are and what they aren’t. These articles aren’t canon in any way. This is NOT a place for me to provide the sort of Eberron material you’ll get on the WotC website. The Eye on Eberron articles I write for WotC are essentially content you could find in an Eberron sourcebook. By contrast, Dragonmarks...

One of the core principles of Eberron is that you should make it your own. People often say “If it’s in D&D it’s in Eberron,” but the actual quote is “If it’s in D&D it has a place in Eberron” – it’s up to you if you want to put it there. You don’t HAVE to use abeil in Eberron. But if you want to, it’s a simple matter to add a lost city of bee-people in Xen’drik, to make them the Mourning-warped inhabitants of a Cyran city, or the latest creations of Mordain the Fleshweaver. It’s up to you to decide if the Sovereigns...

As always, this blog is about how I run Eberron in my home campaign. It’s not canon in any way, and certain elements may contradict canon sources such as Faiths of Eberron. Use the version you like or come up with your own. “They’re cheating!” My mother read The Iliad to me as a child. I loved the story… right up until Poseidon and Hera interfere with the battle after Zeus specifically told them not to. Apparently this outrage remained with me over the years. One of the distinctive elements of Eberron is that the gods are distant. They do not directly intervene in the affairs of mortals....

First, the standard disclaimers: All of this is just my opinion and how I run my personal campaign. For official Eberron support, check the material on the WotC website (as highlighted in this handy list of links). And it’s always worth remembering that the Eberron you know is the shared work of many authors and designers – James Wyatt, Chris Perkins, Ari Marmell, C. A. Suleiman, Jason Buhlman, Bill Slaviscek, Rob Schwalb, and many more. My goal is still to post a Dragonmark every Wednesday – we’ll see how it goes. Please go ahead and ask new questions in the comments. Questions...