shadow-of-the-last-war-blog

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Dragons look like minerals!

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So in Shadow of the Demon Lord you can have a party with all of the races with suggested names be: Agnes, Mirth, X0803FJ79, Doogan, Phlegm, and Bastard, and I think that’s beautiful.

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I’ve been reading through the 3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting on my lunch breaks for the first time in a literal decade. I’m falling in love all over again.

One thing that caught my attention today that I either forgot or glossed over all those years ago is that Breland has a partially elected parliament in addition to their monarchy. As the book says “parliament makes the laws, the crown enforces them.” Now, Breland loves their king. And why wouldn’t they? Boranel is the best. Thrust into the role by circumstance, he has no patience for politics and simply does what is best for his people. To drive this point home, he, a KING, is known to hold town meetings throughout the nation, letting the common folk speak to him directly about their issues and grievances. Seriously. What a guy.

Now, Boranel makes no secret of his championing of democracy in his own nation. He’s for it because 1) the Last War was a war of succession and who wants that again and 2) his heirs are kind of duds and he and everybody else knows it. This is a noble endeavor, whatever his reasoning.

But what if that’s not what’s best for Breland?

Think about this: what has kept the Dragonmarked houses from completely dominating the political landscape in the modern age? The Korth Edicts. Now, I’m not aware if we’ve ever been given a full overview of them, but there are a few things I understand about what they do. They regulate the amount of land any one house can hold. They state that no house can maintain a standing army (Deneith being the obvious exception). And perhaps most importantly, they forbid any members of the houses from marrying into the aristocracy without surrendering their holdings and heritage. This prevents them from having overt political power and keeps them from favoring one nation over another, at least in theory.

So what happens if the Brelish aristocracy goes away? If it becomes a true democracy where the leaders are elected by the popular vote of the people, that’s one thing. But Breland has over 2 million citizens, so it seems like a representative democracy would be more realistic. Well, you suddenly have a political landscape that the Dragonmarked houses would frankly be foolish NOT to exploit.

I’m getting tired and I have work in the morning, so I’ll just do the basic points from here:

Merrix d'Cannith buys a bunch of politicians. Suddenly all of Breland’s wealth is being spent on “defense” because, you know, Aundair is itching to get the War back on (partially true) and who can trust those crazies in Thrane? House Cannith now has a nation and an Army in its pocket, one that probably could have won the war before.

I think you can all see where I’m going with this. Bah. I wish I had more time to spend on this. Something I’ll get back to.

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Elves [rough draft]

CREATING AN ELF

Starting Attribute Scores Strength 9, Agility 11, Intellect 11, Will 10

Perception equals your Intellect score +1

Defence equals your Agility score

Health equals your Strength score

Healing Rate equals one-quarter your Health, round down

Size 1, Speed 12, Power 0

Damage 0, Insanity 0, Corruption 0

Languages and Professions You are able to speak and read Common and Elvish

Shadowsight You see into areas obscured by shadows as if those areas were lit

Agile Mind Attack rolls that would cause you to be charmed or compelled are made with 1 bane and any challenge roll you make to resist those afflictions are made with 1 boon

Meditation You do not require sleep and only need 4 uninterrupted hours to complete a rest. You cannot gain the Asleep affliction

LEVEL 4 EXPERT ELF

Characteristics Health +2, Perception +1, Defense +1

Deadly Riposte When an attack with a weapon or spell misses you, you may use a triggered action to make an attack with a ranged or finesse weapon against the attacker with 1 bane.

Thoughts and notes after the break

So, as I look at this, it seems rather strong. The starting attributes add up to 41, same as a Human and humans have nearly nothing else going for them, save an additional language or profession. Elves also have a Speed of 12, which is only matched by the Orc (whose attributes add up to 39). They also have a perception bonus, putting their starting perception rolls at +2, fairly hefty for a level 0. Also, the only drawback they have is a Strength of 9.

Ugh. I guess I’m just an elf fanboy, always have been. Damn you, Legolas! You did this to me!

Alright, so for revisions I’m thinking I should the definitely drop the Speed to 10. I could either drop Intellect to 10 or keep it at 11 and drop Strength to 8. I’m leaning towards the former as the only other race to start with an 8 is Goblin and they’re supposed to be fairly pathetic, It would also make a straight up melee elf really squishy as opposed to just kinda fragile. 

On the upside, I’m happy with the other features. Shadowsight, resistance to a narrow scope of magical effects and only needing 4 hours sleep are nice and fluffy but don’t really come up all that often in my 3.5 and Pathfinder experience.

Oh, and you may have noticed that the Languages and Professions section it says that they can speak and read Common and Elvish. Illiteracy is the exception rather than the rule on Khorvaire, at least in the Five Nations (see pg. 132 of Eberron Campaign Setting). Might make a post about that, too.

Finally, we have the hard part. Level 4. I’m worried that Deadly Riposte is 1) too geared to a melee character and 2) too strong. Granted, you only get one triggered action per round, but a miss provoking what amounts to an attack of opportunity seems REALLY good, even if it’s with a bane. I just wonder if it’s TOO good. 

And then there’s the characteristics. I think this is the most different thing I’m doing here. Normally a character just gets a boost to Health at level 4, somewhere between +4 and +6. There is a precedent for giving a bonus to something other than Health in Expert and Master paths but this is a racial level and none of them give a bonus to Defense. Dunno. Seems iffy.

Ok, so thats the rough draft for Elves! Comments, input and questions are awesome!

Man, Warforged are gonna make me put my head through my desk. Shifters, too.

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Oh, I like this.

Gunpowder in Eberron

So apparently an idea for a post that existed only in my head for the last 8 months has turned into my second most popular post ever in less than 24 hours. Actually by the time I’m done writing this, it will probably have made it to first. Let’s see what happens when I take an idea I’ve been sitting on for years and actually get it typed out. 

When I first saw the gunslinger, my first reaction was “Cool, but I’ll never let one in my Eberron games.” After about a year though, I had changed my mind about the relationship of gunpowder to Eberron. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I think it was about wanting to let my players use all of options they could. It ended up in a gun-totting goblin artificer who used a homunculus and a bag of holding as a hovercraft to rain death from above. I probably let that player munchkin me into allowing that concept, but it was a hilarious character and I’m glad I allowed such creativity. 

I think that in order to pull of gunpowder in Eberron, it needs to be compartmentalized, just like psionics was with Sarlona. That way, the people who want to use it can without disrupting the base assumptions of the setting. While psionics was compartmentalized by space and an isolationist empire, I’m going to use two other forces: time and culture. 

Time is easy. Counting the Last War, Eberron has suffered at least 5 apocalyptic catastrophes in its timeline and likely has many more. Cultures have had the opportunity to develop to modern levels, get wiped out, then have another culture take its place and work their way back up from Stone Age to Modern again. This gives multiple opportunities for cultures to develop many magical and mundane technologies, and in some cases, that development converges. In my Eberron canon, this happened with gunpowder. First the giants of Xen’drik developed it as their technological and magical skills increased. Then, thousands of years later, the Dhakaani goblins and hobgoblins also developed gunpowder quiet independently. This separates guns and cannons from the modern age of Eberron; they are ancient, possibly dangerous relics that most people think magic has utterly eclipsed. For most people, a pistol is a museum piece. Actually meeting someone in the Last War who fought with one would be astonishing. 

The other force I’m going to use is cultural. The people of Galifer associate guns with goblins. They look down on them as primitive tools used by savages. No noble would be caught dead with one, except for the ever practical pirates of the Principalities. The fantastic racism inherent in the setting acts as a perfect force to prevent the technology from becoming popular. It also serves as a narrative voice. We all known how revolutionary even basic firearms are, having lived in a world practically defined by them.  The Five Nations don’t see that potential, although it surely exists. They are too caught up in their xenophobia, bias, and privilege to notice or care. Its a subtler way to point out the hypocrisy and blindness that racism create, or the destructive impact of cultural imperialism, but I like it. Eberron allows us to hold a mirror up to ourselves and look at a deconstruction of our own society to find our flaws. The casual dismissal of other cultures and narratives is absolutely one of those cracks that society generally prefers to pretend not to exist. 

Besides, one of the greatest storytellers I know of once said that a story told without making a statement isn’t a story worth telling. While Rich Burlew may not have won the setting creation contest, he knows what he’s talking about. Even if the message is implicit and helps to facilitate high action and adventure, it is important to recognize how we set up our stories has an impact in the real world. 

I also like giving ancient goblins guns since it craves a bit more of a historical niche for them beyond their reliance on chain weapons and bardic magic. I also like the idea of making on of the fantasy races that is most often subject to bad stereotypes to be the culture that is technologically most similar to modern humans, even if that happened thousands of years ago. It may just make people think.