So... we've got the high concept of remixing Eberron, based on what I believe the high concept of Eberron is. This means:
- Adapting a system that better manages the expectation of that high concept than the highly tactical and static and rulesy and bloated modern versions of D&D (I've selected my own m20 variant, FANTASY HACK, but you can go with something else, if you like),
- Establish some guiding principles which, if adopted, means you can fine tune the remix at the detailed level when in game in order to better coincide with the good, old-fashioned, pulpy tone that the setting is trying to reach for but failing for a variety of reasons (but most especially the demands of conforming to details of the social justice delusion about the nature of reality), and
- Pruning esoteric D&Disms that are unrecognizable outside of the world of D&D junkies and more in line with what anyone with a familiarity with the foundational myths and fantasy literature of Western Civilization would recognize, and
- Adapt setting elements as highlighted in this brief prospectus over the course of a few blog posts into this paradigm.
In spite of this remixing, I suspect that Eberron will still feel more like a D&D campaign than most games that I'd entertain here on this blog. Just for grins, let's do a quick catalog as a minor aside of my alternate settings and games and whatnot: if nothing else, it might spark in me the desire to explore another of these a little bit more when I finish this (as this latest small series of posts on Eberron.)
- AD ASTRA: The capes and rayguns space opera setting that I've been spending most of my time the last few months playing with. It is also deliberately an ersatz Star Wars, although as it continues to develop, it continues to diverge in many ways from the original. But it was originally the combination of the prior AD ASTRA, which was always a Starjammers or Guardians of the Galaxy style "superheroes in space" concept that I never did anything with combined with STAR WARS REMIXED... but read that one below to see how it came to be.
- CULT OF UNDEATH: a horror-fantasy setting that can be dropped into an existing setting, or which has enough material to handle several campaigns on its own right. This was originally designed as a place in which to run a Carrion Crown Remixed adventure path, but if I ever do a Strange Aeons Remixed, it'd take place here too. It's also the final and formal evolution of an old setting element of mine, Tarush Noptii, the kingdom of the vampires, as well as the included setting example for FANTASY HACK. I do actually have plans in place to get back to this and spend some time playing with it a bit in the next few months.
- DARK•HERITAGE: The setting for which this blog was initially devised, although I've often wandered far afield, and haven't done anything with this in a long time. Which is too bad, because I was in the middle of a rather comprehensive upheaval of the setting. It's also the very first m20 game of my own that I developed, and the prototype for everything else that's followed since, including my "complete" alt.D&D m20 game, FANTASY HACK.
- DREAMLANDS REMIXED: An attempt to take Lovecraft's Dreamlands setting, which he never really developed as well as could be hoped. In reality, much of what is sometimes considered the Dream Cycle should really belong to a proto-Sword & Sorcery prehistorical cycle, in my opinion, and rather than being about dreamers in an alternate reality, I'm officially making it a S&S setting. Blended also with some Clark Ashton Smith stuff; especially Hyperborea. This needs a lot more work to be usable.
- EBERRON REMIXED: This series of posts.
- FALLEN SONS: Is just a high concept, of a post-apocalyptic fantasy world. Kinda like the future as seen in the Terminator movies, except instead of killer robots, it's demons that destroyed the world. Anyway, I'm still not sure what I want to do with this one, so it's still in the icebox for now until I get inspired.
- FANTASY HACK: This actually isn't a setting. I took my rules for CULT OF UNDEATH, which was considerably more "D&D-like" than DARK•HERITAGE was, and decided; why not go all the way and turn it into an alt.D&D? Here it is.
- MAMMOTH LORDS: Does for North America what they Hyborian Age does for Europe and MENA. Vikings and Indians, basically. But this is now defunct. I've taken this idea and hybridized it with my older DARK•HERITAGE setting, and the new DARK•HERITAGE which is emerging is similar enough to this setting now to effectively replace it.
- MIDDLE-EARTH REMIXED: What if Middle-earth were a sword & sorcery setting instead of a high fantasy one? That's the concept here. I've toyed with it a bit, but my last post on it was on the verge of really coming up with an alt.Middle-earth setting with the names and landmarks having their serial numbers more officially filed off.
- MYTHS REVISITED: Inspired by stuff like the Percy Jackson movies and the concept from comic books of Olympian and Asgardian gods as superheroes, essentially, this is meant to be a "mythology as superheroes in the modern age" type setting. I barely did anything with it except describe the high concept.
- ODD D&D: A D&D setting, using only D&D elements, but eschewing the most popular and iconic ones. The evils to be fought are lizardmen and yuan-ti empires; the PC race palette is totally different (except for human. And half-orc, if I remember) and instead of magic, there's only psionics. I never did make a map for this, though—although I always meant to.
- REALMS TRAVELER: According to the oft-told story, Gene Roddenberry sold the concept of Star Trek to the network by calling it "Wagon Train to the Stars" as a nickname. This setting, then, would be Wagon Train to the Planes. It would also be fairly D&Dish, although significantly different than "standard" D&D. Maybe it would more honestly be called "Quantum Leap to the Planes" since each "episode" would involve traveling to a new plane, until finally they'd get to their real destination at the end of the campaign. This is more of a campaign really than a campaign setting. Or, at least it would be if I ever sat down and did anything with it.
- SOLNOR: Taking place in Greyhawk, actually; but entirely underwater. D&D meets The Little Mermaid. I never did anything with it other than say, "hey, here's a high concept!" And I didn't even think of it myself. Maybe that's why I haven't been motivated to do anything with it ever.
- STAR WARS REMIXED: Originally meant to actually be Star Wars—except set 1,000 years after Return of the Jedi. I created a whole bunch of stuff for this, including even an entire m20 variation. For a variety of reasons, I later became somewhat disenchanted with the idea of playing in the Star Wars setting itself, so I ended up taking my Star Wars + 1,000 Years setting, filing the serial numbers off of it, and calling it AD ASTRA. After all, I never developed my AD ASTRA concept, so it was just sitting there begging to be used for something. Since this point of divergence, or fork point, if you will, AD ASTRA has continued to evolve away from Star Wars in many details; but it remains very much a product of the same kind of feel and the same kind of thing as Star Wars. As Star Wars was a pastiche of a whole host of earlier space opera stories: Lensmen, Dune, Leigh Brackett, and Flash Gordon, combined with Lucas' love of the Kurosawa samurai movies and Westerns, AD ASTRA is a pastiche of not only all of those things (because I'm on first name basis with all of them) but even Star Wars itself. Or rather, perhaps it's a pastiche that focuses those same elements in a similar fashion to Star Wars. Anyway; as AD ASTRA took over what had been STAR WARS REMIXED, the latter become defunct, needless to say.
Anyway; that exercise took more space and time than I expected; I better get back to my EBERRON REMIXED setting elements. But it did do its job; I've decided, looking over that summary, what I want to do next as my EBERRON REMIXED series comes to a close.
The Mror Holds. Another one of the relatively few nations that can be used as is; because it is actually a nation, and not a conglomerate. Other than making sure it complies at the detailed level with the principles spelled out last post, no changes required.
The Lhazaar Principalities. Only a few minor changes here; 1) more humans, less gnomes. 2) They are usually portrayed in official books as somewhat tropical—but have you not seen where they are on the map? They're quite a bit to the north of Karrnath, which is supposed to be really cold. Now, granted—Karrnath might well be continental in climate, while warm currents keep it from being too cold; but then again, warm currents keep northern Europe from being as cold as Siberia and northern Canada. That doesn't mean that islands like Great Britain and Ireland are tropical. Rather than Caribbean style pirates, the Lhazaar pirates have to have a much more northern feel to them. Like Vikings in Medieval ships, maybe.
Xen'Drik. There need to be more colonial footholds besides just Stormreach on the northern shore, which in turn leads to a "Scramble for Africa" politically tense environment. Instead of drow, I'm using kemlings, but that can just be a mechanical rather than setting change. The giants are largely to be represented by ettins from the FANTASY HACK monster list.
Xen'Drik also isn't just totally "savage"—it's not a continent of dungeons and ruins and monsters. There are, of course, the ruins of past civilization that are now fallen, but lots of people live there (mostly kemlings, but there could easily be plenty of humans as well), usually in poorly organized polities, with primitive technology and social structure.
Sarlona. I'm also not really changing anything much here, although I'm considering this a "fringe" part of the setting, where PCs wouldn't actually go (although NPCs may on occasion be from there.) The only thing that I'm "changing" is that the Inspired are not a "race" per se; I'm considering them just an aesthetically pleasing race of humans.
Aerenal. I'm not changing this much, other than to note that the Undying vs. the Undead is too esoterically D&D to make any sense to me, honestly. The whole "no, no—it's positive energy rather than negative energy" was always rather silly; these are just really spooky elves with a civilization that one-ups ancient Aegypt in terms of venerating and preserving the dead. It's kind of a moot point; the Aerenal elves are rather isolationist and unwelcoming, so it's more a point of reference than a place to visit.
Frostfell. I think there's little reason to change much here, because there's so little detail about it anyway. I'd undo some of the hints of exotic, weird humanoids (I really don't need more) and maybe have hidden threats; Clark Ashton Smith style, hiding up in the ice. A combination of Father Llymic, At the Mountains of Madness, and Hyperborea, if I do anything with it at all. Which I probably wouldn't.
Argonessen. Since so little is known about it, there's no reason to change it. There will actually be very few dragons in Eberron, but those that do exist will largely be powerful and feared, no doubt. Dragons in FANTASY HACK are a bit more monstrous than those in D&D (particularly Eberron) but still—this continent is too far away from the normal field of play to really matter much. (I should point out that I never got, or even saw, the book Dragons of Eberron so there may well be more material than I'm aware of.)
Everice. I don't know anything about Everice except that it's there. You're on your own.
The Mror Holds. Another one of the relatively few nations that can be used as is; because it is actually a nation, and not a conglomerate. Other than making sure it complies at the detailed level with the principles spelled out last post, no changes required.
The Lhazaar Principalities. Only a few minor changes here; 1) more humans, less gnomes. 2) They are usually portrayed in official books as somewhat tropical—but have you not seen where they are on the map? They're quite a bit to the north of Karrnath, which is supposed to be really cold. Now, granted—Karrnath might well be continental in climate, while warm currents keep it from being too cold; but then again, warm currents keep northern Europe from being as cold as Siberia and northern Canada. That doesn't mean that islands like Great Britain and Ireland are tropical. Rather than Caribbean style pirates, the Lhazaar pirates have to have a much more northern feel to them. Like Vikings in Medieval ships, maybe.
Xen'Drik. There need to be more colonial footholds besides just Stormreach on the northern shore, which in turn leads to a "Scramble for Africa" politically tense environment. Instead of drow, I'm using kemlings, but that can just be a mechanical rather than setting change. The giants are largely to be represented by ettins from the FANTASY HACK monster list.
Xen'Drik also isn't just totally "savage"—it's not a continent of dungeons and ruins and monsters. There are, of course, the ruins of past civilization that are now fallen, but lots of people live there (mostly kemlings, but there could easily be plenty of humans as well), usually in poorly organized polities, with primitive technology and social structure.
Sarlona. I'm also not really changing anything much here, although I'm considering this a "fringe" part of the setting, where PCs wouldn't actually go (although NPCs may on occasion be from there.) The only thing that I'm "changing" is that the Inspired are not a "race" per se; I'm considering them just an aesthetically pleasing race of humans.
Aerenal. I'm not changing this much, other than to note that the Undying vs. the Undead is too esoterically D&D to make any sense to me, honestly. The whole "no, no—it's positive energy rather than negative energy" was always rather silly; these are just really spooky elves with a civilization that one-ups ancient Aegypt in terms of venerating and preserving the dead. It's kind of a moot point; the Aerenal elves are rather isolationist and unwelcoming, so it's more a point of reference than a place to visit.
Frostfell. I think there's little reason to change much here, because there's so little detail about it anyway. I'd undo some of the hints of exotic, weird humanoids (I really don't need more) and maybe have hidden threats; Clark Ashton Smith style, hiding up in the ice. A combination of Father Llymic, At the Mountains of Madness, and Hyperborea, if I do anything with it at all. Which I probably wouldn't.
Argonessen. Since so little is known about it, there's no reason to change it. There will actually be very few dragons in Eberron, but those that do exist will largely be powerful and feared, no doubt. Dragons in FANTASY HACK are a bit more monstrous than those in D&D (particularly Eberron) but still—this continent is too far away from the normal field of play to really matter much. (I should point out that I never got, or even saw, the book Dragons of Eberron so there may well be more material than I'm aware of.)
Everice. I don't know anything about Everice except that it's there. You're on your own.
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