Eberron Remixed, Second Edition

A few years ago, I had a lot of fun adapting Eberron to Dark Fantasy X as a remix of sorts. Of course, Dark Fantasy X has now evolved into Shadows of Old Night; and that's not just a change in name and a few superficial mechanical details (although it is also that.) More to the point, I've kicked off (and not yet finished) the High Fantasy X project as a fork of Shadows of Old Night, which is another temp name too like Dark Fantasy X was. Not yet sure what I'm going to rename HFX to, but in the meantime, I think it's worth pointing out one salient and interesting detail:

Namely that the setting of High Fantasy X is heavily and deliberately influenced by Khorvaire, the main continent of Eberron. It's also equally heavily and deliberately influenced by Heroes of Might and Magic III, my favorite old computer game from my college days in the latest 90s and early 00s. But one thing that I discovered, accidentally as I was tinkering with ideas for the HFX setting is that Heroes3 and Eberron actually match up shockingly well. All of the Eberron kingdoms (on Khorvaire)—or at least almost all of them—have shockingly close analogs in the factions of Heroes3, especially if you add some of the new Horn of the Abyss factions, like Cove. When I drew my first draft of the High Fantasy X map (which I still need to scan and post) it actually looked quite a bit like Khorvaire, and I was no doubt influenced in many ways both subconscious and conscious when I drew it, like putting the Necropolis-like kingdom in the same location (more or less) as Karrnath, and all of that. It's fair to say that the HFX map is a redrawn, slightly pruned, and renamed/relabeled version of Khorvaire.

This is, of course, because I quite like Eberron. I remixed it, and then I made a pastiche of it as a different setting too.

I kind of want to do two things, one as a step, if you will, to the other. First, I want to take my old Microlite20 Dark Fantasy X EBERRON REMIXED project and create an updated remix of it that more closely matches the HFX rules and races, etc. I'm not going to mess too much with the Eberron Remixed site; I'll leave that alone and redo the pages on it as blog posts with a new tag, EBERRON REMIXED 2e. This means that if I ever want to run Eberron (Remixed) I don't have to go back to an out of date and "primitive" version of my rules. Not that I think that I will ever do that, but y'know. It was fun to remix the setting, so why not remix it again, but better?

After I've done that, it'll be easier to continue transitioning to the even more dramatically "remixed" HFX. I don't consider that a remix at all, although of course it's a setting that is influenced very obviously in some ways by Eberron—except with a darker, Lovecraftian lens applied to it, among other changes. I hope by the time I get that far, that I've come up with a permanent name for High Fantasy X. But if not, I can continue to use the temporary name indefinitely, I suppose.

While, like I said above, the mechanics did change when I migrated from Microlite20 DFX to Shadows of Old Night, the changes are, actually, more modest than you'd think. Sure, sure... I added back in the missing D&D-style ability scores, and rounded out the skills to six as well. I also eliminated the classes, and have an a la carte Feats system which is basically a build-your-own class, just without that label. But what really will change more substantially is that Shadows of Old Night has more races (and a few different ones) than old Dark Fantasy X, which mean that I'll need to remap my Eberron races and nations a little bit to work in this new paradigm. That also gives me an opportunity to revisit some other remix changes that I made to see if they still hold up. Let me first list the races from High Fantasy X, which are a closer match to D&D in some ways—I've got elves and dwarfs back in, for instance—although less so in others, since just because I have elves and dwarfs doesn't mean that they're really exactly like D&D versions of the same, for instance.

I will need to redraw the map; if nothing else, I'd like to add two more minor nations, based (loosely) on Droaam (my remixed interpretation of it, anyway) and Q'barra, since HFX lacks any analog to those. I'll see HFX converge in some ways even closer to my new Eberron Remixed, which will in turn diverge even more from Eberron as printed. 

In any case, HFX lacks the Eberron specific races, so I need to decide what (if anything) to do with them: kalashtar, changelings, shifters and most iconically, war-forged; do I port them to HFX, or leave them off? Probably off, but we'll see. After all, otherwise, why wouldn't I just use Eberron Remixed 2e and not even bother doing HFX at all?

In any case, join me (or don't) as I go through this exercise to re-remix Eberron, and then find out how much of that remixing can translate into useable material for whatever HFX eventually transitions to.

Microlite and the OSR

I've spent as much time as I can muster to go through the latest Microlite stuff. By latest, I don't mean to imply that most of it is actually recent; much of it is over a decade old already. But latest in the sense that it postdates the original Microlite and the Purest Essence Microlite. "Greywulf", or Robin Stacey, made the first Microlite game as a super rules-lite, stripped down take on the 3.5 SRD. Stacey eventually sold or gave or something the rights, such as they were, to Randall S. Stukey, who runs the Microlite site and maintains the system, such as it is, and its archive.

Of course, a lot of other people have made m20 games over time, including myself, but Randall himself seems to be the main guy, and he's made tons of variants. Of course, also, a lot of his variants overlap with only a few minor differences between them; many of them have literally the same text, as much as possible. Stukey is especially interested in the use of m20 to emulate old school games, and he's the author of the Microlite74 family, the closely related Microlite75, and Microlite78 and Microlite81. 74 is an OD&D emulator of sorts, with some of his own house rules from when those games were current, I suppose, whereas 75 is also OD&D, but more faithful to the OD&D than to the 3.5 SRD base from which the game varied in the first place. 78 adds in a bunch of AD&D material, and 81 is more closely based on B/X. He also created a Microlite2020, which updates the game to a more 5e SRD-like base, but then there's also a Microlite2020 Old School version. He also has a few other variants; a sword & sorcery one (with some dubious commentary on the genre, but it's still a fascinating study), a couple that are for a specific setting or two that he's used, and even one that uses 3d6 instead of a d20. There's another 5e SRD based Microlite20 "Fifth Adamantium Edition" that someone else made that has a 5e-like layout.

It's been fun poking around in these games and seeing how they're different from each other, although honestly they aren't all that different. Some of the house rules that Stukey seems to like a lot are kind of controversial in an OSR environment, no doubt, especially his implementation of what are essentially 3e era Wound/Vitality points, with a different name. He's got a Sanity system, very rules lite, although I think I like mine just a little bit better. He also uses the OSR fetish of removing even the regular skills, although he does have a (admittedly fairly clever) check that replaces it. If the whole point of skill checks is that they replace long-form discussion with a roll, then just about any other system; ability check, etc. has the same problem, and there's no reason not to have skills. He also seems to normally add back one of the ability scores; rather than Microlite's normal three, Strength, Dexterity and Mind, he has Strength, Dexterity, Mind and Charisma. Or maybe he renamed Mind back to Intelligence—can't remember offhand. Honestly, although I did that by inertia when I first started messing around with m20, I don't really see the point of cutting the ability scores from six to three. It doesn't really make the game any more or less clunky to have the six ability scores that everyone is pretty much already used to seeing. I also increased the skills to six, and although I think that's a good change, one of the reasons I did it was so that with six abilities and six skills, the character sheet just looked better. Dark Fantasy X, with the same six abilities as D&D, and an increase from 4-5 (depending on the version of m20 that you used) to 6 skills is still fabulously rules lite; it doesn't actually add any complexity to speak of to have those back in. In fact, because they are all so familiar, it may be faster and easier to have more but familiar abilities rather than fewer, but you have to convert in your mind what the D&D abilities are in m20 terms. MIND as a conglomeration of INT, WIS and CHA and STR having to do double duty for both STR and CON from D&D was actually more difficult for me than just having them all. And my slightly expanded skill list of Athletics, Bushcraft, Communication, Knowledge, Stealth and Tinker seems like the right amount and the right list. They're all sufficiently broad to get lots of use, and sufficiently different from each other to not really have any overlap.

Of course, with these changes to my game, I don't really consider it an m20 game anymore either. It's at least as similar to some other hybrid OSR/modern game like ShadowDark or Knave 2e as it is to the original m20 game. But it's funny how insignificant, really, the difference really is between them. 

Anyway, I've made a few changes to my Dark Fantasy X game file; mostly by adding a more detailed weapon and armor list as an alternate rule. I may trawl through the spell and monster lists to see if there's anything else that I want to add, but probably not. I think a lot of the monsters that I don't already have, or at least have close analogs to, are too D&Dish to really fit well into the Dark Fantasy X setting. 

And when I finally get around to doing Elemental Fantasy X, I may use a slightly more D&D-like magic system anyway. We'll see. But probably not the more D&Dish monster list. I quite like the monster list as it is. Because Elemental Fantasy X is a hybrid of sorts between my Eberron Remixed and Heroes of Might & Magic III, I might find that there are some monsters I want to add from the latter in particular, or possibly modify from my existing list to more closely resemble their HOMM3 variants.

Why do I use X in all of of my recent homebrews anyway? Actually, I created an alternate (which later became my main) YouTube account a couple of years ago, originally to post SWTOR playthrough videos on. I wanted something that sounded like old space opera, but had a tongue in cheek pop culture reference or something like that, and for whatever reason, I imagined a spaceman who was kind of like the mysterious and cool Racer X from the old Speed Racer re-runs that I used to watch when I was a kid in the mid to late 70s. Spacer X became that name. Because I also had a kind of mysterious conspiracy theory X-files like vibe to the settings I was working on at the time it double fit. I decided to call my game Space Opera X, my username was Spacer X, my fantasy game Dark Fantasy X, and later, my not-dark fantasy Elemental Fantasy X, because by that time having an X at the end was kind of the brand.

... I guess that story isn't really all that interesting now that I've typed it out. Oh, well. And sadly, I've occasionally had people assume that I'm an Elon Musk fan because of Spacer X, which isn't really true at all. Sigh.

Finally, I've got a few more updates to a few more Hero Forge models, so here they are. 

Germund de Bosque, an infamous bounty hunter

Bahram Khanwar, an iconic "anti-PC" surtur. Of course, I named him back when they were still called the djinn and had a more middle eastern background rather than an Icelandic one. I might want to consider renaming him.

I have a folder in my Hero Forge characters called "Prospects" where I have either cool minis that I got out of the library, or ones that I just made without having a specific idea in mind for them. This guy was a library model, but I modified him somewhat. The original also predates the face customizer, so I had to implement that if I wanted to touch anything on the face at all.

Originally Drylanders weren't specifically Cossack and Slavic like, but now that they are, some "historical" models, like this Kievan Rus' guy, are good analogs for Drylanders.

What else to do with Eberron Remixed

Although I said earlier on this tag to put a fork in this project, because I'd done everything other than just simply run it... I actually think I could review the adventures published for the setting and see what (if anything) I could use them for. This will be probably much like what I did for some of my deconstructed stuff, and what I suspect that I'd end up with after I'm done is something like the campaign briefs plus some notes. What I need to do is make a quick list of the official adventures—not counting the Dungeon Magazine ones, in order, that I can go through. The first one is actually included in the campaign setting book, and I did discuss it briefly in my remix project already. After that there's a four part series, and then an unconnected fifth (or sixth, if you count the campaign setting short module) module. That gives me six adventures to review; about equivalent to an adventure path, even though these books are a little slimmer. So, this epilogue to the Eberron Remixed project will be much like my Deconstructed projects, like Cult of Undeath or Isles of Terror, etc.

I realize that I'm in the middle of one of those projects already, that I haven't done anything with since before the summer started. But I can still put a bookmark post in where I want to come back and do something later, right?

Here's the list of modules. I've also put this on my Eberron Remixed page.

• The Forgotten Forge
• Shadows of the Last War
• Whispers of the Vampire's Blade
• Grasp of the Emerald Claw
• Voyage of the Golden Dragon
• Eyes of the Lich Queen

Eberron Remixed and Paizo Deconstructed... why not Golarion Remixed?

Y'know, it occurs to me that I've had two projects that I've kind of enjoyed over time that I've done just more as an intellectual exercise than as an attempt to actually use this. But the end result is certainly something that's useable just because I have no immediate plans to do so. I'm talking specifically about the Paizo Deconstructed projects I've done, where I've gone through a Paizo Adventure Path and looted it for anything useable in a gaming environment that's much more my style than anything Paizo provided. I've mostly only done this for the adventure path adventures, though—with just a bit of a look at some other adventures; a handful of stand-alones, and the not yet finished big project of reviewing all of the Pathfinder Society Scenarios for useableness in my own milieu (I'd have to get a hold of all those e-booklets again, though, in order to review them. They weren't mine and I was reading someone else's copies on their device when I was doing that earlier.) This has been kind of fun, and I just kicked off another Adventure Path deconstruction earlier this week.

I also just recently finished my Eberron Remixed review, though, where I talked about how I'd convert that setting into my own system, complete with remixing not just the setting to be a little more how I'd like it, but also how I'd shoehorn it into a system with a pretty dramatically different demihuman line-up, different magic, and a somewhat darker tone. Why, then, have I not thought about doing that with other settings that I like, but which I think failed to completely live up to their potential? Like... Golarion? I'm remixing Golarion through adventure paths, but it hadn't occurred to me to think about remixing the setting like I've done with Eberron.

Now, at least in one sense, it doesn't make quite as much sense. While Eberron was designed specifically for D&D, and as the saying goes, "if it's in D&D, there's a place it can fit in Eberron." But Eberron was also looking to do something unique with tone and feel and mood. In this sense, it made obvious sense to remix it, because being tied to D&D held it back, according to my conceit anyway, from adequately doing what it was trying to do with said tone and feel and mood. Golarion, on the other hand, is also designed for D&D (it was a 3.5 edition setting book before the Pathfinder system debuted. And the Pathfinder system was specifically launched with the premise of keeping "3.5-like" D&D current in an era when loads of people were shearing off from D&D because 4e was too different.) And not only that, it's designed specifically to feel like D&D. The whole point of Golarion (and later the Pathfinder system) was to maintain what the designers and many customers thought was greater fidelity to the D&D tone and feel and mood than the current edition of D&D itself was doing. 

Makes me wonder; is it worth doing? I tend not to like "vanilla" D&D settings all that much. Forgotten Realms has gotten a decided "meh" from me; I like it well enough, but I don't love anything about it, nor care what it does for the most part. Greyhawk has never excited me much at all. Settings like Kingdoms of Kalamar, etc. never got much oomph with my interest. But for some reason, Golarion, which is a quintessentially D&D-like setting, regardless of the name of the actual game that most people played it in, is one that I've always liked. If I convert that to my Dark Heritage rules, it'll obligatorily lose some of its quintessential D&D-ness. Wouldn't something like Iron Kingdoms or Freeport be more your speed? Well.. honestly, yeah, on paper that would seem to be true. That said, Golarion is the one that's singing to me right now, given that Eberron Remixed is finished. 

I'm going to finish the DUNGEON YOG-SOTHOTHERY before I really get going, and I'm going to use the original 3.5 version of the campaign setting; although I may refer a little bit to the Lost Omens 2e version, and cherry pick stuff that I like better from whichever of the versions offers what I like better. I kind of like the idea that the Worldwound is closed, for instance, although demons still linger. I didn't think Lastwall was a very compelling nation, so having it turned into the Graveyard, or whatever exactly they call it now, is fine by me. On the other hand, the overthrow of Sargava is just a deliberate albeit oblique slight at white people. Paizo are hardly strangers to wokeness and political correctness, and they are not in the least reading the market that has had enough of that BS and revolting against it in nerd franchise after nerd franchise over the last couple of years or so. Rather, they're obviously doubling down, as SJWs do. Of course, that's part of the reason the setting needs remixing, to get back to a more "Gygaxian" style setting, maybe. Or better yet, the original source material that Gygax himself referenced, but then failed to really emulate very well in many cases. Maybe that's why I like Golarion so much; the love that the original development team had for the source material, including the OG source material that even Gygax was referencing (as opposed to going through the filter of too much Gygax) really shows through.

Eberron Remixed is DONE

Just an announcement; my Eberron Remixed project is DONE! I've done everything that I hoped to do with the project. Well, with one exception; come up with specific adventures in the Remixed version of the setting and run them. But otherwise, the thing is finished, and I don't anticipate making any additional updates to the Eberron Remixed tag. Unless I do run a game there. Honestly, a lot would have to change to get me to that point; I've got my own settings to run first, and that'll keep me going indefinitely. I think I'll officially stick a fork in this project.

I also actually recently re-read my Isles of Terror tag, where I went through the Serpent's Skull adventure path, and discussed how I would adapt it, or more accurately, borrow elements from it. I'm considering picking another adventure path and doing that again.I've done two now; ISLES OF TERROR adapts the Serpent's Skull and CULT OF UNDEATH adapts The Carrion Crown. The obvious choice here for me to do next is Strange Aeons, but I might go on and do even more. Probably the one that I'd be most likely to want to adapt after that are Age of Ashes, War for the Crown, Council of Thieves, Tyrant's Grasp, and maybe The Crimson Throne. That's plenty to keep me busy, but assuming I do all six of those, I'll look and see if I care to do any more. Because I suspect, although I haven't actually read it yet, that Strange Aeons has way too many dungeoncrawls imbedded in it, I'll give that one the tag DUNGEON YOG-SOTHOTHERY and proceed with that one first. 

Revisiting Eberron Remixed

Just a quick announcement. I'm not doing anything here on the blog, but if you followed my Eberron Remixed project, I've actually recently kind of rediscovered it and brought it back. It is one of the projects, however, that because it has its own Google Sites site, I probably won't bother crossposting updates here and there, I'll just make them there and occasionally refer to the fact that I'm doing stuff over there.

One side effect of doing things this way is that I sometimes forget about stuff that's disconnected from this, the "main" blog, though. I'd almost completely forgotten about some of my other blogs that I used to spend more time on than obviously I do now, Lone Star Hiker, Synthpop80s and SFKOFFF being the most notable examples there. And I've been making all kinds of Ad Astra updates over the last few months on my Ad Astra Google Site without announcing most of them here. 

Anyway, I'm interested in actually finishing the Eberron Remixed project. I'm a good... I dunno, 2/3s through already? 3/4s maybe? I finished up my review of the longest chapter in the setting book, and reread my entire corpus of work on the project so far just recently. And then maybe I'll continue my Youtube vlog series about it once I'm a bit further along too.

All of this because I'd actually like to get back to RPGs. Y'know, the whole frikkin' reason I started this blog in the first place? I might have an angle on building a new group, maybe. And even if I don't, I want to talk more about RPG related stuff than I have been the last year or two, where my RPG investment has been waning and fallow for a while. This, plus my Ad Astra investment, is the first two prongs of that approach. It is, however, notable to point out that I'm not necessarily always using this blog as the primary avenue to post that kind of stuff, although I'll try to at least make announcements when I think that there's something significant enough new that someone might want to go check out.

Anyhoo, the image below is a link to my Eberron Remixed project, as it currently stands. As pointed out in the Home page, it does expect you to have, be familiar with, and maybe even refer to the 3.5 version of the Eberron Campaign Setting while you're using that document, and it might be difficult to follow if you don't, unless you just happen to know the Eberron setting so well that my esoteric references make sense to you (they wouldn't even to me, and I wrote them!)

Eberron Remixed vs Dark•Heritage 2

I've spent a fair bit of time the last few days fleshing out the content of my Eberron Remixed wiki page. Much of that is material that I otherwise might have explored on my blog, and I will likely cross-post a good deal of it later once things slow down just a bit. But one thing that I noticed; while going through the mechanics, I thought of a few minor updates that I will almost certainly get around to adding to my Dark•Heritage 2 document, changing the revision from 2.4.1 to 2.5. The changes aren't huge, but they did kind of beg themselves and when I thought of them, I kind of wish that I had thought of them earlier.

The first one is that I realized that an important element of adventuring had been left off; how to deal with suffocating and drowning! I've added a section for that in the Other Hazards part of adventuring.

I also added a new twist to the spellcasting rules for a natural 1 where there is a risk of a permanent decrease of 1 to your Sanity score when you fail a roll badly. You get another chance to not lose the Sanity; i.e., you have to fail a second check to have your Sanity score permanently reduced, but still—it kinda seemed obvious. 

And I modified the Shadow Sword class, making it pretty much exactly the same as the Jedi class that I had originally based it on; i.e., instead of a sneaky minor ability, I gave it a modest suite of psionic powers heavily influenced by the stuff you see Jedi do in the movies. Viola! Although based on the Jedi, it's kind of a combination of the soulknife and the psion in terms of its role in the game, and the only way to bring psionics in at all.

Anyway, I recommend you again to my Eberron Remixed site if you have any interest in that project, because I'm advancing material faster there than here, although I will eventually get around to crossposting my Remixed discussions here too. I'm not 100% sure which of all of these changes will for sure make it to Dark•Heritage 2.5, but probably all of them except the change to the Shadow Sword. And I'm considering even that.

Funny how activity in one area seems to always cross-polinate in another for me. 

Eberron Remixed has its own page

https://sites.google.com/site/eberronremixed/

So far, I've adapted (and by adapted, I mostly mean "copied and pasted" my Dark•Heritage 2 rules with a very few minor tweaks to be Eberron workable; although fitting the Eberron setting into the rules I already had was one of the key conceits and part of what made it interesting to me. I did, however, add the three signature Eberron races that weren't already in DH, and made a reference to Dragonmarks.

More work will need to be done expanding on my early precis for adaptation to the setting half of the site, but that's still in Coming soon... mode for now. That said, check it out!

Revising Eberron Remixed to be compatible with Dark•Heritage 2

Reading through my older blog posts, I was struck by how cool Eberron was with a few minor tweaks to fix some of the niggling issues that it has. I had toyed with this idea in my EBERRON REMIXED tag a couple of years ago. Then, after adopting m20 to be usable for Eberron, I updated it to Fantasy Hack. I could simply leave it there, of course, as a perfectly usable in that mileu, but I've largely left Fantasy Hack to the side, and prefer Dark•Heritage 2 now, as similar already as they are. What would I have to do to convert EBERRON REMIXED into this system, and what impact would that have on my remixing of the setting?

First, let me revisit some of my guiding principles for the remixing project. I'm actually not cutting and pasting, but rewriting and potentially slightly tweaking them here.

• Eberron's high concept was a swashbuckling game of derring-do in a D&D kind of setting. D&D, at least at the time and in the edition that Eberron was developed, was a highly static game of cautious, grid-based tactical combat, which is completely at odds with Eberron's concept. 4e, as near as I can tell, was even worse in this regard, although I suppose that the combat was at least more over-the-top in some ways. I have no idea if 5e is more in alignment here or not, and I don't really care to find out as I have little interest in learning 5e, but the first point of order remains making sure that your system is in alignment with the concept of Eberron and actually supports that concept. I'm quite happy with DH/m20 in this regard. Although I recognize that other systems could also accomplish this goal fairly well, because I've settled on m20 variants, that's the only system that I'll be discussing with regards to remixing Eberron.
• I've come to appreciate over the years the wisdom of the much more humano-centric assumption that Gary Gygax himself would have had, as well as that of the writers that he was creating a pastiche of, such as Leiber, Howard, and others. Eberron spotlights non-human races significantly, and I've rejiggered the setting to be much more humano-centric in its assumptions, with "demihumans" and monsters appearing much less frequently, although still being available as need requires.
• Anything that reeks of wokeness and social justice dogma is remixed out. Eberron, as published in the 3.5 era, was before wokeness was even a term, but the concepts are still there. In general, this means stop pretending that men and women are interchangeable widgets, and changing the sex of potentially a great many important NPCs. (If they were to even show up in my games, which is probably unlikely anyway.) It also means that the Christan church stand-in, the Church of the Silver Flame needs to have its "oh my gosh, so oppressive!" snide insults completely removed from the setting. For that matter, I also prefer to have actual Christianity be the default religion of most people, rather than a stand-in for Christianity. And as an American, rather than a European, I also prefer to focus more on local pastors and whatnot leading congregations rather than big, centralized organizations vying for power. That was one of the main things that the American colonists wanted to escape from, after all.
• Because Eberron was designed specifically to be a setting where everything from D&D potentially had a place, it lacks coherency sometimes. I'm perfectly OK with pruning esoteric D&Disms out entirely and not replacing them, to be honest with you. My design goals for remixing Eberron don't have to be the same that Baker had when he designed it in the first place. Some judicious and occasionally ruthless editing of concepts that never really fit very well is acceptable, and even desireable.
• Eberron is very big; the remixing project is taking a relatively light touch on the details of the setting, focusing instead on big picture stuff. That said, a "protagonist" area would be essential for actually playing the game; y'know, a place where most of the action actually takes place. Here, I think the single best setting element, Sharn, as a place of fantasy noir type stories, is this place. I also know that yeah, zipping all across the continent and beyond is a feature of the setting, the modules, the novels, and what's expected generally from Eberron, but I tend to think that there are more local opportunities for adventure than most gamers realize, possibly because not enough of them get out and experience what the local adventuring possibilities in real life actually are. Sharn and its surrounding environs are therefore where any more detailed localized remixing would take place, although honestly, I probably won't bother too much with that until I'm actually at a point where I care to play with this.

Now, Fantasy Hack, or at least my EBERRON REMIXED version of it, accomodated almost all of the demihuman racial diversity in Eberron. The first thing that I need to do in adapting Eberron into DH is remapping the races from Eberron into the races that exist in DH. The signature races of Eberron need to be present, of course, otherwise it wouldn't exactly be a very good translation of Eberron, but some of the other D&D races that otherwise aren't selectable in DH can be translated into something else. I know, I know--that will make the setting diverge in a number of ways from the setting as published. In fact, it's probably a beachhead into a more thorough remix of the setting than the Fantasy Hack version was. That's OK. If you want something a bit more closely hewing to Eberron as printed, the Fantasy Hack revisions can be seen with the earlier posts that have this same tag, while those going forward from this one will be more of a departure into a different take on the setting. That's actually what prompted me to do this, though--the concept of a more thorough departure sounded intriguing enough that I wanted to start exploring it piece by piece, step by step and little by little. This actually helps with the second goal of the setting remix guiding principles, actually. Some of the demihuman groups will become human, and my demihumans are actually demihuman rather than "non-human." (Gygax seemed to use the word to refer to races that were more aesthetically pleasing, like elves and halflings, etc. rather than to imply that demihumans were actually part human and part something else, like the prefix actually means semantically. Maybe parahuman was really the word he was looking for.)

The Fantasy Hack races list is as follows; I'll start from there and see where I need to diverge.

• Human: +1 to all skills
• Elf: +2 to MND
• Half-elf: +1 MND, +2 to any skill(s)
• Dwarf: +1 STR, +1 to AC as natural armor
• Halfling: +1 DEX and Stealth affinity
• Gnome: +1 to DEX, +1 to MND
• Goblin: +1 DEX and +1 to Subterfuge
• Orcs (and Half-orcs): +2 to STR
• Hobgoblins: +1 STR, +1 to DEX
• Warforged: +1 to STR, +2 to Acrobatics, no stat increases on leveling, but are immune to mind-influencing magic, and do not need to breathe, eat, drink, etc. 
• Shifters: +3 to STR, -1 to MND, +1 to Survival skill, -1 to Communication skill.
• Changeling: Can change form as a single action, +1 to Subterfuge, +1 to Communication
• Kalashtar: Can spend 1 HP to establish a two-way mindlink with a creature it can see, which enables telepathic communication, +1 to Communication, and +1 to Knowledge

The DH5 list is more modest, but of course, it doesn't technically have the Eberron specific races, which could be added (keep in mind that the Wose race from DH5 is both conceptually and mechanically identical to the shifters. Let me post that, and then I'll post a side by side where I map one list to the other and discuss how to do that.

• Human: +1 to all skills.  
• Skraeling: +1 to DEX and Stealth affinity.  
• Orc: +2 to STR.  
• Goblin: +1 DEX and a +2 to the Subterfuge skill.
• Cursed: Racial affinity for Stealth, +1 to Athletics and +1 to Knowledge. 
• Jann: +1 to any 2 skills, and also have the fire strike ability; they can infuse one attack per day with the power of the ifrit and their weapon will burst into flame doing an additional 2d6 damage for 5 rounds. 
• Kemling: +1 to DEX, a racial affinity for Stealth, and the ability to see in the dark with a biological equivalent to night vision goggles.
• Nephilim: +1 to MND and a +1 to Knowledge and Communication.
• Wose: +3 to STR, -1 to MND, +1 to their Survival Skill, and -1 to their Communication skill.

What does DH5 not have that Eberron does?

• Elf. I know that elfs are very much standard to D&D, but I've deliberately not used them in DH5, figuring that they don't really fit. I actually don't think that elves are important to the setting unless you're specifically using Aerenal in some fashion, but if you are, I actually think the Nephilim can stand in for the elves here. Since there are no elves, there also are no half-elves, where a specific race of humans (without differing stats) can replace them. In fact, in the spirit of making the whole thing more humano-centric, maybe Aerenal should be a primarily human nation, with its own Aereni ethnic group, ruled over by an overcaste of the Nephilim.The dark elves of Xen'drik, on the other hand, were represented by kemlings. I'm not sold on this, necessarily, or even the concept of making Xen'drik an important part of the setting that I'd expect people to go to, and there are other places that I like kemlings. But it's possible for there to be two completely unconnected groups of kemlings, I suppose, so maybe it's best to keep it as it is for now. And the Valenar elves can, of course, just be a small faction of Nephilim that left Aerenal, just as the the setting promises anyway.
• Dwarf. Elves and dwarves are the two races that scream "vanilla fantasy" to me. (Especially with that Tolkien spelling instead of the more standard elfs and dwarfs.) I know that both have their roots in old Germanic if not even Indo-European folklore, but they are not presented in fantasy settings, most of the time, as they are in that kind of folklore. If they were, they probably wouldn't be a playable race anyway. Can you imagine the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, for example, from the Dresden Files trying to be translated into D&D with its members as playable characters? If I'm not going to do elfs, I'm not going to do dwarfs either. That said, I have less resonance with the Mror Holds and the notion of dwarfs as the Swiss bankers of Eberron. If we need Swiss bankers, just make them more like the actual Swiss; an ethnic group of humans from the mountains of the Mror Holds.
• Halfling. In Baker's attempt to get away from the "stereotype" of the hobbit and make halflings cool, even though the concept is fundamentally uncool, he made them dinosaur-riding Plains Indians, if you accept a very strange, and kind of hippy interpretation of Plains Indians. I prefer a much more savage and dangerous type of Plains Indian; y'know, the kind that we actually feared and respected, and I'd already decided that the jann were where I'd use them. 
• Gnome. If the halfling already isn't very cool, then gnomes are the halflings' even less cool, nebbish older brother. A nation of spies and gangsters is a little strange to think of on its own (how exactly does such a nation survive, for one thing? They have to have someone to prey on, and that makes them fundamentally unstable as a nation on their own and a threat and enemy to everyone else.) It's an insufficient twist to make the gnomes salvageable. I actually think that replacing the gnomes of Zilargo (and elsewhere) with the Cursed makes some sense, though. It retains the vibe of normal people don't really trust them, even if they don't necessarily have an in-your-face reason not to, and it also works that they've had to develop means other than overt strength to maintain their positions in some cases. 
• Hobgoblin. Orcs and hobgoblins are already conceptually exactly the same thing. I overlooked that with my earlier attempt to translate Eberron into Fantasy Hack and made a unique hobgoblin stat line, but I'm not willing to do that here. The orcs will replace the hobgoblins in Darguun and other areas where orcs and goblins might have association. The orcs of the Shadow Marches will, on the other hand, not be orcs at all, but rather skraelings, which seems to fit them perfectly. Most other pockets of orcs here and there across Khorvaire will also be replaced by skraelings.
• Warforged, kalashtar and changelings need to be actually brought in, as they are in the Fantasy Hack iteration. Being signature races to the Eberron setting, it just doesn't seem right to not include them. That said, warforged can actually be taken out if desired with surprisingly little problems to the setting itself, other than that you don't have the Lord of Blades as a potential villain, and changelings can just be dopplegangers and monsters rather than playable character types, and their frequency reduced without upsetting much of anything either. And kalashtar can be a human group.
• Shifters and woses are already the same thing. Use whichever name you like. I think I prefer shifter for Eberron and wose for DH5, but whatever.

Besides races, what are a few other changes needed? I never actually adapted any Psionics rules to the EBERRON REMIXED project, although I think I probably referred you to the m20 compilation document and m20 Psionics as a suitable replacement. I actually am less intrigued by this than I was at the time; I think that if psionics needs to be in at all, beyond the kalashtar racial ability, they can simply be Shadow Swords to represent their psionic abilities. The Shadow Sword is kind of the Jedi from STAR WARS REMIXED (later AD ASTRA) but with the force powers removed and the lightsaber replaced with a manifestable psionic blade. If you wanted to go to a form that had more psionic powers again, you could always port the actual Psionic Knight class (i.e. fake Jedi) from AD ASTRA since the Shadow Blade is already quite similar. Replace the ability to cloak yourself in shadow with the ability to use Psionic Powers, as listed here. I'm not sure that I necessarily recommend doing this yet—to be honest with you, I always thougth psionics sat uncomfortably next to magic in D&D. Do one or the other depending on what flavor you prefer for your magic in your fantasy setting, but having them both as alternates to each other was always weird. But that said, I think I'd at least allow this if someone really wanted to play a psionic character, pending further review of the concept, where I might decide that it doesn't really fit after all in the future.

For that matter, my magic system is more Lovecraftian rather than Vancian. Doesn't that potentially impact one of the major setting assumptions of Eberron, i.e., very common low level magic applied to objects to make them mimic some aspects of what is done with technology in the real world? Well... yes and no. Yes in the sense that if you really stopped and thought about the implications of such a change, it would make sense that it undercuts that element of the setting. Then again, it would hardly be the first or even the most egregious element of a setting that doesn't make sense if you really think through the implications of including it. And since the PCs aren't meant to be street light makers, or even lightning rail makers, it's kind of a moot point; at no point am I interested in exploring how these things were developed or how they're manufactured and maintained, so there's no point in really trying to worry about it or explain it. I mean, do you know how light bulbs are manufactured and how electricity gets to them? You can probably say something about noble gases and the filament and hydroelectric power and power lines, but the answer is, no, you probably don't, unless you work for a power company directly involved in making sure that it happens. Does that impact your ability to accept the real world because you don't know how that works? Well, it shouldn't with your fantasy world either.

Besides, although I didn't convert them per se, because utilizing d20 elements in m20 is usually a pretty straightforward task, the Dragonmarked feats still exist after all and I've always said as much. One can simply assume that the Houses maintain and create these items, as the setting mostly says that they do, and if the feats themselves don't cover it, you can assume that there are other, higher-level House secret feats that the artificers have that you as a player character don't.

Other than that, for now, I think that my previous conversion of Eberron to Fantasy Hack doesn't need to be supplemented by anything right away beyond what I've detailed here to be further converted into Dark•Heritage. But don't forget, if you were to try and use this, to go ahead and implement all of those changes too. Maybe I'll even create a small little classic Google Site to house this put together in a better format; i.e., not just a handful of rambly blog posts that occasionally over-write each other.

Revisiting Eberron Remixed

Yes, I know this isn't really an Eberron piece...

My EBERRON REMIXED was always a minor project to begin with, but one that I rather enjoyed while I tinkered with it.  I never did go back and add house rules or discussion about the Dragonmarked Houses and stuff like that, but that's probably OK.  The feats can be readily adapted by any GM who needs them from the d20 rules themselves without too much work; after all, that was the promise of m20, that any d20 element could be adapted.

Rather, I think the setting being remixed is what's more important to discuss rather than some mechanical elements or components.  Let's revisit the way I'm doing this.  The remixing process requires:

1. 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, but you can go with something else, if you like) - COMPLETE, although I need to make sure my Eberron rules are still in harmony with the newer version of DH5 or FANTASY HACK, which I don't think that they are anymore.
2. 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) - COMPLETE, see below
3. 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 - WORK IN PROGRESS
4. Adapt setting elements as highlighted in this brief prospectus over the course of a few blog posts into this paradigm. - WORK IN PROGRESS

Now keep in mind that I don't really want to change too many things for its own sake; if I'm changing something it's because 1) it's more convenient do use something already off the shelf than reinvent the wheel, or 2) an Eberron element doesn't fit the vision of the Remix and therefore needs to be adjusted to one that does, or 3) an Eberron (or D&D element in Eberron) element simply didn't work as well for me as the author thought it would, and it came across as either hoaky, strangely esoteric, or just odd and unlikable.  Yeah, yeah—that third point means I can make any change for any reason I want, but I reserve that right, I suppose.  

Anyway, the Guiding Principles are as follows; also reposted from before:

1. Eberron is a D&D setting, but the pulp and noir elements that inform its tone clash with D&D as it has become (D&D is not cinematic, action-packed or swashbuckling; it's careful, cautious and tactical, and it actively punishes anyone who tries to be pulpy or swashbuckling.)  The very first thing I noted that is important to successfully "remix" the setting is to find a new system for it that better accommodates its tone.  
2. Along those lines, pulpy, swashbuckling settings from the actual pulp era were much more humano-centric, and D&D was initially expected to be so as well.  The more I've thought about it, the more I've come around to the wisdom of humano-centric settings.  I used to be perfectly fine with weird, cosmopolitan, and fantasy-alien settings, but that doesn't really work well for the tone of Eberron.  The tone of swashbuckling pulp and noir really needs to be humano-centric.  So, for every nation, I've changed the population balance to greatly increase the expectation of humans, and greatly reduce the expectation of non-humans.  
3. It's also striking how much social justice dogma has infiltrated any official D&D publication.  I'm very interested in remixing out any of those strains of melody (to probably take the remixing analogy a little too far.)  The former point actually supports this; an understanding of biological HBD, for instance, makes social justice equalitarianism ridiculous.  The piling on on traditional institutions of Western civilization (or their fantasy surrogates) is insulting and any instances of it will be removed with extreme prejudice, the elevation of strange hippiness as a surrogate for actual moralty will cease, most of the female NPCs that are acting like men will be reskinned as men, and vice versa.  
4. Finally, I just want a more coherent whole.  I've always thought that coherency is one of the things that Eberron lacked, because, as Keith Baker said repeatedly, everything from D&D had to have a place.  This might mean that some elements; even important ones, are left out.
5. UPDATE: Adding a new guiding principle; a setting like Eberron is deliberately BIG, so that there are lots of different places that can appeal to lots of different people as needed for their own campaign style and taste.  Golarion or Forgotten Realms is similar.  HOWEVER, any given campaign can't reasonably be set all over the place (although it was often a hallmark of Eberron adventures that you were taking magic trains and airships and traveling a fair bit) so realistically I should focus my efforts on remixing only a single geographically constrained region—at least, if you mean beyond what I've already remixed for background context.  Because Breland and Sharn in particular are the spotlight areas and main protagonist area, if you will, I think it makes the most sense to focus my efforts there if I do any additional Eberron Remixing.

Now, granted, Sharn and the surrounding area needs considerably less remixing than the entire setting, but I also need to think of what kind of adventures would be set primarily there and not hightailing it all over the continent (or even beyond).  Certainly few of the official adventures would do so.  That's OK, but maybe the two need to be done in concert; i.e., lets start working on developing a potential campaign arc of sorts and see how that impacts additional development needed on remixing the setting and vice versa.  Luckily, being a relatively cosmopolitan area, the remixing (beyond what's already been done) can be kept more or less to a minimum.  Sharn was probably one of the setting's best single elements anyway.

Along those lines, the remixing has to apply to the adventure styles too.  If I'm saying Eberron failed to live up to its promise in large part because it was straining to be something other than D&D but stuck in a D&D game, that's especially true of the "signature" adventure; the one set in Sharn and spotlighted in the Campaign Setting book, "The Forgotten Forge".  Starting out as a kind of noir mystery, it quickly turns into.... a dungeoncrawl in the caverns underneath Sharn.

Sigh.  I probably ought to at least skim the modules, or read some decent summaries of them online or something, and see what elements are ripe for theft into a new paradigm, but otherwise, it's not like I can't do a fantasy urban noir mystery and intrigue adventure on my own, of course.  I've done it before and can certainly do it again.

So, I might yet revive this tag and do a little more work on it after all.  Maybe.  Certainly, right now I'm feeling warmer to that idea than I have in a long time.

Remixing Eberron—the setting Post III

So... we've got the high concept of remixing Eberron, based on what I believe the high concept of Eberron is.  This means:

1. 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), 
2. 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 
3. 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 
4. Adapt setting elements as highlighted in this brief prospectus over the course of a few blog posts into this paradigm.

So far, we've had a few posts (click on all posts with the EBERRON REMIXED tag) that have done some of that.  I'm actually trying to change as little as possible, so as to make all of your material still applicable, but that doesn't mean that there aren't some changes that aren't fairly significant, though.  And I should probably add a number 5. to that list: I also change stuff that I just don't like, on occasion, even if it doesn't cause a conflict with any of the four above.  An example of this would be changing the halflings of the Talenta Plains into jann.  Just because I think the notion of barbarian warrior halflings is kind of ridiculous and hard to take seriously.  Rather than accept the challenge of trying to make it fit, I just picked a race from FANTASY HACK that I think fit the bill better anyway (for fans of D&D races, this race is similar enough in concept and appearance to the fire genasi.)

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.

Remixing Eberron—the setting Post II

I've come around to some Principles of remixing Eberron, although I haven't yet spelled them out exactly.  Before I start the next nations on this survey, how about I "chat" about them, just a bit?

• Eberron is a D&D setting, but the pulp and noir elements that inform its tone clash with D&D as it has become (D&D is not cinematic, action-packed or swashbuckling; it's careful, cautious and tactical, and it actively punishes anyone who tries to by pulpy or swashbuckling.)  The very first thing I noted that is important to successfully "remix" the setting is to find a new system for it that better accommodates its tone.  There are a number of potential options (any swashbuckling fantasy system can be adopted—Savage Worlds, FATE, or even—ironically—old school D&D or retroclones.  I've picked m20, both because I really like m20, and because it accomplishes this goal while also making the use of existing Eberron d20 material very, very easy.
• Along those lines, pulpy, swashbuckling settings from the actual pulp era were much more humano-centric, and D&D was initially expected to be so as well.  The more I've thought about it, the more I've come around to the wisdom of humano-centric settings.  I used to be perfectly fine with weird, cosompolitan, and fantasy-alien settings, but that doesn't really work well for the tone of Eberron.  The tone of swashbuckling pulp and noir really needs to be humano-centric.  So, for every nation, I've changed the population balance to greatly increase the expectation of humans, and greatly reduce the expectation of non-humans.  I haven't necessarily spelled this out in numbers of percentages, but as an example, let's look at Breland.  The official population breakdown is:
• Humans: 44%
• Gnomes: 14%
• Half-elves: 10%
• Elves: 8%
• Dwarves: 7%
• Halflings: 4%
• Changelings: 4%
• Goblinoids: 4%
• Orcs: 3%
• Other: 2%
• My breakdown, on the other hand, would look more like the following—and again, this is meant to be merely a sample, with similar changes applied to every other country.  And also keep in mind that Breland is relatively diverse compared to most of the other nations of Khorvaire.  I want the nations to actually be nations, not "proposition nations"; the definition of which is "a large aggregate of people united by common descent, history, culture, and language, inhabiting a particular country or territory."
• Humans: 88%
• Half-elves: 3%
• Gnomes: 2%
• Elves: 2%
• Dwarves: 1%
• Orcs: 1%
• Goblinoids" 1%
• Other: 2%
• It's also striking how much social justice dogma has infiltrated any official D&D publication.  I'm very interested in remixing out any of those strains of melody (to probably take the remixing analogy a little too far.)  The former point actually supports this; an understanding of biological HBD, for instance, makes social justice equalitarianism ridiculous.  The piling on on traditional institutions of Western civilization (or their fantasy surrogates) is to stop, the elevation of strange hippiness will cease, most of the female adventuring/warrior NPCs will be re-gendered to the sex that actually does that well, etc.  But this is stuff that I don't need to actually detail too much; just point out that I'm making that a principle of EBERRON REMIXED.  
• Finally, I just want a more coherent whole.  I've always thought that coherency is one of the things that Eberron lacked, because, as Keith Baker said repeatedly, everything from D&D had to have a place.  I'm totally OK with taking some esoteric D&Disms and removing them altogether.  If that means I need to replace them with FANTASY HACK equivalents, well, that's OK.

Anyway, on to the nations for Post II

Zilargo.  Gnomes in EBERRON REMIXED probably aren't quite as tiny as they are in D&D. They'll be small-statured, but probably averaging more like 5 ft. something tall and slight rather than hobbit-sized.  Within the range of some human populations, really—I think of them as like the most indio of Mexican in terms of average size, or maybe a shade smaller (not that the gnomes look like central Americans.) Zilargo is, however, the one specifically gnomish nation on the planet (not that gnomes don't live elsewhere as well) and this is their homeland.  While not a particularly war-like people, they are somewhat belligerent in their own way, and their political meddling is notorious.  They often make use of mercenary companies for protection, however.

Darguun.  This nation can be used more or less exactly as written.  I'd increase the percentage of goblinoids just a bit (because I have no kobolds, for one thing).  If you really need bugbears too, which are not part of the FANTASY HACK rules, you can use the thurse stats for them. (The Thurse is meant to be any powerful, savage creature; a gnoph-keh, or sasquatch, or Neanderthals of the Neanderthal Predation Theory.  Bugbears are right there in the exact same type of creature.)

The Mournland.  This also has little need of alteration.  Some of the specific magic effects don't work as advertised because they have no exact equivalent in FANTASY HACK, but otherwise, this needs little to no change.  As with other Galifarian nations, the Cyran refugees are not a mixed bag of all kinds of races so much as they are humans.  And the Mournland itself has become a refugee for anti-social warforged, since the cursed effects don't bother them.

Karrnath.  This is another nation that, other than upping the population percentage of humans, can be used more or less as is, without needing to change much.  I love the idea of institutionalized undead in a nation that isn't actually evil... but which is certainly kind of creepy and dark.  Fun stuff.  One of my favorite Eberron elements in general.

The Talenta Plains.  Eh... this one, on the other hand, I think needs some work.  First off; I think the names Clawfoot and Fastieth and whatnot are stupid.  Call dinosaurs by names that are familiar, or nicknames that are obvious.  Raptors, pterosaurs, etc.—I hate the Eberron dinosaur names.  I also think this nation is really bizarre as conceived as nomadic, dino-riding Plains Indian halflings.  It's the last word in that sequence that throws it off.  I'd prefer to have halflings be what they normally are; rarely occurring, rural hobbit-like creatures with a few enclaves here and there—maybe a bit more like Bree than like the Shire; or like the Shire, except much smaller, and there's more than one of them.  The Talenta Plains nomads, on the other hand, can be jann, from the FANTASY HACK monster list or Appendix II.

Other than that rather significant switch, though—I'm leaving them mostly as is.  One quick note; the romanticization of the primitive Plains Indian life is not really apparent here.  Do some reading of the actual history and practices of the Comancheria, and you'll get a better idea of what the Talenta Plains is like.

Valenar.  Another nation that can be used almost exactly as is.  I'd maybe make the elves a bit more common, reduce the half-elves numbers to coincide with that, and make the relationship between the Cyran refugees and the elves a little bit more fraught with tension, but otherwise... yeah.  No major change needed.

Q'Barra.  This is another one that needs relatively little change.  The changes that are needed are mostly 1) to point out that lizardmen in FANTASY HACK are really more like lizardmen in Warhammer than they are like "lizardfolk" in D&D.  Maybe this isn't a big deal in actual practice.  And, 2) there aren't any kobolds, so any references to them need to be replaced with something else.  

Remixing Eberron—the setting Post I

I said in my initial EBERRON REMIXED post that some aspects of the setting were a little too try-hard; i.e. they maybe would have been better had they been unshackled from the need to "fit" into the D&D paradigm, as it had evolved into by the time Eberron was released.  Part of what this means is making some changes to some of the setting.  One that I mentioned specifically was that Droaam as a "nation of monsters" felt like a trash-can where anything that we didn't know where else to fit was just tossed in.  It was kinda aesthetically unpleasing.

So, in that same spirit, what are some other minor changes that I think need to be made to the setting of Eberron?  For the most part, I intend to completely and totally use the map as is, but I may need to make some changes to the "flavor" of some nations/regions.  Although, I'm trying to remix the setting, not remake it.  So the changes are mostly to increase the pulpy, cinematic, sword & sorcery + pulp noir feel (as opposed to weird, tactical 3.5 D&D feel) so the changes will mostly be along the lines of: 1) limiting the exposure to weird and esoteric D&D monsters; if they exist, they'll be much more unusual or even unique, rather than commonplace, and 2) make every portion of the setting usable right "out of the box" to a 1st level group of characters.  This last doesn't mean that there won't be powerful opponents beyond the scope of 1st level characters, of course, merely that there aren't places like the Demon Wastes or Droaam that are really more "high level" areas.  And finally, I'm mostly going to just focus on Khorvaire.  I do have the book Secrets of Sarlona, although I haven't read it in years.  I don't really know much about the details of Xen'drik or Argonessen or anything, other than the rather brief stuff in the campaign setting book.  I'll treat the entirety of those continents with less detail than a single Khorvairan nation—as the setting book does.  Which reminds me; I should point out that this is the annotated notes for remixing, but it is assumed that you own the setting book in order to properly use them.  I only have the 3.5 version, but I presume that with the 4e or even 5e version, you could probably still pull this off too.

I'll split this topic into at least four posts—after which, EBERRON REMIXED will be more or less ready to play!  After that; there were some more things I wanted to do with the CULT OF UNDEATH setting before I wrapped up that project.  I've already talked about what I'm going to do with AD ASTRA.  And I haven't done anything with the namesake setting of this blog in quite a long time, which may need to be revisited soon...

Post I: The Demon Wastes, the Eldeen Reaches, the Shadow Marches, Droaam, Aundair, Thrane, and Breland.

Post II: Zilargo, Darguun, the Mournland, Karrnath, the Talenta Plains, Valenar, and Q'barra.

Post III: The Mror Holds, The Lhazaar Principalities, Xen'Drik, Sarlona, Aerenal, the Frostfell, Argonnessen, and Everice.

Post IV: Other power groups and important details, churches, etc.

The Demon Wastes.  I don't really care for rakshasas.  They do come from mythology, although nothing in Western civilization, so they fit uneasily in a fantasy setting that's mostly based on Western civilization, and written for people who belong to Western civilization.  I prefer to use more commonly known daemons, many of which are listed in the monster section for FANTASY HACK and can be used as is.

I also think Ghaash'kala is a pain to say, but I'll let them and the Carrion Tribes remain mostly as written—although living in a cursed environment, it shouldn't be surprising that many of the humans have become Cursed over the generations.  This means that the majority population of the Demon Wastes are savage, originally Sarlonan humans, with orcs as the second major population.  The demons and monsters will be, on the other hand, relatively rare.

The Eldeen Reaches. I dislike the hippy vibe of the Eldeen Reaches as the peaceful, harmonious pseudo-Wiccans, persecuted by the intolerant pseudo-Christians of the Church of the Silver Flame, so that will be eliminated in favor of a more superversive, old-fashioned pulp like vibe.  I don't have anything like a druid class, and I think having a druid caste as they were historically makes little sense too—but frightening, terroristic sorcerers of this kind of vibe work very well for me, though.  The Gatekeepers as holding back Lovecraftian horrors is still a thing.

The Shadow Marches.  This is a backwater area of xenophobic savages; human and orc, mostly.  It is also an area beshrouded with hints of Lovecraftian horrors.  The grim hills and fetid swamps are homes to cults best left uncovered, and peoples best kept isolated, as their reaction to civilization is not likely to be good for either them or the civilized.  This, like Droaam, is less a "country" in the traditional sense of implying political unity, and is more akin to a "region" with some level of cultural unity only.

Droaam.  The Daughters of Sora Kell are not monsters in the literal sense; they are hags in the more traditional sense; witches (female liches, to be precise).  Humans given over to the power of the devil, and given in return awful power of their own.  As noted above, though—this isn't a politically united country, merely a region.  The Daughters are powerful, of course, but they do not desire domination over the others who live here. Monsters do tend to be more common here than elsewhere on Khorvaire, and tribes of savage ratmen and thurses wander the countryside eating whatever (or whomever) they can get their hands on.  We won't have any of the "Star Wars cantina, but with D&D monsters" cities here.  Various types of monsters are more likely to be encountered here, but they tend to be singular, or very small tribes, taking advantage of the desolate, depopulated frontier nature of the area, rather than trying to build a "monster society" under the auspices of the Daughters.

Aundair.  Aundair is a human nation, and it's meant to evoke Musketeer era France, at least to a minor degree.  According to the setting book, it's only 51% human, but EBERRON REMIXED is a much more humano-centric version of the setting; I'd pump that up to nearly 90%, with half-elves making up by far the majority of the remainder.

Thrane.  This nation is silly.  Intolerant, pseudo-Christian crusaders as a theme in D&D and other modern fantasy is just not only super tired, but honestly deliberately insulting and offensive.  I will go so far as to say that yes, the Church (of the Silver Flame; but I'm going to make it more overtly Christian in character) is headquartered here, but you don't see Italy looking like a nation of bizarre religious fanaticism.  You're not, as the setting book says, "more likely to meet a missionary than a farmer."  Of course, that means that Thrane loses some of its uniqueness relative to its neighbors; although "uniqueness" in this case is over-stated.  As I said, this isn't a unique trope, it's a lazy, offensive trope of social justice crap.  I would tend to mostly gloss over Thrane; it's a nation much like Aundair, I suppose—just politically separate from it.

Breland.  With the advent of Sharn, Breland is (kinda) the protagonist nation of Eberron, and certainly where I expect most campaigns would spend some time, if not most of their time.  I'm not going to change Breland much from where it is as written, except (of course) to minimize the non-humans and the racial cosmopolitanism, ad refocus on a much more humano-centric interpretation of the setting.