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September Q&A Mailbag (Patreon)

Published:
2025-09-03 00:30:07
Imported:
2026-06

Content

Hi everyone!September is the month of HOUSE CANNITH, and the first Cannith article will be posted tomorrow! Hopefully I'll have some other announcements later in the month, but that depends on how things go.

We're going to have two live Q&As this month:

Wednesday, September 3rd at 6 PM Pacific—Deep Dive: The Aurum.

Saturday, September 20th at 10 AM Pacific: Mailbag Miscellany. As usual, this will be where I'll answer questions on any topic from you. And with that in mind...

POST QUESTIONS HERE. You can ask questions about anything: Eberron, my other games, game design in general, what I'm reading at the moment, or anything else. If I can answer a question in a few minutes, I might answer it here. Otherwise, I’ll answer the most interesting questions when I do the Mailbag Miscellany Q&A. As a general rule, I will only answer a maximum of one question per patron per month, so if you ask a lot of questions I'll only answer one of them, but you can always pose unanswered questions again next month!

Thanks for your support!

Files

Comments

DungeonNoir

I have two questions! Who did the art for the original 3.5E campaign guide? Not the Wayne Reynolds (fantastic!) art, but the red fossil looking stuff. And is there any story you’d like to share about Bossy the cow?

Benjamin Tucker Marcus

A couple questions: What is your favorite faction (or individual) to have as a Dreaming Dark cat's paw? What role can you see Meenlocks playing in Eberron? They don't feel quite at home with how Eberron's fey typically work.

Zachary Butler

I want a party to learn of a mysterious antagonist, then venture into a shared dream in Dal Quor (akin to the Uul Dhakaan, but smaller) to encounter that antagonist and uncover they're an Inspired Dreaming Dark agent, then finally face the Inspired as a BBEG in the Material Plane. But I'm a little confused about how those should all interact mechanically. Can an Inspired agent dream while possessed? Would they just manifest as their quori? And if the party fights and kills the quori then what happens to the Inspired? Does it work better to say they're casting the dream spell to interact with that environment, but then what happens when someone enters a shared dream with that spell?

Mathieu Robichaud

I plan to have Melysse Miron released because of a plot of manipulateur mismanaged funds in Thrane. What do you think Melysse would do after being freed? Living in the shadows or showing herself quickly? I can see her going to Thaliost first.

Jarrod Taylor

Have you ever used The Beholder in a game, and does she have any thematic adversaries/(super)villains?

Temperjoke

Thanks to various magic elements and components coming together, the world of Eberron was able to skip a lot of the usual stages of flying machine development, but are there balloons in the world? Such as children's balloons, but also like hot air balloons or even dirigibles?

Alex Kaffka

What would a Warforged Colossus be like if it were powered by a khyber dragonshard containing an earth elemental (eg a Zaratan)? How would it have functioned / be utilized in the Last War?

Axelle McNarrow

Hello, I've a couple of questions. Outside of the house Vadalis' creations and the flying broom/ soarsled did anyone in Eberron ever work on personal transport ? Like mechanical/warforged horses or something akin to more modern vehicles ? Given what they are able to do (Homonculi, steel defender for Battlesmith and the "summon construct" spell), wouldn't it be possible for an artificer to call on to a construct-mount to transport them at earlier levels ? Thank you for your time.

Inquisitor Thomas

As you’ve established, Eberron and the Nations of Khorvaire isn’t the real world, and thus you can’t really map any nations 1 to 1 to a real world country, but let’s say hypothetically a player really wants to lean in on a real world culture for their characters idea, like they really want to be a Edo Period Style Samurai from an Edo Period Style city, how would you handle that? Would it be a case of “we never establish that Aundairians didn’t use Katanas”, “We never established there isn’t a Lazzahar Principality that doesn’t have use Katanas”, or would you force Demiplane/Xoriat/Inter dimensional portal shenanigans, or something else?

Sims

1.) So, in Eberron, Tielfings, Genasi and Aassamir are plane-touched and while mechanically are the described “races” or “species,” they are fundamentally their origin species (like the Wyndair Princess from Siberspace). With that in mind, and with the Feat Marks in Frontiers and the eventually coming WoTC Eberron book, can they gain proper Dragonmarks? Especially with the non-hereditary Planetouched variants (for example, a Denieth Scion could pass his mark to his son born in a Mabaran Manifest Zone, and if that Mabaran Tielfing had the Mark, he could only genetically pass the Mark and not the Tielfing abilities)? Has it already happened? How might Houses have reacted? 2.) How might Tabaxi or Leonins work in Eberron? I know in Chronicles, Tabaxi could be reskinned as a Shifter, but what about their own thing? I included both feline races as a merfolk/triton nod. 3.) How would you run a Thronehold game? In Rising, Thronehold is marketed as an UN/political thriller/Game of Thrones(?)-esque game. I’m curious how the man himself would play it. 4.) Who is your favorite of Boranel’s children/which child would you like to expand more upon? 5.) Not really a true question per se, but are Khalastar basically just tieflings? Both as Dal Quor touched, but also the closest thing in relation to the more general tieflings (fiendish bloodlines “passed” through some great archfiend-esque being?)? 6.) Ogres… not exactly a question and they have been touched upon a lot, but almost in a periphery way. We know there are two or three strains between Khorvaire, Sarlona and maybe Xendrik(?). We know they originate somewhere from Khyber and that through hag-breeding or by binding fiends they can become Oni. We know that they were experimented by Morbin to create Ettin, but there are many gaps. Most obvious to let different people have different stories, but I’m curious about a general expansion of Eberron-Ogre lore or even a more defined smaller lore (say, a legendary champion in the Sarlonan kingdom). 7.) Odd question, and not totally DND related, but I just finished Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Era 2, which feels very much like a second DND game run in the same setting and Eberron (very heavy on the Western Vibes and there’s certain technology that runs on their version of magic; there is also normal electricity), which also reignited my Eberron passion from a simmering flame to a very much burning one. Is there any media - books, movies, visual, etc.,. - that helps reignite or retemper things for you? Or even, are there any series like your Mistborn (which I’m pretty sure one of the “monstrous races” were originally homebrew fiends) that you’d recommend? 8.) To touch back on the tielfings; going through Frontiers I saw this again and I looked at the pdf version I downloaded this week to see if it had been corrected: there’s no Daanvi tieflings

The Grim MacKay

I'm doing a Shadow Marches arc where I want to involve Byeshk smugglers out of the Marches and their conflict with Droaam because of it. Just how valuable is Byeshk? I know it is notoriously difficult to work, but it is unclear what the raw cost is vs the value of the metal. I hope to hear it is some expensive stuff, but I've never seen anything on which to hang that assumption. Good fun!

Dylan

How's work on the Daggerheart setting going? Any recent updates or ideas you're working on? I realize lots of this is probably in development or private. But speaking for myself (and any other writers/worldbuilders), I'm curious where you started and how you move outwards from there. Would be interesting to see an example of your process to add and integrate a new concept/location/character.

Spike Hemphill

1. With many cultures of Argonnessen being unexplored and Vvaraak being great teacher of primal magic, what possible druidic traditions might exist on the Continent? 2. Both Daggerheart and new Dnd Borderlands Set are making cards a bigger part of their game play. With your experience making Phoenix : Dawn Command, what untapped potential do you think cards and card game like elements might add to future table top games?

David Mitchell

Reading the early parts of the Cannith article got me thinking of the role of artificers from other dragon marked houses. Are their artificers in other houses. the marks of scribing, hospitality, seem obvious places where you would expect to see some. Is the 12 made up of lots of Cannith artificers but also artificers in other houses and do you come across Cannith wizards. Sorcerers, warlock, bards and clerics?

Jesse Williams

In your recent Deneith article you mentioned that the Lord commander of the blademarks wants to seize karrnath and maybe all of khorvair. This is awesome as in a campaign I was wondering what the aftermath would be once the mourning is solved. I imagined the war would start up again except it's the houses that take the lead (since they serm more powerful then the split nations) and it ultimately splits khorvair into a two-sided conflict. If one side was led by deneith/karrnath, who would ally with them and who would oppose them? I feel like tharashk would oppose them and cannith north and maybe lyrandar would side with them. Do you have any thoughts or ideas to help?

Teacup_01

Does Eberron have bicycles or mortocycles?

S.C. Engels

In my Eberron, House Deneith had a sundering, similar to House Thuranni and House Phiarlan. After King Kaius III separated the Church of the Blood of Vol from the State of Karrnath, a group of Seekers within House Deneith who had worked closely with the Emerald Claw during the war decided to leave the House, and form their own, called House Shulz. The head of which was formerly the head of Deneith's mercenary fleet, Admiral Reinhold d'Shulz. This Admiral, through the influence of Lady Illmarrow, has built an Eldritch Machine, the Markstealer, which will allow him to take the lifeforce from a dragonmarked individual, and use their essence to scribe a mark onto a willing participant. He plans on using this machine to re-create the Mark of Death, and reforge House Vol. My question is this: what would the Dragons of Argonessen do if they discovered his plans? Do they have a network of spies in Khorvaire, keeping tabs on the "lesser races"? How might the PCs contact the Conclave, if it comes to that?

Felix Shafir

The Dragonmarked book indicates that Lady Miral ir'Wynarn lives in the Moonwatch area. Is she one of Boranel’s children, or one of his siblings, or a more distant cousin?

SH H

1.) The Vermishards of Metrol - it came to me that vermi- preffix means "worm or related to worm", so I'm just curious is this name just came out randomly or it has a obvious meaning, like Fairhaven or Seaside. 2.) As an addition to the first question, what are your thoughts when give some place or something a name? Would there always be a meaning (whether that's obvious or not)? This question is for my fellow Chinese localization contributers, we are working to show Eberron to Chinese users. However, as an ideographic writing, when translating English to Chinese, we have to balance between transliteration and sense-to-sense translation (for example, Fairhaven can be translated into 费尔海文 word to word, or 安恬城 (means the city of fair and haven) sense to sense), so the tipping point of whether it consists a deeper meaning is pretty crucial for the work. 3.) Do you think there would be a chance for a Eberron-based RPG game similar to Baluder's Gate 3? 4.) Are there any plans to introduce Eberron to Daggerheart? 5.) An interesting idea about fey Changelings, could they be created by the story of Jes and the Traveler, then their prosperity, conversely, enhanced and spread the story and their existence? It sounds like a logic loop but I'm curious about it. 6.) Would there be a continuation for Fear Reveals Truth? 7.) Since Bag of Holding is only an uncommon magic item, would it be possible that a unit of warforged be stuffed into Bags of Holding and take them out in enemy-occupied areas for a surprise attack? How would this tactic, if possible, be utilized in the Last War?

Ben

What kind of encounters would you imagine there might be in the ruins of the Aventus Islands?

小绵羊海兔

I should like to enquire about the surname of Karrn the Conqueror, for he seems rather too mysterious.

Ender Darkos

From your Deneith article, we know that Osheva Wyrn was Karrn's queen and her children were his heirs, and we also know that Wynarns were Wyrns' unmarked cousins. Also, we have learned Korth had a lord that the Wyrns served! So, how did Wynarns become Kings of Karrnath? Were they the lords of Korth that swapped lands? Were they just descendants of Osheva and that's why they're cousins of the Wyrns? Did they seize the throne through a coup?

Jessie Harris

What might two sects of the Sovereign host argue over?

Jaxson Lueb

In the History section of the House Deneith article, you mention the ‘First and Felling blow’ rule, which states that when two members of the House cross blades on the battlefield, one will surrender when the other makes the first blow against them to avoid killing each other. This made me think of the Znir Pact, who have a similar custom when fighting each other. Going back and reading the article ‘Gnolls and Znir Pact’, I can almost see a parallel between the Pact and Deneith, both are mercenary houses that hold to their contracts, and despite large armies, did not embrace a conqueror’s path, they are shields, not crowns (or maybe swords in the Znir’s case?). I wonder if there’s a possibility of the Znir Pact one day being licensed by House Deneith, as the Twelve expand into Drooam, and Dennith attempts to shove Tharashk out of the Mercenary business. Any thoughts on this or any relationship the Znir Pact has or might have with House Deneith?

Trinity Vaughan

In your house articles, you always go over what the experience of having a dragonmark effects you. (Like, mark of storm and that tempest within or the mark of passage's desire to constantly move) Are these feelings and sensations heightened when someone has a greater mark, let alone a Siberys mark?

Lucas J.W. Johnson

Given their apparent desire to make war and provoke others into war with them... why did the Valenar attend the negotiations of (and then sign) the Treaty of Thronehold in the first place?

Earth Seraph Edna

Why is one of Rak Tulkhesh's titles the Orphan King, anyway? It seems somewhat disconnected from his overall theme.

The Colonel

...has any dhakaani kech been described as "under" cyre?

Micaerys

I have a question about Mishala ir'Wynarn, from one of your Dragonshard articles! Given the data we know about her and Dannel I could see her as the consort of King Connos, so she would be a "young queen" who might have offended Shaeras Vadallia years before Valenar became a thing. What place would you give her in your Eberron, if any?

Herbert Helzer

Where is/are Quickstone’s graveyard or graveyards?

Herbert Helzer

I don’t know if this was covered last month, but I’m still interested: What is the demand or market for fixed quickstone products like planters, plates, bowls, mugs, countertops, cobblestones, sidewalk pavers and so on? Is the dried-blood color a deterrent to general public acceptance? Also, what if wet quickstone was molded into something, glazed, and then fired in a normal kiln? Finally, can wet quickstone be mixed with powdered silver, or residuum, and have some effect when fixed?

hyperewok1

The Year of Blood and Fire was obviously pivotal to Thrane's future, but why did it seem that such a huge crisis in the center of Galifar didn't have as much consequential impact elsewhere? (I know the Doyalist answer is that the story there is about Tira, Thrane, and the Church, but I'm curious of the Watsonian side in how the rest of Galifar reacted during and after the crisis.)

man-of-bvz1n3ss

Hi, I was wondering what happened to the August Q&A? Has it not been posted yet? Related to Eberron, what do you think of the dragonborn Mishva Stormhorn? Any thoughts on what her character might be like?

Trying my best

Back in 3.5, a few books developed the idea of Grafts. Eberron books embraced the idea (though changed the ruleset somewhat). Magic of Eberron introduced plant, elemental, and Deathless grafts - fittingly, for Zilargo, Eldeen druids, and Aereni elves. Faiths of Eberron introduced, more nebulously, construct grafts. How do you feel about introducing older types of grafts to Eberron? Where and how would you incorporate them? It's easy to imagine undead grafts for Karrnathi warlords, for example - but all the aberrations grafts (beholder, Aboleth, Ilithid, Silithair) feel like they might steel Symbiont's thunder, and I have no clue where, how and if one should incorporate Fiendish, Maug, Yuan-Ti, and Draconic grafts. Draconic grafts are super cool, but feel particularly egregious for Eberron. Do you have any thoughts? Thanks!

James McAtamney

If Queen Aurala were to eventually kick off her "regain the throne of a united Galifar" plans by invading one other country to test the waters (to take back Thaliost from Thrane, say), how are the other Nations most likely to react? Band together to help the invaded nation fight Aundair off and keep the peace? Stay scrupulously neutral to avoid the risk of another Mourning? Assume Aurala knows for sure that whatever caused the Mourning is no longer a threat and start a free-for-all Last War 2.0?

StarrotheTragic

Hi Keith I mainly just have one question. Do you have any additional info on the Eberron Expanded book you announced last February? I remember you talked briefly on Discord about how you had a lot going on at the moment and it's delayed your ability to work on EbEx but that's about it. Either way, I just want you to know that we will support you no matter what you do and I am really excited about what you are going to do with Daggerheart!

James McConnell IV

Thanks Keith for the opportunity to ask questions. I've been thinking of Atur being this city of fun and celebration that exists in Karrnath, a historically stoic and grim country. The people there don't mind using undead for chores and service and such, but what about entertainment? And my specific question, could a spell caster with access to animate dead ever be able to control a group of skeletons to play in a band? Would you be comfortable allowing this with certain restrictions in place, or is this too much for the spell and game to handle?

Sergei Lakissov

Imagine some villages on the far borders of Karrnath, close to the Talenta plains and the foothills of Ironroot mountains. The closest Karrnathi place is Fort Deepdark, from whence sheriffs were assigned instead of the barons who died in the Last War. There is a land rush, with anyone being able to just settle the farmland with no feudal overlords: just pay the taxes in your own produce to the crown. Seems a bit like a Western vibe, similar to both your Q'Barra and your Droaam frontier setups. Each of those had their unique features, like the whole Dragonborn and Lizardmen cultures in Q'Barra, and "Monsters are people too" for Droaam. What would you personally make the unique thing for such a Karrnath-Talenta-Ironroot frontier setup?

Zuruve

Is there anything you can share about the final version of the Boon of Siberys from Forge of the Artificer? For example, does the feat still use the Sorcerer's spell list? Have any of the spells on the Siberys Dragonmarks table changed from the Unearthed Arcana version?

Carlton Anderson

If something happened to the Karrnathi ir’Wynarns or they were otherwise no longer in line for the throne, who would the top contenders for the crown of Karrnath be IYE, and how quickly would/could the issue of the succession be settled?

Jacob Kopczynski

What's up with the Qabalrin Wheel calendar? It has a thirteenth month for Crya. Does that mean that it's 364 days long and out of sync with the Galifar calendar? Are their months (or days?) shorter? Is there actually just 8% more time per year if you're a Seeker? (I assume it's not that. Though it would be awesome.) I'd assume the first one, straightforwardly, except that Faiths of Eberron also places 998 YK as 2398 FH, precisely 1400 years apart, which implies (though it doesn't state outright) that the +/-1400 is consistent. Is that just a coincidence?

dirDav3

Hey Keith, been a while. I now am the proud owner of a 2nd Gloom edition. My burning question for you is when can we expect Gloom: Eberron?? I want to send my characters flying off a lightning rail and having their souls claimed by an overlord haha !

Beoric

Something I find interesting is the way you now speak almost exclusively about Lady Illmarrow, and never about Erandis Vol. There is also a tonal shift; Erandis Vol is a tragic figure, whereas when you talk about Illmarrow she is always unambiguously a villain, much as the Emerald Claw are unambiguously villains. Is this a change in your view of Vol as a character, or is there some other reason for the apparent change in direction? I ask because it has long been a thing in my Ebberon that one way to defeat Vol is to resurrect her. Also, I'm still advocating for a bullywug article. Or a couple of sentences, anything really. I'm always casting about for a replacement for lizardfolk when I'm adapting non-Eberron modules to not-Q'barra, and I'm wondering if bullywugs will fit the bill.

Felix Shafir

Keith, your May article on House Medani's history said that the "Khoravar of pre-Galifar Wroat largely lived in poverty and squalor. Barred from most guilds and universities, they lived in the shadows of the Throne City, surviving through work both honest and otherwise." Was this anti-Khoravar attitude limited to Wroat, and when did the attitude towards Khoravar improve?

Leo Fried

I'm planning on having my players explore the Clockwork Menagerie in an upcoming session, but there's sparse information on it, with the largest being a short section in Dragon #411 that, while very interesting, doesn't really describe specifics besides Alaran's Gorgon. What is and was the Clockwork Menagerie like? I imagine a sort of World's Fair where Cannith showed off their greatest inventions for publicity. An underground facility with attractions where you'd have an impressive construct and a plaque or auditory illusion describing it to visitors. How close is that to your concept of it?