Eberron

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Eberron is a 2002 setting (behind Points of Light) for Dungeons & Dragons. It's a Dungeon Punk setting influenced by pulp serials, Indiana Jones and Film Noir, as opposed to classical High Fantasy. Eberron has taken a different path compared to most D&D settings in that it averts and subverts most classical D&D tropes (Color Coded for Your Convenience for example).

The setting focuses on the continent of Khorvaire, which has just concluded a hundred-year long war between five nations that has left a once-unified kingdom shattered. But even though the articles of peace have been signed, everyone knows that the enmity still lingers, and a new Cold War is being fought in the shadows of the four remaining thrones. The world of Eberron is full of Chessmasters, from the lowly mob boss that wants to rule the underworld of his city to an entire race of extraplanar Eldritch Abominations that have used a century-long Xanatos Gambit to bring an entire country (and not a small one) under their control. And above of all this is the mysterious Draconic Prophecy and those who seek to control it; and by extension, the very fate of Eberron itself. Cue the Big Damn Heroes.

Eberron was the result of the 2002 setting search conducted by Wizards of the Coast. The winner was Keith Baker's Eberron. When Eberron was announced there was an outcry against it due to its unconventional nature, though this seems to have mostly subsided. Three major things set Eberron apart from Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms. The first is that few, if any, NPCs have both the ability and desire to be potent forces for good. Good NPCs tend to be limited in power/resources, or stuck under an uncaring bureaucracy, while most NPCs of power are potential enemies (or at least obstacles) for player characters to overcome. This prevents the problem of why the PCs are needed when overpowering forces like Elminster or Drizzt don't just snap their fingers and solve the issue. The second is that the timeline never progress. By default every campaign begins in 998 YK, no novels are canon and premade adventures are only assumed to have happened in their direct sequels. Third is that several parts of the setting are intentionally left blank for dungeon masters to fill in on their own.

The following works taking place in the Eberron setting have their own pages:


Tropes used in Eberron include:
  • Abusive Precursors: The Rakshasa. The dragons of Argonnessen might also be.
  • A Child Shall Lead Them: Jaela Daran.
  • Adventure Guild: There are a few, such as the Clifftop and Deathsgate guilds in Sharn.
  • Adventurer Archaeologist: An archetype you can use while designing your next character. Common enough to be mentioned every now and then in sourcebooks.
    • At least 90% of the non-natives in Xen'drik.
    • The Prestige Class Extreme Explorer is based on this.
  • Airborne Aircraft Carrier: Argonth has docking towers for airships.
  • Alien Sky: 13 minus 1 moons and a ring composed of Siberys dragonshards. Which makes this a Crapsack World if you're a lycanthrope, since there's at least one full moon every couple of days.
  • All There in the Manual: Common to all D&D settings.
  • Alternative Calendar: 13 minus 1 months. They share their names with the moons.
  • Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: The Tribex.
  • Animal Wrongs Group: The Ashbound.
  • Applied Phlebotinum: Dragonshards. Chunks of magic crystal used to power everything. Good for everything from making a ship fly, to infusing a random scrub with infinite cosmic power, to making a flying island crash.
  • Arch Enemy: The Eberron books and adventures have a few of these.
  • Arc Number: Everything important follows the pattern of there being 13 of them with one lost/evil/destroyed.
    • You want to know where that came from? Baker's Dozen.
    • Faiths of Eberron (a sourcebook on religion in Khorvaire) makes the pun much more obvious and blatant with the 13 holy days of the Silver Flame, one of which is on its way out as minor and seemingly pointless - "Baker's Night," ostensibly an excuse to celebrate and eat pastries.
  • Arm Cannon: Warforged have this little friend called "Armbow."
    • They also have the Wand Sheath, which might be better, as it can shoot (among other things) 10-foot-diameter fireballs and 60-foot bolts of lightning instead of just wimpy little crossbow bolts. Though you could put some supplements to work and create an infinite-ammo armbow that shoots explosive crossbow bolts to really have some fun with it...
  • Artificial Limbs: Grafts.
  • Ascended Demon: Kalashtar with their quori.
  • As Long as There Is Evil: The rakshasas.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: Mostly averted. Keith Baker himself claims, "The general premise in Eberron is that influence does not equal personal physical power. Typically, the king won't be the mightiest warrior in the kingdom (Boranel aside)." And many groups like the Aurum have their power based on money and influence rather than personal power. However, the trope is played straight in the following instances:
    • Jaela Daran, normally a 3rd level character—gains the powers of an 18th level Cleric within the walls of Flamekeep simply by virtue of being the head of the Silver Flame church. To top it off, she is eleven years old. YOU READ IT RIGHT, AN ELEVEN YEAR-OLD CHILD IS STRONGER THAN YOUR INITIAL PC.
    • The talking tree Oalian is the leader of the Druid sect called "The Wardens of The Woods" and is a level 20 Druid, making him the highest level character whose level is explicitly revealed in the campaign guide (Erandis Vol has templates that give her a higher effective character level, but that only matters for XP).
    • In 4E, the Lord of Blades is now level 21. They also retained the whole "level 11 is legendary status" thing, so that makes him even more awesome.
    • An article in Dragon Magazine had statistics for one of the rakshasa rajahs, the fiends the Lords of Dust hope to free (or siphon power from). In a campaign setting where level 10 is considered masterful and level 15+ legendary, the rajahs are level 60. Make note that 20 is the traditional level cap of the system, and though supplemental rules do allow for and support higher levels, these officially only go up to level 40 for PCs. This puts them literally on par with gods who rarely have more than 60 levels, and only a few are even that high.
    • And let us not go without mentioning the city of Io'lokar in Argonnessen. A city built of five tiers, each tier with more and more powerful residents. The lowest level tier has an average level for its resident (in 3.5e) of between 8 and 11. That's right. The Lord of Blades is level 12, and the lower to lowest residents of this city can make him sweat. That doesn't even get into the next tiers, which go from 12-15, 15-17, 18-19, and 20+. And the high council that runs the city ranges from high level to epic level in scope. One of the NPCs on the council has twenty-nine levels to his name. 29. He may just be the highest-level character around short of the Rakshasa Rajahs themselves. Woe betide the adventurer, or party of adventurers, who thinks they can attack this city. It's perhaps best for everybody else in Eberron that the residents have little to no interest in the outside world.
  • Awesome McCoolname: Warforged are encouraged to do this.
  • Background Magic Field: The Mists of Cyre.
  • Badass: The Valenar Elves. Elves of the "Sociopathic Klingon Riders of Rohan Vietcong Vikings with Scimitars" variety.
    • The dinosaur-riding halflings, who held their own in war against Karrnathi undead armies and the aforementioned Valenar Elves. At the same time. We are FAR from the Tolkien-esque Hobbits here.
  • Bad Powers, Bad People: People with aberrant dragonmarks, to some extent. The powers they gain vary widely, but on the whole tend to be associated with madness, fear, anger, illness, plague, and fire; and their bearers are hunted ruthlessly by all of the dragonmarked houses, which basically form the basis of industry on Khorvaire... so perhaps it's not surprising that they turn out to be villains, madmen, pyromaniacs, and members of aberrant-founded House Tarkanan. The books point out that Tarkanan has a good point however, and the founders were pretty nice people.
  • Base on Wheels: Argonth, a hovering fortress. Apparently there are two, but as Argonth is the more famous and the other one, Dejarn, is a mystery even in-universe.
  • Battle Boomerang: Eberron has more boomerangs and goodies than other settings.
  • Beast Man: Shifters.
  • Becoming the Mask: The Passer philosophy for Changelings.
  • Bed Trick: Some Changelings might try this.
  • Beneath the Earth: Khyber.
  • Berserk Button: Vadis nia, meaning "disgracer of the blood," is THE worst insult in the culture of the Valenar elves.
  • Big Bad: The Dreaming Dark, the Daelkyr, the rakshasa Rajahs, and Vol are some of the most common, but there are a lot of forces out there that can be story-spanning antagonists if rubbed wrong. Even some of the supposedly nice ones, as Secrets of Argonnessen tells us.
  • Big Book of War: Karrn the Conqueror's Analects of War.
  • Bishounen: Many, if not most, male kalashtar.
    • And as their evil counterparts, the Inspired, who have been deliberately bred to be Bishounen and Bishoujo.
  • Bishounen Line: Daelkyr, the ultimate rulers of the plane of madness, lords and creators of monstrosities such as beholders and mind flayers, resemble "perfectly formed athletic human males, possessing unearthly beauty." Well... mostly. They don't actually have certain characteristics necessary to be considered 'male', after all...
    • Word of God is that the Daelkyr aren't the worst creatures Xoriat has to offer- just the worst that have any interest in the mortal world. Also, we shouldn't think too closely as to why the ultimate EldritchAbominations are so humanlike...
    • The Dragon Below trilogy has a Khyber cultist encounter a daelkyr, and he contemplates some of his cult's lore: "They have no flaws except those that they choose to have..." That particular Daelkyr was called the Master of Silence, and had no mouth.
  • Black and Gray Morality: Your PCs are one of the few things people can count on.
  • Black and White Morality: Subverted as often as possible.
  • Black Box: Warforged are based on Magitek used by quori.
  • Blade Below the Shoulder: The armblade warforged component. For that matter, warforged can do it with any weapon, even if it's not actually a sword.
  • Blood Knight: The Valenar Elves, who live for battle, so much that some of them are considering starting another Worldwar simply to get more fighting.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: King Boranel of Breland, many Valenar elves.
  • Bond Creatures: Kalashtar, who are each bonded with a psionic spirit called a quori.
  • Bread and Circuses: One modus operandi of the Dreaming Dark.
  • Call a Rabbit a Smeerp: The dinosaur names--"clawfoot" for velociraptor, for instance. In a world where Latin and the like doesn't exist, and science has a lot more mysticism in it, it's no wonder that no-one calls a dinosaur a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
  • Cannot Dream: Kalashtar.
  • Canon Discontinuity: Stories (novels, modules and video games) are only canon to their direct sequels. This was an intentional decision from the birth of the setting to avoid overwhelming it with an incomprehensible web like the literally hundreds of Forgotten Realms novels had woven and allow these stories to do things that would otherwise destroy the setting.
  • Canon Welding: While Eberon has its own cosmology, Dragon Magazine presented the World Serpent Inn as a method of connecting them.
  • Came Back Wrong: When Dollurh is coterminous resurrection spells might give you unexpected results...
  • Can't Argue with Elves: Averted. Some Elves, however, such as the Valaes Tairn, might get violent about it.
    • The Undying Court is still a good source of information and obscure lore, even if they do mostly have a non-interference directive and don't really care about the rest of the world.
  • Capital City: Sharn and Stormreach, though neither is an actual seat of government.
  • Catgirl: Shifters can be played like this.
  • Character Alignment: Corrupt Clerics of good religions and Good Clerics of evil religions can still cast spells as long their faith is strong enough. Unlike normal D&D, which has a "one-step rule" for clerics.
    • While the Church of the Silver Flame is based on noble ideals and the binding of evil supernatural beings, the powerful rakshasa rajah bound under Flamekeep is said to whisper ideas into the minds of the faithful, misguiding them to do evil in the name of good.
  • Child Mage: Jaela Daran.
  • Church Militant: The Church of the Silver Flame and orders of Dol Arrah.
  • City of Adventure: Sharn and Stormreach. Some people go to Stormreach because it is a harbor to a continent full of adventure opportunities and then never end up leaving the city because the city alone is so full of adventure.
  • City of Canals: Zarash'ak, the City of Stilts, built over a swamp.
  • Country of Spies: Zilargo. By the way, it's where the gnomes are from, so if you meet one, bring antivenom.
  • Clarke's Third Law: Inverted.
  • Clockwork Creatures: Warforged and other constructs.
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience: Averted. Dragons can be of any alignment.
  • Concept Art Gallery: The Comprehensive Eberron Art Thread and Wiki are not quite this, but it comes close. Still, they have a near complete collection of Eberron related art.
  • Cool Airship: Elemental airships.
  • Cool Boat: Elemental galleons.
  • Cool Gate: The Changegate, among other things.
  • Cool Horse: Magebred horses and the Valenar horses.
  • Cool Old Guy: King Boranel, king of Breland and former adventurer. His biggest issue is that he is old and his heirs are nowhere near as skilled or popular.
  • Cool Train: The Lightning Rail.
  • Corrupt Church: Cardinal Krozen of the Silver Flame is just one example.
  • Corpse Land: The Mournland.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Dragonmarked Houses aren't always led by the nicest people.
  • Crapsack World: One of the setting's design philosophies is that the world needs heroes, and that the PCs are these heroes, not anyone like Eleminster. As a consequence there's lots of world ending threats detailed, and no one exists to stop them that won't just raze human civilization from the planet to do so.
  • The Chessmaster: So, so many. Hell, there's an entire nation of Chessmasters! To say that trying to outwit their Secret Police is akin to robbing a police station.
  • Creating Life: House Cannith did this and created the Warforged. Things went better than expected.
  • Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Silver Flame, led by Jaela Daran, is based strongly on the Roman Catholic Church.
  • Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Grafts. Some of them are biological symbiotes that try to take control of your body. Or make you go evil and Ax Crazy.
  • Damaged Soul: When Dollurh is coterminous, this might happen.
  • Darker and Edgier: Ultimately averted. Despite the myriad ways things could go wrong, there is still hope.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: What in most settings would be a "monster" is in Eberron a "tax payer". And the goblin nation is quite similar to the elf nation on the main continent.
    • In the elven homeland of Aerenal, the elves have a culture that revolves around death, produce the most skilled necromancers, and are both ruled by and worship their reanimated ancestors. They also tend toward Neutral Good.
  • Death World: Let's just say that some places are not tourist attractions. At least half the planes of existence will kill an unprotected mortal in a matter of moments.
  • Deliberately Cute Child: A goblin girl plays this role in City of Towers.
  • Demonic Possession: Possession by extraplanar entities is quite common. Hell, the aforementioned Quori actually designed a drug which sends the user on out-of-body highs—so that they can steal the user’s body.
  • Demon Lords and Archdevils: The rakshasa rajas. They're not actually rakshasas any more than gods are humans—rakshasas are just the most common fiends on the surface of Eberron, so the name stuck. The rajas are the most powerful fiends, which also includes demons and devils.
  • Demon Slaying: The Church of the Silver Flame, the Gatekeepers, and the Chamber.
  • Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: Byeshk, targath, and crysteel weapons don't exist in all settings. Take care when borrowing Eberron monsters fellow DM.
  • Deus Ex Homine: The goal of the Godforged is to build their own god(s).
  • Diabolical Mastermind: The Aurum is a club for Diabolical Masterminds to trade schemes, hatch plots, and drink dwarven beer.
  • Die or Fly: The Test of Siberys for the Dragonmarked Houses as dragonmarks tend to manifest under extreme stress.
  • Does Not Like Magic: The Ashbound druids.
  • Doomsday Device: Many Eldritch Machines are this.
  • Double Weapon: The Double-Scimitar of the Valenar.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Daelkyr are in the main Eberron book for this purpose. Though, being CR 20, they would give Vol pause...
  • Draconic Divinity: If one believes the most popular creation myth in Eberron, the world was created by the three Progenitors Siberys (the Dragon Above), Eberron ("the Dragon Between" or "the World Itself") and Khyber ("the Dragon Below"), all of whom were/are dragons. Due to the non-provable nature of the divine in Eberron (a strong contrast to most other Dungeons & Dragons settings), if there's any truth to the matter is left to the Dungeon Master to decide, though there definitely is an alternate dimension of evil below Eberron if you go low enough, and a planetary ring of magically useful rocks if you go up enough.
    • The pantheons of the Sovereign Host and Dark Six have no fixed appearance (as the non-provable nature of the divine means every culture will vary wildly), but all The Nine and Six and One have some form of dragon on the list of how they're commonly depicted in-world. The dragons themselves believe the Sovereigns were powerful dragons who ascended.
    • Unlike most settings, Tiamat is "merely" a dragon-themed fiendish Overlord rather than a true deity. Since overlords are so puissant as to be undefinably powerful if unsealed, and fiend worshipers can get divine spells (as in Eberron those are powered by internal belief, not external divine power) the difference is largely pedantic. Bahamut is just a dragon-shaped constellation and largely exists in the setting only to have some explanation for the sheer amount of rules elements in third edition that included his name.
  • Dream Land: Dal Quor.
  • Dropped a Bridget On Him: Changelings can change their sex at will.
    • Warforged have no physical sex. Some are more masculine or feminine, but the 3.5e rulebook states "different people may judge the same warforged different ways."
  • Dual-Wielding: The aforementioned Double-Scimitar, as well as the Xen'drik drow habit of dual-wielding short swords balanced for throwing.
  • Dungeon Punk: Almost defines this trope.
  • Either/Or Prophecy: The Draconic Prophecy works this way. If X then Y, with various groups attempting to cause X.
  • Eldritch Abomination: The daelkyr and their creations, the quori, and the rakshasa Overlords.
  • Eldritch Location: Xoriat.
  • Electric Joy Buzzer: Warforged with a Wand Sheath and a Wand of Shocking Grasp amongst others.
  • Elephant Graveyard: Dragons have this in the Talenta Plains.
  • Emergent Human: The Warforged.
  • Emotions vs. Stoicism: The Fury is very much on the side of emotion.
  • End of an Age: Once, Galifar was a mighty kingdom...
    • Once mighty demons ruled the world...
    • Once the giants built a mighty empire...
  • The Engineer: Artificers, albeit magic ones...
  • Eternal Recurrence: The Turning of the Wheel for the quori and Dal Quor.
  • Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: Dinoriding halflings!
  • Evil Is Visceral: Daelkyr.
  • Evil Counterpart: The Blood of Vol is remarkably similar to the Undying Court, except for being less patient about it. This is partly because the Vol herself, is, well, an elf, so it is in many ways an offshoot of the Undying Court.
  • Evil Sorcerer: Erandis Vol.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Everice, Flamekeep, Thronehold, the Demon Wastes...
  • Exclusively Evil: Averted. Eberron is very flexible when it comes to alignment. There is a trustworthy, non-evil fiend in the setting.
    • For example, Orcs are much more spiritual in Eberron- Their druidic sect is responsible for keeping the Daelkyr sealed in their can, if you will.
    • The setting handbook does indicate the existence of neutrally-aligned mind flayers and/or beholders, though these are usually Lawful Evil instead of Chaotic Evil. Interestingly, the alignment listed for daelkyr is "usually neutral evil," which means that technically there can be good daelkyr.
  • Fantastic Noir: Eberron is geared towards this.
  • Fantastic Nuke: Cyre was possibly destroyed by one of these.
  • Fantastic Racism: There is hatred against warforged, changelings, and shifters. And against goblins, partially because of the events that led to the formation of Darguun. And against all the nasty things that live in Droaam, but that’s to be expected. And the lizardfolk/common races conflicts going on in Q'barra. And the dragons against everyone else, the Inspired against anyone else, the Qualitar drow against everyone else... actually, name a canon character or a faction in this setting, there is a good chance it has racist tendencies.
  • Fantastic Science: Thanks to artificers and forward looking Wizards and others, we get this.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Mostly averted. Aside from the Five Nations having a vague western European feel, almost all of Eberron's cultures are completely original. The biggest exception is Adar, a mountain land of peaceful monks strongly influenced by Tibet.
  • Fantasy Gun Control: The world is far more advanced than Medieval European Fantasy standards, but all technology more advanced than the early renaissance is accomplished through magic meaning relatively common wands but no guns.
  • Fantasy Pantheon: The Sovereign Host and the Dark Six.
  • Fantasy World Map
  • Far East: Sarlona in general and Riedra in particular, the thing being that Riedra might resemble North Korea combined with Cosmic Horror.
  • Fashionable Asymetry: Emerald Claw agents use helmets that cover one side of the face.
  • FemBot: Warforged that strongly identify as female sometimes mod themselves to resemble humanoid women.
  • Fighting For a Homeland: The people of Cyre. The Eladrin in 4E are allegedly this, too.
  • Final Solution/Would Be Rude to Say Genocide: The Church of the Silver Flame executed the "Lycanthropic Inquisition," AKA the Purge, just before the Last War, where they hunted down and executed every were-creature they could find, and took a number of innocents (especially shifters) with them until some shifters turned informant and someone else produced reliable detection magics. The Church tries to justify it with various excuses (some which may hold water, depending on the DM) and even has an annual holiday to celebrate the Purge, but ultimately it's a black mark on their reputation and history with others.
  • Fisher Kingdom: Dollurh.
  • First Church of Mecha: What the Becoming God will be. Or to meme it up: The Warforged are building a god! IN A CAVE! WITH A MOUNTAIN OF SCRAPS!
  • Flat Earth Atheist: Averted. Religion works differently in Eberron. Nobody knows if the Gods actually exist.
  • Flaying Alive: "Excoriation" or what Dragonmarked Houses used to do to when one of their own made them angry. Now the name is simply a leftover used for all exiled from the houses.
    • The Flayed Hand, worshippers of The Mockery, do this to *themselves* over a long period of time, without using healing magic, so the can make magic cloaks that only work if when worn by the 'donor'.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: One Blood of Vol sect is called "Cult of Life".
  • Forgot He Was a Robot: Warforged don't have all the features of full constructs, which leads to this trope.
  • Founder of the Kingdom: Galifar I.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: Artificers are a magical equivalent of this.
  • Gambit Pileup: The raw amount of Magnificent Bastards and Chessmasters both mortal and immortal has an expected result.
  • Game Face: Shifters.
  • Gender Bender: Changelings.
  • Gender Equals Breed: Kalashtar work this way. The Quori spirit is bound to the gender of the bloodline.
  • Giant Enemy Crab: The carcass crab and the siege crab.
  • Glamour Failure: Changelings need to be careful with their disguises. Something as simple as wrong clothing can give them away, not to mention things like bad accents.
  • Global Airship: Elemental airships.
  • God-Emperor: The Lord of Blades.
  • God of Evil: The Dark Six is a pantheon of these. Then there are the rakshasa Rajahs...
  • God Save Us From the Queen: Some react like this when learning of Queen Aurala of Aundair's plans.
  • Goggles Do Something Unusual: Cannith goggles help in magic item creation.
  • Golem: The warforged race.
  • Gonk/ButterFace: Female Shifters originally looked like this.
  • Good Colors, Evil Colors: Eberron naturally plays with this.
  • Grey and Gray Morality: The Lawful Evil Vampire King? He works for world peace. The Neutral Good Queen? She's planning world domination.
    • The supplemental material unfortunately backpedals a bit on this moral ambiguity and seemingly goes out of its way to excuse or outright Retcon statements made in the campaign book, with the Church of the Silver Flame presented in a more traditionally Lawful Good light and Kaius, the vampire king, coming across as considerably less well-intentioned.
  • Healing Factor: There's a shifter feat for this. The otherwise lame Warshaper Prestige Class inadvertently gives Changelings this among other powers.
  • Here There Be Dragons: The continent of Argonnessen houses 99% of all the dragons in the world.
  • Hijacked by Jesus: The Sovereign Host uses this tactic.
  • Hobbits: Some halflings ride dinosaurs.
  • Holy City: Lots of them. Flamekeep, Ashtakala, Greenheart, etc...
  • Horse of a Different Color: The aforementioned dinosaurs.
  • Humanoid Abomination: The daelkyr, evil, insane beings from a plane of utter madness, happen to look like extremely handsome people. Because they are screwing with us.
  • Humanshifting: Changelings.
  • Humongous Mecha: Warforged titans.
  • I Am Not a Gun: The warforged. Unless, of course, they embrace it. Which some, like warforged juggernauts, do.
  • I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: The Mournland.
  • Immortality Immorality: Averted with the deathless, positive-energy-charged elven undead.
  • Impossibly Cool Weapon: The double-bladed scimitar of the Valaes Tairn elves.
    • Drow also get kick-ass chains that are used like scorpion stingers. And three-pronged boomerangs and short swords that can be used like massive throwing knives.
    • Warforged have an option to graft one-handed crossbows into their bodies.
    • Yuan-ti in Xen'drik have the serpent bow. It is a longbow with a shortsword blade built into one end. Just imagine Legolas with one of those!
    • Goblinoids have various chain weapons. And spikes. And chains with spikes on them.
  • Incredibly Lame Stealth Pun: The (almost) extinct House of Vol bore the Mark of Death. Using the pseudo-French naming conventions prevalent in Eberron, this would make it House Vol d'Morte.
  • Inhumanly Beautiful Race: Kalashtar and Inspired.
  • Interspecies Romance: Changelings and shifters are the result of this.
  • In the Doldrums: Dollurh.
  • Item Caddy: The artificer.
  • Knight Templar: Many of the followers of the Silver Flame, especially in their anti-lycanthrope inquisition, which killed thousands (though not necessarily unjustly).
  • Kung Fu Wizard: The kalashtar practice kung fu psionics. Some of them. Others are just Squishy Psions.
  • Land of the Shattered Empire: Eberron is set a few years after most of the countries that used to make up the Empire of Galifar have finally made an uneasy peace following one of them being destroyed overnight in mysterious circumstances. Galifar left behind standardized coinage and (now unenforceable) agreement of checks and balances on the Dragonmark Houses, though railways, major roads, the primary language, and many other institutions are attributed to the still extant Dragonmark Houses. Since the Five Nations can't move militarily without fear of breaking the truce, Sealed Evil in A Can and other international threats must be solved by the player characters.
  • Law Enforcement, Inc.: House Medani and in certain areas, House Deneith.
  • Left-Justified Fantasy Map: Averted. Both coasts are shown.
  • Legacy Immortality: King Kaius I poses as his descendants, though is actually kind of immortal.
  • Light Is Not Good: The Church of the Silver Flame. The Silver Flame is an amalgamation of several good spiritual entities. It's also a prison to demonic forces.
  • Like a Badass Out of Hell: It's quite possible to escape Dollurh.
  • Lilliputian Warriors: The halflings of the Talenta Plains.
  • Loads and Loads of Races: Type 2. Everything in D&D has a place in Eberron.
  • Loophole Abuse: The Dragonmark houses, bar Deneith, are forbidden from maintaining armies. Tharashk cut in on the mercenary business by becoming a broker for independent mercenaries while not having any forces of its own.
    • One point mentioned in reference books is that the continent spanning empire that would enforce the various edicts on the houses no longer exists. Some houses (or at least senior members) are quite willing to see how far they can stretch things before anyone calls them out.
  • Luck Manipulation Mechanic: Action Points in 3rd and 5th Edition. In 4th Edition Eberron, the Dragonmark of Detection allows one to roll twice on perception checks and pick the best result.
  • Made of Iron: Warforged. Literally. They can have plating upgrades at first level that cause them to be made of mithril or adamantine. Both are much stronger than normal iron.
  • Made of Phlebotinum: Eberron's Dungeon Punk world comes to mind as an especially obvious example of this trope. Without that magical-flavored Phlebotinum, everything in that world would fall apart hard. It's pretty much Made of Phlebotinum.
  • Magitek: Eberron has widespread use of magic.
  • Man in the Iron Mask: The real king of Karrnath is one of these. The current king, er, was the real king, but technically died two generations ago.
  • Mayincatec: Seen in Xen'drik.
  • Mechanical Horse: The Lightning Rail. Airships.
  • Mechanical Lifeforms: Warforged.
  • Medieval Stasis: Averted. Society advances in Eberron, which is described as "post-medieval".
  • Medusa: They have a culture of their own and various customs relating to the eyes. Most live in Droaam.
  • Mega Corp: The Dragonmarked Houses can be used this way, with some favoring it more than others.
  • Merchant City: Syrania in 4E.
  • Metaplot: Averted. The setting does not advance with adventures, novels or new sourcebooks and only direct sequels consider previous story advancement canon. Some executives tried to impose this on the setting for 4e, but they backed off when the fans strongly indicated their displeasure.
  • Mission Control: Steel, an intelligent (albeit unimaginatively named) dagger, wielded by the Dark Lanterns.
  • Mister Seahorse: Changelings, thanks to their doppelganger heritage.
  • Monster Clown: The Carnival of Shadows.
  • Monster Town: Entire "monster" nations, like Droaam and Darguun.
  • Mordor: The Mournland.
  • Mother Nature, Father Science: Played straight. In the Sovereign Host, Aureon the god of Lore and Onatar the god of Craftsmen are both males. Arawai is the goddess of Life, and is female.
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: Jaela is a minor example due to poor scaling and sticking to normal NPC scores despite her exceptional status. She's an 11 year old girl with "slim shoulders", who has a strength score of 8 and size of "medium", enabling her to lift 160 pounds over her head and still stagger around.
  • Mundane Utility: The Magewright NPC class.
  • My Grandson, Myself: King Kaius III (aka King Kaius I), who poses as his son to avoid uncomfortable questions about his lack of aging.
  • Mythical Motifs: The Dragonmarked Houses.
  • Nay Theist: The Blood of Vol believes in obtaining divinity and immortality for oneself and that, even if gods exist, worshiping them is merely a distraction from presuming one's own divinity.
  • Nebulous Evil Organization: The Aurum, House Tarkanan, the Lords of Dust... Even the Dragonmark Houses can be used as Cyberpunk style Mega Corps, so it's probably easier to list which international organizations aren't NEOs.
  • Nightmare Dreams: The quori are this, and like to do this to others.
  • No Biological Sex: Warforged are sexless. Gender identity is something they may pick up. A changeling's "natural" sex can be meaningless outside of high level magic that ignores their shape shifting.
  • Noble Savage: The Talenta halflings.
  • No Delays for the Wicked: Riedra keeps things running smoothly.
  • Non-Human Undead: The Deathless of Aerenal.
  • No Pronunciation Guide: Deliberate, though Keith Baker has given the ones he uses. The five nations are named after people, which helps to some degree like making it clear Breland, named after its first modern ruler Brey ir’Wynarn, should be "Brey Land".
  • Not-So-Safe Harbor: Stormreach. Which is also easily the most used port on Xen'Drik.
  • Ominous Fog: The "dead-gray mist" surrounding the Mournland.
  • Omniglot: Changelings are capable of becoming this easily—in 3.5 terms, Speak Language is always a class skill.
  • One-Man Army: By the time you're 5th level, you've seen more than a city guard will have seen a lifetime. And in fourth edition, the Mark of Scribing makes one close to this.
  • Only the Pure of Heart: Unlike most settings, there are no restrictions in using Good, Evil, Lawful or Chaotic spells.
  • Organic Technology: Daelkyr and their fleshcraft.
  • Our Monsters Are Different: Eberron is pretty good at this. Especially with Droaam, in which a horde of ogres and minotaurs and whatnot united under a covey of hags to make a monster nation!
  • Over-the-Shoulder Pose: The Dragonmarked Heir drawing.
  • Pass Fail: This is something changelings want to avoid.
  • Patchwork Map: The geography can sometimes be a bit odd.
  • Path of Inspiration: Eberron is the Trope Namer. The Path of Inspiration is the state religion of Riedra.
  • Physical Religion: Eberron mainly averts this. There are legends and myths, but nothing solid for the Sovereigns and the Dark Six.
    • Some Warforged revere Lord of Blades.
    • Erandis Vol is a Lich who is a holy figure to the Blood of Vol
    • The Lizard Folk of Q'Barra revere the Dragon Rhashaak, who rules over them as a god.
    • The Silver Flame has a physical presence in Flamekeep, the capital of Thrane.
  • Pirate: The Lhazaar Principalities is responsible for most piracy, with the Seren raiders coming in a distant second.
  • Poke in the Third Eye: Daelkyr can do this to those who try to read their minds.
  • Power Born of Madness: The daelkyr. And, to a lesser extent, their creations.
  • Petting Zoo People: Shifters are sometimes portrayed as this.
  • Power Fist: The battlefist warforged component.
  • Power Perversion Potential: Changelings.
  • Power Tattoo: The dragonmarks. Which are really more like birthmarks that appear later in life.
  • Praetorian Guard: There are a lot of examples of these.
  • Private Military Contractors: Various. House Deneith is the most famous and licenses most of them.
  • Prophecies Are Always Right: The Draconic Prophecy foretells every single possible event that has happened or can happen... with the twist that they tend to take the form of "If X happens, then Y will happen" instead of, "X, Y and Z will happen in exactly that order". This means that you can manipulate fate to a certain extent: if you want Y to happen, then you'd better make sure X happens. (This is a fact that has not escaped the attention of the various Chessmasters of the world.)
  • Prophet Eyes: Kalashtar and the Inspired.
  • Proud Scholar Race Guy: The gnomes of Zilargo.
  • Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Valenar elves. And the hobgoblins.
  • Punctuation Shaker: Xen'drik, Zharash'ak, Q'Barra... the list goes on. Subverted in that the ' is explicitly stated to represent a glottal stop... it's not just thrown in to make the word look all exotic-y, it's actually supposed to be pronounced.
  • Psychic Powers: Psionic powers are more common than magic on the continent of Sarlona due to the influence of the quori (psychic spirits from the dimension of dreams).
  • Psychic Static: Madness caused by daelkyr.
  • Purple Eyes: The Inspired and sometimes kalashtar.
  • Reality Is Out to Lunch: The Mournland.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Many of the leaders of the Five Nations.
  • Red Light District: Sharn has three of these.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless: Averted. There is a lot of public use of magic.
  • Released to Elsewhere: You live in Sarlona? Don't go around saying bad things about the Inspired.
  • Reincarnation: The reincarnation spell is available as in most D&D settings, but is not the natural destiny for souls, most of which go to the plane of Dollurh after death. In Riedra, though, the citizens are indoctrinated in the Path of Inspiration, which tells them that they will be reincarnated in a higher caste after death, which helps them accept their lot in this life and keeps them from rebelling against the Inspired.
  • Released to Elsewhere: You live in Riedra? Don't go around saying bad things about the Inspired.
  • Religion of Evil: The Dark Six. Though the 4E campaign guide points out that they're really more like the Greek gods (i.e., still epic Jerk Asses, but really more the embodiments of destructive nature than truly malicious). Even before then, one of them wasn't really evil, just... mysterious. Terribly mysterious.
    • The Blood of Vol and the cults of the Dragon Below, especially as seen in the first Blade of the Flame book and the Dragon Below trilogy.
    • The Lord of Blades seems to be working towards this, what with his "destroy all non-warforged" policies.
  • Religious Robot: Many warforged adhere to the faiths of other races, such as the Sovereign Host and the Silver Flame. In addition, some warforged have their own Robot Religion in the form of the Lord of Blades.
  • Robot War: The Lord of Blades is trying to start one of these.
  • Rocket Punch: Check the self-forged paragon path. Alternatively, a +1 returning battlefist.
  • Rule of Cool: Warforged and halflings that ride dinosaurs. Bedouin elves with double-ended scimitars. Viet Cong drow who worship scorpions. Elementals making longships fly. Half the setting is based on the Rule of Cool, for Flame's sake!
  • Saintly Church: Despite the corrupt clergy and atrocities associated with the Church of the Silver Flame, it's still a powerful force of good. The Sovereign Host is a straighter example of this trope. At least it tries.
  • Schizo-Tech: Does come up a bit.
  • Science Hero: The artificer.
  • Screw You, Elves: The elves can be argued with. Some, like the Valenar, will need more violent persuasion.
  • Sexy Backless Outfit: The Dragonmarked Heirprestige class from the 3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting book.
  • Shapeshifter Mode Lock when the elves, most of which where the slaves of the giants rebelled, the Gyrderi, who where the free elves decided to help their kin. Being druids they had an ability called wild shape, which lets them shape shift into animals. "the giants enacted a terrible curse that forever bound them in the wild shapes they were wearing, trapping them and their descendants in the forms of animals"
  • Shrouded in Myth: Xen'drik. Partially because of the Traveler's Curse (things will never be in the same place twice).
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Rakshasa Rajahs, quori, daelkyr... and the list goes on.
  • Secret Police: Don't mess with the gnomes in Zilargo. The Trust is to be feared. As is the Dreaming Dark and the Thousand Eyes, who seek the quori's foes abroad and at home.
  • Sentient Cosmic Force: The Draconic Prophecy, via Dragonmarks.
  • Series Mascot: Warforged.
  • Shapeshifter Default Form: Changelings.
  • Shapeshifters Do It for a Change: Changelings.
  • Shapeshifter Swan Song: Seen in an adventure path.
  • Shapeshifting Seducer: Changelings.
  • Shapeshifting Squick: Changelings.
  • Shrug of God: Some things are left intentionally vague for the DM to fill in.
  • Sinister Minister: Cardinal Krozen.
  • Skeletons in the Coat Closet: The bone knight prestige class.
  • Sliding Scale of Free Will vs. Fate: Eberron is a type 3.
  • Sliding Scale of Gender Inequality: Mostly egalitarian.
  • Someday This Will Come in Handy: Gnomes like to collect information. Just in case.
  • Space Jews: Dwarves control the banks. Or rather, House Kundarak does. And House Kundarak is composed of dwarves. (And dwarves also happen to rule a sinister organization of bankers and financiers, secretly pulling the strings of Khorvaire's economy...)
  • Space Whale: Seen in the Dreaming Dark trilogy.
  • Special Snowflake Syndrome: Might become a bit tempting.
  • Spell Blade: The hero's blade spell.
  • Spikes of Villainy: The Lord of Blades. Erdis Cai in the Blade of the Flame books also has very spiky armor that drains your soul if you touch it.
  • Starfish Language: Daelkyr.
  • Star Scraper: Sharn, the city of towers.
  • Succession Crisis: What set off the Last War.
  • Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: One of the cornerstones of the setting.
  • Tastes Like Purple: Dal Quor might cause this, and kalashtar might have memories of this.
  • Technicolor Eyes: Changelings can change their appearance at will.
  • Thank the Maker: The Becoming God.
  • The Alcatraz: Dreadhold.
  • The Chessmaster: As a general rule of thumb, any creature that has a lifespan greater than that of an average half-elf is a Chessmaster. To wit, the Lords Of Dust, the Dreaming Dark and the Draconic Chamber are organisations full of Chessmasters... and naturally, they tend not to get along.
    • The Dwarves might be an exception to this rule, as despite being long-lived by human standards they're considered fairly trustworthy. On the other hand, in the Banking Guild of House Kundarak they have managed to figure out a way to mine gold, trade it to other races for goods, then (and this is the brilliant part) get the other races to hand it back over for safekeeping. Along with various other valuable items. And pay for the privilege of doing so.
  • The Dark Times: The Age of Demons.
  • The Heretic: Quite common for a D&D setting.
  • The High Queen: Queen Aurala, a somewhat unconventional representative of the trope.
  • Jack of All Stats: The artificer.
  • The Multiverse: 13 planes, of which one has been severed from the rest and remains unreachable through conventional magic. And for good reason, as it is currently the plane of nightmares. Another is going to be out of close contact with the main world for the next twenty thousand years, which is also good, as it is the plane of insanity and non-Euclidean geometries and the sort of place Cthulhu might fit in very well.
  • The Necrocracy: Aerenal and the Blood of Vol.
  • The Nothing After Death: Dollurh.
  • The Omniscient Council of Vagueness
  • The Only One: Most NPCs are low level characters with NPC classes, the few good aligned powerhouses have some kind of impaired mobility, and armies can't be mobilized without reigniting the war. Thus the PCs are the only ones capable of handling any major disasters.
  • The Order: The Knights Arcane.
  • The Right Hand of Doom: The battlefist.
  • The Savage South: Xen'drik and Argonnessen
  • The Sleepless: Warforged.
  • Thirteen Is Unlucky: Eberron used to have thirteen moons, thirteen Dragonmarks (with associated lineages), thirteen coterminous planes, thirteen dwarven clans, and the continent of Khorvaire had thirteen regions. One of the moons has vanished, one of the dragonmarks had the entire line who had it exterminated by dragons and angry elves (though it lives on in one person; however, that person - being undead – can't use her mark), two dragonmarked houses now share a mark, contact with one of the planes was severed forever (when its Cosmic Horror inhabitants tried to invade), one of the dwarven clans mysteriously disappeared, and one region in Khorvaire was rendered a wasteland.
  • Took a Level in Badass: A few prestige classes, like the Extreme Explorer or the Heir of Siberys. Manifesting a dragonmark can also lead to this.
  • Touched by Vorlons: The kalashtar origin story.
  • Traintop Battle: One of the reasons why the Lightning Rail exists.
  • Trauma Inn: The "Last Chance", a co-operation by Ghallanda and Jorasco. Situated in Xen'drik
  • Two-Fisted Tales: Eberron takes a lot of inspiration from these.
  • The Remnant: Warforged are sometimes this. Darguun is the remnant of the ancient empire of Dhakaan (sort of). Cyre has a lot of dispossessed citizens wandering around.
  • Überwald: Karrnath used to be this. Still is in some places.
  • Ultimate Evil: Khyber, the Dragon Below.
  • Undead Tax Exemption: King Kaius III.
  • Undeath Always Ends: A few religions actually hold undeath as a good thing.
  • Universe Chronology: From the birth of the world to present time.
  • Unobtainium: Dragonshards.
  • Unwitting Pawn: You're in a world full of competing Chessmasters and Magnificent Bastards. Expect to get the short end of the stick every single time.
  • Urban Segregation: Sharn. The lower you go the tougher things get.
  • Utility Magic: One of the more notable examples, magic is used for everything from airships to architecture.
  • Vestigial Empire: The Dhakaani Empire and the giant empire of Xen'Drik.
  • Villains Out Shopping: Erandis Vol also practices knitting.
  • Warrior Monk: Kalashtar.
  • Weird Moon: 13 minus 1 moons.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Ashbound druids. And certain groups within the Silver Flame.
  • When Trees Attack: Oalian, the strongest known NPC, is a tree. Not a treant, just a tree. Awakened by druids into sapience, to be more specific.
  • Wild Magic: The living spells in the Mournland.
  • Wise Tree: Oalian the druid.
  • Witch Species: Kalashtar can be seen as this, with psionics replacing magic.
  • Wizarding School: A lot of these exist. The school at Arcanix even has floating castles.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Warforged.
  • Word of God: Keith Baker (aka "Hellcow") posts on the Eberron forums every now and then, though he can only give his opinion on certain things since Wizards has control over the direction of the setting. He also has a blog and a website.
  • World of Ham: And it is GLORIOUS!
  • Wretched Hive: Stormreach, and many of the lower levels of Sharn.
  • Written By The Winner: The War of the Mark; and the Lycanthropic Inquisition, aka the Purge (though most non-Flame scholars are now getting on the Church's case about it).
  • Wutai: Sarlona and the country of Riedra.
  • Xanatos Gambit: The gnomes of Zilargo do this as a hobby. The dragons make them look like amateurs, though.
  • Year Inside, Hour Outside: Dal Quor and Thelanis.
  • You All Meet in An Inn: This old trope is actually honored in supplemental rules.
    • Sharn has at least one inn in one of it's Adventurer's Quarters that knowingly services this trope. It was created by a retired adventurer...
  • You Are Number Six: Some warforged are known by numbers instead of names.
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