RPG Review: Eberron: Rising from the Last War (Part 2): Adventuring in Eberron

Whew! Let’s dive back into the book!

Group Patrons

Your party is able to take on group patrons, which is a great way to tie the group together. By working together for a patron, they are given assignments and contacts. The book lays out a ton if different patrons, including adventuring guilds, crime syndicates, heads of state and more. There are random tables to give your group missions, secrets, and more. It’s great for implementing in session 0 to tie the group together. I’d even recommend deciding on a patron before you begin character creation, so that players are focusing their concepts to match the patron. This is a fantastic thing that I hope to see implemented in future books for other settings.

Khorvaire and Distant Lands

The Khorvaire Gazetteer explains the primary continent of Eberron, providing a breakdown for each country. Each country gives a few paragraph description, interesting things about the country, how characters act, and my favorite part: Aftermath of the Last War. Every country has been affected by the war, and this breaks down how. Based on the name of the book it’s not surprising, but I really enjoy seeing how it has impacted the world.

Following the Khorvaire Gazetteer, the book explains the other countries and continents not connected to it. Each entry explains how that part of the world influences Khorvaire, which I really like. The book is centrally focused on the continent, so it doesn’t spread itself too thin. Either they’ll come out with further books for Eberron breaking down other areas, or they’ll allow the DM’s Guild to do the heavy lifting for that part.

The section ends with an explanation of he faiths of Eberron, the cleric domains associated with them, and their holy symbols. It explains each one’s rites and temples as well. There’s a lot of content here that will help inspire further adventures.

Sharn, City of Towers

The gem in the crown of Khorvaire is Sharn, City of Towers. A massive and sprawling city of enormous buildings and full of magic, Sharn sits as a nexus for much of Khorvaire. This chapter is extensive, and gives a ton of detail.

The chapter breaks down each district with noteworthy locations, and providing activities you can do in each. It also talks about the different criminal elements in town, and law enforcement that keeps them in check.

For Eberron players who have played over multiple editions, the material here is all freshly written, but you’re not learning anything dramatically new. It’s still the same Sharn you’ve come to love, but it is laid out in a way for easy reference. For players new to Eberron, it’s essential if you visit the city.

Eberron Adventures

A miniature DMG in its own right, Building Eberron Adventures provides adventuring hooks for across the world,  talking about the secret societies of dragons, dragonmarked houses, the dreaming dark and more. Each section covers a different theme, and gives you adventuring hooks and ideas to kickstart your own games, as well as providing fantastic maps from Dyson Logos.

My favorite section is the information on playing during the Last War itself. It’s an unexplored era in the books that I read (perhaps there was a book I don’t know of that covered it in detail), and I’d love to run a game during this time. With the previous sections explaining the impact the Last War had on all the other nations, you can rewind time and see how it would impact them while it was going on.

The chapter also goes into the Mournland, the part of Khorvaire that essentially had a magical nuke dropped on it. It gives you ideas for how to travel through the land, and the different ruins. It was one of my favorite mysteries of Eberron when I was playing.

I’ve had a few people ask me if there’s rules for airships or the lightning train in the book. There isn’t, but I think that WotC didn’t want to fill the book with a retreading of the vehicle rules from Descent into Avernus. Instead, it provides information about both airships and the train as roleplaying opportunities, including a D100 table for various passengers on board, and maps of the cars in the train.

One thing that throws me off in this chapter is there is a section on adventuring and crime in Sharn. These sections, in my opinion, should have been in the Sharn chapter, but I can see the logic to them being in the chapter with other adventuring hooks. It just seems strange to have them split up over multiple chapters.

Forgotten Relics

The book nearly ends with a fantastic adventure that introduces you to the world of Eberron. The players are hired to investigate a murder in the ruins of Old Sharn, finding themselves wrapped up in a conspiracy of crime that ends in a dramatic confrontation on the Lightning Rail train. It’s very pulpy and feels like you could see the same story in a 1930’s dime novel. I like it a lot.

Treasures and Foes

The conclusion of the book has the unique magical items, NPCs and monsters you’ll find in Eberron that aren’t in the Monster Manual. Just reading through the items, you can see how imbued with magic the world is.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoy this book. It’s nice to dive back into Eberron and all its mysteries.

The art in it is fantastic, but there’s a lot of reprinting. I noticed a lot of art from the 4e and even 3e days. I’m not sure how much is reprinted, because I don’t own all the old books, but I’d have liked for a lot more newer artwork. The maps are really beautiful, but appear to be reprints with new fonts laid over them. I may be wrong, but they look VERY similar.

The newspaper clippings throughout do a fantastic job of providing flavor and hooks for your games.

You can easily incorporate a lot of the previous D&D books with this one. Adding to Sharn with elements of Ravnica, or placing the Dungeon of the Mad Mage in the lower reaches of the city are all pretty straightforward. In the same way, the Artificer, lots of the plot hooks, and other things in the book are useful for Ravnica and other worlds, so there’s some cross-compatibility there.

It’s definitely worth the money to explore this fantastic setting. It’s available now in stores, so make sure to visit your FLGS to get the fancy alternate cover.

WotC sent a copy of Eberron: Rising from the Last War to Dice Monkey for review.

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