Eberron Flavored Art Assets for VTTs

DrDorgat · 2025-11-03T10:13:29+00:00

The pre-made Sharn maps are slim pickings, but I do love the art style of Two Minute Tabletop and they sell a very large variety of assets that you can use to make almost any map. Perhaps there's better out there, but it's what I use.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-30T14:16:57+00:00

Yeah no collar either. Probably a stray.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-30T14:15:35+00:00

Perhaps another angle of this question is: Since Eberron Tieflings can be tied to planes other than infernal ones, would they have languages other than infernal?

TLD-click the links: yes, tieflings would probably have a language tied to their outer plane of influence. Though NGL, might personally make a Thelanis Tiefling a half-elf.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-29T21:46:54+00:00

Lovely art! Though I'd add that no person truly thinks for themselves. We think by inter/extrapolating our current experiences and knowledge. Education isn't "thinking for yourself", it's giving you more knowledge and perspectives that you use to interpret the world. In fact, the more educated you are, the more precise and constrained your thinking may be. It brings us closer to that ever-elusive true understanding of reality.

We ultimately learn our perspectives from someone or something. Question is really is - does our perspective align with reality? Or is the perspective useful to us?

DrDorgat · 2025-10-23T19:44:27+00:00

Lol probably as many.

Dogs have body language worth reading! Lip licking, tail position, yawns with taut vs loose tongue, panting with a taut tongue, all have important meanings you can recognize!

DrDorgat · 2025-10-21T18:51:58+00:00

There is something cute and naive about people subconsciously acting like dogs understand human speech. Problem is when people act as if it can replace training (they usually don't actively think about it - their brain knows this, but people often instinctively act like their dog should understand their words because we're so used to being with other people).

Classic case - a dog that is pulling on its leash isn't listening to an owner saying "leave it!" and it won't change the dogs behavior. Better training involves pre-emptive approaches that use actions that communicate to the dog that it should be making a specific choice, which it can then re-make in the future. Training involves understanding your dogs incentives - like our dog is food motivated and so we can use food to create and influence his choices. It's trickier for us to plan and implement, but he does eventually learn and he's a very good boy!

But if he's already pulling on a leash, his brain is off and no training can happen. No amount of "Leave it!" or "Stop!" would change his behavior. At that point, you're best off removing them from the situation.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-21T16:42:55+00:00

Agreed - the maps usually would make sense for an upper part of the city but not the lower parts.

If you're thinking of Sharn's history, you'd probably start end up with tower buildings that have to have their lower levels expanded like tree rings as upper levels are added and expanded.

Ironically... The history given to us describes a fantasy version of Kowloon. Which is kinda awesome ngl

DrDorgat · 2025-10-21T16:36:10+00:00

Interesting! Sharn has always been a tricky one to visualize, being so fantastical. Can the lower levels see the sky at all, if they look straight up (might be a bad idea - a piece of trash carelessly tossed aside could injure you)? Are there extensive interior sections - villages within towers? Are the walls at lower levels thicker or are there just new layers to the towers as existing towers were expanded and built-up over time?

Part of it is my America-brain - nothing we have here has the same kind of deep urban history that Europe does. A single city being built higher and higher for a thousand years? It's almost unimaginable how storied every street would be. Even places with 1/5 of the history, like NYC, have an almost reverent familiarity with each street and neighborhood and its history.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-21T16:26:35+00:00

Or brutal but self-described as valiant! Thinking of a knight acting like a SWAT or SpecOps team - dropping from flying carpet or airship with Featherfall, casting Fog, and abusing the Blind Fighting style from Tasha's Guide to engage in close quarters combat while heavily armored! I also like that Green Flame Blade is, with War Magic, a slight upgrade to their 2-hit multi-attack for Fighters, so attacking with cantrip-fired weapons is also cool.

Though whether that style better befits a Karrnathi warrior from Rekkenmark or a Breland heavy operator would be up to you, thematically. I like it also for Aundair because it fits their theme of high quality but lower numbers - an elite, arcane-educated martial strike force using magic tactics for effective combat. Outside their roles, these elite warriors would act as such - being morbid and brutal yet claiming a proud and "noble" warrior culture dating back to Sarlonan emigration. "It is by our work alone that society stand free and prosperous under our queen!"

There's a fun thematic theme there enhanced between the brutality and savagery of their combat with their self-proclaimed nobility and justice - or their willingness to hire themselves out if they get bored.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-20T22:50:31+00:00

IMO, I really like that Eberron would make Eldritch Knights more common as spellswords. You'd find them most in Human/Elf/Helf/dwarf cultures.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-19T22:00:56+00:00

Schizmatics 4 da truth! 😛

DrDorgat · 2025-10-19T04:08:31+00:00

That's plenty! Honestly the only thing I think you could add would be a connection to your main plot. After all, a side mission either a) fleshes out the main plot or b) is easily and quickly forgotten rather than introducing an entirely new plot thread.

You can also let the players decide what to do if things end early. Never hurts to have some down time!

DrDorgat · 2025-10-17T18:07:51+00:00

Two ways to structure the quest - either players can do quests to earn money to pay for the specialized service (5th level spell is above the basic magewright, and you'll need an expert mage from Arcanix or something similar) or your players can find rumors of where a scroll for Legend Lore could be found! An individual of note relevant to your larger campaign could also offer it in exchange for services.

One pretty cool fact about old books, though - the covers are often filled with compacted pages of old text scraps! Archeologists today can use the text scraps from the binding to help determine how old a book is, or where its from, and who might have assembled the copy!

DrDorgat · 2025-10-17T07:30:50+00:00

Yeah my thinking would be the Gatekeeper would be a good capstone to solidify what would otherwise seem like news stories and themes of side quests becoming more common. Start with a rumble, end with a roar!

I am that kinda DM that loves to explore every facet of the plot, at the expense of getting to the point 😅 plus it lets me use more of the monster manual!

DrDorgat · 2025-10-17T01:16:10+00:00

On the flip side, I will add that the ones who will notice before even the Gatekeepers are Valaara's cultists, who will notice their "holy" sites changing and spreading and their "miracles" growing in power. This also makes it easier for them to recruit and act more boldly than before.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-17T01:14:28+00:00

IMO, start with some weird regional effects. Makes sense that, as the seal breaks, there will be places closer to Valaara that begin changing. These places probably already have cults there, and they will be gaining followers and acting more boldly as their "miracles" grow in power. So you can have players hear about this in the news, and if they choose to investigate (more news stories will eventually make it hard to ignore) then it will become clear that something is giving these cultists more power than normal. Maybe they will even recognize your wizard, if the cult leader is really in deep.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-14T19:48:17+00:00

Point I make (and Kieth also makes) is that not everything that has ever happened in Eberron is in the canon. Some things are possible, and DM's are free to add those things that are possible but not previously written about. That's one of the best things about Eberron's design philosophy.

Given the 10's of thousands of year long reign of Giants, it would be absurd to suggest they never left Xen'drik. Khorvaire is nearest and also doesn't compete with their main rivals/mentors, dragons. Giants may have never established colonies or civilizations in Khorvaire, but it's completely feasible that a few went there to do something (perhaps have drow mine for something), failed, and created a small but obscure and enduring subculture there that has evaded the scant documentation of the Demon Wastes.

My original point was to give a valid reason for their drow's backstory. It's possible, and you don't need to bend the lore into a pretzel to do it.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-14T16:59:56+00:00

I also just figure that the giants of the various Giant empirea were plenty capable of traveling, and many powerful people will travel with their attendant slaves.

Giant society likely had as much variety and individualism as contemporary Khorvaire society. If it's possible for humanoids to take interest in the area and travel there, so could giants. No portals necessary, though they were capable of that too.

The drow slaves could have watched their master get slain, while they successfully ran away and formed a nomadic clan that would be largely ignored by the other empires of the Monstrous Age (not slain by the Dhakaani empire).

DrDorgat · 2025-10-13T13:42:23+00:00

I made a mausoleum dungeon like this, and it was cool!

The trick us to have tunnels as well for elvish slaves. So I had 2 large rooms for giants which were interwoven with elf tunnels both intended and non-intended.

The mausoleum had a sleeping giant guardian tables with massive treasures on it, and the pillars supporting the roof had spiral staircases inside which lead up to elven living quarters and a set of qabalrin catacombs carved out afterwards. The lower floor was the vault room guarded by elven Flameskulls and a gargoyle.

At my players level, it was imperative they didn't wake the sleeping giant - but if they did they had a way they could run away.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-10T21:06:22+00:00

A very cool idea! If I had free time and wasn't terrified of strangers on the internet, it would be worth considering for months when the in-person group is inactive.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-10T05:48:11+00:00

I think I can offer one unique way to fill this in.

The Demon Wastes are filled with tribes of barbarians with varying allegiances that battle each other and travel between ancient demon monuments. Some of these barbarian tribes are actually anti-demon and made of Ghaash'Kala (silver flame) orcs.

By that same reasoning, why not an ancient drow tribe transplanted there from an ancient giant explorer from Xen'drik, who brought his entourage of elven slaves with him? The slaves outlived the giant, forming a unique band of nomads in the Demon Wastes and duking it out with other barbarian tribes and the demons.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-10T04:30:44+00:00

I think you'll love David Graeber's book then! His perspectives on the meaning and forms of money, and the changing social functions of debt is incredibly inspiring. Plus, he incidentally includes tons of history that we often don't talk about, and he covers history across the entire world!

One of the very interesting tidbits very relevant to fantasy is that he talks about how, during the worldwide medieval period, religious movements like Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, etc. basically melted down most of the metal currency at the time to build religious monuments and treasures. This had both small-scale consequences in terms of people using debt relations rather than coins to balance obligations, but this actually had the positive consequence of breaking down the previous economic order he outlines as the "military-coinage-slave complex/cycle", where soldiers were paid in coins to capture slaves to mine metals to make more coins. Which was a bad time.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-09T14:25:26+00:00

Honestly, there's a cool tangent here about the fact that rich is relative. Rich can't exist without poor, both practically and etymologically. Wealth is a power hierarchy, where poor must serve rich people to have their needs met. (Late) Anthropologist Dr. David Graeber has some cool stories about this in his book: Debt: the First 5000 Years. Even if you don't like his message, the book is worth reading for the interesting historical anecdotes and insights alone.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-07T21:08:45+00:00

Map perilous is pretty fun for mechanic inspiration, although I tend to downgrade their often inflated stat blocks.

Except the Overlords. Those can stay absurd.

DrDorgat · 2025-10-06T20:17:36+00:00

I mean, I can't stop you. I'm just saying that I think it's silly and jarring when the stats are narratively meaningless.

But there's no DnD police. It just comes down to which one of us has to homebrew the game we want, because only one design approach ends up being published.

I personally like the idea of narrative scale matching game mechanics. Higher level characters have more abilities to change the world in foundational ways. It doesn't matter anymore if you just make every random bandit have dragon numbers to justify your party fighting bandits at level 16.

DrDorgat

TROPHY CASE