D&D (2024) You Can Now Pre-order Eberron: Forge of the Artificer

Pre-orders for the upcoming setting book have gone live. Eberron: Forge of the Artificer comes out on August 19th. The book contains the new 2024/5 edition Artificer class with 5 subclasses, the Warforged species, a ton of backgrounds and feats, and 20 new monsters.

​

Forge wonders in the world of Eberron, where magic meets marvelous inventions.

Play as the Artificer: the ultimate creative class. You’re not just an inventor or spellcaster. You're an innovator, a bold-hearted visionary, fusing together magic and technology to craft extraordinary creations.

Fuel your adventures with this rules expansion for Dungeons & Dragons:

• 4 revised Artificer subclasses and 1 new subclass: the Cartographer
• 5 revised species, 17 backgrounds, and 28 feats
• New spells, bastions, and magic items
• 3 distinct, genre-based campaign templates for building fantasy noir, political thriller, and pulp adventure campaigns in the world of Eberron
• Over 20 new monsters, each inspired by a campaign model

​

 

[Parmandur]

There's the story that the Bruce Sterling and William Gibson gave Steampunk its "punk" because it was the opposite cyberpunk, which they felt had gone mainstream.

So it was anti-anti-establishment

The term had nothing to do with Sterling or Gibson, and was a joke about how the writers doing that sort of thing were not in tune with the "punk" thing:

"Although many works now considered seminal to the genre were published in the 1960s and 1970s, the term "steampunk" originated largely in the 1980s as a tongue-in-cheek variant of "cyberpunk". It was coined by science fiction author K. W. Jeter, who was trying to find a general term for works by Tim Powers (The Anubis Gates, 1983), James Blaylock (Homunculus, 1986), and himself (Morlock Night, 1979, and Infernal Devices, 1987) — all of which took place in a 19th-century (usually Victorian) setting and imitated conventions of such actual Victorian speculative fiction as H. G. Wells' The Time Machine. In a letter to science fiction magazine Locus,printed in the April 1987 issue, Jeter wrote:

"Dear Locus,

"Enclosed is a copy of my 1979 novel Morlock Night; I'd appreciate your being so good as to route it to Faren Miller, as it's a prime piece of evidence in the great debate as to who in "the Powers/Blaylock/Jeter fantasy triumvirate" was writing in the "gonzo-historical manner" first. Though of course, I did find her review in the March Locus to be quite flattering."

"Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on the appropriate technology of the era; like "steam-punks," perhaps...."

— K.W. Jeter

Steampunk - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Weiley31]

Nothing about the art suggested those are Warforged though. They could just as easily be a Battle Smiths Steel Defender or even an Artillerists Cannons.

They look just like the other new warforged but sure maybe you are right. Let’s wait and see.

As an interesting side note to this, the Artificer mod for Baldur's Gate 3 uses an Animated Armor monster as the proxy-standin for the Battle Smiths' Steel Defender. And while current 5E art showcases Steel Defenders as mecha animals, I actually like the idea of it looking different. So, Animated Armor and what not, can work perfectly fine as Steel Defenders from a visual perspective.

 

[CF07]

There's the story that the Bruce Sterling and William Gibson gave Steampunk its "punk" because it was the opposite cyberpunk, which they felt had gone mainstream.

So it was anti-anti-establishment

Yeah, The Difference Engine. It has some good ideas, though the story is just OK. I read it when it came out but listened to the audiobook again recently. I'd say better for source material than as a book. As I said in my own post, parsing words about genres isn't what I'm here to do.

For me, Eberron has always been source material for my own games, not a world I ever wanted to run in myself per se.

 

[CF07]

The term had nothing to do with Sterling or Gibson, and was a joke about how the writers doing that sort of thing were not in tune with the "punk" thing:

"Although many works now considered seminal to the genre were published in the 1960s and 1970s, the term "steampunk" originated largely in the 1980s as a tongue-in-cheek variant of "cyberpunk". It was coined by science fiction author K. W. Jeter, who was trying to find a general term for works by Tim Powers (The Anubis Gates, 1983), James Blaylock (Homunculus, 1986), and himself (Morlock Night, 1979, and Infernal Devices, 1987)

I didn't know those books. I really only listen to audiobooks for fiction but hopefully some will be available! Michael Moorcock's Oswald Bastable trilogy (Warlord of the Air, The Land Leviathan, The Steel Tsar) have some similar leanings. He also co-wrote a book with Storm Constantine called Silverheart. I wouldn't say it's one of his better works, but it, too, had interesting ideas, though it's more solidly fantasy.

 

[Parmandur]

I didn't know those books. I really only listen to audiobooks for fiction but hopefully some will be available! Michael Moorcock's Oswald Bastable trilogy (Warlord of the Air, The Land Leviathan, The Steel Tsar) have some similar leanings. He also co-wrote a book with Storm Constantine called Silverheart. I wouldn't say it's one of his better works, but it, too, had interesting ideas, though it's more solidly fantasy.

Tim Powers is a major trip.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

As an interesting side note to this, the Artificer mod for Baldur's Gate 3 uses an Animated Armor monster as the proxy-standin for the Battle Smiths' Steel Defender. And while current 5E art showcases Steel Defenders as mecha animals, I actually like the idea of it looking different. So, Animated Armor and what not, can work perfectly fine as Steel Defenders from a visual perspective.

The text allows the steel defender to look like pretty much anything. Mine was a giant frog.

 

[Retros_x]

wearing medieval costume, is good only for comedy.

So you forbid armor in your Eberron game? Or flavor the chainmal as a trenchcoat that can catch bullets? Players with armor are forbidden to take the train because of optics? How did you deal with the fact that all pseudo-medieval gameplay elements (swords, armor, bows, crossbows etc.) are still in the game in Eberron?

For me personally this is one of the biggest pros in terms of aesthetics. I like that its not just "steampunk, but with magic", but people running around with swords and armor in New York City. I kinda dig that weird mix.

Also there are, as others pointed out, lots of other non-1920 vibes in Eberron (not just pre-1920, post-1920 too, lot of WWII and cold war pulp, even some scifi and cyberpunk), just look outside of Sharn. Eberron is a kitchen sink setting and that is true for the real life inspirations behind it too. Denying that seems to me like someone is enthusiastic about Sharn and thinks the whole setting is like that. Which is a fair impression because Sharn is definitely the figurehead of the setting with the most published material.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The official answer by Ed Greenwood in FR the technology for firearms is known but the gunpowder and most of explosives can't work in the same way because the deity Gord doesn't want it. I guess in Eberron there is anti-firearms area magic effects in cities and battlefield. Players with PCs from a lower-technologic-level could invent low-level spells against firearms, like illusories for decoys or smoke grenade effect, pieces of ectoplasm to block canons or to water gunpowder barrels, teletransporting bullets out of the gun, and firearms can rust, overheat (and then the canon could become deformed) or get stuck. Real firearms need daily mantenance. Spellcasters could summon swarms against gunslingers. They are cheaper than magic wands but war deities wouldn't allow to enter Valhalla fighters who used firearms.

Do you remember when you played Age of Empires II and any civilitations could use firearms?

The real History has been used as source of inspiration in the creation of D&D worlds, official or homemade, but we should take care. How to explain it softly? Several realms from the "Known World"(Mystara) are inspired in ancient civilitations from our real life, and this is OK, but today the sensibilities may be different. You should take care when an antagonist faction could be inspired into certain groups from the real life. For example some times I suspect the formians have been "cancelled" because some players could use them like an allegory of the "red armies" from the real life. Or let's imagine the scro space orcs from Spelljammer wearing clothings and armours like Otoman corsairs (the famous pirate Barbarrosa was Otoman with Greek origins, not English, here Hollywood is wrong).

How would you feel if anybody told the dark elves from Warhammer who rebelled against the noble high elves are an allegory of USA? You could tolerate a couple of times but when the trope become too usual then it starts to be annoying.

Take care with possible controversies about History because other could tell a different point of view. For example somebody could say Francis Drake was the first who circumnavitated the globe when really the first ones were the Magellan-Elcano expedition.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So you forbid armor in your Eberron game

It’s easy enough to have art nouveau styled armour. Historical armor was generally stylised with whatever was fashionable at the time (which changed rapidly, just as fashions do now). There is no such thing as chainmail (or studded leather) but it’s certainly possible to wear mail under your outer garments - just ask Frodo. A studded leather trenchcoat +1 is no more implausible than anything else in D&D.

Of course, when riding the lighting rail, all weapons must be stowed in the luggage car.

 

[bedir than]

The cover art warforged is the only warforged we've seen from the new book right?

So we're assuming that the one single example is now the representative of all warforged rather than being an individual?