Tabletop Game / Eberron

Eberron is an official setting for Dungeons & Dragons. It was originally created by Keith Baker, and released in 2004 after winning a "setting search" competition conducted by Wizards of the Coast. It can be described as a Dungeon Punk world influenced by pulp serials, Indiana Jones, and Film Noir rather than the more usual High Fantasy. It strives to avoid tropes common to D&D worlds, such as Always Chaotic Evil, Color-Coded for Your Convenience, and Medieval Stasis.

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 plan to effectively bring an entire continent 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.

Keith Baker's blog provides a lot of extra setting details and adventure ideas that are not in any of the rulebooks. Notably, many of these ideas have evolved over time via collaboration with the fanbase, leading to many cases of Writer Conflicts with Canon. The same passionate fanbase have put forward several well-regarded fan supplements; these are considered Word of Dante in some cases. Keith encourages alternate interpretations, coining the phrase "In My Eberron" to describe them.

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

Books

• The Blade of the Flame
• The Dragon Below
• The Dreaming Dark
• Heirs of Ash
• The Legacy of Dhakaan
• The Lost Mark
• Thorn of Breland

Video Games

• Dungeons & Dragons Online
• Dungeons And Dragons Dragonshard

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Eberron contains examples of:

A-F

• Abusive Precursors:
  • The demon Overlords were the first lords of the world, and some of their ruins still dot the world to this day. They were also immortal, inescapable Anthropomorphic Personifications of all the worst aspects of mortality, like endless war and a winter that kills all things. The only reason why mortals managed to survive at all is because most Overlords wanted to keep them around to give some meaning to their existences—the Rage of War could send his demons against other demons, but they were all immortal so it wasn't real. They were bound by the sacrifice of the couatls, aided by the dragons.
  • The dragons of Argonnessen might also be. Oh, they claim everything they've ever done is for the good of the world, but they've caused more than a few genocides that seem to be focused more on keeping their own power, and even on a good day they tend to treat mortal races as interesting animals to be preserved for environmental reasons than people with their own civilization.
• Acid-Trip Dimension:
  • Xoriat has red clouds everywhere, and space seems to be rippling.
  • Dal Quor has buildings floating in the air.
• 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 are explicitly there to loot the ruins, either for education or profit.
  • The Prestige Class Extreme Explorer is based on this.
• Airborne Aircraft Carrier: Argonth, a floating castle, has docking towers for airships.
• The Alcatraz: Dreadhold, a prison isle set up for the most dangerous and fearsome prisoners Khorvaire has. Prisoners are petrified and sealed between impossible wards.
• Alien Non-Interference Clause: While the dragons of Argonnessen interfere constantly, it's mostly in subtle and deniable ways in accordance with the Prophecy; they don't conquer mortal nations because that empowers an Overlord known as the Daughter of Khyber, and they don't teach magic to "lesser" species because when they gave the giants magical secrets, the giants risked destroying the world to shut down a rebellion of their elven slaves. Vvaraak had to break with the Chamber to bring druidic magic to the orcs.
• 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. In fact, everything not in the manuals is explicitly not canon (though the novels generally don't contradict each other too much).
• Alternative Calendar: 13 minus 1 months. They share their names with the moons.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Notably averted, especially compared to other D&D settings. Eberron is very flexible when it comes to alignment—one of the setting's main points is that unless an alignment is part of a creature's subtype (i.e. it is composed of the essence of that alignment), any "always" alignment descriptor in the Monster Manual can be read as "usually". And even then, there is a trustworthy, non-evil fiend (all fiends having evil as one of their subtypes) in the setting. And then even the ones that are evil aren't necessarily antagonists, leading to things like a vampire king who wants to preserve the peace.
  • For example, Orcs are much more spiritual in Eberron — their druidic sect is responsible for keeping the Daelkyr sealed in their can.
  • The setting handbook does indicate the existence of non-evil mind flayers and/or beholders. Interestingly, the alignment listed for daelkyr is "usually neutral evil," which means that technically there can be good daelkyr.
  • Commentary from Keith Baker indicates that Always Chaotic Evil is only in force for creatures where that alignment is supernaturally imposed, and even then it's only 100% binding if the story is better that way. Fiends are evil because they embody evil interpretations of the core concept of whatever plane they hail from (Fernian fiends being "evil fire", Shavarathi fiends being "evil war" etc), while with werebeasts the "always" alignment is imposed by the lycanthropic curse and even a good werebeast will fundamentally lose their original personality.
• Ancestor Veneration: The Mongol-esque elves of Valenar worship the spirits of ancient heroes, and have spells which can channel them into their bodies, weapons or steeds. Their uniquely powerful warhorses also tie into this, as legend says that they're descended from elven druids who became Mode Locked in the form of horses. This is in contrast to the elves of Aerenal, who transform their elders into Energy Beings called "deathless" which make up the Undying Court.
• Animal Wrongs Group: The Ashbound, who seek to destroy all arcane magic sources and users in the name of protecting nature.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: The Overlords personify the darkest sides of us and our actions. Rak Tulkhesh, for instance, represents the violence and horrors of war, while Sul Khatesh represents the fear and superstition connected to magic.
• Applied Phlebotinum: Dragonshards, chunks of magic crystal used to power everything.
• Archaeological Arms Race: Eberron provides the page quote, and the setting is a fantastic environment for it. However this trope isn't given any note-worthy attention in canon. It is worth noting that the house of Cannith may have learned how to create creation forges from the ruins of Xen'drik, and indeed did according to a sample adventure in the book "Secrets of Xen'drik". Creation forges create warforged. Warforged were used as soldiers toward the end of The Last War. However, Cannith was an arms dealer that did not discriminate who it sold to, so it wasn't really an arms race, and as such it doesn't count. Despite the lack of its presence in canon, this trope can be incorporated into the game with little effort.
• Arc Number:
  • Everything important follows the pattern of there being 13 of them with one lost/evil/destroyed. By Word of God, the pun on Baker's Dozen was pure coincidence — they'd just independently set two things in groups of (13-1) and thought it would be cool to run with it. Keith Baker didn't even notice the pun until someone pointed it out. There were thirteen moons/alternate planes, but one had its connection severed. There were thirteen dragonmarks, but one was wiped out. There are thirteen regions in the modern Khorvaire, but one is the Mournland. There's even thirteen kinds of halfling tea (called "tal"), and the knowledge of making one of them was lost in the Xoriat incursion.
  • 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.
  • In an amazing coincidence, the Artificer class for 5e was released in the Eberron: Rising from the Last War sourcebook. This is the first class released outside the 12 core classes in the Player's Handbook, making the total number of classes for 5e 12+1.
  • There are 12 kar'lassa, miles-long immortal sea serpents, sleeping deep beneath the ocean, each one tied to a plane of existence. Dal Quor does not have a corresponding kar'lassa, so it's not a stretch to wonder if there might have once been a 13th kar'lassa.
  • Made blatant by Cyre 1313: The Mourning Rail. On the Day of Mourning, before Metrol was fully engulfed, thirteen lightning rail trains were loaded up to evacuate as many people as possible. The thirteenth was delayed from leaving by a nameless VIP, which resulted in it being engulfed. Everyone aboard died, and the VIP was transformed into a Darklord of Ravenloft. Even now, the other passengers fear to enter their cabin, and the train hurtles through the Mists with everyone oblivious to the fact that they are already dead.
  • Thirteen immortal night hags were created at the dawn of time by the progenitors. Word of God says the hobgoblin artificers of Dhakaan were able to permanently kill one, albeit not without backlash.
  • Acknowledged in universe with the Twelve, the alliance between the dragonmarked houses. It was created, and named, before all of the dragonmarks were discovered. The houses that existed at the time correctly believed that there had to be more dragonmarks in the world.
• Arm Cannon: Warforged have friends they call "Armbows". They also have the Wand Sheath, which might fit the trope even better, depending on the wand. 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 are magical prostheses used to replace missing limbs.
• Ascended Demon: Kalashtar with their quori. Most of the quori want to preserve the state of Dal Quor as the Plane of Nightmares. The quori who created the Kalashtar want to change Dal Quor into a serene and beautiful Plane of Dreams instead.
• As Long as There Is Evil: The Overlords personify the darker sides of mortal nature, and even if slain they will reform in time. In fact, by all accounts they don't need mortals at all except in an abstract sense; the Rage of War wants mortals around to keep his wars interesting, but if all mortals died he would be fine. The Heart of Winter doesn't even have that, and if freed would actively try to kill literally everything and happily rule over a dead iceball.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: Mostly averted. Keith Baker himself claims that "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)." 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 standing on their holy ground. To top it off, she is eleven years old. Of course about the only reason she has these powers is Executive Meddling - Baker eventually conceded that this world needs at least one person who could cast True Resurrection.
  • 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). It's notable that he's still a tree, not a treant, making him immobile unless he uses a spell to make himself otherwise. Interesting how most of these characters are bound to a specific place...
  • 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. In fifth edition he's got a challenge rating of 18.
  • 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 (though the epic level handbook lets you reach any level). This puts them on par with gods in other settings (the gods of Eberron not even having direct evidence for their existence), who rarely have more than 60 levels, and only a few are even that high (and though gods also have special abilities related to their being divine beings of ridiculous power, so do the rajahs). The fifth edition stats for Sul Khatesh and Rak Tulkhesh are relatively tame; their challenge ratings are only 28, meaning that the only creature in the game to pose a challenge to them is an avatar of the goddess Tiamat.
  • 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 in 3.5 was 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. (For those wondering... Argonnessen is the home continent of the dragons... but not everyone in Io'lokar is a dragon.)
  • 5e mostly does away with the system of NPCs having player levels, but remnants of it is seen in NPC spellcasters. The Lord of Blades is thus a 20th level Artificer (which limits him to 5th level spells) and Illmarrow is a 20th level Wizard. Sul Khatesh also has some 9th level spells, but she has the Innate Spellcasting feature instead.
  • Sarlona also generally plays this straight, with all of the High Ministers orbiting between levels 13-20. Per Word of God, it was intended as the opposite of Khorvaire; Khorvaire is low-level magic very widely spread, while Sarlona is high-level psionics concentrated all the way at the top. The vast majority of Riedrans have no psionics, they just make use of it through the systems the Inspired have set up.
• Awesome, but Impractical: There's an assassin's dagger that traps the target's soul in a Khyber shard, preventing resurrection. Except even the weakest spells for bringing back the dead are exceptionally rare. The dagger's description notes that paranoid people usually just order an assassin to mutilate the corpse as a cheaper alternative, since the corpse has to be intact for raise dead to work.
• Background Magic Field:
  • The Mists of Cyre, which mark the boundary of the Mournland; once a character passes through them, they become subject to the Mournland's magic, such as the cessation of all healing abilities.
  • Manifest Zones are places where the borders between Eberron and one of the other planes of reality are unusually thin, leading to a distinctive Background Magic Field unique to that area. For example, Sharn is constructed in a Manifest Zone tied to the plane of Syrania, the plane of air. As a result, magic spells relating to flying or levitating are more powerful, and the closer one gets to the "bleed over", the lighter things are. This is how Sharn has been able to build itself up into a city of impossibly tall skyscrapers; the Background Magic Field helps keep them up.
• 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.
• Barrier Change Boss: In 5th edition, Mordakhesh the Shadowsword can use a legendary action to give himself temporary resistance to one of the five damage types commonly used by chromatic and metallic dragons.
• Base on Wheels: Argonth, a hovering fortress. Apparently there are two, but the other one, Dejarn, is a mystery even in-universe.
• Battle Boomerang: Eberron has more boomerangs and goodies than other settings.
• Beast Man: Shifters have lycanthropic blood, but only partially inherited the taint. As such, whilst they can partially shapeshift into a more bestial version of themselves, the resultant Game Face is more human-like with some animalistic traits, in contrast to the more humanoid animal appearance of a lycanthrope in hybrid form.
• Becoming the Mask: The Passer philosophy for Changelings, which revolves around creating a single identity and sticking to it, forsaking their normal shapeshifting powers.
• Bed Trick: Because Gender Bendering is part and parcel of the changeling race's Humanshifting power, taking on the form of somebody's lover to deceive them is well within a changeling's abilities. This is one of the reasons why the changelings are so distrusted.
• Beneath the Earth: The region of Khyber, which is Eberron's analogue to the Underdark. It's an enormous maze of fiend and aberration-infested tunnels that sprawls beneath the surface of the earth.
• Berserk Button: Vadis nia, meaning "disgracer of the blood," is THE worst insult in the culture of the Valenar elves. A human in one of the tie-in novels who is enslaved by a particularly nasty clan of Valenar uses this to get the clan's leader to go apeshit on him before killing him with his own blades.
• 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.
• Big Good: None for the entire setting, but a lot of characters can be used as this for individual adventures. The strangest is perhaps Kaius III, a vampire monarch of a nation reminiscent of Imperial Germany, who desperately wants to avert another war. Not for any greater scheme either, he just wants to prevent the countless deaths that would result from a new war.
• Bio-Armor: The living breastplate is a daelkyr symbiont which bonds to a host creature and acts as a suit of armor. It grants its host benefits which vary by edition but usually include Damage Reduction and a higher Armor Class bonus than armor of its type would normally provide. However, it also has nasty drawbacks like being difficult to remove and drinking the host's blood.
• Bishounen Line:
  • The 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 Eldritch Abominations 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.
• Bizarre Alien Psychology: The Daelkyr are so alien in their way of thinking that in 4th edition any psychic attack against them deals damage to the attacker.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: Your PCs are one of the few things people can count on. If that.
• Black-and-White Morality: Subverted as often as possible. About the only clear example is Sarlona, where Riedra is The Empire and the people of Adar are peaceful monastic communities trained by noble kalashtar.
• Black Box: Warforged are based on Magitek used by quori, and while they function as if they have souls, those souls don't go to Dolurrh like everyone else's. On a meta level, Divine magic is a Black Box that works for any Cleric who believes strongly enough in whatever it is that they're praying to, even though nobody in the setting has ever actually seen or talked to a (confirmed) god. Some people claim to have done so, but canonically the veracity of this is left deliberately ambiguous and it's possible they were just delusional. Others have spoken to things claiming or assumed to be gods, but these things range from a flame that may or may not actually be a devil in disguise to an admittedly powerful but nevertheless once-mortal lich with no hint that it's possible for one to ascend to divinity.
• 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 World War simply to get more fighting.
• Bond Creatures: Kalashtar, who are each bonded with a psionic spirit called a quori. In a twist, all kalashtar of a single bloodline are bonded to a single quori—meaning the spirit is stretched across hundreds if not thousands of people. Many kalashtar meditation techniques focus on quieting their own mind in an attempt to listen to their quori.
• Boobs-and-Butt Pose: The Dragonmarked Heir drawing◊, showing of the Dragonmark on her back.
• Bread and Circuses: One modus operandi of the Dreaming Dark. They started a continent-spanning war on Sarlona, then stopped it and created a society dedicated to absolutely nothing but providing services and producing goods for the Inspired. The people are safe, well-fed, and content, but they have little free time and barely understand the concept of entertainment.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": The dinosaur names — "clawfoot" for raptors, for instance. In a world where Latin and Greek don't exist, and science has a lot more mysticism in it, it's no wonder that no-one calls a dinosaur a Tyrannosaurus rex. Inquisitives (detectives) and chronicles (newspapers) also qualify.
• Cannot Dream: Kalashtar can't dream because their subconscious is bound up inside the consciousness of an Ascended Demon Quori (dream spirit). Instead, when they sleep, their conscious minds immerse themselves into the consciousness of their ancestral Quori. This also has the added benefit of making them immune to Dream spells, the Night Hag's Nightmare Haunting, or similar effects.
• Canon Discontinuity:
  • The novels and video games are not canon.
  • Keith Baker is notably miffed about Forge of War (which he didn't write), which includes a lot of sections that contradict other sources. Such as Thrane having terrible archers and slaughtering refugees from the Mournland.
  • From 4e player's guide, the Orcs passed from being a druidic/shamanistic neutral race ready to protect the world from nameless horrors and occasional bounty hunters... into becoming the run of the mill evil monsters from the last thirty years. Quite the let down. And then changed right back to hunter druids in the DM guide. Indeed, part of the subtext of the guide is that the PCs don't know everything.
  • The mysterious fourteenth plane of Baator in 4e was already ignored by the fanbase, and there is no mention of it in 5th edition.
• Canon Welding: You can connect Eberron to other settings via the World Serpent Inn. The 5e "Rising from the Last War" sourcebook also places Eberron firmly in the Great Wheel cosmology used by that edition, but describes it as "cut of" from the usual multiverse.
• Came Back Wrong: When Dolurrh 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.
• Cat Girl: Female Shifters with weretiger heritage (called "Razorclaws") can be depicted with the classic catgirl appearance, or even with the mannerisms, if the table is comfortable with that.
• Character Alignment: As hinted above in Always Chaotic Evil, Eberron plays with this a lot. 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. Keith Baker has even hinted that Bel Shalor, the Shadow in the Flame and the Overlord whose portfolio governs good people driven to do wrong, let himself be bound in this way as part of a greater scheme.
  • The setting does not believe in "racial alignments" for monsters (except for demons and other creatures with an alignment subtype, who are the living embodiment of such an alignment, or cases like werewolves where it's supernaturally imposed). One can't guess a dragon's alignment from their color. A silver dragon—in most settings known to be noble and chivalrous and who have the most respect for non-dragons—might in Eberron be a villain of the worst kind, while the usually tyrannical red dragon might instead selflessly fight for the lesser races. Vvaraak, the dragon who turned her back on the Chamber to stop the daelkyr invasion, was a black dragon, one of the cruelest types of dragon in most other D&D settings.
  • Some of the listed alignments for certain NPCs can be... unexpected. Queen Aurala of Aundair is actively preparing to start a war to unite the continent under her rule. Her alignment? Neutral Good, because she's not willing to use underhanded tactics like assassination to win, and few of the countries have rulers even close to as benevolent as she is—her winning would be a step up for most of the continent. On the flip side, King Kaius of Karrnath was the primary proponent of the peace treaty that ended the Last War and is trying to fix the mistakes made during his younger years that cost his people so much. His alignment is Lawful Evil, since he's willing to perform all manner of immoral acts to maintain peace and order (and his own power).
• The Chessmaster: So, so many. There's an entire nation of chessmasters! To say that trying to outwit their Secret Police is akin to robbing a police station is somewhat of an understatement.
  • In a Dragon magazine article, it said that if you asked a member of the Lords of Dust why, if they've been manipulating events for hundreds of thousands of years, they don't rule the world yet, their reply is likely to be, "Don't we?"
  • The Chamber as well. Sometimes. Other times they just are watching, but given that they are dragons, that isn't much comfort.
  • 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 organizations 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.
• Child Mage: Jaela Daran, the current head of the Church of the Silver Flame, is eleven years old... and, due to her spiritual bond with the Silver Flame itself, has the powers of an 18th level Cleric. Well, when she's in the Vatican-equivalent for her Crystal Dragon Jesus faith; outside of it, she's just a 3rd level Cleric.
• A Child Shall Lead Them: Jaela Daran, high priestess of the Silver Flame and one of the most powerful clerics on Khorvaire.
• Church Militant: The Church of the Silver Flame and orders of Dol Arrah both believe that war in the name of one's faith is a holy calling. The Silver Flame in particular believes it has a holy duty to seek out and destroy supernatural evil. The Aundairian offshoot of the Silver Flame, known as the Pure Flame, is even more extreme; the Thranic sect of the Flame sees it as a shield that protects the innocent, but the Flame truly came to Aundair during the lycanthropic purge, and as a result the Pure Flame sees it more as a flame of vengeance.
• City of Adventure:
  • Sharn, the City of Towers, home to countless competing guilds and gangs, a steady flow of refugees seeking a better life, and still reeling from the aftermath of the Last War. The city is even home to two noteworthy adventurer's guilds, Clifftop and Deathsgate.
  • Stormreach is the only real outpost on Xen'drik, and is therefore built pretty much entirely around the Adventurer Archaeologist profession.
• City of Canals: Zarash'ak, the City of Stilts, built over a swamp.
• City of Spies:
  • Zilargo, where the secret police is everywhere and any scheme, no matter how underhanded, is fine as long as it's technically within the law. By the way, it's where the gnomes are from, so if you meet one, bring antivenom.
  • Thronehold and Thaliost have also become hotbeds of espionage and intrigue: Thronehold because with the fall of the imperial monarchy it's become neutral ground for diplomatic issues, and Thaliost because it's occupied territory with at least three power blocs interested in it (Thrane holds it, Aundair wants it back and the Aundairian offshoot of the Flame currently has power within it, but has its own take on the religion that doesn't always line up with Thrane's).
• Clarke's Third Law: Inverted; in Eberron, technology is magic.
• Clingy Costume: The Bone Knights of the Order of the Emerald Claw wear special bonecraft armor, which cannot be removed once it has been put on.
• Clockwork Creature: Many constructs in Eberron have clockwork innards. Subverted, surprisingly, for warforged; they consist of wooden fibre "muscles" with "skin" of stone or metal plates.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Averted. Unlike in almost all other D&D settings, dragons can be of any alignment rather than having their personality and moral outlook determined by their scale color.
• 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, which are powered by Elementals. The iconic Eberron airship powered by an imprisoned fire elemental, forming a large ring of fire around it is one of the most iconic staples of Eberron.
• Cool Boat: Elemental galleons are driven not by sails, but by a bound water elemental, forming a ring around it.
• Cool Old Guy: King Boranel of Breland. Not only is he a retired adventurer, he is a Reasonable Authority Figure who combines a lot of the best elements of Aurala (popular and benevolent) and Kaius (does not want another war). He is also, surprisingly, a proponent for democracy, and is likely to be the last king of Breland before it transitions into a republic. Did we mention that he's based on Theodore Roosevelt?
• Cool Train: The Lightning Rail, which is literally a monorail trail that runs on a bed of lightning provided by a bound storm elemental.
• Corpse Land: The Mournland's more notable features includes battlefields still littered with corpses which haven't decayed in the slightest despite years of exposure to the elements.
• Corrupt Church: Zigzagged. The Silver Flame is a fundamentally good church, but it has a notable problem with its members going too far in the name of their faith. Such as the near-genocide of the shifter race as a side-effect of the crusade against lycanthropes, which the shifters are notably still bitter about, even if the lycanthrope plague got really bad near the end.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Dragonmarked Houses aren't always led by the nicest people.
• The Corrupter: Bel Shalor, the Shadow in the Flame, is specifically the Overlord governing good people driven to do evil. It's implied that he may have deliberately allowed himself to be bound by Tira Miron's sacrifice so he'd have a huge church full of well-intentioned people to manipulate.
• Crapsack World: To make sure there were plenty of varied threats to keep characters of all levels busy and to keep every campaign from being the same battle against the same villains, the world seems on the verge of being wiped out by all manner of ultrapowerful threats. Not to mention the chaos of the world meant to make it Adventure Friendly.
  • The main continent for humans, Khorvaire, has just got out of a hundred years war. A kingdom was torn apart, its constituent provinces becoming countries of their own, one of which was destroyed entirely, and many other countries split off from them, which have been further divided up by various groups vying for independence, leading to a once-great empire being a shadow of its former self.
  • Daelkyr, Lovecraftian lords of madness, want to rule everything that is above the ocean. Although they are a Sealed Evil in a Can, they are just waiting for the seal to get loose for them go after everything. And the organization that keeps them sealed is in decline.
  • The Quori, the omnipotent lords of the dreamworld, already control one entire continent, using their psionic powers to keep everyone content. Now they want to extend their control over the rest of the planet. They already have spies in every nation of the world, and their control grows by the day.
  • The Lords of Dust scheme to free the demonic rakshasa rajahs (beings that would be considered gods in most other D&D settings) from their imprisonment. They've been working at this for tens of thousands of years.
  • Many other organizations conspire and manipulate events, including the Aurum, the Chamber, The Blood of Vol, and The Order of the Emerald Claw, to name a few.
  • Death is no release. In 3.5, it's confirmed that people who die end up wasting away to Oblivion in the afterlife that is Dolurrh. 4E is a bit nicer, leaving a few exit strategies (one of which requires one to side with the Silver Flame, which unwittingly BEARS AN OVERLORD). So ya see, even if you die, you're still doomed. Creates the idea that the Blood of Vol and the Undying Court are right.
  • However, Keith Baker states in the appendices of ''The City of Towers" that most religions are aware of how Dolurrh works. They believe that their concepts of an afterlife will "kick in" only after the soul has faded from the plane, making it more like a variation of Purgatory or an Afterlife Antechamber, or indeed the Fugue Plane in Forgotten Realms. Some sects of the Sovereign Host also believe that their deities will purify Dolurrh into a golden realm one day.
  • Per Word of God, the overall theme of the world is that evil starts out with an advantage, but mortal will and sacrifice can make up the difference.
• Creating Life: House Cannith did this and created the Warforged. Things went better than expected. (Until, depending on your interpretation of why Cyre was destroyed, they didn't.)
• Creation Myth: The myth of how Eberron came to be tells of the three creator dragons, Eberron, Siberys, and Khyber. Khyber killed Siberys for reasons that vary depending on who tells the story. In retaliation, Eberron defeated Khyber and bound them using their own body. Thus, Eberron, the Dragon Between, became the surface world. Khyber, the Dragon Below, became the underworld, where monsters and demons dwell. What remained of Siberys, the Dragon Above, became the planetary ring.
• Create Your Own Villain: Lady Erandis d'Vol was a prodigy necromancer and the pride of the Vol/dragon breeding program, and became the first person in history to manifest an apex dragonmark. By all indications, she was a kind, studious girl. And then when she manifested her epic-level mark, before she had a chance to do anything with it, the elves and the dragons banded together to exterminate her entire line. She only "survived" because her mother used her own dragonmark to turn her into a lich. Now, Vol hates both the Aerenal elves and the dragons of Argonnessen with a passion, and if she ever regains her power they will be first on her hit list.
• Crossover Cosmology: Averted until 5th edition. The planar system of Eberron was largely considered entirely separate from the Great Wheel, World Tree, or World Axis of standard D&D. In 5th edition, it was stated that Eberron and its planes is on the Great Wheel, but somehow cut off from the rest of the planes.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus:
  • The Silver Flame, led by Jaela Daran, is based strongly on the Roman Catholic Church. They also bear some similarities to Mormonism, having left the other nations to found their own state/nation and believing their religion was started by someone who met an angel (well, a couatl, but close enough)
  • The Sovereign Host are a pretty basic pantheon of graeco-roman-ish gods.
• Cult: The Blood of Vol tends to exist like this in most civilized nations, and it's right in the name of the Cults of the Dragon Below. There are also weirder examples; the Sharn chapter of House Deneith, for example, has developed a cult affiliated with the Dreaming Dark.
• Custom-Built Host: the Inspired are a Human Subspecies bred specifically to serve as Willing Channelers for the quori nightmare spirits.
• 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.
• The Cycle of Empires: A theme in Eberron. Not counting the other continents, Khorvaire was first ruled by great demons, until they collapsed, leading into a dark age before the goblinoids took over, until they collapsed thanks in part due to a Daelkyr incursion. Galifar was in its stabilization phase until the beginning of the last war, at which point it entered decline, and whether it's entered the long night depends on who you ask. Mordenkainen theorizes that orcs will be the next empire to rise.
• Damaged Soul: When Dolurrh 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.
• The Dark Times: The Age of Demons, the first age of the world, was ruled by the demon Overlords. Immortal Anthropomorphic Personifications of various sins and calamities, they unleashed terrors and demons across the world for fun. They were only sealed away by the sacrifice of the couatls and the strength of the dragons.
• Death Seeker: A possible interpretation of Erandis Vol is that she's gone insane and only seeks to join her family in death. Unfortunately, her phylactery was hidden and enchanted by her mother, so that any time she dies she's resurrected somewhere random. Even she can't kill herself permanently.
• 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.
• Deconstruction: The classic D&D good alignments are cheerfully subverted here and most of the evil ones, aside from the Always Chaotic Evil types, as well. Fits the setting, considering that it's a fantasy equivalent of the modern era up to the first two decades of the 20th century.
• Defector from Decadence:
  • The quori who merged with human hosts to create the first kalashtar rejected their status as nightmare spirits and sought to bring about a time of light.
  • Vvaraak rejected the Chamber's indifference to the "lesser" races to bring druidic secrets to the orcs and thereby save Khorvaire from the daelkyr.
• Deity of Human Origin: In a rather roundabout way. The goal of the Godforged is to build their own god(s), and the warforged were built by humans.
• Deliberately Cute Child: A goblin girl plays this role in City of Towers.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: A lot of the newspaper clippings in Eberron: Rising from the Last War. Most of them are not all that shocking, although not exactly objective journalism, but at least one accuses the Cyran refugees of secretly trying to take over Breland in a conspiracy theory that wouldn't seem out of place in post-WWI Germany.
• 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 rajahs 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 rajahs are the most powerful fiends, which also includes demons and devils. In 5e, they have a challenge rating of 28, making them stronger than every creature in the game except for the Tarrasque and actual-goddess Tiamat.
• 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.
• Diabolical Mastermind: The Aurum is a club for Diabolical Masterminds to trade schemes, hatch plots, and drink dwarven beer. The Lords of Dust are literally diabolical!
• Die or Fly: The Test of Siberys for the Dragonmarked Houses.
• Discard and Draw: In 5e, dragonmarks act as a replacement for some or all of your racial traits if you're a human, half-elf or half-orc. For example, a half-orc with the Mark of Finding gives up their normal +2 Strength, proficiency with Intimidation, and Relentless Endurance and Savage Attacks features in exchange for a +2 to Wisdom, the ability to add a d4 roll to certain skill checks, the ability to cast Hunter's Mark (and later Locate Object) once per long rest, and an expanded spell list (which only benefits them if they take a spellcasting class).
• Divine Punishment: Some sects of the Blood of Vol claim that mortality is a curse by the gods. Everyone has the spark of the divine in them and can ascend to godhood if given enough time, so jealous gods cursed the world to make sure no one could live long enough to challenge them. This isn't a mainstream belief, though (and the Blood of Vol not a mainstream religion).
• Does Not Like Magic: The Ashbound druids believe that arcane and divine magic, which both come from Siberys, are unnatural and must be purged from the world. Primal druidic magic, which comes from Eberron, is fine.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Rising from the Last War includes a number of paper clippings. One in particular, from the Voice of Breland, accuses the many refugees from Cyre of being secret spies and soldiers planning to conquer Breland from within, very reminiscent of real-life Islamophobic conspiracy theories.
• 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 or Jaela Daran within the Cathedral of the Silver Flame pause...
• Dream Land: This is literally the role of Dal Quor, the Plane of Dreams.
• Dual Wielding: The aforementioned Double-Scimitar, as well as the Xen'drik drow habit of dual-wielding short swords balanced for throwing.
• Dug Too Deep: One way the Mror dwarves were refined for fifth edition was to have them break through into the ruins of the old dwarven empire, only to learn that it was also home to a stable portal to the prison demiplane of Dyrrn the Corruptor, and as such the entire place is swarming with aberrations, derro (who may be the disappeared dwarves of a mysteriously abandoned hold, it's not clear) and other daelkyr monstrosities. Some clans have firm anti-aberration stances, led by Mroranon, while others, most notably the Soldorak, view daelkyr magic and symbiotes as more opportunity than threat.
• Dungeon Punk: Almost defines this trope, and is certainly one of the earlier examples.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The Aberrant Dragonmarks seem to get progressively more evil with every update. In 3.5 many (but not all) of their spells were offensive, unlike other Dragonmarks, but they were otherwise still just a Dragonmark. In 4e they were rewritten to give penalties to anyone you hit in combat, making them more clearly offensive. In 5e they were given horrifying side effects, like constant pain and mood swings.
  • The Blood of Vol in the 3.5 setting is an open Religion of Evil that reveres undeath; everything published about it since then has portrayed it as a religion for The Anti-Nihilist.
• Either/Or Prophecy: The Draconic Prophecy works this way. If X then Y, with various groups attempting to cause X. The cause and effect will rarely be obvious; "if the Lord of Blood injures the Prince of Creation, the First Storm will fall" might mean that if Kaius III physically attacks Merrix d'Cannith, Esravash d'Lyrandar will get eaten by a kraken.
• Eldritch Abomination: The daelkyr and their creations, the quori, and the rakshasa Overlords. The former two are invaders from Another Dimension, they warp flesh and mind alike, corrupting mortal dreams while straining to break into our world and turn it into a mirror of their own bizarre reality—while their true forms are incomprehensible. The Rakshasas by contrast are somewhat less bizarre, but no less dangerous beings of ancient power who seek to enslave or eliminate mortals in pursuit of their own decadent power and pleasure.
• Eldritch Location:
  • All of the planes are weird, but Xoriat is the weirdest. It's not called the Plane of Madness for yuks; it has areas where people turn into sapient gas clouds, areas where illusions are impossible, areas where everyone can read minds and areas where size changes at random.
  • Manifest zones are places where the energies of the planes seep into Eberron, and things can get weird. Wild zones are where the planes themselves seep into Eberron, including full portals.
  • Khyber is both a physical underworld and a baffling nexus of demiplanes, most of them horrible in some way. You can walk into a hideous forest laden with
  • Xen'drik is marked by ancient draconic curses that render it, for example, almost impossible to map or effectively navigate. You can go down the same path twice, and the first time, you'll find an ancient giant citadel in the depths of the jungle, while the second, you'll find the Menechtarun Desert.
• Electric Joybuzzer: Warforged with a Wand Sheath and a wand of shocking grasp.
• Elephant Graveyard: Dragons have one in the Talenta Plains.
• Emergent Human: The warforged have this as their racial hat. They were made to be mass-producible, expendable soldiers. Then they turned out to be fully sapient, with souls, the works. Now the war they were made to fight is over. So what do they do now?
• Emotions vs. Stoicism: The Fury is very much on the side of emotion.
• Empire with a Dark Secret: Riedra, kingdom of the Inspired, exists solely to maintain Dal Quor in its present state as a realm of nightmare and prevent the Turning of the Wheel that will end that.
• End of an Age: This is a recurring theme in Eberron's history.
  • Once mighty demons ruled the world...
  • Once the giants built a mighty empire...
  • Once, goblinoids claimed all of Khorvaire...
  • Once, Galifar was a mighty kingdom...
• The Engineer: This is the basic class role of Artificers, albeit they are magic ones rather than dealing with science. Crafting magical items is literally their primary class function.
• Escaped from Hell: It's quite possible to escape Dolurrh.
• Eternal Recurrence: The Turning of the Wheel for the quori and Dal Quor. Currently, the plane is in an Age of Darkness, but it was once in an Age of Light, and it will be again. The kalashtar are trying to accelerate this, while the quori are trying to stop it.

• Evil Is Visceral: The Daelkyr have this as their Hat, to distinguish them from the Quori and the fiends. Their forces are made up of hideously mutated organisms, and they even reshape the world around themselves to look more... "fleshy".
• 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 is one of the highest level arcane spellcasters in the base game, and a peerless necromancer lich. Her goal is, at minimum, revenge against the elves and dragons who exterminated her family, but she might have upgraded to world domination.
  • Then there's Mordain the Fleshweaver, who is worse. Than everyone. This is a guy who stole secrets from the Daelkyr and then turned around to start doing the exact same things they did.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Everice (the perpetually frozen north), Flamekeep (where the Silver Flame is kept), Thronehold (the original seat of the Galifar throne), the Demon Wastes (the last wastes from the Age of Demons)...
• Exact Words:
  • The campaign setting guide says "No living thing on Khorvaire bears [the 13th dragonmark]". Turns out someone does have it... but she's undead and as a consequence the Mark doesn't work anymore.
  • This is also suggested as a solution for keeping the conspiracies secret in a world with lie-detection magic. When the Inspired explain that the kalashtar are criminals driven by otherworldly spirits to attack Riedra, this is completely true.
• The Extremist Was Right: Whoever came up with the Trust of Zilargo may have been on to something—despite the below trope, it's a genuinely nice place to live if you don't mind intrigue.
• False Utopia:
  • Zilargo. Happy, safe, orderly, and with free speech... and filled to the brim with a race of born Manipulative Bastards who regard Gambit Roulette as a fun pastime, and with a devastatingly effective Secret Police to maintain said order in spite of that. Or very possibly because of it. Gnomes think it's a fair trade.
  • The Inspired have eliminated all war, hunger, and need in Riedra. They have also eliminated all dissent, choice, and entertainment. You don't even get to have your own dreams. And that's not getting into the reason they're building all those monoliths...
• Fantastic Fallout: Towards the end of the Last War, the nation of Cyre was covered in a strange mist out to its borders (at the time) which killed everything in it. While the mist no longer kills instantly, it does produce strange magical effects such as blocking all healing abilities.
• Fantastic Honorifics: The hereditary aristocracy of Galifar all use the ir' prefix before their surnames (e.g. the royal family is ir'Wynarn). Members of the dragonmarked houses use the d' prefix (e.g. d'Cannith).
• Fantastic Noir: Eberron is geared towards this, especially if the PC's are based out of someplace like Sharn and are Inquisitives (by general profession) or especially Master Inquisitives (the prestige class in 3.5). This can result in classic detective story adventures, only set in a world where magic is a part of everyday life and the criminals can range from ordinary humans to Eldritch Abominations.
• Fantastic Nuke: Cyre was destroyed by one of these. Maybe. There are some indications that it was a new Cannith superweapon that got out of control, or an enemy attack, or an awakening Overlord, or maybe it was just a once in an Age conjunction of planes. One thing that is hammered in over and over is that no one knows for sure, no one is taking credit for it, and it actually ruined quite a few existing plans as everyone was so terrified that they needed to end the war immediately.
• 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 - Averted. There are no direct equivalents to real world cultures.
  • Though if you examine the nations closely you might come up with Breland = England, Karrnath = Pre-WWI Germany, and Cyre = someplace that just got nuked. Xen'drik might be India, the Lhazaar Principalities as the East Indies (albeit with a colder climate and a much, much smaller Australia), Riedra and Aerenal could be pre-open trade China and Japan... you have to dig a bit, but they are there.
  • Khorvaire is roughly our world post-WW 2. Cyre was nuked and that was the end of WW 2. Breland (USA) escaped WW 2 relatively intact as the most technological and richest nation. Post-war, warforged fought for their civil rights much like the post-WW 2 Civil Rights era of the USA. Breland is known for being "constitutional". Karrnath (People's Republic of China, PRC) is dirt poor. It couldn't afford warforged like Breland, and relied on undead for that war, and still relies on undead to bolster its economic recovery. This is symbolic of the questionable strategies and morals of the government as it engineers the economic recovery of the country. It's ruled by a relatively benevolent Lawful Evil King (A vampire who faked his own death to fight the influence of the Blood of Vol in his nation, then resumed the throne by stealing his grandson's identity). This king is, despite his flaws, sincerely concerned with his country and being undermined by people in Karrnath's government (Blood of Vol and its pet Order of the Emerald Claw) is analogous to the lack of control within the not-so-monolithic single Party state. Aundair appears to be a mishmash of European countries if we look at their exports, style of education (especially their [floating] ivory towers).
  • However, the world in general averts Istanbul (Not Constantinople) - there's nothing specifically German about Karrnath culture, for example, it just evokes Prussian militarist stereotypes. Most notably, Sarlona is a distant, exotic land, but it's not 'fantasy Asia' - Samurai are defenders of the noble families of the Five Nations.
• Fantasy Gun Control: The world is far more advanced than Medieval European Fantasy standards, but no guns. The use of magic wands acts as a substitute for them.
• Fantasy Pantheon:
  • The Sovereign Host and the Dark Six. The Rakshasa Overlords arguably qualify, being a group of ~30 beings that would be considered deities in other D&D settings.
  • Some believe that there might be some overlap between these groups, i.e. there are those that say that the Overlord Bel Shalor, The Shadow in the Flame, and the Shadow of the Dark Six are the same being.
• Far East: Sarlona in general and Riedra in particular Riedra might resemble North Korea combined with Cosmic Horror Story.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: 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.
• Fictional Zodiac: The Dragonmarked Houses, with 12 Dragonmarks between them (Phiarlan and Thuranni both use the same Dragonmark, The Mark of Shadow) and the 12 Moons.
• Fighting for a Homeland: The people of Cyre. The Eladrin in 4E are allegedly this, too.
• Final Solution: 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. Unfortunately, the purge was entirely necessary. The lycanthropes in the setting all came under the influence of the demon Overlord known as the Wild Heart, and banded together to destroy civilization. The setting has 13 moons, which means every few days there is a full moon. Every single afflicted individual would immediately become irrevocably evil and intent on murdering and spreading the curse. The creator of the setting described it as "28 days later with werewolves". It decimated the Reaches and Aundair, and threatened to completely destroy those nations and spread to others. The purge just barely beat back the lycanthropes, with the Templars from Thrane sacrificing themselves to save the locals. Once the curse was contained though, the Templars pulled back and allowed the local converts to mop it up. However, locals in that region wanted revenge, and started going overboard and were responsible for the bulk of the atrocities. The locals pogroms weren't stopped until a reliable way to detect the lycanthropes was discovered. Most people educated on what happened accept it was entirely necessary and saved the continent, but ultimately it's a black mark on the Church's reputation and history with others because of ill informed people in-universe focusing on the atrocities perpetrated by the locals and not realizing the extent of the threat posed by the curse.
• First Church of Mecha: What the Becoming God will be, once the Warforged — a species of mechanical humanoids — finish building him.
• Flanderization: Some writers and fans have focused disproportionately on the Church of the Silver Flame's corruption, while it's no more corrupt than any other religion in the setting. Also, the Blood of Vol is often portrayed by fans as a religion of evil that worships undead - the religion is closer to The Bleak Cabal in Planescape than anything else (charity, focus on community, focus on making the world a better place), and Seekers do not worship the undead, they see FAITHFUL intelligent undead as martyrs for sacrificing their spark of divinity, intelligent undead that aren't members of the Church as threats like everyone else, and simply see mindless undead as tools to be taken advantage of, like fire.
• 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. Exile is still called excoriation, though they don't actually flay the mark off your skin any more (and even when they did, it didn't prevent the person from using their mark).
  • The Flayed Hand, worshipers of The Mockery, do this to themselves over a long period of time, without using healing magic, so they 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 founded the Kingdom of Galifar and set his five children as rulers of the Five Nations he had conquered.
  • Lesh Haruuc for Darguun.
  • The Daughters of Sora Kell for Droaam.
  • Ven ir'Kesslan for Q'Barra.

G-P

• 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: Invoked; Shifters have the racial ability "shifting", in which they call upon their lycanthropic heritage to unleash bestial powers, such as a Healing Factor or natural weaponry. The side-effect is that their body physically mutates into a more animalistic state.
• Garnishing the Story: Dinoriding halflings!
  Rich Burlew: I just drew a halfling riding a dinosaur, accidentally proving that Eberron was cooler after all. Well played, [Keith Baker], well played.
• Gender Bender: Changelings, once they hit puberty, can freely swap genders as part of their humanshifting racial ability. They're fully functional in both genders, as well.
• Gender Equals Breed: Kalashtar worked this way prior to fifth edition. The Quori spirit is bound to the gender of the bloodline. Same goes for Changelings, the child's species matches the same-sex parent (Since changelings can change their sex, the sex they had while conceiving the child is the one that matters, not their real one).
• Genius Loci: According to Keith Baker, Ashtakala, the city where the Lords of Dust gather, is this. In his canon, the city itself in an overlord embodying the concept of a fortress of evil. The only reason the dragons haven't tried to glass the place yet is because when they tried, the city ripped out the souls of the attacking force and animated their corpses. Lesser mortals can enter relatively safely (aside from all of the demons, of course), but their wardrobe will be magically transformed to conform to the fashion of whatever time period the city itself prefers at the moment.
• Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: This is standard policy in Riedra, where all citizens are indoctrinated and emotionally controlled through dreams. Being unhappy outside of specific times and places is a sign of demonic influence.
• Germanic Depressives: Karrnath has this as their overarching motif.
• Giant Enemy Crab: The carcass crab and the siege crab are both crabs big enough to tear down buildings.
• 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 are one of the most iconic aspects of the setting.
• Gloomy Gray: Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead, is a gray wasteland that leeches the color and emotion out of everything that enters. Shades and incautious visitors soon succumb to complete apathy.
• God-Emperor: The Lord of Blades is trying to set itself up as this to the entire Warforged race. Because of the way divine magic works on Eberron, his priests actually do have the ability to cast spells.
• God of Darkness: The Shadow is a member of the evil pantheon The Dark Six. He is associated with Black Magic and corruption, and is believed to be the rejected Living Shadow of the god of magic and knowledge.
• God of Evil: The Dark Six is a pantheon of these, with each god being associated with some negative force of the world — savage animals, natural disasters, deception, etc.. Then there are the Rakshasa Rajahs, which are the setting's epic-leveled Demon Lords And Arch Devils...
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Queen Aurala of Aundair seems like The High Queen... but wants to reignite the Last War so that she can claim the Throne of Khorvaire for herself.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: Cannith goggles help in magic item creation.
• Golem: The warforged race are what happens when you try to engineer mass producible, cheap, intelligent golems, and basically succeed.
• Gone Horribly Right: The elves of house Vol thought that they could end the war between elves and dragons by making a true hybrid of the two races. They were kinda right. In that the elves and dragons both agreed that the child was an abomination, and that house Vol had to be wiped out.
• Gonk: Shifters are quite notorious for how hideous their original artwork was in 3rd edition. For reference, female Shifters originally looked like this◊.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Khyber, the Dragon Below. Of the three most powerful, evil factions - the Lords of Dust, the Dreaming Dark and the daelkyr - the Lords of Dust are directly spawned from Khyber itself and the other two likely wouldn't exist without Khyber's influence on the creation of the planes. Oh, and lest we forget, Khyber is still alive, just bound in Eberron's coils; this is why there are so many more demons on the Material Plane than angels. Khyber is the reason that the first age of the world was the Age of Demons, why the coatl had to sacrifice themselves to create the Silver Flame, and why the dragons have to spend all their time skirmishing with fiends rather than doing anything more productive.
• 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 Kaius, the vampire king, coming across as considerably less well-intentioned and focusing disproportionately on the corruption in the Church of the Silver Flame, when the original campaign setting book only points out that even an altruistic organization like the Church has some corruption, and the creator of the setting clarifying that the Church has no more corruption than any other religion in the setting, merely that some exists (and it's primarily in the Brelish arm, while the Church is headquartered in Thrane)
• Have You Seen My God?: The existence of the gods is not known for certain, even by beings such as angels.
• Healing Factor: A shifter racial feat by the same name kicks in if a shifter remains in their bestial form for six consecutive rounds, at which point it heals them for their level.
• Henotheistic Society: The Church of the Silver Flame accepts the existence of other deities but only worships the Silver Flame, through which and only through which the Purified believe the world can be rid of evil and made perfect.
• Here There Be Dragons: The continent of Argonnessen houses 99% of all the dragons in the world.
• Hereditary Curse: The Gyrderi elves and all their descendants were cursed into animal forms after they helped their fellow elves rebel against the giants.
• The Heretic: Quite common for a D&D setting.
• Hidden Backup Prince: Karrnath was apparently in the habit of doing this during the Last War, with the most recent being Kaius III. Except that this is a flat-out lie intended to conceal that Kaius III is a vampire and was once Kaius I.
• High-Speed Hijack: While not explicitly given rules in the sourcebook, lots of promotional art and related fiction describes hijacking airships, or the Lightning Rail. It's also one of the encounters in the published adventure "Voyage of the Golden Dragon".
• The High Queen: Queen Aurala, a somewhat unconventional representative of the trope. She certainly has the looks down, and is both popular and benevolent to her people. She is also a believer that War Is Glorious, and is so convinced that Aundair would've won the last war that her goal is to restart the Last War so she can conquer all of Khorvaire.
• Hijacked by Jesus: The priests of the Sovereign Host use this tactic, by saying when they encounter a culture that's monotheistic (or even polytheistic) that those gods are aspects of some vaguely similar god in the Host.
• Hobbits: Some halflings ride dinosaurs. Others are more urbanized, or even corporate - although Houses Ghallanda and Jorasco are at least among the nicer dragonmarked houses.
• Hive Mind: A rare good example: The Silver Flame is said to work like this: after worshipers die they merge with the flame and, while still conscious in a way, lose their individuality. Which may sound scary but is likely better than going to Dolurrh.
• Horse of a Different Color:
  • The halflings of the Talenta plains are famous for riding dinosaurs.
  • Breland fields an elite cavalry of fighters mounted on magebred bears.
• Hub City: Sharn and Stormreach are the two primary hubs on their respective continents. Sharn is the largest and most cosmopolitan city on Khorvaire, while Stormreach is basically the only city of note on Xen'drik at all.
• 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 can change their bodies at will, but not their clothes. A natural choice for Rogue and natural choice of angst, as they are seen by suspicion by the rest of the population and might even have identity issues.
• Humongous Mecha: Warforged titans, which are basically golems more than three times the size of a man. Warforged Colossi are even bigger, the size of small skyscrapers and requiring a full crew to operate at full capacity.
• Human Sub Species: There are at least two of these worth noting:
  • Kalashtar, which are humans subconsciously merged with a redeemed Quori (demonic dream spirit). They can interbreed with humans and half-elves, in which case Gender Equals Breed.
  • Inspired are much closer to the letter of the trope, having been selectively bred by the Quori from carefully controlled crossbreeding of humans, elves, and fiends to create a race specifically designed to serve as their agents and hosts.
• 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: Invoked with the Mournland, the magically devastated ruins of one of the former nation-states of Khorvaire.
• Illegal Religion:
  • The Church of the Silver Flame rules Thrane as a theocratic state, and while religions like the Sovereign Host are allowed within its borders, their adherents find life less comfortable, and few other religions, particularly the Blood of Vol whose association with the undead is utterly abhorrent to the Church, survive for long.
  • The only religion allowed within the confines of Riedra is the Path of Inspiration.
  • The Blood of Vol is also seriously disapproved of within Aerenal - which has a strong cultural opposition to negative energy undead - and Karrnath — because Kaius did not enjoy Vol coming there to shaft him in person.
  • Cults of the Dragon Below are generally considered adventurer fodder wherever they spring up.
  • Subverted with Droaam. Although the Dark Six, the Shadow in particular, is the official religion, most faiths are tolerated, even the Sovereign Host which specifically calls out the Dark Six as deities to be shunned. The one exception is the Silver Flame. The Church is based on defending innocents against supernatural threats, and most worshipers of the Silver Flame consider pretty much everyone in Droaam to be a "supernatural threat". Droaamites respond as you would expect.
• Immortality Immorality: Averted with the deathless, which are positive-energy-charged elven undead who function as spiritual counselors to their still-living descendants.
• Immortal Ruler:
  • The Undying Court are undead elves who are the de facto rulers of the Elves of Aerenal, providing guidance and wisdom in exchange for the ancestor worship that sustains them. They're also canonically Neutral Good In-Universe.
  • King Kaius of Karrnath is a secret example, having pulled a My Grandson, Myself and reclaimed his throne after becoming a Vampire. As of the time of the setting, he's over 125 years old.
• Immune to Fate: Sarlona is not mentioned anywhere in the Draconic Prophecy, probably due to a dragoncraft artifact that's protecting the land of Adar. This scares the crap out of the dragons, and as a result they generally try to pretend that the continent doesn't exist.
• 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.
• Incapable of Disobeying: Chief among the quori's servants in the Path of Inspiration are the "Empty Vessels" - the product of a eugenics programme which imbued humans with traces of elven and demonic blood, they possess both beauty and psionic potential, but also a mental backdoor which allows quori to possess them with No Saving Throw. Before the construction of the Monoliths (which weaken the boundary between the waking world and Dal Quor), Empty Vessels were the only beings vulnerable to quori possession.
• Incredibly Lame 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. The latter were deliberately bred for this by their Quori creators.
• Interpretative Character: Most major NPCs are deliberately written as this, in order to keep plots fresh and prevent metagaming from players who know their established personality (eg. Cardinal Krozen handles a lot of church business behind Jaela's back, but is he trying to use her as a figurehead or to stop others from doing so? It depends on the DM). Even their official statblocks are based on hearsay, with some NPCs having different stats in different books.
• Interspecies Romance: Changelings and shifters are the result of this. Less pleasantly, so is Vol.
  • The novels seem to really like playing with this:
    • Blade of the Flame has a half-orc/elven and human/vampire relationship.
    • The Draconic Prophecies has a warforged/human relationship. Yes, it's treated as just as taboo as you would expect.
    • The Dreaming Dark also has a warforged/human relationship, though it's not revealed that Lei d'Cannith is a Ridiculously Human Robot until the third book.
    • The Dragon Below has a kalashtar/human relationship.
    • The kicker has to be The Thorn of Breland though, with a rakshasa that's been in (mostly unrequited) love with a dragon ever since the Age of Demons.
• In the Doldrums: Dolurrh. While only some evil people (and the occasional adventuring party) wind up in Hades, everybody winds up in Dolurrh.
• Item Caddy: The artificer relies heavily on empowering, creating, recharging and using magical items. So, they tend to be given all the excess magical junk the party can find.
• Knight Templar: Many of the followers of the Silver Flame, especially in their anti-lycanthrope inquisition, which killed thousands.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: The kalashtar practice kung fu psionics. Some of them. Others are just Squishy Psions.
• Law Enforcement, Inc.: House Medani and in certain areas, House Deneith.
• Left-Justified Fantasy Map: Averted. Both coasts are shown.
• Lethally Stupid: King Jarot, the last king before the war, in a roundabout way. Like the first world war in real life, the Great War was entirely caused by stupidity. Unlike real life, it was caused entirely by this one king who spent his reign building up military force for an invasion that never came and encouraging his children to compete against each other. Needless to say, the moment he kicked the bucket the war started.
• Legacy Immortality: King Kaius I poses as his descendants.
• Lilliputian Warriors: The halflings of the Talenta Plains.
• Low Fantasy: Compared to other D&D settings, though only in the sense that it isn't High Fantasy. It is often stated that magic is weaker but significantly more common in Eberron than standard settings (to the point that nearly every blacksmith and baker can cast at least a couple spells), not to mention the flying ships, lightning train, intelligent Magitek robots. High-level and Epic magic are possible on Eberron, but fewer characters are of levels capable of using them.
• Luck Manipulation Mechanic: In 4th Edition Eberron, the Dragonmark of Detection allows one to roll twice on perception checks and pick the best result.
• Mad Doctor: The Nosomantic Chiurgeons are a secret group within House Jorasco that seeks to twist their house's innate healing abilities into the exact opposite.
• Made of Iron: Warforged. Literally (though they can mod themselves to remove the plating, as it can interfere with spellcasting and keeps them from wearing armour or magic robes). 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.
• Magitek: Eberron has widespread use of magic, to the point where it is used as technology.
• 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.
• Massive Race Selection: Everything in D&D has a place in Eberron.
• Mayincatec: The architecture and cultures of Xen'drik draw from a range of Southern American cultures.
• Mechanical Lifeforms: Warforged, which are artificial beings made of wood, stone, and metal, but which have souls (or something close enough to souls that healing magic works on them), and the capacity for free will. They pioneered the "Living Construct" creature type, since they combine elements of both golems and living beings.
• Medieval Stasis: Averted. Society advances in Eberron, which is described as "post-medieval". Things like the Lightning Rail and elemental airships are fairly recent innovations, and House Cannith continues with R&D to develop new and better Magitek.
• Medusa: They have a culture of their own and various customs relating to the eyes. Most live in Droaam.
• MegaCorp: The Dragonmarked Houses are a Dungeonpunk equivalent, each holding a monopoly over a particular field due to the powers their Dragonmark grants them.
• Metaplot: Averted. The setting does not advance with adventures, novels, or new sourcebooks. 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, can assume fully functional female forms, even if their "natural" form is male. It does render them stuck in female gender until they give birth, though.
• Monster Town: Entire "monster" nations, like Droaam and Darguun, are inhabited by species that are traditionally antagonistic in D&D, like goblins and orcs.
• Mordor: The Mournland fits this, being a cursed and tainted land that is shunned as a realm of evil and corruption. For an aquatic version, there's the Barren Sea, which is hypersaline to the point of lifelessness and dotted with manifest zones tied to Mabar, the Endless Night.
• 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.
• The Multiverse: Thirteen planes, one of which 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.
• Mundane Utility: The Magewright NPC class, which is a kind of Blue-Collar Warlock who only uses utilitarian spells.
• My Grandson, Myself: King Kaius III (aka King Kaius I), who poses as his great-grandson to avoid uncomfortable questions about his lack of aging.
• Mythical Motifs: The Dragonmarked Houses all have magical monsters, like a chimera, gorgon, hydra, etc, as their house emblem.
• Nay-Theist: The Blood of Vol rejects the gods. In fairness, unlike other D&D settings, there is no certainty that the gods actually exist.
• Nebulous Evil Organization: The Aurum, House Tarkanan, the Lords of Dust... it's probably easier to list which international organizations aren't NEOs.
• The Necrocracy: Aerenal and the Blood of Vol.
• Necromancer: Bone Knights can take control of nearby undead creatures and bolster them against being turned. They also have the power to animate the dead and summon undead steeds in 3rd edition, but not in 5th edition.
• 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 shapeshifting.
• No Delays for the Wicked: Riedra keeps things running smoothly.
• Noble Savage: The Talenta halflings have this as their hat, being a primal society of dinosaur-riding nomads from the plains of Khorvaire.
• Non-Indicative Name: The "Cults of the Dragon Below" do not, in general, worship Khyber. They mostly worship overlords and the Daelkyr.
• Noodle Incident: What exactly caused the Mourning is shrouded in mystery, and most likely meant to be up to the DM.
• Non-Human Undead: The Deathless of Aerenal are an entire sub-society of positive-energy-powered undead elves.
• The Nothing After Death: Dolurrh. It's a realm where everything fades to gray and the only beings other than the souls of the dead are their keepers. It's the afterlife, known to many people on Eberron as the only place that the souls of the dead go where they slowly fade into oblivion. The Sovereign Host is the only religion that accepts it as just what is, choosing to emphasize having a good life (although some forms do treat it as a stopover on the way to a better afterlife). Every other religion tries to attract new followers by promising some form of escape, be it union with a transcendent force or simply cheating with undeath, except the Path of Light (which is more interested in Dal Quor than Dolurrh) and the druids of the Eldeen Reaches (who mostly just don't care and prefer to focus on Eberron itself — or Thelanis, for the Greensingers).
• Numerological Motif: The aforementioned 13-1, or "Baker's Dozen":
  • Of 13 Dragonmarked Houses, one (House Thuranni) split off from another one (House Phiarlan),
  • Of 13 Dragonmarks, one (the Mark of Death) has been eradicated,
  • Of the 13 nations recognized under the treaty of Thronehold, one was destroyed (Cyre)
  • Of 13 dwarven clans, one (Clan Noldrun) was lost
  • Of 13 moons, one (Crya) was destroyed, resulting one of 13 planes (Dal Quor) being inaccessible.
• 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. And in fourth edition, the Mark of Scribing makes one close to this.
• The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: Numerous. The Trust of Zilargo is a small-scale one, while the Aurum supposedly has power over the economy of a whole continent. The Lords of Dust take it up a step further as the secret rakshasa masters of the world, matched by the Chamber who fancy themselves the secret dragon masters of the world. The Dreaming Dark cross this with State Sec in Riedra, officially serving the Inspired Lords but actually being the quori's more direct agents in the world.
• One-Man Army: By the time you're 5th level, you've seen more than a city guard will have seen a lifetime.
• One-Word Title: Also The Place, because Eberron is the name of the world.
• The Only One: Most NPCs are low-level characters with NPC classes. Thus the PCs are the only ones capable of handling any major disasters.
• Only the Pure of Heart: Averted. There are no restrictions in using Good, Evil, Lawful, or Chaotic spells.
• The Order: Several of the nations have knightly orders, although they're mostly associated with Karrnath. The most well-known is the Renegade Splinter Faction of the Order of the Emerald Claw, with the Order of the Ebon Skull as their Good Counterpart, but others exist, ranging from specialist light cavalry to alchemical weaponcrafters.
• Organic Technology: Daelkyr and their fleshcrafting, which revolves around taking living creatures and mutating them into clothing, armor, weapons, transport, soldiers or, really, just for the fun of it.
• Our Angels Are Different: They're just as clueless as the rest of us about the true nature of the gods or the purpose of life.
• Our Centaurs Are Different: Scorrow, drow torso on scorpion body.
• Our Demons Are Different: Demons and devils are actually native inhabitants of the world rather than extraplanar beings, and they ruled the planet for millions of years before being ousted from power by an alliance of dragons and couatl. Also, "demon" is a term that can is applied to either Chaotic Evil fiends specifically or all fiends in general (true demons, devils, rakshasas, yugoloths, etc.). The most common fiends (on the surface of Eberron, at least) are actually the tiger-headed rakshasas.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Unlike dragons in other D&D settings, the color of Eberron's dragons is not linked to their alignment — you can have Chaotic Evil gold dragons and Lawful Good red dragons as easily as the more traditional combinations. They live on their own in the continent of Argonnessen and spend their time studying the Draconic Prophecy, a worldwide natural phenomenon that can be used to predict and manipulate the future.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: A common criticism when the setting was first introduced. Eberron changed up a lot when it came to classic races and monsters, but dwarves were barely modified from the Tolkien mold. An attempt was made to mix things up a bit come 5th edition, as greater emphasis was placed on them having Dug Too Deep and their conflict with the warped and symbiotic creations of the daelkyr.
• Our Elves Are Different: A lot.
  • The high elves of Aerenal, called Aereni are long-lived, traditionalist, a bit isolationist and very arrogant, like elves usually are. They are also avid practitioners of necromancy, and their society is ruled by the Undying Court consisting of their most honored dead.
  • Wood Elves, or Tairnadal, also stem from Aerenal, but a lot of them have recently migrated to Valenar in Khorvaire. They form a bond with one of their ancestors, but are otherwise very warlike, organizing into warbands and frequently making unprovoked attacks into their neighboring countries.
  • The Drow live on the continent of Xen'drik. Unlike traditional drow, they worship scorpions rather than spiders, and their society is somewhat inspired by the Viet Kong.
• Our Gnomes Are Weirder: They might have evolved from rodents.
• Our Giants Are Bigger: Giants used to be a unified race, but a magical cataclysm changed them.
• Our Goblins Are Different: Goblins used to control most of Khorvaire. Now they're either tribal barbarians or city dwellers working lower class jobs and whatnot, which doesn't stop them from Cultural Posturing about how their empire lasted ten times longer than Galifar.
• Our Homunculi Are Different: The artificer can create homunculi sooner than other classes. Eberron also introduces a few specialized homunculi.
• Our Liches Are Different: The deathless are powered by Positive Energy and good-aligned.
• 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!
• Our Ogres Are Hungrier: Most ogres in Eberron follow the D&D standard, but the ogres of Sarlona are mostly peaceful and docile, having been pacified by centuries of occupation by the Inspired.
• Our Orcs Are Different: In Eberron, one of the oldest druidic traditions is orcish. Commentary from Keith Baker on his blog indicates that he conceptualizes Eberron orcs as being essentially more primal and chaotic than the lawful-leaning Dhakaani - which meant that they were an awkward fit for the hobgoblin empire, leading to them being driven to less promising areas like the Shadow Marches and Ironroot Mountains, but were also much more receptive to the lessons of Vvaraak.
• Outside-Context Problem: Rising from the Last War suggests a campaign where whatever has cut Eberron off from the Great Wheel has ended, and now the powers of the Wheel are turning their eyes toward this new playing field.
• Pass Fail: This is something changelings want to avoid.
• Patchwork Map: The geography can sometimes be a bit odd. Xen'drik, despite being just one continent, is stated to be large enough to contain at least one of every possible biome and/or temperature zone; that being said, Xen'drik is also so heavily enchanted that the same path can lead to two very different locations on different days.
• Path of Inspiration: Eberron is the Trope Namer. The Path of Inspiration is the state religion of Riedra.
• Physical God:
  • All the actual gods do not have physical forms, unlike most other settings. There are legends of how they used to walk among mortals (and supposedly the Traveler still does), but no one expects to actually be able to find Balinor out on a hunt.
  • The setting does, however, have extremely powerful entities which would probably be called gods in any other setting. The demonic Overlords who once ruled Eberron are immortal creatures that represent specific concepts and shape the world around them just by their presence. Thankfully, they were all bound by the Silver Flame long ago. It seems that every plane has its own "Overlords," one or more immortal creatures that are the most powerful thing on their plane. Dal Quor has il-Lashtavar, Lammania has the Totem beasts, Thelanis has the Archfey, and so on. It appears that entities of this level can't leave their plane of origin, which is why if they have designs on other planes they have to send out lesser agents.
  • As noted, the Overlords are the strongest entities on the Prime Material Plane, but they are all inevitably evil. The Silver Flame and the Undying Court are both artificial attempts to create "good Overlords;" the Silver Flame is limited in what it is personally capable of but can empower a huge number of mortals, while the Undying Court are capable of great things in their domain but are geographically limited and must also rely on mortal agents outside of Aerenal.
• Physical Religion: Eberron mainly averts this. There are legends and myths, but nothing solid for the Sovereigns and the Dark Six.
  • The Undying Court are the actual deathless ancestors of the elven people.
  • Some Warforged revere Lord of Blades.
  • 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.
• The Place: Also a One-Word Title. Eberron is the name of the world.
• The Plan: The gnomes of Zilargo do this as a hobby. The dragons make them look like amateurs, though.
• Poke in the Third Eye: Daelkyr can do this to those who try to read their minds.
• Portal Endpoint Resemblance: There are Manifest Zones where the material world is strongly touched by another Plane, opening natural planar portals and causing the traits of that Plane to bleed through into the surroundings.
• Power Born of Madness: One proposal from Keith Baker is that instead of doppelgangers being a parent species to changelings, doppelgangers are changelings, just ones that have unlocked their superior shapeshifting through their different mental state. Unfortunately, this also means that for your player character to unlock those powers, they would need to adopt the very inhuman mindset of a doppelganger...
• Power Creep: In Khorvaire, there is one 18th-level character and she's a major special case. A 12th-level warforged fighter-artificer with a Prestige Class is one of the greatest and most horrifying threats to civilization around. Move over to Sarlona, and any of the quori leaders of the Path of Inspiration would quickly reduce the Lord of Blades to scrap; some are level 20. This is because while Khorvaire is "low magic, wide spread," Sarlona is "high magic, narrow spread." The average person on Khorvaire can hire someone to cast a 1st-level spell on a whim, but the average person on Sarlona will never see any psionics besides what is passed down by their masters.
• Power Fist: The battlefist warforged component.
• Power Perversion Potential: The sexual potential of Changeling lovers with their shapeshifting powers is often nodded to, in-universe and out. The changeling-run Tyrants crime syndicate is also noted to control most of Sharn's prostitution.
• 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.
• Privateer: Breland hired privateers during the Last War. But now that the war's over letters of marque have been repurposed as Adventurer Archaeologist licenses.
• Pretty Boy: Many, if not most, male kalashtar and their evil counterparts, the Inspired, who have been deliberately bred to be Bishounen.
• Private Military Contractors: Various. House Deneith is the most famous, while House Tharashk is challenging their monopoly in order to .
• Propaganda Piece: Rising from the Last War quotes a lot of different newspapers. The so-called "Five Voices" - papers with names like "Voice of Thrane" or "Voice of Breland" - are very obviously intended as propaganda by chest-thumping nationalists, so you get things like the Voice of Thrane reminding loyal Thranes that Brelish soldiers might be secret cultists of the Dark Six, or the Voice of Karrnath demanding the reconquest of the Mror Holds.
• 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.)
• Proud Scholar Race: The gnomes of Zilargo possess a big love for knowledge and dislike both physical work and violence, preferring more intrigue and scheming.
• Proud Warrior Race: The Valenar elves and the hobgoblins both have this as their hat. Indeed, Valenar elves take the role of "war-loving marauding psychos" normally taken by orcs in other settings, because their entire culture revolves around living up to the example of deified warrior-ancestors.
• 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: Trying to telepathically contact the daelkyr through the haze of their insane minds is not recommended.

R-Z

• Reality Is Out to Lunch: The Mournland was left alien and twisted as a result of... well, whatever the hell the Mourning actually was. Fields of bodies that haven't even started to decay after years of exposure to the elements and the fact that neither natural nor magical healing works here are some of the lesser ways in which the Mournland is screwed up.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Many of the leaders of the Five Nations are intelligent, rational, and responsible beings. If only because the warmongers and lunatics were killed off during the Last War.
• Red Light District: Sharn has three of these.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Averted. There is a lot of public use of magic.
• 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 Dolurrh 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. In Droaam they're the dominant religion, and while that tends to stress more positive aspects, they're still not nice people - e.g. the Fury governs uncontrolled emotion in both, but in the Five Nations it's seen as socially responsible not to attack the people who make you angry, while in Droaam if you piss off someone and they kill you it's mostly seen as your own fault.
  • The cults of the Dragon Below, especially as seen in the Dragon Below trilogy.
  • The Blood of Vol zigzags this. Although it certainly has the trappings of an evil religion such as bloodletting rituals, use of necromancy, and overall spooky aesthetics, they are essentially atheistic anti-nihilists that focus on self-improvement, community, and generally living the best life you possibly can, because everyone is headed towards Dolurrh anyway, and Dolurrh sucks. Erandis Vol is currently trying to take over the Blood of Vol, but how successful she is in this is ultimately up to the DM - her claim of being the head of a highly decentralized religion will certainly have many, if not most, priests respond with "and who the hell are you?"
  • 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.
• 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.
• Resurrective Immortality: According to Keith Baker's Blog [1], all truly immortal spirits, i.e. rakshasa, devils, and quori, will eventually reform after being destroyed. This is also why the Dreaming Dark want to wipe out the Kalashtar, their quori spirits can be re-integrated when they return. Certain circumstances can prevent the resurrection for a while, however.
• Revenge Before Reason: Part of the Fury's portfolio is the desire for vengeance at all costs. One ritual associated with the Fury is lighting a red candle in your window; this is a prayer that whatever wrong you've suffered be avenged regardless of collateral damage. This is never done lightly in the Five Nations, and if you find a town where multiple houses are lit with red candles, something really bad must have gone down.
• The Right Hand of Doom: The battlefist, a warforged component which replaces a warforged's hand with an oversized, reinforced version, used to augment their ability to literally beat things to death.
• Robot War: The Lord of Blades is trying to start one of these.
• Robot Wizard: Warforged can be wizards and psions just as easily as their meatsack companions. This is accomplished with the use of special Power Crystals inserted during their Creation, so it's kinda hard for them to multiclass into a mage later.
• Rocket Punch: A battlefist with the Returning enchantment can be fired at foes from across the room, and then magically returns to their wrist. In 4th edition, the Self-Forged paragon path for artificers includes upgrading themselves with a mechanical prosthetic arm that can deploy a magitek rocket punch.
• 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.
• The Savage South: Xen'drik and Argonnessen, which lie to the south of Khorvaire. Xen'drik plays it straight, being a savage tropical hellhole of primitive tribal cultures and ancient ruins. Argonnessen subverts it by actually having a thriving civilization, centered around the dragons who reign over it.
• Schizo Tech: Because Eberron's technology is based on magitek of the "industrialized magic" variety, the actual "tech level" of the setting can zigzag a lot. In general, it's around roughly a 1920s level of tech.
• Science Hero: The artificer player character class is a Magitek version of this, as their contributions revolve around their abilities to create magical "juryrigged" devices to solve problems, whether those problems are "heal my companion before he bleeds out" or "blow up a squad of skeleton warriors".
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Zigzagged. Wizards of the Coast multiplied most distances and dates in the setting by a factor of ten, to give it a more "epic" feel. This results in such oddities as traveling by rail across Khorvaire costing some 10,000 GP, and the Goblin-controlled Dhakaani empire of the distant backstory lasting longer than the entire history of human civilization on earth.
• Scorpion People: As scorpions replace spiders as the Drow's animal obsession in this setting, the traditional driders are replaced by the nomadic, savage scorrow, who are dark elves from the waist up and giant scorpions from the waist down.
• Screw You, Elves!: The elves in Eberron can be argued with quite... "eloquently" by almost every race known in the world. Some, like the Valenar and House Phiarlan, will need more impolite methods.
• Sea Monster: The kar'lassa from Exploring Eberron definitely qualify as this. There are 12 of these massive, immortal creatures sleeping on the ocean floor. Even the dragons don't know what they are. Each one is tied to one of the planes of existence (Dal Quor doesn't have one, unless it did and was killed) and generate a manifest zone to their plane within a 13 mile radius. Furthermore, anyone who sleeps within this manifest zone does not dream in Dal Quor, as they otherwise would, but in the plane associated with the kar'lassa. The sahuaguin have set up cities around them, so any adventurers looking for a free trip to Irian will need to be wary.
• Sexy Backless Outfit: Worn by the example member of the Dragonmarked Heir Prestige Class from the 3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting book.
• Shape Shifter Mode Lock: When the elves, most of which were the slaves of the giants, rebelled, the Gyrderi, who were 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^note sealed in specific prisons in Khyber, mostly in suspended animation, though a couple- Bel Shalor being the most notable- are awake enough to influence the world very subtly, quori^note trapped on their own home plane, which is metaphysically turned on its side; they can only enter the material plane by hijacking mortal bodies, daelkyr^note like the Rajahs, trapped in Khyber, but are awake and with greater freedom to move around- they just can't go home, or come to the surface... and the list goes on.
• Secret Police: Fun fact — the registered crime rate in Zilargo is suspiciously low.
• Sentient Cosmic Force: The Draconic Prophecy is believed to be this in-universe, which is why the dragons are so obsessed with studying it. It manifests itself in bizarre areas of magic and strange markings that have prophetic insight, so it's not unjustified.
• Series Mascot: Warforged are the most iconic race of the setting, as a race of sapient, playable golems had never been seen in D&D before, and their nature meshes perfectly with Eberron's dungeonpunk motif. They featured prominently in early teaser art, and are still the first race to come to mind whenever the setting is discussed.
• Shapeshifter Default Form: Changelings have one. And, despite how easily they can change it, they actually do have default genders as well; a changeling is born a gender-neuter, then takes on one gender at around 6 years of age, not gaining the ability to use the Gender Bender aspect of its shapeshifting powers until early puberty. This first gender is the changeling's "true gender".
• Shape Shifters Do It For A Change: This is a common stereotype, in-universe and out, about Changelings. Since they have the ability to become whatever gender they prefer, and fully function as their chosen gender, it's an easy leap for non-Changelings to make. And in fairness, it's implied a lot of Changelings who don't belong to the Passer philosophy often do use their power to experiment.
• Shapeshifting Seducer: It's a common negative stereotype about Changelings that they will readily use their shapeshifting power to take on attractive forms to manipulate others. It's not entirely baseless, as it's noted that their shapeshifting power makes changeling prostitutes relatively common and wealthy.
• Shapeshifting Squick: This is one of the negative stereotypes frequently invoked about Changelings, in counterpoint to the Shapeshifting Seducer trope. The idea that you slept with a female prostitute only to learn "she" was actually a male changeling is a frequent joke, especially amongst fans.
• Shout-Out: Random street events in Sharn in the fifth edition book include a gnome with a sign reading "BRELAND WOULD HAVE WON THE LAST WAR, CHANGE MY MIND" and someone offering to sell all the answers in the universe for 42 gold pieces.
• Single-Species Nations: The continent of Khorvaire was unified under the human-ruled kingdom of Galifar before the Last War. During the war many of the non-human races reclaimed their ancestral homelands: Dwarves took the Mror Holds, Gnomes took Zilargo, Halflings took the Talenta Plains, Goblinoids got Darguun, and Elven mercenaries from the island continent of Aerenal seized a chunk of land and named it Valenar. Humans originated on a different continent that has fallen under the control of extraplanar entities, and the Warforged and half-human races lack homelands entirely.
• Sinister Minister: Cardinal Krozen, a high priest in the Church of the Silver Flame, who has conservative/fundamentalist beliefs and who believes that the Silver Flame should be gearing itself up to launch a great crusade to convert the whole of Khorvaire to its faith — by the sword, if need be.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: The bone knight prestige class literally revolves around draping itself in bones and channeling magic into them to make them function as magical armor.
• Skyscraper City: Sharn, the city of towers, is built in a manifest zone that enhances anti-gravity magic. This has been capitalized on to construct impossibly tall towers that could not stand elsewhere.
• The Sleepless: Warforged have no physical need to sleep, and can keep operating indefinitely — one of the things they use to find employment since the Last War. Warforged spellcasters do need to spend time in a quiet, contemplative state in order to replenish or change their spells, though.
• Social Darwinist: Children of the Winter, type 2. These guys are crazy, they go around causing plagues and other harsh conditions to kill off the weak. They are also trying to bring about an apocalyptic winter that will wipe out all but the strongest. They even engage in cannibalism.
• 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 literally exists to invoke this trope, channeling an ancient elven hero into the blade and turn it into a super-charged weapon that is ultra-effective against evil creatures, the undead, and fiends.
• 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.
  • The Demon city Ashtakala has every building covered in spikes
• Stamina Burn: The Battleshifter Training feat lets Shifters fatigue enemies by repeatedly dodging their attacks (and also grants a damage bonus against enemies who are tired or dazed in some way).
• Starfish Language: Daelkyr, obviously, is as bizarre as the creatures that speak it.
• Star Scraper: Sharn, the city of towers, is made up of these.
• Stealth Pun: One of the recurring themes in the setting is groups of 13 sans one, or a Baker's dozen missing one.
• Stereotype Flip: Very common due to Character Alignment rules being a lot looser than in most settings. The best example is probably in the Demon Wastes: the border is guarded by a bunch of Lawful Good orcs worshiping the Silver Flame, while the Wastes themselves are mainly inhabited by Chaotic Evil human Carrion Tribes
• Succession Crisis: What set off the Last War. The former king of Khorvaire died, and nobody could agree on which of his children, who maintained their own individual nation-states, should become the next ruler of all Khorvaire. So they started fighting for the throne, and plunged it into their first world war.
• Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: One of the cornerstones of the setting is the way that magic has literally been industrialized. A non-player character class, the Magewright, literally exists to fill the niche of "magical engineer/craftsman", and minor magic is everywhere. Color-changing cloth, street lamps based on triggered light spells... every single "technological" item in the setting is based on the ubiquitous and widely applied magic.
• Tastes Like Purple: Dal Quor might cause this, and kalashtar might have memories of this.
• Technicolor Eyes: Because Changelings can change their appearance at will, they can easily give themselves whatever color eyes they want. Unusual eye colors can be something of a vice for them.
• 13 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 horrific 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, which involves a group of human monks willingly allowing Ascended Demons to escape their non-redeemed kin to possess them and spiritually merge with them. Every kalashtar in existence is now a partial host for one of a small number of these Ascended Demons, which have been spread across their collective subconsciousness.
  • A sect of the faith of the Sovereign Host believes in this as a hallmark of their religion. The Church of the Wyrm Ascendant teaches that the Sovereigns were/are actually dragons who occasionally assumed humanoid forms. They also believe that sufficiently devoted worshipers can assume the mantle of a given Sovereign. Usually, they believe this will occur after death, but some of these Vassals believe they can be transformed into dragons while alive.
• 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
• True-Breeding Hybrid:
  • Half-elves are considered a distinct race, as in most cases their purebred human and elf ancestors were several generations ago, and they prefer to call themselves "Khoravar". There are even two Dragonmarked Houses composed of half-elves, and a significant number of regular aristocratic families besides, who just keep marrying other upper class half-elves generation after generation.
  • Changelings are the descendants of cross-breeding between humans and doppelgangers. They are now considered distinct from their parent races and have developed their own culture and even religious beliefs. (Although Keith Baker's blog proposes an alternate origin where changelings were magebred in ancient Sarlona and doppelgangers are what changelings become if they're somehow stripped of their humanity.)
  • Shifters are descendants of humans who passed on a trace of lycanthropy. Shifters themselves are not true lycanthropes (most of whom were killed or driven off-plane by the Church of the Silver Flame during a brutal crusade) but can partially assume bestial characteristics. As with the other cases of this trope on Eberron, they also continue to breed in the absence of their lycanthrope ancestors. 5e introduces a new possibility for the origins of shifters, as speculation by some characters in canon and heavily endorsed by Keith Baker in Exploring Eberron. Many shifters assert that they existed before the curse of lycanthropy, and that the curse was created by some unknown power corrupting the gifts of shifters. The daelkyr and the overlords are potential candidates for the creator of lycanthropes.
  • The children of Kalashtar inherit the race of the parent of their gender—a male Kalashtar's sons will be Kalashtar, but his daughters will not be unless their mother is too.
• Two-Fisted Tales: Eberron takes a lot of inspiration from these.
• Überwald: With its distinctly Transylvanian geography and abundance of undead, Karrnath used to be this. Still is in some places.
• Underestimating Badassery: Ashtakala, the Demon City, is a sentient location and the only overlord that was never bound and can rip out the soul of any dragon that tries to glass the place and replace it with dust. Humanoids won't even register as a threat, and will even be given a complimentary wardrobe change upon entering the city. Of course, the denizens of the city are much more hostile. Capable humanoid spies are the best means the dragons have of infiltrating the city and gathering intel on the Lords of Dust, but the city itself doesn't even care.
• Universe Chronology: From the birth of the world to present time.
• Unobtainium: Dragonshards, which are the Mineral MacGuffin of the setting. They are key components in powerful magical items, and impossible to artificially engineer, forcing people to prospect for them the old-fashioned way.
• 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. Both ruled over significant portions of the world. Now they're nothing but tiny, frail echoes of their former self.
• Villains Out Shopping: Erandis Vol also practices knitting.
• Warrior Monk: Kalashtar have this as their racial hat. Being literally born into a monastic order that has dedicated itself to battling body-snatching fiends from the realm of nightmares tends to do that to a person. There are also monastic orders dotted around Khorvaire, ranging from positive forces in the world like the Way of the Broken Blade to cults of cryptic, sadistic weirdos who revere the Mockery.
• Weird Moon: 13 minus 1 moons. Each is connected to one of the other planes of Eberron, and the one connected to Dal Quor was lost when its connection to Eberron was severed.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Quite a few groups have benevolent goals, but are willing to do horrible things in order to bring them to pass.
  • The Ashbound druids believe that to preserve nature, they have to destroy arcane magic... in a world where civilization has grown dependent on industrialized arcane magic.
  • The Children of Winter are Social Darwinists who believe that civilization's "coddling" must be corrected, or else the sapient races will be too weak to survive the apocalyptic era that they believe is approaching Eberron.
  • Kaius III will do anything to keep the war from reigniting, from persecuting a mostly innocent religion to arranging for the occasional murder.
  • Queen Aurala is at the opposite extreme from Kaius: her belief that she would make the best queen of Galifar and lead to a better overall result than the current awkward kludge of a treaty mean that she's the only ruler actively trying to restart the war, despite the human cost and the risks of dead-gray mist killing everyone.
  • Commentary from Keith Baker on his blog indicates that this is how the majority of evil worshipers of the Silver Flame (as opposed to the Shadow in the Flame, Bel Shalor) tend to end up. Baker's image of High Cardinal Krozen, for example, has him as a man who genuinely believes that he's following the Flame's dictates to protect the innocent...it's just that he tends to treat only believers in the Flame as truly innocent, and is willing to dirty his hands a lot to "protect" them.
• The Western: Q'Barra is set up as this. A recently settled and lawless frontier nation of prospectors, refugees, and fortune-seekers, as you advance inland there's less and less "civilization" as you meet the tribal and "primitive" lizardmen.
  Keith Baker: Q'barra is an excellent place to explore some of the traditional archetypes of the classic Western. As a paladin, you could be a mining village sheriff. Your cleric could be the town preacher. As a sorcerer or bard with a criminal background, you could be a dashing wandslinger looking for trouble and gold.
• 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.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Erandis Vol would really like her undead existence to end, but her phylactery is hidden and she can't find it. It's up to the DM is she actually wants to die properly to join her family, or if she'd be fine with immortality if she was just alive to enjoy it (and could use her dragonmark).
• Wild Magic: The living spells in the Mournland are perfect examples of this trope, being spells that literally came to life after being cast and are now self-perpetuating and uncontrollable.
• Wise Tree: You don't get much wiser than Oalian the druid, a tree given sapience and who attained such spiritual enlightenment that he has the spellcasting powers of a level 20 druid... in a world where reaching 3rd or 4th level in any player character class is a Big Deal.
• Wizarding School: A lot of these exist. The school at Arcanix even has floating castles.
• What Measure Is A Nonhuman: Warforged, who were literally created to be expendable soldiers and still get a lot of Fantastic Racism because of it — a common in-universe view is that an elf, dwarf, orc, or goblin is at least a living, breathing creature, but a warforged is a bundle of wood and stone that "thinks" it's a person.
• White Man's Burden: The Chamber is essentially a Fantastic Racism version of this: a group of dragons who see it as their duty to "guide" the "lesser" races (i.e almost everyone else). Unfortunately, such "guidance" typically involves secretly meddling in the other races societies using shapeshifting and the like.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Erandis Vol. She was created during a war between elves and dragons as a combination of elf and dragon as sort of a peace offering. Unfortunately, both races hated and rejected her. Is it any wonder she turned evil?
• Wretched Hive: Stormreach, and many of the lower levels of Sharn.
• Written by the Winners: 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, as the "Oriental" continent of Eberron, have this as their Hat.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Dal Quor and Thelanis both have significantly different rates at which time flows relative to Eberron. This allows the Quori to get quite a bit of plotting done while their Inspired vessels are asleep. Thelanis has the classic mythological problem of mortals spending time there having yet more time "catch up" with them when they return to Eberron.
• You All Meet in an Inn: This old trope is actually honored in supplemental rules. Sharn has at least one inn in one of its Adventurer's Quarters that knowingly services this trope. It was created by a retired adventurer...
• You Are Number 6: Some warforged are known by numbers instead of names.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: While Daelkyr in 3.5 simply looked like androgynous human males, Fifth Edition goes this route, with no two observers seeing the same form of a Daelkyr.

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