Nathan Buchanan's page

I just realized I never recieve my copy of dungeon #138 (thanks to the recap in my recently recieved #141...)
I was wondering who I needed to contact about this?

I'm pretty sure there is a feat like that in Stormwrack already.

That one is definitely not unbalanced.

Eberron is my campaign setting of choice, right now (unless its a pickup game that I'm running directly off an adventure) I will only run Eberron. Its the setting I would have created for myself if I was creative enough to make such a cool setting. I love the "wide" magic feel and low level execution.

Some quick clarifications on eberron for those not in the know:

how a Paladin of the Blood of Vol works - In Eberron Paladins and Clerics don't nessesarily get their powers from "the gods"; no body really knows if they exist anyway; they gain their powers through the power of their own faith. A cleric of Boldrei (LG god of Community) may be any alignment without losing their cleric powers unless they begin doubting the power of the faith, which could lead to CE cleric going around using Boldrei's wrath to take out the vagrants and refugees who are "ruining" their community.
This can go the other way too, the LE blood of Vol reveres the power of blood, and is the main religion of the country of Karnnath. Most people in the country are neutral or even good despite practising an evil religion- 99% never encounter an undead creature that the Blood uses as it's champions against the ravages of death. A BoV Paladin would not know about or like the Undead aspects of the religion, but would focus on the power of blood, and the power of Life over Death.
It's not like these would be common characters- rarieties among rareities (there's probably only about 600-800 Paladins total in the entire world of Eberron)

Quote: The magic isn't realistic in its own context, magic as common and easy as it is in Eberron, would lead to communications networks, financial institutions, business and political institutions bigger and more sophisticated than our own.

Well there are the Sivis message stations that act as Defacto Telegraph stations, the Kundarak Banking system which allows instantateous transfer of gold around the continent.
Remember this is a world just coming out of a 100 years constant war- many brilliant people were killed, or focused on the waging of war and not developing the magic that drives the economy.
The world is in an approximate WW1 era level of technology in many respects, but the low population bases due to war losses (the largest city in the world only has 200,000 people in the RAW [though most would say it would be better to multiply that by 10) will make a lot of the political institutions take longer to develop. If Eberron was allowed to develop without another extended war (within Khorvaire, or against Sarlona, ect) it would only take it less than 100 years to develop into a modern magical society much like our own

Quote: ...mentioning specific cool sounding things like "Kalashtar", "the Inspired", "Lords of Dust", "the Lightningrail" and the "Mournland". Sweet! I'm glad they're so cool...so what are they?

Kalashtar and the Inspired: Eberron has it's own planar system (obiting planes, rather than the great wheel) There is one plane called Dal Quor, where a Nightmarish race of Outsiders called the Quori. These beings were/are overwhelmingly evil, but there were a small group of rebels a few thousand years back. These were good or neutral Quori who tried to escape the unescapable plane (it's remote and unreachable by normal means)
Some human monks made contact with these rebels through their dreams, and they agreed to help the good quori by hosting the Quori spirits within themselves, and the Rebels were no longer reachable by the Dreaming Dark leaders of Dal Quor. 13 of the Rebels made it out, but the monks were forever changed. They, and their offspring afterwards shared their bodies with two souls, the soul of a human and that of the quori rebels. These Kalastar gained natural psionic abilities through this amalgam, and have become some of the greatest monks, psions, soul knives and psionic warriors the world has ever seen.
The Evil Quori had reasons to eliminate the Kalashtar, and other reasons to influence the Prime Material, and through dream manipulation, created a continent spanning empire, and a race called empty vessels, humans with sprinkles of elf and fiendish blood, allowing them possess and "Inspire" them. The hallmarks of the Inspired, is subtle manipulations and psionic control.

Lords of Dust - Great Rakshasas and other fiends who secretly manipulate events in the goal of their own power, and to release their great archfiend leaders the Rajahs who were imprisioned millenia ago by an alliance of Dragons and Coutl.

Lightning Rail - Essentially a magic railway system. A project of House Cannith and House Orien and the Elemental Binding Gnomes of Zilargo. A bound Elemental gives it locomotion, Cannith built "conductor stones" give it levitation and Orien Heirs are the only people who can safely control the bound elemental.
Essentially gives a (cool) quick and painless way to get around the main Continent of Khorvaire without needless overland travel.

Mournland - About 100 years before Campaign start, there is one main country in Khorvaire, Galifar. Five regions go to war over the succession of the throne. The event that finally ended the war was the complete and utter destruction of Cyre, the nation that had arguably started the war. No one knows what destroyed the nation, and the region remains a terrible one. "dead-grey" mists cover the land, and natural nor magical healing works there. The dead lay fresh in the battlefields, and creepy undead, aberrations and Warforged Extremists are the only current residents of the newly renamed "Mournland"