Eberron: Rising From the Last War

Wizards of the Coast just announced today the official release of a new sourcebook and adventure: Eberron: Rising From the Last War.

This book will apparently include the information of the PDF-only Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron while including an adventure as well as, I believe, a monster bestiary. It appears to be a kind of merging of campaign setting source book and adventure book.

Given that Eberron is probably the official setting closest in tone and feel to my own homebrew world, I'm pretty excited to see this. It also shows that Wizards is branching 5E out of the Forgotten Realms some more, which I'm sure a lot of players are happy to hear (we've done the Sword Coast to death, haven't we?)

The adventure apparently takes place in the Mournlands, the remains of the kingdom that was suddenly annihilated at the end of the Last War.

Eberron is a Magepunk setting, meaning that the magic used there is practical and has provided an alternate path to the kind of technological society that we have. It's also less hard-lined on things like alignment - there are good-aligned beholders and liches there! The general idea is that simple magic like cantrips and ritual spells are commonplace - your local baker will probably have the flavoring-food aspects of Prestidigitation, for example - but that more advanced magic is extremely rare, meaning that player characters are exceptional individuals.

I had to stop myself from immediately pre-ordering the book on Amazon, as I'm tempted to go for the alternative cover at my local game store (though I think those are more expensive, so... we'll see.)

Perhaps the most exciting announcement is that the book will bring the Artificer, the first fully-fledged new class introduced to 5E since the Player's Handbook. If it's anything like the Unearthed Arcana version (one would expect it to be,) it's a sort of half-caster like the Paladin or Ranger with an extremely versatile set of tools and spells (and unlike Paladins and Rangers, they get Cantrips, so you can actually play it as something like a pure caster.)

Eberron also comes with a number of playable races.

Changelings are essentially the playable race version of doppelgangers, with some limited shapeshifting abilities.

Shifters are quasi-lycanthropic, humanoids with animal attributes that they can "shift" into for various bonuses.

Kalashtar are humans who have fused with dream-beings from the realm of dreams - basically benevolent eldritch abominations that fled their nightmarish counterparts.

And then there are my favorite (possibly my favorite D&D race period,) the Warforged, which are golem-like magical robot people.

Additionally, there are things called Dragonmarks, which are affiliated with various powerful Houses that exist between the world's various kingdoms. Dragonmarks serve as a special subrace for player characters that are members of those marked houses, including for some races that don't have subraces.

Anyway, I'm going to contemplate whether it's worth getting the fancy alternate cover or if I'm just going to enjoy the peace of mind knowing that it's pre-ordered.

This strikes me as a must-have 5E book.