So for anyone wondering "why Eberron specifically for a She-Ra AU?" it's because well, it's already kinda canon;
"Luna (chaotic neutral female shifter; see chapter 6) and Vonnie ir'Cardwan (neutral female Brelish human noble) are having a secret date on the lift. This is where they first met, so it's a frequent rendezvous." -E:RftLW pg. 264
Like, come on. It's gotta be a Catradora reference, it's too perfect. A Chaotic Shifter and a Human "Princess"? That's gotta be intentional. So really, I'd just be picking up where the writers left off.
All house Orien conductors know ASL (Aundarian Sign Language) so as to better communicate with deaf and hard-of-hearing passengers
After the Last War, the demand for prosthetics and wheelchairs (and other mobility aids) has skyrocketed, leading to an influx of new designs by Cyran artificers, creating affordable and artistic options for those who need them
(sidenote, any npc that specifically uses the veteran statblock has a prosthetic or is in a wheelchair)
Dwarves use the style of their beards to express gender, and a clean shaven dwarf is probably agender (this one isn't mine, but I can't remember who posted it originally)
Shifters are very sensitive to tastes due to their enhanced sense of smell (that's how that works right?). Shifter cuisine tends to be light on the spices, and might seem bland to non-shifters (but it's just right for them). Thranish food is of course inedible for them, because it's so spicy. Just another reason Thrane bad.
Additionally, Shifters tend to find the most bizarre places to nap (usually in the sun), such as behind furniture and in foliage. When setting your blanket down in a park, just do a quick scan of the nearby greenery.
Shifters hate teleportation. They hate it. It's awful.
Alright people, let’s do this one more time, that’s right we talkin about some shit my brain made up! Again! So, basic plot outline under the cut.
Our story begins in Sharn because of course it does (Every Eberron story starts either in Sharn, on an airship, or a lightning rail, it’s required and if you don’t do it Keith Baker will break into your house and steal your hats). Adora, Bow and Glimmer are just leaving Morgrave because they’ve been doing some research. Adora on why she now has rainbows coming out of her eyes, Bow on this weird tablet he found that responds to the dragonmark on his stomach, and Glimmer on some way to kill the Dreaming Dark (important point, neither Bow or Adora know she’s a Kalashtar, as far as they know she’s just a weird human with pink/purple hair and sparkles). Meanwhile Catra is having an absolutely terrible day, she owes money to some group (probably the Daask) and its time to pay up. So in her efforts to escape Octavia (who is like a kraken cultist bugbear bladelock I dunno) she hijacks a Skycoach, but doesn’t know how to fly it and ends up crashing it into some poor guys cabbage stand. She’s thrown free of the wreckage, and winds up landing in front of a very shocked blonde paladin. Cue the
“Hey Adora”
before she passes out. Adora naturally panics and uses her healing hands (oh yeah, we Beauyasha now) to bring her back to conciseness, which is followed by a very tense
“Well thanks for that, anyway gotta go bye!”
“Wait what!? Catra I thought you were dead!”
“Well I thought you abandoned me, so I guess we’re both wrong.”
Bow and Glimmer are watching this go down when they all hear “HEY STOP RIGHT THERE, YOU VIOLATED THE LAW” and the Sharn Watch shows up to ruin everything. None of them have any sort of alibi (also, pissed off cabbage salesman) so they book it in the opposite direction. Fortunately the Sharn Watch are kinda shit at their job, and Bow had the sense to toss a handful of gold at the cabbage salesman so he doesn’t press charges. It is at this point that Catra realizes that hey, maybe being in a group (that just so happens to contain the woman you’ve loved basically since you knew what that meant) might be a better idea than just going it alone. Also, might be best to leave Sharn for a while Octavia seemed to really want her dead.
The best friends squad decides to spend the night in Catra’s neighborhood, which is a large shifter community. Adora is a paladin of the Silver Flame (though she doesn’t realize it, because it manifests as rainbow flame instead of silver flame). Maybe??? I'm still figuring this out. Either way, it’s not like shifters can instantly tell if someone is a Flamist, but she does smell “burnt” to them (to Catra, she just smells like, well, Adora). This is probably the first BIG canon departure (other than Catra being a part of the BFS from the get go), Adora, without She-Ra, is not treated like the second coming of the Sovereigns. And she’s... ok with that. Bow and Glimmer have some cute moments, then he asked her what she was researching and she gives a vague “uh, you know just, some things about my home...” answer. Glimmer (Glimmahvi) is quite reluctant to reveal her Kalashtar heritage, because she doesn’t want to put her new friends in danger. There’s some backstory conversation, but it’s interrupted by a fight breaking out between a couple of shifters! This has been a semi regular occurrence, which is weird because Shavarath isn’t coterminous (the story starts on 13th Aryth 998). Yet. And even if it was, they’re in Sharn! The effects of Shavarath would be greatly reduced.
*13-1 hours of investigating later*
So someone has opened a portal to Shavarath. THAT’S RIGHT IT’S PORTAL TIME BAYBEE. Maybe it’s Octavia wanting revenge, maybe it was the Dreaming Dark, maybe it’s Maybelline, I don’t know yet. Catra gets sucked in and sees... herself? But strange, twisted, with backwards hands and half her face missing, and unlimited blade works filling the space where demon!catra’s face should be. And then our Catra gets immediately murked by demon!catra. But since this is Shavarath it’s fine and she immediately pops back up, only to see a part of demon!catra’s face growing back.
“Wha-”
“Only one life left, I guess we really can’t change can we?”
Selected art previews from Cerebos: The Crystal City, a forthcoming tabletop roleplaying game written by Zach Welhouse and published by Penguin King Games. Watch for the Kickstarter in early 2021!
idk what’s going on here but i would die for that conductor bunny
Cerebos: The Crystal City is an episodic, magical-realist road trip RPG in which the players take on the roles of a group of travellers journeying by train to the eponymous Crystal City, getting into various misadventures along the way. The conductor bunny is actually a core game mechanic: at the start of each game, the group chooses a conductor, and that choice comes with special rules that inform the genre of the resulting journey.
(The bunny in question, Mr. Wumpus, is the iconic conductor of “All-Ages Fairy Tale”, a genre which emphasises the importance of friendship – you can preview their character sheet here. Other conductor options include the dapper, fast-talking huckster of “Adventure!”, the masked skeleton of “Psychogrit”, and the disconcertingly cheerful talking steam engine of “Musical Journey Through Space”, who is quite certain there’s no rule that says a train may not conduct itself!)
All house Orien conductors know ASL (Aundarian Sign Language) so as to better communicate with deaf and hard-of-hearing passengers
After the Last War, the demand for prosthetics and wheelchairs (and other mobility aids) has skyrocketed, leading to an influx of new designs by Cyran artificers, creating affordable and artistic options for those who need them
(sidenote, any npc that specifically uses the veteran statblock has a prosthetic or is in a wheelchair)
Dwarves use the style of their beards to express gender, and a clean shaven dwarf is probably agender (this one isn't mine, but I can't remember who posted it originally)
Eberron is the only fantasy setting I've seen that needs a reambiguation page, the difference between "The Literal Grim F@cking Reaper" and "Celtic Orcs" is brought to you by the letter S
You know what fantasy writing needs? Working class wizards.
A crew of enchanters maintaining the perpetual flames that run the turbines that generate electricity, covered in ash and grime and stinking of hot chilies and rare mushrooms used for the enchantments
A wizard specializing in construction, casting feather fall on every worker, and enchanting every hammer to drive nails in straight, animating the living clay that makes up the core of the crane
An elderly wizard and her apprentice who transmute fragile broken objects. From furniture, to rotten wood beams, to delicate jewelry
A battle magician, trained with only a few rudimentary spells to solve a shortage of trained wizards on the front who uses his healing spells to help folks around town
Wizarding shops where cheery little mages enchant wooden blocks to be hammered into the sides of homes. Hammer this into the attic and it will scare off termites, toss this in the fire and clean your chimney, throw this in the air and all dust in the room gets sucked up
Wizard loggers who transmute cut trees into solid, square beams, reducing waste, and casting spells to speed up regrowth. The forest, they know, will not be too harsh on them if the lost tree’s children may grow in its place
Wizard farmers who grow their crops in arcane sigils to increase yield, or produce healthier fruit
Factory wizards who control a dozen little constructs that keep machines cleaned and operational, who cast armor to protect the hands of workers, and who, when the factory strikes for better wages, freeze the machines in place to ensure their bosses can’t bring anyone new in.
Construction wizards to turn back time to root out wood worm and strengthen old buildings.
A wizard tailors who transmutes cloth into fully made clothes without seems and leaving behind no scraps
A wizard who works in public transit, timing out teleports with detailed schedules, time magic, and enchanted communications, sending dozens of people to far away cities for a day or work or leisure
A team of wizard gardeners tend to trees grown far outside their native range, and ideal climate, encircled with runes and fed potions to grow none the less
A wizard sits in their office in the aqueduct, re-casting the spells that allow its precious water to flow to the city uphill
A wizard fisher casts water repelling spells on the sailors and the stairs, keeps the hoist on the anchor from rusting, casts balls of heat that keep everyone warm below decks. Their real job is to herd fish together so they can be caught in single huge nets, and keep them cold as the boat returns to land.
There are so many possibilities outside of “stodgy academic who wears ugly robes” and “Very good holy man who helps everyone and the fact they’ve never had a job is never brought up” and “evil wizard toiling away on great evils in his evil tower in the evil country.”
tangentwithtanner
romaincrisis
stormborns
germansingergirl
turnnoffyourmind
discoholicmusic
andulkaphoto
