For Christmas I got the Planescape bundle for Dungeons and Dragons— and I couldn’t be more enthralled!
I originally wasn’t interested in it. I had thought it more akin to Spelljammer (which I’m not interested in). But with all the games I’ve played over the years and Marvel movies going multiverse (not to mention Everything, Everywhere, All at Once), my curiosity was at least open to it. Then I saw one of the videos they used to advertise it, including an interview with Brandon Lee Mulligan; his explanation of the setting as where pure ideas come into conflict brought me in finally. I figured, if nothing else, it could be a useful tool to flesh out the cosmos of Eberron (still my favorite setting).
Eberron and the Multiverse
As I mentioned in my previous post on Eberron and the multiverse, Eberron is intended to be a pocket dimension, separated as much as possible from the rest of the material planes— but even this doesn’t mean it’s cut off from the multiverse!
Using some of the imagery from Loki season 2 and What If season 2, imagine that each setting is a full branch of reality— now imagine that every version of that setting (likely DMed by a separate person) is a limb off the branch. If that’s the case, Eberron can’t help but be a part of the tree, The World Tree, if you will.
This means there is plenty of room for interpretations of Eberron. I know from his interviews and posts that I play up the steampunk of Eberron more than Keith Baker would like; there are several points in which I differentiate his canon Eberron from my own, especially on material not published in the official sourcebook. I imagine this is one of those times.
Sigil as an Entryway
As I mentioned before, I don’t like using planar travel to Eberron— and I’m outright against spelljamming there. However, it makes a lot of sense that a center of the multiverse (which is multiversed itself) is capable of entry into Eberron.
One route to Eberron goes along with what I said in the prior post: an adventuring party might travel through Sigil’s gate-towns in the outlands to a plane of existence which has a connection to Eberron:
- Automata may have a specific route into Eberron’s plane of order, Daanvi.
- Rigus likely has a route into Shavarath, the eternal battlefield
- Other towns may have direct gates to the planes of the multiverse.
But there is an even more interesting idea reading this new book gave me:
An Origin for the Progenitor Dragons
Unknown to most of the denizens of Eberron, the progenitor dragons came from Sigil. Wherever they came from before, including, possibly, the One World alluded to in Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons, the three dragons found themselves in Sigil.
A faction of Sigil stands out: Mind’s Eye. Described in Sigil and the Outlands as the faction for those “who grow to godhood,” it isn’t impossible that Eberron, Khyber, and Siberys found themselves as leading members— one of them may even have been the factol (overall leader). This faction is filled with crafters, guides, and wanderers and is headquartered in the Great Foundry. They often travel the multiverse as a means of realizing their own potential. (Even if they weren’t part of the current faction, they may have been part of one of the factions which allied to create this one.)
This is the kind of faction in which three dragons may have used their long lives to explore the variety of planes of the multiverse and come to the conclusion that they needed to create something different, separate. They became greatwyrms beyond the power of other greatwyrms— so akin in power to the variations of Tiamat and Bahamut that they realized they had the power to mold a realm as separate as possible from the rest of the multiverse. They left and created Eberron.
Still Separate, But Connected
Even with this connection, the adventure Turn of Fortune’s Wheel isn’t one I can just morph into one connected to Eberron implicitly, as I do most things. The beauty of Planescape is that it is so unique and separate that it really has to be treated so.
That said, I like the idea that the concept of the Gatekeepers is a multiversal echo from Sigil into Eberron. I also like to think that some of the more wide-magic, urban society elements which differentiate Eberron from Toril or the other D&D settings come from the progenitors wanting to make Eberron feel like the best parts of their home.
Thank you for reading!
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