#House Cannith

[diceverses]

Kira Amory D’Cannith, my character for an upcoming campaign set in futuristic Eberron! Really excited to play her soon!

[phantomoftheshoppera]

Got an idea: Dune-inspired Ebberon campaign.

There’s a bunch of mithril and adamantine in the Mournland cause of all the dead warforged and other constructs. Cannith South is working with Breland to claim it while Cannith East is aligned with Karnath.

New Cyre would also benefit from the profits and has a strong claim as it’s on their former land.

Meanwhile the Lord of Blades sees everything in the Mournland as belonging to the warforged and is opposed to all other factions.

The party are essentially advance scouts for one of the factions and seeking to establish a foothold before the main forces of House Cannith arrive.

[ruggaboo]

I made a cool thing. These are a set of House Cannith bracers for my D&D character Quin. This is the first time I've ever worked Leather before so I'm really really happy with it.

[ratjay-art]

Character design work for yet ANOTHER warlock character- This one for a silly D&D game using the Eberron setting but with Superheroes. Kaine Vidor d’Cannith accidentally linked his brain up with the body of an early model warforged named AB13 who had broken down years ago. The pair worked out a deal that mechanically is a Ghost in the Machine Warlock and Kaine being able to control the broken down warforged body that AB13 themselves can’t control anymore. Together they’re the superhero Gh0st which No One Finds Funny. 

[dndsettingsinfo]

House Cannith Research Center [50×80] by Cassastereo's Mapperie

[feliciadraws]

ROBO PUPPIES

[dc9spot]

I'm playing Eberron one shot with my friend!

draw the party from the group photo! I'm playing the Architect from cannith house :D

[cary-atherton-art]

good morning to army captains without a family name, people excoriated from House Cannith for no reason, warforged unsure about their purpose, sword-pawning halflings, and absolutely NONE of the lifts in Sharn

[manoosweebar]

D&D Headcanons: Warforged Edition

[This is mostly for the Eberron games I run, but can be extrapolated to fit in other settings]

Warforged, having only existed for roughly 30-31 years, are split up into 5 or so generations, roughly every 5 years

Due to the creation forges utilized by House Cannith having a bit of "spontaneity", each batch of Warforged comes out a little different than intended aesthetically. Because the couple-dozen warforged made at-a-time look similar, have similarly shaped Ghulras (the sigil on their forehead), and are often raised/trained together, they often form bonds of 'batch siblings'

As the Last War went on and more units were comissioned by different sides, warforged became comissioned with more and more aesthetic features. This has resulted in older generations looking a lot less varied than later generations. Old batches look more utilitarian and similar even across different fronts, whereas batches made in the later years of the war look very different

Karrnathi Warforged often are assigned cosmetic augmentations to look skeletal (to match the use of karrnathi undead) or wolf-like (to match the heraldry of Karrnathi nobles)

Due to the cost of augmentations and magical items that would allow more facial movement, many warforged have developed a robust system of body language and non-verbal-communication to help get emotions and sarcasm across. Different warforged of differing nations have ended up developing seperate dialects and "accents"

[thecreaturecodex]

One specific question, one general one.

The specific - What's a good monster, related to plants, undead, or both, to use when representing something that, let's say, fell from the sky, crashed in a lumber yard, and when a usually cold-hearted, fearless boss comes to investigate, it scares him so much for the rest of his life that he tells nobody and immediately abandons the camp? Something that's terrifying, but something that wouldn't just kill him outright. I wanna introduce a bit of terror to my party since in-game, it's coming close to the equivalent of the Halloween season.

The more general (and maybe more important one) - How do you manage your own disparate ideas into a more cohesive homebrew storyline? I've got a lot of ideas and themes but I'm realizing my choice paralysis and desire to do something cool for my players is hindering me in tying together themes to make something that will actually be in service to the players fun.

Big fan for actual years, btw. You're one of the best homebrew writers and a vital part of our group's games in Red Hand, Shackled City, and eventually Age of Worms. Thank you for your work.

Thank you so much for your kind words!

Now, for your first question, I do have a fair amount of plants from space in the Codex, since it's a popular SF trope. The hyphal brain, vegalpree or beula could all serve the role you have in mind.

For the second, well, I'd say don't be afraid to be self-indulgent. Not every idea needs to tie into a Big Theme, and the players, if they're bought in, might end up supplying some of the linkages for you. Probably the best homebrew game I've ever run was Sharn Freelance Police, which was a D&D 3.5 game set in Eberron, where the PCs were detectives. It was intended to be a case of the week investigative game, and by the end of it had all sorts of recurring plots, villains and an overarching theme. By the end, it was about the arms dealing House Cannith working with the Order of the Emerald Claw in order to cause a civil war in Kaarnath, ending with Vol coming out of the shadows to claim the throne and start openly engaging in eugenics. But that plot wasn't in every session, and a lot of the cases they took were random one-offs that tied into stuff I had on hand or things I was into. There was a session that was a parody of Sweeney Todd, but it turned out it was dire rats being baked into pies when they thought it was people. There was a scientist interested in monsters who consulted on cases about aberrations and symbionts, who ended up using what he got from the Freelance Police to mutate himself and try his hand at supervillainy. There was even an arc where one of the characters died, came back as the undead, and didn't tell anyone for a couple of weeks. And despite the big mishmash of tones and themes, everyone had a great time, and that game and its characters are still remembered fondly almost 20 years later.

And looking at those APs you mentioned, they also kind of go all over the place. Age of Worms, for example. Telling the story of discovering and fighting against the cult of a undead-themed demigod doesn't need to have a tournament arc, or a fancy dinner party in a palace full of sideshow performers, or a canyon where giants breed carrion crawlers to make siege weapon ammo... but all of that makes the game a lot of fun.

[honourablejester]

I have seen you put together a number of character concepts involving Warforged (with Silence, your Grave Cleric, being a personal favorite), but I was curious what your thoughts are on Warforged as a whole and how to characterize them? What themes do they play with, who are they? Basically, if you had the opportunity to rewrite Warforged however you liked, what would they be like?

Oh, I do love Silence too. Definitely one of my favourite concepts I’ve done. I’m so glad you enjoyed her!

As for the warforged in general … I love them, but artificial life has always been one of my favourite themes in genre fiction. And one of the primary themes when it comes to artificial life is that it was built, it was no accident of biology, an artificial lifeform was consciously created by someone. And, most often, for a purpose. So if you were built/born for a specific purpose, how does that sit with you? How do you react to what you were intended, given life, to accomplish? You can get this with non-artificial lifeforms as well, people have children for very specific purposes all the time, but barring settings with genetic engineering or similar concepts, there’s still some luck of the draw in how such a child might turn out. But robots, warforged, are purpose built. Your body, your form, was crafted to spec. The evidence of your purpose is written onto your body. How do you react to that? And is there more for you outside of it?

So some questions to ask when building a warforged character: What were they designed for? How does that design show in their physical form? Are they aware of what they were built for? If so, how do they react to that knowledge? Did they obey their design and fill the role set out for them? For how long? Do they still? Or have they found a new purpose for themselves? If so, did they have to fight for it? How do they feel about their creator(s)? Do they know their creator? Were they mass produced or personally crafted? Do they have feelings about that distinction? Are things such as them common in the setting? How do they feel about that? Does the setting have a position re artificial life and souls/gods/the afterlife? Do they have beliefs about souls/gods/the afterlife, and how it might apply to them? Do they believe they are a person? Do those around them encourage or despise that belief?

Which, actually, is a point. Warforged as a D&D race were designed for the Eberron setting, and I don’t actually play that setting? Or I haven’t so far, anyway. So when I’m talking about warforged, I’m leaving out a lot of the setting-specific lore for them, like how old they are, the war they were built for, the Eberron-specific backstory of House Cannith and the Last War. Though most/all of these questions will still apply in Eberron, you just have some premade answers for some of them. But pulling warforged outside of Eberron, you are going to have to work with your group/DM to figure out how artificial lifeforms fit in and are viewed in the setting you’re playing.

If you mean how would I rewrite them within Eberron, I don’t necessarily have an answer, as I haven’t read too much into the setting. My general view on most settings/lore is to just tweak things if you have themes you want to explore on a character. For example, if you wanted to ignore that most Eberron warforged have a sexless form and therefore a more abstract concept of gender, in order to explore a warforged that was purpose built to appear as a certain sex, so long as everyone else you’re playing with is okay with that, I’d say go for it. Or if you wanted to explore a warforged that was much, much older than the 30-odd years since the Last War, then maybe House Cannith got their ideas from somewhere, an ancient cache of technology, and you are evidence of that and that puts you in a very, very dangerous position. Talk with your group/DM and find out what’s possible.

And mechanically, they’re fine. I like what they have. I do specifically enjoy Specialised Design, that they get one skill and one tool proficiency built in, because it plays back into that theme I enjoy of your body being built for a purpose. A warforged with proficiency in history and calligraphy tools was designed for a very different purpose than a warforged with proficiency in stealth and thieves tools. It’s such a nice little detail to throw in and built some character around. Were you built as an infiltrator droid (anyone seen The Zeta Project?), or as an elegant automata for a king to show off at court? I know a lot of people use that free skill and tool proficiency to tailor to their class, but I really enjoy stopping to think and use it to show what they were originally built for. Which may or may not match well with what they’re doing now. Maybe you have a dissonant skill/tool, because you fully rejected what you were designed for and sought your own path, but the original design can never be fully overwritten, and your hands still remember what they were made to do. It’s a nice little feature to build some character concepts around (and, yes, you can never go wrong with a free skill/tool).

So, um. Does any of that help? Heh.

[chronurgy]

Oh no I'm thinking about eberron Gortash now help

I can't decide if he would have a mark or not

Part of me says no, he shouldn't and he should look down on Cannith for not reaching his heights of invention when they have even magical advantages

But part of me says yes, he does. He was born into a family with no connection to Cannith and when his mark manifested (at an unusually young age) didn't that raise some questions. As soon as they heard about it, if course some people from Cannith came calling and they'd be happy to take the boy in and see he gets a proper education, he's got the mark and he's got the talent. But Gortash's parents aren't willing to give him up. Maybe they want something, maybe out of spite or for any number of reasons. And so they sell him off to the highest bidder. Maybe a rakshasa looking to exploit the draconic prophesy, one who needs a marked Cannith heir for some reason. And Gortash escapes, in the end, but he has more in common with an excoriate than a true child of the house. And he hates Cannith for not pushing harder. For not saving him from what was to come

[angrennufuin]

Party Dossier: Cinders

[How Aysel would describe:] [as of the ship battle/search for Halberd]

Brân

[they/them, ??? (changeling) beast-path barbarian/Archfey warlock]

A mysterious figure clad in shadow-colors, with incredible strength and power in battle. They’re touched by something unworldly. Their reflection doesn’t always match reality. They have no memory of their past. None of this excuses them being so Goddamn tall! Oddly nice for someone clearly being whispered to by dark forces, and I should know.

Gawain

[she/her, goblin artificer]

Little spitfire. Bit me on the ship over here, which I think was more a feral defense response than actual aggression. Missing two out of four limbs, don’t know why yet. She seems Cannith-aligned and I don’t have any patience for houses, but it’s fun to have someone sworn to me by blood oath… if that is what the friendship pin situation was about. And I believe we share a certain element of chaos in our souls.

Harth

[she/her, half-elf forge cleric]

A quiet little mouse of a house mage. Maybe an ex-house mage now? Priestess of Onatar, how boring, but fun to tease. Desperately afraid of getting into trouble. Afraid of lightning, too -- I think she felt the kiss of my God in that accident she talks about. Isn’t she tired of being nice? Doesn’t she just want to go apeshit? Or is she actually as boring as she acts?

Haze

[he/him, kalashtar monk, way of the ascendant dragon]

For a guy whose midriff is always out, he’s a total square. Every time I say something outlandish, he looks like I personally ruined his beauty sleep, which is obviously a reason to keep doing it. Used to live in a monastery but he’s not spiritual. Fights barehanded, and therefore not to be underestimated. Nice hair.

Ishtar

[she/her, minotaur inquisitive rogue/fighter]

Pretty minotaur. We share a similar ethos on earrings and dramatics. Seems kind of nerdy and know-it-all, but I get the impression the all she knows is from books. That said, she’s been shockingly competent thus far, and sometimes you need a nerd to figure out stupid wizard puzzle bullshit. Goddamn can she sprint.

[simothys]

UPDATE: 2 LITERAL HEADS OF HOUSE CANNITH R HERE. COOL AND AWESOME. im not spoilering shit if they get thru this combat without finding that fact out ill be SHOCKED

edit: OH THANK FUC K its not Jorlanna. tragicslly still is Merrix

[ratjay]

I hope you don't mind the @ @cavernanomaly but i didn't want to take over OP's post.

Our Eberron game is our team (known as the Super Friends because none of us could come up with better) working to be a big name hero team in Sharn. We're currently C-Tier Heroes. Superheroes are a relatively new concept in the world, and are only in a few countries that have superheroes over adventurers. Vibes are very much Golden Age of Comics with occasional jokes thrown the way of the edgy 80s/90s reboots.

The party is:

The Beast AKA Johnny "Hammerhands" Price (Shifter Barbarian): veteran of the last war. He was a semi-popular boxer before enlisting in the Breland military, and now that he's home he's struggling to pay rent on his gym. Almost everyone knows that The Beast is Johnny due to how shifter abilities work + us having a Plucky Young Reporter (his name is Figs) following us around covering what we do.

Vax AKA Shady (Half-Elf Warlock): a doctor with heavy decay/bug motifs (with a homebrewed patron). She's fairly reserved with details about herself, but we do know she woke up one day with an entity known as "the Doctor" in her head and a rash developing on her arm, and this entity is somehow tied to the long dead House Vol.

Psion AKA Ethan Terrance AKA the Betrayer (Human/Dhalkyr Sorcerer): Ethan is another veteran of the last war for Breland, who found a dying Dhalkyr named the Betrayer and offered to let him take over his body to survive. This is entirely due to Ethan wanting to do something good with his life and they both are currently sharing control of Ethan's body until the Betrayer fully takes over. They're very much a Martian Manhunter type character.

Gh0st AKA Kaine d'Cannith and AB13 (Human/Warforged Warlock/Artificer): dragonmarked member of house Cannith who walked away during the war due to being sick of war profiteering & a warforged he found broken down and abandoned in Cyre. Ironman kind of situation, only the 'suit' is the warforged that only really started working again after the human accidentally created a mental link between them. Kaine's recently rejoined the Cannith South house due to a need for resources (and the house needs dragonmarked members desperately)

Most of our adventures so far have been fairly silly and a lot of the Big Bads have given the GM excuses to subject us to the worst puns imaginable. First arc we had to break into a House Kundarak vault to steal a freeze ray before a member of the house could sell it off to an Ice themed villain league that had recently started up in Sharn. Second Arc, we had to rescue an up-and coming politican from being forced to marry a bug villain hellbent on taking over the whole city with mind control drugs & an army of Kruthiks.

(Our GM actually made little front pages for us at the completion of each arc, with our very own Sharn Inquirer owned by James Jonald Johnson)

Currently we've had the misfortune of ending up in the middle of a fight between the Kech Volaar and Kech Shaarat, two warring goblin clans trying to re-establish a long dead empire- entirely because Vax was chosen by the blade of one of its leaders. Along with this, we also have what seems to be a member of House Vol trying to steal the blade from us.

So we're currently outside Breland trying to Solve that Problem while working alongside a group of goblins known as the Word Rangers (they are Just the Power Rangers) to try and gather the rest of the magical items tied to the dead empire before the more violent of the two clans OR the remnants of House Vol get their hands on them.

It's honestly been a real fun time and is easily one of the highlights of my week to see what the GM has set up for us for the game.

[cfcreative]

Now here’s a better Ghilwen. Not perfect, but better. And in full color!

Ghilwen went to fight in The Last War on Cyre’s behalf, even though that was a thing you didn’t do if you were from a Dragonmarked house. Especially if you were from House Cannith—they were selling their weapons to all sides of the conflict. However, that was Ghilwen’s motivation in a nutshell: she was an idiot 19-year-old who “loved her country” and wanted to prove that it was more important to her than her House.

She was assigned to a unit that was primarily made of Warforged serving under a human commander, since she could serve as mechanic/medic for them. The human commander thought of the Warforged as grunts/cannon fodder. Ghilwen railed against that concept, frequently clashing with her commander over his treatment of the Warforged. She was on a path to being discharged for insubordination when the unit was blown up.

(Some CW: graphic injuries after the cut.)

It was supposed to be a routine pick-up of supplies. The problem was security had gotten lax and it was all TOO routine. Someone had set up explosives at the drop site. Ghilwen was lagging slightly behind, trying to determine the source of an issue one of her Warforged companions was having, which saved her from being killed outright in the blast.

She lost her right arm, and was severely burned in places on the right side of her body. The Warforged she had been trying to help, badly wounded as well, picked up Ghil and made it as far back towards their base camp as possible before succumbing to their own injuries. Ghil was forced to cauterize her own wounds with magic to prevent herself from bleeding out. She was found the next day when a search party was sent to find out what happened to the supply delivery and taken to a field hospital away from the front lines, outside of Cyre.

While she was in recovery, the Day of Mourning occurred.

If you don’t know the background of Eberron at all, The Day of Mourning was a magical catastrophe of unknown origin that destroyed all of Cyre. It effectively ended The Last War. The people of Cyre, those left anyway, were now refugees. Ghilwen, like so many others, was left high and dry and essentially homeless—while her father had been out of Cyre and escaped the Day of Mourning, Ghilwen’s mother had been traveling through Cyre to help Ghil’s convalescence and had been killed. Ghilwen’s father, who had been vehemently against Ghilwen enlisting, blamed Ghil for her mother’s death.

Five years past the end of The Last War, Ghilwen is a mess. While her talents at magic and artifice allowed her to make a prosthetic arm for herself, other things are less easily fixed or replaced. Her inability to process her trauma has led her into unhealthy vices, particularly drinking, and she stumbles her way through odd jobs for coin. While her romantic ideals of the military and governments were shattered, she still holds a burning love for what Cyre once was, and longs to have a hand in restoring it in some way.