#Murder on the Eberron Express

[erlie]

My character for Murder on the Eberron Express.

Aymon is the Loyal Retainer archetype and I'll probably build him as a half-elf paladin, even if the build does not matter much in this murder mystery.

[mierolainen]

I played Murder on the Eberron Express recently, and my brilliant DM customised it into one hell of a murder mystery drama! so naturally I had to do fake screenshots like some sorta movie guy

[bibliosims]

vesta d'ghallanda · half-drow · enchantment wizard

for @hauntedtrait’s murder on the eberron express one-shot

[tubbsen]

I'm going to be running the Murder on the Eberron Express D&D oneshot for the third time soon and getting the old man in the red vest murdered again, instead of getting him into a polyamorous relationship with his wife and valet

Pretty messed up tbh smh

[clockworkdragonffxiv]

I started my D&D campaign back in April of 2020 shortly after the COVID Lockdown hit. I was bored out of my skull and stressed, and a friend had expressed his frustration with his own D&D group and I just went "Fuck it."

I hadn't played DnD since college. I had never GM'd a tabletop game. But I had nothing better to do. So I went on to Discord into, like, the three channels I'm active in and rounded up a gaggle of friends from FFXIV and from my old City of Heroes group. For my starter campaign I used the very first Eberron campaign ever published for I think 3e or 3.5e, converted to 5e, "The Forgotten Forge."

And three and a half years, multiple cases of COVID, two rounds of cancer and chemotherapy, four or five moves, three kidney stones, multiple bouts of depression, and a half dozen job changes, we finally finished the campaign at level 16, having convinced the Lord of Blades to devote his talents to building the new Warforged nation and healing the Mournlands using the unique techno-organic warforged plants and animals we'd discovered, instead of his original plan which was to absorb the power of a Creation Engine and a Demon Overlord into himself, achieve apotheosis, and drown the world in a tide of blood.

My original plan for the final battle has in large underlined letters the phrase "Biblically Accurate Chainsaw Angel" and included a speech with lines like "LET THE SEAS BOIL AND THE SKIES FALL! LET THE WORLD BURN!"

Also probably ending up with the players picking the Red, Blue or Green endings from the End-o-Matic 9000.

But that didn't happen.

So instead, the campaign that started with our little group of heroes stumbling onto the murder of a professor with the clues to a hidden workshop, ended with the wedding of Seeker the Warforged Artificer, the man who'd talked the Lord of Blades down (despite having a Charisma of 8) and now holds the title of Maestro Seeker, is an advisor to the national leadership, and is the teacher of a whole new batch of warforged, and the warforged medic Solace, an NPC whose existence began as a joke about Seeker having a whirlwind romance with a medic in the space of about 23 minutes while the rest of the party were running errands.

Hot damn was that a lot of work. Three and a half years, and despite it starting in modules by the second I'd decided I didn't like the story as it was written, threw it out, and told my own story. Featuring friendly little fire elementals named Phil, packs of extremely patriotic and laddish mimics named Jimmy, an eight foot robotic sweetheart named Friend whose primary weapon was an equally massive tower shield and her totally-not-boyfriend warforged druid/allosaurus/swearasaurus Din, a wrestling match with a hobgoblin that nearly turned lethal when an 18 foot tall warforged titan came in with the steel chair, an alligator with a gun, and banishing the elemental dragon powering a flying battleship while A) the team was still on the battleship and B) it was still several hundred feet in the air and C) it was the only thing keeping it there... it's done.

And it was all worth it. God I love these guys. So here's to you, Katie, Jacquie, Mike, Stan, and Will. I'll see you all next week for our next adventure.

[jbpeony-draws]

character for a Murder at Eberron Express Oneshot.

[jellygay]

Doing murder mystery dnd and was drawing while we played. Nim was supposed to be a lady but I gave up so they’re a dude I guess.

[swarmkeepers]

“it’s a small explosion. who cares if a bunch of rich folks die”

[staggeringsmite]

murder on the eberron express: eight suspects, one killer, five hours to fairhaven - gearing up to run this one shot tomorrow and getting a little too invested, love the setup of the module and can’t wait to see how it runs.

image id’s: a grid of nine images representing abstract character portraits for a dungeons and dragons one shot. they all have a high contrast and saturated red-orange filter over them. in order they are:

1) a set of bronze chess pieces on a board, text reads “The Ice Queen aka Nyssa”

2) an extravagant train car, text reads “The Conductor aka Roenna Comstock”

3) two whisky glasses on a table, text reads “The Loyal Retainer aka Quentin Devir”

4)  a stairwell with various portraits and paintings hung along the walls, text reads “The Lost Heir aka Marvel Thorn”

5) an ornate black box with a skull on it, text reads “The Victim aka Egan Bakker”

6) a glove and small pocket watch on a luggage trunk, text reads “The Former Business Partner aka Indigo Sweetwater”

7) a stack of newspapers tied with twine, text reads “The Scholar aka Antimony Lin”

8) a gold sconce with two candles burning in it, text reads “The Spouse aka Javi Bakker”

9) an ornate gold mirror hung upon the wall, text reads “The Lover aka Jeanette Alyea”

/end id

[utilitycaster]

I’m so glad you got Eberron! It’s the first sourcebook I got and I love the range of genre styles it gives you. I’ve run a Murder in the Orient Express Type thing, a cyberpunk type thing, a standard sword and sandals, a noir detective type thing, a western type thing, an Indiana Jones Styles thing, a pirate adventure, all in the same setting. I’m currently running a game for my children (aged 5, 7, and 10) and they’ve turned it into a post apocalyptic thing with my son’s war forged artificer searching the wastelands for a creation forge to give his son (steel defender) a soul.

It definitely seems to be really good for that! I’m actually kind of not interested in the dragonmarks even though I suspect that’s kind a big deal in Eberron because whereas the guilds were the defining feature of Ravnica, this feels like such a minor add-on to a much larger world and like, why would I get caught up in house politics when I could have a locked-train-car mystery or explore the cursed mist?

[somebogwitch]

D&D fans!

Looking for a fun way to get to know the newly re-released dnd setting Eberron? Looking to get your murder mystery party friends into TTRPGs? Have I got the game for you!

Murder on the Eberron Express is a character driven murder mystery, confined on a moving lightning rail, where the murderer changes each time you run it.

This 3-5 hour one-shot for level 6 characters aims to give you all the fun of a game of Clue with all the variety of Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition. It is set in Eberron, an unusual D&D setting, that is darker and with more pulp noir aesthetics. Check it out on DMsGuild!

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/296256/Murder-on-the-Eberron-Express?src=hottest_filtered&filters=45469

[mierolainen]

Hi! I was considering running Eberron Express for some friends, and I was curious how your DM homebrewed things and/or what was improved - would you be willing to share?

I asked my DM to pitch in with her thoughts, since it was her campaign, so I'll put her response (and mine) under a cut!

--

" I didn't do much technical fiddling really, I dropped the characters from level 6 to 3 the second time I ran the game to keep things simpler for the players and myself. There's a lot to keep track of even without having wizard NPCs running around with 6274 different spells :D Otherwise I just went through the setting and the characters with a fine-tooth comb, adding and removing things to make something I found interesting and easy to understand even without prior knowledge of the Eberron setting.

Some practical things you may want to prepare: Mark on the train map who sleeps in which cabin, that hasn't been done in the original material. It's also a good idea to prepare an exact timeline of who did what and when on the night of the murder, this can be something your players start asking about during the investigation. Also think about who inherits the victim's wealth, maybe his will could be found on the train if you'd like?

My personal favorite part of preparing the game was feeding the players misleading information about the NPCs connected to their characters and then giving them personal revelations during the game. Someone they trusted betrayed them or someone they thought of as an enemy was operating under whole different motivations than they thought, that sort of thing. Make the game your own and have fun!!

(Oh, and ban the Prestidigitation cantrip! You don't want your players magically cleaning up evidence!) "

--

My only addition to this would be to communicate with your players and find out what kind of a story they're most interested in experiencing! What worked for me (interpersonal drama, rampant queerness, giving player characters space to express their emotions) might not work for you. At the end of the day, the only people you need to impress and/or entertain at the table are you and your players! :>

[probablyfunrpgideas]

Image ID: an overhead view of many train tracks at night. Several engines are arriving or departing and their smoke clouds and lights cast the scene in a haze. At the bottom right is the station building. End ID.

There’s something to be said for the romance of trains in fiction. The lonely whistle far away, the sense of escaping from somewhere to go nowhere. However, in rpgs you’re likely to find them in Call of Cthulhu - a murder on the Occult Express, perhaps, or a mysterious freight train that must not reach its destination. The lightning rails of Eberron are intriguing, but I can’t picture stowing away on one in the early morning. They’re a bit too clean, too modern.

Try to include some trains in your setting! Maybe there’s a wondrous underground track being built between Menzoberranzan and Gauntlgrym. Or maybe the only way to safely kidnap a galactic senator is by using the elevated hyperlocomotive that circles Coruscant in a single hour!

Hans Baluschek (German, 1870-1935) - Big City Train Station, 1904

[tubbsen]

So there's this murder mystery D&D one-shot module called Murder on the Eberron Express by Orla ní Dhúill, right? I customized it to my liking and have now ran it twice, had an absolute blast both times!

Here are most of the characters from the latest session. I largely used art I sourced from Google to stand as character portraits in the game. Then I used those as a springboard for these designs so they're perhaps not 100% Original Character Designs Donut Steal :'D

The valet is @mierolainen's and The Long Lost Heir and The Scholar are players' characters as well C:

[zookmurnig]

Brainstorming ideas for one of the PCs in my Eberron campaign. He’s a former Silver Flame Exorcist (warlock class with a celestial pact), who got excommunicated after he was infected with lycanthropy and accidentally murdered an entire town. In story, he’s an elf, but mechanically we’re using shifter stats and saying that his ties to the Silver Flame are limiting the power that his curse has over him.

The player has expressed interest in having more of his capabilities defined or informed by his curse, and I’ve been working on ideas for expanding the capabilities of all my PCs. What I’ve decided on, for now, is to allow him to take a second “pact” with his curse, conferring some features reminiscent of the Weretouched Master PrC from 3.5 ECG.

I’m uncertain about how to interestingly implement some of the features, though, aside from simply cribbing mechanics from other classes (which are not present in the group), like allowing him to use a bite attack as a bonus action that lets him perform the Battlemaster’s Tripping Attack. Also, giving him resistance to non-magic non-silver damage seems thematically appropriate, but overpowered. DR isn’t a thing in 5e, and even if it was, I’d hesitate to give him that, too.

However, it’s a party full of casters, and the closest thing they have to a tank is the cleric of Olladra, and this warlock is the only other semi-melee character, so it might help define a role for him.

[dndfic-blog]

D&D: Eberron - “A Night Away”

Key Characters: Valia Orespeaker (LG f!dwarf, druid), Percivahn Sartura (LN m!elf, fighter, NPC)

Summary: After the revelation of her partner’s family being murdered, Valia decides to put adventuring on hold to be with Percivahn - if only for a short time.

Part 1/2

Despite the multiple battles she and the group had weathered throughout the day, Valia still felt the heaviest burden from the letter she kept in the pocket at her side. Percivahn had been in her thoughts since she left, but after witnessing multiple levels of communication breakdowns from her party members and their relations, the dwarf was nearly consumed by emotion after reading his most recent note.

Her traveling companion Simic’s cowardly refusal to speak with his former partner, Alwin, stung. How could you walk away from someone you care for without a word? How could you live with yourself knowing that your partner thought you were dead for years when you were actually just hiding? Why wouldn’t you want to rectify things as soon as you could upon your return? Alwin deserved an explanation and several apologies, now more than ever. She only hoped that Simic would get the nerve to have such a conversation him before things got further out of hand.

Valia placed a hand over her pocket again. Letters were easy. It was the least a person could do to stay in touch with those they care for. The thought made Valia’s blood boil as she remembered this morning’s conversation with Ara. The elven woman had always had her secrets but to purposefully hide a murderous twin sister from her traveling group and from her own family was irresponsible and callous. Not only was it remarkably selfish but it also put her cousin Percivahn in danger. If this twin had already killed a large percentage of her family - their family - what was stopping her from tracking another member of their clan down?

The realization made Valia’s stomach turn as a cold sweat broke on her brow. Yes, she was angry with Ara for withholding information but her concern for Percivahn won out. The first paragraphs of his recent note were heartbreaking to read as he processed his losses through scratched out words and hanging sentence fragments. The loss of 75% of ones family with little explanation was horrific; especially to a dwarven woman. It was unbearable to know Percivahn was enduring this tragedy alone now.

It was this thought that cemented Valia’s plan. As their party walked into the Profane Goose Inn, she dropped heavily into a tavern chair. Oswald paused with a small but concerned grin as if to ask whether or not she was in need of a drinking buddy. Valia smiled back but shook her head no. As much as she liked Oswald, Valia very much needed some time and space to herself right now. With a good natured shrug, the halfling climbed the stairs with the rest of the group.

Valia stared at the fire for some time with the hope of soothing her emotions and gaining back a spell or two. She sank into her Druidic teachings from Clan Ignistram as she meditated on the flames. After an hour had passed, she rose and headed to the stairs. As her foot touched the first plank, Valia cast Pass Without a Trace on herself. At the top of the staircase, she took a left instead of a right and walked to Nalath’s room. She tried the knob and was relieved to find it wasn’t locked. It was the level of irresponsibility she had been hoping for from the warlock. Valia quickly cracked the door and slipped inside the room.

Nalath was sprawled haphazardly across the bed against the wall with his mouth hanging open. The dwarf crept closer and sat down on the bed. Extending her spell to the prone figure, she placed a light hand on the half elf’s shoulder. Snorting suddenly, Nalath came around and stared back at Valia in the dark of the room. “It’s just me. Please keep it down,” she whispered.

“What are you doing in my room?” Straight to the point then. She took a deep breath.

“I need to leave. I’ll be gone tonight and will be back tomorrow. I wanted someone to know, just in case the others have questions,” she trailed off and watched him carefully.

“Yeah, okay,” Nalath paused for a second before asking, “where are you going?”

“Sharn.”

“Sharn?”

“Yes. I’ll be gone and back before you know it.”

“You’re going alone?”

“Yes, I am.”

He paused again. “Yeah but Sharn is pretty far from here. How are you gunna get there and back so quick?”

Valia smiled and walked to the room’s window. She opened it wide and looked back to Nalath. “I promise I’ll be back by midday tomorrow. Please don’t wake anyone.”

Without waiting for him to respond, Valia hoisted herself onto the window frame before jumping out into the air. She heard Nalath scrambling in panic behind her as her body shifted into the form of an eagle. With a powerful beat of her new wings, the Druid vaulted into the night clouds and set a course for The City of Towers.

————

She flew for a few hours before the outlines of the city started to solidify. As much as she was enjoying this new trick of hers, Valia wanted nothing more than to be settled on the ground again. The overwhelming size and height of Sharn hit her all at once as the towers began rising in earnest. She dropped her elevation only slightly and wove her way through the bridges hanging between buildings.

She circled the neighborhood of Shae Lias a few times before finding the right causeway. Finally pinpointing her target, the eagle coasted down to street level and came to a graceful stop in front of Percivahn Sartura’s door. She gave a quick look around the platformed walkway before shifting back to her true form. Valia rested on her haunches for a few long moments, drawing deep breaths to adjust after flying for so long. Catching her breath enough, she rose and knocked.

It wasn’t surprising there was no answer based on how late it was but still, Valia knocked again. Another lengthy pause filled the air. Maybe he had stayed late at the Aurum? He had done it a time or two before. Just before Valia began turning away to head in the headquarters’ direction, the door cracked opened to reveal a tired and wary Percivahn.

“Hi,” was all Valia had time for before the man pulled the door open wide to take one large step out to her. The elf threw his arms around Valia in a crushing hug. After a moment, Percivahn’s form melted into hers as he deflated into the embrace. She closed her eyes, burying her face into his chest as she felt him breathe heavily. “How?” she heard him mutter.

“I knew I needed to be here if I could be,” she replied, bunching the robe he wore between her fingers. “It’s much easier now that I can fly. Let’s go in?”

He pulled away from the hug slowly, nodding wearily. “You’ll have to show me this new ability of yours,” he intoned allowing her to pass through the doorway. “I promise I will,” She said grinning.

The two made their way into the front room of the home. Percivahn lit a lamp on the mantle while Valia Produced Flame to light a few candles on a nearby table. Satisfied with the low level of firelight in the room, the two settled on a couch together in silence.

“I got your letter,” she started. “Percivahn I am so, so sorry. I didn’t know what had happened with your family what with Ara not saying anything about it but...” she trailed off watching him cast a worried expression down at his hands in his lap. Valia slid closer on the couch and covered his hands with hers. “I’m sorry for your losses, Percivahn, and I’m sorry you found out the way you did. I’m sorry for all of.”

“Thank you, but it isn’t something you have responsibility for,” he said shaking his head. She squeezed his hands lightly.

“You’re right, but I still feel awful and it doesn’t alter the injustice of it all.”

He winced. “No, it doesn’t.” Percivahn sighed deeply and rolled his head around to stare up at the ceiling. “I’m trying to make sense of things but honestly, I can’t focus on any one thought for long enough before a thousand more assault me,” he blinked and shook his head.

“I won’t pretend I know exactly how you’re feeling right now, but I’m here, if you need me,” she replied. He refocused on her face with a pained smile. “Thank you, truly,” was all he mustered.

Valia fidgeted as she studied her partner. His face was drawn and brow creased with tense energy. She brought a hand up to his temple in an attempt to smooth away the lines across his forehead. His eyes closed at the contact but his brow only tensed more as his head dropped forward. Valia placed her forehead against his and waited.

“I wasn’t close with them. My family. I hadn’t seen or spoken with them in years. They practically cast me out the last time I was home and...” he let out a ragged breath. “I would be lying if I said I had spent any time obsessing over revelations, reunions, and apologies with my parents or brother but now that they’re gone and I don’t have the chance -“ his voice cracked and his words came to an abrupt stop.

Valia’s other hand came up to rest in the crook of his neck, keeping their heads pressed together. “The murders are terrible. How you learned of them is, too. It isn’t right or fair and while I know I keep saying this, I am sorry you have this burden to carry,” she said as he let a harsh breath out across her face. “I’m here to help you carry it, if you want.”

With that last statement, Percivahn grabbed Valia by the waist and pulled her bodily toward him as his mouth met hers in a hard kiss. Valia’s grip on his shoulder tightened as she kissed him back with the same urgency. It was more forceful than anything they had shared before but the outlet was welcome and delicious.

After a long moment, Percivahn pulled away looking guilty. “No,” Valia scolded, “you do not apologize for that kiss or for anything right now.”

The elf huffed out a quiet laugh and nodded. Leaving one hand on her waist, he took her other and brought it down between them. “How long can you stay?”

“Tonight. I’d stay longer but things in Wroat are still a mess.”

He nodded before standing, pulling her up by the hand. She watched as he blew out the nearby candles and grabbed the lamp on the mantle. She smiled back at him as they made their way up the stairs to his quarters.