View From the Bushes

I've been meaning to mention this for a while, but the other day I did pick up the Eberron setting. Yet another purchase I hadn't initially intended to make, but ended up making anyway. The biggest and most deeply buried reason was probably jealousy. See, Eberron was the setting that won the setting search contest, which I assume some of you may remember (if not that's why I included a link). You may even remember that I entered the contest, and in my own very prejudiced opinion, my setting submission was unbelievably exciting and cool, thus I expected that since my setting was rejected the setting which did end up getting picked would have to be so unbelievably incredible that the mere mention of its name would be enough to make me camp-out overnight in front of the local game store, trample skinny nerds and overweight virgins alike, just to be the first in my town to have it. But that's not what happened when the setting was finally announced.

One problem is that, as far as I can tell, no one has been able to sum up the appeal of the setting in a single sentence, which is interesting since that was the very first thing which needed to be included in the initial setting search entry. In fact, I had really hoped that they would reprint the one page Eberron entry in the book, but perhaps what they ended up with was so far removed from the initial pitch that it would have been meaningless. In any case, back to my original point: I finally broke down and bought the setting, and it turns out that it is pretty cool, though I still have yet to feel like I have a grasp on a single unifying theme, and maybe there doesn't need to be a single unifying theme, but I think it would help, particularly in the case of introducing new players to the setting. With Midnight I can say, okay imagine Tolkien's Middle Earth, only Sauron won; there's no phrase like that with Eberron.

In any case, enough about Eberron. I did end up winning one of the miniature auctions on ebay, and last night I sat down with my wife and figured out how I could buy a case of all three expansions (one down, two to go), so that's the plan. Of course, those devils at Wizards of the Coast just keep putting out expansions, so it looks like I may be indentured for quite awhile. What I need to do is find someone else with the habit so that I can trade with them and help even out my collection.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross