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Eberron (D&D 3.5 manuals) #9
The Forge of War
Secrets of the Last War finally revealed!
The continent of Khorvaire was ripped apart by a hundred-year long war of succession. Explore the battles, campaigns, and heroes of the Last War with this richly detailed Eberron campaign supplement.
The Last War includes a comprehensive outline of the course of the war, extensive new character options for war-torn heroes, a variety of campaign options, and detailed descriptions of military forces, fortresses, and battlefields.
The continent of Khorvaire was ripped apart by a hundred-year long war of succession. Explore the battles, campaigns, and heroes of the Last War with this richly detailed Eberron campaign supplement.
The Last War includes a comprehensive outline of the course of the war, extensive new character options for war-torn heroes, a variety of campaign options, and detailed descriptions of military forces, fortresses, and battlefields.
160 pages, Hardcover
First published June 19, 2007
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About the author
James Wyatt
102 books146 followersJames Wyatt is an award-winning game designer at Wizards of the Coast, and now holds the position of Design Manager for Dungeons & Dragons. He was one of the lead designers for D&D 4th Edition and one of the original designers of the Eberron Campaign Setting, and has written and co-authored dozens of game supplements. He grew up in Ithaca, New York, and now lives in Washington State with his wife and son.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 30, 2012
Stuff I Read D&D Edition – The Forge of War
This might not sound odd or strange at all, but I like military history. This might not sound odd because many people, especially of my gender, enjoy military history. But what makes me a bit odd is that I like military history more for the statistical and political aspects rather than heroics on the battlefield. Crunching numbers has always been fun for me, and it fun to see how enemies fight in the way that advantage is calculated. What makes a battle swing a certain way? And how can that be expressed in some sort of equation that creates a believable and working formula for war. That and the political movements, the behind the scenes, the nobles and the houses and treaties and feelings throughout the war. So I suppose I come off as a bit heartless, because my interests keep me focused on the commanders of the war, the strategies, while see the actual warriors as number in a spreadsheet.
And while that is not necessarily relevant, as The Forge of War is the Eberron book covering the Last War, I think that it explains in some ways why I liked this book so much. The book goes into enough depth, perfect for a DM, giving the frame and the players and leaving the actual events and campaigns open enough that they can be incorporated into a campaign easily enough, and without contradicting the source material. It is one of the reasons I like Eberron so much, because the sensibilities of the writers seem to coincide with my own quite often. So I really appreciate the freedoms that are left in, because they recognize most of the areas with the most potential for customization and leave them open for interpretation. The events of the war are believable and create a situation where no nation is completely innocent or corrupt. Atrocities are carried out by all sides, as are blunders and victories. The end of the war with the Day of Mourning is a good way to cap off the war, and a way to get all nations to back up after the destruction of Cyre.
As a supplement this book also goes beyond just giving a recap of events for the Last War. Though it definitely does give the motivations and activities of all sides during the conflict, it also provides ways to tie these events into either existing campaigns or new campaigns. Its information is the first obvious way to use the book in campaigns, fleshing out back stories and including events in the Last War as reasons for current problems or situations, resolving lingering effects of the war and things like that. For that the book is excellent, offering a wealth of knowledge about events and people, giving both the DM and PCs information to craft more in depth back stories while giving campaigns the opportunity to be more relevant within Eberron. Fighting units, military structure, as well as notable people and places are given, and even ways these can be incorporated into a campaign, for DMs wanting to take those outlined in the book.
More interesting to me, though, is that it includes ways to run campaigns during the war, and those ways are rather unique that I have come across. Especially in the time travel nature of the ideas there, where there are many options for working time travel into a campaign. There is straight time travel, and with it options regarding how much freedom to effect events the PCs would have, to flashback campaigns, to campaigns that simply include play in two different time periods that are thematically linked but that has no crossover. There are even options for running a campaign completely in the past, either to participate in the events as outlined in the book or to change those events. The book admits that such things pose additional challenges to the DM and PCs alike, but for me it is incredibly intriguing. That an actual D&D book would go into the prospect of time travel is exciting, and though it isn’t something that I will probably try any time soon, it is another tool to pull out of my DM bag of tricks.
So, in closing, I really liked The Forge of War. Of course, it is a supplement, and again it is dependent on the Eberron Campaign Setting. And it does bring up some things from books I am personally unfamiliar with, like Weapons of Legacy and some others, but in most cases it does not detract from The Forge of War, and when it does it is forgiven because of the volume of material provided. That I won’t use it doesn’t mean it isn’t good. I had been wanting a supplement that would tackle the Last War head on, though, and having that I give The Forge of War an 8.75/10.
This might not sound odd or strange at all, but I like military history. This might not sound odd because many people, especially of my gender, enjoy military history. But what makes me a bit odd is that I like military history more for the statistical and political aspects rather than heroics on the battlefield. Crunching numbers has always been fun for me, and it fun to see how enemies fight in the way that advantage is calculated. What makes a battle swing a certain way? And how can that be expressed in some sort of equation that creates a believable and working formula for war. That and the political movements, the behind the scenes, the nobles and the houses and treaties and feelings throughout the war. So I suppose I come off as a bit heartless, because my interests keep me focused on the commanders of the war, the strategies, while see the actual warriors as number in a spreadsheet.
And while that is not necessarily relevant, as The Forge of War is the Eberron book covering the Last War, I think that it explains in some ways why I liked this book so much. The book goes into enough depth, perfect for a DM, giving the frame and the players and leaving the actual events and campaigns open enough that they can be incorporated into a campaign easily enough, and without contradicting the source material. It is one of the reasons I like Eberron so much, because the sensibilities of the writers seem to coincide with my own quite often. So I really appreciate the freedoms that are left in, because they recognize most of the areas with the most potential for customization and leave them open for interpretation. The events of the war are believable and create a situation where no nation is completely innocent or corrupt. Atrocities are carried out by all sides, as are blunders and victories. The end of the war with the Day of Mourning is a good way to cap off the war, and a way to get all nations to back up after the destruction of Cyre.
As a supplement this book also goes beyond just giving a recap of events for the Last War. Though it definitely does give the motivations and activities of all sides during the conflict, it also provides ways to tie these events into either existing campaigns or new campaigns. Its information is the first obvious way to use the book in campaigns, fleshing out back stories and including events in the Last War as reasons for current problems or situations, resolving lingering effects of the war and things like that. For that the book is excellent, offering a wealth of knowledge about events and people, giving both the DM and PCs information to craft more in depth back stories while giving campaigns the opportunity to be more relevant within Eberron. Fighting units, military structure, as well as notable people and places are given, and even ways these can be incorporated into a campaign, for DMs wanting to take those outlined in the book.
More interesting to me, though, is that it includes ways to run campaigns during the war, and those ways are rather unique that I have come across. Especially in the time travel nature of the ideas there, where there are many options for working time travel into a campaign. There is straight time travel, and with it options regarding how much freedom to effect events the PCs would have, to flashback campaigns, to campaigns that simply include play in two different time periods that are thematically linked but that has no crossover. There are even options for running a campaign completely in the past, either to participate in the events as outlined in the book or to change those events. The book admits that such things pose additional challenges to the DM and PCs alike, but for me it is incredibly intriguing. That an actual D&D book would go into the prospect of time travel is exciting, and though it isn’t something that I will probably try any time soon, it is another tool to pull out of my DM bag of tricks.
So, in closing, I really liked The Forge of War. Of course, it is a supplement, and again it is dependent on the Eberron Campaign Setting. And it does bring up some things from books I am personally unfamiliar with, like Weapons of Legacy and some others, but in most cases it does not detract from The Forge of War, and when it does it is forgiven because of the volume of material provided. That I won’t use it doesn’t mean it isn’t good. I had been wanting a supplement that would tackle the Last War head on, though, and having that I give The Forge of War an 8.75/10.
Displaying 1 of 1 review