According to some stories, the dragons seek to protect
the younger races from vile fiends. In other tales, the
dragons see the people of Khorvaire as fodder for
arcane experiments. A dragon could be encountered
as an ally or as a cruel enemy who casually crushes
humanoids.
The magic of Argonnessen is far more powerful than
the forces wielded by the wizards of Khorvaire. Many
of the greatest artifacts in history were made in Argon
nessen. Dragons are infused with magic, and their cre
ations are made from the bones and scales of their kind.
TRINKETS FROM ARGONNESSEN
dlO Trinket
A pierced dragon scale on a cord
2 A statuette of a dragon carved from black bone
3 A dragon's tooth, engraved with an unknown sigil
4 A child's doll of a dragon, woven from leather cords
5 A dagger carved from a dragon's talon
6 A brass disk bearing the silhouette of a black dragon
7 A small egg-shaped piece of polished bone
8 A bone fragment with brass inlaid runes
9 A leather pouch filled with tiny draconic teeth
10 A single large seed that's warm to the touch
KHYBER
In Khyber, you could ...
- Fight mind flayers and armies of hideous aberrations.
- Discover a wondrous realm lit by an inner sun.
- Prevent a fiendish overlord from escaping its an-
cient prison.
The common creation myth contends that when the Pro
genitor Dragons fought, Eberron trapped Khyber in her
coils and became the world, imprisoning her evil sib
ling in a living prison. Bound within the world, Khyber
spawns demons and monsters to plague the children of
Eberron. This might be myth and metaphor, but it's also
a description of fact: there are worlds within the world,
realms inhabited by aberrations, fiends, and all manner
of monsters.
Any time someone descends below the surface of the
world, they enter Khyber. But the underworld takes two
very different forms. First is the natural realm, networks
of tunnels and caverns formed from stone and soil.
These passages are dark and dangerous, but they're ex
actly what you expect to find in an underground realm.
Such passages might be home to carrion crawlers, giant
beetles, or clans of kobolds. But ultimately these mun
dane caverns follow the laws of nature.
There's another aspect to Khyber: go deep enough and
you find a seemingly endless array of demiplanes, each
stranger than the last. When descending into a chasm,
you could find a labyrinth inhabited by demons or dis
cover a realm consisting of the guts of a colossal living
creature. Anything is possible in Khyber, and these
"worlds within" are home to all manner of terrors.
The demiplanes of Khyber are not concretely tied to
the world above. You could discover a passage in Bre
land that leads into a disturbing subterranean swamp
filled with oozes and slimes. After traveling what seems
to be a few miles, you might emerge from a different tun
nel in Xen'drik, half a world away from where you began.
The Mror Holds demonstrate this mystery. Over the
past century, the dwarves discovered a vast subterra
nean kingdom within the Ironroot Mountains. Most
of these halls rest in the natural layers of Khyber. The
halls connect to one another in logical cartographic or
der. But as the ancient dwarves dug deeper, they opened
passages into the unnatural realms and unleashed the
hordes of the daelkyr Dyrrn the Corruptor. Passages
to Dyrrn's realm also exist in the Shadow Marches, on
the opposite side of Khorvaire. The Corruptor's domain
doesn't necessarily stretch across the entire world; the
portals to the worlds within defy natural law.
These connections impact the world in a number of
ways. Dark forces can rise anywhere in the world, burst
ing out of a previously unknown portal to Khyber. This
fact dictates the primary mission of the Church of the
Silver Flame: to stand ready to defend the innocent from
such unnatural threats. Because the demiplanes con
nect to the world at random, you never know what you
might find when you venture into the depths. A newly
opened chasm in the sewers could be an entirely mun
dane hole in the ground, or it could be a passage to the
Abyssal Forests of Khar.
The many layers of Khyber share similarity only in
their strangeness and deadliness. Eberron is the natural
world; Khyber is the source of fiends and monstrosities
and the domain of the alien daelkyr. Some cults of the
Dragon Below believe that paradise awaits them in the
Vale of the Inner Sun, but such cultists also consider
gibbering mouthers and mind flayers to be creatures of
beauty. Wondrous treasures might wait in the worlds
below amid hordes of demons and aberrations.
KHYBER'S INFLUENCE IN KHORVAIRE
In Khorvaire, you might ...
Find a way to close a passage to Khyber before a
horde of horrors emerges from it.
- Battle a mind flayer that has established a cult in
the sewers.
- Stop the spread of a deadly drug or strange disease
flowing from a well tied to Khyber.
Khyber is an ever-present threat. Any deep passage
could connect to a realm of fiends or spew out an army
of aberrations. Despite the magnitude of this threat,
portals to Khyber are very rare, and they are stable
once found. If you dig a hole in the ground, the odds
that you'll eventually reach the Vale of the Inner Sun
are infinitesimal. And if a portal to Khyber existed in
the sewers of Fairhaven, odds are good that it would al
ready have been discovered. The risk arises when you're
exploring passages where no one has gone before.
The sewers of Fairhaven might be safe today, but if an
earthquake opens a new shaft or a group of cultists digs
deeper, a previously unknown passage to Khyber could
be uncovered. Wherever a passage to Khyber appears,
monsters and dark powers can rise up to threaten the
world above.
CHAPTER 2 I KHORVAIRE GAZETTEER 1
35
