What’s going on with Eberron: Rising from the Last War?

At the start of the week, Geek Native was among the blogs to report that Eberron: Rising from the Last War had been spotted on Amazon before Wizards of the Coast had announced it.

Wizards of the Coat have now announced it along with a glorious alternative cover that you’ll only be able to buy through game stores. Supporting FLGS (friendly local game store) is a thing that the industry likes to do, so this isn’t hugely surprising. The same post showed the ‘main’ cover of the book, which matched the Amazon entry.

Not everyone liked the main cover. Not everyone liked the idea of more special edition marketing in D&D. That was predictable. More surprisingly, though, is Wizards of the Coast distancing themselves from the ‘main’ cover.

In, fact, according to Jeremy Crawford it’s not even the book’s cover. It’s a placeholder.

It does happen. Sometimes you need to rush an image to Amazon, though given you’re not likely using your best picture, you may negatively impact sales, so it isn’t best practice. It’s rare. It’s also quite odd that Wizards of the Coast would use a placeholder in their own announcement.

There’s no reason to doubt Crawford, it’s just odd.

Greg Tito’s D&D news on the 20th gave us even more information on Eberron: Rising from the Last War.

Tito uses the alternative cover when he shows the book’s design and then moves on to discuss the feedback they’re getting around the main cover. He makes no suggestion that it’s a placeholder but concedes Wizards are listening to people. I think there’s a hint they recognise it’s not their most popular cover, but I can’t imagine it’ll be easy to change at this point.

There’s a summary of Tito’s news piece over at EN World and a similar recap below.

We learn that Keith Baker, the creator of Eberron, contributed to the book. That’s good news for Project Raptor fans as it means Baker’s own Eberron project started with at least some knowledge of the official sourcebook. Jeremey Crawford was the mean lead on the project, though, James Wyatt was involved along with several freelancers.

Tito tells us that one chapter is a gazetteer of Sharn and that not only is the artificer class introduced it comes with three subclasses.

Also, there will be rules for Group Patrons. Patrons are potent beings that empower Warlocks, giving that class access to magical abilities. The Group Patron rules provide mechanics for when a Patron adopts a whole group. These Patron sound less supernatural, though, and more mundane and practical – such as a newspaper or University sponsoring a party.

Lastly, Wizards of the Coast will update Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron with new rules for Warforged and dragonmarked. This is to make sure people who have bought Warfinder’s have the latest rules for these two.