Hi, I'm one of the authors of Eberronicon and I'd like to give a review from the perspective of a long time Eberron fan and published author.
Chapter 1 Course of the War
35 pages
The primary focus of this chapter is providing a continuous narrative of the war, mixing italicized in-character writing with standard encyclopedia-style history books. This stylistic choice is unfortunately reminiscent of stereotypically dry recounting of war, reflecting mid-20th century writing that is obsessed with the details of logistics and troop counts instead of directing attention to themes and why issues matter. The troop counts feel especially egregious when you realize that they’re distorted by Eberron’s well-documented issues with ridiculously low population numbers given the size and development of the continent.
Furthermore, one of the primary tonal errors in the book comes into focus - painting Thrane and the Church of the Silver Flame as a bunch of reckless zealots. In their effort to undermine the case of a country led by a Lawful Good religion, the authors pull on every ‘90s and ‘00s antitheistic trope to paint Thrane as the bad guys. Quite frankly it’s easier to reframe this chapter as written by an Aundairian historian - correct on the broad outline of the war, but clearly biased in myriad ways.
Chapter 2 A Guide to the Last War
56 pages
This chapter is still mostly lore as opposed to 3.5 mechanics, however much of that lore is difficult to use as anything except background for military characters. The best pieces are the “famous and infamous”, as is usually the case for sample NPCs - they double as thematic flavor and adventure hooks.
The weakest part is the section on Thrane, which presents Thrane as your classical medieval crusading army with “poor archers”. The issue here is it completely skips over the Silver Flame’s favored weapon is the longbow, with archery being a common sport amongst the Purified. This miss is felt earlier in the book, as the detailed tactics and army compositions are a focus of chapter one, meaning every battle with Thrane is described as if the only option left to the Thranish armies is a zealous peasant charge. Furthermore, while the text here says that Thranish armies were mostly good and honorable, the rest of the book doesn’t support this, focusing on the zealotry and corruption.
Chapter 3 Heroes of the Last War
28 pages
While most of this is player-facing mechanical content for 3.5, the first ten pages are timeless content for how to incorporate the war into a character. Some of the ideas here could even be converted to 5th edition by an enterprising DM, especially from the item selection.
Chapter 4 The Last War Campaign
25 pages
This is one of my favorite sections of the book, providing genuinely solid 15 pages of advice on how to run a campaign that takes place during the Last War. It divides them into three categories - historical campaigns, flashbacks, and time travel campaigns. The last ten pages of the section are devoted to half a dozen stat blocks, carrying the 3.5 style of way overcomplicated rules text that takes too much space.
Overall review - 3/5. This is amongst the last books I’d be interested in picking up for an Eberron collection, however it is still an Eberron book that provides lore that can’t be found anywhere else.
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