Threshold: What Happen Next? (Patreon)

For the last month I've been considering my next step. I love Eberron and fully intend to continue to support the setting, as I have been for twenty years. However, the basic issues remain unchanged, and are entirely unaffected by the recent developments with the OGL. I'm a novelist. I'm co-owner of a company that makes card games. I work on video games. If I develop a new setting, I could explore the world through fiction, create games that are either played in the setting or that explore it in other ways, or pitch video games or other media tied to the setting. I can't do any of those things with Eberron—and the fact that Eberron content can only be published through the DM's Guild prevents crowdfunding, working with brick and mortar stores, and means giving up 50% of the revenue from the books. 

At the same time: I love Eberron, and I love the campaign we've been playing in it. There are certain things I've developed that I want to take to my own IP, but there's other things—Kethelrax, Argonth, Orlassk—that are concretely part of Eberron and can't be moved. So am I going to finish Frontiers or make something new? As a wise person once said, why not both? 

Frontiers actually began with an adventure, codenamed Hunger. We split Frontiers off into a larger book; now we're going back to the original plan. Imogen Gingell is developing and expanding Hunger, and the book will follow the recent model WotC has used for Spelljammer and Dragonlance: Pairing an overview of the setting with character options, unique monsters, and an extensive adventure. This will be a 5E Eberron book produced on the DM's Guild, and it will allow you to play a worg or a medusa from Droaam, to match wits with Orlaask or Tol Kharash, and to pursue an adventure along the edge of Droaam and Breland. One notable change: I'm keeping the name Threshold for my new project, and changing the name of the town in Hunger to Quickstone. Among other things, it's actually an odd name for the town as it is, because before Droaam appeared ten years ago it wasn't on the edge of things—while it has always been a mining town driving by Quickstone. 

Meanwhile, I will be creating something new, which I'm still calling Threshold. It will explore things I love and that you've seen in Eberron—the intersection of magic, science, and industry; fey and dreams; the blend of dramatic action and difficult decisions—but it will explore each of these in its own way. In creating this new world I'm NOT going to be approaching it as we did with Eberron, creating the entire world at the very beginning. Instead I'm going to be focusing on a very specific part of it, a supernatural faultline where the Feywild has recently spilled into reality, replacing and transforming what was there before. On the one side you have an old, powerful nation driven by industrial magic. On the other, you have unknown mystery and the unpredictable power of the ancient fey. Our story begins on the frontier between these two, a place where science and industry clash with elemental nature and enigmatic fey... the Threshold.

SO: On the surface, this is not unlike the story you're familiar with—the border between Breland and Droaam, the interaction between humanity and creatures thought of as monsters. Threshold just takes this basic idea in a different direction. The western lands aren't one single rising nation; they're an unknown region filled with cultures and creatures humanity currently knows little about, save from what they know from stories. There's opportunity for simple adventure as you venture into the unknown—or for diplomacy as you seek to understand and work with creatures and cultures that have long been the villains of your faerie tales. Beyond this, the Archfey can serve as powerful patrons or enemies—and the ancient Archfey are themselves threatened by the new spirits of the industrial world. 

In short, Threshold explores the frontier between industrial magic and fey mystery; it's a world where daring wandslingers and rebellious warlocks clash with mystic industrialists and fey orthodoxy. Just like Eberron, it is a setting that will be designed to serve as a source of inspiration rather than as a limitation; even if you don't want to use the full setting, I expect you'll find things you can adapt to any other campaign. 

Hopefully that gives Threshold patrons more context for the current vote! I will be making this new world, but I will also be continuing to support Eberron—and continuing to answer questions and write articles on my blog. The question is whether we want to tie up the loose ends in our original campaign on the Western Frontier, or if you'd like to see the new world I'm developing as it takes shape. 

As always: Thanks for your encouragement and support. There's a lot going on in my life right now and it's not always easy to find the time to work on these things that I love. Your support makes it possible. In the future I will have a larger discussion about the most effective use of my time and what you all most want to see from this Patreon and my blog, but for now, thanks for being a part of it.