Enta Spinwhistle’s Guide to Sharn Vol 1, 2nd Edition
Enta Spinwhistle’s Guide to Sharn Vol 1, 2nd Edition
Enta Spinwhistle’s Guide to Sharn Vol 1, 2nd Edition
Guide to Sharn
by Pietro Calogero
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Foreword some images of this GIS model of Sharn. The response was
enthusiastically supportive.
On March 11, 2020, I began hosting a D&D campaign at Victory Point
Once I proposed this book to Eberron Discord participants, I also
Cafe in Berkeley, California. Within a week, we went into pandemic
solicited their input for places in Sharn that they had created. The
lockdown and shifted the game online. I named it "the Fiesole
response has been wonderful. I have credited the Discord contributors
Campaign" after the town where Boccaccio and his friends took refuge
in italics below each contribution. Locations attributed to the Fiesole
from the Black Plague of 1348-51. This turned out to be appropriate not
Campaign are ones I developed.
only because of the pandemic and our shared project of telling stories;
but also because the ethical sensibilities of the group fit better with with I realize that this portrayal of Sharn is not entirely canon, nor kanon.
the Decameron, and with the pulp/noir/Weimar Berlin setting of Sharn. This is partly due to ambiguities in the original source material,
especially about the scale of the Sharn and how the city meets the
I began developing these maps of Sharn in February 2020, in
terrain. But I also wanted the setting to be tangible, imaginable, and
anticipation of starting the campaign. I wanted to give the group
playable. I made the Core Towers truly massive, but not 1000 feet across.
maximum latitude to improvise, and I wanted more specific, tangible
The city is more than 40 stories (500 feet) high, but not a mile. If you
detail to work with. So I built a geographic information system (GIS)
ever stand at the edge of a sheer cliff in Yosemite or Zion Canyon, it is
model of Sharn, figured out its scale, and sought out urban fabric
that dizzying height.
patterns that would match.
The closest is Venice, Italy. I feel the influence of Italo Calvino in this: Thank you:
his fictional Marco Polo kept describing cities to Kublai Khan, but the My players: Kitty Stryker, Christopher Rodriguez, Leslee Petersen,
Great Khan eventually realized they were all versions of Polo's native Meghan Krause, Rena Lourie, Josh Price, and Allison Elliot.
Venice. By chance, the footprint of Venice is almost exactly the size of
My Spouse: Lizzie Calogero.
Sharn, and it is shockingly small: about 1400 meters by 1700 meters. Yet,
in a way, it is infinite. The fabric of Venice is so compact, so irregular, that Eberron Discordians: Imogen Gingell, Sunevial, Jarrod Taylor, Nathan
Doyle, Matthew Booth, kpenguin, The Windu, and bandti. Kpongle for
visitors remark on how they get lost in this tiny city.
pointing out sites in SCoT that were not included in ERLW.
I cut-and-spliced Venetian neighborhoods to fit the Districts and
Open-source developers of QGIS, LibreOffice, & Open Streetmap.
Wards of Sharn. In the process, I realized that Venice had been originally
settled as a refugee camp. Since 2003 I have gained a lot of experience The people of Venezia, Italia.
with these types of 'informal' settlements while working for the In-real-life (IRL) text is set in Noto Sans.
government of Afghanistan. No matter how fancy Venice became by the ❧
Late Middle Ages, the raw panic of that haphazard retreat from the
Enta Spinwhistle's text is set in Libre Baskerville and Andada.
Lombards in the 6th century had been etched forever into the pattern of
its streets and blocks.
Enta would like to thank the Korranberg University Press and
Venice, therefore, is a very appropriate model for the lower wards of
her editor, Melliflua, for her patience in the assembly of this
Sharn. The Cyran and Brelish refugees; the extreme crowding; the
report.
superimposition of newer development over an ancient city; it works
well. For the more orderly and spacious Central Plateau, I used parts of
Vienna (Wien), Austria.
My players are much more savvy about 21st century social media
than I. They pointed me to the Eberron Discord Server where I shared
Enta Spinwhistle Kate Welch. 2018. Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron. Renton, WA:
Wizards of the Coast.
Team, Wizards RPG. 2019. Eberron: Rising from the Last War.
Illustrated edition. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast.