Where in the 5e multiverse is Eberron?

Question

For the purposes of spelljammer/wildspace travel, where in the 5e multiverse is Eberron?

The reason I ask is for physically transporting items from one setting to another. (The other setting being any of Dragon Lance, Dark Sun, Forgotten Realms, GreyHawk, etc.)

For example, transporting an Eberron arcane focus, or double-bladed scimitar to lets say, Krynn in Dragon Lance or Toril in Forgotten Realms?

From How do you go about reaching the Far Realm?:

"[..] the Far Realm is incorporated as the Realm of Xoriat."

Does that mean that from it you can reach "Pandemonium" as in "Rrakkma" adventure module, is this right? If so, although not "Wildspace travel", this is ALL I could find this might allow this, at all, & at the cost of your sanity.

Answer 1

Eberron's connection to wildspace was never defined in canon.

Spelljammer ended with AD&D 2e, while Eberron made its debut in D&D 3.5, with the result being that the two settings have little overlap. Eberron couldn't have been mentioned in an AD&D Spelljammer book, and I don't recall any mention of spelljamming in any Eberron book.

The closest I can find is the Dragon Magazine #339 article Races of Spelljammer: Wanderers of Wildspace, published January 2006, meaning it is a rare D&D 3.5 Spelljammer source produced after the release of Eberron, and during the period when Dragon content was stated to be official. The article states:

Many Wildspace races build and maintain their own spelljamming vessels and most can be encountered on groundling worlds either openly or in secret. Any of these Spelljammer races might also serve equally in a campaign based in the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, or any other crystal sphere.

This suggests that Eberron's solar system is at least in a crystal sphere, meaning that it's somewhere in wildspace. D&D 5e says that all settings including Spelljammer are part of a unified D&D multiverse, but doesn't describe those interconnections in terms of crystal spheres or wildspace. Spelljamming ships and Realmspace are described in D&D 5e's Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, so we know they're still a thing, but except for that one Dragon article in issue 339, there have been basically no mentions of wildspace or crystal spheres since D&D 3e launched in 2000.

We know at least that Eberron is unlikely to receive frequent visitors from other worlds, as far as published material goes. Visitors from other material worlds aren't mentioned, unlike, say, Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, where Mordenkainen and Elminster have visited each other's worlds. You don't have firearms in Eberron, even though those are available in Wildspace and the Toril. We might deduce that Eberron's solar system, if it has a crystal sphere, doesn't appear to be easy to find or travel to.

There was a Spelljammer article for D&D 3e in Dungeon #92, but it only covered one solar system and not between-setting travel, and stopped just short of retconning crystal spheres out of existence. Spelljamming ships are mentioned in 4e's Manual of the Planes, but they work by plane shifting instead of actual spelljamming travel.

There was a 2004 article, Planes and Adventuring, which asserts that Eberron's planes are connected to Eberron only, and that Eberron is not connected to the Great Wheel. It doesn't cover the possibility of transport between Eberron and other material planes.

There is an forum thread on this topic, but naturally it's homebrew material rather than official. According to a Candlekeep thread, Elminster once visited Eberron in the Stormreach video game, and Eberron author Keith Baker says there is no official status for Eberron in the Spelljammer cosmology. A poster on that thread believes that crystal spheres were a definitive part of the 4e planar cosmology, but I don't believe that's canonically the case in 4e lore.

In a tweet, Eberron creator Keith Baker gives his opinion that travel to or from Eberron is entirely up to the DM:

Ultimately, travel to/from #Eberron is as easy or difficult as you want it to be. If you want House Orien operating portals between worlds, it’s your story! Or the arrival of the warforged in WD could be a mystery; they don’t know what brought them to Faerun or how to get home.

The 3e Manual of the Planes, p.44, also notes that travel between campaign settings is possible via the Plane of Shadow (5e calls this the Shadowfell), a shadow portal, a demiplane connecting the two worlds, a planar cataclysm or accident, or a portal. The 4e Manual of the Planes leaves the existence of crystal spheres up to the DM.

The D&D 5e Eberron Rising from the Last War, p.228, asserts that while Eberron is part of the Great Wheel, it is also disconnected from that cosmology, which is consistent with earlier conceptions of Eberron's planar cosmology. On page 232, "Eberron and the Multiverse", it suggests that this is because the progenitor wyrms created Eberron from scratch and deliberately hid it in the Deep Ethereal, and that it can be theoretically visited this way, though with difficulty. The Ring of Siberys forms a barrier, not unlike a crystal sphere, though crystal spheres and wildspace are not mentioned. Whether this barrier is absolute or weakening is left up to the DM.

Answer 2

Tread carefully with dimensional travel.

The Eberron setting makes a lot of assumptions that are challenged in other settings. For instance, the provability of gods' existence would rattle any warmblooded citizen of the Five Nations.

Consider nonchalantly imposing the Eberron items you want as a part of the setting you want to use them in. If the story you want to tell is a story about planar bootlegging, then question whether Eberron is the best setting to tell that story with. In fact, perhaps even question whether D&D is the best system family to tell it with.

Answer 3

Eberron is, by default, separated from the rest of the DnD multiverse with a magical barrier created by the three godlike dragons who created the world in the first place.

In the sourcebook Eberron: Rising from the Last War, it says the following at the beginning of the section discussing adventures in Eberron:

As discussed in the introduction to this book, pulp adventure and noir intrigue are two major themes that interlace in Eberron. Weaving these themes together, or exploring either one in isolation, can give Eberron stories a unique feel. Adventures that take advantage of those themes help to reinforce a sense of place, immersing the players (and you) in a world that is still reeling from the effects of a hundred years of war, that is shaped by modern ideas and aesthetics, and that is set apart from the rest of the D&D multiverse by a magical barrier.

It then goes on to say this in the section of that chapter covering the planes:

Eberron is part of the Great Wheel of the multiverse, as described in the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide. At the same time, it is fundamentally apart from the rest of the Great Wheel, sealed off from the other planes even while it's encircled by its own wheeling cosmology. Eberron's unique station in the multiverse is an important aspect of the world: its planes have profound and shifting influences on the Material Plane, and it is sheltered from the influences and machinations of gods and other powers elsewhere on the Great Wheel.

The planet of Eberron is the heart of its own Material Plane. It is surrounded by the Ring of Siberys. Beyond this band of dragonshards, thirteen moons orbit the world. To date, no creature from Eberron has explored the moons, and none can say whether they are lifeless rocks or thriving worlds. Some sages believe that the moons are connected to the planes, or that they might even be physical extensions of the planes, but the truth of these assertions remains unknown.

No other planets have been discovered within Eberron's Material Plane. The underworld of Khyber, however, contains a host of demiplanes, tiny pockets of altered reality. As such, venturing beneath the surface of Eberron can lead you to a network of caverns and passages, and if you find the right passage, it can take you to fantastic and deadly places inhabited by fiends, aberrations, and other children of Khyber.

Later, there is a subheading of in this section titled "Eberron and the Multiverse", which says the following:

It is theoretically possible to travel between Eberron and other worlds in the multiverse by means of the Deep Ethereal or various spells designed for planar travel, but the cosmology of Eberron is specifically designed to prevent such travel, to keep the world hidden away from the meddling of gods, celestials, and fiends from beyond.

The three progenitor wyrms worked together to form Eberron and its planes as a new cosmic system in the depths of the Ethereal Plane. They recreated the elves, ores, dragons, and other races found throughout the multiverse and placed them in their new world, but allowed them to develop beyond the reach of Gruumsh, Corellon, Lolth, and other influences for good and ill.

In your campaign, you might decide that the barrier formed by the Ring of Siberys is intact, and contact between Eberron and the worlds and planes beyond its cosmology is impossible. This is the default assumption of this book. On the other hand, you might want to incorporate elements from other realms. Perhaps you want to use a published adventure that involves Tiamat or the forces of the Abyss meddling in the affairs of the world. In such a case, it could be that the protection offered by the Ring of Siberys has begun to fail. You might link the weakening of Siberys to the Mourning-perhaps whatever magical catastrophe caused the Mourning also disrupted the Ring of Siberys, or perhaps a disruption of the Ring of Siberys actually caused the Mourning!

If contact between Eberron and the wider multiverse is recent and limited, consider the implications for everyone involved. In the Great Wheel, Asmodeus is an ancient threat, with well-established cults, lines of tieflings, and a long history of meddling that sages might uncover in dusty old tomes hidden in remote libraries. But if Asmodeus has only just discovered Eberron and begun to influence it for the first time, there is no lore about him to be discovered on Eberron. He has no power base and needs to recruit new followers. Unusual alliances might form against him, as celestials and fiends join forces to expel this hostile outsider.

As a result of these passages, we can see that Eberron is not, by default, connected to the Phlogiston of Spelljammer; it has its own Material Plane, separate from the Prime Material Plane that the various worlds of Spelljammer reside within. However, it is possible for the plane to be reached through the Deep Ethereal plane, if the barrier has been lowered.