D&D 5E Warforged Aberrant Dragonmark Help

[Shikyokun]

I want to run an eberron game where dragon marks are something that the prophecy, and maybe those who work or look at the prophecy, use to effect it. My idea is all dragonmarks were made when either delkir or quori decided to mess with energies. Wont go into it but I want abrrant dragonmarks to be the prophecy trying to correct itself.

I have a player who wants to play a warforged artificer, and we thought it would be a fun hook to have him gain a dragonmark that grows from the inside out. Starts on his frame and eventually pushes as it grows. He also has an off again on again pixie player who lives in him so he has pixie dust all over. I wouldn't mind playing with the idea that that circumstance has helped it grow and flourish, maybe flavor it with some fae ideas?

I want to give him something SIMILAR to the mark of making to help his character, but with all the fun drawbacks and lethal ramifications of having one in the eberron setting. Any ideas?

And please, I know every purist wants to tell me "war forged can't have drag8nmarks" but it took thousands of years for mortal races to get them. Warforged are, at best, 30 something in most campaigns? They are alive, they have souls or wouldn't be able to be resurrected, so who is to say they can't? My favorite part of eberron is nothing is set in stone, and there is a place for anything

 

[Shikyokun]

I'm really just having a hard time making something on par, or even just slightly worse than the mark of making, but with slightly unique progression and some side effects. The balance never seems right

 

[DEFCON 1]

It probably doesn't help (because your player wants to be an artificer)... but when I ran Eberron and had a player that wanted an aberrant dragonmark, we just went all in on the theming by having him play a sorcerer (and whose entire swathe of sorcerer spells and metamagic were all from the dragonmark.) His aberrant mark was the ability to manipulate space and time, so I basically created an entirely new spell list for the player, re-flavoring a lot of spells to keep the mechanics but changing the theming towards spacetime manipulation. They weren't a "sorcerer" in the traditional sense, nor did people call his character a "sorcerer"... rather the sorcerer framework was just a mechanical representation of what his dragonmark did.

Now in your particular case... if the warforged really wants their mark to stay in the realm of the Mark of Making and use the Artificer mechanics to portray their character... then perhaps you could do something similar in that being an "Artificer" isn't a 'job' that the warforged has within the world... but rather is just the mechanical representation of their aberrant dragonmark based upon some facet of maybe like building up / tearing down. Perhaps their aberrant dragonmark is about the creation and destruction cycle... the ordering and then entropy of things... and the artificer mechanics are the representation of that. The warforged doesn't create "infusions" as it were... their mark just lets them create something out of nothing, and then at the end of the day the item falls apart into nothingness and they have to then build something else. And you curate the artificer spell list to really only include spells that are about creation and destruction (or at least recommend the player to only select/prepare spells that go along with that theming.)

The fun part about an idea such as this is that because the character is a warforged... they can really have fun with their own character's body falling apart and then being rebuilt due to the aberrant dragonmark. Play into all of it... where the character can touch things and mend them, then touch other things and collapse them.

 

[TwoSix]

An aberrant dragonmark, growing on a warforged (suggesting an organic change), and also tied to pixies/faerie; that would scream some kind of druidic shapechanging them to me.

Maybe rather than granting spells, it gives the ability to wildshape? Or some kind of natural growth oriented spells, a la barkskin, or guardian of nature, or polymorph?

 

[Hawk Diesel]

I don't think a dragonmark on a warforged is weird at all. Warforged were originally created in the Age of Giants (House Cannith found creation forges in Xen'drik and reverse engineered them). I also believe there's some lore suggesting waforged have ties to Dolurrh, and the creation of a warforged may include pulling a soul from there and placing it the warforged body (though that may be my own head cannon that I've confused with Keith Baker's writing). I mean, every warforged created manifests a unique Ghulra on their forehead (these are not placed there by House Cannith but is rather an artifact of their creation process), and that creates an excellent place for a dragonmark to manifest.

I really like @DEFCON 1's suggestion to reflavor the PC's artificer skills and abilities as being tied to their dragonmark.

But I'm also wondering why an aberrant mark couldn't just be considered a normal Mark if Making. The fact alone that it manifested on a warforged and not a human makes it an aberrant mark by definition.

Maybe if you posted some of your attempts to mechanically represent your ideas, we could help you better fine tune it to fit yous vision.

 

[CreamCloud0]

i remember writing up a warforged 'mark of sentience' or something like that at some point, i wonder if i can find wherever i ended up posting it, it might've been on reddit actually...

 

[Shikyokun]

I don't think a dragonmark on a warforged is weird at all. Warforged were originally created in the Age of Giants (House Cannith found creation forges in Xen'drik and reverse engineered them). I also believe there's some lore suggesting waforged have ties to Dolurrh, and the creation of a warforged may include pulling a soul from there and placing it the warforged body (though that may be my own head cannon that I've confused with Keith Baker's writing). I mean, every warforged created manifests a unique Ghulra on their forehead (these are not placed there by House Cannith but is rather an artifact of their creation process), and that creates an excellent place for a dragonmark to manifest.

I really like @DEFCON 1's suggestion to reflavor the PC's artificer skills and abilities as being tied to their dragonmark.

But I'm also wondering why an aberrant mark couldn't just be considered a normal Mark if Making. The fact alone that it manifested on a warforged and not a human makes it an aberrant mark by definition.

Maybe if you posted some of your attempts to mechanically represent your ideas, we could help you better fine tune it to fit yous vision.

I actually specifically told him his mark could be under his outer plating, but at some point it had to actually touch and be a part of his Ghulra (but because of that allowed him to move it from his forehead, and am actually thinking of making that a thing for all warforged. Not the dragonmark part, just the ghulra location. Different type, placement, random completely).

I didn't really feel like the templates for aberrant dragonmarks did it justice, because I never felt like aberrant should have been treated as less. Just that, because they were unstable, they never got the purposeful breeding and nurturing of mark traits. So I attempted to just take the mark of making and substitute things but it never really felt like a true separate thing. Even adding things like effects similar to wild magic, or negative aspects when used, all just felt like I was reaching

But I do agree on defcon. I think I'm going to have to just match to making but reflavor it all. Ad the breaking down and building up, but maybe instead of just from nothing, his unique physiology, plus his constant exposure to thalanis, allow him to see things on the atomic scale maybe? He actually breaks down and reshaped matter with his abilities and maybe every once in a while it effects a thing or person/people nearby?

 

[Hawk Diesel]

What has your player told you they want from the mark? I've often found that players don't want a mark just to have it or for the story implications, but they have a vision for the abilities it might grant. Maybe that would be a good place to start.

 

[Shikyokun]

What has your player told you they want from the mark? I've often found that players don't want a mark just to have it or for the story implications, but they have a vision for the abilities it might grant. Maybe that would be a good place to start.

He just wasn't sure he wanted to sacrifice the lore options of a dragonmarked house for warforged. I told him I could offer him an option that gave plenty of story, but maybe not the renown of house cannith. Lol. So far all he knows specifically is that I agreed to help him and his gf have a common backstory together, because she will be there less often as a player, and to give him a dragonmark just not making. I told him it would still be helpful, but it would still be aberrant

He is new so he doesn't have many expectations, I just want him to feel important to his story. He is actually really diving into the lore and what an artificer is in eberron and I want to reward that

Then I saw the potential with what I'm planning for the endgame with aberrant dragonmarks being the prophecy trying to correct itself, and it just sort of seemed like a fun way to connect it all. The two warriors from different planes with different physique, maybe even 3 depending on how I decide to solve the warforged soul mystery. Combination of science and magic. And an artificer as the savior of eberon, just as some could argue artificer were its downfall.

It's the mark itself that I'm having a hard time customizing

 

[Hawk Diesel]

Something that may help you is to stop thinking about any mechanical drawback aside from maybe exchanging some racial features or requiring a feat. It's not always fun for some players to get a benefit that comes with a curse. Especially when this ability benefits you as a DM to further drive the story. Use story elements as the drawback, rather than mechanics. As a warforged bearing a true mark of making, that will make him a huge target. The dragonmarked houses will likely hunt him down. House Cannith might want to study him, while others may want to destroy him believing he bears an aberrant mark, while others may want him to provide some special insight into the draconic prophecy. This could create interesting role playing opportunities and story-based challenges, which tend to be more fun than mechanical drawbacks.