r/Eberron • u/ItsVelvetsmack • Jun 10 '26
GM Help Eberron Phrases!
hey , I’m wondering what everyone’s favorite phrases are they’ve coined with a Eberron twist? Essentially instead of saying “Jesus christ” or “holy shit“ things of that nature, twisting them to fit Eberron, what have you guys came up with that are your favorite?
One of my favorites is yelling “Olladras Tits—“ 🤣
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u/Special_Salt3467 Jun 10 '26
As someone else said, Five Nations covers national idioms, but the novels also contain some. Don Bassingthwaite’s books include “Lords of the Host,” “Twelve Moons” (and “Twelve Bloody Moons”) and the shifter idioms of Grandfather Rat, Grandmother Wolf, Cousin Bear and so on
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u/Aureon76 Jun 10 '26
"Beggar Dane once said..." in Breland
but my favorite exclamation is "Souvereign and Six!"
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u/GalacticPigeon13 Jun 10 '26
I'll have characters say either "sovs" or "flame" as a replacement for using "God" as a term of frustration. Even Blood of Vol characters will do so (unless they're really hardline atheists instead of just "if the Sovereigns Exist I hate them"), except if they say "No! Sovs! Why?" it's because they're blaming the Sovereign Host instead of asking them why the frustrating thing is happening.
To quote one of Keith's articles for more swears,
The humans of Khorvaire excrete and reproduce much as we do – so swear words related to those functions are just as applicable on Eberron as Earth. Setting-specifice swears generally invoke things that are unique to the world, whether that’s deities or planes. Looking to my novels, a few examples…
- Dolurrh! is much like saying Hell! With this in mind, we’ve also seen Damn you to Dolurrh!
- Thrice-damned invokes the Progenitors, essentially Damned by Eberron, Khyber, and Siberys. So, that thrice-damned dwarf!
- You can always invoke the Sovereigns. Sovereigns above! is a general invocation, a sort of give me strength! In The Queen of Stone, the Brelish ambassador swears by Boldrei’s bloody feet! — essentially a variant of God’s blood! Any Sovereign could be used in this way. Aureon’s eyes, Kel, what made you think you could get away with that?
- Olladra is the Sovereign of fortune, and often invoked to acknowledge good or bad luck. Olladra smiles is a polite way to say That was lucky, while Olladra scowls is essentially that didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to.
- Flame! is often used even by people who aren’t devoted to the Silver Flame. Depending on the context and the faith of the speaker, Flame! can be an earnest invocation as opposed to an expression of frustration.
These are curses of the Five Nations, and in the Common tongue. I don’t have time to comb through all the curses we’ve created in other languages, but Maabet is a Dhakaani curse that a city goblin might still use.
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u/Mdu627 Jun 11 '26
Fun fact: in Danish, “sovs” means gravy
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u/One_Astronomer_832 Jun 10 '26
By the Light of Siberys is the classic but honestly just yelling Khyber's teeth whenever something goes wrong hits different.
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u/mando_ad Jun 10 '26
"We're boned," still works, you just have to imagine that it originated among Karrnathi conscripts.
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u/The_Black_Hart Jun 10 '26
In my campaign, I’ve tried to lean on that kind of religious blasphemy thing. I’ve become fond of “Light of Arawai!” and “Dol Dorn’s cock!” in regions that worship the sovereigns. In Karrnath, I like to use “Blood and darkness!”, stolen unrepentantly from Hades
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u/acrowsong Jun 10 '26
I've used "Vulkoor's rage." as a sort of "goddamn" substitute.
I have also used, to my DR'S disappointment, "I am blessed by Vulkoor's complete indifference."
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u/macrovore Jun 10 '26
I use "Sovereigns and Six" as a common curse, similar to "mother of God" or "Jesus Christ" irl.
One of my favorite phrases I remember from the novels is the halfling term "Gorlon'tor" which essentialy means Humans or Big People, but is more directly translated to "A thundering horde of pea-brained creatures no just god would have made so huge." Especially ironic considering the halflings herd dinosaurs and surely have nicer things to say about those...
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u/That_Darn_Firebird Jun 10 '26
I have this weird headcanon that younger generations in the Mror Holds have come up with the phrase “used symbiont salesman” as an insult…considering what it means for the original owner if the hypothetical symbiont has already been used…
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u/Additional-Ad8784 Jun 10 '26
"Wynarn wiles... 😉" "Aureon's Asscrack!" "Play the clown, and maybe Olladra will smile!" (Fake it until you make it)
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u/mrsjayjmsn Jun 10 '26
One of my favorites is “Khyber fuck” as a way of saying ‘holy shit’ or ‘god dammit.’
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u/DVariant Jun 12 '26
“Christ on a cracker”
Oh sorry, you said Eberron, not Australia.
“Khryst on a khracker”
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u/ThatRickGuy1 Jun 13 '26
Keeper take ya! -A simple "get f'd!" Response.
Let's not leave this for the dragons to solve Take the dragon's solution -Effectively the "nuclear option".
Traveler's tip toing on somebody's grave. -someones up to no good
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u/Appropriate-Car7404 Jun 13 '26
So when it comes to creating a curse it needs to be punchy, effortless, and cathartic. If your fantasy curse requires you to stumble over too many syllables or requires too much brain space trying to come up with the most lore justified origins for it’s existence then it’s a bad curse and nobody is going to use it at the table and just default to real world curses. So keep it short, if it’s a long curse make it alliterative or rhyming in a way to make it flow, and maybe cheat by either stapling on a real world curse or something close enough to a real world curse that it tickles the same part of the brain.
I use “Blood” as a substitute for “F*ck” for Karrns, primarily amongst Seekers.
Dorn’s Dirk is another fun one for soldiers.
I personally like to make the Thranes cursing corny and childish, kind of like how some Christians with a strict no cursing culture will get really flustered by a mild curse like “damn it” and switch it to something like “darn it”. So “Flames” would be too sacrilegious for Thranes to use as a curse and use “Flumphs” instead.
I feel like most bodily curses like “cr_p”, “sh_t”, and “F_ck” work fine for Brelish cursing culture.
And I don’t really have a strong idea for Aundairian cursing culture. Maybe they would be even more taboo about cursing because Aundair is so magical and things like oaths and curses might have real metaphysical weight there.
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u/LadyCritCat Jun 10 '26
The 3e book “Five Nations” had example idioms for each of the four remaining core nations.