4e / GSL More Dark Sun Goodness

[Phaezen]

Rich Baker has posted another Darsun blog here

Starts with announcing Dark Sun has moved from Design and Development to editing.

He then discusses Dragonborn in Dark Sun, and confirms they are known as Dray in Athas and have a very different background/culture/personality to the core Dragonborn.

Here is what to expect:

The dragonborn (or dray) are a race of sorcerous merchants, hired spellcasters, pragmatic mercenaries, and maybe even slavers. They're not especially numerous, so you don't see a lot of them around. Their clans are like small, insular merchant houses, and they might serve as deal-brokers and moneylenders: disliked in many places, but regarded as very useful to have around.

[avin]

Works for me.

"They're not especially numerous" is great, we won't see lots of dragonborn/dray wandering around. The DM can never show them in game as npcs and still some dragonborn fan can play it.

Thumbs up.

[vagabundo]

How does that fit with 1e Darksun (I consider the revised Darksun as 2e and this release 3e - I aim to confuse)?

I don't really remember much about them; I know they were created by a Sorcerer King and lived underground or something...

[StarFyre]

it kinda fits i guess...

Dray, created by Dregoth, the few that escaped New Gustinal wandered the place; mainly being untrusted.

There were 2 types..1st gen, and 2nd. First gen were stronger, more of warriors. The 2nd gen were more intelligent and more like casters. They also had a more advanced language, learning abilities, etc.

I'm just gonna rename dragonborn Dray as they have done with 4E, it appears, but remove certain options that don't fit with the original fluff for dark sun (ie. no flying for Dray)

Doesn't sound to bad, as the fluff they have are really meaningless and can be changed if the DM sees fit. Atleast people can use Dray if players like

Sanjay

[Mark Hope]

The reimagined dray sound like they've taken some inspiration from the ssurrans. The ssurrans were a heat-resistant lizardman race from the region around Athas' Lava Gorge. They were traders, nomads, packrats, clannish - in short, many of the things that the new dray are. Interesting...

[Moridin]

I also really like the dray story a lot because they've sort of got this race-wide pathos that results from them being kicked out of Giustenal. They're a race scorned by their own creator, cast out of their homeland, and left to drift. They were essentially told by their creator, "You're not worthy." That's pretty strong, and creates a very different kind of dragonborn than the core "We once ruled a mighty empire and are a proud warrior race" kind of dragonborn.

[Wik]

Originally Posted by Mark Hope

The reimagined dray sound like they've taken some inspiration from the ssurrans. The ssurrans were a heat-resistant lizardman race from the region around Athas' Lava Gorge. They were traders, nomads, packrats, clannish - in short, many of the things that the new dray are. Interesting...

Beat me to it.

***

My only complaint about the dragonborn/dray is the fact that they are considered natural spellcasters. And the suggestion that they sell their services as spellcasters. I don't really know why it bugs me, but it does. Just a tiny bit.

But, I like that they're in the "other races" section, and I can't really complain about their implementation. It was, to put it simply, almost perfectly done from my vantage point.

[coyote6]

Originally Posted by Wik

My only complaint about the dragonborn/dray is the fact that they are considered natural spellcasters. And the suggestion that they sell their services as spellcasters. I don't really know why it bugs me, but it does. Just a tiny bit.

I wonder if some of the dragonborn racial powers are being recast as "natural spells"? I think someone said that dray didn't have breath weapons or fly, before; maybe that's just a way to keep the same mechanical stuff available, with a different special effect.

[DarwinofMind]

I'm bothered by the hired spellcaster... who in their right mind hires spellcaster in athas!

[GMforPowergamers]

Originally Posted by DarwinofMind

I'm bothered by the hired spellcaster... who in their right mind hires spellcaster in athas!

Dragon Kings...Powerful merchants that hope for longterm protection away from dragonkings...

[bert1000]

"Natural spellcasters" is worrisome. I'm curious how they are going to handle the Sorcerer anyway. Innate arcane magic seems anti-athas. The horror was that arcane magic was created by mortals.

Now, in general I am ok with the dragonborn background. My only complaint is it sounds a little too much like Elves to me -- untrustworthy, nomads, punish people that offend their own, black market merchant angle, etc.

[Wik]

Originally Posted by DarwinofMind

I'm bothered by the hired spellcaster... who in their right mind hires spellcaster in athas!

See, that's what bothered me at first. But, looking at the source material, that practice is far from uncommon. It seems most merchant caravans, raiding parties, and even client villages have a defiler of some sort protecting them. Altaruk is even run by a preserver!

My big problem with it isn't so much that it's there... but that there's an implied tone to it all. I guess my problem is one that's more about the core issues of 2e vs 4e. In 2e, Magic was rare and powerful (and Dark Sun actually changed that, by making magic more common, but hated, and thus less likely to appear at the forefront of day-to-day life... this was at a time when a lot of players were wondering why wizards just didn't use Continual Light spells instead of torches for day to day life). In 4e, magic is very much a common force.

So, I guess that's where I raised my eyebrows and went "hey, wait a minute..."

But, to be honest, it's not a big deal. And I really think the Dray/Dragonborn solution (which is the one most of us had expected, I think) is the best way to deal with it. And yes, I'll be using them as written in my campaign... though I might reflavour their appearance. I can see these guys wearing turbans, dark coloured robes, and a lot of shiny obsidian jewellery, with coloured semi-precious stones imbedded between their scales as they move from city-to-city, selling spices and incense (as well as back-alley "shadow" activity).

Sort of like the Elven Market, but slightly more mysterious.

[HazardCatcher]

Reading the snippet here I thought they sounded like the medieval stereotype of Jews. Which didn't really seem appropriate in general, and especially for dragonborn.

But reading the actual article, they sound a lot like Italian or Russian mobsters. Forming rivalries amongst themselves but with a general goal of keeping the dragon kings and templars off their backs. People might say they shouldn't be spellcasters in Athas, but the dragon kings aren't perfect. A society of families that are used to operating outside the law should have some success with practice.

[ProfessorCirno]

I think the big issue with Dragonborn as Dray come from the racial feats where they breath fire and fly with wings, as someone else mentioned. That said, shoving them into an "other races" section helps a lot.

As for the issue of magic commonplace, that's something I think will be addressed in much, much bigger scope then just one post on races. Taking a race and calling them natural spellcaster mercenaries shows light on the problem, but doesn't really illuminate it enough to get happy or angry about.

That said. This...doesn't really fit the former Dark Sun version of dray. Like, at all. They essentially took a new idea and slapped an old name on it. So that's worrisome, at least from my point of view.

Edit: What I think would help:

Remove the spellcaster mercenary bit. They aren't just your random travelling adventurer mafioso yahoos. Instead, really play up the Dregoth worship. Black clad warriors and travellers who preach the return of Dregoth. Dark Sun is the grey and black morality place, where your heroes aren't lawful good avengers of justice. Having a member of your party be a mysterious and heavily robbed creature who moonlights as an insidious cultist fits right in. Less mafia, more religious fanatics. So why are the Dray now wandering out of their homelands? Maybe Dregoth is sending them to gather information. Or maybe he wants them to help adventurer parties weaken the other current Dragon Kings

[Wik]

Originally Posted by ProfessorCirno

I think the big issue with Dragonborn as Dray come from the racial feats where they breath fire and fly with wings, as someone else mentioned. That said, shoving them into an "other races" section helps a lot.

As for the issue of magic commonplace, that's something I think will be addressed in much, much bigger scope then just one post on races. Taking a race and calling them natural spellcaster mercenaries shows light on the problem, but doesn't really illuminate it enough to get happy or angry about.

Exactly how I feel about it.

Regarding the second bit, I fully agree. It was just one of those things where I read the dragonborn description, went "Hey, I'm not sure I like that" and then had to figure out WHY I didn't like it. And it really turns out that I do like the concept... I just didn't like the implied view on the larger setting.... in that single post.

Also, I don't have a problem with dray breathing fire or flying. Flying especially... I think it works on Athas. Breathing Fire... well... I'd prefer poison, but that's just me. It works as written.

[Eric Anondson]

Originally Posted by ProfessorCirno

So why are the Dray now wandering out of their homelands?

Why not for the same reason 1st gen dray were kicked out . . . because Dregoth considered them failures, a failed experiment that didn't meet his needs. With the 1st gen dray Dregoth got brutish warriors, he needed more intelligent and cunning, which he got with the 2nd gen dray.

So, 4e DS dragonborn PCs are 1st gen dray whose creator thinks are failed experiments.

[ProfessorCirno]

Originally Posted by Eric Anondson

Why not for the same reason 1st gen dray were kicked out . . . because Dregoth considered them failures, a failed experiment that didn't meet his needs. With the 1st gen dray Dregoth got brutish warriors, he needed more intelligent and cunning, which he got with the 2nd gen dray.

So, 4e DS dragonborn PCs are 1st gen dray whose creator thinks are failed experiments.

I think my explanation is more exciting ;p

And to be fair, the 1st gen Dray weren't the magical ones. They were the primitive barbarians. The dragonborn are much, MUCH more aligned with 2nd gen.

[Eric Anondson]

Originally Posted by Moridin

I also really like the dray story a lot because they've sort of got this race-wide pathos that results from them being kicked out of Giustenal. They're a race scorned by their own creator, cast out of their homeland, and left to drift. They were essentially told by their creator, "You're not worthy." That's pretty strong, and creates a very different kind of dragonborn than the core "We once ruled a mighty empire and are a proud warrior race" kind of dragonborn.

I like it Rodney!

[Hunter In Darkness]

Originally Posted by DarwinofMind

I'm bothered by the hired spellcaster... who in their right mind hires spellcaster in athas!

We burn them, leave them to die in the sun , send the dragon kings out. If wizards are out in the open it is not athas

[Jack99]

More stuff from Rodney Link

I know, I've been remiss in my updates. Alas, I have been trapped in a blasted land of work, chained to a desk and toiling away under the watchful eyes of the templars, who are always looking to do the sorcerer-kings' bidding. Translation: I've been working on Dark Sun!

As some readers may know, I am the lead developer for the Dark Sun campaign setting. What you may not know is that it's pretty unusual for a developer to be leading two books at once (as I was doing for the two Dark Sun books), and so I've been very, very busy of late. Fortunately, as of earlier this week I passed off complete manuscripts for both of the books to editing. I've had a lot of help from my fellow developers along the way, but I think the books we've turned over are pretty darn good.

Dark Sun has always been one of my two favorite D&D settings, so all year long I've been waiting feverishly to get my hands on the designers' turnovers. We've taken what they gave us and cranked out some of the most interesting mechanics I think the game's seen so far, and a few mechanical bits that I think will make players very happy.

All that being said, there's been a lot of early speculation on Dark Sun, and not a whole lot of info coming from us. Rich Baker's been doing some good Dark Sun updates, and I'm going to try to as well. Inevitably, Design & Development columns and preview articles will flow out, but I want to take a moment to provide you guys with some generalities that I think will give you an idea where we're headed.

I've always been something of a Dark Sun original boxed set purist. While I think the supplements eventually provided some very interesting material, that first boxed set just had a kind of magic to it in the way it presented Athas. I and others wanted us to shoot for that feeling, so one of the first big goals was to make the setting feel like it did when the first boxed set presented it. Athas is a desolate place where survival is not assured, where the very land can kill you, and where even the points of light (to use a 4E-favorite term) are ruled by darkness. It's a world of sword-and-sandal adventuring, of low tech and dangerous magic. It's a world where psionics is common, and where there are no gods to pray to or receive power from. It's a world where the land is struggling to stay alive, and its defenders face a near-hopeless task to keep it that way. Dark Sun is a dangerous world, a world of survival of the fittest, but...it's also a world for heroes. They might not think of themselves as such, but Athas is a place where evil rules so long as the common man does nothing.

In many ways, one of the things I love about Dark Sun is that it's a setting where the heroes should have the chance to, quite literally, save the world. Unlike other campaign settings which are quite complex and wide-spanning, Dark Sun is a setting that is zoomed in on a relatively small geographical area. There's a lot of diversity in that small area, but it's not hard to imagine world-spanning plots when the known world isn't much bigger than the American southwest. I also love the fact that the story of Dark Sun is about Athas, and that the focus remains on the world and not plane-hopping, god-fighting, or wars between extraplanar beings. It's about the here and now, the fact that death and extinction are very real things and that there's no such thing as divine intervention to save you at the last minute. Your fate on Athas is in your own hands, and while life may be nasty, brutish, and short...you also are the only one who can change that. And you may just do that!

So that's what you can expect. It's not 1991 anymore, so some things won't be 100% exactly the same, but I feel like we're sticking very, very close to that original boxed set. It's not a kitchen sink setting by any means; there are things that are part of other settings which simply won't be seen in the Dark Sun setting. There are also a few new things which fit the setting really well. Rich has already talked about the dragonborn a little bit (though he left out that we're also keeping the original backstory of the dray, that they were exiled from Giustenal and have a racial pathos about being scorned by their creator), so you know that some things won't be exactly the same. That said, to this first boxed set purist, it sure feels the same.

The sorcerer-kings rule over the city-states, using their templars as their agents throughout their domains. Savage raiders make the desert wastes even more unsafe than it already is. Giants wade across the Sea of Silt, staging raids on shoreline settlements and attacking passing silt craft. The Dragon still demands tribute from each city-state, and looms over the land like a force of pure destruction. Defilers destroy life to fuel their own arcane ambitions. Merchant houses still squabble amongs themselves, and wield a great deal of power outside of the sorcerer-kings' control. Mul gladiators still fight in the slave pits, and thri-kreen scouts lurk at the edge of rarely-traveled caravan paths, waiting to strike. Halfling cannibals still stalk the night like ghosts, and untrustworthy elves still lie, cheat, and steal from their victims in the Elven Market. The Veiled Alliance provides shelter from the authorities (and from the mobs of common folk who fear and hate them) for preservers, and they still fight defilers at every step. Ancient ruins filled with undead still lie in the deep desert, holding both danger and treasures of the ancient world.

I'm really excited about the way things are turning out. Now that I've seen the books as a whole, I can rest a bit, and get jazzed about people starting to run games set on Athas in the future.