D&D General Dark Sun Nostalgia Thread [+]

[Fenris-77]

Planescape heavily features the Psionic Gith.

That's the other extremely desired Setting people are still clamouring for. Psionics are also not alien to Spelljammer, too (another popular setting). Giff in UA suggest Spelljammer. Thri-Kreen suggests Dark Sun.

It's possible we'll get a gazetteer of various other D&D Worlds, or something, too. :/ But I think if they don't give us any of these settings soon, there will be riots. MtG settings will still come out likely 1 per year or 1 per 2-years, but if it's ONLY Critical Role and MtG settings then there WILL be riots.

You're overcomplicating my funny. Yes, there are Psionics in Spelljammer, but you could do Spelljammer with something more or less like the set of Psionic-adjacent rules we have and it would be fine (maybe not ideal, but whatever). As a 'thing' Psionics are a more integral part of Dark Sun in terms of how people think about the setting. IMO anyway.

 

[Marandahir]

And these things together all suggest "splatbook" to me. That said, I'm not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast and I can't say for certain what they are working on. Whatever it is, they aren't talkin'.

We know we're getting 2 "all new" settings in the next few years that are in the early stages of development, as well as 2 "classic" settings visited in 2022, a 3rd that will be a cameo, and a 4th that will be visited in an "all new way" - and the 3rd and 4th will likely be 2023 by then.

Dark Sun could be any of the 4 classic settings. It's likely at least one of them.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I've never been a D&D fan, but when Dark Sun came out I desperately wanted to play it. Still do. I think it's easily among the top 5 best RPG settings. Such a bold departure, and boy did it make fantastic use of art. Hell, it managed to make even dwarves look cool!

 

[overgeeked]

Templars are just a Warlock Pact away from existing again (or, sure, I guess they can be a Paladin Oath or a Cleric Domain IF THEY MUST).

I like the original feel from 2E of templars being priests with the spell selection and lore, so I’ve run them as order domain clerics or conquest paladins.

 

[overgeeked]

I don’t recall that was something Brax and I asked. He did mention he did not expect that his novels would be canon for setting advancement. He was emphatic that he intended to show that heroes could make huge setting changes, just not that everyone needed to adopt his. The novels department and games department of TSR were kept disconnected.

Yeah. And that’s how we always played it. I rewind things to Kalak is still alive and any hope there is in the world is due to the PCs themselves rather than some NPCs.

 

[Marandahir]

I like the original feel from 2E of templars being priests with the spell selection and lore, so I’ve run them as order domain clerics or conquest paladins.

Fair take. Order Domain Cleric works well as does Conquest or Oath of the Crown Paladin, though both require more twisting of the core assumptions of the game than it would be to just align them with Warlocks and say they just are pretending to be priests.

I mean, Warlocks already do that. The Fathomless Patron is LITERALLY the Sea Domain Cleric but for weird water cults. And the Celestial Patron Warlock is literally a wandering thaumaturge apostle…

 

[ersatzphil]

Funnily enough @CleverNickName , while there was a magazine ad for Dark Sun that is indelibly etched into my mind from the old days, it wasn't the one you posted.

 

[overgeeked]

Fair take. Order Domain Cleric works well as does Conquest or Oath of the Crown Paladin...

Good point.

though both require more twisting of the core assumptions of the game than it would be to just align them with Warlocks and say they just are pretending to be priests.

What do you mean?

 

[CleverNickName]

Dark Sun was basically Brom for me. He made the setting, took it from pretty cool to OMG AMAZING.

Him and Psionics.

Let's see some artwork then! (Fully cited and credited, of course.) Let's dial the nostalgia up to eleven!

 

[Marandahir]

Good point.

What do you mean?

What is Divine Magic, What is Divine Magic in a world without Gods, what is a Divine Domain, what is a Sacred Oath? These are big picture questions that Athas usually doesn't answer because Divine Magic just doesn't exist anymore (at least outside of Elemental priests are are more like Druids). Templars might USE the structural chassis of a Cleric or Paladin class but are fundamentally a different thing.

I think the baseline assumptions of the Warlock in the PHB lines up more with what a Templar is and what a Templar does than the baseline assumptions of the Cleric and/or Paladin, even though there are subclasses of Cleric and Paladin that narratively line up with what a Templar DOES.

This is sort of like the idea that there are Shifters, Circle of the Moon Druids, Path of the Beast Barbarians, and Werefolk (whose curse means taking the character away from the PC and turning them into an NPC). All of these touch on the same narrative concept and COULD be used to tell the story of a Werewolf, but depending on the story we're trying to tell, different ways of doing it are more or less useful. I wouldn't want to use the Werewolf monster stat for the situation if a PC wanted to be a Wereperson. But if they wanted to change full-on into a wolf, and not just gain wolflike abilities when they shift, I also wouldn't use the Shifter lineage from Eberron. The context matters.

I'd argue that the Warlock chassis is a MORE useful way of the telling the story of the Templar, even if the Paladin and Cleric classes also touch on the same concepts.