D&D 2E Darksun 30th anniversary article from comicbook.com

[toucanbuzz]

I really, really like the idea and setting of Dark Sun.
I have no ideas for a campaign that I would actually want to run there, though.

It's hard to translate to 5E. A lot of AD&D play was much like the exercise "you crash land on the moon and you can only bring with you 5 items..." For example, the amazing boxed set adventure "A Little Knowledge" involves being abandoned in the desert with nothing but your loincloth and your wits. A 5E ranger simply says "I walk out of the desert" because I can't get lost and my foraging checks are awesome, or a 5E wizard says "I can cast Cantrips indefinitely" so I'm never unarmed. The challenge and stress in the story of survival gets lost this way. In AD&D, there wasn't an auto-win. Players had to be clever and describe ways to succeed that weren't covered in a rule book.

The campaign ideas are endless if you get ahold of the AD&D sourcebooks as the setting was shrouded in mysteries, leaving it to the individual DM to present a world that excites the player. Thematically, it was dark. No gods, no higher morality, and survival its own reward.

 

[humble minion]

I really, really like the idea and setting of Dark Sun.
I have no ideas for a campaign that I would actually want to run there, though.

If you don't want to do a big epic thingy where the PCs foil Rajaat/Dregoth/whoever and save the world (and you can do all of those WELL in DS, ask me about Karzoug Gnoll-Eater some time...), then I reckon Athas is actually quite well suited to, excuse the pun, sandbox-style play.

Have the PCs try to build a trading company, or defend a small free village, or run a local Veiled Alliance chapter in Urik or somewhere, or have them all be tied to the same Tyrian noble house vying for influence post-Kalak. Throw all sorts of Athasiana at them, and let them set their own priorities and make their own plans.

DS is heavily about survival, after all, and the thing about survival is that it's very down-to-earth and you have to do it all over again every day, dealing with the challenges of everyday life. The village example for instance. The trader who normally brings you water is late this month and supplies are low. One of the village kids has developed a dangerous psychic wild talent and is using it to get revenge on bullies. Given it's harvest time, can you REALLY spare so much of the village manpower to chase after those slave raiders? One of the foragers found the a dessicated corpse in the desert and looted it ... but they didn't tell the village council about the enchanted golden Eldaarichian templar's amulet they took off it. Or about the psurlon larva that fell from its robes and crawled up their nose to nestle in their brain. The married pair of village druids break up acrimoniously and are forcing everyone to take sides. A couple of ex-mine slave dwarves from Tyr move in, and they recognise that the mountain of red rock to the south likely contains viable iron deposits. But that mountain is zealously defended by a potent earth cleric and sometime ally of the village. If you rebuff the dwarves and refuse to exploit the riches the iron represents, then they'll probably go and sell the information to someone else...

DS is all about actions having consequences, and (ruleset permitting...) not being able to simply throw magic at your problems til they go away. It's uniquely suited to this sort of thing.

 

[Shardstone]

If I was approaching Dark Sun as a publisher, I'd come at it from the angle that every single thing in that universe is at war with everything else over meager resources that at any point could dry up here. It'd start right after that Sorcerer-King is assassinated, and the players have their choice of city-needs they need to help secure. After all, without a Sorcerer-King around anymore to magic-up the crops or empower templars or defend the city, its going to be all hands on deck to keep Tyr from completely collapsing.

The players, being the players, are sent out into the Tablelands where now they have to navigate the shockingly complex interweb of violent politics between roaving elvish nomads, psionic apex predators, warlords with warbands that have stolen arcane technology from other city-states, the various agents of other city-states, elements driven into violent madness as the world that is their lifeblood dies, undead trapped in Athas with no way to leave due to the Black, and, of course, the Dragon flying over it all, an Apocalyptic Dune whose influence can be felt in each and every part of the Tablelands.

Have a huge list of plot hooks for the Tablehands, a ton of adventure sites, a sub-system for building up Tyr, a quickroll system for making replacement characters, and release a second Dark Sun book that details all the Sorcerer-Kings with stats, all their various plots, villains that serve them, and story + magic item rewards for dealing with and ultimately overthrowing them. That way Dark Sun is about the little people who, free from the tyranny of their oppressors, is able to take back their world and steer it away from the 100% coming death of all life.

From a political standpoint, Tyr is the first free city, and the characters will have plenty of quests dealing with breaking chains and freedom fighting throughout the Tablelands. It'll let the setting keep its characteristic darkness, as brutality is the name of the game outside of Tyr, while also adding a 2021 texture to it so it can be played by a modern mainstream audience.

Hopefully when we do get Dark Sun, its something that at least addresses the same issues this theoretical product does.

 

[Eltab]

I really, really like the idea and setting of Dark Sun.
I have no ideas for a campaign that I would actually want to run there, though.

The classic series "Against the Slave Lords" would be thematically appropriate. Of course you have to change all the outdoor scenery to Desert.

 

[Yaarel]

The interviewer notes:

"The lack of divine presence makes sense on Athas since the plane is cut off from the D&D multiverse by a powerful dimensional barrier called the Black."



The Black corresponds to the former "Shadow Plane". The Gray corresponds to the a Dark Sun realm of the dead.

In 5e, these have fused into the same plane, Shadowfell.

Perhaps the Gray is the "shallow" inhabited areas of Shadowfell, whereas the Black is the "deep" outer areas of Shadowfell.

In other words, the way to get in or out of Dark Sun is via the realm of the dead.



That said. I hope the default of 5e Dark Sun is that it has no relationship to the multiverse, and is its own cosmology setting.

The passageway from Dark Sun to the Forgotten Realms cosmology would be an option for those DMs who want to blend DS stories with FR stories.

 

[Yaarel]

Denning: "So that's where we decided that we would seal [Athas] off, that you wouldn't be able to travel from Athas to any other AD&D campaign world."

Dark Sun is its own setting with its own cosmology. The default should be, there is no connection to the FR Multiverse.

 

[darjr]

There is this post on reddit that seems pertinent.

Both that the space of Athas was lost or way to far away or the sphere was closed to all spelljammers. Maybe a bit of both.

 

[darjr]

Oh! Btw one of the living campaigns that came out of 4th edition was the Dark Sun campaign, "Ashes of Athas". Those adventures can still be had by contacting Teos Abidia.

note that this interview was from 2013 before there was a 5th edition and DMsGuild.

which seems weird to say.

 

[Yaarel]

Great quote by Dark Sun cocreator, Denning:

"
When it comes to Wizards of the Coasts' attempts to rectify these kinds of [race stereotyping] issues, Denning says, "I think this is a good thing, but I think that now fiction of all sorts is being more careful to not stereotype anybody, any race or even species, in a negative way, and I think that that's smart. It creates more interesting characters, to begin with, and so on that basis alone, it's a good thing to have happen. I think if they reissued Dark Sun and asked me to do it, that's certainly something that I would want to take a very careful look at and make sure that the stereotypes were not being used negatively and that we were avoiding stereotypes as much as possible. I'm proud of everything I did in Dark Sun, but that's not to say that I couldn't do it better now."

"

 

[Zardnaar]

In the Darksun material it was always clear Darksun was not connected to the rest of the multiverse.

Gets a bit sticky with Planescspe material which did reference Athas. But by then TSR was going down the gurgler and they were using freelancers.

5E Darksun probably be lame. It will sell well and in a year or two no one will care.