Dragon 338: Returning to Athas, part1

[I'm A Banana]

But what kind of Feywild is it?

Sometimes, like in a setting where nature is twisted and magic is horrifying and you must scrape desperately to survive, the simple fact that there is a place of nature and magic that you can run away to, is enough to rip a hole in the setting's atmosphere (a different atmosphere being one of the big things that a setting gives me as a consumer).

The question isn't "what kind of feywild is it?"

The question is: "Do we need the Feywild?"

Not every setting needs a feywild, or an astral sea, or any of these "cosmological constants." Not every setting needs dragonborn and tieflings. Settings can be different. That's half of their appeal.

so long as the things it adds to the setting are cool and interesting.

That's just it: it doesn't add much to the setting to have Eladrin or the Feywild there. The setting had magical deserts without 'em. The setting worked fine with their absence. And by their inclusion, the idea that you can bamf to the magic desert next door does (IMO) wound the setting in a pretty big way. And they're not even very cool and interesting (largely the same, but now with psionics instead of magic).

If all it did was add something cool and interesting to the setting, I probably wouldn't have a problem with it.

But it takes away much, without adding much.

 

[Scribble]

If all it did was add something cool and interesting to the setting, I probably wouldn't have a problem with it.

But it takes away much, without adding much.

Opinions is opinions I guess...

What takes away from one man's idea of the setting adds a ton to another's.


But to sort of tie into what I feel Obryn is trying to say is it has the Feywilde because it's asking what happens to the default world when it becomes Athas?

And since the default 4e assumption is the world has a Feywild, part of the questions is "What happens to the Feywild?" The answer (or so it appears) is it becomes a twisted dying reflection of what it once was.

Simply saying "It doesn't exist" seems kind of shallow. Why not? Where did it go? Can we get it back?

I suppose you could say it died off already, but in my opinion leaving it alive (but close to dead) leaves room for a whole lot more fun.

Can we save the Feywild? And possibly Athas? Can we at least help protect it?

What benefit does killing it off entirely really serve?

 

[Obryn]

But to sort of tie into what I feel Obryn is trying to say is it has the Feywilde because it's asking what happens to the default world when it becomes Athas?

And since the default 4e assumption is the world has a Feywild, part of the questions is "What happens to the Feywild?" The answer (or so it appears) is it becomes a twisted dying reflection of what it once was.

Bingo.

I don't see much inherent value in freezing Dark Sun at the 2e stage. Dark Sun was a product of 2e - so it took 2e's stuff and used it. Paizo's semi-official re-interpretation under 3.5 used 3.5 stuff. Dark Sun for 4e is just doing the same thing, but from a 4e starting point.

If all you want is new rules for the 2e setting, I'm sure the 4e book will be helpful mechanically. But I didn't for a moment expect that the setting would be unchanged.

-O

 

[RodneyThompson]

Sometimes, like in a setting where nature is twisted and magic is horrifying and you must scrape desperately to survive, the simple fact that there is a place of nature and magic that you can run away to, is enough to rip a hole in the setting's atmosphere (a different atmosphere being one of the big things that a setting gives me as a consumer).

I think that's a pretty big exaggeration. Having a few tiny pockets of magic desert scattered across the world is hardly what I'd call "a place of magic and nature that you can run away to."

I get the impression, KM, that you would be happy with nothing other than the total eradication of the Feywild and eladrin in Dark Sun. I guess I don't have anything to say that would make you feel better.

Personally, I think that having defiling destroy 99.9% of an entire plane of existence, having the people of that plane becoming near-mythical anti-magic zealots, and having places in the desert where the vestiges of an ancient civilization periodically appear and disappear is perfectly in keeping with Dark Sun's motifs, and lead to some really great story possibilities in the Dark Sun milieu. For example:

The party joins up with an elf tribe to make the trip to a nearby city-state. During the journey, they discover that some of these elves aren't elves at all, but eladrin, and the party's Veiled Alliance member is a target for execution.

or

After their caravan is raided, the PCs stumble through the desert. Parched and dying, they come across the ruins of an ancient sand-blasted building where they take refuge and even delve into the ruins in search of treasure. After recovering, they depart, only to find that once a few hundred yards away from the ruins the entire structure has vanished.

or

A dune trader the PCs have worked with before returns to Nibenay to sell his goods, but the PCs notice that he is acting oddly. When one of Nibenay's templars approaches the dune trader for her normal bride, the dune trader attacks and slays her. The party discovers that the dune trader's mind was tinkered with by a powerful psion, turning him into an anti-spellcaster time bomb. To restore the dune trader's mind, they must find and slay this psion, whose tower only appears when you approach it from the west at sunset.

 

[Phaezen]

Sometimes, like in a setting where nature is twisted and magic is horrifying and you must scrape desperately to survive, the simple fact that there is a place of nature and magic that you can run away to, is enough to rip a hole in the setting's atmosphere (a different atmosphere being one of the big things that a setting gives me as a consumer).

The question isn't "what kind of feywild is it?"

The question is: "Do we need the Feywild?"

Not every setting needs a feywild, or an astral sea, or any of these "cosmological constants." Not every setting needs dragonborn and tieflings. Settings can be different. That's half of their appeal.



That's just it: it doesn't add much to the setting to have Eladrin or the Feywild there. The setting had magical deserts without 'em. The setting worked fine with their absence. And by their inclusion, the idea that you can bamf to the magic desert next door does (IMO) wound the setting in a pretty big way. And they're not even very cool and interesting (largely the same, but now with psionics instead of magic).

If all it did was add something cool and interesting to the setting, I probably wouldn't have a problem with it.

But it takes away much, without adding much.

The first step in re-envisioning the eladrin was to think about their homeland, the Feywild. Where do eladrin come from in Athas? We decided that the answer was still the Feywild—but the Feywild isn’t what you might expect. The Feywild is “nature turned up to 11.” In most worlds, that means magical forests, wondrous glades, and so on. In Athas, that means “magical desert.” Think of the mesalands around Sedona, the Painted Desert, or the mysterious Rub’ al Khali of Arabia: A place where humans aren’t meant to go, a place of the genies. The Feywild of Athas is dying, however, and it no longer exists as a continuous, parallel plane. It’s a few scattered pockets that don’t connect to each other; journeying from one Feywild locale to another means returning to Athas to make the trek.

I don't know what that takes away from Athas? I think it adds to the setting quite nicely, reinforcing the dying nature of the world.

 

[Henry]

I guess I don't have much to say, because Rich and Rodney have been resonating on all frequencies with me in regards to what's been posted so far. In the past couple of WotC columns, and in Rodney's statements in this interview, they may as well have been cribbing from some of my internet posts the last two years about Dark Sun.

 

[Bold or Stupid]

This discusion of Feywild and Eladrin in Dark Sun is such a cool set of ideas, and close to what I and other were suggesting when this topic first arose, that I am now officially moving my Dark Sun interest level from "neh." to "hmm?". Maybe it reach "oooh!" if things keep seeming so cool.

 

[Aristotle]

My first real campaign was set in Darksun. I was the 'darksun guy' in my town, and I loved every minute of it. That campaign is probably responsible for keeping me in this hobby all these years. I'll be getting this book, even though I've not been collecting 4e, for nostalgia... But it makes me just a little sad to see the setting I love so much finally released again during a time when the property is being handled by people with this horrible "everything that's core needs to fit in every setting" mentality.

I really don't care if the eladrin guy finds out there are no eladrin for him to play in this setting, because this setting is a different one. It's allowed to be different. It's allowed to exclude core elements and include radical new ones. That was half the point of Darksun for me. Take a chance and find a new favorite thing to play.

I don't doubt that the writing will be good, but I'm so frustrated by this design concept.

 

[Obryn]

it makes me just a little sad to see the setting I love so much finally released again during a time when the property is being handled by people with this horrible "everything that's core needs to fit in every setting" mentality

First off, I agree that Dark Sun should exclude some stuff. And it has - the developers have already said there'll be no Divine power source. No clerics, no paladins, no avengers, no invokers. That's a major departure from 4e's core assumptions - much more radical than removing some races would be.

It's allowed to be different. It's allowed to exclude core elements and include radical new ones. That was half the point of Darksun for me. Take a chance and find a new favorite thing to play.

Absolutely - but to me, Dark Sun wasn't defined by the fact that there were no gnomes. It was defined by the twisted versions of the races we always knew. Dune-running elves, beardless dwarves... And the new ones, like the Thri-Kreen. These Eladrin sound way different from average, every-day eladrin. Heck; I think they'll be more useful to me in play. The idea of roving bands of mage-killers is insanely setting-appropriate to me, regardless of what you want to call them.

So from everything I've seen so far, it is different.

-O

 

[RodneyThompson]

But it makes me just a little sad to see the setting I love so much finally released again during a time when the property is being handled by people with this horrible "everything that's core needs to fit in every setting" mentality.

Uh, I don't know if you've gotten to read some of those blog posts and articles, but we didn't take the "everything is core" philosophy with Dark Sun. There's a lot of stuff that we didn't specifically include--including many races, classes, etc. Before you write it off, take a look. I'm a huge Dark Sun fan, and I'd like to think we're making a version of Dark Sun for fans like me.