Mecheon
Sacabambaspis
Doesn't matter if it was the dying days, that's your comparison point. That was Dark Sun's last gasp for decades. If you say you want it back to 2E days, that's 2E days. Surfing lizardmen. Writers pet NPCs killing off all the big threats rather than letting the players handle it. That's the direct comparison pointSurfing lizardmen has been explained away. It was in TSRs dying days.
I don't use much for Darksun after 1993. The original concept was great run into the ground by freelancers.
Athas doesn't need Djinn or anything like it. Its not Arabian Nights.
its not just Athas.org the Darksun facebook group, Reddit group basically all the najor groups right there.
It's the prime example why things should be excluded as all the add on watered down the setting. That and TSR rampant metaplot.
Stupid ideas that should have seen the light of day.
Warlocks as Templars. Setting where Arcane magic destroys the environment...... A few pet defilers sure. Entire group of them erm no.
Teleporting Elves. See magic.
Reskining phb Dragonborn as Dray lol.
Dray in general just after Kalaks death.
Tieflings full stop. Genasi would name more sense.
Goliaths lol.
Eliminating clerics (erm derp....)
So yeah it was about shoehorning in 4Eisms regardless. Consequences are no one really cares now. They didn't do it organically it was square peg round hole.
A bit more care they could have slotted in some things and respected the setting. Eg variant Dragonborn more in line with the Dray original presentation.
If I was doing Darksun and adding new stuff I would look at what makes sense at least. Eg Genasi, Barbarians, Sorcerers (with Athasian origin, subject to defilng rules as well).
But no shoehorn in Tieflings. Settings almost screaming out for Genasi.
Athas is a swords and sorcery setting and "You run into a Mysterious Glade where there's something of the past that leads to a lost city out of time that's barely holding on due to the destruction of the world" is part and parcel for that. Or are you saying that the various fey things that existed prior just, didn't exist? They had a villain called the Pixie Blight, of course there's going to be some ruined fey things about. This is just establishing it as a wider thing and fulfilling the same role "Conan the Barbarian runs into a djinn" would fulfil
What, mechanically, differentiates the way templars get their powers from warlock? They weren't going to design a whole new class for an incidental thing, and they're both drawing on the power of the Sorcerer King and using it to cast magic. You know from 5E that warlocks can use divine stuff after all, to tap into the cleric vibe
Fey step isn't an arcane teleportation and, we are talking Athas here, where Arakocra and Kenku (and this is 2E kenku, where they absolutely are able to fly) are already noted, confirmed canonical playable races, so given the forum's view on flying PCs its hardly the worse
Dray are fine after Kalak's death. The Sorcerer Kings have been alive for centuries, they have weird little side projects like this they work on. Hell, Nightmare Beasts are basically "oops we introduced a problem" but they're an iconic Dark Sun critter. And like... Looks. Let's look at Dray stats. Y'know what they had in 2E? Fire resistance and okay armor. That's it. They're nothing special. Is it that shocking the weirdos Dregoth threw out into the world, that the 2E books even say can have whatever weird power you want, may develop other powers due to being a prototype for the final Dray he's cooking up? The world had a whole Thrii-Kreen empire out that that apparently just existed the whole time and never interacted, yet a few unloved lizard guys taking up the trade of killing folks is the unbelievable thing?
Good news, Genesi are also there! I didn't mention it because, genasi weren't a PHB1 race
Ggoliahts are half giants through and through. Unless you want their original rules which are, well, I get why you're laughing because original Dark Sun half giant rules are dumb. Heck, they even noted "Someone wants to be a minotaur? Beasthead giants exist, link them to 'em"
Clerics are still there and noted very specifically they're mostly of the elemental variety, just like original Dark Sun
All it'd take for making them more like original Dray is weakening them, because Dray were pretty bleh in their original stats. The active dragonfear or elemental breath weapons are a lot more interesting in a tactical game over "You can resist fire more", much the same way "Here's some alignment nonsense because you're ~so silly~" was never brought back as a rule for half giants in 3E, 4E or 5E
Good news, you can defile as a 4E sorcerer! Its just, y'know. A choice