Spelljammer Dark Sun confirmed? Or, the mysterious case of the dissappearing Spelljammer article...

[Charlaquin]

Ancient slavery is more like credit-card debt or student loans.

People are doing labor as a method of paying off a financial debt.

You’re not wrong, but this is a condemnation of the modern student loan system, not a defense of ancient slavery. With credit card debt you can at least declare bankruptcy.

 

[Yaarel]

You’re not wrong, but this is a condemnation of the modern student loan system, not a defense of ancient slavery. With credit card debt you can at least declare bankruptcy.

While I have a neutral tone because I value being honest and accurate about ancient times.

I agree completely about our modern predicament.

Student loans are a form of slavery.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I wouldn't be too sure. Attitudes are changing. I've seen a lot of posts on social media, message boards and blogs that all say that slavery should just not be depicted in ANY form (good or bad) and that there are "better stories" without having to rely on it as a crutch since its existence in the game prevents certain people from playing D&D at all because the mention of it is too stressful for them. That makes having it as a topic gatekeeping.

On the other hand, it has shown up as a topic in Adventurer's League adventures as long as a proper Trigger Warning gets put on the front page of the adventure. It is possible that it is so tied to Dark Sun that they will be willing to put a warning on the entire setting.

how on earth could someone be stressed about slaver it is almost extinct in all forms, the forms depicted in darksun no one alive has suffered, I would be agianst it being shown in a good light but how can something you can't truly know stress you out?

You’re not wrong, but this is a condemnation of the modern student loan system, not a defense of ancient slavery. With credit card debt you can at least declare bankruptcy.

give people time I am sure it will get worse, it normally does.

 

[Yaarel]

Regarding 5e Athas − fey and shadow.

According to Dark Sun, Athas has a "positive material plane" and a "negative material plane". These are areas of the planet that resonate with positivity and its life versus other areas that resonate with negativity and its death.

The negative landscapes can have areas where the veil is thin between the material and shadow planes. The dragon sorcerers have a Negative Shadow vibe.

Likewise the positive landscapes can have areas where the veil is thin between the material and fey planes. The avangions have a Positive Fey vibe.

Of course, the elementals are out of balance. The negativity is pervasive. The positivity is rare. The feywild is either almost or completely inaccessible. Possibly the feywild itself is desolate if there is less life to overlap.

 

[Charlaquin]

Regarding 5e Athas − fey and shadow.

According to Dark Sun, Athas has a "positive material plane" and a "negative material plane". These are areas of the planet that resonate with positivity and its life versus other areas that resonate with negativity and its death.

The negative landscapes can have areas where the veil is thin between the material and shadow planes. The dragon sorcerers have a Negative Shadow vibe.

Likewise the positive landscapes can have areas where the veil is thin between the material and fey planes. The avangions have a Positive Fey vibe.

Of course, the elementals are out of balance. The negativity is pervasive. The positivity is rare. The feywild is either almost or completely inaccessible. Possibly the feywild itself is desolate if there is less life to overlap.

That’s pretty much how 4e handled adding the Faewild and Shadowfell to Dark Sun, yeah.

 

[Yaarel]

Athas − gray plane and black plane

The black plane is the 1e and 2e "shadow plane".

The gray plane is a novel realm of the dead.

In 5e, both of these planes have merged into the shadowfell plane.

Now, the gray is something like the areas the shadowfell where ghosts that overlap the material plane.

The black is the areas of the shadowfell that have no connection to the material plane, and are lightless misty void. This is where isolated domains of dread can be found.

Speculatively, the Doomspace is this journey from the astral, thru the black shadow void, to the gray overlapping the places on the planet of Athas, and finally finding a way to materialize into the material plane, to set foot on Athas itself.

 

[Medic]

how on earth could someone be stressed about slaver it is almost extinct in all forms, the forms depicted in darksun no one alive has suffered, I would be agianst it being shown in a good light but how can something you can't truly know stress you out?

There are more slaves on Earth now than there have ever been and we are its direct beneficiaries.

 

[Parmandur]

Which works, up to a point. But there does come a point where you’ve changed so much from the recipe that cookbook isn’t actually helping you any more.

It also doesn’t work very well if there’s a metaplot. I’m not sure how to fit that into the cookbook analogy, but if you make changes to a setting with a metaplot, and then the metaplot advances in a direction that doesn’t mesh with your changes, you reach that point where the book is no longer helpful to you much faster. Which is I think part of why metaplots went out of fashion after cWoD’s ended (originally).

I'd say those are great examples of the analogy working: any game book is going to take work to implement, but if it would take too much work maybe find a different recipe. And metaplot really just doesn’t work for RPGs.

 

[Mind of tempest]

There are more slaves on Earth now than there have ever been and we are its direct beneficiaries.

define what you mean?

 

[overgeeked]

define what you mean?

Do you have a smart phone or any other electronic device? It was built by workers in foreign countries who are effectively enslaved. Do you have clothes made in foreign countries? They were made by workers who are effectively enslaved. The people who pick your produce can barely afford to buy the same produce they pick from the grocery store. Do you have any authentic jewelry? Most diamonds that come from Africa are referred to as Blood Diamonds because the workers mining those gemstones are effectively enslaved. The diamonds that don't come from enslaved workers are wildly more expensive. Repeat that for basically every aspect of modern life. That's how there's a whole lot of enslaved people today and how everyone in modern society directly benefits from it. Your cheap prices are the direct result of someone else being enslaved.