D&D 5E "Doom Sun" − reconstructing a 5e Dark Sun setting for the DMs Guild

[Shardstone]

Ok, obviously I haven't seen the final product, but how much is Fyreen just "Athas with a different name"? Is it hot or cold? Mostly dead or still full of life? Psionic rich or magical? Barsoom or Dying Earth?

It sounded at first to Shmark Shmun, but the more I hear, the more it sounds like a different post-Apocalyptic world borrowing some DS ideas and monsters rather than a find/replace name change.

Anyone want to elaborate how close these two worlds actually are?

Fyreen is Athas that froze over when the sun was destroyed, or that's what I'm gleaning from it originally. It was defiled by tyrannical dragons (end-state of the Sorcerer-Kings), has thri-keen, has gladatorial colosseums, and so on.

I believe that Athas being made into an ice world and about to be destroyed with no recognizable city-states probably made them realize they might as well make this a separate setting. It was already so different that, with a name change, you'd have to be aware of DS to see the similarities.

 

[Laurefindel]

Yes, but Fyreen is said to be days away from falling into the black hole, so setting this “Doom Sun” there would put a pretty tight time constraint on any adventures in the setting.

Well, that would fix the five-minutes-work-day!

Or you keep playing the same day over and over again in a mix of groundhog day and outerwilds?

 

[pukunui]

@Yaarel: Why are you so certain it was the FR gods? The text doesn’t imply that at all.

 

[Yaarel]

Although frankly, it’s kinda weird that the sun becoming a black hole would have caused the planet’s temperature to drop. The disc of material orbiting a black hole should be plenty hot enough to warm a planet orbiting it (depending on the distance, of course).

Good point about the disk.



One can almost turn the 5e Doomspace on its head.

If Fyreen is an other name for Athas, the Forgotten Realms gods have vandalized it and abandoned it. Perhaps this was the case all along?

In the absence of the gods, elemental sacred traditions emerged, achieving Positive Energy by other methods.

It was the metamorphosis of the sorcerer kings that originally caused the sun go to go "dark" crimson. What actually happened was, their Dark Lens artifact destroyed the sun, transforming it into a black hole. The accretion disc orbiting the new black hole ignited, illuminating the planet with red light, and making it appear as if there is now a crimson sun.

The result of this calamity happened in ancient times, about a 8000 years before the time period of the 2e Dark Sun setting.

Much of the planet is cold. But it is illuminated by a crimson sun, enough to keep the plants alive. The region of Tyr, with the Tablelands, is geothermically warm.

All is as it should be.

The "dragons" that despoiled the volcanic world, have become "tyrants". This has been going on for about 2000 years.

Recently one of the moons went rogue, and the other one is about to do so too. This is new. Probably, the loss of the stabilizing lunar gravity is allowing the planetary axis to wobble erratically. So the seasons are now summers and winters that last a less predictable number of days.

It is a sparsely populated planet. Its creatures number in the millions, not in the billions or more. The dohwars (anthropomorphic penguins) and the mercanes (Large spelljammer-ship merchants, who are also known for magic item markets) have transported a few thousand creatures from the planet, possibly a single city. This transport already happened in ancient times when the sun went dark, long before the time period of the 2e Dark Sun setting.

 

[Yaarel]

@Yaarel: Why are you so certain it was the FR gods? The text doesn’t imply that at all.

Heh, in 5e, every setting has been absorbed into the Forgotten Realms. Forgotten Realms is the black hole of D&D settings.

But it doesnt matter. Forgotten Realms gods are fungible.

That gods have decided to abandon Doomspace is a relief.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

That’s the opposite of how time dilation works. Time always moves “normally” from the observer’s perspective. To an observer on Toril, the time it will appear to take Fyreen to fall into the black hole approaches infinity as Fyreen gets closer to the event horizon (and eventually Fyreen will disappear from the Toril obsverer’s view because the time it will take the light reflected off Fyreen to reach Toril also approaches infinity). Meanwhile, to an observer on Fyreen, it will only take days to fall into the black hole.

hey don't inject facts and science... this is the setting with space pigs and if we want time dilation to mean 10,000 years can pass in less then 5 minutes we can...

 

[Jer]

Here are references for the official 5e Spelljammer.

DOOMSPACE
View attachment 257150

Interesting - I can see why they decided to make it not-Athas. Destroying the sun is one thing, but then having the planet on a collision course with it in such a short time frame pretty much ends the setting. It would be a pretty shabby way to treat a pretty cool setting.

The backstory of primoridals driving off the gods sounds familiar though - was that from the 4e setting book? Or am I just having a phantom memory here? I'll need to check when I get some time. Interesting cameo for crystal spheres too.

 

[Umbran]

The gods then detonated the sun and created the Doomed Sun, a Supermassive Black Hole.

The term "supermassive black hole" means something specific to anyone who knows more than a pittance about astronomy. Supermassive black holes are not created from single stars. These are the things found in the cores of galaxies, and have masses ranging from millions to billions of normal stars.

So, really, don't use that word.

 

[Charlaquin]

The physics of fantasy space are not going to be the same as in our universe. I wouldn't assume that it's an actual black hole that follows the laws of physics - I'd assume at most it's a black hole in a story that follows the rules of science writing in a non hard-SF narrative (i.e. accurate as far as the person writing about it understands it).

It probably leads somewhere. Like to the Negative Material Plane or something.

Ahh, the pitfalls of science fantasy. The closer you get to something scientific, the greater the risk of someone like me “um, actually”ing your magic black space sarlac.

 

[Charlaquin]

Ok, obviously I haven't seen the final product, but how much is Fyreen just "Athas with a different name"? Is it hot or cold? Mostly dead or still full of life? Psionic rich or magical? Barsoom or Dying Earth?

It sounded at first to Shmark Shmun, but the more I hear, the more it sounds like a different post-Apocalyptic world borrowing some DS ideas and monsters rather than a find/replace name change.

Anyone want to elaborate how close these two worlds actually are?

I think you’re over-estimating the amount of content the book dedicates to Doomspace. It’s just a two-page spread. Someone posted a screen shot of it. That’s it, that’s all there is.