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

[briggart]

I agree completely- and this is subsequently a source of confusion for me. Doomspace sounds like a great concept - very similar, in fact, to my own plans for a darker Spelljammer campaign.

Why then must we crowbar in an old campaign setting? Why not let Athas be Athas, and explore the possibility of something different for Doomspace? We have Darksun - it's there, it's codified in numerous books, and it can exist in any game the GM wishes to run. Why try and force the square peg into such a resolutely round hole?

This is not a direct response to Charlaquin, but rather my perplexed reaction to the concept of hijacking something that is not Darksun and trying to make it Darksun.

I'm not familiar with 4e Dark Sun, but the 2e/3e timeline was divided into 3 main periods: the Blue Age, the Green Age, and the cleansing wars and its aftermath. The turning point between each of these periods was a monumental feat of magic/psionics/life-shaping which tapped into the sun's power, changing it from blue, to yellow, to red. So I can see how a possible way to advance the timeline would involve some new cataclysm which required tapping once again into the sun's power and turning it into a black hole. I agree that Doomspace could work well on its own, but from a certain point of view it also make sense as future Athas.

 

[Maxperson]

And to be fair, I’m pretty sure the possibility of the doom maw being a portal to somewhere else is mentioned.

Mentioned where?

 

[Charlaquin]

Mentioned where?

In the entry for Doomspace in the book. It’s only a two-page spread, someone posted a screenshot of it in this thread.

 

[JEB]

One thing 5E has been pretty careful about has been horribly offending fans of existing settings - like the 5E version of the Forgotten Realms is very much "Whooops we went too far in 4E, here's basically-3E FR back!".

That was true for the Realms in 2014, and Eberron in 2019, but not so much for Ravenloft in 2021. (Though I wonder if the mixed response from veteran Ravenloft fans informed Wizards' decision to change "Athaspace" into "Doomspace".)

 

[dave2008]

Mentioned where?

It is hard to read, but it was posted on the 1st page of this thread. It reads (2nd paragraph):

"What happens to a creature or object that enters the vortex? That's up to you. Although most creatures in Doomspace assume the vortex is a destructive force, it might be a gate to another dimension, an alternate reality, or another Wildspace system."

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My theory is Athas and Fyreen are two different worlds, but with some secret link between boths, maybe something like Aber and Toril in the Realmspace, or Oerth(Greyhawk), Aerth, Uerth, Yarth, and Earth(Hasbroverse). Maybe are parallel worlds or alternate timelines. And Fyreen is opener for potentially future crossovers. You can enjoy more creative freedom to customize, for example adding new PC races and classes. Fyreen in DM Guilds is better option for creative 3PPs than the original Dark Sun.

Maybe in the next year WotC will tell Vecna caused a reboot of the complete D&D multiverse, and all the settings may be altered. This could explain possible retcons.

What if the "Doomspace" is the secret lair of the faction from the module "the black spine"?

 

[delericho]

That was true for the Realms in 2014, and Eberron in 2019, but not so much for Ravenloft in 2021. (Though I wonder if the mixed response from veteran Ravenloft fans informed Wizards' decision to change "Athaspace" into "Doomspace".)

If it were just veteran fans, I doubt it would make that much difference - the numbers of old vs new fans are just too heavily skewed. But the response from their playtesters may have been fairly extreme and negative.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That was true for the Realms in 2014, and Eberron in 2019, but not so much for Ravenloft in 2021. (Though I wonder if the mixed response from veteran Ravenloft fans informed Wizards' decision to change "Athaspace" into "Doomspace".)

See, you say that, but I know a number of long-term Ravenloft fans IRL who aren't the "very online" people who inhabit messageboards, and all of them loved VRGtR, and none of them had the very lore-specific critiques some people here did, so I'm skeptical about how "mixed" the reaction was. Likewise reddit and Twitter seemed to like it. So I think they still went out of their way to avoid unnecessarily offending fans - but they had to make some lore choices, and they chose the ones which would make Ravenloft work better in the longer-term, rather than the shorter term. Even the offended people seemed to mostly be "mildly annoyed", rather than incensed like say with 4E's changes to the FR.

If it were just veteran fans, I doubt it would make that much difference - the numbers of old vs new fans are just too heavily skewed. But the response from their playtesters may have been fairly extreme and negative.

Yeah that's plausible.

Dark Sun is bizarrely popular, like Spelljammer, with younger people who have never played it, and has a whole chunk of people who like it from the 4E incarnation. If the version in Spelljammer seemed to be selling Athas short, or messing Athas up, I suspect a lot of people who might never even have played Dark Sun would have their noses put out of joint.

Especially as if it was similar to Fyreen, the whole "environmental" aspect would have been lost, because instead of the people of the planet screwing it up, they got screwed over by divine bollocks, which is a very different vibe - "sins of the ancestors" vs "a mean foreign god did it". It's just completely not the same.

 

[humble minion]

In the entry for Doomspace in the book. It’s only a two-page spread, someone posted a screenshot of it in this thread.

We should bear in mind of course that Doomspace is an adventure location in Light of Xarxyris, and there's probably a bit more detail on the place that'll be revealed in the actual adventure material - what the PCs are expected to do there, what hazards they encounter, who they meet, etc. So far we've only seen a bit of fairly general background material, I'm sure more specifics will be forthcoming.

 

[TheSword]

This is the most bizarre thing I’ve seen in a long long term time. To me it smacks of someone thinking they’re clever by making a parody (except it isn’t very funny) or homage to the old Athas without it being accurate. Either way, it was going to get the backs up of fans of Darksun (of which there are many).

You have to be familiar with Dark Sun, defiling, it’s lack of pantheon, know what a drey or Athasian dragon looks like, and the fact that Fyreen sounds like Pyreen.

All in all a pretty cheap shot. Too similar not to be referential, too different to give fans a hope that anything resembling the original will be forthcoming.

Very disappointing, and just reinforces my feeling that if I want to enjoy 5e going forward I need to rely on third parties, because what’s coming out of WOC is a steaming pile.