D&D General Dark Sun as a Hopepunk Setting

[AnotherGuy]

but regardless should we not be talking about how this dark sun is to be made?

I'm still flabbergasted on how small the Dark Sun setting is as depicted on @Staffan's post on page 1 of this thread. I never collected or read DS material - I was more of a Mystara guy, some DL, RL and FR, so yeah, that is a really small area for all those sorcerer-kings and to build a secret rebel militia to overthrow them.

 

[Steampunkette]

I'm still flabbergasted out how small the Dark Sun setting is from @Staffan's post on page 1 of this thread. I never collected or read DS material - I was more of a Mystara guy, some DL, RL and FR, so yeah, that is a really small area for all those sorcerer-kings and to build a secret rebel militia to overthrow them.

It's on a huge, dead, empty world! Thousands upon thousands of miles of rocks and sand in every direction.

The Wars of Extinction, in which the servants of Rajaat sought to wipe out goblins, gnomes, dwarves, basically anyone who wasn't a halfling, resulted in massive ecological disaster as their magics defiled the lands of Athas and stripped away all life and moisture, destroying it all, utterly.

Part of why my thought would be to shift the story more towards anticapitalism as the basis of the environmentalist issues involved. As it stands, it's just puppy kicking levels of evil rather than something more "Callous Disregard" levels of evil.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I'm still flabbergasted out how small the Dark Sun setting is from @Staffan's post on page 1 of this thread. I never collected or read DS material - I was more of a Mystara guy, some DL, RL and FR, so yeah, that is a really small area for all those sorcerer-kings and to build a secret rebel militia to overthrow them.

I am fairly certain Legos Bara_Magna is slightly bigger.

It's on a huge, dead, empty world! Thousands upon thousands of miles of rocks and sand in every direction.

The Wars of Extinction, in which the servants of Rajaat sought to wipe out goblins, gnomes, dwarves, basically anyone who wasn't a halfling, resulted in massive ecological disaster as their magics defiled the lands of Athas and stripped away all life and moisture, destroying it all, utterly.

Part of why my thought would be to shift the story more towards anticapitalism as the basis of the environmentalist issues involved. As it stands, it's just puppy kicking levels of evil rather than something more "Callous Disregard" levels of evil.

we need it bigger so we can fill it with more stuff from more things trying to kill you to more factions trying to exist

 

[GrimCo]

Well, idk how big that area would be in real life, but we can use Kuwait as an example. It's small desert country, with longest border to border distances of 170 and 200 km, with 9 cities over 50k (4 over 100k) people. You can cram a lot of it in tight spaces when it's few cities and desert in between.

 

[AnotherGuy]

It's on a huge, dead, empty world! Thousands upon thousands of miles of rocks and sand in every direction.

The Wars of Extinction, in which the servants of Rajaat sought to wipe out goblins, gnomes, dwarves, basically anyone who wasn't a halfling, resulted in massive ecological disaster as their magics defiled the lands of Athas and stripped away all life and moisture, destroying it all, utterly.

Thanks for that.

Part of why my thought would be to shift the story more towards anticapitalism as the basis of the environmentalist issues involved.

The wider ecological desolation and the resource scarcity for me are somewhat more attractive, but if you were to lean towards the anticapitalism I can see how the uprising of slaves against their masters may be the strong focus.
Having said that, there are many ways to tackle this - uprising against the masters, specialised unit to assassinate the sorcerer kings, pushback against the scarcity issue by reversing the ecological effects on the lands - thus breaking monopolies...etc

I recently ran an adventure in Ylari (Mystara) where the environment was the co-BBEG and our table seemed to enjoy it.

EDIT: When the monsters (Magmin) are rushing towards the party encampment but instead sidestep the characters and run with maniacal glee at their backpacks which possess their precious waterskins, rations and equipment to set them ablaze that's when the players realised things were serious
The party had no create water/food spells.

 

[Steampunkette]

Thanks for that.

The wider ecological desolation and the resource scarcity for me are somewhat more attractive, but if you were to lean towards the anticapitalism I can see how the uprising of slaves against their masters may be the strong focus.
Having said that, there are many ways to tackle this - uprising against the masters, specialised unit to assassinate the sorcerer kings, pushback against the scarcity issue by reversing the ecological effects on the lands - thus breaking monopolies...etc

I recently ran an adventure in Ylari (Mystara) where the environment was the co-BBEG and our table seemed to enjoy it.

EDIT: When the monsters (Magmin) are rushing towards the party encampment but instead sidestep the characters and run with maniacal glee towards their backpacks with their precious waterskins, rations and equipment to set them ablaze that's when the players realised things were serious

Oh, I more mean in the "How the world was lost" portion of the setting. The background.

In Dark Sun, traditionally, the Champions of Rajaat who become the Sorcerer Kings are basically just the most evil megalomaniacs to ever exist. Rajaat's a halfling who thinks Halflings should inherit Athas since it was theirs to begin with. All other races are just mutant halflings, after all. (Canonically. Halflings existed first, and gave rise to humans, dwarves, elves, giants, Etc).

He believed that by killing everyone who wasn't a halfling off during the previous age, the world would magically go back to the perfection it had in the -first- age. 2 ages before he was born (Green, Blue, Magic, Red is current).

But the Sorcerer Kings wiped out the world for him. Because he told them it would make them all more powerful than they could ever dream. Directly slaughtering all the Trolls and Gnomes and so forth would make them powerful. So they did. And destroyed the world in the process.

I would change that to be more "Evil Capitalist" vibes rather than conquering warrior. Like. They KNOW what they're doing will destroy the world, but they do it anyway, for power and wealth. And it's less "Go murder innocents" and more "Innocents will die, but I'll save 20 cents a day if I use this power source to fuel my machines... welp. 20 cents a day isn't nothing!"

 

[Mind of tempest]

Well, idk how big that area would be in real life, but we can use Kuwait as an example. It's small desert country, with longest border to border distances of 170 and 200 km, with 9 cities over 50k (4 over 100k) people. You can cram a lot of it in tight spaces when it's few cities and desert in between.

it is a setting with more space makes those treks seem more harrowing and means it feels less unrealistic for such societies to have survived in any form.

I know it canonically has two forms of jungle adapted thri kreen thus it has horrific forests somewhere, I want a desert as big as the sub-continent of India before you get to other environments some of which might even be worse

 

[AnotherGuy]

I would change that to be more "Evil Capitalist" vibes rather than conquering warrior. Like. They KNOW what they're doing will destroy the world, but they do it anyway, for power and wealth. And it's less "Go murder innocents" and more "Innocents will die, but I'll save 20 cents a day if I use this power source to fuel my machines... welp. 20 cents a day isn't nothing!"

Ah, so the murder is less actively genocidal but rather a by-product of the system.
Drawing on parallels.

 

[Corinnguard]

In Dark Sun, traditionally, the Champions of Rajaat who become the Sorcerer Kings are basically just the most evil megalomaniacs to ever exist. Rajaat's a halfling who thinks Halflings should inherit Athas since it was theirs to begin with. All other races are just mutant halflings, after all. (Canonically. Halflings existed first, and gave rise to humans, dwarves, elves, giants, Etc).

Rajaat wasn't a halfling, he was a member of an ancient race of beings known as the Pyreen.

Pyreen

Pyreen are a mysterious race of beings that existed. Pyreens (or Peace-Bringers) are mysterious beings that roam the world of Athas. They are powerful psionicists and very powerful druids. They travel about Athas attempting to set things right, although it looks like a hopeless battle. Few know...

darksun.fandom.com

Rajaat

Rajaat, known as the First Sorcerer and the WarBringer, is an ancient Pyreen from a distant, forgotten age in Athas's past. He first appeared among the kingdoms of that era as a benevolent and wise conciliator, bringing peace where there was war and teaching ancient and powerful Preserver Magic...

darksun.fandom.com

Unlike his fellow Pyreen, who were all angelic of visage and straight of limb, Rajaat was a twisted, ugly lump of a creature who caused great disgust by his mere presence. The reactions to his twisted body soon caused his mind to fester with self-hatred and rage, until it was just as hideous as the rest of him, He came to despise the warring and stupidity he perceived among the younger races of the Green Age, and came to believe that the ancient Halflings of the Blue Age were the true inheritors of Athas, and its rightful masters. He came to believe that all of those born of the Halflings during their Rebirth were usurpers and pests, to be eradicated and removed from the world so that the Halflings might resume their stewardship of Athas.

 

[el-remmen]

I love these ideas and look forward to their development, but I will say I can't help but snicker at the term "hopepunk" (and have ever since I first heard it a few years go) because when I think "punk" I think of it as an F.U. to the establishment from a sense of there being "NO FUTURE" (so the term seems self-contradictory). But I'm old, so some understandings die hard. It only took me a decade to stop snickering at the term "steampunk" (ok, sometimes I still do) and I associate "cyberpunk" with a technocratic hopeless near future society.

But again, I find the ideas presented here as a great way to redo Dark Sun and terminology chosen doesn't really have to jibe with me for it to be successful.