D&D General 1991 Dark Sun Setting Overview and Speculation

[LuisCarlos17f]

And what if Vecna's action created a new demiplane working like a spiritual sucessor of Dark Sun?

 

[squibbles]

And what if Vecna's action created a new demiplane working like a spiritual sucessor of Dark Sun?

Well, respectfully, I don't think that's necessary. Dark Sun exists as a fictional setting regardless of whatever else is going on in WotC's product catalogue; it doesn't need in universe justification to exist. Alternately, I don't think any adventure publications will prompt WotC to change course on their decision to never publish Dark Sun again (sadly).

Also, there are several "spiritual successors" to Dark Sun, if that's what you're looking for--Dragon Kings, the shuttered Red Dawn: Into The Dawnlands, and somewhat more loosely Scourge of the Scornlords.

But if we're starting a thought experiment about what an alternate Dark Sun demiplane would look like, I've, at times, imagined the setting as a demiplane of dread with its misty border replaced by dust storms and the dark lord as an ordinary adventurer who wants to destroy the sorcerer kings but can't--and has significantly worstened the region by trying.

With regards to Vecna, I have no idea what the particulars of his shennanagins would imply, having not bought or read the new adventure book. Care to elaborate there? IIRC you created a thread about that recently. You are welcome to link it here if you like.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Dark Sun is too troublemaker to be updated, but too potentially valious to fall into the oblivion.

Other companies can create a spiritual succesor but WotC needs itself.

My theory is WotC will publish crunch to can be used in an possible update of DS, but the lore will be untouched in the TTRPG sourcebooks until a change of criteria by the bosses. The possible metaplot will be continued by other sources, maybe new comics, novels, or a videogame.

 

[squibbles]

[...] My theory is WotC will publish crunch to can be used in an possible update of DS, but the lore will be untouched in the TTRPG sourcebooks until a change of criteria by the bosses. The possible metaplot will be continued by other sources, maybe new comics, novels, or a videogame.

I don't hate that.

Most Dark Sun fans would probably be pretty happy to get official crunch without lore, given that the original lore hasn't gone anywhere.

I dunno about the metaplot--it is widely disliked and, by my lights, not very good. I think it could be saved, though.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The old DS is not ready for the current crunch and standars. Today the Athasian Tablelands we know are too "small", and DS needs a lot of space where the sorcerer-kings weren't the maing antagonists.

In the past my suggestion is something like a spin-off franchise. After new action by Vecna trying to rewritte the multiverse the Athasian Tablelands are within a "bigger pack". The original DS we know hasn't changed at all, and we can keep the contunity of the novel and about that, but now the main point of action is out, in other place.

Why not this? After the action by Vecna several wildspaces have merger into one, and one is the "Athaspace" or Crimson Sphere. Maybe now the Crimson Sphere is a demiplane working like a "firewall" in the space-time continum to avoid "tainted intruders" from isolated pieces of the D&D multiverse.

 

[Charlaquin]

After seeing what WotC almost did with Dark Sun in the Spelljammer boxed set, before thankfully making the decision to make Doomspace its own thing separate from Athas, I think it’s for the best that they consider the setting too problematic to touch. Let it remain something for fans of the setting as it existed to homebrew around, be that faithful recreations of whatever version was their favorite, explorations of the lands beyond the Tyr region, or reimaginings built out of the parts of the setting they consider most central to it.