D&D General 1991 Dark Sun Setting Overview and Speculation

[Rikka66]

Everybody can understand there are lots of people with darker skin in Athas because its hot weather. My fear is about if the novels will be not canon any more.

And we don't know the future plans about crunch. Somebody could say gladiators could learn martial maneuvers (Tome of Battle: Book of nine Swords) or incarnum (totemist shaman). Or the warlock replace arcane with "primal" magic. What if a player wants to add warderns or seers (primal classes from 4th Ed).

Any suggestion? To allow Jackandor as a hypotetical spin-off of Dark Sun. Maybe both are linked by means of the Feywild.

Are spynewyrms true dragons?

The safe bet is them repeating a 4e and setting it right after Kalek's death. So, yeah, most of the novels won't be canon.

They aren't going interested in making more classes. If they do anything, it will be subclasses or perhaps some kind of Supernatural Gift-esque system. And why would they make a primal warlock? That's a druid. If players want to add a Warden, I'm guessing there won't be a rule against it. But WoTC aren't going to make rules for it (again, maybe a subclass).
Also not sure what you're referring to with "seer", as that was not a 4e class.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I want the next iteration of Athas to not give the sorcerer monarchs PC stats.

Ignoring the the final book of the Prism Pentad is the best course.

I hope they completely redraw the geography beyond the Tablelands making the Ringing Mountains, you know, a massive crater-like ring.

Keep quirky cosmology and never, in no way, try and connect it to the default D&D cosmology.

 

[squibbles]

They're unlikely to do that, for the same reasons they didn't just create a bunch of brand new domains for Ravenloft.

The safe bet is them repeating a 4e and setting it right after Kalek's death. [...]

This is a curious thing that happens in setting discussion threads, so I'd like to draw a distinction. Two types of claims are being made here (again, as is common in many setting discussion threads):

1. This is what would be good for the setting / this is what I personally want from the setting. To some extent these are distinct claims, but in practice they are the same, since everyone--myself included--mixes them together.
2. This is what WotC (or other company) is likely to do, for business reasons (incl. cultural, practical, political, etc.).

Claims of the first type are often addressed with claims of the second type, i.e. a thing that poster A claims would be good for the setting (or personally prefers) is said to be unlikely by poster B for business reasons.

And that's fair enough.

To clarify my own claims, the OP stated:

I have 100% talked myself into the idea that what I want from future Dark Sun publications is a book about the eastern shore of the Sea of Silt—new cites, new sorcerer kings, new borrowed cultures, and a status quo that is not in any way hidebound to the lore of the Tyr Region. Its timeline could start from Kalak’s death, the end of the Prism Pentad, well before, well after, or be completely different—each gaming group would decide for themselves and any new lore would be timeline agnostic.

And the post quoted by @Faolyn stated:

rather than getting a homunculus of the 1991 set--sans problematic bits--I'd prefer they start with fresh canvas.

I'm making claims of the first type or, at least, that's what I intended to be doing. Those are statements of personal preference, and of what I think would be good for the setting. I'd like to see content that is more than a repetition of the 4e materials, and would like to see the implementation of creative ideas that are more compelling than ones I could have implemented myself or borrowed from other fans.

I am interested in hearing what you all think of my ideas, as I obsessively presented them in the OP, as well as what your own novel Dark Sun headcannon might be.

-----

But to engage bluntly with the second type of claim: I think you are both 100% correct about the future of Dark Sun publications.

If WotC revisits Dark Sun in 5e--and they may well not, given the setting's contentious content, and the hostility with which their psionic UAs were received--they will almost certainly recreate the Tyr region and pre-Pentad status quo, as they did in 4e.

And--since I am a cynical and mirthless person--I believe that, after they do so (if they do so) there will be no other Dark Sun publications for 5e. And, very likely, no other Dark Sun publications for a few editions hence--leaving the setting frozen for, probably, another decade or more.

That seems like an unhappy prospect to me and, as I'd mentioned upthread, I'm somewhat puzzled by the degree that it appeals to so many other fans of the setting.

But to each their own; WotC will do whatever WotC does.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm making claims of the first type or, at least, that's what I intended to be doing. Those are statements of personal preference, and of what I think would be good for the setting. I'd like to see content that is more than a repetition of the 4e materials, and would like to see the implementation of creative ideas that are more compelling than ones I could have implemented myself or borrowed from other fans.

I am interested in hearing what you all think of my ideas, as I obsessively presented them in the OP, as well as what your own novel Dark Sun headcannon might be.

The claim:

I have 100% talked myself into the idea that what I want from future Dark Sun publications is a book about the eastern shore of the Sea of Silt—new cites, new sorcerer kings, new borrowed cultures, and a status quo that is not in any way hidebound to the lore of the Tyr Region. Its timeline could start from Kalak’s death, the end of the Prism Pentad, well before, well after, or be completely different—each gaming group would decide for themselves and any new lore would be timeline agnostic.

OK, now as some who read the main DS setting book and the MCs for it, but otherwise knows very little about the setting (and nothing from the novels): yes, it would be cool to have more of the world be explored. Especially if those regions are sufficiently different from Tyr (while still keeping in the Dark Sun milieu) to be notably interesting. It wouldn't really be worth it if was just "Tyr, but by the Sea of Silt." Whether it follows from 4e or not, I don't care--as I said, my knowledge of DS is limited. And I have no idea how much DS fans liked what they did in 4e, or even paid attention to it (I know they did some Ravenloft stuff, but since I didn't play 4e, I ignored that; I imagine that some DS fans would also do the same). I've heard that many didn't like what they did back in 2e when they produced some revised or expanded edition.

 

[squibbles]

OK, now as some who read the main DS setting book and the MCs for it, but otherwise knows very little about the setting (and nothing from the novels): yes, it would be cool to have more of the world be explored. Especially if those regions are sufficiently different from Tyr (while still keeping in the Dark Sun milieu) to be notably interesting. It wouldn't really be worth it if was just "Tyr, but by the Sea of Silt."

Thanks for meeting the OP premise on its own terms.

My thinking was that a new group of city-states would be based on a different set of world-historical analogs, with novel stylistic touchstones, and have a richer degree of detail and nuance that is informed by them. There's also a lot of opportunity in creating bizarre and idiosyncratic new sorcerer kings.

But you have a good point. There's not much value added to creating a bunch of new content if its substantially similar to old content in the ways that matter to players.

If I had my way, they'd try some new forms of political organization. Dark Sun was originally envisioned as a setting for use with the Battlesystem ruleset but was never really set up in a way that would logically lead to major set piece conflicts. If there were an asymmetry between sorcerer kings--one SK that is very powerful and controls a lot of land/resources beyond his/her own city state, and others that are in coalition, pooling their armies against him/her (maybe with one or two other SKs opportunistically waiting on the sidelines) it'd make sense for there to be more protracted military conflicts.

From a player perspective, that'd mean politics intruding into desert survival--i.e. it's important which faction controls an oasis--a greater opportunity to show the physical costs of defiling--as the competing SKs desolate the territory they're fighting over--and, most significantly, an opportunity to turn up the mad-max dial with lots of flamboyant warbeasts and machinery--like the mekillot caravans pictured in the 1991 set.

Any suggestion? To allow Jackandor as a hypothetical spin-off of Dark Sun. Maybe both are linked by means of the Feywild.

Intriguing. Care to elaborate?

Keep quirky cosmology and never, in no way, try and connect it to the default D&D cosmology.

Yes, I'd strongly agree with that. Athas more than other settings needs to be cordoned off from D&D's standard high fantasy trappings.

I hope they completely redraw the geography beyond the Tablelands making the Ringing Mountains, you know, a massive crater-like ring.

That's a cool idea. Where would you go with it? Would it differ significantly from the ringing mountain barrier east and west and ringing mountain ribs north and south setup (i.e. no forest ridge), and what would the existence of the crater mean?

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

That's a cool idea. Where would you go with it? Would it differ significantly from the ringing mountain barrier east and west and ringing mountain ribs north and south setup (i.e. no forest ridge), and what would the existence of the crater mean?

The existence of a giant crater-like ring could at the minimum imply the existence of the astronomical phenomena that make craters. But more than that, it is a nod towards the sorts of sword and planet fiction that have inspired Dark Sun. I’m thinking of Barsoom.

It doesn’t have to be a published reason for why “civilizations” are clustered inside the crater, there could be any number of options open to DMs, like after the Cleansing Wars we’re over the Sorcerer Monarchs settled within the crater to “start over”, but outside the crater the rhul thaun halflings and their kreen and other desert survivors dominate. Or, the Cleansing Wars destroyed the planet but the Sorcerer Monarchs did not win and had to retreat within the protective mountains of the crater.

I always like the fan-theory that Athas was a moon, and the large “moon” was actually a gas giant planet Athas orbited around and craters seem to be an iconic surface feature of moons.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We have to remember the time travel was oficially canon in DS, and this means the possibilities of alternate timelines where you can customize to your linking.

The banning of classes or PCs shouldn't the rule in DS. Maybe there is a paladin subclass, the ardent, with psionic powers, or the warden, where the paladin's divine magic is replaced with primal magic.

WotC shouldn't close the door for the idea of new classes. If these aren't published by WotC then they will be by 3PPs, and there are players willing to buy them. Totem shamans should be possible in DS, and gladiators with (ki) martial maneuvers. And we can't forget the new PC races from Expanded Psionic Handbook.

About the novels my opinion is there is something like a "Skywalker effect", where nothing changes until the main characters, the heroes, appear, and then a lot of things are happening changing all. The sorcerer-kings have ruled for thousands of years but the rebellion starts and they fall as flies.

 

[Kurotowa]

Dang, is 'Atlantis' a serious scholarly thing now? That's wild!

No, it really really isn't. At least, nothing you would recognize as "Atlantis". There's some speculative but interesting theories about early human habitation in coastal areas that are now underwater, with the sea level changes after the Ice Age. At one point Indonesia was a sub-continent instead of an island chain. But nothing at all approaching the Atlantis of popular culture.

 

[Faolyn]

My thinking was that a new group of city-states would be based on a different set of world-historical analogs, with novel stylistic touchstones, and have a richer degree of detail and nuance that is informed by them. There's also a lot of opportunity in creating bizarre and idiosyncratic new sorcerer kings.


If I had my way, they'd try some new forms of political organization. Dark Sun was originally envisioned as a setting for use with the Battlesystem ruleset but was never really set up in a way that would logically lead to major set piece conflicts. If there were an asymmetry between sorcerer kings--one SK that is very powerful and controls a lot of land/resources beyond his/her own city state, and others that are in coalition, pooling their armies against him/her (maybe with one or two other SKs opportunistically waiting on the sidelines) it'd make sense for there to be more protracted military conflicts.

I have to wonder, though--do Dark Sun fans want to deal with armies and mass battles? From what I've seen, the draws appear to be the Mad Max-y post-apocalypse-ness plus biotech and psionics and mutants and stuff like that, illustrated (by Brom, of course) in a planetary romance style.

As I said, I'm not a player--it's not the type of setting I'd want to DM, and so far, nobody has offered to run it for me--so I'm mostly going by what I've seen others have said.

 

[Faolyn]

WotC shouldn't close the door for the idea of new classes. If these aren't published by WotC then they will be by 3PPs, and there are players willing to buy them. Totem shamans should be possible in DS, and gladiators with (ki) martial maneuvers. And we can't forget the new PC races from Expanded Psionic Handbook.

The problem is, nobody is going to agree on what psionics should be. Spell-like, point-based, just abilities, or something else entirely. I have a sneaking suspicion they're not going to create a psionicist class. I can see them creating more psionics feats and having everyone take one at game start--after all, the original DS had everyone start at 3rd level with, IIRC, higher stats or hp than the norm.

Dark Sun is one of those worlds that probably should have limited "official" races (with DMs of course being free to ignore that and let whatever they want in). It already has a lot of races: humans, elves and half-elves, dwarfs and muls, halflings, half-giants, thri-kreen, lizard-folk, probably dragonborn (isn't that what dray are, basically?), and aarakocra, and you could easily justify genasi as well.