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Message: <blockquote data-quote="squibbles" data-source="post: 8272002" data-attributes="member: 6937590">Awww shucks, guys.Well, to each their own.I would likely enjoy Dark Sun content regardless of the subject. Though I would appreciate it if they didn't replicate 4e and thereby freeze the setting in amber--set new stuff in the time before the destruction of Yaramuke and Guistenal, set it 200 years after the Pentad, set it in Kurn and Eldaarich, set it in Waverly and deeper into the sea of silt.New content is awesome. Repetition is merely okay.Also, drow silt pirates from an underground upside-down pyramid mummy realm sounds cool as hell.Medieval Europe is a comparison of convenience, I admit, mostly owing to my familiarity with all those essays and online population calculators.The trouble with the Mesopotamia comparison, though, is that, while Dark Sun evokes its imagery and biblical themes beautifully, ancient Mesopotamia in any era is far too bountiful to be an analogue for the region the 1991 set describes. So is Egypt. They are civilizations famously built around major rivers--of which Athas has none.Maybe the ancient <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabatea" target="_blank">Nabateans</a> (best known for building Petra) would be a better reference civilization... if I could find good numerical estimates about them somewhere.I have seen several fan maps of Athas and of its explored world region. Here's another one for good measure (from the <a href="http://ds.daegmorgan.net/" target="_blank">Athasian Cartographers Guild</a>):[ATTACH=full]136875[/ATTACH]I take issue with them, though--as well as with the official maps' great rift, lava gorge, and dead land--for being overly fantastical. Athas isn't so much a place where magic has crazy world-shaking effects, its a place where magic has gradually desertified everything to the point of uninhabitibility. The planet's desolation is horrible but is supposed to be relatable for us humans here on earth. These maps' big swaths of black and red always put me off a bit.</blockquote>

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