Just for your info,
macuahuitls were not south american, but rather north and central american. They were commonly broadsword-sized but there were a few that were two-handers (as tall as a man).
As a matter of fact, we can look into Mesoamerican cultures -- Mexica, Toltec, Maya, etc. for clues on how a culture without bronze, iron or steel would create diverse tools and weapons that would not necessarily require a penalty vs their metal equivalents.
Obsidian use in Mesoamerica - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I stand corrected!
But such wepaons *do* break a lot more than steel weapons it's the inherent nature of obsidian, which is a glass, glass = too many fractures even though it's far far harder than steel, and it's fitted into wood with glues etc.
Though if the weapon has many "chips" and some break it's not such a big deal. You'd just repair it after each fight form a bag of chips and glue!
I'm sure you could come up with simple rules for poor quality wepoans breaking or attack penalties.
But as I noted, using psionics or magic, you could remove the flaws, sort of like real life glass hardened steel, so you'd end up with an awesome weapon material, it's only flaws being that it would be light (1/3rd? the weight of steel so less mass for crushing but we cna ignore that for 4th ed as it's nt meant to be simulationist) and some beasties in Athas have
damage reduction - iron, liek the braxat (which is one reason why they are such nasty SOBs).
Obsidian is still used as a surgial scalpel material, which is amazing
Aye the level of skills of such people show what I mean about Athas, if those folks in our past could make fortresses who's stone blocks really do have such fine jointing you can barely slip a knife between even today....carved out without metal tools...and very intricate irrigation systems, advanced mathematics...hey, I'm pretty sure Athasians would be interesting folk indeed, too!
Personally, I am absolutely amazed at the skill of our ancestors. they didn't need bloody UFOs to build the pyramids, lol, just a hell of alot of brains, skill and incredible toil and trial and error.
Using water channels to get a perfectly level base for building, such a simple but astounding thing, I am gobsmacked by that genius!
If you add in what psionics and magic could bring, or cultures and info that maybe tens, hundreds of thousands of years old...what they might achieve!!!
hard thing to grasp but we look at things from a *21st century Earth Human perspective*, our knowledge maybe be absolutely woeful in ways compared to other people who quite literally think differently and have had vast times to learn.
The vast bulk of our science is only 2 centuries old. What could a psionic people learn in 100,000?!!
But as said, because the Sorceror Kings have made writing a death penalty for any non-templar or noble, (so the evil SOBs can keep power and wipe out preservers), there's a lot of ignorance in Dark Sun, with knowledge highly prized and covetted.
You can iamgine folk using Athasian "bards" (assassins/spies etc) to get info on their crafting techniques. An adventure might be around the PCs stealing an alchemical formulae from a dwarven craftsman for the elves of the Elven Market, who sell it to House Shom, etc.
In Dark Sun, it's noted that alchemcy is well known (potion fruit, greek fire etc) but we didn't have to much of an "alchemical" system in 2nd ed, that we do now.
So adding the alchemical items from the Adventurer's Vault makes perfect sense, and you can imagine some of the Merchant Houses specializing in some specific things.
Trade was important, I love the trade map that came with "Dune Trader", showing how it flowed. Also, trade = caravans, great adventure points as on Athas they have the huge "Argossies", so you have a mobile fort to defend or attack.
Minotaurs were being presented as something WotC wanted to do cool things with even in the MM. They had never really had civilized minotaurs before, and yet that's what they included in the MM, and I think this has just as much to do with the fans of WoW's taurens as it does any imminent DL campaign.
So, given this year is the 25th anniversary of DL, anything that gets presented as evidence is by necessity going to have to be seen in that light.
Cheers,
Cam
Well, we've had civilized minotaurs in D&D since Dragonlance, so not sure what yer getting at?
And lots of folk homebrewed "civilized" minotaurs before or after that.
3rd ed screwed up minotaurs and some other races with the horrible racial hit dice and ECL stuff, ick. (The racial hit dice in particular was bad.)
Novem5er,
Mutation and weird beasties go hand-in-hand with Dark Sun, so there's no real issue, provided you can fit it in with what's come before.
-Devas, ancient reborn spirits of preservers forever fighting the soercor kings?
-Goliaths, plenty or barren strange areas they cna come form and fit right in.
-Gnomes were supposed ot have been wiped out in the "official history in the novels* (which I
detest). The more-fey, unworldly way of gnomes now fits in ok rather than the cheeryful tinkerers of before. While links with the feywild are likely almost non-existant, the ethos of the sneaky non-human gnome is ok.
-Eladrin, the original elves of old? Very rare indeed.
-Dragonborn, well folk say they can be dray, but dray are a bit different (design and looks as athasian dragons are lithe and almost serpentine) and and are the madly devoted servants of their mad wanna-be-god sorceror-king-part-dragon-undead, Dregoth. Ordinary folk fear dragonic things with damn good reason, the Dragon of Tyr could eat the tarrasque for breakfast! So something good would need ot be created for them. Maybe a re-working of the
first dray, who Dregoth found repulsive and abandoned? That could work as they are less zealous and more normal in power.
You can fit in almost anything you want by saying it's a "Mutation" created by the effects of the Dark Sun, defiling magic or psionics, or the Pritine Tower (if you follow the offiicial history, a structure that warps any creature that comes near it into new forms). So I really don't see mcuh problemwith almost any race.
There are ntoed extrapalanr gates on Athas, they are jsut extremely rare except tot he Elemental Planes, the Ethereal was very hard ot get into due ot the "Grey", and the Astral is blocked totally (except for one ancient gate the Githyanki opened again in a module). Wish I coudl recall where but I think ther'es mention of some gates to the Abyss and demons, so I used that in some of my adbentures, so tieflings arne't so impossible.
Also, since tieflings have fire resistance, that makes them VERY good characters for the fiery wastes of Athas!
Another issue is that the "Tyr Region" is only one very small part of Athas, who knows what else is out there...
Dark Sun also had two avian races, the aarackocra and the pterrans.
But then again....despite all what we think....they designers could still surprise us and give us Spelljammer!!
I know folk love Draognlance, but I honestly jsut can't see it as that big a need for a setting, as it's got no "oomph", to me, as a D&D setting. It's another alternate Prime Plane world, not so different form the Realms or Greyhawk or Eberron or Kalamar etc....though a diversity of worlds is great for Spelljammer or Planescape adventures of course, as you need places ot go
too!
