Dark Sun is a official setting where hard defined supernatural and mundane power sources are 100% canon. Possibly it and 4e Nentir Vale are the only ones.
D&D 5E 5e has everything it needs for Dark Sun
- Thread starter ChaosOS
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ChaosOS
Legend
I will say, I don't get why people feel a terrible need to shoehorn 5e FR cosmology (The Weave, Shadowfell/Feywild) into Dark Sun. Dark Sun is not FR, the core books present the FR cosmology as a starter set of assumptions because it hews closest to "classic fantasy" assumptions. The Grey is the Grey, the Black is the Black. I will say I like how 4e incorporated "the lands between the wind" for the feywild and some of the primordial/god lore as possible backgrounds, but Dark Sun is explicitly not a setting that's intended to feature great bouts of planar travel.
Remathilis
Legend
Ignoring for DM fiat, there is no rule in D&D for losing your class powers. Not for clerics, druids, paladinr or warlocks. It's a fine house-rule, and it's kinda implied sorta-in Oathbreaker paladins, but RAW there is no mechanic in play that takes away your spellcasting.
Which is part of the problem with this exercise; we're still applying definitions to spellcasting that no longer is universally applicable. When Dark Sun was created, there were only two Spellcaster groups: Priest and Wizard so it was easy to lump everything arcane into the Wizard group and everything Divine under Priest. Likewise, 3e precisely defined Arcane and Divine as having innate qualities (like Arcane Spell Failure or Divine Focus components) and 4e lived and died by power-source and role. But 5e has no such structures and even less consistency.
Dark Sun is going to have to force that structure onto 5e, and it's not going to be an easy fit. It will either have to do that class by class (and ignore areas where power-source changes, like the aberrant mind or divine soul) or do so by subclass and be outdated the minute a new book with subclasses in it is released. Neither is as clean as the older editions, but that's the price we paid for having 14 classes try to do the job of 30+ from editions past...
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
The Weave exists everywhere in the 5e multiverse per RAW. It might not be called the weave, and might interact differently, but it exists in Dark Sun unless specific beats general when(and if) they put the book out.
Remathilis
Legend
Ironically, the only place the words Arcane and Divine are used to describe spellcasting and spellcaster classes is in a subsection called "The Weave of Magic"
Yaarel
Mind Mage
Heh.
Once one asks, "How do thoughts create energy?" "What is this energy?" "Where does this energy come from?" "How do thoughts inside ones skull create this energy at a distance?"
The answer goes back to, mind is everywhere.
Remathilis
Legend
I'm going technically disagree; it's a default assumption about the Multiverse of D&D, but it's not a rule, its lore/fluff. There are no inherent rules in the game directly tied to the concept of the Weave, it is merely the default assumption to explain how magic works. (Akin to the Great Wheel being the default assumption of how the Multiverse is arranged).
Less Rule As Written, more Default Lore Concept.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
References to arcane and divine magic are mentioned elsewhere, though.
AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
The original core books build off the standard AD&D cosmology, not so much FRs. There is mention of the four elemental planes with the cleric, there is mention of the Positive and Negative planes in the section on Battling Undead in Dark Sun.
I asked Troy about where the inspiration for The Gray and The Black came from as they were not mentioned in the original books. He admitted that cosmology was never considered by the original design. They needed the setting isolated from the rest of the AD&D settings simply to prevent the powerful Dark Sun characters from getting into the other AD&D settings. So voila, planar isolation by game rule necessity.
The Gray and The Black came up later as Troy was writing the novels and he felt he needed to handle an afterlife in some way for the novels (The Gray) and a place where Rajaat was imprisoned that existed outside of the world (The Hollow, inside The Black).
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Fair enough. That's where the talk of the weave with regard to Athas is coming from, though.
I was going to type a long post, but @Remathilis said it better this time.
None of my worlds have a "W"eave, unless you want to try to convince me that my "Theory of Cosmic Ethereal Density" which as the density varies the strength of magic varies is actually the Weave in disguise.
Also, my psionics work even in magic dead zones (unless specifically creating a spell i.e. somehow trying to summon magic).
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
That's exactly what the section about "The Weave" is saying. It's not saying that there is some sort of weave around every setting. It's saying that every setting has some sort of interface between the casters and the raw magic of the universe. For yours it's the Cosmic Ethereal Density. For FR it's The Weave. For Athas it could be DIT(Defilement Institute of Technology).
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Anecdotal: Well except for Chaos magic, those wacky folk try to manipulate chaos/possibility through sheer force of will.
Ehhhh...
I think that takes it a bit too far. The first paragraph states "Unique geographical formations". Oases on Athas are pretty unique no matter how many of them there are because of how rare they are compared to everything else.
But "Every Rock Formation" would mean that you couldn't walk 100ft without passing a pile of rocks with it's own druid protecting it. Or, at least, having enough of a spirit that a druid -could- protect it.
And considering that Athasian Druids don't just protect their feature, but also the surrounding region with an ever-widening radius based on their level, I think the more appropriate interpretation is that the spirits are tied to the Unique ones, but those spirits look over the whole area and work with, or through depending on perspective, druids to tend them.
(I wrote this post hours ago but the site went down so here it is, belatedly)
How do thoughts create energy? They create energy in the way Psionic Powers do.
What is this energy? Psionic Energy.
Where does this energy come from? From the Psionicist's convictions.
How do thoughts inside one's skull create this energy at a distance? Because it's a Supernatural Power that ignores the laws of Physics.
No. The mind is not everywhere.
Supernatural abilities shouldn't HAVE a defined source like you and modern WotC are trying to stuff in. Because then it's just Physics and it becomes natural and normal rather than Supernatural. If a natural force exists and the mind just interacts with that force then Psionics are no different than walking over and picking the object up with your hand to impart kinetic energy on it.
Magic isn't Magic if it's just well understood and easily defined Physics... it's just Physics.
cbwjm
Legend
I do wonder, if the designers create a psion class, if it will use similar mechanics to the warrior and rogue subclasses with the psi-dice. It sort of makes sense that they would so as to have a unifying mechanic but they'd also need something else to keep them competitive with other classes, otherwise they don't have enough dice to keep up. I'd hope to see the psi-dice as a component.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
It's quoted from the 2e Darksun book. Every rock formation. I think it's safe to assume that there are greater and lesser spirits, and the druids would serve the greater ones.
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