D&D 4E Dark Sun 4e element description?

[Dragonhelm]

I am trying to find a description of the 4e elements, and I can't seem to find it. It may have been from a web article or from the Dark Sun Campaign Setting. It says something like "elements of sun, sand, fire, and wind" or some such. Basically, a way of describing the elements that was more flavorful than earth, air, fire, and water.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

 

[skelekon]

The only 4E reference I could find was in Ashes of Athas adventure '5-1 The Descent' - it had a puzzle for the party to identify all the elements and paraelements and the negative quasielements.

This in turn was based on 2E material from 'DSS2 Earth, Air, Fire and Water' and 'Dragon Kings':

Fire
Air
Water
Earth

Fire + Air = Sun (Smoke)
Air + Water = Rain (Ice)
Water + Earth = Silt (Ooze)
Earth + Fire = Magma
(values in parentheses are from Dragon Kings)

Earth + Positive Plane = Minerals
Air + Positive Plane = Radiance
Fire + Positive Plane = Lightning
Water + Positive Plane = Steam

Earth + Negative Plane = Dust
Air + Negative Plane = Vacuum
Fire + Negative Plane = Ash
Water + Negative Plane = Salt

(The AoA module used Smoke as the Air + Negative instead of the Air + Fire, probably because it's hard to provide a clue whose solution is vacuum.)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I am trying to find a description of the 4e elements, and I can't seem to find it. It may have been from a web article or from the Dark Sun Campaign Setting. It says something like "elements of sun, sand, fire, and wind" or some such. Basically, a way of describing the elements that was more flavorful than earth, air, fire, and water.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

4e in general doesn't really have a 'canonical' list of elements. There are the classic 4, and sometimes other things seem to be classified as 'Elements' too, like Acid, Thunder, Lightning, etc. I suspect its like most of 4e, things are loosely defined. If you WANT you can use the classic D&D element system, but you don't have to. 4e also is pretty vague on things like 'positive and negative energy'. You could call them radiant and necrotic, but you could also not do that. 4e is designed cosmologically around story-telling, not canonical lists generated to manifest some sort of empty symmetry. In that spirit just define things how you want them to be. There IS no 'official' way that is absolute.

 

[skelekon]

Something else I just found that you might be thinking of is 'Winning Races - Genasi of Athas' from Dragon 396.

It describes four new elemental manifestations for Dark Sun genasi:
Ember
Magma
Sand
Sun

 

[Dragonhelm]

Success!

I found it! My Google Fu was much better tonight.

So what I was looking for came from an interview on WotC's site with James Wyatt.

Wizards of the Coast: For those players who may never have played Dark Sun in its earlier inception, can you give us a rundown of this world? How would you describe Dark Sun encapsulated, and what sets it uniquely apart from other settings?

James Wyatt:Dark Sun is a sort of post-apocalyptic fantasy, a world that’s been blasted and ravaged by out-of-control magic. The arcane magic of the world draws its power from the life force of things around it, and if it’s not wielded carefully, it can transform nearby plant life into ash and drain other living creatures of their vitality. That’s why the world is a desert, its civilizations concentrated in a handful of city-states ruled by evil sorcerer-kings and its wilderness haunted by marauding nomadic bands.


The gods of the setting are absent or dead, replaced by elemental spirits tied to the ancient primordials. Shamans and other primal characters draw on the forces of sun, sand, wind, and precious rain. Wizards practice their magic in secret or openly serve the sorcerer-kings. And psionic power is more common than on other worlds -- which is handy, since this setting will come out a few months after Player’s Handbook 3, which introduces the psionic power source.

Source: http://www.circvsmaximvs.com/forum/...-2010-Dark-Sun&p=990742&viewfull=1#post990742


This was what I was hoping to see - an alternate way of describing the elements.


Thanks, everyone, for helping me look.

 

[Tony Vargas]

4e in general doesn't really have a 'canonical' list of elements. There are the classic 4, and sometimes other things seem to be classified as 'Elements' too, like Acid, Thunder, Lightning, etc. I suspect its like most of 4e, things are loosely defined.

In HotEC it also went all zen and used Metal as an element.

In a lot of places acid, cold, fire, & lightning (& thunder) damage types are associated with things elemental. They don't map beautifully to the classic 4. Thunder shows up among earth powers, but also, obviously, air, which also maps to lightning. Cold maps to water, and acid a bit because it's liquid. It's not as neat as you might expect from 4e. Then again, getting neat and grid-filling with the classical elements results in magic spells that throw rocks.

4e also is pretty vague on things like 'positive and negative energy'. You could call them radiant and necrotic, but you could also not do that.

The Feywild & Shadowfell stepped in to the places of the Positive & Negative planes, so, yeah, vague, I guess. At least you could go to those planes.

4e is designed cosmologically around story-telling, not canonical lists generated to manifest some sort of empty symmetry.

Nothing ironic there.