Dark Sun Alternate History

[Spatula]

I never liked the official history either and thought it took away a lot of the cool mystery of the setting (and replaced it with halfling and a dragon named Boris). My Athas is basically a post-apocolyptic version of your typical D&D setting, which it seems to me is what the first box set was going for.

 

[Wik]

Well, I've run a lot of Dark Sun games, and I sort of used the following "Changes"

1) All of the city-states were run by high-power defilers who were also dragon kings. However, while they were old (quite old) they weren't Champions of Rajaat or anything; if a PC became a dragon, he could have templars, too, and start up his own city.

2) Every type of magic was "evil" - clerics were just as likely to be in the Veiled Alliance as everyone else. Psionics were everywhere, though.... however, they weren't necessarily embraced; someone with a wild talent often kept it secret because it was embarrassing.

3) I ignored the entire prism pentad series.

4) I'm fond of the DRAGON/DUNGEON DARK SUN remake, with the exception of the psionic races being included. I like how they set up the new campaign.

 

[xmanii]

I've always thought of Athas being Greyhawk in the future, far in the future.

 

[Nyaricus]

Just a question for you who beleive that Dark*Sun is Dragon Lance in the future, or what have you, what made you think that?

It just seems like that'd be really different, and odd, and I'd love to hear more on your veiwpoints.

cheers,
--N

 

[VictorC]

I hate to go off the topic, but no one has a copy of the Original box set sitting around that there looking to get rid of?

 

[frankthedm]

I hate to go off the topic, but no one has a copy of the Original box set sitting around that there looking to get rid of?

Sorry, best $20 I have ever spent on a 2E product.

 

[tonse]

I once had a player who was convinced that Faerun and Athas were the same place in different times. Just because a city and a god shared the shame name. He was quite obsessive about it; going to great length in copying the map of the tyr region on an overlay to search his Forgotten Realms maps for simillar landscape. When you see this happen with a game you begin to understand why archeologist are so obsessed with scientific neutrality and double-checking.

 

[werk]

Just a question for you who beleive that Dark*Sun is Dragon Lance in the future, or what have you, what made you think that?

It just seems like that'd be really different, and odd, and I'd love to hear more on your veiwpoints.

cheers,
--N

It could be any setting, really, but dragonlance had a history of deities leaving, finiky arcane magic, and apocolyptic change.

I think we can all agree, one of the best things about darksun was the art of BROM. It really gave life to the world for me.

 

[frankthedm]

I think we can all agree, one of the best things about darksun was the art of BROM. It really gave life to the world for me.

It took the D&D game back to Pre-Tolkien Sword and Sorcery. Brom's art cemented the feel of the world without the superfluous sexuality that Boris Vallejo and Frank Frazetta usually had in thier work.

Slavery and the inhumanities inherent therein. The strong own the weak and freedom has to be taken.

Arcane Magic as a destructive and corrupting force. Magic make the world a worse place, not a better one.

No Gods to take interest in the world. One’s success comes from them self, not divine providence.

All rulers are incredibly evil and powerful. Regicide is the answer, but no one has been strong enough and brave enough to do so.

The world is dying. Your deeds can not save it. Your deeds do not make a better Tomorrow, they make a better Today.

 

[Aaron L]

(no more psionic pretend battles please, just burn their face off, it's so much easier and faster).

I hated that stuff. Reducing psionic combat to melle combat in the "mindscape." I know a lot of people loved it and thught it was so flavorful, but to me it seemed so simplistic and flavorless and cliche, and robbed psychic combat of something.

I would much prefer psionic combat to consist of "Im sending a massive overload of theta wave signals through his cerebral cortex and triggering an influx of dopamine inhibitors to flood his neuroreceptors, which will reduce him to a gibbering pile of goo." or "Im triggering a release of chemicals in his brain that will melt it from the inside out" to "My willpower is so strong, I can project my mental avatar as being even bigger and tougher than his, and make it grow to giant size in his mind!"