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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WanderingMonster" data-source="post: 5272333" data-attributes="member: 573">Don't tell me how it's different.  Show me.I am fan of Dark Sun and have been eagerly anticipating the 4e release.  Today I got the books from my FLGS (a Premier store).  I've only had time to skim the actual content, and I won't be answering any questions since there's already a thread for that.  But one thing I can say is that the art content is all across the board from awesome to WTF???  The original DS really owed a lot of it's flavor to the amazing artwork of Brom.  The illos described a brutal, ravaged, and dangerously beautiful world full of brutal, ravaged, and dangerously beautiful characters.  At it's best, Brom's art in DS made you want to be in that world (crazy as that may be!).  Even Tom Baxa's art (which I find to be hit and miss with my tastes) spoke on a primal level that helped define the character of an Athasian campaign.In this edition, the art does very little to spark the imagination.  4e has its typical art direction, which as far as I can tell is "have one, maybe two, characters doing a cool thing.  Easy on the places unless it's super cool. "  It's not necessarily a bad direction, but I don't think it fits with Dark Sun, which is as much about the where as the who.The Dark Sun Campaign Setting is very light on actual vignettes of Athas.  There are a couple of really nice illustrations in the latter half of the book (and there ARE maps...oh yes there are), but far too few to be of much note.  But what strikes me is that there are several illustrations of characters-doing-a-cool-thing that leave me scratching my head.  These illustration could have easily been pulled from Eberron or the Realms.  Most of these offending pictures happen in the Character Theme section, and usually illustrate a paragon path associated with the theme.  Don't get me wrong:  these are quality illustrations.  The design is great.  But the direction is just...wrong.  I'm anxious to hear what people think as more and more get the book.  I know some folks don't care about the art in a book at all.  I'm not soliciting that opinion.  If the art IS important to you, how successful do you think the campaign setting's art was?As for the Dark Sun Creature Catalog...YUM.  Great design and art direction.  I love seeing all the monsters (and Sorcerer Kings!) rebooted.  Nice!</blockquote>

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