Mark Hope
Hero
Really, it's all of the above but I tried to strip out things that I have not used during some Dark Sun games without the game feeling like it wasn't DS. So I ended up with Dragon Kings, environmental collapse, swords and sandals, and slavery. Oh, and Brom art but that's a vain hope these days.
For me, swords & sandals is the big one. This isn't Tolkien fantasy and it needs to have that specific S&S feel at its core before all else.
Dragon Kings and slavery are actually part of the same point to me. So if there had been a poll option for "Massive Wealth and Power Disparity", I would have chosen that instead. I'm not wedded to the idea of slaves, or to the idea of Dragon Kings, but there must be massive inequality, oppression, and societal horror of that nature because this is the reason the world is in the state it's in. Abuses of power in one form or another led to the state of Athas and that needs to be a core theme so the PCs can fight against it and smack slavers in the face and free slaves and overthrow the Dragon Kings and make the world a better place.
So environmental collapse is tied into that same point - it's the result of unchecked power and needs to be there to reinforce what the world has become and why it needs saving. Or maybe it can't be saved (can ours?) and then you have some interesting decisions to make about what you do in the face of extinction.
For me, swords & sandals is the big one. This isn't Tolkien fantasy and it needs to have that specific S&S feel at its core before all else.
Dragon Kings and slavery are actually part of the same point to me. So if there had been a poll option for "Massive Wealth and Power Disparity", I would have chosen that instead. I'm not wedded to the idea of slaves, or to the idea of Dragon Kings, but there must be massive inequality, oppression, and societal horror of that nature because this is the reason the world is in the state it's in. Abuses of power in one form or another led to the state of Athas and that needs to be a core theme so the PCs can fight against it and smack slavers in the face and free slaves and overthrow the Dragon Kings and make the world a better place.
So environmental collapse is tied into that same point - it's the result of unchecked power and needs to be there to reinforce what the world has become and why it needs saving. Or maybe it can't be saved (can ours?) and then you have some interesting decisions to make about what you do in the face of extinction.