Dark Sun Hopes & Dreams & Fears & Nightmares

[Dausuul]

If I were in charge of implementing the Feywild for 4E Dark Sun, I would say that it resembles the traditional Feywild, but it's been shredded by defiling magic. Scattered oases of lush greenery exist, hidden behind the veil that separates the mortal world from the Feywild. Now and then a traveler stumbles across one, leading to tales of lost paradises in the wilderness (though most travelers never make it home to tell about it; see below).

These oases are disconnected, however. They are islands of life floating in the midst of a howling abyss. Druids and nature spirits jealously guard most of them, and have no compunction about murdering anyone who might carry news of their existence to the sorceror-kings. In the hands of a sorceror-king, the power in a Feywild oasis can fuel spells the like of which have not been seen on Athas for centuries... until the oasis dissolves into nothingness.

 

[FireLance]

If I were in charge of implementing the Feywild for 4E Dark Sun, I would say that it resembles the traditional Feywild, but it's been shredded by defiling magic. Scattered oases of lush greenery exist, hidden behind the veil that separates the mortal world from the Feywild. Now and then a traveler stumbles across one, leading to tales of lost paradises in the wilderness (though most travelers never make it home to tell about it; see below).

These oases are disconnected, however. They are islands of life floating in the midst of a howling abyss. Druids and nature spirits jealously guard most of them, and have no compunction about murdering anyone who might carry news of their existence to the sorceror-kings. In the hands of a sorceror-king, the power in a Feywild oasis can fuel spells the like of which have not been seen on Athas for centuries... until the oasis dissolves into nothingness.

Everyone knows that the Feywild does not exist on Athas. There are a few druids and nature spirits here who want to speak with you to ensure that you do not spread such heresies again. Ever.

 

[FireLance]

I'm broadly okay with both of those as operating ideas, but the devil's in the details. If you can separate the blink elves from magic and nature, are they really worth keeping? Since that's basically what they're about?

I dunno. Maybe they'll do something like a badass'd-up Bralani. Instead of teleporting, they turn into a whirlwind of sand and dust, vaguely the same effect. Disconnecting them from magic will be harder. And making them a default PC race in any case probably makes things like "magic" and "nature" too common in the game. I could easily see a "no, unless the DM says yes" track being taken.

Or, they could just give eladrin an affinity for psionics instead of magic and make their teleportation psionic, too. All we need is for Psionic Power to come up with a Dexterity secondary Teleporting Psion build, and you'll have the mechanics to back up the flavor.

 

[Pbartender]

Dark Sun isn't about dangerous jungles in another world that you need to adventure through.

The Forest Ridge.

So the Sorcerer Kings - who are near gods - haven't connected to Feywild, while bog standard level 1 eladrin adventurers did.

Sure, why not? After all, it would certainly give a good reason for there to be virtually no Eladrin in Dark Sun.

I mean, really... If you could naturally shift back and forth between a desolate wasteland, and a lush magical paradise, which would you prefer to live in?

Besides which, bog standard Eladrin can connect to the Feywild for no more than what... 6 seconds before they pop back into the real world. Perhaps that just reinforces how disconnected Athas truly is, if natives of the Feywild can't connect to it for more than a few moments.

This is the problem - what you're doing now isn't starting with the idea and then connecting the mechanics, it's the opposite. You're saying "We need to put the Feywild here. Now, let's make an excuse to do so."

Why is that necessarily a problem?

Much of D&D, in general, was designed in that fashion. For example, "I want Vancian style spellcasters. Now, let's make an excuse for why spells work that way." If it's done well, who cares and who can tell?

For that matter, why can't they start with the idea, "While Athas as a whole is disconnected from everywhere else, it still has a Feywild echo," or "the Feywild is still there, but exceptionally difficult to get to -- we'll a different explanation for teleporting" and from there build fresh new new mechanics to connect it together?

Methodically speaking, that's really no different than saying, "There's is no Feywild here. Now, how do we explain Teleportation, and a host of other related mechanics?"



And while we're talking about it... Don't forget that if Athas has a Feywild echo, then it would certainly have a Shadowfell echo as well.

 

[I'm A Banana]

As far as the feywild goes, Dasuul's concept isn't bad, though I'd hesitate to let PC's be from such a place normally. It's the idea that if it's rare and special and precious, it should probably not be common to the PC party, so that the emotional impact of it can be preserved. If every DS party has someone that's from a rare island of verdant life, it ceases to become something special to the players, which is what you want: the players to be affected by it.

Making the teleportation psionic may work, too, but it seems like sort of a cop-out. Still, psions and wizards are similar, mechanically, so maybe making eladrin the "psionic race" in the way that they're the "wizard race" now isn't a bad idea.

I do agree with Professor C in that I think that anything an "Athasian feywild" might have would probably just be better on Athas itself. Athas is already turned up to 11. There's not supposed to be a higher setting. Any higher setting makes Athas not the highest setting anymore, which weakens it.

And I think this encapsulates what I feel about the feywild being normal lush and magical:

I mean, really... If you could naturally shift back and forth between a desolate wasteland, and a lush magical paradise, which would you prefer to live in?

To me, that's a problem. There should be no paradise on Athas save that which you carve out momentarily for yourself or, at high levels, hope to restore to the world. There shouldn't be some nice retirement home in boca raton that you can just BAMF into whenever you want a nice ice tea. The idea of Athas being inescapable is key to it being brutal and nasty. That's why making it isolated in the multiverse in 2e was so important: there's no getting from here to anywhere else. You're stuck with it. You can't run away from it. You have to make it better.

Now, feywild aside, I suppose I did start off on kind of a negative note, but I've got a lot of hopes & dreams for the setting, too.

I hope they make Dragonborn Cool. I don't hate the DB's as they exist, but I'm not a tremendous fan. They're overtly monstrous, and making them "proud warrior race" doesn't get rid of that for me (plus, the name grates on me). However, I think they should fit well in Dark Sun, and I could see them being truly awesome, either as "tribal lizard people," or as linked to the sorcerer-kings, their creations. Monstrous races fit comfortably in a DS party, and adding some darkness and brutality with the Sorcerer-Kings might be just the injection of bestial fury that the DB need to catch my attention.

I hope they make survival difficult. 4e overlooks bookkeeping like "water and food" for the most part, which is great, but I think DS needs a different approach, where starvation and thirst are real threats, at least at heroic tier. The buzz I've been hearing about making the terrain your enemy sounds great in this regard. I'm looking forward to watching resources slowly dwindle to 0, when they're still a week's march outside of any major settlement, and the tension that creates.

I hope they let everyone dabble in psionics. Not a full multiclass, but a "wild talent" feat that gives an encounter power or something. Some way for everyone to be a little bit psionic.

 

[davethegame]

In the Dark Sun seminar at DDXP, they mentioned the cosmology as being like the core cosmology, but that it's "not that far" from the original. The Feywild is related to the magic deserts and remaining forests, and the Shadowfell is the Gray. Dragonborn are Dray, and the Tieflings are there, but it was stated that neither was "just bolted on" and both have hooks back to the material from the original setting.

Also they mention how races that weren't in the 2e version (like Gnomes) won't be in the book either, but they also won't explicitly say "There are no gnomes here" so the DM can decide.

 

[Piratecat]

Same with divine classes; the assumption is that there is no divine power source in Athas, but I don't believe that DMs are prohibited from including it if they want to for some unfathomable reason.

 

[MrMyth]

I hope they let everyone dabble in psionics. Not a full multiclass, but a "wild talent" feat that gives an encounter power or something. Some way for everyone to be a little bit psionic.

This article seems a likely approach, or at the very least shows they've looked at the idea of adding psionic talents to non-psionic characters. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if everyone got something along these lines.

Anyway, I can certainly see them adding elements that might not fit with Dark Sun and could seem out of place. But I can also see them making those elements cool and perfectly fitting for the setting. A wild desert Feywild? Fey that no one knows about, since everyone who sees them is assumed to be a defiler and killed on sight? That jealously guard their remaining scraps of magical power that have diminished with the land? I mean, there are any number of approaches that could work.

Whenever I see ProfessorCirno saying that an Athasian Feywild would cheapen Athas, or Shemeska state that anything connected to Primordials will be an automatic train-wreck, I just have to shrug. As a 4E player and a fan of Dark Sun, I'm eager to see something that builds on both. Something accessible to those familiar with 4E, but that captures the spirit of brutal survival of classic Dark Sun.

The little details really don't matter. If they can make things fit, and preserve the flavor of the setting - that's the key. And I can see any number of ways in which they can do so. I can also see ways in which they could screw it up - I'm not denying that is a possibility. But stating there is no possible way to incorporation these elements into the setting... that's just silly. D&D is all about imagination. Every setting is a wild mish-mash of all sorts of ideas, and built on the work of countless individuals. It absolutely can be done.

Will it be done right? I guess we'll just have to wait and find out.

 

[davethegame]

Whenever I see ProfessorCirno saying that an Athasian Feywild would cheapen Athas, or Shemeska state that anything connected to Primordials will be an automatic train-wreck, I just have to shrug. As a 4E player and a fan of Dark Sun, I'm eager to see something that builds on both. Something accessible to those familiar with 4E, but that captures the spirit of brutal survival of classic Dark Sun.

Exactly how I feel. I guess I've never been a canon junky of any setting- I just want something that captures the feel that I remember with the rules I enjoy.

And we already know Primordials are involved in the backstory- so if that's a dealbreaker, it's already done.

 

[Dausuul]

As far as the feywild goes, Dasuul's concept isn't bad, though I'd hesitate to let PC's be from such a place normally.

Oh, no, I wouldn't have PCs be natives of the Feywild in that setup. Eladrin might have an ancestral tie to the place, but heavy emphasis on "ancestral"--they'd have been exiled for dozens if not hundreds of generations. Fey Step would probably be a nightmarish experience; except at at one of those lost oases, it would mean vanishing out of the living world and traveling through a screaming black void. Not what you'd call a luxury cruise.