D&D 5E "Doom Sun" − reconstructing a 5e Dark Sun setting for the DMs Guild

[Maxperson]

5e opens the door for the 4e world setting, including its Dawn War between astrals and primordials. It can even be one of the upcoming official settings.

5e opens the door, but doesn't walk through. If YOU put the 4e setting and Dawn War into your game, that's on you. I can tell you that it isn't in the default 5e yet and as such, is not in my game.

4e made the Dark Sun setting part of this Dawn War.

Cool. Then the next time you play 4e, that will be true.

It appears, Fyreen is likewise part of this Dawn War.

Possibly, or possibly not. There is nothing to say that it is.

We have a list of the astrals that participated in this Dawn War.

No you don't, because 5e has no Dawn War yet.

By extension, these same astrals destroyed the crystal sphere relating to Fyreen.

You can't extend something that doesn't exist.

If you can show hard proof that the Dawn War exists, and then more hard proof that what happened in Doomspace is part of it, you can be right about this. Until then, you are assuming a whole lot that has no basis in 5e. 4e cannot be used to prove anything in 5e, and you don't even have that much. You only have lots and lots and lots of assumption based on 4e and some really, really vague stuff in 5e.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

DAWN WAR (FORGOTTEN REALMS)

BAHAMUT (Generic D&D Non Human God)
TIAMAT (Generic D&D Non Human God)

BANE (Forgotten Realms)
ASMODEUS (Generic D&D God)
LOLTH (Generic D&D Non Human God)
GRUUMSH (Generic D&D Non Human God)
MORADIN (Generic D&D Non Human God)
SEHANINE (Generic D&D Non Human God)
CORELLON (Generic D&D Non Human God)

Vecna (Greyhawk)
Tharizdun (Greyhawk)
Raven Queen (Wee Jas) (Greyhawk)
Kord (Greyhawk)
Pelor (Greyhawk)

Avandra
Erathis
Zehir

Torog (4e)
loun (4e)
Melora (4e)

Corrections modified in the Quote. Only Bane is from the Forgotten Realms and his Dawn War version is more like Greyhawk's Hextor than FR Bane who is a very different character. All the other gods you mentioned were in Greyhawk before they were in FR.

 

[pukunui]

Man, this thread is slowly being sucked into a black hole of its own.

 

[squibbles]

So I'm gonna sidestep the protracted back and forth about gods, what they are, what the dark/doom-sun cannon is regarding them, etc., and reply to some cool thoughts from earlier in the thread.

I suspect that if WotC makes 5e DS, PC templars simply won't be a supported option.

But if I was doing it:

Background: Templarate

Skill proficiencies: Investigate, Intimidate
Tool proficiencies : something or other goes here
Feature: you are granted a Templarate Medallion by your patron sorcerer-monarch

Magic Item: Templarate Medallion

This medallion is personalised to you, and forges a connection between you and your patron sorcerer-monarch. It acts as both an arcane focus and a holy symbol for you. Your sorcerer-monarch can contact you telepathically at will, can cast Scrying on you at will with no saving throw allowed, and can use your senses at will as per the Beast Sense spell with unlimited range and no requirement that you be willing. You can also telepathically contact your sorcerer-monarch at will, though it is rarely a good thing to come to the attention of your King, and you'd better have a GOOD reason. In addition, you learn spells from the following table according to your sorcerer-monarch. You can cast these spells once each per day, and if you have the Spellcasting or Pact Magic features you can also cast them with spell slots. These spells always count as spells known and spells prepared for you. Wearing this medallion openly marks you as a servant of your sorcerer-monarch, which may draw strong reactions from others. [table of spells goes here]

Sorcerer-kings can personally empower warlocks, clerics (of appropriate domains), and paladins (with the tenets of the oaths rewritten) to serve them, but they can also have psionicists and fighters etc in their service. It just makes the templarate more interesting, flexible, and varied. One thing I'd require though, is that in DS, power comes from somewhere. Any divine spellcasting class (a class who can use a holy symbol as a focus) must explicitly either choose a sorcerer-king to follow, or must pact with the elemental spirits.

I immediately liked your writeup while reading it but, upon reflection, I think it would be better to go a slightly different way with templars.

My reasoning is that it isn't fun, as a player, to be a micromanaged by a megalomaniacal boss, even for someone who sees appeal in working from the inside of a corrupt system (for the perks, to do good from within, whatev). That leads pretty straightforwardly to your first point, that templars don't make sense as a supported PC option. On the other hand, the relationship of templar to sorcerer-king might work more comfortably for players if it were relatively hands-off; they are semi-autonomous actors, like the archetypal police detective. Oddly the example that comes most readily to mind is K from Blade Runner 2049, with the tortuous baseline tests (i.e. wierd loyalty tests), and the understanding that if he leaves his job he will be immediately killed.

PCs could approach and occasionally cross the line of what their sorcerer king deems acceptable as long as they (appear to) get the job done.

Functionally, I'd keep everything from the rules you just described, except that the sorcerer king can't cast scrying or beast sense or use telepathy through it (nor could the PC). Instead, the PC can't take the Templarate Medallion off and the sorcerer king, upon learning of a PC's betrayal or dereliction can detonate the medallion, which--instead of being a bomb in the skull trope instant death--casts a defiling spell that destroys all water the templar and companions have, leaves a telltale defiling residue on him/her, and paints a beacon on the PC that other templars can follow--and shortly will.

That gives templar PCs the latitude to be part of a normal adventuring party, with a continuous tension around their degree of loyalty to a corrupt system.

I think...

I am going to say that the Dragon-Kings went to the Moons and are trying to take them over to reestablish their sovereignties. "Moons of the Dragon-Kings" has a great vibe to it. [...]

Yes. Get what they can from Doomspace and get the heck out of there. They make their Moon Kingdoms really just out of a need to slate their extreme narcissism before they leave.

With refugees from Fyreen escaping partially into the multiverse, word spreads of the Moons of the Dragon-Kings. Fear spreads with it. These near-almighty beings, if allowed to escape Doomspace, could cause a great catastrophe any material plane they go. And what if one entered Celestia and defiled the gods? What kind of power would that bring about? Or if one invaded Avernus and defiled the fighters of the Bloodwar?

The Dragon-Kings cannot be let out of Doomspace. No actually good god will send their solars into it. The Astral Elves have tried, and failed. Out of ambition, mind-flayers and gith have tried, and failed. Still, the Dragon-Kings cannot be let out of Doomspace. If one ever reached Eberron, or Ravnica, or Theros, worlds full of bounty and life, and just started defiling it, it'd kickstart a new genocide and a bloody war. Doesn't even matter if the Dragon-King loses, because the casualties would be immense.

Yeah, a cool vibe indeed.

...which made me want to riff on it.

So, taking your premise, dragons-kings gone to the moons as a temporary stopover before fleeing Doomspace to defile other realms. What if you leaned into Dark Sun's scarcity themes there? Maybe, in addition to simple narcissism, none of the dragon-kings have enough juice to leave--haven't defiled enough stuff to maximize their mystic power, lack a big enough fleet to break past the solars guarding the exits, have collected insufficient McGuffins, etc.--and are in a zero-sum game, racing against each other to get enough of it from the moons before the moons, Fyreen, et al. spiral into the Eye of Doom. For some reason the Dragon Kings are unable or (...because Dark Sun) unwilling to work together. In the interim, they are making the (assumed) slow death of Fyreen into a fast death, using up everything it's got to fight each other and build ostentatious lifeboats that they will not share.

Also, it might be fun--in addition to seeing what the PCs do and how it impacts the dragon-king's plans--to contrive some way to dice out which factions win in their various conflicts throughout doomspace, so that you get to be surprised along with the players which and how many dragon-kings get eliminated in the struggle.

 

[Remathilis]

The back and forth about Dark Sun and divinity reminds me why I like the idea that 5e doesn't have a default continuity anymore.


Now, my book is still a few days of delivery away, but I will probably run Doomspace as a parallel to Athas or what happens when a D&D world starts dying. Defiling, heavy psionic increase, etc, are side effects of worlds where ecological disaster and magical catastrophe are sundering normal magic rules. This is the fate of ALL D&D worlds that abuse magic and turn away from the Gods. The fact it has happened twice should be a warning the PCs should acknowledge.

Klaatu Barada Nikto.

 

[Yaarel]

For the purpose of populating Fyreen and supplying suitable flavor and crunch for a "Doom Sun" setting, I propose the following cosmology:

• Fyreen is Athas-esque

• Fyreen defacto is Dark Sun, unless Spelljammer specifies otherwise or trademark brandnames require name changes.

• Fyreen is defacto godless. The astrals do exist, but found no one willing to convert to their cults. The astrals abandoned Fyreen to its own devices. Fyreen continues its sacred elementalism of the Dark Sun setting. The Clerics focus on the elements as cosmic forces. The Druids focus on elemental features of nature. Templars might benefit from the negativity of the black hole. Obscure Eberron-style traditions might occasionally spring up.

• The 4e Dawn War astrals are who destroyed the crystal sphere.

• But they didnt destroy the sun.

• The astrals visited the Fyreen when they shattered the crystal sphere, the sun collapsed shortly afterward, but the astrals are not responsible for the black hole.



(I dont have an opinion about what caused the sun to collapse. I do find it plausible that the sorcerer-kings themselves destroyed it during one of their irresponsible magical experiments. It might even be a longterm consequence of them having turned the sun crimson in the first place. Plausibly, the Dawn War astrals were even doing a kindness, foreseeing the collapse of the sun, destroying the crystal sphere in order to allow the inhabitants of Doomspace to escape. Possibly, the astrals visited Fyreen in order to transport them away. But these astrals being the individuals who they are, probably did obnoxiously demand worship, and the inhabitants balked and became excessively hostile. Now Fyreen is on its own. The situation of the primordials in Doomspace is uncertain. The imbalance since the defiling began greatly harms the elementals. Probably, it harms the primordials likewise. I am unsure what prevented the elementals and the primordials from actively preventing the practice of defiling.)

 

[Maxperson]

My reasoning is that it isn't fun, as a player, to be a micromanaged by a megalomaniacal boss, even for someone who sees appeal in working from the inside of a corrupt system (for the perks, to do good from within, whatev). That leads pretty straightforwardly to your first point, that templars don't make sense as a supported PC option. On the other hand, the relationship of templar to sorcerer-king might work more comfortably for players if it were relatively hands-off; they are semi-autonomous actors, like the archetypal police detective. Oddly the example that comes most readily to mind is K from Blade Runner 2049, with the tortuous baseline tests (i.e. wierd loyalty tests), and the understanding that if he leaves his job he will be immediately killed.

Yeah. Back during 2e Dark Sun those were the reasons that I wanted to play one, but never did or would. I also axed them as a PC option, because I saw that unless everyone was a Templar, it would inevitably lead to either the Templar getting the other PCs killed or enslaved, or the Templar being killed for refusing to turn them in. I like this take on them.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I don't do that, because as I said earlier in I think this thread, I want the gods(even the evil ones) to have a vested interest in helping their worshippers. Not needing worshippers let's them being jerks to everyone.

So you assume gods would be evil jerks if they were not invested. Isn't part of doing good that it can be selfless act. Is a god even "good" if its actions are only self serving (i.e they need worship)?

Anyway, the gods in our setting can still get power from worshipers, but they don't need it. There are several methods of gods to get more celestial power, worship is just one of them. So if a god, in our game, goes to Doomspace, it has all of its celestial power even if it has no worshipers there. It would likely wish to cultivator worshipers to gain more celestial power.

 

[Maxperson]

So you assume gods would be evil jerks if they were not invested. Isn't part of doing good that it can be selfless act. Is a god even "good" if its actions are only self serving (i.e they need worship)?

Here in real life everyone is self-serving. We help others because it makes us feel good to do it. We eat because it hurts not to. Selfish is the natural state of things. What matters is whether it's good selfish(helping others) or bad selfish(taking from others).

When it comes to D&D gods, evil gods wouldn't have any worshippers if they didn't get something out of it, because they would simply kill, abuse, and/or ignore them. Good gods wouldn't be much better. You'd see much less killing, but the rest would still be there.

Anyway, the gods in our setting can still get power from worshipers, but they don't need it. There are several methods of gods to get more celestial power, worship is just one of them. So if a god, in our game, goes to Doomspace, it has all of its celestial power even if it has no worshipers there. It would likely wish to cultivator worshipers to gain more celestial power.

Okay. That's a bit different than what was stated in the other post. At least there's incentive there to help their followers out.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Fyreen is the "younger brother" of Athas, with a lot of common things, but also with some great differences, for example Fyreenians can be kins in Fortnite. Fyreen has been designed to be more sandbox, and more flexible for possible future changes, for example adding new elements.

Maybe the sorcerer-kings from Athas not only knew about Fyreen, but they were getting ready for centuries because they feared a planar invasion from their "twin world". Other possibility is a "safe path" between Fyreen and Athas, but this is controlled by the secret faction from "Black Spine" module.

* Even the evil gods after of centuries and thousands of years of experencie surviving enemies and betrays should understand the great difference between to be a true leader or a toxic boss.