Dungeons & Dragons Releases New Unearthed Arcana Subclasses, Strongly Hinting at Dark Sun

Wizards of the Coast has released four new D&D subclasses for playtesting, all of which have heavy thematic ties to the post-apocalyptic Dark Sun setting. The four subclasses, released as "Apocalyptic Subclasses," include the Circle of Preservation Druid, the Gladiator Fighter, the Defiled Sorcerer, and the Sorcerer-King Patron Warlock. Although not stated outright, the Gladiator and Sorcerer-King Patron are explicit nods to the Dark Sun setting, set in a ruined world ruled by Sorcerer-Kings where gladiatorial fights were common.

The Circle of Preservation Druid creates areas of preserved land that grants buffs to those who stand upon it. The Gladiator adds secondary Weapon Mastery properties to their attacks, with bonus abilities. Notably, the Gladiator uses Charisma as its secondary stat. The Defiled Sorcerer can expend its hit dice to amp up damage to its attacks and can also steal the life of its targets to deal additional damage. The Sorcerer-King Patron gains a number of abilities tying into tyranny and oppression, with the ability to cast Command as a Bonus Action without expending a spell slot, causing targets to gain the Frightened Condition, and forcing those who attack them to re-roll successful attacks.

The survey for the subclasses goes live on August 28th.

 

[Zardnaar]

Im guessing very few have read the Chronicles of Athas.

Just Plain Pavek a Templar of Hamanu isn't evil. Hamanu also gets redemption arcs.

 

[SableWyvern]

Im guessing very few have read the Chronicles of Athas.

Just Plain Pavek a Templar of Hamanu isn't evil. Hamanu also gets redemption arcs.

I haven't read it, and I'm not generally a fan of SK redemption arcs (unless somehow initiated by PCs), but that's just my personal take and I agree with your general point that there is room in Dark Sun for it.

Certainly, the general ideas people seem to have regarding "What is a templar?" (as well as, "What is a Sorcerer King?" for that matter) seem to be very focused on what see and know of Tyr, where we have a pretty standard, tyrannical BBEG with no real nuance.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't think this necessarily needs to be the case.

You can certainly view a templar of Nibenay as an eager, fully invested fanatic in service to a cruel and bloodthirsty sorcerer conduction horrible experiments at one extreme. At the other, however, it's just as valid to have a Nibenese templar who is a young priestess, raised and indoctrinated in Nibenay's cult since childhood, who's come to realise the depravity and evil of the god-king she serves. The latter person is for more complex and deserves a lot more empathy than a junior nazgul.

In my personal version of Nibenay, the templars were pretty fair and decent a lot of the time. Nibenay just wanted the people sedate and passive, and treating them relatively fairly was a method that usually worked. The evils going on were the things under the surface, that no one was stupid enough to ask too many questions about. It would certainly be possible for a templar under such a regime to avoid committing too many overt acts of overt harm or cruelty; it's the acts of omission and simply doing nothing as others commit evil that would be much harder (and more dangerous) to try and avoid.

The reason I'm so enamoured of just the OBS + Ivory Triangle as my canon is it provides you with a rough framework but then leaves open a multitude of possibilities. The early material is asking you to go out and make of it what you will.

I'm not sure how that's going to be that different from Nazgul Jr, unless we're making an awful lot of assumptions about Nazgul Jr. basically being some kind of mercenary or something, which wasn't what I was assuming (I was actually also assuming raised in a cult or some kind).

As for "no-one is stupid enough to ask too many questions", the reason people don't ask questions is because they perfectly well know the answers. If someone signs up to be a Templar in that situation, well, they're signing up for evil, and to some significant extent they know that. They may have been raised in a cult and see what they're doing as necessary or desirable, but that doesn't really change the nature of the activities, just gives them some moral relativism to play with. I'm also not convinced the kind of person who does desperately focus on turning their face away and keeping their hands clean is the kind of person who is capable of rebelling against a Sorcerer-King. Ironically I think it's more likely to be someone who more directly participates who snaps out of it, maybe after the fifth family he hands over to be "re-educated" and then gradually realizes are having their souls sucked out to keep some Sorcerer-King's hair really long and shiny or w/e.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Hamanu also gets redemption arcs.

I mean, if you're giving a Sorcerer-King a redemption arc, I think it's fair to say you've gone too far or missed the point lol. This is a guy who is described as literally someone who and I quote "kills anyone who annoys him". I don't think you can have a legit redemption arc if you do that lol. You can make some kind of pre-death heel-face turn, sure, but that's different from a legit redemption arc.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sure about that?

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

A very important thing about the possible Hamanu redemption in Lynn Abbey’s final book is that it was also read from Hamanu’s perspective, a very unreliable narrator of themselves. Anyone is bound to put their own story in a flattering light, especially someone like that.

But Lynn had zero coordination with TSR’s rpg department (because TSR’s novel department had a Berlin Wall between novels and rpg groups even when Troy Denning wrote the first Prism Pentad novel) about anything she was writing and just wanted to write something good before the rumors she heard of Athas’s future rpg development came to pass. [the rumor she heard was it was to be turned into a sci fi setting]

 

[hirou]

Do avangions still count as "technically sorcerer-kings"? Can Oronis serve as inherently good SK patron? Full disclosure, I know very little of canon

 

[Staffan]

Do avangions still count as "technically sorcerer-kings"? Can Oronis serve as inherently good SK patron? Full disclosure, I know very little of canon

According to (rather thin) canon, the process that granted the sorcerer-monarchs the ability to grant their templars spells can't be repeated, so the Avangion from Arcane Shadows and Dragon's Crown can't do it (I'm blanking on his name at the moment). I believe that Oronis might be able to since he was one of the OG sorcerer-monarchs, but it would also make sense that he lost that ability during his redemption period where he became a preserver and re-advanced as an avangion.

 

[SableWyvern]

If someone signs up to be a Templar in that situation, well, they're signing up for evil,

Did you miss the part where I mentioned being indoctrinated into Nibenays cult from childhood? That's not "signing up" that's "being signed over".

Edit: No you didn't. Look, if you have decided all templars must be extra-evil, all well and good. You can feel that way if you want. I think there is definitely room for a lot more nuance.

 

[hirou]

Did you miss the part where I mentioned being indoctrinated into Nibenays cult from childhood? That's not "signing up" that's "being signed over".

Isn't this literally Shadowheart, to quote a rather recent example? I'm surprised "templars are evil" are still a point of contention after BG3