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.

 

[Scribe]

Too many people and writers think grimdark means “no one can ever be happy, nothing matters, and any character that is momentarily happy or cares about anything meaningful needs to be abused by the plot until they get with the cool kids and become nihilistic naughty words like everyone else in the story.”

Right, and I dont believe that is what grimdark is.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Fanfiction all the way down.

Combining some of the things I mentioned, Shakespeare's Troilus and Cresida is about 10 successive fanatics removed from its Homeric original.

 

[Alzrius]

Using the medusa as an example might not be the best choice, as there have been male medusae in D&D before 2024, most notably in Princes of the Apocolypse.

No, I think it's a good choice. Marlos Urnrayle was artificially transformed into a medusa via magic gone wrong, and so functions as an example of an exception proving the rule. Likewise, other instances of a "male medusa" were the maedar, which were a separate kind of creature with their own characteristics.

 

[Azzy]

The problem is that Dark Sun was never really a humor setting, so a grimdark Dark Sun doesn't work. Grimdark only works as a parody.

Considering that we derive "grimdark" from WH 40K and 40K was parody and bad jokes/puns, I agree. Waaagh!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I think part of the issue (and, I want to stress, only part of it) is that there's a difference between changing things by adding to what's come before, and changing things by removing part of their definitional characteristics.

This is something I saw during the debate around 5E 2024 giving monsters that classically had only one sex an opposite-sex counterpart, with the medusa being the example that got the most discussion. One poster eschewed negative reactions to the change by saying "this gives us more options!" Which is true, but those options came by removing a characteristic of what made a medusa be a medusa in the first place. Which for most people I suspect would be the following (in no particular order):

• Snakes for hair
• Petrifying gaze
• Female

Eliminating that last one does allow for more different types of creatures, but there's now one-third less understanding of what makes a medusa be what it is. Consider that if you remove the "snakes for hair" part as well, you'd have even more options...but now you just have men and women who happen to have a petrifying gaze; you can call that a medusa, but would it feel like one? What about if you changed the petrifying gaze into an immolation gaze? Even more options, but it feels even less like a medusa.

Now, to be fair, sometimes these changes stick. Medusa used to be a specific individual and not a particular kind of creature, for instance. But a lot of the time, deleting or altering a definitional characteristic results in blowback, and the more of them you change for a given thing (be it a creature, a character, a setting, etc.) the more blowback you're likely to generate.

I call bologna on this whole line of argument!

Yet again, you're trying to say that adding "male" to the list somehow removes "female* which it explicitly does NOT.

Your list is not somehow now:

• Snakes for Hair
• Petrifying Gaze
• Nothing

It's...

• Snakes for Hair
• Petrifying Gaze
• Female
• Also sometimes Male.

Your illustration simply calls out how flawed your entire line of reasoning is.

 

[Remathilis]

Dark Sun is and must be hopepunk. The heroes can overthrow the Sorcerer-Kings, slay the Dragon, and start to heal the world. If they cannot, there is no reason for the setting to exist. There is no use for a setting or story that tells you life is pointless and you were a sucker for caring.

I run Ravenloft pretty regularly and I try to walk a fine line between hope and despair. The PCs can't fundamentally change the nature of Ravenloft; the Dark Powers can't be overcome, the Dark Lords never fully defeated. But their plans can be disrupted, the lives of those living in the domains made better, thus the battle becomes for the small victories. Stopping Strahd from destroying yet another peasant girl's life. Destroying another Mordenheim creation from terrorizing a village. Stopping a zombie plague outbreak in a costal town. They may not be able to win the war, but every won battle makes things more bearable.

To quote the Doctor Who episode "The Fires of Pompeii"
The Doctor: That's just it. Don't you see, Donna? Can't you understand? If I could go back and save them, then I would, but I can't!
The Doctor: [pauses] I can never go back. I can't. I just can't. I can't.
Donna Noble: Just someone. Please.
Donna Noble: [sobbing] Not the whole town. Just save someone.

 

[DarkCrisis]

All this grump and at most it will be 3 book case thing with one adventure, monster book, and a players guide type book with new classes etc and minimal to moderate info (while still avoiding the harsher lore stuff if not just a near full rewrite) or a single book with minimal info and a possibly half baked adventure that will possibly have the tone of the old lore but exorcise or rewrite anything troubling. Heck I would be surprised if they even mention cannibal halflings. You can bet your sweet butt that Mul's will flat out not exist, or just products of happy normal unions.

Don't get me wrong, discussion and speculation is fun but this is modern WotC and "going safe" is at the forefront of their design philosophy. IMO if you think Ravenloft got softened up, I can't wait to see modern Dark Sun.

My thoughts, lean heavy into dying world cause the gods left. The Immortal Sorcerer Kings stuff. Adventure in the wasteland and its all very Fallout. Expect no mention of slavery. Heck I bet Gladiators are all voluntary. But yeah this will just be more of a D&D's version of Fallout and super sanitized.

 

[Alzrius]

I call bologna on this whole line of argument! Yet again, you're trying to say that adding "male" to the list somehow removes "female* which it explicitly does NOT.

Your list is not somehow now:

• Snakes for Hair
• Petrifying Gaze
• Nothing

It's...

• Snakes for Hair
• Petrifying Gaze
• Female
• Also sometimes Male.

Your illustration simply calls out how flawed your entire line of reasoning is.

I don't know what you mean by "yet again," but your line of reasoning here doesn't pass the laugh test. Having a characteristic be part of what makes something what it is, and then saying that sometimes that characteristic isn't present, isn't something which can be taken seriously.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Right, and I dont believe that is what grimdark is.

I get that you don't and that's okay, but the line between that kind of humourless, ill-tempered ultra-grimdark (the Prince of Nothing kind) and what people are calling "hopepunk" (i.e. Mad Max: Fury Road) is a pretty slim one to try and balance on! I think, if I understand correctly, you're okay with the good guys winning, but only if it's futile/minor in the larger picture or temporary? But because of the nature of fiction, whether it's an RPG campaign or a movie or whatever, it's very difficult to say if any victory short of total victory (and even that sometimes, c.f. defeating the Nazis in WW2 and er... world events) is actually not futile/temporary.

I'm beginning to think it's almost like these genre descriptors are causing more problems than they solve lol!

All this grump and at most it will be 3 book case thing with one adventure, monster book, and a players guide type book with new classes etc and minimal to moderate info (while still avoiding the harsher lore stuff if not just a near full rewrite) or a single book with minimal info and a possibly half baked adventure that will possibly have the tone of the old lore but exorcise or rewrite anything troubling.

I thought they gave up on that first structure?

That's not how the 2024 Forgotten Realms campaign setting books are structured. The second structure you describe is just a cynical way of describing a normal D&D setting book from any edition lol.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

No, I think it's a good choice. Marlos Urnrayle was artificially transformed into a medusa via magic gone wrong, and so functions as an example of an exception proving the rule. Likewise, other instances of a "male medusa" were the maedar, which were a separate kind of creature with their own characteristics.

If your first argument was that it removed the Maedar, I'd have given that to you. But it sure as heck didn't remove "female" as a part of Medusae!