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.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

No. The important aspect of the fiction is GONE.

Maybe for PCs. (Maybe not, as we haven't actually seen anything "for real" yet).

But I have to admit - I don't really care, as I doubt that I would ever allow (with the caveat of discussion with my players over what kind of story they want to tell) anyone to play a "Wizard" in a Dark Sun game, of all things.

It changes nothing with how I'd present NPCs, or the world itself. It ain't gone in my game.

But I absolutely accept that you don't like it. That's fine.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

the less things there are to go by, the less that thing has an identity.

If I call a car ‘car’, but call a bus, plane, and boat ‘car’ as well, I lost meaning and ‘car’ is now basically just ‘vehicle’

If you removed ‘snake hair’ instead of ‘female’, a female basilisk would now be a medusa

We're really into the weeds now. Look, I'm sorry I said anything, all right? It was a waste of all our times.

 

[Remathilis]

The slave race deliberately bred?

Yeah, seems like a slam dunk inclusion.

lol

That preview is the perfect encapsulation of the edgelord aesthetic that dates Dark Sun. "I was cut out of my dying mother's womb" is absolute pizza cutter (all edge, no point).

Anyway, it only takes a clever life shaper halfling or a powerful druid, psionic or such to morph muls from a sterile hybrid race into a true breeding species over enough time. A biological warforged. Oh, or maybe make them all artificial "grown in a lab" rather than fatal breeding results. Then have enough of them be freed of their bondage to create their own society.

I really think you could get a lot of mileage adapting the warforged story (living weapons trying to find a place in society after gaining freedom) to make muls palatable without the rape breeding scenario.

 

[Steampunkette]

Maybe for PCs. (Maybe not, as we haven't actually seen anything "for real" yet).

But I have to admit - I don't really care, as I doubt that I would ever allow (with the caveat of discussion with my players over what kind of story they want to tell) anyone to play a "Wizard" in a Dark Sun game, of all things.

It changes nothing with how I'd present NPCs, or the world itself. It ain't gone in my game.

But I absolutely accept that you don't like it. That's fine.

It's not gone in your game. And if I were to run it, it wouldn't be gone in my game.

But it's gone from the setting. Which is what we're here discussing. Not the personal ways we'd run Dark Sun in the modern day.

We're talking about the Design Decisions of WotC and how those decisions ignore the narrative structure of Dark Sun while keeping fundamental ideas as general trappings to gently lay over the top of the typical 5e D&D game expectations.

 

[Steampunkette]

That preview is the perfect encapsulation of the edgelord aesthetic that dates Dark Sun. "I was cut out of my dying mother's womb" is absolute pizza cutter (all edge, no point).

I dunno if it dates Dark Sun too badly... it was the opening theme of the 2011 Conan remake that tried to edgelord him up, too.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

If WotC does an about face, and does go ahead with a Dark Sun setting book, I don't expect it to be even close to the original setting in tone or lore. My expectation is something more akin to the 4e DS setting book, but watered/toned down to a PG rating. So instead of desert survival and slavery, we'll have beach parties and treasure hunts for magic ice cream fountains.

IIRC the 4E Dark Sun book said that while Good and Lawful Good character's can't own slave, Unaligned characters could. In 2025 I don't think there should be any option condoned by the text to allow for slave ownership except by Evil characters, ideally only villainous NPCs. In a fantasy setting you can give any explanation for that, such as the only slavers allowed to operate in cities being magically contracted to the sorcerer kings.

 

[Remathilis]

I dunno if it dates Dark Sun too badly... it was the opening theme of the 2011 Conan remake that tried to edgelord him up, too.

Yeah, that didn't work that well either.

 

[Azzy]

I bounced hard off DS way back when it came out, so this is likely to be a hard sell to me. All I'll probably want from the DS book when it comes out is the psionics stuff, but they'll probably put that in an "Of Everything" book at some point.

 

[Necropolitan]

IIRC the 4E Dark Sun book said that while Good and Lawful Good character's can't own slave, Unaligned characters could. In 2025 I don't think there should be any option condoned by the text to allow for slave ownership except by Evil characters, ideally only villainous NPCs. In a fantasy setting you can give any explanation for that, such as the only slavers allowed to operate in cities being magically contracted to the sorcerer kings.

I know some people hate alignment, but there's something satisfying about a NPC who views themselves as a good person despite owning slaves and they're listed as Lawful Evil in their statblock.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yeah I expected it would have been, 4e doesnt exist in my head, but the wiki didnt seem to make that clear even if it had obvious 4e art.

/shrug

So whats the coles notes version of the 4e Mul (to be fair I have found most 4e lore pretty edgelord/grim)?

IIRC just that they're natural half-dwarves and slavemasters target them because they're so strong and have such great endurance, which like, is superficially similar but fundamentally different to "created by slavers, for slavers".

I expect any 5E version to cut the slavery angle, which honestly I think is a good thing. Even this was a much edgier version of 5E I think that would be smart to cut because it doesn't serve much purpose and causes problems.