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.

 

[Charlaquin]

Isn't this just replicating - or (if one thinks it's not a full replication) alluding to - the role of druids in AD&D Dark Sun as guardians of little areas of greenery? Instead of Preservation, just call it Circle of the Guarded Lands.

For my next hot take: Druidic casting (which in 5e I would count Ranger magic under the umbrella of) should also be more limited due to the destruction that defiling has wrought on the land. If you draw you power from a connection to nature, then in a world where nature is in its death throes, your magic should be weaker.

Spoiler alert: if you ask me about divine magic, I’m also going to advocate for it being weak, if it even still exists. Basically, I think Dark Sun should have under-powered casters pretty much across the board, except for defiling, which should be easily accessible for any arcane magic user, and provide stronger than baseline magic. That’s how you make the players viscerally feel why the world got the way it is.

But, again, I fully admit this is a radical and new direction that there’s no chance WotC would take the setting in. If I had unlimited free time and/or thought there was a reasonable chance of it becoming anything more than a vanity project, I’d just make my own homebrew setting inspired by the potential I see in Dark Sun. But, in this reality, I’ll have to satisfy myself by ranting at all of you about my high-minded armchair design ideas.

I’m sorry, thank you all for putting up with my nonsense when I get in these moods

 

[Echohawk]

To be fair, in The Verdant Passage novel, which I’m fairly sure was the second ever Dark Sun product after the original box (correct me if I’m wrong),

You aren't wrong. The Verdant Passage was released alongside the original Dark Sun Boxed Set in October 1991.

 

[Echohawk]

They not only didn't want to do Darksun, they wanted to destroy it, Shatterspace was originally supposed to be the Athas.

I'm sure I'm in a minority, but I'd have had no issue with the Spelljammer set destroying Athas, provided that it was clear that that was the far future of the setting. For me, knowing that it is a doomed world in the far, far future doesn't detract from the appeal of Athas in its "current" era.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

What if a player wanted a psi-artificer in DS? Or a sorcerer using primal or divine magic instead arcane. In 5e the favored soul is a sorcerer subclass.

The warden class from 4e was paladin-like with primal magic, should it be banned in DS 5e? And the seeker class was a ranger with more primal spells.

Oficially there were Athasian genasi in 4e: ember, magma, sand and sun. There were also corrupted genasi: caustic, cinder, plague and void.

WotC wants DS-5e to allow space for new crunch, for example the totemist shaman (incarnum soulmeld) or crusader class (martial adept) working as templars.

Some players could want "biopunk" crunch, for example crossbows with artificial muscles that reload themself.

Some time I imagine "the Grey" plane like the "astral plane" from the videogame "Control", with some touch of "backrooms", like the Hyrborian version of the new-weird fiction. Do you remember the "Dite" from "Metal Gear Survival"?

Maybe the sorcerer-kings weren't the biggest fishes in the sea, but there are other powers who created their own demiplanes or astral realms, but Borys the dragon blocked the planar gates to stop some possible invasion of the region of Tyr.

* We should see a future UA article about "psionic" PC species: synads, shardminds, xephs, elans, maenads, fraals and dromites.

* I would redesign the geography of the region of Tyr and around to allow "independient" adventures without links to the sorcerer-kings.

* What if after the "Sundering" event the world of Jackandor was sent to the Athaspace?

 

[Weiley31]

I mean don't we all want to marry a Space Goth Elf Waifu?

Truer words were never spoken.

 

[Zardnaar]

Few months ago would have though eh they'll Spelljammer/Dragonlance it.

Its not 2019 anymore and with BG3s adult themes and the departure of various people maybe.

 

[pukunui]

They not only didn't want to do Darksun, they wanted to destroy it, Shatterspace was originally supposed to be the Athas.

Doomspace.

I'm sure I'm in a minority, but I'd have had no issue with the Spelljammer set destroying Athas, provided that it was clear that that was the far future of the setting. For me, knowing that it is a doomed world in the far, far future doesn't detract from the appeal of Athas in its "current" era.

It was not made clear that it was in the far, far future. It was rather a big FU to DS fans. Athas’ lost gods found a way to break through the crystal sphere that had locked them out and, in a fit of pique, turned the planet’s sun into a black hole. One moon had already been sucked into the hole, while the other was mere days away, with the planet not far behind. Most inhabitants had been evacuated to planets further out in the solar system.