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.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Whilst I am sure your size comparisons are correct I would suggest that Dark Sun, as a setting, is more detailed and complex than those five regions typically are in the FR. The last time we got real turbo detail on them was what, 2E? The actual size doesn't really inherently matter, I would suggest, because you can go into insane detail on a single town or be vague about a Pangaean mega continent

Also wow are they really doing the Moonshaes in detail, not the Moonsea region or is that a typo? Because that'd be a hell of a choice lol. The Moonsea is the absolute heart of the FR in many ways (yes yes I know) maybe moreso than the Sword Coast or the Dales even, and skipping it in favour of Jaunty Celtomania Theme Park Land (with a side order of stereotypical Vikings) is... brave lol.

The intent is that each of the 5 locations offer different "flavors" of fantasy for DMs to set their stories in. The Moonshaes were selected to be the site of Celtic or Brythonic inspired fantasy with a heaping dose of fairy mythology. If you're inspired by something like Spencer's Fairy Queene, you'd set a game in the Moonshaes, whereas Baldur's Gate is for urban fantasy adventures so if you just finished reading Pratchett's Guards, Guards or Mieville's Un Lun Dun, you'd run a game there.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

For Calimshan, they brought in an expert, Dr. Shahreena Shahrani (who has also done work for Paizo recently), to remake it as a viable and representative Arabic Setting.

Unfortunately, as someone with three translatuons of the Mabinogion on my shelf and a near-Minor in Celtic Studies, I doubt they are doing similar groundwork for the Moonshaes.

Yes that does seem sadly unlikely. I suspect we won't see "Celtic" areas get better treatment until Celtomania inevitably comes around again in a decade or three (the last visit being the late 1980s and early 1990s).

Re: Calimshan that is good to hear, it was always a strange confused combination of, variously, depending on the source, medieval Baghdad, Disney's Agrabah, the Ottoman Empire, and sometimes renaissance Italy (?!) or even wackier takes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'd love to continue this conversation, but it would absolutely become political. You lost me right there above, and that is unfortunately exactly where this would go political.

I suspect our differences on this would be less than you perhaps assume. I am not endorsing the position lol. Also you could perhaps rephrase "very bad" to "at all bad" lol

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The intent is that each of the 5 locations offer different "flavors" of fantasy for DMs to set their stories in. The Moonshaes were selected to be the site of Celtic or Brythonic inspired fantasy with a heaping dose of fairy mythology. If you're inspired by something like Spencer's Fairy Queene, you'd set a game in the Moonshaes, whereas Baldur's Gate is for urban fantasy adventures so if you just finished reading Pratchett's Guards, Guards or Mieville's Un Lun Dun, you'd run a game there.

If they can turn Baldurs Gate into an Ankh-Morpork/Lankhmar vibe I will genuinely be impressed. If they can also handle Calimshan well and playable and avoid face palm levels of twee with the Moonshaes this might be genuinely the best thing that happened to the FR in 20+ years, maybe 30.

Would also reduce my trepidation re Dark Sun a lot.

 

[Gradine]

In an ideal world a diverse team who love the original DS but understand the problems it has would update this. That's probably not viable at WotC so I think the best we can hope for is that slavery is replaced with different forms of oppression that are less sensitive in that particular culture.

I mean, they could even replace it with something much more resembling the models of slavery found in the ancient world, you know, something that would actually suit the overall vibe and tone of the setting much better. But no, they had to go with the American (North, South, Caribbean, etc.) model of vicious and brutal chattel slavery, with all the modern day baggage that involves, and as if that wasn't enough they had to get race and eugenics involved also.

 

[Parmandur]

If they can turn Baldurs Gate into an Ankh-Morpork/Lankhmar vibe I will genuinely be impressed. If they can also handle Calimshan well and playable and avoid face palm levels of twee with the Moonshaes this might be genuinely the best thing that happened to the FR in 20+ years, maybe 30.

Would also reduce my trepidation re Dark Sun a lot.

We have not seen much detail from the Gazateers, but each one has about 10 low prep Adventures with a map to create a low detail "Adventure path" if one wants, and the goals behind the choices of which locations they chose seemed to be about offering places different in key ways from the example Greyhawk stuff in the DMG.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, they could even replace it with something much more resembling the models of slavery found in the ancient world, you know, something that would actually suit the overall vibe and tone of the setting much better. But no, they had to go with the American (North, South, Caribbean, etc.) model of vicious and brutal chattel slavery, with all the modern day baggage that involves, and as if that wasn't enough they had to get race and eugenics involved also.

I mean, that kind of flowed from the source material: Dark Sun was always a D&D take on Edgar Rice Burrroughs version of Mars (which was still fairly popular in the Midwest Sci-Fantasy crowd of the TSR era).

 

[Gradine]

I mean, that kind of flowed from the source material: Dark Sun was always a D&D take on Edgar Rice Burrroughs version of Mars (which was still fairly popular in the Midwest Sci-Fantasy crowd of the TSR era).

Yeah... that's kind of the problem. They might have improved upon the inspirations they drew from the turn of the century eugenics enthusiast. I guess they still can, now.

 

[Chaltab]

Keeping it isn't a hill I care to die on, just like slavery... but it's not like Dark Sun was saying 'Eugenics is good'.

It was a thing that happened and there are people born of it, but I never got the sense that it was meant to be anything but more evidence of how the society was evil and corrupted under the Sorcerer Kings and how heroes were necessary. Hell, Rikus was one of the greatest heroes in the metaplot and he was a Mul himself.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Re: Calimshan that is good to hear, it was always a strange confused combination of, variously, depending on the source, medieval Baghdad, Disney's Agrabah, the Ottoman Empire, and sometimes renaissance Italy (?!) or even wackier takes.

I had a conversation with Steven E. Schend on Ed Greenwood's personal discord, where I asked the question "I often hear Calimshan described as 'Fantasy Ottomans', but what is specifically Ottoman about them?"

Schend responded with a fascinating reply; it's not that Calimshan is specifically Ottoman, it's that after the publication of Al-Qadim and its firmly Arabic inspired Zakhara setting, TSR then tasked Schend with flavoring Calimshan as "generically middle eastern but NOT specifically Arabian" in character, so that Zakhara seemed more distinct. So the notion that Calimshan is just kind of "undefined orientalist fantasy" is the point, and I can kind of agree with that, because there is also a corresponding notion of "generic medieval european fantasy" and "generic Chinese fantasy" (in the form of Wuxia), though it would be better if "orientalist fantasy" actually originated in those cultures.