On the topic of there being gods but much reduced. I would have that ascension to true godhood would require restoration of the world and reversal of the defilement as the world cannot support a population needed to maintain ascension.
@Steampunkette has her own psionics system (an awesome one!) that isn't magic. One would assume that is in play here.I thought elemental magic didn't defile either? Do I have that wrong? My point being, not all magic defiles (or so I thought by canon).
To me psionics is magic, just a different source or way to access it. The inner primal magic if you will. So if all magic defiles than that is an issue for me.
In my idea of DS: arcane magic defiles and divine magic is gone. Psionics is the standard method to do magical things without those two sources and without defiling. I haven't made my mind up on elemental and primal magic.* I could see them still working, but I would want a totally different magic system for them compared to what we have in the core 5e books.
*Note: I see elemental and primal magic as being similar: calling on the power of elemental or primal spirits to do magical things. So you call on the power of xyz and get a magical effect. The spells would be more like rituals and generally not be as combat focused IMO.
From 2e:I thought elemental magic didn't defile either? Do I have that wrong? My point being, not all magic defiles (or so I thought by canon).
To me psionics is magic, just a different source or way to access it. The inner primal magic if you will. So if all magic defiles than that is an issue for me.
In my idea of DS: arcane magic defiles and divine magic is gone. Psionics is the standard method to do magical things without those two sources and without defiling. I haven't made my mind up on elemental and primal magic.* I could see them still working, but I would want a totally different magic system for them compared to what we have in the core 5e books.
*Note: I see elemental and primal magic as being similar: calling on the power of elemental or primal spirits to do magical things. So you call on the power of xyz and get a magical effect. The spells would be more like rituals and generally not be as combat focused IMO.
I am aware and I own it! However, the OP asked us what we would do, so I was clarifying as she didn't even mention psionics in her OP@Steampunkette has her own psionics system (an awesome one!) that isn't magic. One would assume that is in play here.
OK, my perspective is a bit different from the 2e and core 5e. It sound like you are just using the 2e version is that correct?From 2e:
Arcane Magic defiles.
Divine Magic (Including what we'd consider Primal Magic, today) doesn't.
Psionics aren't magic and don't defile.
Clerics are using elemental magic, but it's granted from Elementals, and treated as Divine, essentially. Druids, like Clerics, also get their spells and powers from elementals but it's less "This powerful Elemental Lord is standing in for a god" and more "Every rock and tree and creature has a life has a spirit and grants me power so long as I protect them."
So I'd just be building off the setting rather than trying to impose 5e's "Everything is the Weave" narrative onto it all.
Yeah, basically. Kind of blending the 2e and 4e versions to make the 5e version.OK, my perspective is a bit different from the 2e and core 5e. It sound like you are just using the 2e version is that correct?
I believe it's stated somewhere that any water bound in defiled vegetation is destroyed along with the plants. The ash from defiling is unlike the ash from burning, in that it is completely free of nutrients, and nothing can grow in that area for at least a year, and only then can the surrounding area try to reclaim it.If you have a whole planet which is a high pressure zone, you can't really -have- that dynamic. But unless the vast majority of the water were utterly destroyed, there would still be SO MUCH WATER.
Yeah, I know...I believe it's stated somewhere that any water bound in defiled vegetation is destroyed along with the plants. The ash from defiling is unlike the ash from burning, in that it is completely free of nutrients, and nothing can grow in that area for at least a year, and only then can the surrounding area try to reclaim it.
Also, in canon a lot of the water of the planet was destroyed in one way or the other. During the Blue Age, Athas was supposedly covered in water, which was drained away during the first major use of the Pristine Tower that heralded the Green Age. It's not impossible that the same happened when the Sorcerer-Kings were created and Borys ascended. Does it make scientific sense? No, but neither does defiling so...
Sins is still in the works. I'm running a game in the setting actually.Didnt you start this with your Sins of the Scorpion or was that dropped?
Sins is still in the works. I'm running a game in the setting actually.
But I can't do the AI Art gambit with it. I've gotta get enough money to do all the art in the book in advance, so it's back-burnered as far as release is concerned.
That said... it's not like Wizards would -let- me do Dark Sun... so...
Sketchy, I'd think. Much like with the OGL kerfuffle, even if you'd probably win, it won't be a slam dunk where the judge just tosses the suit. It'll be a legal battle most creators couldn't begin to afford.What are the copyright implications of making a Bark Run setting using one of the creative-commons versions of OSR?
I don't hate that. I'd perhaps go a step further and have them be trying to preserve history, culture, art, and so on. I'd characterize what they're doing as tilting at windmills to some extent--all their projects are moonshots--but have it be clear that the work is worthwhile and motivates them to carry on in a fallen world. They would differ from druids in that they are fundamentally trying to improve communities and make Athas better for people, with druids being more like militant ecoterrorists who speak for the trees. I'd also want to describe the preservers as a region spanning organization of secretive semi-autonomous cells, rather than a bunch of different groups organized at the city level.8) Preservers are trying to save the world.
Largely outside of cities, the Preservers are a group of people who are doing all that they can to preserve what remains of the world and restore some measure of what was lost. They have hope. Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't. But they're trying to find pockets of life and plants and good soil in the world... and collect them. Bring the soil and the seeds and the life together to try and slowly restore the world.
Love the stone jungle. More weird and appropriately themed biomes to interact with would be great.9) It's not just the Tablelands.
The Tablelands are Borys' place. His territory, with the heart of his "Empire" in the Silt Sea. Beyond it are things like the Crimson Wastes and the Stone Jungle, a place the defilers destroyed but the petrified trees didn't collapse like they largely did in the Tablelands. Yes, there are people in the Stone Jungle and the Crimson Wastes. No. They're not more friendly than the people of the Tablelands. They may or may not have Sorcerer Kings of their own. No one knows. Their languages aren't known in the Tablelands.
A bunch of big conceptual things in the setting don't really make sense. It maybe goes too far with lack of water, and the Sea of Silt is very wierd. But I'd also say that the rarity of metals doesn't make a lot of sense--Iron is the 4th most common element in the earth's crust (5%), can be prospected by looking for outcrops of it, and the city states clearly have the technology to mine and manufacture it. I'm not sure we want to pull at those threads too hard unless we're determined to come up with thouroughly worked out answers to most of them (though I'd absolutely love to see it if someone did).12) There would be rain.
Fitful, hot, and unsatisfying. Occasionally toxic. There would still be rain on Athas... but the thirsting sands consume it and drag it away... The Sea of Silt is actually a -sea-. With some water intermingled with the Silt. And Silt Sea Raiders do all they can to filter out another mouthful of greywater from what moisture remains. After rains cross the Silt Sea, there are -days- of ease and leisure for the Silt Sea Raiders... but once the water slips down past the first 20-30 feet of silt, it's practically impossible to get at. Never enough rain to slake the thirsty masses in the City-States... but enough to let the rovers barely survive.
3) The Sorcerer-Kings would not be working towards Draconic Apotheosis.
They'd have their goals for "Ever More Power!" with various paths to it rather than one for all of them doing the same boring thing.
I don't mind them all aspiring to be dragons, but I agree with you about the avangion dichotomy being weak sauce.They're all working towards SOMETHING. Just make it more individual rather than a "This is the one Evil Path and there's also one Good Path as well" type false dichotomy. I hate dichotomies like that so much, there should always be various options for the Sorcerer Kings.