D&D 5E How I'd rewrite Dark Sun... what changes would you make?

[Composer99]

I haven't read up on Dark Sun in ages, but it comes across as (or as if it could easily be) Permian-Triassic Boundary, the game setting.

And that might be one way to take it - a world doomed to nearly-total devastation, until the forces driving same finally go away (*), when it can finally begin to recover.

The player characters might not be able to stop the doom (the assumed default is no, but it's ultimately a table decision), but their deeds can make the difference between ensuring some of the speaking peoples are still around for the recovery part or not.

(*) This would be the sorcerer-kings either escaping the calamity à la the doom sun post upthread or finally succumbing to it.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The biotech or lifeshaper crafting sounds really interesting, but it could break the power balance. Let's imagine for example a crossbow what reloads itself.

* A reboot of Jackandor could be the solution. Let's imagine this is within Athaspace, and later "refugees" from Athas arrive, among them some defiler. Then Jackandor could be unlocked in the DMGuild.

* And they have to think about the design of the rest of the "Athaspace" as potential source of new stories.

* Yarth, one of the "twin worlds" of Oerth (Greyhawk) could be reimagined as a DS spin-off. Uerth could be the "mirror universe".

Hollow World could be a "generic" spin-off, not only linked with Mystara, but the rest of D&D worlds, and some "hollow worlds" could enjoys a more "Athasian" style.

* Maybe the constructs workers in a rebooted DS aren't completely slaves, but they are sentient souls controlling a construct body, and relatively of their own free will. If they work for enough time, they can pay "past due debts", "unpaid taxes", or to get enough money for a "reincarnation" ritual.

* If WotC published an adventure set in Kalidnay, one of the dread domains, DS wouldn't need be unlocked in DMGuild.

 

[humble minion]

I haven't read up on Dark Sun in ages, but it comes across as (or as if it could easily be) Permian-Triassic Boundary, the game setting.

And that might be one way to take it - a world doomed to nearly-total devastation, until the forces driving same finally go away (*), when it can finally begin to recover.

I've got Thri-Kreen of Athas on a shelf to my left though it's been it's ages since I read it, but i seem to vaguely remember that it riffed off that theme a bit. The Cleansing Wars and the desolation of the Dragon that came after were implied to be the end of the 'standard' D&D races, and all the ones left were just a dwindling doomed remnant who hadn't quite yet succumbed to their own mass extinction. The Kreen were fairly new arrivals on the sentience scene (hence why Rajaat never bothered assigning a champion to genocide them, he thought of them as just dumb animals who weren't worth the effort), and I remember the book hinting - or it might have just been the impression i got - that the Kreen were going to inherit the world after the humans, elves, etc finally destroyed themselves. Shades of Planet of the Apes.

 

[Staffan]

The main reason Rajaat didn't bother much about the thri-kreen was that they were not mutant halflings, but their own thing. He saw all the halfling descendents as abominations that had to be destroyed before returning the world to its rightful masters, but kreen just didn't factor into that.

 

[Steampunkette]

Canonically defiling depletes reasources insanely. Combine with that one creature that likes to destroy metal, I can see why lots of materials and resources are gone.

And tons of your ideas are already in Dark Sun, as overgeek pointed out. So what makes them "changes" per se, beyond maybe having some gods back?

Honestly, if I were doing changes, I would look back on 2e Dark Sun's mentions of the Blue Age and the halfling lifeshapers and try to make the Green Age somewhat more influenced by that, instead of jusr making it be a generic fantasy setting.

Because the lifeshaped biotech was honestly interesting to me and well part of me wants it to be that the Green Age looked like a typical fantasy setting on the surface but scratch it a little and the paint comes off revealing something pretty different.

Like yes, metal weapons and armor were still more plentiful, but perhaps that halfling biotech stuff was more widespread and replaced a number of generic fantasy stuff with more advanced lifeshaped alternatives.

1) I've had overgeeked ignored for ... uh... some time now? Not exactly certain how long and I don't remember why.

2) This isn't "What I'd change to make it a wildly different setting". This is "How I'd rewrite it". How I'd take the old 2nd edition setting and make it more in line with modern sensibilities.

Which is why it's not Doomed Sun or Green Age Sun, both of which have been brought up.

And those -would- be cool settings that I'd probably buy. It just wouldn't be how I redo Dark Sun for 5e or later.

 

[mamba]

But considering how bizarre of a terrain feature the Sea of Silt is, that doesn't make a lot of sense.

I assume they simply wanted boats sailing across the large distances and it could not be made of water for obvious reasons, more than it being logical (not sure why it could not have been caravans though)

 

[wellis]

* A reboot of Jackandor could be the solution. Let's imagine this is within Athaspace, and later "refugees" from Athas arrive, among them some defiler. Then Jackandor could be unlocked in the DMGuild.

Speaking of Jakandor, was it part of a bigger setting? For some reason I thought it was a Greyhawk subsetting.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

No, nothing was said beyond the island. Then this could be placed where you wanted.

 

[Staffan]

Speaking of Jakandor, was it part of a bigger setting? For some reason I thought it was a Greyhawk subsetting.

Not officially, no. There was definitely a bigger world out there – the Charonti used to have an empire spread across the world (and some of them worship foreign gods), and the Knorrmen came from somewhere else a few generations ago, but Jakandor is remote enough that there's no contact with the rest of the world anymore.