D&D 4E How would you re-envision Darksun with 4e?

Klaus · Jan 8, 2008

All this DS talk has me wanting to read the Prism Pentad (never read any DS fiction).

Simplicity · Jan 8, 2008

I've already said that they should reboot all of the settings. Almost every setting ever produced for D&D started at its high point and went downhill from there (except for maybe Greyhawk). Give the players a new DarkSun boxed set like the original and reset the timeline has my vote. Not that it's a democracy.

Achan hiArusa · Jan 9, 2008

I don't know if I want to. I put too much work into all my versions of Dark Sun. For my last conversion I took the Paizo version and tinkered with it. I figured out what would happen if you had basically a hurricane spinning off storms for the past 300 years would do. The only race that would not start dying off from simple colds and flus as humidity went up (much like the Fremen dying from wetlung) would be the halflings and they would see free lunches out there. Thri-kreen would migrate further away from the storm to dryer areas, and the amount of water put out would drown the Obsidian lands causing undead to migrate north. Then the silt sea turns from silt to mud to a salt sea causing things that live in it want to migrate out. And green stuff starts to return giving a boost to defilers.

So we have people dying from colds, a population boom in halflings, and undead shuffling north. We have the major population check on elves migrate away from the Tyr region and finally we have silt horrors trying to find refuge on land. And defilers are more powerful than before with the return of most of the Sorceror-kings. Yes, its such a wonderful hope-filled world after the Prism Pentad...

And being a Paladin in Dark Sun is its own punishment.

Najo · Jan 9, 2008

Klaus said:
All this DS talk has me wanting to read the Prism Pentad (never read any DS fiction).

Books 1-4 are pretty good and give a good feel for the Dark Sun setting. Book 5 is bad and hurts the setting with the way it ends. That is all I will say. You should read them.

Steely Dan · Jan 9, 2008

Klaus said:
All this DS talk has me wanting to read the Prism Pentad (never read any DS fiction).

It's not bad, but Troy Denning has a bit of a habit of sometimes modelling his novels after epic films – Prism Pentad = Spartacus, that FR Harper novel (anauroch) = Lawrence of Arabia.

Klaus · Jan 9, 2008

Najo said:
Books 1-4 are pretty good and give a good feel for the Dark Sun setting. Book 5 is bad and hurts the setting with the way it ends. That is all I will say. You should read them.

I'll look for them. Someone mentioned them being reprinted? When is that due?

Sitara · Jan 9, 2008

Hmm, I wonder how Tieflings would fit into darksun. the obvious answer is that they don't... but a more interesting answer could be tielfings are the offspring of sorceror-kings!!

Interestingly, since we now know (thanks to W&M leaks) that dragons cannot cast 'spells' but will have unique powers, a new darksun would probably not have the champions of rajaat as dragons! (a good thing!!)

Dausuul · Jan 9, 2008

Sitara said:
Interestingly, since we now know (thanks to W&M leaks) that dragons cannot cast 'spells' but will have unique powers, a new darksun would probably not have the champions of rajaat as dragons! (a good thing!!)

That would make me sad. The Dragon-as-ultimate-defiler is one of my favorite elements in the Dark Sun world. Besides, standard-issue D&D dragons have no place in Athas. Half of them favor terrain that doesn't even exist, and good dragons are wildly at odds with the "savage world" theme.

(Not that I ever liked color-coded dragons anyhow.)

glass · Jan 9, 2008

Sitara said:
Interestingly, since we now know (thanks to W&M leaks) that dragons cannot cast 'spells' but will have unique powers, a new darksun would probably not have the champions of rajaat as dragons! (a good thing!!)

I'm not sure that follows. Since the original DS dragons and core dragons were totally different things, there is not reason to equate 4e DS dragons and 4e core dragons, IMO.

glass.