Isolation of the Dark Sun multiverse

[Roman]

Nowadays, every setting has its own cosmology, but back in 2E days the Great Wheel cosmology united the official D&D worlds. Dark Sun, however, IIRC was an isolated setting. I think it still had some links to the Great Wheel, but mostly it was separated. I don't have my DS materials with me (and won't for a long time, due to being in a university dormitory and in any case as much as I love the setting my knowledge of Dark Sun has never been spectacular, so I would appreciate it if somebody with more knowledge on the matter could elaborate on the barriers and linkeages between Dark Sun and the rest of the Great Wheel multiverse. Thanks!

 

[Shemeska]

It wasn't in its own seperate cosmology. It was somewhat unique however in that most of its planar connections were blocked or highly restricted.

Athas still had all of its connections to the Inner Planes, but access to the Ethereal, Astral, and Outer Planes was, with slim exception, largely impossible. Even the souls of the dead couldn't reach the outer planes, nor could conventional deities arise on Athas due to the lack of outer planar connections, and a region known as the Gray surrounded Athas like a sealed buffer between it and those planes.

The reason for the lack of connections was never explained.

However ways in and out did exist. Dregoth the undead sorcerer king had access to an artifact that allowed him to visit the multiverse at large, the githyanki had some interaction with Athas in the past, there were Athasian that visited the inner planes, and there was a racial/cultural ghetto called New Tyr in Sigil formed by refugees from Athas (so presumably there were portals from Sigil to Athas). A renegade rilmani claimed to have been to Athas prior to the genocides instigated by Rajaat. There was also the bit of Athas that was ensnared by the mists of Ravenloft, or (more likely) recreated around that particular darklord who was originally a Templar on Athas. The Gray isn't absolutely solid to transit, though it might as well be.

 

[Roman]

I was not trying to suggest that Dark Sun was completely separated from the Great Wheel cosmology, I know it still belonged to it, but it was also mostly isolated with only some linkeages. Thanks for shedding the light on some of the connections between Athas and the rest of the Great Wheel cosmology. Yes, I recall that Dregoth had the Planar Gate artifact that allowed travel to and from Athas, but I was not sure about the other connections.

As to the links between the Inner Planes and Athas - were those the really same Inner Planes as for the rest of the Great Wheel? If so, travel should have been possible accross them between Athas and the rest of the Great Wheel, no? The paraelemental and quasielemental planes, I believe, were completely different too - at least in name.

 

[Mark Hope]

I was not trying to suggest that Dark Sun was completely separated from the Great Wheel cosmology, I know it still belonged to it, but it was also mostly isolated with only some linkeages. Thanks for shedding the light on some of the connections between Athas and the rest of the Great Wheel cosmology. Yes, I recall that Dregoth had the Planar Gate artifact that allowed travel to and from Athas, but I was not sure about the other connections.

As to the links between the Inner Planes and Athas - were those the really same Inner Planes as for the rest of the Great Wheel? If so, travel should have been possible accross them between Athas and the rest of the Great Wheel, no? The paraelemental and quasielemental planes, I believe, were completely different too - at least in name.

Shemeska has covered the main bases here, and I'd agree with pretty much all of that. The Grey is indeed the most prominent barrier between Athas and the Astral (and other planes, one would presume), although that barrier is breached on a number of occasions in DS products (in addition to those examples given by Shemeska, there are appearances by fiends here and there, and at least one of the DS squid monsters is cited as having come from another world).

As for the inner planes, Planescape would suggest that they are the same. There is a portal from the plane of Fire (iirc) that leads to Athas, and there are the race known as the ruvoka who apparently originate from Athasian druids (or so I recall) who undergo elemental transformations. They may or may not be the same as the DS race called the ukoven - there are several strong similarities between the two.

One of the Spelljammer supplements (Spacefarer's Guide?) also mentions that Athas is a closed or sealed crystal sphere, but there are no mentions of crystal spheres in DS material. Unreleased DS material was going to involve an Athasian comet that turned out to be a spacecraft of some kind with three ancient DS rhulisti (bio-engineering halflings) in deep sleep on board. It was going to crash into Athas, with various consequences. Not sure how this may or may not tie into Spelljammer lore, and it was never released anyhow (but did give rise to several years of increasingly daft "Invasion of the Killer Space Hobbits" rumours, until the designers in question debunked most of the speculation).

There is and interesting connection with the Spelljammer race Xik-chil (sp?) - the bio-engineering mantis-men. They bear a striking resemblance to Dark Sun's zik-chil, who are a sect of thri-kreen who engage in genetic engineering of other kreen species (they are known as the "Priests of Change" on Athas). Spooky bunch. (Some fans adhere to the idea that they are descended from ancient renegade rhulisti who changed their forms, but I personally think that's absurd.)

There is also the interesting tidbit that the kreen believe in a freezing cold hellish afterlife which they call Kano - seems clear to me that this is meant to be a veiled reference to Caina in the Nine Hells.

 

[Roman]

Thanks for the answer.

Still, it just seems that if the Inner Planes were the same between Athas and the rest of the Great Wheel, the contacts between the two should have been much more common, as any travel to any Inner Plane would bypass the Grey or whatever other barriers there were between Dark Sun and the rest of the Great Wheel. Also, how are the differences in paraelemental and quasielemental planes explained?

So, this is a comprehensive list of connections mentioned so far between Athas and the Great Wheel:

Planar Gate (artifact in Dregoth's possession)
?Sigil-Athas portal(s)?
?Athas-Elemental Plane of Fire portal?
?Common Inner Planes?

 

[Mark Hope]

Thanks for the answer.

Still, it just seems that if the Inner Planes were the same between Athas and the rest of the Great Wheel, the contacts between the two should have been much more common, as any travel to any Inner Plane would bypass the Grey or whatever other barriers there were between Dark Sun and the rest of the Great Wheel. Also, how are the differences in paraelemental and quasielemental planes explained?

Well, this is a fair point, and one I didn't delve into too deeply above. Simply put, although there are enough points of correspondence between Planescape inner planes and those of Dark Sun to assume that they are the same, at the same time there are enough points of difference to raise questions of their differences.

The DS inner planes differ from those of the Great Wheel in a few ways, not least of which is nomenclature. Yes, DS has planes of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. But it also has Silt, Sun, Rain and Magma paraelemental planes. While Magma corresponds easily to the Great Wheel plane of the same name, the others are less easy to link. Sun exists through a confluence of Fire and Air, so you could equate that to the Great Wheel plane that lies in the same position, for example (is it Smoke? can't recall...) But its characteristics don't quite match those of the Great Wheel, so you could also argue that equating the two isn't such a good idea.

Different fans have addressed this in different ways. An easy solution is to say that the DS Inner Planes aren't the same as those of the Great Wheel, and that any seeming similarities are just coincidences (although this doesn't fully explain the gate from the Great Wheel plane of Fire to Athas). Another approach is to say that the DS inner planes are regions of the Great Wheel inner planes that are generally unknown to planewalkers for whatever reason - and vice versa. Or you could say that Athas lies in the far future of the multiverse, and that the Great Wheel inner planes eventually devolve into those seen in the Dark Sun setting (I use an approach similar to this myself). Without any solid answer, you have a great deal of freedom in how you choose to address the issue.

Additionally, there is also the issue of the wars between the elements that is a part of the DS setting. DS lore depicts the elements as perpetually battling one another, with the conditions on Athas being caused by and in turn influencing the state of the planes. So Silt is defeating Water, with obvious results, for example. There are inter-elemental conflicts in the Great Wheel, but it seems less apocalyptic than in DS, and has less effects on the Prime Plane (afaik - others may correct me on this).

So, this is a comprehensive list of connections mentioned so far between Athas and the Great Wheel:

Planar Gate (artifact in Dregoth's possession)
?Sigil-Athas portal(s)?
?Athas-Elemental Plane of Fire portal?
?Common Inner Planes?

There is also the githyanki gate to the Astral from Black Spine and a handful of summoning spells and items. I wouldn't go on record as saying that this is a 100% comprehensive list, but it's a good overview. There should be a few more tidbits forthcoming from Athas.org in the next few months, as they are releasing some previously unpublished TSR-era materials that deal with planar connections here and there (specifically, the Secrets of the Dead Lands and the Faces of the Far North and Lost Cities publications). These are still in the final phases of development, though, so I'm not really at liberty to discuss more until the finished products are released.

 

[Desdichado]

I think the reason is best explained "metagame" rather than "in-game" actually--the in-game explanations seem a bit half-hearted and lacking in details.

On the other hand, the integrity of the Dark Sun setting is compromised with the Great Wheel cosmology attached, and Dark Sun characters were balanced internally to the setting, but not with characters from other settings. In other words, Dark Sun and the rest of D&D didn't really mix well.

 

[prosfilaes]

Thanks for the answer.

Still, it just seems that if the Inner Planes were the same between Athas and the rest of the Great Wheel, the contacts between the two should have been much more common, as any travel to any Inner Plane would bypass the Grey or whatever other barriers there were between Dark Sun and the rest of the Great Wheel.

You're talking infinite planes; there's no reason to think that after you travel for a million miles on the inner planes, you won't start running into people from entirely different prime planes or even entirely different outer planes. It's possible that the regions of the Inner Planes close to Athas are protected by the Grey, with close being far enough that only a vanishing few travellers would ever escape it.

 

[Shemeska]

I just remembered another DS reference within Planescape:

In 'Dead Gods, it's mentioned that Tenebrous/Orcus managed to obtain a rhulisti lifeshaping artifact that he attempted to use to craft himself a new body to stave off the effects of the Last Word during his period of undeath (he may have actually travelled to Athas to obtain the device IIRC, but I don't have the book handy to check).

And as for the differences in the elemental planes as described in DS versus the rest of D&D/Planescape. I'm perfectly willing to chalk up the differences purely to the terminology used by the Athasians to describe the same planes that the rest of the multiverse defaulted to different names for. What an Athasian might have called a paraelemental plane of sun, might have been a region of elemental fire, or quasielemental radiance, or simply the region of elemental fire that bordered upon the ethereal boundary closest to the Gray of Athas. It might honestly be a combination of both different names for the same sets of planes, and localized differences in those planes where the Athasian Gray held some local influence. The Athasian would be familiar with such regions, but the average planewalker would likely never come across it compared to the rest of the infinity of that particular elemental plane.

 

[Tarek]

The theory a friend of mine, and the DM for a 1st edition campaign I was in, came up with made a great deal of sense.

The reason, he said, that Athas is isolated from the Outer Planes is because the plane is sitting in the eye of a permanent psychic wind, an astral hurricane as it were.

The psychic wind snaps the silver cords used to project between the planes, and would be very disruptive to Outer Planar connections if it were something like a permanent storm. Think of the astral equivalent of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter.

That explains why the Astral is referred to as "the Black" on Athas; it's a side effect of the astral winds.

Travel through the Ethereal, "the Gray" is not affected very much; the Inner Planes are easily reached.