Just discovered Dark Sun -- have questions!

[Desdichado]

OK, so I knew (or thought I did) about Dark Sun. Desert world, cannibal halflings, defiler magic, muls, thri-kreen, bone weapons, adventures that dealt with trying to find food or water, etc. But I'd never read anything of it, and it turns out I didn't know nearly as much about it as I thought. Just recently, I borrowed a number of Dungeon magazines from my friend to flip through and find maps and ideas to loot, and I took 110 (the Dark Sun DM's Guide) and I asked him if I could take his Dragon 319 (the Dark Sun players guide) while I was at is so I could see the Paizo take on modernizing Dark Sun.

Turns out a lot of the stuff that I thought defined Dark Sun was just flavor while many of the most basic premises of the campaign eerily converge on what I've done myself! True, I differ in many (most) details, but the whole idea of the dragon kings as mortals who have transcended mortality to become tyrranical god-kings is common in my game as well (although I most likely borrowed the idea from Black Company, with a bit of Nagash from the Warhammer setting thrown in for good measure). The whole rival city-state idea is not terribly different from my own take on politics in my campaign. Heck, the idea of a desert planet is like mine too, although mine is more directly influenced by Mars with cold weather, surface features that resemble Vallis Marinaris and the Tharsis Montes, etc. rather than being a kind of Arrakis/Tatooine hot, sandy place. And the idea of all animal life being unfamiliar and alien is also a convergence with my own setting, although again; one I've picked up from Edgar Rice Burroughs.

I also don't have the iron-poor ideal; in fact, my homebrew has all kinds of industrialization more along the lines of Iron Kingdoms, which is an obvious flavor difference from Athas. Still, I was very impressed by the similarities, and finding all kinds of ideas where they had done things that I had not and vice versa. After reading it, I also pulled out my old "campaign classics" issue of Dragon, and read the blurb there by Stan! on the development of the setting, and was surprised to find that originally it was going to eschew all kinds of Tolkienisms including the races. That would have made it resemble my own more classic Swords & Sorcery feeling campaign even more.

Anyway, I'm still pretty much only familiar with the setting from the Noonan (and Paizo editors) version of the setting, not the original. I've picked up from a number of places that there was not really a great fan reaction to the new version of the setting, which made a number of compromises to accomodate the core rules more at the expense of what many obviously thought were integral changes to the rules in the setting. Anyone who's a fan care to chime in and have a little discussion on the differences?

There's also a lot of things that clearly weren't explored in any depth in the articles that I had questions about; like this chap who created the sorceror-kings; who is he? What's the nature of the cataclysm that shook up the setting during it's initial run, which supposedly was set 300 years prior to this new take on it?

 

[Crothian]

I never saw the new updates. But there were some great products for it back in the day.

 

[Desdichado]

Which were some of the good products? Are the novels any good? I've been tempted by them for some time, although I don't even know if I could still find them. And what the heck is that in your avatar, Jubilex reading the Necronomicon?

 

[Nightfall]

Josh,

I read the novels. My advice, stay away from them. They were less than impressive.

 

[Crothian]

Which were some of the good products? Are the novels any good? I've been tempted by them for some time, although I don't even know if I could still find them.

I really liked the Will and the Way, the thri kreen one, and the elemental clerics one. I never hada lot of them, but those three I got a lot of use out of.

Personally, I found the novles so bad they almost ruined the setting for me. But YMMV

And what the heck is that in your avatar, Jubilex reading the Necronomicon?

actually I asked her (thanks Sialia) to make me an ooze reading a book. so, you aren't that far off.

 

[Alzrius]

Anyway, I'm still pretty much only familiar with the setting from the Noonan (and Paizo editors) version of the setting, not the original. I've picked up from a number of places that there was not really a great fan reaction to the new version of the setting, which made a number of compromises to accomodate the core rules more at the expense of what many obviously thought were integral changes to the rules in the setting. Anyone who's a fan care to chime in and have a little discussion on the differences?

Well, you were right to note the edits Paizo made...otherwise the article(s) would have been much better received. For one, there aren't paladins there, since it's more of a struggle-to-survive campaign, where paladins don't fit the mold. Likewise, there are no gods that can reach Athas, so divine spells only come from the world itself (nature) or the elemental planes. Likewise, sorcerers don't fit the mold, since arcane spellcasting was artificially introduced to the world, and requires taking life energy from things (usually plants).

There's also a lot of things that clearly weren't explored in any depth in the articles that I had questions about; like this chap who created the sorceror-kings; who is he?

His name is Rajaat, and he's pretty much the closest thing Athas has to a god. He's as far (if not further) beyond the Sorcerer-kings as they are beyond a mere commoner.

Rajaat, like all beings who weren't halflings (and, I suppose, thri-kreen), was a result of the Rebirth during the Green Age. He was one of the pyreen, a rare race that had long life and great psionic potential. However, for unknown reasons, while most pyreen were beautiful creatures, Rajaat was hideous. He was also, though, brilliant, and although it took him centuries, he invented arcane spellcasting. He spent over two hundred years refining it himself, but it was only when he went to the Pristine Tower, left behind by the halflings during the Rebirth, that he was able to finally codify it into the sorceries of Preserving and Defiling.

Emerging from the tower, he set up a school to publically teach preserving magic, even as he secretly taught defiling magic. It was in his defiler school that he carefully selected students who were not only of the right mindset (usually apt to be evil and tyrannical) but also had great psionic potential. These, he taught not only defiling, but psionics, to in secret. They were to become his Champions.

Finally, after centuries of hating himself for his appearance, Rajaat turned his hatred elsewhere. He declared that the Rebirth was a mistake, and that he would return Athas to the Blue Age. He had selected fifteen Champions, and each one would commit genocide upon a specific race. Unleashing them upon the world, the Cleansing Wars began.

The Wars raged for centuries. Finally, when about half of his Champions had succeeded, they all returned to Rajaat. They had figured out he had lied to them. He had told his Champions, all of whom were human, that their race would be the ones to inherit the new Blue Age. But they'd found out that he planned on giving it to it's original inhabitants - the halflings.

Most (though not all) of the Champions turned on Rajaat, and though they could not kill him, they were able to overcome him. They created the Hollow, a space beneath the Black, and imprisoned him there. However, even they, being masters of magic and psionics, weren't sure that would be enough. It was Borys of Ebe, the leader of the rebellion, who declared that they needed to take the next step and combine psionics and sorcery (which Rajaat had previously hinted at).

Using the Dark Lens, a major artifact that Rajaat had located (but not created), he catalyzed all of their transformations into dragon kings. A side-effect in the process granted them access to elemental energies that they could not themselves use, but could instead grant to those who worshipped them, in the form of spells. Borys forced himself to transform fully into a dragon, and began the process for all of the others. However, becoming a full dragon in one step caused Borys so much pain that he went into a berserk state of rage that lasted a century.

And Rajaat, trapped in the Hollow, waited for his chance...

What's the nature of the cataclysm that shook up the setting during it's initial run, which supposedly was set 300 years prior to this new take on it?

That is covered in the Prism Pentad series of novels. The Verdant Passage, The Crimson Legion, The Amber Enchantress, The Obsidian Oracle, and The Cerulean Storm, by Troy Denning, describe a series of events where a group of mortals free their city, Tyr, from its Sorcerer-king, which sets off a series of events leading to sweeping changes across the Tyr Valley (the main campaign area). I won't post spoilers here, but it basically is what prompted the Revised Boxed Set.

Which were some of the good products?

Well, personally, I liked Dragon Kings, The Will and the Way, Black Spine, Earth, Air, Fire, Water, City by the Silt Sea, Psionic Artifacts of Athas, and Defilers & Preservers: The Wizards of Athas myself. But I'm sure others will chime in with what they did and didn't like.

Are the novels any good?

Of the thirteen novels for Dark Sun, most people seem to think that only the Prism Pentad ones were truly good (or that's what I've gathered, at least). For me, what killed my enjoyment of the other novels outside of the Prism Pentad was that (being series for the most part) they always broke some rules about the setting, making them non-canon.

 

[barsoomcore]

There used to be a bunch of Dark Sun campaign guides available on the Wizards site for free as PDFs. I've got Black Spine, Merchant House of Agreeth (or something), and the Silt City (or something) -- I roundly pirated Silt City for Barsoom, and of course Barsoom's magic system is sort of "Dark Sun for people who AREN'T big sissies."

 

[reanjr]

There's also a lot of things that clearly weren't explored in any depth in the articles that I had questions about; like this chap who created the sorceror-kings; who is he? What's the nature of the cataclysm that shook up the setting during it's initial run, which supposedly was set 300 years prior to this new take on it?

It's been a while, but I'll try to be accurate.

Rajaat the Warbringer was a pyreen, one of a rightous peaceful race that... did something or other... not really important. Anyway, in his studies of Athas he discovered much of the history of the Blue Age, when the only intelligent race (there is an implied supposition that this only applies to the humanoid races, so Thri-Kreen don't count for instance) was the halflings, who were high masters of psionics.

At some point, the halflings tried some uber-psionic experiment meant to do good, but it ended up changing the world for the worse and ushered in the Green Age and the other races. This is when the sun went dark.

Rajaat was also the first sorcerer; the first to discover how to harness magic. He discovered the two primary paths of sorcery, Preserving and Defiling, though he only taught Preserving publicly. Privately, he brought ambitious people to him to study Defiling.

Sometime during this era, he also discovered a way to harness great energies by combining psionics and magic together, but he found humans were the only ones with the aptitude to do so (due to level limits in 2e; technically half-elves could do it to), so he chose 15 champions from among his most devoted human followers.

Why was he doing this? Because somehow his insane mind had decided that it was his duty to return the world to its former splendor (the Blue Age). And he believed it was the unfit races that were the cause. So he planned a mass genocide of all races, planning to leave the world to the halflings.

He created the Dark Lens (I think, this may have come later) to focus energy to transform his 15 champions into what would later be called sorcerer-kings. At first, they were physically changed little, but over time, as their powers in psionics and magic grew, they began to change by using rituals sometimes requiring the deaths of hundreds or thousands of people. He assigned a single race to each of his champions and sent them on their way.

Each of the champions ammassed armies, though each champion was practically an army in and of himself. They spread across the land and systematically eradicated entire races (gnomes, pixies, orcs, lizardmen [almost], etc.) Their powerful defiling is what turned the planet into the waste it became.

Eventually (and I don't know how it took them this long to figure out that the only race left out of the genocide was halflings and they were all of genius intelligence), they surmised Rajaat's plan and deemed him mad (this was after some races had been wiped out, though). They decided to fight back, but they needed someone even more powerful than themselves to do so. So they harnessed their energy to complete the transformation each of them had only begun on a single one of their number (Borys of Ebe, Butcher of Dwarves, 13th Champion of Rajaat). This turned Borys into the Dragon of Tyr (which by the way could have mopped the floor with two great wyrm golds without batting an eye). They subsequently imprisoned Rajaat in the Black (a plane analagous to the plane of shadow and negative energy combined; Athas had a very different and simplified cosmology), in a region called the Hollow.

So, that's Rajaat in a nutshell.

As for the cataclysm, I suppose they are referring to the events surrounding the heroes of the city-state of tyr. To put it very shortly, a group of slaves (Rikus, Neeva, ... and a couple of others), a sympathetic noble (Agis of Asticles), and a ruthless, power-hungry traitor named Tithian toppled their sorcerer-king, Kalak, killing him during an ambitious transformation ritual. They then, through happenstance, ended up killing another sorcerer-queen and Borys the Dragon and releasing Rajaat from his imprisonment briefly. Rajaat, before being reimprisoned, killed another of the sorcerer-kings, imprisoned another, and did something else to another one. So basically, the entire power structure shifted due to their actions.

They might also be referring to something only hinted at in official material, which is the return of a sorcerer-king (also called dragon-kings, especially when further along in the transformation) named Dregoth (Giants were his assigned task, and anyone familiar with Athasian giants knows he must have pulled the short straw), the most advanced of the dragon-kings save Borys himself and also a Kaisharga (sort of a lich). These events never transpired in the published material, though an adventure was started (Dregoth Ascending) and I believe eventually released by the official fansite athas.org.

 

[reanjr]

There used to be a bunch of Dark Sun campaign guides available on the Wizards site for free as PDFs. I've got Black Spine, Merchant House of Agreeth (or something), and the Silt City (or something) -- I roundly pirated Silt City for Barsoom, and of course Barsoom's magic system is sort of "Dark Sun for people who AREN'T big sissies."

Merchant House of Amketch I believe. And the other one is City by the Silt Sea.

 

[reanjr]

Of the thirteen novels for Dark Sun, most people seem to think that only the Prism Pentad ones were truly good (or that's what I've gathered, at least). For me, what killed my enjoyment of the other novels outside of the Prism Pentad was that (being series for the most part) they always broke some rules about the setting, making them non-canon.

The Prism Pentad just made the canon obsolete.