Just discovered Dark Sun -- have questions!

[Mark Hope]

Thanks! I did go poke around athas.org a bit yesterday, but like all the official setting fanpages, it seems to assume that you already own and are familiar with the setting rather than actually providing good overviews of them. This history of Athas, which is gradually shaping up here in this thread, is a big part of what interests me about it. Fascinating stuff! Is there a good resource -- a book to read, or otherwise, that would cover that pretty well?

Yeah, the stuff at athas.org is currently primarily focussed on getting the rules-base converted to 3e and stabilised.
Wisdom of the Drylanders is all fluff and covers a variety of aspects of Athasian culture, from language to slavery to the various races.
City State of Draj details (oddly enough) the City State of Draj and doesn't require any great knowledge of the setting to use.
The Dark Sun Netbook is an old 2e product. Parts of it are hit/miss but it does contain the excellent The Good and the Green article, which gives an excellent insight into DS halfling culture.

If you fancy spending the $4 or $5, head over to SVGames and grab a copy of the original Dark Sun Boxed Set. Thsi contains the Wanderer's Journal, a great overview of the core setting. The Revised Boxed Set features the Wanderer's Chronicle, which covers a larger area and is updated to incorporate the material from the Prism Pentad novels. As the novels changed the core setting so drastically, there are those who prefer the original material to the revised material. On the other hand, the revised stuff expands the playing area to a huge degree and is the one to read if you are after a historical perspective, as that is missing from the original set.

Hosted at a few places online (this one is at Nyt's kewl site ) is the Official Timeline, which details all the salient points of Dark Sun history. Probably worth the read.

 

[Mark Hope]

Cool. So, a few questions still: this Blue Age; if it was mostly water, what the heck did the halflings do? Were they essentially something like Pacific Islanders in culture?

This changing of the sun from Blue to Yellow to Red; what effects did that have on the world?

Details on rhulisti culture are few and far between. They do not seem to have lived primitive lives, however, as lifeshaped technology allowed for an extremely advanced civilization. I think of them more as a race of highly evolved genetic engineers, crafting living devices to fill all manner of technological niches. A sub-group of rhulisti (the so-called nature benders - Dark Sun is full of giggle-inducing names like that) practiced aberrant lifeshaping techniques and warred with the nature masters, ultimately to their own downfall. The rhulisti are also known to have been on friendly terms with an athasian species of dolphin, with whom they crafted underwater constructions for mutual benefit. There is an almost SF angle to the rhulisti, with their biotech and weird social castes and strictures.

The principal effects of the changing of the sun were on the climate. It was the changing of the sun that led to Athas becoming a desert world. The inference seems to be that as the sun changed, it grew hotter and more bloated, scorching the world beneath. It should be noted, however, that the sun was not the only influence on Athas' climate. The enigmatic Brown Tide certainly seems to have caused massive shrinking of the oceans (yeah, where did all that water go?). The genocidal Cleansing Wars, when the Champions of Rajaat made war on the non-human/non-halfling races, saw widespread use of defiler magic. This, too, caused widespread environmental catastrophe in a relaively short space of time. And once he was elevated to the status of the Dragon, Borys' rampages are also held to have caused immense damage to the land and its flora and fauna. Dragon magic not only defiles plant life and the land - it defiles life energy as well, sucking the essence out of living beings who find themselves too close to the draconic caster.

 

[Staffan]

Thanks! I did go poke around athas.org a bit yesterday, but like all the official setting fanpages, it seems to assume that you already own and are familiar with the setting rather than actually providing good overviews of them. This history of Athas, which is gradually shaping up here in this thread, is a big part of what interests me about it. Fascinating stuff! Is there a good resource -- a book to read, or otherwise, that would cover that pretty well?

There's a timeline in the Revised Dark Sun boxed set (which is available in PDF format from RPGNow - it's one of the good, early, ESDs when things were really OCRed and not just scanned images) that covers the highlights, and a much more detailed one at http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/DStimeline.rtf .

Oh, and a small nitpick on the first post in this thread: DS halflings aren't cannibals. They do not eat other halflings. Humans, elves, and so on are fair game, however.

 

[Desdichado]

Cool, thanks. I might just pick up those two pdfs; they're certainly cheap enough. I really struggle with reading long pdfs is my only holdout, which is why I'm looking for a good summary before I potentially delve into the real thing.

For those who are big Dark Sun fans; it seems David Noonan's purpose in advancing the Dark Sun timeline 300 years (or one of them, at least) was to return the setting to something that more closely resembled the original setting, while still not invalidating the revisions. Any thoughts on original vs. revised vs. Dragon/Dungeon versions? What are all your preferences, and why?

 

[Staffan]

For those who are big Dark Sun fans; it seems David Noonan's purpose in advancing the Dark Sun timeline 300 years (or one of them, at least) was to return the setting to something that more closely resembled the original setting, while still not invalidating the revisions. Any thoughts on original vs. revised vs. Dragon/Dungeon versions? What are all your preferences, and why?

I'm in the minority who prefers the revised setting. I hated the way they made the changes, but I liked the effects. In original Dark Sun, you have a big desert (well, about half the size of Spain IIRC, so not all that big) with seven scattered city-states that function pretty much the same - sorcerer-king, templars, slavery, and so on. The world is pretty static, and it feels like just surviving is accomplishment enough. In the revised setting, four of the city-states have lost their sorcerer-kings and are trying out new methods: fledgling democracy in Tyr, fake SK in Draj, anarchy in Raam, and merchant lords in Balic. In addition, the campaign area roughly quadruples its size, adding a bunch of interesting stuff to the north, and a thri-kreen empire to the west (that until now have been separated from the Tyr region by a major fault-line (the Jagged Cliffs), but a recent earthquake created a place where the cliffs can be easily crossed). There's more stuff to do for PCs - while they likely won't turn the planet back to a verdant paradise, there are many more possibilities for adventure.

 

[Psion]

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

Here I thought it was a wierd helmet.

 

[Mark Hope]

Cool, thanks. I might just pick up those two pdfs; they're certainly cheap enough. I really struggle with reading long pdfs is my only holdout, which is why I'm looking for a good summary before I potentially delve into the real thing.

I hear you there. Mind you, the Wanderer's Journal/Chronicle is in fairly bite-sized pieces, so you shouldn't find it too much of a drag.

For those who are big Dark Sun fans; it seems David Noonan's purpose in advancing the Dark Sun timeline 300 years (or one of them, at least) was to return the setting to something that more closely resembled the original setting, while still not invalidating the revisions. Any thoughts on original vs. revised vs. Dragon/Dungeon versions? What are all your preferences, and why?

The 64,000 ceramic piece question . For overall feel, I prefer the original boxed set as it preserves a certain sense of exotic mystery that first drew me to the setting. Furthermore, it gives you a world that you can then make your own without worrying about canon to any great degree. Apart from Freedom and the Revised boxed set, the various adventures and supplements actually make very few changes to the setting, allowing you to customise them to suit your own taste. For detail and scope, however, I look to the Revised boxed set. It covers the lands to the north of the core setting (big fan of the Scorched Plateau) and gives the historical background to the setting as well as providing details on how the novel series changed the gameworld. I use it as a toolkit for creating my own world-shaping storylines, substituting the PCs of my own games for the heroes of the novels and allowing them to play events out according to their own desires. I found that the Paizo conversion was also highly useful from a toolkit point of view. The defiler system presented there makes an interesting alternative to the one used at athas.org (I use a hybrid of the two in my own games) and there were a couple of real gems presented in the magazines (blood obsidian and the elan as a race created by Athas sinister psionic conspirators The Order were two of my faves). And the artwork in the Paizo conversion was top-notch. For my part, the best results are achieved by picking and choosing from the various conversions and building a personalised creation to suit yourself and your gamers. At the end of the day, it's all wholesome DS goodness.

 

[Desdichado]

The art, especially by James Ryman, who is shaking up to be one of my favorite RPG freelance artists of all time, is indeed excellent. Not only that, it was very Brom-esque in tone, which is entirely appropriate. He also did most of the art in the big Castle Maure issue of Dungeon (112?) which is really well done.

Ryman's got some other great stuff in Green Ronin's Book of Fiends and even more in Privateer Press's Warmachine: Escalation that really got my attention. He's talented all right, and is one to watch of the new generation of rpg art freelancers.

 

[Aristotle]

Most of the novels bored me to tears, although I might do better with them now that I'm a bit older. I remember being really taken with the characters in the 'Tribe of One' trilogy (The Outcast, The Seeker, and The Nomad).

I wish I would have gotten the magazines with the updated Darksun material. I was one of the few DMs who ran it in my area back in the day, and I found players really took to it once they got involved with it most of the time.

 

[Spatula]

Thanks! I did go poke around athas.org a bit yesterday, but like all the official setting fanpages, it seems to assume that you already own and are familiar with the setting rather than actually providing good overviews of them.

Yep.

This history of Athas, which is gradually shaping up here in this thread, is a big part of what interests me about it. Fascinating stuff! Is there a good resource -- a book to read, or otherwise, that would cover that pretty well?

The original box set leaves the setting's past a mystery, which is revealed mainly in the Prism Pentad novels. If you're looking for a good overview, I would recommend the revised box set which incorporates the material from the novels.

How good the novels are will largely depend on whether or not the reader generally enjoys TSR novels. I thought the first Prism Pentad novel was decent, and it goes downhill from there. I haven't read any of the other novel series for the setting.

For those who are big Dark Sun fans; it seems David Noonan's purpose in advancing the Dark Sun timeline 300 years (or one of them, at least) was to return the setting to something that more closely resembled the original setting, while still not invalidating the revisions.

I think the reason was to provide some space between the "current" setting (as it was when it was last published) and the changes made for the 3.5 version - the introduction of new races, classes, etc.

Any thoughts on original vs. revised vs. Dragon/Dungeon versions? What are all your preferences, and why?

I prefer the original, and would have liked it if the setting's "true" past were never revealed. Like the cause of the Mourning in Eberron. I dislike nailing down all the mysteries presented in the first box set, not to mention the radical shake-ups that followed in the official timeline (the death of most of the sorcerer-kings, for example).

Any Dark Sun DM is going to have to pick and choose what to use and what to leave by the wayside, though, as pratically every book (rules and novels) contradicts something in another book.