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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 1956243" data-attributes="member: 8461">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).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...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.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.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> 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.</blockquote>

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