I love Dark Sun, but like some other people out there, I wasn't crazy about how the races were introduced. When I start my Dark Sun campaign, I'm thinking I'm going to tweak all the standard races. For the most part, this will involve restoring applicable races to their "classical" Dark Sun tropes. Muls will be sterile again (I don't think the 4e books say that explicitly any where), dwarves will have a focus again, and while half-giants won't be necessarily stupid (hey, goliath wizards got it tough enough already), I think I'll bring back their whole cultural mimickry thing.
The biggest issue, of course, is figuring out how to "Dark Sun-up" those races that weren't in previous editions. Dray and tieflings, as they're presented in the book, are a little disappointing to me personally. Oh, the dragonborn are mercenaries that organize themselves into clans? And the tieflings are humans that made a dark pact in the past? How is that different from any other setting, again?
Eladrin were okay. Magical dudes from another world suddenly became magic-hating dudes from another world. That's all you have to do... put a little Dark Sun twist on the race in question, just enough to make them fresh while still keeping them recognizable.
So I've decided to rewrite the fluff for standard 4e races to better suit my campaign. Here's my attempt at "dragonborn with a twist." It might be a little too dramatic, but I like how it gives them a sort of racial psychology (which I think is always important to making something that doesn't feel like a funny-looking human).
Dray
When most people of Athas forget a name or misplace an object it is a minor inconvenience. But for the dray, every slip of the mind is a stark reminder of their mortality.
The dray were invested with powerful bodies and sorcerous bloodlines by their sorcerer-king creator, and each individual dray grows in both physical and magical might as he or she ages. And yet each and every dray lives in constant fear of what they call the Dimming. When a dray's power approaches its apex, the elder dragonborn begins to suffer lapses in judgment and memory. These moments of mental sluggishness are infrequent and short-lived at first, but they eventually lead to the moment of Dimming, when the dragonborn's mind goes quiet, losing any vestige of sentience or sense of self. Shortly thereafter, the dray transforms back into the drake from which he or she was created and (more often than not) goes on a bestial rampage. This is the "flaw" that provided the impetus for the race's initial exile: Guiestenal was nearly brought to its knees when the first generation of dray arrived at their collective Dimming.
The dray manage to survive by relying on their physical and arcane might and by summarily executing any elder that shows the slightest sign of forgetfulness. The knowledge of the ever-approaching Dimming has produced a race of incredibly introspective and somewhat existential philosophers absolutely obsessed with the question of their own sentience. Some give in to their bestial nature and pursue lives as hedonists or raiders, while others cultivate incredible powers of self-control and self-denial, hoping that by training their mind they can delay or even escape the Dimming. However they cope with it, each dray must go through life knowing that his grip on reality is constantly eroding. Today he might simply forget a face or catch himself daydreaming, but tomorrow he could be a mindless monster, ripping apart his closest friends and allies.
The biggest issue, of course, is figuring out how to "Dark Sun-up" those races that weren't in previous editions. Dray and tieflings, as they're presented in the book, are a little disappointing to me personally. Oh, the dragonborn are mercenaries that organize themselves into clans? And the tieflings are humans that made a dark pact in the past? How is that different from any other setting, again?
Eladrin were okay. Magical dudes from another world suddenly became magic-hating dudes from another world. That's all you have to do... put a little Dark Sun twist on the race in question, just enough to make them fresh while still keeping them recognizable.
So I've decided to rewrite the fluff for standard 4e races to better suit my campaign. Here's my attempt at "dragonborn with a twist." It might be a little too dramatic, but I like how it gives them a sort of racial psychology (which I think is always important to making something that doesn't feel like a funny-looking human).
Dray
When most people of Athas forget a name or misplace an object it is a minor inconvenience. But for the dray, every slip of the mind is a stark reminder of their mortality.
The dray were invested with powerful bodies and sorcerous bloodlines by their sorcerer-king creator, and each individual dray grows in both physical and magical might as he or she ages. And yet each and every dray lives in constant fear of what they call the Dimming. When a dray's power approaches its apex, the elder dragonborn begins to suffer lapses in judgment and memory. These moments of mental sluggishness are infrequent and short-lived at first, but they eventually lead to the moment of Dimming, when the dragonborn's mind goes quiet, losing any vestige of sentience or sense of self. Shortly thereafter, the dray transforms back into the drake from which he or she was created and (more often than not) goes on a bestial rampage. This is the "flaw" that provided the impetus for the race's initial exile: Guiestenal was nearly brought to its knees when the first generation of dray arrived at their collective Dimming.
The dray manage to survive by relying on their physical and arcane might and by summarily executing any elder that shows the slightest sign of forgetfulness. The knowledge of the ever-approaching Dimming has produced a race of incredibly introspective and somewhat existential philosophers absolutely obsessed with the question of their own sentience. Some give in to their bestial nature and pursue lives as hedonists or raiders, while others cultivate incredible powers of self-control and self-denial, hoping that by training their mind they can delay or even escape the Dimming. However they cope with it, each dray must go through life knowing that his grip on reality is constantly eroding. Today he might simply forget a face or catch himself daydreaming, but tomorrow he could be a mindless monster, ripping apart his closest friends and allies.
Last edited:
