mgbeach
Explorer
oddly enough, females of the species do have breast-like appendages. Although, there are only three of them like in Total Recall.
Artist's rendering..
So, Dark Sun: It's officially out. What do you think of it?
- Thread starter Wik
- Start date
oddly enough, females of the species do have breast-like appendages. Although, there are only three of them like in Total Recall.
Artist's rendering..
Wik
First Post
Ignoring the pictures of Mgbeach's girlfriend and moving right along.....
I agree that the Tyr section was well done, although I'm a bit surprised that it was made the sort of assumed default start - I had gone into this thinking Altaruk would be the presumed starting town, as it's a perfect fit. What kind of confused me, though, was that there was no real info on just how RECENTLY Kalak died, and how the death occured. Seems a weird thing to leave out, but then, there's a lot of info in this book, and some of it was bound to get buried.
I actually like the smaller space for the other city-states, but then, I prefer smaller writeups because they give me more room for my own stuff.
What I really like is how they broke the regions down into smaller chunks - it used to be, "The Tablelands" were one write-up... now they're broken into much more manageable sections, like "The Ivory Triangle" or "The Road of Kings" which really are more evocative.
I also really like those ten adventure ideas for Dark Sun (or whatever the number is). It's a great little list to get GMs creating their own adventures, and it's something I wished there was in 2e, where I would sometimes run out of ideas (of course, in 2e Dark Sun, I was under the misconception that Dungeon Adventures were a BAD IDEA - silly boy that I was).
Personally, my big wish right now is that the merchant dynasties were given their own little page or two, as opposed to being buried within individual city entries. I consider the dynasties to be similar to Eberron's Dragonmarked Houses, and so should get a bit of specific attention. Still, I'm not that upset over it - they were mentioned in a good way, and have a lot of possible adventure ideas.
I agree that the Tyr section was well done, although I'm a bit surprised that it was made the sort of assumed default start - I had gone into this thinking Altaruk would be the presumed starting town, as it's a perfect fit. What kind of confused me, though, was that there was no real info on just how RECENTLY Kalak died, and how the death occured. Seems a weird thing to leave out, but then, there's a lot of info in this book, and some of it was bound to get buried.
I actually like the smaller space for the other city-states, but then, I prefer smaller writeups because they give me more room for my own stuff.
What I really like is how they broke the regions down into smaller chunks - it used to be, "The Tablelands" were one write-up... now they're broken into much more manageable sections, like "The Ivory Triangle" or "The Road of Kings" which really are more evocative.
I also really like those ten adventure ideas for Dark Sun (or whatever the number is). It's a great little list to get GMs creating their own adventures, and it's something I wished there was in 2e, where I would sometimes run out of ideas (of course, in 2e Dark Sun, I was under the misconception that Dungeon Adventures were a BAD IDEA - silly boy that I was).
Personally, my big wish right now is that the merchant dynasties were given their own little page or two, as opposed to being buried within individual city entries. I consider the dynasties to be similar to Eberron's Dragonmarked Houses, and so should get a bit of specific attention. Still, I'm not that upset over it - they were mentioned in a good way, and have a lot of possible adventure ideas.
Henry
Autoexreginated
Watch out, boy, she'll chew you up -- she's a man-eater...
AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
Oh yeah, the x-ray video scanner. The tumor-twin. Arnold's eyeballs popping out on Mars' surface at the end . . . that one still gives me the willies. . .
giant.robot
Adventurer
I'm just worried that additional Dark Sun content is going to end up as DDI exclusives. No additional Dark Sun books have been announced while things like the Ravenloft and Shadowfell boxed sets have been talked about. Not having a DDI account but loving Dark Sun I think this is a valid concern.
I agree that they did seem to capture the atmosphere of the original setting fairly well...and feel that you're right about the discrepancy between Tyr and other locales.
I understand that they want to give DMs a chance to flesh things out themselves, but it would have been nice to give a thorough writeup to another major Athasian city to give a more complete feel for the politics and other dynamics of the world. It would give would-be DMs a better set of tools to work with (and really, whats another 5-7 pages, huh?).
Y'know, kind of like how Athens and Sparta illustrate 2 of the major extremes in Hellenistic hierarchies...and yet still managed to work together to fight the Persians.
BinaryAgent
Explorer
As people have said overall the quality of the books is great.
However, some of the art work is abyssmal. The mekillot, Maeten of House Lubar, the Thri-kreen...,
It is obvious that some of the art direction was misinformed. Consider the personality Maetan of House Lubar. He looks different to how he's described in the book "The Crimson Legion", where he's described as sickly and bald. I don't need to mention the thri-kreen at all...
These are all small nit-picky things that some proper research could have prevented.
Regardless, the setting stands as one of the best in the genre. I'm glad I kept all of my 2nd edition source books though as that's what I'll be using for visual aid.
However, some of the art work is abyssmal. The mekillot, Maeten of House Lubar, the Thri-kreen...,
It is obvious that some of the art direction was misinformed. Consider the personality Maetan of House Lubar. He looks different to how he's described in the book "The Crimson Legion", where he's described as sickly and bald. I don't need to mention the thri-kreen at all...
These are all small nit-picky things that some proper research could have prevented.
Regardless, the setting stands as one of the best in the genre. I'm glad I kept all of my 2nd edition source books though as that's what I'll be using for visual aid.
I don't really mind the Thri-Kreen myself, but I can't understand the Mekillot. It looks obscenely silly and cute in the 2E art as it does in the 4E art. Nothing makes that creature look intimidating and not completely silly without utterly redesigning it.
Edit: Original Mekillot
I am aware there is another one that looks more reptillian than that, but you can't blame 4E for making the Mekillot silly. The original did that first. They probably should have gone with the revised art for the Mekillot, but they didn't and that's the breaks I'm afraid. It does get my "award" for one of the most daft looking monsters in 4E. This does make this statement:
Rather ironic, considering researching what it originally looked like it why it looks so obscenely daft now.
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BinaryAgent
Explorer
Granted, that picture above isn't much better, though I do like the war argosy and the background. The "nit pickyness" I had in my head when I wrote the above was centered mainly around the character Maetan. He figures quite prominently in the Crimson Legion and yet looks way different to how I would have pictured him.
