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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8725293" data-attributes="member: 58172">2e Dark Sun was an unusual setting, even in its own days. There is no one-to-one correspondence with 5e. To convert 2e Dark Sun into 5e Dark Sun requires approximation and translation.There are two Dark Sun Setting Guides, the original setting in 1991 and the revised setting in 1995. 5e does best to only focus on these two publications, when deciding the mechanics and the flavors for 5e. When there is a contradiction between 1991 and 1995, 5e should probably incline toward 1991. From these two guides, decide whatever seems to work best in 5e ... for 5e.COSMOLOGYThe only significant planes are:• Material Plane.• Elemental Planes: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire.• Positive Material Plane and Negative Material Plane.Probably, these should have been the only planes that exist. The confusion happens because the 1991 guide listed spells whose description mentions other planes. For example, the "Astral Spell". What astral plane? The gods of the celestial outer planes categorically dont exist. But the fiends of the infernal outer planes do exist! These kinds of contradictions. The 1995 guide and various supplements sometimes try reconcile such contradictions but end up causing more confusion.The basic idea is:• There is a material plane, namely a planet called Athas.• All (!) divine magic is elemental.• The four elements are: earth, water, air, and fire.• The harmony of these four elements causes life and the "positive material plane".• The disharmony of these four elements causes death and the "negative material plane".• The Clerics draw from the positivity via sacred traditions, where each one revers one of the four elements.• The Templars (Anti-Clerics) can manipulate positivity via a unique arcane event that unleashed negativity to rupture the four elements.• The Clerics "worship the elemental planes".• The Clerics have ways to "gate" directly into the elemental planes (without any ethereal plane).• The Templars "worship the sorcerer kings".• The Druids are also elemental, but in a local way, such as a specific oasis or rock formation.The 2e Templar is a variant Cleric. However, to translate the class into 5e, there are good arguments for making it subclass of either the Cleric, the Paladin, or the Warlock. The Templar worships a sorcerer king. Compare the reallife "god king" traditions such as Pharaoh, Caesar, and Alexander the Great being understood as gods. The sorcerer kings can grant divine spells to Templars, by means of the arcane event whose negativity ruptured the elements. But the sorcerer kings cannot cast these divine spells themselves.Each of the four elements is exactly a "cosmic power" as described in 5e in the sidebar in Xanathars Cleric class description. The 2e Dark Sun Cleric is strictly nontheistic. The term "worship" is an unfortunate misnomer. Instead use the term "revere". Reverence more clearly communicates a sacred tradition that isnt a theistic relationship. The elements themselves, the stuff that all material existence is made out, are holy. (It reminds me of reallife Daoism, where Yang and Yin are like two elements that all existence is made out of.)The Druid is animistic (thus also use the term "revere"). It is elemental but in a local way, such as an oasis, rock formation, volcano, or other landscape feature where one or more elements conspicuously remind the observer of the elements. It equates a 5e Druid that also considers nature sacred.The above is how the Dark Sun setting works. Any other planar cosmology is distracting − and confusing!</blockquote>

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