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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8725721" data-attributes="member: 58172">DARK SUN TIMELINE (1995 2e Dark Sun Campaign Setting)-8,000 (Time of Magic)• Rajaat discovers the principles of magic, heretofore unknown on Athas.• Rajaat publicly teaches the techniques of preserving magic, while secretly teaching a select group of students the ways of defiling magic. From this group he selects the most powerful defiler/psionicists to become his Champions.• Rajaat uses the Pristine Tower to focus the sun’s energy, seeking to elevate his Champions’ powers. He succeeds, but the sun turns a dark crimson.- 3,500 (Cleaning Wars)• Rajaat orders his Champions to destroy the races created during the Rebirth in an effort to return the world to the Blue Age.• Many of the nonhuman races are eliminated, including gnomes, lizard men, and orcs.• The Champions discover that Rajaat plans to give the world to the halflings, not the humans. Led by Borys, the Champions revolt and Rajaat is trapped within the Hollow.- 2,000 (Sorcerer Kings)• The remaining Champions become the sorcerer kings, each claiming one of the city-states of the Tyr Region to rule.• The sorcerer kings gain godlike powers, including the ability to grant spells to their templars.• Borys is transformed into the Dragon, a creature of power never before seen on Athas.• The devastation of the world begun in the last age continues as the sorcerer kings engage in ever greater defiling magic.-77 to Present (Heroism)• King Kalak is assassinated and Tyr becomes a free city.• Rajaat is freed from the Hollow, but only momentarily before he is once again imprisoned.• Only three sorcerer kings remain after major events transpire − events that lead to the death of the Dragon and the creation of the Cerulean Storm.• The Great Earthquake rips through the Tyr Region, opening paths to the lands beyond the cradle of Athasian civilization.CommentsThe timeline before Year -77 spells out the original 2e Dark Sun setting in 1991. This is the setting that 5e needs to model.There can be sorcerer kings that are striving to become a defiler dragon, like Borys.But afterward, from Year -77 onward, a time of Heroism has destroyed the original 2e Dark Sun setting. The 2e Revised Dark Sun setting in 1995 describes a new setting, the aftermath of the destruction of the original setting.Furthermore, the Revised introduces new setting concepts, such as "The Hollow". In 5e terms, the Hollow is something like a prison demiplane, located in a part of the Shadowfell that doesnt overlap the material plane. Actually, it seems fair to say, the Hollow is a 5e Shadowfell "Domain of Dread", comparing to those in Ravenloft, except its Dark Lord is Rajaat. However references to such aspects of cosmology deviate from the themes and tropes of the original Dark Sun setting.Helpfully, the 1995 setting clarifies how defiling of the original 1991 setting works."When Rajaat’s Champions combined their magic with the Dark Lens to become sorcerer kings, the resulting storm of energy connected them to all the elemental planes. This opened magical conduits through which elemental priest magic could be drawn from. The sorcerer kings couldn’t use this magic themselves, but they could bestow spellcasting abilities on their most loyal servants. These priests, dedicated to a single sorcerer king, are called templars. The opening of the magical conduits to the elemental planes was a unique effect of the events that created the sorcerer kings. It can’t be duplicated, so no new sorcerer kings will ever gain the ability to grant their followers priest spells. Currently, templars with the ability to cast priest spells exist only in the city-states."This arcane event that breached the divine power source is also what caused the sun to become "Dark" crimson."The sorcerer kings are defilers of the highest order, and they combine wizardry with psionics. They can draw energy for spells from not only plants, but from all living things − including animals and humans. This makes the sorcerer kings extremely powerful and very dangerous to the world and its inhabitants."So in the later 1995 setting, it turns out that the sorcerer kings can also derive arcane energy from living creatures. In the original 1991 setting, only Borys the dragon could do this. Perhaps, earlier the sorcerer kings were not yet powerful enough to do so. But after some time, became dragon-like enough, by gaining enough Defiler levels, to learn how to do this.</blockquote>

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