Tell me about YOUR DARKSUN campaign

[megamania]

This is inspired by a few comments in another Darksun thread. We all came to agree that everyone has altered the Darksun campaign in some way. Some say due to the sheer amount of information and/or how it fits within the Darksun campaign world.

So I ask- what kind of changes have you made to make Darksun YOUR campaign world?

 

[megamania]

Some of my changes are from the novels. There was a lot of history given with no further follow up on it. so....


I created about 20 races that were involved in the Cleansing. As such.... there was over 20 Sorcerer-Kings and Queens in the beginning.

I opened up the limitations on planar activity.

I had the Tohr-kreen begin to invade from the west.

I did a lot of work on the Cleansing wars including crazy stuff that now Eberron and Scarred Lands has used. Colossal Golems for war used by goblins from the far East.

 

[Baby Samurai]

For a lot of the crunch I use the Dragon and Dungeon issues that addressed (briefly) Dark Sun for 3.5, but I obviously use all of my 2nd Dark Sun products for flavour/fluff.

Oh, and no PALADINS.

 

[evildmguy]

Unfortunately, in trying to use Dark Sun, my players said I did too well of a job as they didn't like it. I was also too literal because I did worry about food and water as soon as they left a city. I didn't do the setting justice.

Now, I would LOVE the opportunity to play here. I have tons of ideas, again thinking of the SKs as the G'oald from Stargate, and would love to be able to run it as a world.

Some day.

edg

 

[Dragonhelm]

My old game was definitely not canon and ended way too soon. Basic point of it all was that there were seven "dragon stones" (inspired by the dragon balls) in the world, and that they could grant one wish that had never been granted before. So, for example, you couldn't ask for immortality since that wish had already been granted. Makes you wonder who the immortal is!

Of course, each wish comes with a price.

The end part of the campaign would be a choice of restoring Athas to its green self, but at the cost of magic. When the choice falls to a player character who was, for all intents and purposes, on his way to becoming a sorcerer-king...well, who knew which way it would go.

There was going to be a war in there too raged by the muls and half-giants, seeking to overthrow the sorcerer-kings.

 

[cmrscorpio]

Unfortunately, in trying to use Dark Sun, my players said I did too well of a job as they didn't like it. I was also too literal because I did worry about food and water as soon as they left a city.

Yeah, Dark Sun isn't for every group.

My biggest change was in making the Tyr region and surrounding livable areas much larger. I never liked how closely packed and densely populated the city-states seemed for a desert region where each day was supposed to be a struggle for the basics of food and water.

 

[an_idol_mind]

I've only ever run one-shots in Dark Sun. However, I might end up making Athas an apocalyptic version of my homebrew sometime. A major villain in my campaign is soon going to kick up his quest to become a god-like creature. If the PCs fail to stop him, I'll probably fast forward a few centuries after his death, where he becomes the Dragon of Tyr and ravages the world, creating the atmosphere in the first boxed set. That will allow me to add lots of ruins that call back to previous games, along with a few epic level PCs who might still be around and trying to take out the dragon.

Sure, just about all of those plans contradict the second boxed set, but I sort of see the Prism Pentad and revised setting as a good example of what a company should never do to an RPG campaign setting.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

It remains my favorite setting, but I still failed in the mission of making my players like it.

The one thing I'd done different from the core was creating my own version of remnant halfling life-shapers, and that was before I got the chance to look at Wind Riders. At that point I decided to remain with the core in this matter as well.

Cheers,

 

[evildmguy]

Yeah, Dark Sun isn't for every group.

My biggest change was in making the Tyr region and surrounding livable areas much larger. I never liked how closely packed and densely populated the city-states seemed for a desert region where each day was supposed to be a struggle for the basics of food and water.

I like that idea! Make the tableland a bit bigger and the city states further apart. Did you actually add land? Or just up the scale on the map?

edg

 

[Najo]

Unfortunately, in trying to use Dark Sun, my players said I did too well of a job as they didn't like it. I was also too literal because I did worry about food and water as soon as they left a city. I didn't do the setting justice.

Now, I would LOVE the opportunity to play here. I have tons of ideas, again thinking of the SKs as the G'oald from Stargate, and would love to be able to run it as a world.

Some day.

edg

Years ago when I very firsted started running Dark Sun I had this same problem. I focused on the water, desert and survival aspect to much. The players hated it. After about the third try I launched a campaign in Nibenay (with forest and some elven ruins from the pervious age nearby) and had the players hired by one of Nibenay's High Templars to find something in the ruins. They explored, found what she wanted, and then when they were coming out of the ruined temple her and her goon squad should up and betrayed them, claiming them traitors against the king and she attempted to sieze the artifact from them. They were forced to escape into the ruined temple with the artifact, make their way through the catacombs beneath and out into the open desert and then into the hands of an elven tribe who protected that territory and whose ancestors used to live in the region. Three years later a political campaign involving three sorcerer kings, the veiled alliance, two elven tribes, a merchant house, an ancient elven prophecy regarding a savior for athas and the mounting unrest in and around tyr messing with the rest of the region and my Dark Sun campaign was a huge hit The players started out as mercenaries (even a defiler amongst them) and ended up champions trying to fullfill the prophecy. The defiler even became a preserver. Unfortunately, they successfully infilitrated Urik's templars on their own and attempted a showdown with Hamanu in his sanctuary at 16th level. Wasn't pretty, and I did everything to keep them from doing it without taking their free will. They felt the prophecy was on their side...

Humanu kicked their collective asses. But the campaign was awesome and it spawned two off shoot campaigns, one which revived the prophecy and allowed the character who had the elven artifact to be reborn without many memories of the events that occured years later when the artifact ended up in a merchant caravan and was found by a raider tribe with a perserver who noticed the soul bound in it.