D&D 5E The D&D Multiverse How it Was and How They Might Be Screwing it Up.

[Mirtek]

I know but one of the books also described the planes and its clear the DS elemental planbes are not the normal ones the rest of the multiverse had. They were weak and played out.

Sounds a lot like the regions close to the negative energie plane if not outright the quasi elemental planes

 

[Zardnaar]

Sounds a lot like the regions close to the negative energie plane if not outright the quasi elemental planes

It's not negative energy but the planes have also been effected by the defiling and destruction of the elemental vortices.

Athasian paraelemental planes are also different but the whole paraelemental cleric thing was kinda silly anyway.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Sounds a lot like the regions close to the negative energie plane if not outright the quasi elemental planes

That's actually a pretty interesting proposition. Dust, Ash, and Salt thematically fit in quite well with the whole Dark Sun "feel" (Vacuum less so, but it could be made to work). Philosophically, the Quasielemental Planes were just the basic matter of the Elemental Planes exhibiting either excess energy (the positive Quasielemental Planes) or deficient, negative energy (the negative Quasielemental Planes), in other words, in the latter case, "weak and played out". In this line of thought, mechanically, due to defiling, Athasian attempts to access the Elemental Planes have more and more often been accessing areas tainted with their Quasielemental counterparts. Granted this only works in 2e cosmology, since the Quasielemental Planes no longer existed from 3e on, but "areas contaminated by negative energy" works just as well for later editions...

 

[Staffan]

I know but one of the books also described the planes and its clear the DS elemental planbes are not the normal ones the rest of the multiverse had. They were weak and played out.

Sure, but that's not the original Dark Sun material. That's a retcon. One might think it's a good retcon or a bad retcon, but it's definitely a retcon. The original sources for Dark Sun, at least in my mind, are the original boxed set, Dragon Kings (which to a large degree consisted of stuff cut from the boxed set), and MC12. Later stuff can either expand on this, or it can contradict it. If there's a contradiction, it's a retcon.

I'm personally leaning more toward this particular bit being a bad retcon, because while Earth Air Fire and Water did add a lot of amazing flavor to elemental priests, it did so by casting them as good-ish eco-warriors in opposition to the evil destructive para-elemental clerics. It also removed the association of the Fire element with the Sun. I personally preferred the previous, more neutral view of the elemental planes and them granting power for their own inscrutable purposes, because it gives me clerics who can have their own agendas.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

This is how Dragon Kings described the Dark Sun cosmology:

That's pretty bog-standard Great Wheel, just focusing on the inner planes and alternate primes instead of outer planes. And there was no mention of the Grey or the Black until the Revised Dark Sun box, and nothing about either of them affecting planar travel until Defilers & Preservers.

Just to say...in 2E context of the time, the "Alternate Prime Material Planes" are the other D&D game worlds.