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(+) What would you want for 5e Dark Sun?
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<blockquote data-quote="squibbles" data-source="post: 8337024" data-attributes="member: 6937590"><p>That sounds like the right approach if the desire is to avoid retconning: Keep all the developments from the lore, but move the timeline forward far enough that they aren't important. I also like the particular configuration which you arrived at by adding the new sorcerer queen from across the sea of silt. You could use that to introduce new mysteries/ambiguities, i.e. where did she come from and why now?</p><p></p><p></p><p>So, I realize I'm answering a question you posed to [USER=6670763]@Yora[/USER] , but yes, very much yes.</p><p></p><p>Everyone always wants mysteries explained, but the greatest engagement comes from not knowing.</p><p></p><p></p><p>As presented in the original set, the other shores of the sea of silt didn't really have different things going on. It was one medium sized region loosely connected by trade and generally known to its more informed inhabitants. The city-states were representative of the wider world, not separate from it. To me, developing new territory merely means adding custom cities and tin-pot despots to the periphery of the Tyr region--retconning that they've always been relevant to the Tyr region, and figuring out what the interconnections are. That prior publications and fan creations didn't integrate other regions very well doesn't mean it can't be done.</p><p></p><p>But fair point. Sticking to the stuff that's already written gives you richer material to work with.</p><p></p><p></p><p>That's a good setup. Try getting a real-world topographical or generic fantasy map of a geographically similar area, i.e. lake surrounded by mountains, apply some desert-y color filters to it and plop those points of interest in it. Looking at maps always gives me a sense of how cool or uncool an imagined setting feels.</p><p></p><p>However--and I'm sure you can see this coming--I think you could also treat the Tyr region as atypically dense with sorcerer kings/city states (because of how important it is in the lore, I guess), and put new cities around the sea of silt at the locations you listed; one in the north, two in the south, and one city and a highly consequential ruins in the east.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I like the idea of the city states being monumental but kind-of beyond the power of the current inhabitants to build--like the citizens of Tyr are living next to the great pyramids of giza and the coliseum, which they know their ancestors built when the world sucked less, but that there has been a long period of what historians would call "<a href="https://cristianizacioneslavos.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/wickham-the-inheritance-of-rome.pdf" target="_blank">radical material simplification</a>" to the point that it's all crumbling and shabby. </p><p></p><p>Also, and related to your response to Yora, I think leaving a lot of the background mysterious vis a vis the cleansing wars rather than fully working out alternate deep lore would, paradoxically, make the setting deeper.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Well shucks, I'm glad that image appealed to you. I partly nicked its framing from a post by [USER=6779196]@Charlaquin[/USER] in another Dark Sun thread, which had a turn of phrase I really liked (bolded below):</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="squibbles, post: 8337024, member: 6937590"] That sounds like the right approach if the desire is to avoid retconning: Keep all the developments from the lore, but move the timeline forward far enough that they aren't important. I also like the particular configuration which you arrived at by adding the new sorcerer queen from across the sea of silt. You could use that to introduce new mysteries/ambiguities, i.e. where did she come from and why now? So, I realize I'm answering a question you posed to [USER=6670763]@Yora[/USER] , but yes, very much yes. Everyone always wants mysteries explained, but the greatest engagement comes from not knowing. As presented in the original set, the other shores of the sea of silt didn't really have different things going on. It was one medium sized region loosely connected by trade and generally known to its more informed inhabitants. The city-states were representative of the wider world, not separate from it. To me, developing new territory merely means adding custom cities and tin-pot despots to the periphery of the Tyr region--retconning that they've always been relevant to the Tyr region, and figuring out what the interconnections are. That prior publications and fan creations didn't integrate other regions very well doesn't mean it can't be done. But fair point. Sticking to the stuff that's already written gives you richer material to work with. That's a good setup. Try getting a real-world topographical or generic fantasy map of a geographically similar area, i.e. lake surrounded by mountains, apply some desert-y color filters to it and plop those points of interest in it. Looking at maps always gives me a sense of how cool or uncool an imagined setting feels. However--and I'm sure you can see this coming--I think you could also treat the Tyr region as atypically dense with sorcerer kings/city states (because of how important it is in the lore, I guess), and put new cities around the sea of silt at the locations you listed; one in the north, two in the south, and one city and a highly consequential ruins in the east. I like the idea of the city states being monumental but kind-of beyond the power of the current inhabitants to build--like the citizens of Tyr are living next to the great pyramids of giza and the coliseum, which they know their ancestors built when the world sucked less, but that there has been a long period of what historians would call "[URL='https://cristianizacioneslavos.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/wickham-the-inheritance-of-rome.pdf']radical material simplification[/URL]" to the point that it's all crumbling and shabby. Also, and related to your response to Yora, I think leaving a lot of the background mysterious vis a vis the cleansing wars rather than fully working out alternate deep lore would, paradoxically, make the setting deeper. Well shucks, I'm glad that image appealed to you. I partly nicked its framing from a post by [USER=6779196]@Charlaquin[/USER] in another Dark Sun thread, which had a turn of phrase I really liked (bolded below): [/QUOTE]
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