The area of Athas described in the source material for DS is miniscule. A small piece of a much bigger world, of which NOTHING is known. Absolutely not one little bit of official information regarding anything outside the established lands of the DS setting.
The people of Athas are for the most part dependent on oral traditions to pass their history forward. Writing is mostly illegal. Only the rulers and isolated sages really know the truth about anything that happened in the distant past.
And Rajaat had to get the idea of what a dragon ought to look like from somewhere. As well as how they act. The dragons that rule Abier consume and destroy their subjects at will. The Athasian SKs, especially the Borys and Tektuktitlay seem to view their subjects as prey, and consume their flesh and spirits. Seems kind of strange, when the whole reason for their original crusade aginst rebirth races was because of their high opinion of their own race. Suddenly, their comrades become food and batteries? The Athasian Dragon transformation may imbue the mental disposition of the Abeir dragons. Perhaps that's a component of the Rage, it's a period of psychological adjustment(and physical agony...) as the mind is bent and warped into that of an sadistic predator.Every SK except for Oronis seemed to kill for sadistic enjoyment, as well as to power their spells. Just like the Abeir dragons(Except the spells part).
On another note, Returned Abeir has a lot of natural geographic barriers, just like the Tablelands are surrounded by.
On yet another note, the Abier dragons apparently power their spells with power stolen from Primordial Elemental Titans, so the lack of traditional arcane magic wouldn't cripple their spellcasting abilities. This also explains why they aren't defilers, if they even know what Defiling is. They jealously persecute religion in any form, especially worship of Elemental Titans. Maybe because they are from a land where Elemental Patrons can grant spells to their followers?
Perhaps the reason the Abeir dragons leave the Tablelands region alone is because they know that the current rulers are powerful ARCANE spellcasting dragons of peerless might, and don't want to reveal their existence, in fear of getting their skulls crushed and their lands taken. There could even be a secret treaty that only the SKs know about, and a component of such a treaty could well explain why they haven't slain each other long ago, and why Borys was so mad when Kalak got killed, even though the levy was still met. Maybe the Sks knew that their hold on their land depended on the fact that they could band together against the outside threat of the Abeir dragons. It would explain why the SKs haven't long since departed for greener pastures. The rest of the world belongs to rival dragons who would possibly work together to destroy an invader,especially a wannabe copycat dragon. Strength in numbers would eventually prevail. Even Borys would probably get killed by a flight of Great Old Wyrm dragons on their home territory. On the other side of the coin, the SKs would more than be able to adequately defend their territories if they worked together.
And consider that in some circles, Hamanu is thought to have been designed to exterminate other dragons, and Rajaat only saw the need to make one of him. Could it be that Hamanu was intended to be used by Rajaat to conquer the rest of the world, after the Cleansing Wars? Or perhaps his existence would have been used as a deterrent to prevent Abeir dragons from trying to annex the Tablelands once he returned them to the Halflings.
Hmm....
Maybe Rajaat worked some vast, epic spell back in the days when he was the ONLY known arcane spellcaster in the known lands of Athas, and compelled the people in the lands he knew of not to seek out other lands, to stay put. There seems to be no interest displayed by the SKs or even the common populace, the nomads, etc... any interest in leaving the general vicinity of the Tablelands, or even seeing what's on the far side of the Silt Sea. Or maybe the formidible natural obstacles in place there were seen as impassible for so long that their culture has accepted the idea that nothing is on the other side. Regardless, the Tablelands, along with the Deadlands, etc. are completely isolated, except for their border with the Kreen. And if the Kreen know anything about the outside world, they aren't going to tell their prey about it.
The entire rest of the planet could easily fit the descriptions of Abeir. Abeir is a nasty place to be. Bleak steel-colored boiling with dark green and metallic clouds.... looks EXACTLY like Athas in the DS logo on every 2E book. This presents no conflict with the established history of Athas, as the weird sky is the residual energy of a dead Primordial Elemental. The death of a Primordial in a world so closely tied to the inner planes would very much affect the climate on Athas. maybe he was a primordial of Water(It would explain why there is little water on the surface in some regions, but much in the clouds in others. The ecology of Abeir is supposed to have been decimated by dragons weilding powers stolen from Primordial Elemental Titans. That would explain the ravaged and warring nature of Athas' inner planes. And to satisfy the question of why Athasian clerics don't just use the inner planes(the same ones that touch the rest of the cosmos!) as a springboard to other planes, I dont think their Primordial patrons want them travelling to other lands and learning about the Primordials' ancient nemesis, the Gods, and so they may simply not grant the knowledge or spells required for such a journey, and enforce the idea that nothing else is out there, anyway.
Also, the history of the land is apparently lost to the peoples of Abier, so they would know nothing of Toril or the ancient connection between the two worlds. The presence of races such as dwarves, elves, etc. natively on other parts of the planet could have been why the Halflings took those forms when they underwent the Rebirth. The Pristine Tower could have looked to the far corners of the world for templates to use in the transformation.
The Grey could be a sort of barrier erected to enforce the treaty between the Primordials and the gods described in the 4e FRCS.
Also, the original members of the races emulated in the Rebirth might not have been subject to Rajaat's genocide if he did know about them, the same way he basically ignored the Kreen. Perhaps he only sent his troops as certain distance and no further because if word got out that their was large nations of the same species as the victims of his genocide, his victims may have found a way to reach them and obtain aid in the war against him.
Rajaat's main focus was on the purity of the Halfling race, he seemed little concerned with races not descended from mutant Halflings.
I realize that many DS players may not like the idea of a relationship between Toril and Athas, but the idea does make for some cool campaign possibilities.
And Rajaat had to get the idea of what a dragon ought to look like from somewhere. As well as how they act.
That's fallacious. Think.
So if Rajaat and Mystra died simultaneously, the planar rifts created could have been part of the Spellplague, (people from Abeir call it the Blue Breath of Change). it doesn't seem all that far-fetched in light of the complete collapse of the old Great Wheel cosmology. As long as the Grey remains intact, these changes wouldn't have much impact on Athas directly.
....! The new cosmology that replaced the Great Wheel includes the Elemental Chaos, which is actually like a jumbled up version of the Inner Planes as Athas knows them, anyway. Different elements bordering on others, with mixes and paraelements in between. Directly adjacent, and warring with each other. The only real difference is the chaos, and along with it ........THE ABYSS!!!!!!
Demons would now have a direct and clear route to Athas, perhaps making life there more perilous than ever, because Demons now have a direct route through the Grey to Athas. And Demons Lords are capable of drawing power from the worship of mortals, and are not true gods, they could very well just use the existing conduits from the inner planes to Athas for their own purposes, as long as they didn't amass enough personal power to become true gods. Demons aren't subject to the pact between the gods and the Primordials. And if demons can get to Athas, they can get into the Grey. And claim souls unclaimed and unclaimable by anyone else. There's nobody there with the power to stop them who cares enough to do so. But the Grey must feed. And if the demons are greedy, and consume all the souls, the Grey could fade away. The demons would lose their exclusive access to an entire plane of unclaimed, unprotected souls. Athas/Abeir would take a horrible turn for the worst if the demons get their hooks in, but in the end, they could accidentally liberate the souls of Athas from fear of the Grey forever.
That's fallacious. Think.
I know, I'm just trying to put all possible connections on the table. Running with the idea that the Pristine Tower imprinted the Rebirth races with templates from races in other regions of the world...and IIRC, the PT was involved with the development of the Metamorphosis( It was Rajaat's base of ops!) he could have stumbled on information about the nature of Dragons, or at least their physical nature.
On a different note, after further reading, i've seen another possible link - the skies of Abeir are metallic. Although metal does not seem to be scarce there, it is absolutely priceless in the Tablelands, and deposits are rare. Maybe the ore that was under the surface of the tablelands was displaced or otherwise affected by the death of the Primordial that made the skies metallic.
On further conjecture, maybe the stripping of metal from the tablelands was a reaction by the Spirits of the Land, serving multiple purposes -
1 - To shield the rest of Athas from the effects of the enlarged red sun
2 - To deprive the deizens of the Tablelands of the materials they would need to take their destructive war beyond the natural barriers presented to the Cleansing War's armies.
3 - To cauterize the wound on the land with the sun's slow fire, and staunch the spread of the infection (Defilers)
Perhaps in their own slow, grinding way, the spirits of the land did it to protect the rest of Athas from Rajaat and his brood. And they deprived the lands where Rajaat held sway of the materials necessary for large scale, effective mobile war, as well as food and drink, with the drying up of the tablelands. The metallic sky and clouds do not protect the Tablelands from the red sun. It's like the immune system of the planet itself is trying to cure itself of a sickness. The sun turned yellow when the Rhulisti tapped its power to cure the brown Tide. It may have been a reaction of the same type. The change certainly eradicated most of the culture responsible for the damage. And the change happened at the same time. maybe it wasn't the elementals, maybe the primordials wrought the changes in the sun and sky. perhaps the Tablelands a kind of disputed area, where the spirits of water and other locally weakened elements are waging a war to get back territory they think is rightfully theirs, and the local Paraelementals are only pursuing the course they think best to protect the planet - Destroying and subjugating the peoples they hold responsible for the damage. Elsewhere, in Abeir, the elements don't seem to be at war. It could be a local reaction and dispute, carrying over into corresponding portions of the Elemental Planes. The Primordials could easily hide this fact from their clerics.
