Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 sciborg3 Jun 26, 2011 20:00:01	Anyone come up with different reasons the world of Athas is a defiler ruined desert besides the story of Rajaat?
#2 naxel Jun 26, 2011 21:07:28	There was an apocalypse of sorts, related to defiling, that left the sun bloated and dying, dozens of species extinct, and the environment shattered. The Dragon and Sorcerer-Kings were involved, somehow. I can't recall who posted it last year and if it was here or on rpg.net but it's a great two-sentence broad stroke of the world. Many people have sought to create a new history for Dark Sun, especially with 4E's release and its more generic take on it. Personally I like most of 2E's revised Dark Sun. My only complaints are the Prism Pentad metaplot and the fact that Rajaat was an emo ugly duckling. I enjoy the Blue Age, although to be made relevant to the current Age and the PCs I've thought of creating some feats or long-lost life-shaped magic items because without Rajaat (in my version) wanting to revert the world back to halfling-only I figure there needs to be something to make that ancient time still relevant to the players. I've taken to the idea of Rajaat as the top gun primordial (his fellow brothers being Herumar and Ul-athra). The Sun Goddess was defeated long before even the Blue Age began but the battles left the primordials weak, and so for 10,000 years they've been slumbering or imprisoned, waiting to be released. At the end of the Green Age Rajaat reached out and influenced, at the least, 15 students and taught them defiling magic which would destroy the world and help release him. The Champions eventually realized that, as a primordial, Rajaat wanted nothing more than to hurl Athas into the Elemental Chaos so they betrayed him and trapped him in the Hollow. The Sun Goddess, however, was imprisoned into the Pristine Tower, an ancient construct older than the Blue Age. Its use has actually drained her of her last strength as she is tied directly to the Sun, naturally
#3 sciborg3 Jun 26, 2011 21:22:38	That's a pretty good take if you include the primordials. I had the same issue as you, namely Rajaat as the ugly inventor of arcane magic felt off. The rest of it - the blue and green ages, the champions hunting down races to extinction, all that I loved. I think a lot of stuff in Prism Pentad was interesting but then you start to wonder about the whole "world for halflings" twist that felt like it came out of nowhere...especially because halfling use arcane magic in the first book if I recall correctly. The deaths of so many sorcerer kings and change in the world status quo in the very first books in the series was also strange in my opinion.
#4 Raddu76 Jun 26, 2011 23:20:26	Here's a version I made up: community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...
#5 sciborg3 Jun 27, 2011 8:58:19	Cool stuff - I was thinking of the Far Realms before I got to the bottom, but then I liked the idea of the plants being a danger. But perhaps some insane druids turned nature against the races that build cities and ply the land? Sometimes I like the simple idea that the sorcerer kings and the dragon are just exactly what they seem - the strongest defilers in history that beat out their rivals in ancient days. That's closer to the idea of environmental damage and destruction the setting focused on.
#6 naxel Jun 27, 2011 17:38:46	...The rest of it - the blue and green ages, the champions hunting down races to extinction, all that I loved...The deaths of so many sorcerer kings and change in the world status quo in the very first books in the series was also strange in my opinion. That sums up precisely how I've felt about this for so many years. Lifeshaping gonzo weird science fantasy halflings in a water world with psychic dolphins and spaceships? Awesome. Massive wars that lasted centuries, isolated to one part of a continent but still managed to affect and ruin the entire world? Awesome. King Kalak's death starting off the campaign? Great. Killing off the Dragon, Abalach-re, Andropinis, and Tectuktitlay and releasing Rajaat? ...What
#7 maddog0714 Jun 27, 2011 21:14:56	I thought of something like in the distant path, great sorceres tried to make a ultimate ritual spell that would actually transport or merge the world of anthas into somewhere like the far realm, or the feywild, but instead brought it out of its orbit and closer to the sun, (Which makes it obviously hotter)
#8 naxel Jun 30, 2011 6:41:37	I really like that idea, maddog. Another one I'm rolling around is that Rajaat may actually be a good guy. He wasn't at first; he initiated the Cleansing Wars and empowered the Champions, but over the years he begins seeing visions and prophecies of what the world will come to in the future if the defiling magic continues to reign loose. In light of this he announces to Hamanu his plans for peace and rejuvination, but Borys doesn't take kindly to the idea when Hamanu spills the beans. So all the Champions (aside from Sacha and Wyan, right?) decide to lock him up as a lunatic and traitor to his own cause. There's a certain horror to the campaign setting thinking that the Sorcerer-kings and the Dragon, the world's most powerful villains, are keeping an even worse villain at bay. On this other hand, though, it's frightening, even moreso possibly, to think that they really are the worst of the worst
#9 BRJN Jul 01, 2011 21:08:03	An equally horrific thought: The Athas we know about is only a small part of a much larger world.  All the known world is a huge zone where the Elemental Chaos (mostly fire but others too) merges with natural reality.  However, if you can just go far enough in a straight line ... the world outside is healing and recovering.  This world may look like Gamma World or something from a Mad Max movie but it is clearly natural and healthy.  Nobody from outside will go in to Athas because, well, the place is un-natural; destroyed; and full of dangerous living-on-the-edge-of-extinction loons who will eat you. Inspired by a comment that all of Athas is about the size of Texas.  Now, put that in the middle of the Sahara Desert...
#10 sciborg3 Jul 01, 2011 21:25:11	An equally horrific thought: The Athas we know about is only a small part of a much larger world.  All the known world is a huge zone where the Elemental Chaos (mostly fire but others too) merges with natural reality.  However, if you can just go far enough in a straight line ... the world outside is healing and recovering.  This world may look like Gamma World or something from a Mad Max movie but it is clearly natural and healthy.  Nobody from outside will go in to Athas because, well, the place is un-natural; destroyed; and full of dangerous living-on-the-edge-of-extinction loons who will eat you. Inspired by a comment that all of Athas is about the size of Texas.  Now, put that in the middle of the Sahara Desert... Now that is a good twist, that Athas is the horrible waste in an otherwise pristine and beautiful world. Would Athasians carry their taint with them as they tried to enter the recovering world?
#11 naxel Jul 02, 2011 0:21:31	Inspired by a comment that all of Athas is about the size of Texas.  Now, put that in the middle of the Sahara Desert... Check out this link: www.azathought.com/darksun/2010/08/how-b... That's just the size of the campaign map. The Sea of Silt extends far, far eastwards, the Southern Wastes go on for hundreds of miles before you get to the Dead Lands (so I think), plus the hundreds of miles west to the Crimson Savannah. That's just the locations mentioned. In the 4e CG in the section, Secret History of Athas, it says that the Champions' magic ruined other continents they didn't even set foot on. I have a world map of my own design. It's smaller than Earth, but the Tablelands and those places above in their entirety still take up a fair portion. The campaign area, at the very least, is small compared to the rest of the world (whichever world map you may envision) but it's not as small as being a dot in the Sahara like an old image showed