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Causing Dark Sun

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
ryophecles
Oct 23, 2010 10:11:51
I proposed playing a Dark Sun campaign to my players and they're all very excited, and I especially so, but I don't want to just drop off this current campaign at the end and quit it, cold turkey. Instead, I was kicking around the idea of my players actions CAUSING the events that wrecked Athas. However, there is a problem.

Will this cause too many problems with the continuity of the world? A couple things I could work around, I'm sure, but I don't want to miss out on an incredibly important piece of lore.

FYI, my current campaign is pretty homebrew, and I plan on forcing the players into losing the "final boss fight", causing the antagonist to actually kill Pelor and then go on a God slaying adventure, and further events will unfold afterword that will wreck the world and create Athas.
#2
greyorm
Oct 23, 2010 11:44:10
Instead, I was kicking around the idea of my players actions CAUSING the events that wrecked Athas. However, there is a problem.
Will this cause too many problems with the continuity of the world?

Quite a few if you plan on strictly adhering to canon. Otherwise, none if you aren't including the Blue Age, the Champions and the Cleansing Wars, Rajaat, the complete lack of gods, the fact that magic defiles the land, the great psionic academies, and so on.
FYI, my current campaign is pretty homebrew, and I plan on forcing the players into losing the "final boss fight", causing the antagonist to actually kill Pelor and then go on a God slaying adventure, and further events will unfold afterword that will wreck the world and create Athas.

I think you shouldn't ever have players run characters in an adventure where any of the outcomes are preordained; if you as DM want something to happen, it is best to have it happen off-stage. Let your players be protagonists, and their actions and choices be real.
#3
awaken_D_M_golem
Oct 23, 2010 14:39:29 If you don't mind turning around the concept ...
The Spellplague is the official cause of everything 4th edition.

You can easily fit in the rest of your concept from there.
Perhaps even giving the PCs the idea, that they
are somehow responsible for the Results of the Spellplague.
#4
diggles
Oct 24, 2010 0:41:08
If you don't mind turning around the concept ...
The Spellplague is the official cause of everything 4th edition.

You can easily fit in the rest of your concept from there.
Perhaps even giving the PCs the idea, that they
are somehow responsible for the Results of the Spellplague.

Spellplague doesnt affect Athas at all, it has no ties to the other planes.
#5
ryophecles
Oct 24, 2010 11:09:28 Could I not, then, simply have the players actions cause all that primordial business? Is that still absurd?
#6
diggles
Oct 25, 2010 3:32:01
Could I not, then, simply have the players actions cause all that primordial business? Is that still absurd?

Athas's darksun was caused over million years by the use of the pristine tower to tap the suns power...yes its pretty absurd that you can somehow pin this on your players.

A more likely scenario is they accidentally get to Athas...teleport mishap or banishment by some powerful being.

When people die in Athas their souls go into the gray (the buffer zone between Athas and other planes) and waste away. However those with incredible resolve and will can make their way out of the gray back to Athas. Perhaps your PC's die and fight their way out of nothingness and into Athas.

Another great idea is instead of being banished to Athas, perhaps one of the player's gods has found a way into Athas, but can only send a limit number of ppl. The God has chosen this player to become his precense in this untapped world, to spread the world of this great god. The player could be given power points that are used up on divine magic, only converting subject to worship the god would restore thse power points and help widen the way into Athas so the god's power can come in.
#7
JohnLynch
Oct 25, 2010 5:07:44

I proposed playing a Dark Sun campaign to my players and they're all very excited, and I especially so, but I don't want to just drop off this current campaign at the end and quit it, cold turkey. Instead, I was kicking around the idea of my players actions CAUSING the events that wrecked Athas. However, there is a problem.

Will this cause too many problems with the continuity of the world? A couple things I could work around, I'm sure, but I don't want to miss out on an incredibly important piece of lore.

FYI, my current campaign is pretty homebrew, and I plan on forcing the players into losing the "final boss fight", causing the antagonist to actually kill Pelor and then go on a God slaying adventure, and further events will unfold afterword that will wreck the world and create Athas.

I don't think you'd lose a lot of the fluff and flavour that makes Athas so exciting. If I were you I would read the books, take from them what you want, and create your own Dark Sun themed world, causing your homebrew world to become Athas over time.

I plan on reading the campaign books, and then throwing them in the bin and start my own "Athasian-themed" world. Some of the names will be similar, but many of the issues I have with Dark Sun will be thrown away so I can focus on what I (and hopefully my players) find enjoyable.
#8
Chris24601
Oct 25, 2010 10:13:21
Will this cause too many problems with the continuity of the world? A couple things I could work around, I'm sure, but I don't want to miss out on an incredibly important piece of lore.

We've got a similar thing going on, but our DM decided that one of the crucial elements of Dark Sun is that the Sorcerer Kings have ruled unopposed for millennia and that the common people have no memories of any times before.

As such, he had a similar major battle (in this case involving a legion of orcs lead by devils assaulting the main city of the campaign) and the archdevil who masterminded the assault punishing the heroic-tier PC's for thwarting his plans by casting them into the world of Athas.

This gives us the Dark Sun world in all its glory, and a long term quest to escape back to our native world and defeat the archdevil who imprisoned us (probably in late epic-tier).

#9
ryophecles
Oct 25, 2010 10:48:40

Athas's darksun was caused over million years by the use of the pristine tower to tap the suns power...yes its pretty absurd that you can somehow pin this on your players.

My thinking was that these current characters would fail to stop the antagonist. This failure would in some way set in motion the events that allowed the primordials to triumph over the gods, which the "Secret History of Athas" section in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting discusses. Then, during the Desert Age, the players would play new characters and have adventures in the world of Dark Sun. I just think it will be exciting for my players to see what the events their previous characters played a part in have wrought. I'm just worried this will break too many little threads in future published materials.
#10
aeskalis
Oct 25, 2010 11:46:02
My thinking was that these current characters would fail to stop the antagonist. This failure would in some way set in motion the events that allowed the primordials to triumph over the gods, which the "Secret History of Athas" section in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting discusses. Then, during the Desert Age, the players would play new characters and have adventures in the world of Dark Sun. I just think it will be exciting for my players to see what the events their previous characters played a part in have wrought. I'm just worried this will break too many little threads in future published materials.

I'm on old school Dark Sun player/GM, so I don't subscribe to the "Secret History of Athas" drivel, but that's me.
It's your game, do whatever you think the players will have fun with. Who cares if it's canon. I can imagine your players faces when they realize that they have destroyed the world. Awesome.
Dark Sun is basically post-apocalyptic D&D, so however you accomplish that is up to you.
#11
big_goon
Oct 25, 2010 12:23:35

Athas's darksun was caused over million years by the use of the pristine tower to tap the suns power...yes its pretty absurd that you can somehow pin this on your players.

My thinking was that these current characters would fail to stop the antagonist. This failure would in some way set in motion the events that allowed the primordials to triumph over the gods, which the "Secret History of Athas" section in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting discusses. Then, during the Desert Age, the players would play new characters and have adventures in the world of Dark Sun. I just think it will be exciting for my players to see what the events their previous characters played a part in have wrought. I'm just worried this will break too many little threads in future published materials.

Dark Sun is all about making hard choices:

What if the players didn't "fail" to stop the antagonist, but actually "choose" not to stop the antagonist. Can you make up a story that would convince your protagonists that this particular antagonist is the "lesser of two evils"? Or maybe he somehow convinces the PCs that he's a good guy... except that there's something nagging the PCs. Maybe if they chose to act on that intinct, they might have stopped the world from imploding... too bad they didn't.
#12
naxel
Oct 25, 2010 14:57:31 Don't worry about the 'official' canon (which is largely optional in 4e even being official). It's your game and the Dark Sun campaign setting is vague and broad enough to allow for a myriad of cataclysms to ruin the world. As long as defiling magic and the disappearence of the gods is involved you should be fine.

My campaign is actually all about this. It's set in a 'homebrewed' Green Age with lots of monsters and mechanics taken from Dark Sun to 'foreshadow' the future. A powerful sorcerer is abusing defiling magic (much to the spite of Ashbound druids, which I stole from Eberron) and going to war in order to use the thousands of deaths to fuel his life-sapping magic - similar to Rajaat, in a vague way, or so I understand. The PCs must stop this guy, obviously, and to do so they must go around and collect the four elemental jewels scattered around the world (wanted to throwback to good ol' 16-bit RPG days). This sets the world up for the importance of elemental worship that's so pervasive in Dark Sun. With the four jewels collected they can summon a primordial, who will probably infuse itself into a weapon or device as an artifact to aid the PCs in the final battle.

So rather than what you were suggesting, I've allowed my PCs to have a victory which is something I think you should do, too. It's just a bittersweet one. The primordial they summoned later on goes to free its brethren and go on a god-killing rampage and...well, yeah. The sorcerer's 'cleansing wars' were still terrible and slaughtered millions of people as well as draining life energy from plants and nature. Hopefully I can convince one of the PCs to pick up the Dragon King epic destiny so that, in a later era, they will have become the Dragon of Tyr.

From there I'm just gonna foreshadow things. Like I said, elemental powers and the absence of deities and the Dragon of Tyr, but also bring in the budding psionic energy in the world. Maybe they'll travel to the Pristine Tower and who knows what that is 10,000 years before the Desert Age (I'm ignoring the Blue Age and stuff, so it can be whatever I want haha).

I'd also suggest reading 3.5e's Elder Evils. It has many enemies that are world-shattering and also drives home the fact that just the apocalyptic signs leading up to them awakening are devastating enough let alone the horrors actually reviving. Pandorym is an excellent choice for Dark Sun since it's a god-killer as well as being a powerful psionic entity
#13
onionkid
Oct 25, 2010 21:09:53 To quote Scott Kurtz from the Dark Sun Penny Arcade/PvP podcast:

"Hey what happens if your turn this bag of holding inside out?"

"No don't!"

Boom, Dark Sun.
#14
khorne37
Oct 27, 2010 11:14:01 A setting in the era of causing the destruction of Athas I like it.
#15
Sysane
Oct 27, 2010 12:29:57 You could pull a Samurai Jack theme on your party.

Your players could have caught on to Rajaat's plan of purging all the non-human races during the Green Age (which could be the current setting of your world). When the PCs attempt to stop him, Rajaat, or one of his minions, banishes them to the future (present day Athas) during the battle.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 ryophecles Oct 23, 2010 10:11:51	I proposed playing a Dark Sun campaign to my players and they're all very excited, and I especially so, but I don't want to just drop off this current campaign at the end and quit it, cold turkey. Instead, I was kicking around the idea of my players actions CAUSING the events that wrecked Athas. However, there is a problem. Will this cause too many problems with the continuity of the world? A couple things I could work around, I'm sure, but I don't want to miss out on an incredibly important piece of lore. FYI, my current campaign is pretty homebrew, and I plan on forcing the players into losing the "final boss fight", causing the antagonist to actually kill Pelor and then go on a God slaying adventure, and further events will unfold afterword that will wreck the world and create Athas.
#2 greyorm Oct 23, 2010 11:44:10	Instead, I was kicking around the idea of my players actions CAUSING the events that wrecked Athas. However, there is a problem. Will this cause too many problems with the continuity of the world? Quite a few if you plan on strictly adhering to canon. Otherwise, none if you aren't including the Blue Age, the Champions and the Cleansing Wars, Rajaat, the complete lack of gods, the fact that magic defiles the land, the great psionic academies, and so on. FYI, my current campaign is pretty homebrew, and I plan on forcing the players into losing the "final boss fight", causing the antagonist to actually kill Pelor and then go on a God slaying adventure, and further events will unfold afterword that will wreck the world and create Athas. I think you shouldn't ever have players run characters in an adventure where any of the outcomes are preordained; if you as DM want something to happen, it is best to have it happen off-stage. Let your players be protagonists, and their actions and choices be real.
#3 awaken_D_M_golem Oct 23, 2010 14:39:29	If you don't mind turning around the concept ... The Spellplague is the official cause of everything 4th edition. You can easily fit in the rest of your concept from there. Perhaps even giving the PCs the idea, that they are somehow responsible for the Results of the Spellplague.
#4 diggles Oct 24, 2010 0:41:08	If you don't mind turning around the concept ... The Spellplague is the official cause of everything 4th edition. You can easily fit in the rest of your concept from there. Perhaps even giving the PCs the idea, that they are somehow responsible for the Results of the Spellplague. Spellplague doesnt affect Athas at all, it has no ties to the other planes.
#5 ryophecles Oct 24, 2010 11:09:28	Could I not, then, simply have the players actions cause all that primordial business? Is that still absurd?
#6 diggles Oct 25, 2010 3:32:01	Could I not, then, simply have the players actions cause all that primordial business? Is that still absurd? Athas's darksun was caused over million years by the use of the pristine tower to tap the suns power...yes its pretty absurd that you can somehow pin this on your players. A more likely scenario is they accidentally get to Athas...teleport mishap or banishment by some powerful being. When people die in Athas their souls go into the gray (the buffer zone between Athas and other planes) and waste away. However those with incredible resolve and will can make their way out of the gray back to Athas. Perhaps your PC's die and fight their way out of nothingness and into Athas. Another great idea is instead of being banished to Athas, perhaps one of the player's gods has found a way into Athas, but can only send a limit number of ppl. The God has chosen this player to become his precense in this untapped world, to spread the world of this great god. The player could be given power points that are used up on divine magic, only converting subject to worship the god would restore thse power points and help widen the way into Athas so the god's power can come in.
#7 JohnLynch Oct 25, 2010 5:07:44	I proposed playing a Dark Sun campaign to my players and they're all very excited, and I especially so, but I don't want to just drop off this current campaign at the end and quit it, cold turkey. Instead, I was kicking around the idea of my players actions CAUSING the events that wrecked Athas. However, there is a problem. Will this cause too many problems with the continuity of the world? A couple things I could work around, I'm sure, but I don't want to miss out on an incredibly important piece of lore. FYI, my current campaign is pretty homebrew, and I plan on forcing the players into losing the "final boss fight", causing the antagonist to actually kill Pelor and then go on a God slaying adventure, and further events will unfold afterword that will wreck the world and create Athas. I don't think you'd lose a lot of the fluff and flavour that makes Athas so exciting. If I were you I would read the books, take from them what you want, and create your own Dark Sun themed world, causing your homebrew world to become Athas over time. I plan on reading the campaign books, and then throwing them in the bin and start my own "Athasian-themed" world. Some of the names will be similar, but many of the issues I have with Dark Sun will be thrown away so I can focus on what I (and hopefully my players) find enjoyable.
#8 Chris24601 Oct 25, 2010 10:13:21	Will this cause too many problems with the continuity of the world? A couple things I could work around, I'm sure, but I don't want to miss out on an incredibly important piece of lore. We've got a similar thing going on, but our DM decided that one of the crucial elements of Dark Sun is that the Sorcerer Kings have ruled unopposed for millennia and that the common people have no memories of any times before. As such, he had a similar major battle (in this case involving a legion of orcs lead by devils assaulting the main city of the campaign) and the archdevil who masterminded the assault punishing the heroic-tier PC's for thwarting his plans by casting them into the world of Athas. This gives us the Dark Sun world in all its glory, and a long term quest to escape back to our native world and defeat the archdevil who imprisoned us (probably in late epic-tier).
#9 ryophecles Oct 25, 2010 10:48:40	Athas's darksun was caused over million years by the use of the pristine tower to tap the suns power...yes its pretty absurd that you can somehow pin this on your players. My thinking was that these current characters would fail to stop the antagonist. This failure would in some way set in motion the events that allowed the primordials to triumph over the gods, which the "Secret History of Athas" section in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting discusses. Then, during the Desert Age, the players would play new characters and have adventures in the world of Dark Sun. I just think it will be exciting for my players to see what the events their previous characters played a part in have wrought. I'm just worried this will break too many little threads in future published materials.
#10 aeskalis Oct 25, 2010 11:46:02	My thinking was that these current characters would fail to stop the antagonist. This failure would in some way set in motion the events that allowed the primordials to triumph over the gods, which the "Secret History of Athas" section in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting discusses. Then, during the Desert Age, the players would play new characters and have adventures in the world of Dark Sun. I just think it will be exciting for my players to see what the events their previous characters played a part in have wrought. I'm just worried this will break too many little threads in future published materials. I'm on old school Dark Sun player/GM, so I don't subscribe to the "Secret History of Athas" drivel, but that's me. It's your game, do whatever you think the players will have fun with. Who cares if it's canon. I can imagine your players faces when they realize that they have destroyed the world. Awesome. Dark Sun is basically post-apocalyptic D&D, so however you accomplish that is up to you.
#11 big_goon Oct 25, 2010 12:23:35	Athas's darksun was caused over million years by the use of the pristine tower to tap the suns power...yes its pretty absurd that you can somehow pin this on your players. My thinking was that these current characters would fail to stop the antagonist. This failure would in some way set in motion the events that allowed the primordials to triumph over the gods, which the "Secret History of Athas" section in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting discusses. Then, during the Desert Age, the players would play new characters and have adventures in the world of Dark Sun. I just think it will be exciting for my players to see what the events their previous characters played a part in have wrought. I'm just worried this will break too many little threads in future published materials. Dark Sun is all about making hard choices: What if the players didn't "fail" to stop the antagonist, but actually "choose" not to stop the antagonist. Can you make up a story that would convince your protagonists that this particular antagonist is the "lesser of two evils"? Or maybe he somehow convinces the PCs that he's a good guy... except that there's something nagging the PCs. Maybe if they chose to act on that intinct, they might have stopped the world from imploding... too bad they didn't.
#12 naxel Oct 25, 2010 14:57:31	Don't worry about the 'official' canon (which is largely optional in 4e even being official). It's your game and the Dark Sun campaign setting is vague and broad enough to allow for a myriad of cataclysms to ruin the world. As long as defiling magic and the disappearence of the gods is involved you should be fine. My campaign is actually all about this. It's set in a 'homebrewed' Green Age with lots of monsters and mechanics taken from Dark Sun to 'foreshadow' the future. A powerful sorcerer is abusing defiling magic (much to the spite of Ashbound druids, which I stole from Eberron) and going to war in order to use the thousands of deaths to fuel his life-sapping magic - similar to Rajaat, in a vague way, or so I understand. The PCs must stop this guy, obviously, and to do so they must go around and collect the four elemental jewels scattered around the world (wanted to throwback to good ol' 16-bit RPG days). This sets the world up for the importance of elemental worship that's so pervasive in Dark Sun. With the four jewels collected they can summon a primordial, who will probably infuse itself into a weapon or device as an artifact to aid the PCs in the final battle. So rather than what you were suggesting, I've allowed my PCs to have a victory which is something I think you should do, too. It's just a bittersweet one. The primordial they summoned later on goes to free its brethren and go on a god-killing rampage and...well, yeah. The sorcerer's 'cleansing wars' were still terrible and slaughtered millions of people as well as draining life energy from plants and nature. Hopefully I can convince one of the PCs to pick up the Dragon King epic destiny so that, in a later era, they will have become the Dragon of Tyr. From there I'm just gonna foreshadow things. Like I said, elemental powers and the absence of deities and the Dragon of Tyr, but also bring in the budding psionic energy in the world. Maybe they'll travel to the Pristine Tower and who knows what that is 10,000 years before the Desert Age (I'm ignoring the Blue Age and stuff, so it can be whatever I want haha). I'd also suggest reading 3.5e's Elder Evils. It has many enemies that are world-shattering and also drives home the fact that just the apocalyptic signs leading up to them awakening are devastating enough let alone the horrors actually reviving. Pandorym is an excellent choice for Dark Sun since it's a god-killer as well as being a powerful psionic entity
#13 onionkid Oct 25, 2010 21:09:53	To quote Scott Kurtz from the Dark Sun Penny Arcade/PvP podcast: "Hey what happens if your turn this bag of holding inside out?" "No don't!" Boom, Dark Sun.
#14 khorne37 Oct 27, 2010 11:14:01	A setting in the era of causing the destruction of Athas I like it.
#15 Sysane Oct 27, 2010 12:29:57	You could pull a Samurai Jack theme on your party. Your players could have caught on to Rajaat's plan of purging all the non-human races during the Green Age (which could be the current setting of your world). When the PCs attempt to stop him, Rajaat, or one of his minions, banishes them to the future (present day Athas) during the battle.