I am mastering a Darksun-Campaign and my players don't know anything about Athas and I want their characters to recover the history step for step.
I have to say that I have never mastered Darksun before and I am reading a lot to get all the informations.
One information I am missing is the creation of the Rebirth Races.
I created a story of my own with 18 epic nature masters (halfings, I don't like the idea of a rhulisti-race; In my campaign-world, the halfings were the first race, as descriped in the 2E campaign setting).
After the Blue Age, these 18 nature masters divided themselves into "brothers" (human, elfes, giants, dwarfs, gnomes), "animal-like" (pixies => butterfly, lizardmen, pterrans, wemic, tari, aarakocra) and "the Ones between brothers and animals to find a new way" (ogres, orcs, trolls, kobolds, goblins).
There should have been 6 of each types (brothers, animal-like, and "the ones between"), but two natures masters went other ways: One created a unliving race (living constructs) and became a kaisharga and was destroyed by the rest of the nature masters for this (together with his race). The other one decided not to form a new race, instead he wanted to help the remaining halflings.
All the other demi-human races (e.g. tareks, sligs) were "created" later by the corrupting powers of defiling, the ruining of athas, as experiments (as half-giants), or in other meanings (remaining nature-benders maybe?). As there were no champions to kill these demi-humans, they must have been created after/during the Cleansing Wars, I think.
But I have got doubts in writing my own story: In "Defiler and preservers", there's a short information text about that, although it contains no real informations... but on page 17, there's a picture of the pristine tower and the transformation/creation of the new races.
So, are there more informations about that? Has the pristine tower to do anything with the creation of the rebirth-races?
Are the Rebirth Races transformed halfings (like the creation of the dray), or are they life-shaped creatures, imbued with an epic spell to make them a real race?
I think it is very interesting if the nature masters created prototypes of the races (life shaped creatures). The characters could discover one "science laboratory" with body-studies, prototypes and so forth.
What do you think or what do you know?
Was Rajaat that strong to destroy the possibility of the Pristine Tower to use druid-magic, as the pristine tower is a power-source for arcane magic today?
Is it possible to return the Pristine Tower to a power-source for druids?
How did the nature-masters decide which new races to "choose"?
They created the new races out of thin air. That's why there are many halfling-linke and animal-like, I guess: These races could be imagined: Create tall halflings (human, elfes), create other kinds of halfings (dwarfs, gnomes), create halflings as tall as the mountains (giants). Create a crossing between halflings and animals.
And some were creative enough to try something new (ogres, trolls and the others).
All the halfings traveled to the pristine tower to become transformed? Willingly?
As there are 15 Champions, there have to be 16 Rebirth-Races (15 Champion-Races + humans). But there are more demi-humans today... what happened?
I have read some more:
Quote from Dregoth's Ascending, part III:
Just when the Brown Tide looked to destroy all of Athas the nature-masters channeled their power through the Pristine Tower, drawing on the power of the sun itself to save the world.
What power? If they didn't use any form of magic?
Nature-Masters are able to create the best life-shaping things. So the Pristine Tower is a life-shaping "tool" of power beyond every imagination.
Using this tool is one hand, channeling power through it another one. A crafter cannot channel his powers, as he has no powers.
(I stick to the prestige-class here: Nature-masters are able to produce the bests life-shaping items/grafts/creatures, but they do not have any special powers?!)
How can I imagine that the nature-masters shaped themselfes into Rebirth-Races? Did they cut their arms off and put new onto the body (and survived)? Did they take drugs to mutate?
I have no problem to image them as Frankensteins, creating life-shaped creatures... but shaping themselfes?
Maybe I have just a problem to imagine, what life-shaping means and what it contains.
Building the Pristine Tower as an life-shaped architecture: Fine, no problem with that.
Channeling the sun through the Pristine Tower without using magic:
The pristine Tower has to be a magnet for sun-beams? A sun-power-pumpstation beyond imagination and beyond law of nature?I thought that life-shaping was in the law of nature, like genetic engineering today.
On the side; if your an Expanded Universe Star Wars Fan reference the Yuuzhan Vong. If memory serves correctly Troy Denning was the person behind the concept, as Dark Sun ended it's reign he carried the idea into the New Jedi Order series of books.
Thank you
Would it be useful to define these...terms/places/people/events in some thread and link it to the Archive, so we can direct newbies to it? Thoughts anyone?
Sysane, mate, your plant analogy is great! Mixed with Phoenix's comic-book powers comparaison, it would make the best layman's Tower description yet.
I have my moments ;)
Sysane, mate, your plant analogy is great! Mixed with Phoenix's comic-book powers comparaison, it would make the best layman's Tower description yet.
What can I say, Hero System has left it mark on me.
Would it be useful to define these...terms/places/people/events in some thread and link it to the Archive, so we can direct newbies to it? Thoughts anyone?
I think that would be a great idea Penn. "The Layman's Index to Dark Sun" almost sounds like it's own release now that I see it typed out.