Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Terrainosaur Sep 16, 2010 10:59:27	D&D 4E and the Forgotten Realms got a shot of fantastic terrain ... floating motes of terrain in the sky and similar 'Yes album cover' stuff. Can you think of any of that in Dark Sun? How would it have happened (more specifically than 'magic')? What sort of fantastic scenery could be added to Dark Sun to make it more Athasian?
#2 FlashbackJon Sep 16, 2010 11:25:32	As a sort of primal and elemental playground, the fantastic terrain offered in The Plane Below is actually quite suitable for Athas, as well as some of the elemental- or land-themed bits from The Plane Above or Manual of the Planes.  We already have fantastical things like obsidian flows and magical silt-water, so some of the stranger hazards from the Elemental Chaos don't actually seem so out-of-place in that light.   Useful link: oneinchsquare.blogspot.com/2010/08/mostl...
#3 Terrainosaur Sep 16, 2010 11:33:03	Ok, that's good.  What I meant was large-scale terrain though.  Panoramic vistas, not a spot of bloodrock.
#4 Pennarin Sep 16, 2010 11:46:50	For example, a section of a mountain chain that obeys fantastic rules from the Elemental Chaos instead of those of the natural world, you mean? A vast piece of the sky that holds an elemental storm as if that part of Athas were inside the Elemental Chaos?
#5 FlashbackJon Sep 16, 2010 11:47:55	Oh, HA!  I had assumed you meant "fantastic terrain" as the game term rather than the plain English. The same logic can be applied though.   The obsidian flows are a good example in canon.  For completely off-the-cuff examples, imagine an area where two primal spirits (or primals and elementals) battle one another, using the landscape literally as their weaponry (or as the physical manifestation of the struggle for dominance of the landscape): amorphous rock masses that encroach and recede like a slow, scraping tide; shifting obsidian spires that piston up and down in a sea of dunes; a whirling tornado of soot and magma choking the life out of an oasis... In fact, the impending doom of the previous edition's paraelemental planes would be a pretty amazing campaign idea for a party of primal oriented characters, or a war for other characters to simply wander into and find themselves (perhaps literally) swept up in.
#6 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Sep 16, 2010 13:36:49	See my art galleries for Dark Sun ;) www.silverblades-suitcase.com/darksun/in...
#7 Terrainosaur Sep 16, 2010 14:55:45	Silverblade I've seen your site before and it's fine. I'm talking about stuff like Roger Dean's art.  Impossibly tall towers, things that shouldn't float but do, objects balanced on top of others.  Unnatural fantasy, not fantastic as a measure of quality.  Visibly impossible in our world.
#8 Terrainosaur Sep 16, 2010 14:58:22	Like Pandora in Avatar!
#9 rollawaythestone Sep 16, 2010 15:22:24	Dark Sun doesn't really have a huge High Fantasy vibe. You don't really see that kind of stuff. However, there are a few such things. The Silt Sea. The Dead Lands. the Ringing Mountains. The Jagged Cliffs.
#10 Terrainosaur Sep 16, 2010 15:54:20	Right, I'm saying more could be added without changing the um, vibe.  Take a look at desert images, then make them fantasy. Columns of rocks balanced impossibly high. Giant arcs of stone like the ribs of a primordial. Massive collections of crystals on the walls of a narrow canyon.
#11 FlashbackJon Sep 16, 2010 16:12:54	The actual ribs of a primordial, seemingly made of flaming obsidian. A river of molten glass. A mountain, inexplicably cleft into two peaks with sheer, parallel walls.  (Optional, a land bridge between them.) The petrified corpse of a tree, thousands of meters tall, twisted and defiled into such a shape that it couldn't possibly hold its own weight. A crystal pyramid that is truly a portion of the Living Gate. A massive siltfall from a unreachable peak with no apparent source.  (Possibly a gate to the silt demiplane?  The corpse of Ul-Athra?)
#12 Terrainosaur Sep 16, 2010 16:40:15	Good stuff.  For the siltfall, I made a siltmote. What was once an earthmote with water flowing over its sides now spills silt instead. A crumbling tower sits up there.
#13 angelus_obscura Sep 16, 2010 17:18:47	ooo, I got one for ya! A mountain of glass, deep within the Obsidian Plains. And touching its peak is a clear blue sky that reflects the mountain beneath. Also, got some pics to share. I was watching a movie and thought of Athas. Captured some of the images as screenshots. Show
#14 naxel Sep 16, 2010 19:03:40	I love Children of Dune so much
#15 angelus_obscura Sep 16, 2010 19:30:44	I love Children of Dune so much OMG, like, me too! :P I was watching the dvd on my computer, hence the arrow buttons in the screenshots. My favorite scene was Alia standing on the precipice with her arms outstretched, basking in the people's worship. I like to imagine it's Abalach-Re before she became self-obsessed. You know, Alia and the SQ both have alot in common. They both fall victim to carnal lusts.
#16 naxel Sep 16, 2010 22:09:57	You know, Alia and the SQ both have alot in common. They both fall victim to carnal lusts. Yeah...well, that's what she wants you to think
#17 angelus_obscura Sep 16, 2010 22:22:31	Yeah...well, that's what she wants you to think Pfft, I've already gone through this in a previous thread. I too think she is putting an act, but there is still an equal chance that she is what they write her to be. It's all up to the DM.
#18 naxel Sep 16, 2010 22:27:25	Hmm. Could be. Perhaps Abalach-re having more up her sleeve is what Richard Baker wants us to think hahaha
#19 FlashbackJon Sep 17, 2010 0:17:53	Good stuff.  For the siltfall, I made a siltmote. What was once an earthmote with water flowing over its sides now spills silt instead. A crumbling tower sits up there. There's an early Paragon-level adventure (apparently adapted from 3e) called Touch of Madness that features a crumbling tower beneath (and slowly being demolished by) a waterfall.  I plan on adapting the tower (if not the encounters themselves) to Athas.  I might go "sunwarped" with it and keep the aberrant flavor. EDIT:  On a side note, I need to watch Children of Dune apparently. EDIT2: On another side note, I love watching Rip Torn hit Justin Long in the face with a wrench as much as the next guy, but that sig has got to go.
#20 angelus_obscura Sep 17, 2010 1:10:45	EDIT2: On another side note, I love watching Rip Torn hit Justin Long in the face with a wrench as much as the next guy, but that sig has got to go.  Why, am I breaking a forum rule? If so, I'll remove it. Or is it the size of the sig.
#21 FlashbackJon Sep 17, 2010 9:04:46	You're not breaking any rules to my knowledge.  PM.
#22 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Sep 17, 2010 9:30:55	the animated gif you are usign slows down even my web browser, IE8 on quad core (my art rig) nvidia 9600GT vid card, 8 gig RAM :/ maybe IE sucks *shrugs*? ;)
#23 atomicbanana Sep 17, 2010 10:32:30	EDIT2: On another side note, I love watching Rip Torn hit Justin Long in the face with a wrench as much as the next guy, but that sig has got to go.  Why, am I breaking a forum rule? If so, I'll remove it. Or is it the size of the sig. From my perspective, it just hurts my brain to see so much animated gif on one page, especially since my screen res is large enough that I can see two of your posts at once.  Keep the sig, surely, but put some spoilers around it? I'd like to keep my grey mass in as good of condition as possible for when the zombies come and eat it.  I want to be fine goddamn dining. p.s.  great pics earlier in the post.  From Children of Dune someone said?
#24 FlashbackJon Sep 17, 2010 10:58:14	Back on topic: Inspired by this pic, a dunescape made of crystallized or of solid material shorn at oblique angles.
#25 BRJN Oct 08, 2010 22:29:23	Inspiration (but no art  ): The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) or any book about Allenby's campaign in Palestine, 1917-1918 Seven Pillars includes scenes that call to Athas: - Ruum, a wind-scoured canyon that looks like a city street with buildings on a scale for giants - Eliath (modern Israel) and the canyon to the NE that is an incredible defensive complex vs attack from the sea but easy to sweep in from the land side and conquer going downhill - the string of oases (an underground river) that runs across the northern part of modern Saudi Arabia - Dead Sea war fleet: three-man fishing boats with a machine gun on the front (convert for silt) - village where Lawrence first met his Arab contacts; slaves tend orchards while the women stay in walled compounds and the menfolk are away to raid - balsam trees that used to grow near Jericho.  A few stunted bushes are left. - Herod's old fortress of Masada, up on a mesa surrounded by desert - a field where a herd of camels had caught disease and died, seen by Lawrence a year later - bones and skeletons scattered about - Sodom and Gomorrah? Petrified trees, everything changed or made wrong somehow, like the area was ... cursed (beyond even defiled) - sea of sand.  A day's travel later, sea of pebbles - a leader that sends his men out of an ambush to get a drink of coffee - because the enemy won't arrive until after they return
#26 Terrainosaur Oct 09, 2010 0:10:04	By the way I just saw this recent Wyoming picture and thought "OMG DARK SUN"... i.usatoday.net/weather/gallery/2010/twiw...