Bel
I never heard about it until coming onto these boards months ago and hearing the debate over which would be the new campaign setting. That said, after reading the article, I'm intrigued. A sort of Dune meets Fallout with dragons? Sign me up. I'd like to familiarize myself with the setting though. Does anyone have a good database or wiki that can fill me in?
Pretty much, just the dragons are extremely rare, in fact mostly considered being of myth and legend. There are spoilers dealing with dragons in the metaplot I don't want to ruin (esp since they're going back to the first box set timeline). Suffice to say dragons are RARE.
Try here.
Bel
Browsing this and the wikipedia article now. Interesting stuff.
IMHO, you're not missing much.
2e DS was awesome.
You mean DS is Super-duper double-awesome ? ;)
You mean DS is Super-duper double-awesome ? ;)
Exactly. I started playing D&D from the age of 7 or 8 in greyhawk and discovered darksun soon after. The first game I ever played was insane, my halfgiant gladiator crushed the skulls of three gith in the arena of tyr, I killed a mul and then turned on my allies who were chained to me, slowing me down and I killed them. (not pc's). Then came the thrikreen gladiators.
I was ADDICTED after that.;)
I ended up with a level 18 mul gladiator with a custom built battleaxe of bloodlust which my DM allowed me to create as a reward for years and years of hardwork and dedication to the game.
A few things about this axe. First off it broke the concept of balance all to hell.:D I mean seriously. The DM was throwing things at our group that no one should have survived. The group all had super hero characters at this point after 5 years of crack headed serious play. Some info on my axe.
It provided initiative every round. It didn't give me a bonus to initiative, it straight up provided it. "Oh, its time to fight? Everyone else roll initiative, I go first." LOL!
It did 2d12 damage normally and I gained as much damage as I did in life. (lifestealer weapon)
On a crit it did double damage and had a 10% chance to kill anything with less HD than my level outright. (18hd monsters were not rare at this point)
Once per day, when I successfully struck a monster, I could activate a special power, slay living.
My battle axe had a +3 to hit and had the return ability.
While I held the axe, it had psionic enchantments that constantly worked including danger sense and all-around vision. It has an intelligence of 15 and a Cha of 12. It was evil and if it didn't kill atleast 10hd of life each day, it would drain me of 6d12 hp.
To top it all off, it protected me from ALL powers dealing with the mind (when held) so I could not be dominated or probes or charmed or any of that wonderful love.
My magic item was soon dubbed an artifact and its means of destruction were either drawing blood from the axe (some how wounding the axe), being used by a dragon to strike my character or not drawing blood for 1 year.
I killed almost every SK with that character, Elemental lords, I single handedly chopped the head off the lich queen during a gith invasion... I did so much I can't even list it all without pulling out my DS folder to check.
I love dragonlance, its a bad ass setting with a alot of really great stuff. But nothing stands up to darksun. (IMHO)
[edit] believe it or not, I was not the strongest person in our group. Our friend ran a female gladiator (she was female after all) called Lady Dread who had two artifact swords. (start thinking he-man and skeletor toys) and they did all kinds of nutty stuff. Once per week, she could join the swords together which created the "I HAVE THE POWER" effect and call down a freaking Solar flare from the sun. I think it did something like 20d20 +100 damage or something like that. It was a mile radius and she used it whenever she could.
We were hired to eliminate this warband who had taken hold of a merchant house outpost and she used her super solar flare to completely obliterate the outpost and over 100 foes. Just gone. An encounter that should have taken days of play took less than 60 seconds. ROFL. Legendary.
*Does the Divine power source have any place in the setting ?
*If so, what kind of powers invest Avengers, Clerics and Paladins their prayers?
*With whom would Invokers make their covenants ?
I am not familiar with Dark Sun either. Quite a few descriptions of the setting say the Gods are not present.
*Does the Divine power source have any place in the setting ?
*If so, what kind of powers invest Avengers, Clerics and Paladins their prayers?
*With whom would Invokers make their covenants ?
There is a similar problem with Arcane magic.
As far as I can tell (I've never played before 4e, but I'm thoroughly intrigued by DS), everything sucking and being difficult is a theme of Dark sun.
I am not familiar with Dark Sun either. Quite a few descriptions of the setting say the Gods are not present.
*Does the Divine power source have any place in the setting ?
*If so, what kind of powers invest Avengers, Clerics and Paladins their prayers?
*With whom would Invokers make their covenants ?
In addition to Zebastian's questions, could someone give me a brief description of Templars? It seems like they have a lot of clout amongst DS fans; some people have even suggested they become a main class. What are they like and what are their main features? Thanks in advance.
In addition to Zebastian's questions, could someone give me a brief description of Templars? It seems like they have a lot of clout amongst DS fans; some people have even suggested they become a main class. What are they like and what are their main features? Thanks in advance.
Templars are, in part, bureaucrats who work for the sorcerer-monarchs. The not only run the day-to-day of the city, they act as artillery within the city guard, detectives, they are sometimes the consorts/wives of said sorcerer-monarchs, and more. The reason they have such power, and are accorded immense respect within their city-state, is because of their unique tie to their sorcerer-monarch.
See, each sorcerer-monarch has been permanently tied to the raw power of the elemental planes through powerful, ancient magics (each monarch beings many thousands of years old). However, there is one major problem with their access to said power: the monarchs are unable to directly use that power themselves. Rather, they are merely conduits for that power. They teach their templars how to utilize that power, then direct the elemental power to their templars. Thus, templars act as divine instruments (of sorts) to the sorcerer-monarchs. Instead of channeling the power granted to them by gods, they channel raw elemental power granted to them by their king or queen.
Desert world. Metal is scarce. Marauding Elf Dune Runners. Cannibal Halflings. No gods. Elemental Clerics. The list goes on and on.
What makes this setting so great in my opinion is it's endless opportunities for something different than the normal dungeon crawl. You can have a single adventure where you just have to survive the wilderness. Such as, what if you're a slave in the City-State of Urik and you have a chance to escape. Do you do it and risk a long dangerous trek with out any promise of a steady water supply just to try and get to the rumored Free City-State of Tyr?
Or what about playing the roll of the "bad guys?" Evil doesn't have to be in some hidden lair in the middle of nowhere, or some ancient ruins. What if the PC's party is made up of a Templar and his city patrol? Maybe they find clues as to where the secret location of the Veiled Alliance plots against the Sorcerer King.
This is why I enjoy DARK SUN so much. The people I play with now have never played in DS and now I get the opportunity to show them what it's all about. I greatly look forward to the day when the Templar glares at the PC's silently asking for power from his Sorcerer King to cast his spell and they all hear emanating from around the Templar the voice of the Sorcerer King simply say..."Granted" as the spell is cast.
I am not familiar with Dark Sun either. Quite a few descriptions of the setting say the Gods are not present.
*Does the Divine power source have any place in the setting ?
*If so, what kind of powers invest Avengers, Clerics and Paladins their prayers?
*With whom would Invokers make their covenants ?
There is a history if clerical power on Athas.
Templars had access to clerical spells through their Sorceror-King/Queen.
Elemental Priests channeled the divine power of the elements and Druids were pretty much hippie priests.
In 4E i dont see any problem using any of the given divine classes.
I can already see myself creating a Urikite Avenger of Hamanu or a Gulgian Invoker of Andropinis. GLEE!!!
Regarding Arcane power.
It was never a problem. ASIDE from the fact that:
A. You had to invest yourself with power from living things around you. You could do it harmoniously with nature or you could give a rats keister about it and turn the land around you into ash for eons.
B. Arcane spells made Athas the wasteland it is today ... and commoners know it. In 2e if the commoners knew you were a spellcaster they were just as likely to turn you in to the Templars of the city you were in or try and kill you in an angry mob if you were outside of the city states.
So, this will be like a brand new setting for me! I have not had this much excitement about a setting since I picked up the 3E Eberron book and fell in love.
Is it time yet?
Now?
How about now?
I am not familiar with Dark Sun either. Quite a few descriptions of the setting say the Gods are not present.
*Does the Divine power source have any place in the setting ?
*If so, what kind of powers invest Avengers, Clerics and Paladins their prayers?
*With whom would Invokers make their covenants ?
Divine powers in 2nd ed. were coming from the elemental planes (clerics) or the sorcerer-kings (templars). They were no paladins (replaced by the gladiator class), being paladinly-lawful-good in the dark sun setting was nearly impossible, but this aignment restriction has been dropped. Avengers are perfect tools for sorcerer-kings. In 4th ed. invokers may possibly become called templars to replace the 2nd ed. class.
Maybe the city state of Tyr will have a new "good" sorcerer-king to grant spells to good aligned worshippers, as Tyr was the "point of light" after the death of the former one.
There's no problem with other power sources. Primal classes will be rare things. The link with arcane and feywild will be exploited with preservers and defilers.
Beside the death of all gods, the other good news from dark sun are that gnomes have been exterminated (with kobolds and other crappy races), that halflings eat people, and metals are very rare and deadly to wear under the sun. Bone or wood weapons are the norm.
Notable "new" races : half-giant, thri-kreen, half-dwarves (still makes me laugh) called mûls.
An advice : never trust dark sun elves…
(the second hand stores never were able to keep it on the shelf and it was first come first served)
^ My problem. The game store I went to regularly for my comic books sold out of Dark Sun stuff in the first month or so after release, and couldn't get it back in stock for some reason. Which also had the semi-humorous side-effect of causing three or four copies of Dragon Kings to languish on the shelf. Years later, at least one copy of Dragon Kings shows up in a used bookstore, in mint-in-box condition. But still no copies of the original boxed set.
Forgotten Realms had the same problem, by the way. Either TSR took the original boxes out of print very early on, or there was some kind of screw-up in the supply system.
I do have a few minor questions, though...
*I know that the titular Dark Sun resembles "a smear of fiery blood in the olive-tinged sky", but does Athas have a moon of any sort?
*Would "straight out of the box" Dark Sun be Black vs. Gray or Gray vs. Grey in terms of setting morality? See TVTropes for what I'm referring to.
*What exactly is a kank? I know it's a fearsome Athasian predator, but what does it actually look like? I haven't been able to find any description for it.
*I know that defiled land takes a long time to heal and become fertile again, but is there any given time period for restoration? 100 years per square inch, or anything like that?
*I know that the titular Dark Sun resembles "a smear of fiery blood in the olive-tinged sky", but does Athas have a moon of any sort?
Two moons, Ral and Guthay. Both immense in the sky, one larger than the other. Some speculated that based on the size of the moons in the sky that it meant that Athas really was a satellite around a gas giant with the other smaller moon. Interesting idea, but never clearly denied nor confirmed.
*Would "straight out of the box" Dark Sun be Black vs. Gray or Gray vs. Grey in terms of setting morality? See TVTropes for what I'm referring to.
IMO, black vs. gray.
*What exactly is a kank? I know it's a fearsome Athasian predator, but what does it actually look like? I haven't been able to find any description for it.
Kanks are immense ant-like beasts of burden, often raised by sentient creatures. Wild kanks could be considered like herds of wild horses on earth, but with pincers ;) .
*I know that defiled land takes a long time to heal and become fertile again, but is there any given time period for restoration? 100 years per square inch, or anything like that?
There were some druid spells that could recover land, but as I recall, the natural restoration was slow enough the books basically said not in a character's lifetime. It wasn't like land went from verdant to dust with a single casting. It would degrade over repeated defilings in gradations. The further degraded, the wider and wider the affect of a future defiling would cause. For example, from memory here . . . in a verdant land a spell might cause a tiny plot to be reduced towards savanna-like fertility. The same spell on a savanna-like area would defile a much larger area into marginal fertility. The same spell on a marginal fertile area would drain an even larger yet radius into desert.
Higher level spells would affect larger areas than lower level. The epic spell defiling from Sorcerer-Kings would defoliate immense swaths of territory, plus they could defile not only out of plants but out of animals.
That help?
There were some druid spells that could recover land, but as I recall, the natural restoration was slow enough the books basically said not in a character's lifetime. It wasn't like land went from verdant to dust with a single casting. It would degrade over repeated defilings in gradations. The further degraded, the wider and wider the affect of a future defiling would cause.
Also working from memory: I seem to recall that multiple castings in the same spot were additive in their area of destruction. That is, if I cast a 1st level spell, I defile an area in a 10-foot radius around me. The next round, I cast another 1st level spell while standing in the same spot, and the spell has to reach out further to find enough juice-- I'm now standing in a defiled area with a 20-foot radius. That 10' radius assumes optimal vegetation, too. If I'm standing out in scrub, the spell has to eat a bigger area to get the same amount of energy.
My numbers are foggy, but one begins to see how defilers earned their name, and why psionics were such a big deal for the setting.
There is a similar problem with Arcane magic.
As far as I can tell (I've never played before 4e, but I'm thoroughly intrigued by DS), everything sucking and being difficult is a theme of Dark sun.
This.
This is Dark Sun.
Living in Australia, I've never had a chance to play Dark Sun
Australia is Athas :P