If I remember correctly (or rather, if I consult my illegally downloaded PDF...), Valley of Dust and Fire was deliberately designed to be the deadliest setting ever produced for AD&D. It culminated with the Dragon of Tyr (whose home the Valley was). It gave stats for the Dragon**, but then carefully and intelligently explained why he could NEVER be defeated (to wit, he had buried literally HUNDREDS of caches of Potions of Extra-Healing and Wands of Fireballs in the garden of his home and could Teleport at will to them if the going got rough. He also could Gate in essentially unlimited numbers of armed minions.
Here's hoping Valley of Dust and Fire makes a comeback. I intend to well and truly give the bird to the whole Prism Pentad mythos: The Dragon of Tyr NEVER died. Neither did King Kalak. Aegis of Asticles and Tithian the Annoying Templar never existed. Now, let's play Dark Sun PROPERLY.
*In fact, it might have been the last hurrah for them, for shortly after, they decided to well and truly shoot themselves in the head, producing the absolutely moronic, interminable "Fighter's Challenge" (or "Cleric's Challenge" or "Challenge", etc.) series of modules. Yeah. Because nothing is more fun than being a single player running a 1st-level character with 3 hit points. Late Stage TSR: It was like bricking yourself up in a corner of your basement, then complaining you're stuck.
**Not giving stats for things was another of End Stage TSR's many sins. Pretty much the entire Forgotten Realms product line, other than Monster Manuals was an experiment in "Let's cut and paste 50 pages of text out of "National Geographic", buy some art from Elwood, slap on an FR logo and call it a day." I think the nadir was "Anauroch", which included NO gaming stats in the entire module. Seriously: It was enough to make you wonder whether people at TSR had a long-term memory problem and forgot they were running a gaming company, not a Slightly Fictionalized Anthropology book company.
The Dragon Kings book and anything involving the Borys and his quasi-Dragon peers was among the most fascinating aspects of the world. I read the Prism books but was pretty disappointed in the ending... if you are going to DM a game in Dark Sun I'd heartily recommend rewriting the history of the world the way you want it to be, you don't have to follow the official material if you don't want to. Or are they re-releasing the material? Or recreating the setting? I haven't so much as cracked a book since Third Edition came along, and that was only browsing through the books in the store...
Some authors suck, and some admins suck by giving the former the green light to publish anything.
Hopefuly, think tanks and more than competent writers and admins are now employed by Wizards, compaired to some of the people at TSR.
I really, really, really did not like the Prism Pentad books. They made no sense, even by fantasy standards. The characters had no consistent personality from one chapter to the next. Tithian was evil. Oh but wait, then he's good again later. Oh wait, no he's evil again. Why? Never mind, no time for that now, he's good again.
TSR didn't "make" Fighter's Challenge, or Valley of Dust. Authors did. Rich Baker, the guy mostly doing Dark Sun 4e, made Valley. Another guy, probably not him, did Challenge.
Some authors suck, and some admins suck by giving the former the green light to publish anything.
Hopefuly, think tanks and more than competent writers and admins are now employed by Wizards, compaired to some of the people at TSR.
Well, if you're a publishing company, there's supposed to be some sort of centralized editorial control, especially if everything you produce is supposed to come out of a shared mythos. I think I'm allowed to criticize TSR because all of their products are/were being marketed to the same people (i.e. me) and, after being awesome for a number of years (the historical sourcebooks, Al Qadim, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Planescape), they took a real dive in quality (the Challenge series). Heck, they even went back and retroactively screwed up previously good things: Remember the Dark Sun "relaunch" when they put out a new boxed set--except that this one ditched all the awesome Brom artwork in favor of much, MUCH crappier artwork that looked like it had been drawn by a 10-year-old?
But no more harsh than any other area outside of a city-state save the Forest Ridge or the Mountains.
And I too disregard the Prism Pentad and any other story or adventure outside of the basic box set. It just doesn't make sense. The rate of Sorcerer-kingicde was about one every thousand years; yet, suddenly, they all drop like flies.
When I created the Sundra Peninsula, I envisioned an Avangion-like "Ur-Draxa", that though there was a large city, the Avangion's ability to create vegitation gave raise to numerous cities and towns.
Then....
...It's not like this at all anymore because of the Cerulean Storm. Sorry.
WTF TSR?!?!? That was one thing I didn't like about Dark Sun and it's something Rich Baker brought up. They would release a boxed set, then change it all with some cataclysmic event in the next product released a month later. 1st Boxed set has 7 Sorcerer Kings, first adventure kills one. Well toss the Tyr stuff out the window from the boxed set. They did the same thing with Ur-Draxa. Annoying, yet strangely...hands down my favorite setting. Go figure.
It's the same as with Dragonlance*: I was *never* able to figure out What the Heck Is Going On in any of the novels, so I said screw it and stuck with the game products.
*And there again, TSR rarely created a franchise they didn't later try to destroy: Witness the writing debacle that was The Fifth Age. "Yeah, 'cause people who play D&D will *totally* be excited by a world without any magic in it! Yeah! 'Cause our gaming system totally works when there's no healing spells! In fact, that's probably what was holding Dragonlance back all these years: The magic! People hate magic! That's why NO ONE plays wizards or clerics or is ever excited about getting a magic item! And nobody liked Raistlin; *Caramon* was the really interesting character!"
Oh and as usual, TSR kicked off the Dragonlance Franchise Destruction Event with a large-scale Artwork Quality Reduction Project.
Close-tag-sarcasm.
Oh and just to gallop totally off-topic: Did I mention the stupidity of Tanis going with Laurana rather than Kitiara? That's like picking Jewel instead of Joan Jett.
There's a very good explanation for that. Kitiara was both a bitch and a ****. Plus laurana looked better and wasn't so used up.
As for Ur Draxa, Yes, the city is by far, more deadly that the trip getting there. (while borys was alive) The Valley of Dust and Fire is probably the most deadly region we know of. I don't even think the deadlands are as deadly, To be honest. Just trying to get to Ur Draxa is nearly impossible. Getting there and back again, alive, is so insanely hard that you could lose 100 different characters trying to get to the city, defeat the dragon and then make it back to the tablelands. Unless of course, the dm was letting you win.
The "Black Spine" module was interesting (a close second to Valley of Dust and Fire) since it described both an extradimensional githyanki invasion of Athas and also an episode in which high-level PCs would go to the Astral Plane to stop it.
The two questions it begged in my mind were:
1.) Why would anyone try to conquer Athas? The inhabitants are hard as rocks and the planet is dying: What a terrible prospect for invasion.
2.) Why would anyone who was able to get off of Athas (i.e. the PCs at the end of Black Spine) ever voluntarily go back? That's like getting on rickety raft and sailing BACK to Devil's Island.
2.) Why would anyone who was able to get off of Athas (i.e. the PCs at the end of Black Spine) ever voluntarily go back? That's like getting on rickety raft and sailing BACK to Devil's Island.
I guess it's kind of like those long term prisoners that end up going back to prison after living on the outside for a while because they can't survive function in the real world.
*And there again, TSR rarely created a franchise they didn't later try to destroy: Witness the writing debacle that was The Fifth Age. "Yeah, 'cause people who play D&D will *totally* be excited by a world without any magic in it! Yeah! 'Cause our gaming system totally works when there's no healing spells! In fact, that's probably what was holding Dragonlance back all these years: The magic! People hate magic! That's why NO ONE plays wizards or clerics or is ever excited about getting a magic item! And nobody liked Raistlin; *Caramon* was the really interesting character!"
Oh and as usual, TSR kicked off the Dragonlance Franchise Destruction Event with a large-scale Artwork Quality Reduction Project.
Close-tag-sarcasm.
I kinda remember when that happened. Saga system, wasn't it, where you played with a deck of playing cards instead of dice? I didn't even recognize it as Dragonlance from the Dragon articles I saw. It was like they'd taken the setting and tried to rework it into some kind of horrible mideval pastiche.
If WotC decides to revisit Dragonlance, its going to need the same kind of reset that Dark Sun is getting, only a lot more drastic.
Why would anyone try to conquer Athas? The inhabitants are hard as rocks and the planet is dying: What a terrible prospect for invasion.
LOL, I just had a thought: Maybe Queen Vlaakith told her githyanki, "We'll be greeted as liberators!"
Oh and just to gallop totally off-topic: Did I mention the stupidity of Tanis going with Laurana rather than Kitiara? That's like picking Jewel instead of Joan Jett.
You'd prefer Kitiara? Well, if you *like* waking up with a dagger stuck in your chest...
If WotC decides to revisit Dragonlance, its going to need the same kind of reset that Dark Sun is getting, only a lot more drastic.
I'm not all that either hopeful or interested in D&D reviving Dragonlance. Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk were/are all fairly standard, Tolkienesque worlds. In fact, I think that when Dragonlance's authors started to think unusual thoughts--i.e. the "Otherlands" boxed set that included heretofore unimagined stuff like a hidden civilization under the Chorane glacier--THAT is when TSR for some reason panicked, shot themselves in the feet and head and relaunched the setting as the uber-boring Fifth Age.
Yeah, in case folks haven't noticed, I really dislike that TSR never seemed to fully invest their own most creative ideas: Al Qadim, Kara Tur, Dark Sun, Planescape, the historical sourcebooks (the green books; remember those?). Maybe it was a smart business move on their part: Perhaps people just weren't buying these interesting modules. But still, it annoyed me to the extent that I dropped out of almost all gaming between 1997 and just a few years ago.
You'd prefer Kitiara? Well, if you *like* waking up with a dagger stuck in your chest...
Har har har. I just can't take the standard fainting elf-maiden-type fantasy woman. Arwen, Laurana, all of'em: bore me to tears. Yeah, maybe if you like harp music and pointy ears it's alright. I'll take Red Sonja, Kitiara, whoever Conan's first girlfriend was (*not* the ankle-clingy type, her), etc.
Hey I just started a thread over on the Dragonlance section for Who Would You Cast in Dragonlance:
community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...
Yeah, in case folks haven't noticed, I really dislike that TSR never seemed to fully invest their own most creative ideas: Al Qadim, Kara Tur, Dark Sun, Planescape, the historical sourcebooks (the green books; remember those?). Maybe it was a smart business move on their part: Perhaps people just weren't buying these interesting modules. But still, it annoyed me to the extent that I dropped out of almost all gaming between 1997 and just a few years ago.
From the Dragon articles of that time period, Forgotten Realms was TSR's main cash cow. There was always an FR article, not counting that ever-annoying Wyrms of the North series that seemed to run for years and years. Dark Sun, Greyhawk, and others only seemed to get an article every few issues.
You'd prefer Kitiara? Well, if you *like* waking up with a dagger stuck in your chest...
Har har har. I just can't take the standard fainting elf-maiden-type fantasy woman. Arwen, Laurana, all of'em: bore me to tears. Yeah, maybe if you like harp music and pointy ears it's alright. I'll take Red Sonja, Kitiara, whoever Conan's first girlfriend was (*not* the ankle-clingy type, her), etc.
Hey I just started a thread over on the Dragonlance section for Who Would You Cast in Dragonlance:
community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...
The laurana you describe is the "immature" laurana. She is still growing as a person. Sheltered and such. That isn't her at all during and after the events of the high clerists tower. She goes from being a girl to being a woman, where as Kitiara in some ways, never matures like laurana does.
Conan's first girlfriend (according to the movie) was Valeria. (I just murdered her name, I know it!)
From the Dragon articles of that time period, Forgotten Realms was TSR's main cash cow. There was always an FR article, not counting that ever-annoying Wyrms of the North series that seemed to run for years and years. Dark Sun, Greyhawk, and others only seemed to get an article every few issues.
The best thing produced by/for the original Forgotten Realms was "The North", which sort of wasn't saying much: The North was so big, so wild, and populated by so many different humanoid tribes and nations that you could stick *anything* in there plausibly. Any individual lost ruin, wizard's hideaway, barbarian tribe, dragon's lair, etc. could be placed there.
'Course The North boxed set had the usual FR 2E problem which was "lot of descriptive text, not a lot of stats". It was, as I said, the sort of thing that made you want to shake Ed Greenwood by the shoulders and demand, "You are running a *game* company here, right? You're not just publishing textual descriptions of fantasy settings in 8.5"x11" format, right?"
But then again The North DID have one of the most hilarious/risque/upsetting cover designs ever produced by TSR. Mmm, nothing like spit-roasted girl.
The best thing produced by/for the original Forgotten Realms was "The North", which sort of wasn't saying much: The North was so big, so wild, and populated by so many different humanoid tribes and nations that you could stick *anything* in there plausibly. Any individual lost ruin, wizard's hideaway, barbarian tribe, dragon's lair, etc. could be placed there.
'Course The North boxed set had the usual FR 2E problem which was "lot of descriptive text, not a lot of stats". It was, as I said, the sort of thing that made you want to shake Ed Greenwood by the shoulders and demand, "You are running a *game* company here, right? You're not just publishing textual descriptions of fantasy settings in 8.5"x11" format, right?"
But then again The North DID have one of the most hilarious/risque/upsetting cover designs ever produced by TSR. Mmm, nothing like spit-roasted girl.
No wonder the Dragon articles were so rules and stats-heavy, then. I never got any of the box sets, mainly because the core ones were always sold out at the LGS and the necessary books just didn't turn up at the used book store. Well, some of Spelljammer did, but never enough to actually use the setting right.
Dang. Wasn't expecting roast girl to get through quality control. Only in 2e, right?
Dang. Wasn't expecting roast girl to get through quality control. Only in 2e, right?
Anthony Bourdain, Hill Giant.
Anyway, I always enjoyed running The North as sort of like Gold Rush-era Yukon Territory and Waterdeep as being sort of a Wild West town. Except that the gold to be had was in dungeon hoards either in the Underdark or else out there in the wilderness of the North.
I really, really, really did not like the Prism Pentad books. They made no sense, even by fantasy standards. The characters had no consistent personality from one chapter to the next. Tithian was evil. Oh but wait, then he's good again later. Oh wait, no he's evil again. Why? Never mind, no time for that now, he's good again.
I also don't like the Pentad Prism books.
As such, here's my take on the entire Pentad Prism adventure path:
Backstory
During the Golden Age of Athas the world was a lush and vibrant land. A godless world where animals a handful of intelligent races such as the Magera and the Thri-Kreen. In one of their many exoduses over the years elves travelled to Athas. But alas they did not realise that this world was a planar blackhole. Once you got into the world, you could never escape.
The elves fought to exist in a world with large reptillian behemoths and jungles and forests that reached high into the sky with carnivorous plants and poisonous creatures all around. One group of elves travelled further then the other groups and made their home in a desert. Intent on finding a way out of this world these elves became changed by the desert. They became more reptilian in appearance and would one day become known as gith.
The gith formed their home surrounding a Tree of Life. They use this tree to fuel their magicks, harnessing its power. They eventually succeeded in calling upon planar forces in a bid to escape. Alas the forces they called upon were abberations who reached in and took most of the city's inhabitants. Those gith who survived did so by fleeing their home.
Another group of interlopers were dwarves. They travelled to Athas from their homeworld purely by accident as they have done on countless other worlds. However upon reaching Athas they found their gods stopped answering their prayers. Trapped with no divine aide, the dwarves eventually made their way to the surface for the very first time in their people's history.
Finally the most significant group of interlopers were Rune Giants from the world known as Golarion. Fleeing a cataclysm on their home world, the Rune Giants travelled to Athas and brought with them their slaves which included humans and halflings. Finding the world far more dangerous then their home and their magic not working properly, the Rune Giants use their magic to create a sanctum for themselves on the bottom of an Inner Sea. Many of the slaves fled to the jungle where all but a handful of them died. Those slaves who remained with the Rune Giants were much more successful in surviving.
One tribe of humans who did survive the wilderness found themselves without divine magics. Finally after 7 years they discovered the art of Preserving. The Rune Giants however had no such luck. Their leader realised that there was no escape from Athas and so he used the last vestige of magic he could leach from the items they had brought with them to put himself into a deep slumber. He tasked the other giants with learning more of the world, how it exists without magic and how to use magic in this world.
The Giants sent their human slaves to the surface of the world to establish a stronghold for which the giants could carry out their investigations. The humans began creating what they called Shield Wall. However without the aid of magic it is not known how long it will take to finish it's construction. After 2 years human tribals made contact with the slaves. They exhibited strange psionic powers (as a result of the plants changing the biochemistry of the babies who had been born) as well as the fact they could harness magics. Something that had not been seen since fleeing their home world. The slaves immediately abandoned their task and fled into the jungle to live among the human tribals.
After many generations the humans start creating towns for themselves. War starts to break out between the settlements and continues for millenia.
Over 5,000 years later the Shamans of the numerous tribes hold a Grand Convocation to determine how to deal with the millenia of warring. They decide that the only course of action that will stop the warring will be to unite the tribes into one nation. The shamans undergo a transformative process where they become the very first Avangions of Athas. They return to their tribes and tell a future for the tribes where they cease to exist. Most of the tribes willingly agree to the wisdom of the Avangions and so the seven strongest tribes incorporate all of the weaker tribes and the lands are split into seven distinct regions. The warlords of the new seven tribes are crowned Kings and sit on the Council of Kings. Each King holds sovereign rule over their own Kingdom and the Council only deliberates on matters which affect multiple kingdoms. The Avangions sit on the Council as advisors. Thus the Empire of Man is born.
The first act of the new Empire was to finish the construction of Shield Wall to encompass the entire Empire. With such a momentous task set to take centuries, the Kingdoms began enslaving the elven tribes and the dwarven outposts.
After a few hundred years the very first portal to another Plane was created. Quite a tremendous feat a handful of other portals were created, each to a different Elemental Plane. Mining operations began in the Plane of Earth which soon prompted fighting between the Elementals and the Empire of Man. In order to fight back much more effectively, people were enhanced with energies from the Planes themselves. These became the first Elementalists of Athas, each one channeling the power of one of the Elemental Planes. Eventually the war ended and the Elementalists rose to prominent positions within the Empire of Man.
A few more centuries pass before the Empire decides to erect a new Kingdom called Vrun Driath. Vrun Driath is situated on the other side of Shield Wall, near the shore of the Inner Sea. The Avangions warn of a great danger that lurks beneath the waves, but the Council refuses to heed their warnings. Before long the King of Vrun Driath captures some giants and through magical experimentations a new race is formed called the Half-Giant. Encouraged by the extroadinary success of this new race the King begins experimentations with other races. The only viable offspring produced are the dwarf/human hybrids that become known as Muls.
After a few more generations the Council of Kings has ceased listening to the wisdom of the Avangions who finally withdraw from it. Soon after war erupts between the Kings. A Prince of one of the Kingdoms begins an expedition to explore the realms beyond the Empire, looking for magics and artifacts to help in the war. The Prince comes upon the Rune Giant sanctuary at the bottom of the Inner Sea. He successfully breaks into it and explores it, learning of the history of the Runegiants and the magics they had been capable of casting on their home world, the Prince steals what notes he can and flees before the Giant guardians can catch him.
The Prince continues exploring beyond the Empire and eventually comes upon the original home of the gith and their Tree of Life. By combining his knowledge of the gith magic and the Runelord magic, the Prince discovers how to defile. For the next 40 years he continues the work of the Runegiants and becomes more and more powerful. He finally finishes the calculations and uncovers the amount of arcane energy it would take to leave Athas for good. In a long ritual he consumes all of the energy from the Tree of Life and transforms himself into a Dragon. He leads the gith down towards the Empire of Man.
The Dragon quickly conquers the kingdoms and so the Empire of Man comes to an end and the Reign of the Dragon begins. After the construction of Ur Draxa within the Inner Sea finishes the Dragon creates a portal to one of Athas's moons but in doing so the inner sea boils away to nothing but dust and so is born the Silt Sea. Immediately the Dragon begins transforming the moon into an interstellar vessel.
Once the moon is prepared all that is left is for enough energy to be harnessed and stored to fuel the voyage. The Dragon creates machines that drain the surrounding lands and send the energy up into batteries within the moon itself. The Dragon retreats from Athas and resides within the moon where he feeds upon the energies as they come in. In his stead his most powerful generals become the rulers. They are known as Dragonthralls.
With the oceans boiling away and the forests withering and dying, the effects of the Dragon are obvious across the entire world. The nomadic human tribes who had fled their ancestral lands rather than join the Empire rose leaders are keenly aware of their world dying. Among their ranks there were Hamanu, Gallard, Kalak, Lalali-Puy and Abalch. They led their people into the Dragon's lands and fought the Dragonthralls.
The war ended when the humans destroyed the energy machines. The abrupt cessation of energy to the Dragon put him into shock and he fell into a coma. The Dragonthralls were soon destroyed. Although the existence and location of Ur-Draxa became lost and this city alone survived.
With the Dragonthralls destroyed the warlords of the human tribes began to carve out their own city-states. They each had a measure of respect for the others and so they didn't openly war. Each of them also discovered new ways in which to extend their own lives to become immortal. Each of the city-states adopt a new calendar. This split years into groups of 77 that were called Ages. Year 1 begins with the destruction of the last known Dragonthrall.
The Pentad Prism
The campaign starts in the 14th Age in the city-state of Urik. The Templars whom serve the Highlord Hamanu have credible information on agents of the Dragon operating in Tyr. Not knowing how far up the chain that these agents have managed to infiltrate, they do not dare go to the templars of the Tyr. Furthermore over the years the leaders of the City-States have become quite distrustful of each other (after all, how are those leaders managing to survive for so long? Are they on the path to becoming Dragons themselves?). Instead the Templars decide to select a group of various people whose skills will aid them in infiltrating Tyrian society and rooting out the Agents.
The PCs are brought together and informed of the threat of the agents of the Dragon. Their cover story is going to be that they're slaves who are being sold in Tyr. They will be transported to Tyr as slaves by a Merchant House (who won't know their true identity) where they'll promptly be sold to various different groups, allowing them to move about freely and without suspicion.
Alas on the way to Tyr the caravan is attacked by elves and the PCs suddenly find themselves free. The threat of the Dragon's Agents still loom in Tyr and the world is depending on the PCs to root them out. Upon reaching Tyr it's extremely likely that the PCs will become enslaved and forced to work on Kalak's Ziggarut.
While working on the Ziggarut it's likely the PCs will discover a magic user who is knocked unconscious while invisible. If the PCs aid this man they discover he is called Faldar. He tells them that he is a Preserver and a member of a secret organisation of Preservers. He explains that the sorcerer-kings are in fact all defilers and that his kind harness their own life source to fuel magic and live to oppose the sorcerer-kings machinations. He believes that King Kalak is plotting to bring the Dragon back to this world and that his organisation is trying to stop it.
The adventure continues as written and the PCs can either aid Faldar or kill him. Either way the book ends with the PCs in the arena and suddenly everyone starts to feel their essences drain away. Chaos erupts as everyone tries to flee only to find the entrances are all bordered up. The Templars try to keep order and themselves safe but are also attempting to flee. At some point an apparition of the Dragon appears briefly. Finally people manage to escape the Arena and start fleeing into the city where riots soon break out. Finally Tithian steps forward and proclaims Kalak dead, his plot thwarted and himself now the ruler over the city.
In the coming days/weeks the PCs learn that Kalak was trying to draw the entire life essence from everyone in the city-state to awaken the Dragon. Fortunately Tithian and a small group of people who now make up the Inner Circle were able to stop Kalak and kill him.
Book 2 continues as written with the PCs gaining more and more responsibility. They'll be sent to the Iron Mines to secure it where they'll discover the entire place has been overrun. The templars and soldiers are dead. As they make their way into the mine coming out of it are a horde of insectoid beasts. Upon fighting these creatures if the PCs have any metallic weapons they'll discover the creatures eat the metal. Those knowledgable in Forobidden Lore will recall that these creatures were once known as Rust Monsters and were a staple in the Dragon's armies. Upon defeating the Rust Monsters (or fleeing and waiting for the Rust Monsters to leave) they'll discover the rust monsters have eaten all of the iron and that the mine is now dried up. Clearly the work of the Agents of the Dragon who wanted to ensure that the new Republic of Tyr did not have access to the iron mines.
As the book draws to a close it is revealed that an army from Urik is marching upon Tyr with the intent of conquering it. The PCs are put in charge of their own unit and march with the newly formed Tyrian army to battle the Urik army.
What happens in Book 3 is entirely up to the PCs. If the Preservers have managed to convince the PCs that Kalak was a defiler attempting to free the Dragon and that he was working with the other sorcerer-kings (not TOO sure which of them he was working with. Their forces are still investigating that) then the PCs may have turned on Urik and might be intending to genuinely help the new Republic of Tyr. In this case the two armies fight each other and then Rikus leads the charge into Urik where they'll kill King Hamanu.
However if the PCs aren't buying the story of the Preservers then it's likely they'll offer to "scout" for the army and betray Tyr's army for Urik. In this case it is likely that Urik will conqueor Tyr while the PCs will be sent back to Urik to report their findings.
Regardless either Hamanu dies or another sorcerer-king dies and the Agents of the Dragon succeed in awakening the Dragon. He flies down to Athas and attacks a city before withdrawing to Ur-Draxa. If any of the "Pentad Prism Core NPCs" are still alive they'll reveal that they were acting at the behest of the Dragon and that they had framed King Kalak (it was them who were drawing upon the life sources of the people in the Arena, not King Kalak). It was they who unleashed the rust monsters upon the iron mines for what use is iron to them when they have the Dragon on their side?
The PCs will travel to Ur-Draxa to infiltrate the city and battle the Dragon's forces. There they'll see "Dragonborn". Humans who have developed draconic features (all of whom are human sorcerers with the draconic bloodline). They'll have to fight/infiltrate their way to the heart of Ur-Draxa which has a portal up to the moon. There they find the Dragon and defeat him once and for all.
The PCs return to Athas and they have the opportunity to set themselves up as rulers of Ur-Draxa or to destroy it and kill all of it's inhabitants. The face of the world will also be different. If they succeeded in helping Rikus (and the others) kill Hamanu than Urik and Tyr will be leaderless, ripe for the plucking by the PCs and the other sorcerer-kings. If they betrayed Rikus to Hamanu then the Urik Empire will span at least Urik and Tyr (if not Ur-Draxa as well).
Either way, the political landscape of Athas has changed forever and who knows what might happen. The only thing for sure is that the Age of Heroes most certainly has NOT dawned.
Oh and that "organisation of preservers"? Complete bunk. It was simply a lie the Defilers spread about. There is no such thing as preserving (or so everyone in modern times thinks). If the PCs show an interest in multiclassing into preserver then I've got some "notes" on what the defilers consider to be nonsense. The PC can then make checks against fairly high DCs. They run the risk of killing themselves in the process. Should they succeed though, they will become the first Preservers seen on Athas since the Avangions of antiquity withdrew from the Council of Men.