Here is mine.
The Dragon is dead, but Athas is still a dying world. Several sorcerer-kings have also fallen, and because of this, in areas without sorcerer-kings there has been more defiling, and the ecology of those areas of Athas are under threat.
The city states without Sorcerer-kings are places where the PCs can make a difference. The climax of a Dark Sun campaign could be the PCs taking over a city state as a stepping stone to restoring Athas to the green age.
The Warlock class: This class exists on Athas. Some characters have discovered a method to make pacts in exchange for power with the denizens of grey, or the black, or with Tithian of the Cerulean storm. The Warlock class is the same as that in standard 3.5E, and they do not defile wth their invocations. The Warlock class takes the place of the cerulean mage and other classes in the revised campaign setting that rendered the preserving/defiling concept irrelevant. See here for more about that.
The templars: The templars are false priests. They use the elemental power, essentially stolen, that is channeled by the sorcerer-kings, and turn that energy into divine spells. In my vision, templars are not a base class at all, but merely a prestige class that one can take. My take on the templar PrC is here. This should be considered the 'standard' templar, and it closely matches the 2E templar (except that it is a PrC, and that didn't exist in 2E). There could be other templar PrCs, some with a combat focus (like a divine champion), etc.
The sorcerer-kings: I think that when Rajaat started their metamorphosis, they were not particularly high level, and that is why even thousands of years later (just how long is obscured by sorcerer-king propaganda), most have not gone very far in their metamorphoses.
I like what I saw in the Athas.org and Dragon magazine in regards to the dragon metamorphosis. The PrC is balanced, and well considered. However, that is where I percieve a problem. I don't want Dragons to be balanced. I want them to be able to solidly beat another character of the same character level. Under the current version, it is doubtful that a dragon could beat a single classed character of the same level, or even if it could, it would be very close (especially at the lower dragon levels). I think one solution is that in addition to the athas.org/dragon magazine powers, dragons should have a bonus feat at every level, along with a bonus epic feat every second level. At their final stages of metamorphosis, something should be done to give them more dragonlike physical combat abilities as well. The monster manuals have guidelines for that. A fully metamorphosed dragon is a master of magic (sorcery, in Athasian parlance), psionics (the way), and physical combat. An Athasian dragon is easily a match for an arch-fiend of hell, or a demon lord.
The dragon metamorphosis is the road to power. There should be no question of a player weighing up whether the Dragon PrC or archmage PrC is more powerful or advantageous.
The Avangions: Same as the dragons. They need to be powered up, and they can be powered up in the same way. However, the athas.org idea that avangions are not able to use their hands is just silly. Toss that idea away, and give them the bonus feats like the dragon. Avangions are also the potential saviors of Athas. The prolific forestation and prolific vegetation spells, along with the dark lens, could restore athas within a number of years to the green age. Obtaining the dark lens should be the goal of any avangion.
Dragon and avangion psionic enchantments: I gave some ideas for psionic enchantment here. To me psionic enchantment is just epic spells enhanced through psionic (thus, psionic enchantment). Psionic enchantment grants an XP discount on spells, psionic powers, and item creation.
Elemental clerics - Advanced beings?: The apotheosis of elemental clerics into elementals is well handled under 3E rules. There are many examples of PrCs changing the type of a character (there is probably even an elemental one somewhere out there), so I don't really see the need for elemental clerics to be be advanced beings at all. While cleric advanced beings were introduced in Dragon-Kings, we never see any examples of them anywhere, IIRC. It seems like the concept was introduced, then abandoned. Thus, in my idea, clerics that want to and take the appropriate PrC to do so can transform themselves into elementals, and they don't need to study psionics to do it either. I think the main thing that the designers were aiming for was to give an opportunity to let the cleric characters have their own kind of metamorphosis too. 3E can do that without needing them to be advanced beings.
OK... that I about all I can write here from work (man, they payin' me for this?!). I would like to hear the ideas of all you other guys, too.
All Dark Sun novels should be considered non-canonical.
The start of the campaign should be set before the events in the Prism Pentad.
The Dark Sun setting should not accomodate everything D&D. I consider Dragonborn, Eladrin, Tieflings, Warforged, Paladins, spellcasting Bards, Warlocks and Artificers inappropriate.
The only classes that should be allowed in Dark Sun are the Martial classes, the Cleric (Templars of the Dragonkings), the Wizard and the future Psionic classes as well as four Elemental (Cleric) classes.
The Gladiator should be a Martial Paragon Path, Athasian Bard and Dune Trader should be Rogue PPs, a High Templar PP for Clerics, a Veiled Alliance PP for Wizards, a Druid/Guardian of the Land for the elemental classes.
The Epic Destinies should include an Avangion, a Kingslayer, an Elemental Being and a Spirit of the Land.
The Dragon of Tyr should be a level 35 solo monster party killer.
There should be no defiling mechanics. Defiling should just be a descriptive special effect for Evil npcs.
IE: the classes, races and the world remain the same regardless of edition i use.
For instance... there was no warlock in 2nd edition dark sun, so none exist in my games.
I have made some exceptions to this rule such as psychic warriors in 3.5
There was no psychic warrior class in 2nd edition but the class fits (after all there was psionicist/fighters) but i dont allow soulknife. There was no Barbarian class in 2nd, but the class fits in just fine so i allow it.
I use the 2nd edition campaign setting, athas.org suppliments and a lot of my own notes and such for the overal information. And for rules systems i will use either 2nd or 3.5 edition. (Aswell as Runequest 3rd edition rules system soon which i am in the process of doing a Dark Sun conversion for)
- Dwarfs are quit different: They don't have focus. Because of their long lifespan they scorn the short lived races. In fact they are racists. And they sacrifice people of other races in order to contact their ancestors in the underworld. Oh, and they are the greatest and most dreaded seafarers of the sea of silt!
- I tried to put psionics a bit away from arcane magic. A manifester can simply continue a power, if he spends at the end of the duration the initial power costs as a free action again (quite similar to the 2nd Ed. rules) and there a some special rules that psionic items function a bit different than magical ones (they must be attuned to the wielder and a potential wielder needs to be at least slightly psionic activ, i.e. needs at least the hidden talent feat; psionic weapons and armors don't grant a bonus on AC or attack roles; and there is no counterpart for scrolls)
- Psionics are not centered on crystals as usual in 3.x, but on obsidian
- everyone with Cha 10+ has a hidden talent
- No Prestige Classes except those for athasian dragons, spirit initiate, avangion and elemental lords (all of them I made quite more powerful and psionic enchantments are simply epic spells, which you can't cast if you don't have levels in one of these classes).
- Only the classes listed in the DS3 basic rules exist in our campaign, but without
- Templars (I always considered the way templers got their magic quite artificial and a cheap ad hoc solution)
- Paraelemental Clerics (I don't like the elemental religion on athas. It doesn't really feel like a religion. Therefore I elaborated a quite different turn on elemental clerics. But this resulted in no further place for the paraelementals).
- Defilers need 20% less XP for the next level and have one more spell per spell level; preservers are lured into defiling, because they can recall once a day one already cast spell per spell level as a free action. But if they cast this spell, they defile.
- There are no alignments
Concerning the time line: I started this time again with "Freedom", but at the end of the adventure the slaves weren't liberated and the golden city was stormed by an army of some of the noble families and some of the tyrian merchant houses. They formed a high council that governs the city, and whoose army fought back the urikite army ("Road to Urik"). Besides this nothing will happen what happend in the novels.
Sorcerers in Athas are known as Spellbinders, sorcerer and sorcery being generic terms for wizards and wizardry. Spellbinders are the decendents of humans that were the failed experiments of Rajaat. Rajaat, who had invented magic, wanted to instill some human followers with innate magical abilities. He succeeded in this, however, the traits that emerged were not what he was looking for in champions for the cleansing wars, so he abandoned his experiments. Of the handful of humans he experimented on, none had children that demonstrated any supernatural abilities, so Rajaat was content to leave them be for the meantime.
What Rajaat could not have known was that these abilities only have the potential to manifest when both bloodlines have the blood of at least two of those that Rajaat experimented on, and it was hundreds of years before the decendants of his human experiments were to meet and have children together. Therefore, hundreds of years later, the first Spellbinders appeared on Athas. Even so, the blending of the bloodlines does not guarantee the birth of a Spellbinder - even given the right bloodlines, only one in 10 of those will born will be born a Spellbinder.
Spellbinders are considered accursed people. Their powers manifest during puberty, and they are natural defilers, regardless of their ethical orientation. Defiling is the only way for them to access magic. They cannot choose to be preservers.
During puberty they often spontaneously cast spells, but most are able to control their spellcasting before adulthood. When a Spellbinder is found out, they are usually turned over to whatever local authority exists. The penalty for them is usually death. However, some of them serve the sorcerer kings as wicked archanamachs.
No one except the sorcerer-kings and their highest ranking templars know the truth about the origins of the Spellbinders. To the regular people of Athas, the discovery of a Spellbinder is an ill omen of bad luck.
Athas is a harsh world, a dying world, a bleak place where even the sunlight itself can kill an unprepared traveller. You can bow to the will of the sorceror-kings or brave the hazards of the world they've wrought, the choice is yours. Which is more deadly, opposing those that rule or braving the wilds and risking your bones being bleached beneath the Dark Sun? A heroes life is glorious and brief, after all...
And for the record, there are no paladins in my Dark Sun. Such high-minded idealism makes quick victims.
- Defilers need 20% less XP for the next level and have one more spell per spell level; preservers are lured into defiling, because they can recall once a day one already cast spell per spell level as a free action. But if they cast this spell, they defile.
I quite like this idea.
It provides a game mechanic for something (the option to defile) that is always on the background when playing a magic user on Athas.
but
1) Paladins do make sense. Why? fanatic belief driven warriros. IMHO, many templars do follow their SKs as "gods", for example, Hammanu would have paladi and warlord templars, he's a fanatical warrior.
4th ed paladins are not "lawful good who can pull horses out of their asses on call". so now they can be folk who believe in an SK, exemplars of an element, etc.
(You can tell I have long loathed the traditional D&D palaidn design, can't you? lol)
2) Defiling is important to Dark Sun, very much so, it's part of why Athas is a wasteland.
As folk note above, have "deifling" as a feat, or feat tree, is a good idea.
use it, and it kills plant life, you cannot re-use defiling on same area, but recover an encounter power etc.
Works for me!
Defilers are more powerufl than normal wizards, no doubt about it as they won, obviously.
other bits
half giants have got ot be Large sized and dumb! stuff "balance" sometimes the logic of the game setting is more important.
Since will, int charisma are all useful, and affect defences, having penalties to Int and Cha espeically as balance make sense.
yeah no damn dragborn etc, except as extremely rare planar travellers, OR as mutants from the wasteland!
Poisons, alchemy and psionically crafted/tempered items should be a big thing on Athas.
Athasians are NOT stupid, far from it, and they need crafts that would allow them to have survived!
Templars can be either clerics, warlords, warlocks, multiclass or NPC bureacrats, good Will defence, high social and Int skills, say perhaps, use the Demagogue template in the DMG?
To my mind, a lot of templars have little major combat skills, a few basic spells, as they are bureacrats not combatants.
However, the SKs style would affect that, Hammanu would have very combat capable folk, Kalak effcient bureacrats, spy catchers and fair number of combatants.