My first idea is that the PCs are "hired" in an errand for the still-alive King Kalak. They are forced at swordpoint out into the Capital Wasteland with enough supplies to get there and maybe enough to get back. Over the course of the adventure, they can use a skill challenge to persuade their NPC companion to let them go or try and kill him.
One story I liked from earlier was the back and forth war between Urik and freed Tyr, mostly because I love King Hamanu that golden munchkin bastard. While googling and exploring the concept, lo and behold the 2E adventure Road to Urik catalogs this exact story in a web of treacherous intrigue and guerilla warfare. That sounds like a cool 8-10th level adventure.
Ral is alive and wants to kill everyone. Doesn't wake up until end of heroic though, so before that there's some foreshadowing but the PCs will spend most of heroic showing Tyr they are awesome.
My favorite thing they will probably do on their path to badass is fight Zeburon, the Iron Rider and leader of the Black Sands Raiders. His entry mentions the Raiders always number 100 and the PCs are going to have to take out the entire gang near the end of heroic. Then they go into the Tomb of Horrors in Kalak's zigguraut.
After the moon wakes up, I imagine Tectuktitlay will become an important figure for the PCs to deal with in paragon. He might have gotten a surge in power and support and become a more potent figure and is now setting up his own Kalak-esque mass-sacrifice to leap-frog into Dragonhood (under the guise of a sacrifice to appease the moons).
Close to paragon I'll introduce some sort of metaplot, but as my players read these forums, I'm afraid I can't share
.Anyone have time to look over the first Adventure campaign getting released? I haven't been able to find any reviews.
Yeah, it's just an adventure. It's alright if you want to start your game off with an artifact hunt or are going to use primordials.
Some challenges: remove obstacles for the completion of the bridge between the Ledopolis', a templar who wants to frame the PCs for what is considered a "crime" in the eyes of fellow Traders, Ivory Triangle intrigue, maybe Guistenal.
I'm looking at Merchants of Amkech and Asticlian Gambit. Source materials include Dune Traders and Ivory Triangle.
Also, I have this strange book, "Valley of Dust and Fire." I wonder what I should do with that...
I plan on running the default adventure in the DSCG and tying it into MotDS (after all, I did buy it), albeit modified to better match the wild, disparate collection of plot hooks for the motley assortment of characters set up by my players. I want to do two thing in early heroic: put them on the run (thereby binding them together for survival purposes) and throw them out in the wastes (ditto) to experience Athas firsthand. I'm not sure how to tie the little snippets of MotDS I've seen into that.
Marauders of the Dune Sea isn't a campaign, it's just an adventure. For Dark Sun campaigns, you're on your own.
Hmm.... I mainly ask because I plan on requesting the DM to use it so that he can really get the "feel" of what Dark Sun is before he goes off on his own storyline. Personally, I will play no matter what but I think the players will have a better time playing a more savage Dark Sun than a desert version of FR.
If I run a game, I plan on starting it a few days before Kalak's death. Nothing helps group cohesion than a city in turmoil. If the players decide to stay inside Tyr, there are all manner of jobs they can do. Anything from being bodyguards for nobles, guarding the public wells, down to simple corpse disposal. Depending on what they do they could garner all types of favors or good reputation from the people in power.
If they want to head out right away, there is an ex-slave who says he knows the way back to his small village and if the characters accompany him he will make sure they will be rewarded handsomely. Course, when they reach the village they find it utterly destroyed and defiled but no valuables or supplies were stolen... so the mystery becomes who or what would kill an entire village for no apparent motive?
I've got a few ideas where the campaign might go, depending on whether everyone wants to keep playing Dark Sun, head into another setting, or incorporate Gamma World into the Dark Sun.
They have no idea where they are or how they got there. The past several weeks are a blank for all of them. They have never seen each other before.
What is *very* clear is that they'd better find some food and water fast if they don't want to die in the waste. They can salvage a few survival days worth of supplies from the caravan each. They also find part of a letter on the remains of the caravan master, from which they can deduce that the caravan was heading from Tyr to Altaruk along the road, and so they are probably somewhere in the Great Alluvial Sand Wastes. But the road is nowhere in sight.
Can the PCs learn to work as a team and survive the harsh wastes of athas? Can they figure out where they are and where they should go? Will they be able to find their way back to civilization before they die of dehydration or hunger, or are eaten by one of the many desert predators? What were they doing in the wreckage of the caravan? What happened to the caravan, and why can't they remember it? How did they survive?
That's all I've got so far but it should keep us busy for the next year or so.
To sweeten the deal I was thinking of also awarding level 2 to the winner of the match so you don't have people playing the metagame and assuming that the player who wins will just give them their freedom anyways and thus there is no reason to put your life on the line. Then again an unaligned or evil PC possibly winning the match would provide sufficient incentive not to sandbag. :D
Afterwards I was thinking of running the starting adventure out of the back of the Dark Sun book possibly.
Evil forces are begining to stir in the Tyr region...cant reveal much more incase my group reads the post!
I've been building a fairly extensive sandbox environment in the scrubland north of Raam/Urik/Draj. Because I find that developing a home base fosters a sense of permanence and purpose in otherwise open-ended games, and it lets me create credible threats without railroading PCs into repetitive dungeon crawls, I'm centering the game around a new village, founded at an otherwise unlabeled (in 2e, anyway) oasis in the region.
I expect this to last until the village is large enough to draw the attention of the various political powers of Athas, at which point the game switches to the Paragon tier.
I think I will probably be playing with some new players so I also want all my players to sit down at character creation and figure things out together on who they are and get and some background. I think that will help a lot.
For starting off, I was planning on running Bloodsand Arena (the Free RPG Day adventure). This gives a lot of early skill challenges, some fights, and helps everybody get into the world of Athas.
From there (depending on what people want during character creation), I can either have them start missions for the Veiled Alliance, which would build up to them defeating another sorcerer-king, or they could go their own way.
I realized I don't have much planned out, but I'm still waiting on my books and what my players want to play. I figure Bloodsand Arena had a lot of good intro points for characters of all backgrounds, and it gives me a good starting point with little planning while I start constructing the bigger stuff.
The Shadow King, Nibenay, fears for the continuance of his rule in the wake of Kalak’s apparent assassination. Rumor has reached Nibenay of the Heartwood Spear, the weapon supposedly used to slay Tyr’s former Sorcerer-King. Fearing that the spear might one day be used against him, he has arranged for the spear to be obtained by a group of slaves, supposedly in a bid to slay Nibenay. In truth, the spear will be transported back to Nibenay from Tyr, and obtained by his Templar-wives, and the unwitting transporters will be put to death as would-be traitors and assassins.
Now, it's entirely possible that the PCs thwart every bit of that...but I certainly hope not. 
After that, is a home brew where the PC's are hired to deliver something to Urik. Once there they are requested to be the body guards of a young Templar delivering a material order to a Merchant House. In transit, the characters are coerced/tricked/dominated into killing the young Templar. This causes lots o' **** to fall down on their heads.
They attempt to flee the city. IF caught, they become slaves and then are bought by the Merchant house. Who after rigorous interrogations, hire them to find out the who's and why's of what happened. If they escape the city they eventually make it back to Tyr and find the person responsible for it all.
After the end battle, they have the equipment, resources, and base to start their own fledgling Merchant House, if they so choose. This will lead to many many intriguing and dangerous tales.
I have only being playing 4E for about 3 months now, so I'm still fairly new to the system. I got the Dark Sun CG earlier than most, as my store ran a special event and I got it then. So, I've read it cover to cover. I feel a lot was left out, but I trust WotC knows what they are doing.
So...my players are currently playing in a homebrew setting of mine (Click Here! if you want to see it). As soon as the Creature Catalog hits my doorstep, they'll be flung through an inter-planar rift to land smack in the middle of a sandstorm on Athas. As many here have stated, I too will force the players to confront the harshness of Athas immediately.
Also as others have mentioned, in my world, Kalak still lives. He exists in a miserly way now, though, and solicits the party for assistance with return to power. Now, I am still working out the kinks there...so ANY IDEAS WOULD BE MOST HELPFUL! (hint hint, wink wink).
So..yep...there ya go. Thanks for the great posts, folks!
My players, who have been chasing a shadow dragon in their current adventure will follow her into a pyramid. She seeks an ancient artifact and a Khyber power crystal. They find the crystal, then a broken version of the artifact. Later they find her and a working artifact...a stone rune scribed ring, with a watery like glow, powered by the crystal.
A fight ensues, as they are about to win she grabs the crystal and jumps into the ring, it flickers and starts to fade...(assuming the follow, may need a reason they must) they jump in.
The first thing they notice as they awaken is the immense heat, then the sand...
As we have a 10th lv Eberron currently, we are doing a transition plot, and DS is now post apocalyptic Eberron. The Last War wasn't the end, hatred arose again, small fights broke out into larger, the Dragons got involved, the Daelkyr got lose, people began to struggle and die, and drastic measures were taken...apparently too drastic.
Just a few thousand years later...
They will come over as is, and equipped. I expect the heat will eventually deter them from their current armor. We have no arcane members, but two divine (one dragonmarked)... it could be interesting when things don't work as expected.