Dark Sun Campaign setting. - Some questions.
SorcererV1ct0r
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TL;DR D&D + MAD MAX.
Here is a detailed(but extremely long) video talking about Dark Sun setting. In nutshell, is a world abandoned by the Gods, where the "high level heroes" was evil, promoted cleansing and after a long story is dominated by few city states, each one dominated by powerful defiler magicians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G1vep6rcCI
Magic on Athas, is different than in the rest of the D&D cosmos. You need to work with lifeforce due the fact that the world is abandoned by the Gods. So, there are two ways to work with the nature. Using Defiler magic and Preserver magic. However, many people hate both types of magic and even the evil sorcerer kings themselves don't wanna concurrency and wanna all lifeforce as spell fuel to then. Which means that magicians are severely ostracized and hated. They live hidden in Veiled Alliance and are neurotic on maintaining the alliance decentralized, hidden and are very cautious about who they take in and rely their secrets.
Some of this powerful magicians even sacrifice the humanity on his quest for power. Like for eg with Defiler's metamorphosis( Page 83 of Defilers and Preservers: The Wizards of Athas book - screen bellow). Only one guy completed all stages of that metamorphosis Borys ( https://darksun.fandom.com/wiki/Borys )
And most population on the city states are slaves and even for most free man, the life is harsh with a lot of hard work. Metal is scarce and most weapons, improvised from obsidian/bone/etc. Books and writting things are also extremely expensive. And a small aristocracy lives well serving the sorcerer king as templars, a "perversion" of divine magic.
Water is a rare luxury item and outside of the city states, on small villages, the difference between a rich and a poor village is that people die less from lack of water on rich villages. However, water and people to enslave made this villages very unsafe. Citizens of Athas who lives on city states needs to be subjected to a tyrannical government where every templar can declare that a person is guilty of a crime and sentence to death or slavery and bandits plagues the villages.
The unique escapism for the harsh reality of Athas is the gladiatorial combat
There are spellcasters which wanna make Athas great again(hu3hu3, just kidding) like in the past when Athas was not in this near dead state. Those are the Restarotionists. See page 59 of the book Defilers and Preservers : The wizards of Athas. There are spells which can help restoring the lifeforce of this dying planet. Like for eg, Prolific reforestation a 10th tier spell.
And there are a type of wizard which is neither preserver, nor defiler; who uses a mysterious "black" energy called shadow wizard. However, certain spells that can obscure shadows can negate his power and he mechanic wise is very similar to defiler. Page 62 of Defilers and Preservers: The Wizards of Athas
There are 3 CRPG adaptations of Dark Sun setting
All great games.
My question.
Here is a detailed(but extremely long) video talking about Dark Sun setting. In nutshell, is a world abandoned by the Gods, where the "high level heroes" was evil, promoted cleansing and after a long story is dominated by few city states, each one dominated by powerful defiler magicians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G1vep6rcCIMagic on Athas, is different than in the rest of the D&D cosmos. You need to work with lifeforce due the fact that the world is abandoned by the Gods. So, there are two ways to work with the nature. Using Defiler magic and Preserver magic. However, many people hate both types of magic and even the evil sorcerer kings themselves don't wanna concurrency and wanna all lifeforce as spell fuel to then. Which means that magicians are severely ostracized and hated. They live hidden in Veiled Alliance and are neurotic on maintaining the alliance decentralized, hidden and are very cautious about who they take in and rely their secrets.
Some of this powerful magicians even sacrifice the humanity on his quest for power. Like for eg with Defiler's metamorphosis( Page 83 of Defilers and Preservers: The Wizards of Athas book - screen bellow). Only one guy completed all stages of that metamorphosis Borys ( https://darksun.fandom.com/wiki/Borys )
And most population on the city states are slaves and even for most free man, the life is harsh with a lot of hard work. Metal is scarce and most weapons, improvised from obsidian/bone/etc. Books and writting things are also extremely expensive. And a small aristocracy lives well serving the sorcerer king as templars, a "perversion" of divine magic.
Water is a rare luxury item and outside of the city states, on small villages, the difference between a rich and a poor village is that people die less from lack of water on rich villages. However, water and people to enslave made this villages very unsafe. Citizens of Athas who lives on city states needs to be subjected to a tyrannical government where every templar can declare that a person is guilty of a crime and sentence to death or slavery and bandits plagues the villages.
The unique escapism for the harsh reality of Athas is the gladiatorial combat
There are spellcasters which wanna make Athas great again(hu3hu3, just kidding) like in the past when Athas was not in this near dead state. Those are the Restarotionists. See page 59 of the book Defilers and Preservers : The wizards of Athas. There are spells which can help restoring the lifeforce of this dying planet. Like for eg, Prolific reforestation a 10th tier spell.
And there are a type of wizard which is neither preserver, nor defiler; who uses a mysterious "black" energy called shadow wizard. However, certain spells that can obscure shadows can negate his power and he mechanic wise is very similar to defiler. Page 62 of Defilers and Preservers: The Wizards of Athas
There are 3 CRPG adaptations of Dark Sun setting
- Dark Sun : Shattered Lands
- Dark Sun : Wake of the Ravager
- Dark Sun Online : Crimson Sands
All great games.
My question.
- Defiler's metamorphosis would work outside of athas?
- Would a Shadow Wizard be able to use his power outside of Athas?
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I loved the grit of the setting, but toward the end they had started softening the setting so much with the meta plot causing the world to start it's recovery. Losing the bleekness really wrecked the setting. I think I heard they retconned it for the 4th ed release.
I loved the Halflings in the setting too, completely feral and they were the original Intelligent species to inhabit the planet.
IMO If Borys is teleported to Faerun for eg, all of his defiler levels would be converted into normal wizard level. Another sorcerer king which begun the transformation to Dragon with defiler apotheoses would't be able to progress further unless he return to Athas HOWEVER, he will not be changed back to human.
Why I believe on it? Spells above tier 10 casted before Mystra ban still working...
As i've said, Shadow Wizards aren't from "core" dark sun book. The text which I posted talks about "spells per day" instead of at will / per encounter / per day and rolling a dice and looking into a table to see how stable the connection is with the "black" and how much spells you can prepare. This is very "anti balance above everything else", the mindset which 4e was build upon.
quoting wikipedia The book itself bring tons of kits. On chapter 3 - part of summary
EDIT : Only I don't wanna Dark Sun for 5e D&D?
As for SorcererViktor's questions:
1. Since magic in Athas essentially works using the life force of living creatures, I see no reason why the Defiler Metamorphosis (or even Defiler magic in general) would not work outside of Athas. They are simply drawing their magic from an alternate source (probably soul energy). In theory, a defiler could even teach his particular brand of magic to native spellcasters from other worlds, and then bring the scourge of Defiler Magic to fresh planets.
2. Likewise, it sounds like the Black is simply another name for the Plane of Shadow (or the Shadowfell, in later editions), which does exist on other worlds. (The Shadow Weave in Faerun, for example, is well known as the source of power for the Shadovar, the corrupted remnants of the ancient civilisation of Netheril. It was also a key plot point in the NWN2 OC.) As such, I also see no reason why Shadow Wizards could not continue to cast their unique brand of magic on any other world that also has access to the Plane of Shadow.
I can picture a preserver managing to restore a PART of Athas. And after he created this piece of paradise in a hell, a lot of things will happens. For eg, if you created a small city with a lot of water, colder temperature, and no tyranny, everyone who is oppressed by the sorcerer kings and the alternative is the lawless desert area, would try to move to your city. So would you keep it a secret? What if the city now is flooded by freed slaves and workers fleeing the sorcerer king?
It could make the player do harsh decisions. For eg - they created a Oasis, walls(...) and now, Templars from the nearst town appears with a letter from the sorcerer king saying that they are in sorcerer's king lands and needs to pay "protection money", other day, a noble appears claiming that you are hidding his runway slaves and demands to "inspect" the city or worse, monetary compensation... After teh place develops more, maybe a templar will appear and demand that you allow the construction of a "operation base" and if you refuse, the sorcerer king attacks. If accept, he after few weeks starts to accuse random people of crimes and sentence then to slavery.
Trying to make a paradise in this tyrannical hellhole would be a pretty good campaing IMO. Mainly for mid to high levels.
There is a planescape sourcebook that covers a lot of this.
There was a campaign in Dark Sun that dealt with the overthrow of the sorcerer-king of Tyr and the transition of the city into a democratic form of leadership. I feel like this could have been the eventually consequence of that, preservers trying to restore the land around.
Netheril's Proctiv's Breach Crystal sphere and Mavin's Worldweave are IMO above what any Athas sorcerer king can do. Keep in mind that sorcerers kings are defilers which progress far faster than preservers and takes half of the time to prepare/attune spells... Is a great power at lifeforce sacrifice.
Borys is 30th level. Karsus is 40th level. The strongest Netherise is far stronger than the strongest sorcerer king.
I still don't buy the absolute unique transformation taking place on another world. It was mix of both magic and psionics that let them turn into a dragon and replicating that, even on Athas was nigh impossible. Also other worlds have naturally occurring dragons, whereas Athas only had the one that managed to ascend all the way, so not sure how that'd go. Sure powerful level 10 spells stuck around while Mystra was out of action, but most magic in general just failed. At any rate, it'd be completely up to the DM running the game. As @WarChiefZeke mentioned, the world of Athas was locked away from other worlds and planes, making travel between them immensely difficult, if not impossible, so a wizard getting off world seems very unlikely and most would have no reason to suspect there's even other worlds in the first place. I don't recall what the reason for this was, though. At some point, there were Gods that abandoned the world, maybe they locked it away or perhaps Rajaat or the Dragon of Tyr did some crazy high level magic/psionics that sealed the realm off.
I only caught a bit of the revised era stuff, so missed the Defilers and Preservers book. I wasn't that much of a fan of the changes to the setting and meta plot.
Don't Athasian Dragons have 50 character levels (20/20/10)?
I think that was to complete the transformation. Under the 2nd ed rules it went something like a human had to dual class and have 20 levels of defiler and 20 levels of psionicist, then they could start the transformation. It was only completed once they'd gotten 10 levels of the dragon class or whatever it was called. So some of the sorcerer kings were supposed to have already completed the requirements and had a few levels in the dragon class, IIRC Hamanu had some of the dragon levels, but hadn't completed the full transformation. There was a good preserver equivalent, too. In the meta plot and novels a half elf managed to start the transformation.
The preserver eqquivalent is called Avangion.
And DrHappyAngry, what changes they did to the metaplot which you din't liked?
For eg, the Shadow Wizards has a very UNstable connection with their power of their source. Exactly because Athas is far alway from anything, including this plane of infinite darkness.
That's what it was Avangion. Been forever since I looked at it.
Overall I just felt that the world in recovery with water starting to become more readily available spoiled the setting and made it less brutal. The killing of the Dragon of Tyr never sat well with me and left a gaping hole in the world. You do find out the dragon served a purpose, but still, it just made the setting less interesting to play in by taking the Dragon away. The novels made for decent stories in the setting, but they kind of wrecked the setting by fixing everything in it that made it unique and interesting.
I know some edition had it as a dual defiler psionicist with dragon being some of the levels. Maybe it was a difference between revised an the original? I've got the PDFs so if I have time I'll see if I can figure out where that was from. I think the way I described it was in the original run of the game, though, and what you're referencing was from the revised edition. The original edition is what I actually played in table top, but I read novels back in the '90s which had the meta plot that went from the original to revised edition. I've only glanced at some of the revised stuff and never looked at the 4th ed version of it.
Pretty much the same for Avangion, but preserver.
Technically, Clerics who worship water can create water from nothing. As for water, on Athas surface, water barely exists however, in Underdark, water is not uncommon and a strong enough magician can technically open a portal to the elemental plane of water and bring a lot of water to Athas. Underdark also has a lot of water.
As for brutality, people will revolt against sorcerer kings, will try to improve his life, more often, they will fail but eventually someone will succeed. Even in the harshest desert, a Oasis exists. And the destruction of the sorcerer king din't was consequence free. Bandits, slave merchants and other sorcerer kings saw Tyr as a city to be conquered and exploited. Not mentioning that other sorcerer kings seeing a city free can decide to make this free city an example to avoid encouraging rebelions... Dark Sun : Wake of the Ravager is a amazing video game adaptation. A review bellow from a 90's game journalist. Not a modern game journalist. THAC0 would melt the average modern game journalist's brain.
In Other words, Tyr is now a Oasis in a desert. And Athas still beyond salvation. Lets suppose that somehow you defeat all sorcerer kings. Rajaat will be free and the cycle will repeat.
And Athas still separated from the cosmos. All that remains in the afterlife is the plane of grey or the black if you are a shadow magician. You will not ascend to mount Celestia, doesn't matter how lawful good and heroic you are.
In the revised ed, I did see they modified the create water spell to only produce a half gallon/level to cut back on the abuse of it.
Oasis in the desert? Over half of the population as slaves with any templar able sentence anyone bellow him to slavery, an extremely corrupt system, tyrannical sorcerer kings monopolizing magic and heavy controlling the usage of psionics and any decent weaponry, doing experiences on humans and creating muls and half giants. And after DECADES living in this hell, all that is left is a endless void on "the grey".
Seriously. Athas, even in city states makes the Abyss looks like a Paradise. And believe or not, is easier to escape Abyss than Athas.
However, would be more interesting if Tyr is plundered to the ground by other sorcerer kings wanting more discouragement against rebellions, getting knowledge and materials from Tyr and after it, all left from Tyr is few underground veiled alliance hidden headquarters.
It's better than dying in the wastes. Sure, slavery sucks, but to a lot of people it's preferable to death. The city states were near the few stable sources of water and away from the more dangerous elements in the setting. You could be eaten by halflings on Athas. There was a waste in the south with lots of undead. Thri-Kreen roamed in tribes and would be willing to eat people too. Even the Elves ran across the wastes were as likely to rob and murder you as trade with you. By making Tyr the relatively perfect place to be, it took away one of the biggest choices in the setting. Do you give up freedom for saftey or do you throw it all away and risk it all for some limited amount of freedom scratching out a barely livable existence in the desert.
Looking to this point, even the new magical kits on Athas kinda mess with the metaplot and this dilemma...
I mean, while normal Defilers and Preservers needs the nature, Shadow Wizards and Necromancers(Not the mage specialization, the kit on page 64 of Defilers and Preservers book) only needs the Grey/Black to access his power. And undeads on south aren't a problem for necromancer mainly a mid to high level one. In fact, undead workers with way less risk of breaking free would be better than slaves to work and require no water to be maintained. Shadow Wizards become "half shadows" at lv 10, when 50% of his body is shadow.
There are free willed undead too. Any dwarf that died without fulfilling his focus became a really nasty undead.
Be a vampire in Dark Sun would be a nightmare, The strong sun would probably kill even a epic level ancient vampire in matter of seconds and most counters to sunlight like control weather doesn't work well on Athas. But other types of undead like mummies doesn't have this problem.
Unintelligent undead is also soulless. So you are not inflicting pain on then.
But DRHappyAngry, did you played Dark Sun : Wake of The Ravager? The game starts on Tyr after the death of the sorcerer king and is amazing.
IIRC, there weren't any vampires on Dark Sun. I don't recall mummies either, but maybe they're around. I mainly meant the fact a lot of the Sorcerer Kings are really into the gladiator games.
I always wanted to play the PC games and only got to play a bit of them as a kid at a friend's house. Ever few years I tried running them in dos box as an adult, but the game would never save. Even the GOG version had this problem for me.
I just din't completed Wake of The ravager cuz I don't know what I need to do and even following teh cluebook and online walktroughs, I can't open a seal in a Volcano part.
But here is some screenshots from my rpgcodex post bellow. On spoiler https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/screenshot-thread.72409/page-1097#post-6861323
My half giant gladiator is ludicrous powerful. Can kill an Drake in a single round.
One correction. When I said that Shadow Wizards kinda makes the dilemma of preserver magic vs defiler which hurts the environment, I was wrong. The book states that shadow wizards can pull the energy from the black as a defiler or as a preserver. The difference is that defilers damages the environment since they pull too much energy and this negative energy leaks to the environment. While preservers loads the bare minimum energy.
My critique towards this computer games is the low level cap. Shattered Sands lv cap is 9 and Wake of the Ravager, 15. So, no Defiler metamorphosis and similar spells. Sadly.
There isn't any reason to single class yourself due to the level cap unless you are a Half Giant Gladiator, in which case it's worth it. Human fighter 7/thief 8/preserver 9 dual class (yes, you can triple dual in this game and in PnP) is solid till the end game. Water Druid/Psionicists can spam several different insta death spells effectively.
My unique problem is that I can't skip the intro. So, watching the same intro 666 times become boring.
@SorcererV1ct0r Level 15 is perfectly fine, if you ask me, though if you really want to taint your game experience the cheat mode lets you get arbitrarily high levels. Just... don't expect all the spells to work.
How I do that? I don't know what to do in the game anymore. So I guess that I will kill everything that moves, and get XP and some high levle spells...
After I changed the setting again to ravager dsun -k911, no cheat is working. Also tried "ravager -k911" and nothing...