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2E|4E Dark Sun setting (Athas)

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2E|4E Dark Sun setting (Athas)

Unread postby icycalm » 06 Jan 2015 13:06

My favorite setting by far. You can even google my real surname (or at any rate one of them) and you will see a listing of me looking for Dark Sun players in Seattle on a GeoCities site from 15 years ago.

2nd Edition-specific setting that was never to my knowledge updated to newer editions. Mad Max-style setting done 1000 times better than Mad Max. The best desert setting and desert-set adventures ever. So much imagination has gone into it that it includes more variety than Greyhawk or DragonLance, worlds which do not restrict themselves to an endless desert.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Sun

Dark Sun is a Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting featuring the fictional desert world of Athas. The original Dark Sun Boxed Set campaign setting was released in 1991.[1]

The themes of this setting could fit in the Dying Earth subgenre and include survival against the elements, ecological disaster, resource depletion, survival of the fittest, slavery and poverty, and the widespread use of psionic abilities. The political setting is similar to ancient Middle East, North Africa or Mesopotamia. Water and metals are extremely scarce. Survival against the elements has made it a harsh exotic world.


Characters need to look for water every day or face special dehydration rules. Magic use destroys the vegetation of the planet (which is why it became a desert in the first place).

Dark Sun wizards include defilers, whose powers come at the expense of the ecosystem, and preservers, who wield magic in concert with the environment. Illusionists specialize in illusory effects and may be either defilers or preservers.


Psionic classes

Psionic power is very common on Athas. Every player character has psionic abilities, as do many NPCs.[5] Psionic ability is about as common in Dark Sun as arcane magic is in other D&D campaign settings, and it is accepted as a normal part of life. Schools of the mind exist, mostly maintained by and serving the Sorcerer-Kings.
Last edited by icycalm on 24 Sep 2020 12:53, edited 2 times in total.
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Unread postby icycalm » 06 Jan 2015 13:25

Most if not all of the cover illustration were done by Brom, who is a king among illustrators. Utterly unique, inimitable artwork, that no other setting can beat.

Here are all the accessories released (adventures will go in the next post):

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Later accessories did not feature artwork by him, as TSR was going bankrupt before being bought out by WotC, and they hired increasingly worthless losers:

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And of course the Complete Gladiator's Handbook, that has no illustration:

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And the Monstrous Compendium appendices, that add more monsters, specific to the setting:

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Unread postby icycalm » 06 Jan 2015 13:35

I guess I can't hotlink images from that site, so I'll upload them later. In the meantime, here are some full Dark Sun artworks by Brom (the product covers butcher them to fit the available area).

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Unread postby icycalm » 06 Jan 2015 13:39

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Unread postby icycalm » 06 Jan 2015 13:46

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Unread postby icycalm » 24 Sep 2020 12:55

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSun/commen ... f_the_old/

TobyPomeranian wrote:D&D Exec. Producer: "There are three of the old settings that we're working on right now, that you'll be seeing in the next year or two." ---Are we about to see 5e Dark Sun?


Very interesting discussion in the comments too. It looks like both Planescape and Dark Sun are coming. Though they are saying DS might be "woke as fuck" because climate warming and the overthrow of sorcerer-kings...
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