I appreciate you guys putting out a video about Dark Sun, I really do, but please talk to me before the next time you make a video about Dark Sun. You misspoke about almost everything you covered in this video. I would love to help you research any future Fark Sun video. I have DMed a 2e Dark Sun game for 27 years. I know very little about what was done to the setting after the end of its 2e run, but I have an extensive 2e Library, and nearly 3 decades of experience running the setting. I do like what you said about some of what might be done to play Dark Sun using 5e. Here are my thoughts on that. th-cam.com/video/B_Auj8t1O2o/w-d-xo.html
In dark sun you could naturally go over 20, but each race had a max. Like elves and half elves could have 22 dex, but 18 wisdom. All the stats still add up to 20 across the board. Like a half giant can have 24 strength, but like 15 dex, 22 con, and like 19 intelligence or something. So, I'm repeating myself, but if you go over 20 in one, you get capped lower in another.
Also there is an awesome dos game called dark sub: shattered lands. You can play it free on a few websites like classicreload, and i think archive.org. it's good. Check it out.
Currently DM'ing for the first time and chose dark sun as a setting. My friends love it. It has been such a blast. Don't let the harshness of the world make it seem daunting and for elite dnd players only. I have 2 new players and they've having a great time.
The one feature between Defilers and Preservers that you didn't mention was that, being based on 2nd Ed, the two versions of Mage had radically different Xp costs to level: the Defiler took much less Xp to get from one level to the next than the Preserver did. So if you had a party, for example, with both a preserver and a defiler going through the same challenges, in the end, the defiler will be higher level than the preserver. I can explain the Cannibal Halflings: A) they do NOT eat other halflings, they religiously refuse to eat another halfling, even in times of extreme lack. B) they only eat other races, and the fact they eat sentient races is why they were termed "cannibal" The reason why they are cannibal is because they are trying to reclaim lost halflings: all races on Athas were once Halfling. one of the Arcane Ecological Disasters in the history that made Athas barren was the biomanipulation of the halflings into the races you have now, and the halflings are trying to eat the other races to get those halflings back.
There's something appealing about an arcane caster in Dark Sun, who plays more like a Rogue, simply because casting spells is a tool of last resort. The character runs around with a sling, or beats people with a quarterstaff. Having a pack full of mundane tools like grappling hooks, to avoid needing to cast Levitate or the like. Always careful to look and act like a normal person, so no one suspects they're secretly a Defiler. Trying to obtain a steady supply of water, so he can grow plants in greenhouse hydroponics, so he has enough life to accomplish his long-term goal. That goal? _Escape._ Crack planar travel, and get the hell off of Athis, and somewhere else where magic flows more freely.
unfortunately you're shit out of luck when it comes to "cracking" planar travel, the only places to go from Dark Sun are the inner elemental planes since Athas is completely separated from the rest of the D&D worlds. also if you're going to try and get a greenhouse going you'd be better served by going the preserver route which takes just enough magic to get the spell going and doesn't bother trying to supercharge everything through defiling, because those guys are major dicks*. (*everyone on Athas is a dick though)
Wow no planar travel it sounds boring . Hot, without resources or hope, and evil runs the place just sounds like Louisiana or Texas on a bad Summer day :P
Honestly, having the infernal war-machines be _infernal_ war-machines, built by bandit factions who have learned to capture and exploit the souls of their victims, seems like it would be entirely in keeping with the setting. It would also allow you to go hard in on the Mad Max front re: weird and insane bandits.
It wouldn't be too hard. Just use soul cage to contain the soul, using it as fuel for the 8 hour duration or until you've used steal life six times. Then the soul is released though that could lead to a rising revenant problem. Essentially making a form of undead pollution, which if not dealt with will lead to all sorts of nasty things beyond simple corpses to combat. 🧐
@@PandorasFolly An interesting cause and effect. They used their souls to fuel their machines to survive, now they have to continue because if they stop the undead pollution will consume them. A vicious cycle indeed.
@@karpmageddon4155 Just. Keep. Driving. Yeah I can totally see that as part of athas. Maybe its left over tech from ancient wars, developed by a failed sorcerer king whose name time has forgot. Maybe it's part of some lich style everlasting life plan. Can't be a dragon so I'll have minions juice me up for all eternity. Somewhere at the heart of the doom buggies is a small innocuous sigil that connects the sorc king to the ritual and apparatus.
Web DM and that's why I'm subscribed! :) Love the content you guys have been making, everything from talking about the different classes, races, lore, and even to out of game things like what to do with players at the table who have some problematic behaviors. (It really put things into perspective and helped me realize that I just needed to talk to them and let go of a bunch of my pent up resentment) Keep up the good work guys! 💕
And it makes sense. This notion stems from the idea or "cannibal pygmies" from colonists' accounts during the colonization of America, the Indies and the Caribbean.
Dark sun was my favorite thing in Highschool, but never found anyone to play it with me. I had everything for it, all the box sets, books and monstrous compendiums. All lost to damage in storage. Sigh. I feel like it is a lot like Dune meets John Carter done with the classic D&D. Most of the versions I remember had the rule that every player character has at least one psionic talent, and the strength of that talent grew with the player, but you could also have psionisist as a class option to specialize and train in the psionic arts.
My first dnd game was Dark Sun, and I love everything about it . Especially in retrospect the thing I miss the most about 2ndE Dark Sun is the fact they did _not_ care about balance. Or at least not just in game mechanics. Your half-giant had double hp, excessive physical stats, but he would be viewed as a dumb brute slave even if he wasn't. Your thri-kreen was cool as hell, but couldn't speak common. Mages were powerful but illegal. So much more interesting than anything done in any setting after 2E. Oh, and it was 4d4+4, the weak have already been culled 😂
Picked up the Dark Sun boxed set back in 1992. It's 2020 and still running the same campaign for the same group this whole time. Love the world of Athas!
Quite a lot of the setting was based off Brom's art. As in, Brom would paint some dude with a weird weapon and the designers would put that weapon in the game.
*waits patiently for a show on metaplot* Also, Dark Sun is one of my favourite settings, loads of fun A world destroyed by greed and power? Sign me up.
You love in one that is very much doing that. You *are* signed up, whether you want it or not. We see the signs already and it will be much worse in our lifetime.
They said they have dark sun ready for years now. Literally the second year one of the guys said they had all the conversion rules for their own game, but they won’t release because it doesn’t appeal to a newer more sensitive audience. For the record I don’t believe being sensitive is bad and I also think that publishers should just publish it and warn people it’s not For everyone. I wish they would at least release like Eberron. Where it’s like official play test. Matt Mercer also requested it while he was working there. There is so much outreach from older fans and some newer fans that I think we have a better chance of getting it. Especially with a public request from Matt Mercer himself.
All signs point to it being a when, not an if. To people complaining about getting Wildemount instead of Dark Sun or anything else, this is how these things work. Wizards needs to prove to Hasbro that it's worth the cost of developing and printing it. Books like Ravnica and Wildemount being successful will make that case. Wizards needs to prove to the people holding the purse strings that people (not just people like you, but people in general) will buy it. Critical Role is quickly becoming a cultural powerhouse, but board-room suits tend to be 15-30 years behind the real world. If they see that a book based on what they think is an obscure internet thing sells like hotcakes, then something based on the new hotness of 1991 is guaranteed to sell, right? I'm not trying to be insulting to Dark Sun fans, but lets be honest; the Critters outnumber you right now. I'm not saying that Exandria is better than Athas in any way, but it is more widely known right now. A good comparison is Star Wars and Dune; you may love Dune to an extreme, but walk down the street and find someone who can quote anything from it as quickly as they can quote anything from Star Wars. Do you think we'd be getting a summer blockbuster film adaptation of Dune this year without Star Wars making over a billion dollars each on 80% of its films (and making over half a billion on the LEAST successful film) in the past 5 years? Wildemount will sell INSANELY well, and you're likely to see a Dark Sun book sooner as a direct result. That's how the business works.
Dark Sun Primer 2e: World is a desert destroyed by magic called Athas Almost no metal Water is nearly as scarce There is a sea made of dust called The Silt Sea Most weapon and armor restrictions are lifted or different but not all (i.e. mages) 1 dragon* (*sort of) Everything has some psionic ability (every PC too. Wild talents are guaranteed) No gods, priests and druids are elemental. Templars are evil priests that draw power from their King/Queen Slaves No Paladins, Fighters and Rangers are the same Gladiators can use all weapons and specialize in multiple Psionics is a class Bards are assassins. No spells but masters of poison. Thieves are the same. Traders are a mix between merchants, thieves and bards Preservers and Defilers are the two arcane magic classes. One destroys, the other does not. Both hated and feared Start at level 3 and make a character tree because you will probably lose a character Elves are nomadic and tribal. Very tall and thin, long distance runners who refuse to ride any animal or conveyance. They are swindlers and con artists and pick pockets. Think used car salesmen mixed with Gypsies. Halflings hate magic, love psionics. They are savage and tribal but civilized and smart, will eat any meat, prefer demi-humans (cannibal if you like). They are the only demi-humans that live in the forest and jungle (yes there is a forest and jungle but small, dangerous, and far away unless you live in Nibenay or Gulg) Half-elves and humans are the same Thri-Kreen are 7 foot tall mantis men with a poisonous bite (lvl 5) and four arms. Dwarves are completely hairless (and do not live underground), otherwise mostly the same Muls are crossbreed of humans and dwarves. Bred as gladiators they are the most feared fighters and athletes on Athas Half-giants are basically goliaths but bigger. 11-13 feet instead of 9. 7 City-States each with a Sorcerer King(5)/Queen(2). Each Sorcerer King and Queen are 20th level Defilers AND 20th level Psionicists. They are all trying to metamorphose in to dragons. So far only one has succeeded, Borys. Borys lives in his own forbidden city of Ur Draxa, across the Silt Sea This world is savage.
@@nope1018 it's an ethnic/cultural slur to be slightly less imprecise. On a side note, was Ur Draxa, somewhat amusingly, meant to translate roughly to 'first dragon'?
You forgot to mention Pteran and Aaracockra. Also, one of the Sorceror Kings has reversed the Dragon Transformation to secretly undertake Avangion transformation. It's sad that the video didn't delve deeper into Advanced Beings. Elemental Clerics become Eementals, Defilers become Dragons, Preservers become Avangions and Druids become Spirits of The Land. I think Druids (as well as Bards) deserved more mentioning. Not only Assassin Bards are somewhat amazing and really standing out from classical Bards, but Druids have an extremely important role and characterization in Dark Sun, being extremely few, usually powerful and really angry! What I love about 2nd edition Dark Sun is the sheer amount of new stuff it brings on the table for D&D players. I'd love a boxed set version using the Skills & Powers CP system.
The way 2nd ed accounted for being a preserver or defiler magic user was by level progression: defilers went up in level faster than preservers. Preservers advanced as normal magic users, but defilers went up somewhere between clerics and magic users IIRC.
I think the most compelling thing about Dark Sun is considering the moment they realised, that magic had started having a 'drain'. With that in mind I'm currently running a Dark Sun origin story... set in Fâerun.
Yes! I have both of those on my bookshelf along with the one DS 2nd Ed. box set I’ve managed to acquire over time. Those books have been reread multiple times and ALWAYS make me wish I could have a local group to run a game in that setting.
I had an idea for after the forth book sorak takes her home and years go by but a young pyreen comes to the convent sorak keeps himself to the isolation tower anyway sorak and the pyreen are sent north to discover that another anvagelion has been born and grandpa needs him to merge for the final transformation or something like that .. needless to say sorak discovers that the new anvengelion was a former sorcerer king and the other kings are hunting him and close to seeking his grandfather out ... anyway the pyreen reforms the galdra and sorak also gets quite a following who has to stop the sorcerer kings army
Don't feel bad about only being a year into D&D. I've never gotten to play at all! I've been dying to since I was in grade school. I'm 38...Man I wasnt fully prepared for how pathetic that sounds until I read it back...oh well.
My biggest complaint about 5th edition is no Greyhawk setting. Yet every few month they are introducing a classic Greyhawk module. I love how they improve the town setting in Ghost of Salt Marsh. That was a fun adventure to go through. I enjoyed the Mad Max feeling of Dark Sun.
I’ve heard a lot of nonsensical/absurd stereotypes about “SJWs” but “prefers high magic fantasy” has got to be one of the weirdest. Not everything is a political thing my dude.
Oh dang, you got me dude, I’m a... slowtard(?) who wants to kill society by suppressing low magic settings in tabletop roleplaying games. You definitely understand how the world functions, nothing gets past you.
@@AndorianBlues I swear old D&D setting videos are a goldmine for weird political comments, it's absolutely hilarious. I'm glad it looks like you've had fun delving too! Some people take these alt right keyboard warrior edgelords as seriously as they take themselves
The in-world reasoning for cannibal halflings is that they see intelligent races as just other animals. So, they'll hunt humans just like they would a deer or something.
Dark Sun was so refreshing. Even as a young teen I could tell that Forgotten Realms was a bit naff. Dark Sun seems so relevant and just cool. The ecological element made it even more appealing.
I was a Dungeon Master for Dark Sun. It's an incredible, unique, and very rich universe. I loved it! Today, I have obsidian dice as a tribute to the world of Athas, which holds a special place in my dice collection!
I remember when I took our 4E group here. It was a long running campaign where we passed along the job of DMing the game, so every player was a DM for a time. I can't remember exactly what all I had planned, but I had the group find a portal to here after a series of strange abductions. Basically it had 2 plot points to deal with though, one being the cult followed here who were trying to create philosophers stones by using blood mixed of every race, as well as pulling in small parts of other worlds to create their own pocket dimension. The other point being this world itself, which was ravaged after the gods abandoned them, so the players were also seeing if they could somehow earn the gods favor enough to give this land a second chance. I also had a fun bait and switch with the players where the ruler of this world was name dropped as "Vecna", full name of Vandam Leonidas Vecna, a very proper, Elven emperor who was actually very nice. There was gonna be a thing about how he wasn't actually the one causing oppression, but the ones under him were in secret, and he was so consumed with trying to earn the gods favor to save the land that he was oblivious to what was going on outside of his tower. Someday I really wanna finish the story if I can get the group together again.
One thing that always amused me with athas is the progenitor race for all the major species were halflings. That humans/dwarves/elves all are mutant descendants of halflings.
great video! right now I am creating my own campaign setting and Dark Sun just begs me to take ideas from it! thanks to you guys I have more inspiration to keep on working!
I always had the idea of a temporary psionic power. As the harsh winds on the desert would shift, so would the player's psionic ability. Basicaly, you reroll your power every 4 or 5 in-game days.
24:26 "why are they considered cannibals?" If memory serves me correctly, halfings were the first race of Athas. Intelligent humanoid races are all decedents of the first halflings via magical transformation in The Green Age. Therein making the consumption of flesh by halflings, cannibalistic.
Anyone ever worked Athas into a Spelljammer campaign? I seem to recall there being lore about it being "incredibly difficult" to access its crystal sphere but I feel like it's an idea with alot of potential either with the PCs ship getting stuck there with the goal of escaping or seeing how the world would be affected if more ships started coming and going maybe eventually becoming some kind of D&D Tatooine/Jakku?
From what I remember it was harder to get to in "mainstream" SJ but personally I would probably make it at least possible in my campaign. I like your idea of it being remote but not inaccessible.
That's how my table did it. The party wanted to change settings so we boarded a spelljammer at the port for a routine flight but then crash landed on Dark Sun because Pitch Black had just come out.
It was great getting all these nifty toys and toolsets being brought in. One of my favorite additions was Avengions; where dragons (specifically The Dragon of the Tyr region) are engions of destruction, Avengions are creatures of hope, of creation. Those 2 pc games, the core paperbacks, etc. hold such a warm place in my heart.
This setting makes me want to play a Divine Soul Sorcerer who was born to be, one way or another, one of the last champions of the now dead gods, and just see what happens from there. Or maybe an abjuration wizard that has been desperately studying defilement and ways to possibly try and reverse some of the damage that has been done to the world. (Maybe a druid would work for that goal but I kind of like the push and pull of an arcane wizard trying to help fix the problem caused by arcane magic) Or play as a gladiator who has become a favorite among the elites but has secretly been planning a revolt.
Well now you got 3 charcaters ready for that classic Dark Sun charcater tree. Back in 2e, Dark Sun was so brutal that you literally needed to make three level 3 characters to start off because at least one of them is very likely to die.
If I remember my lore correctly Athas was somehow blocked off from direct contact with mot of the multiverse and never had any gods. I think when clerics went to Athas from the Planescape setting they even started having problems getting spells. Of course, all that's absolutely zero reason not to run with that character idea in conjunction with a good DM and have a blast.
I have been searching for art to use in my Dark Sun campaign, and the fact that it has been so difficult to find just goes to show how specific and different the Dark Sun aesthetic really is.
I've always been interested by Dark Sun but never knew where to begin for reading into it. Is there a single source book anyone would recommend for getting a good gauge of the setting?
I second (third?) the advice to start with the 4e sourcebook, then if you dig it, dip back into the old 2e adventures and maybe skim the novels. The 2e boxed set has a lot of art and adventure site maps to pillage and admire, so it's worth picking up if you actually decide to run a Dark Sun campaign.
My favourite setting! Great video :) Quick'n'dirty 5e defiling : An arcane caster can increase their class level temporarily while casting a spell by defiling life around them. Something like this. 1-10 yards radius of plants destroyed/level added to your spell depending on where you are. Also deal d6 (or d4?)damage to life per spell level added in the same area. Constructs and undead are immune to this effect.
I was in a game set in The Ravaged Wasteland of Crifoth last year, that I imagine is close to what Dark Sun is like. Someone summoning demons led to the end of the world, and now most of the world is a desert to the point that being out at midday is deadly. Demons rule, and everyone else tries to survive. Magic is rare, and clerics get their powers from great primordial elementals that returned after the gods left. We played as members of a tribe of orcs (though not all of us were orcs). I tried the UA stone sorcerer, it worked pretty well as a orc shaman. Our last session ended with my character killing the orc chief because he had been unreasonably warmongering the whole game, taking every chance to try and get rid of the village wisewoman he saw as a threat. He had just tried to execute her for something bs like doing something without his permission, and one of us stopped it by blowing a bag of plague on him. I was close and got a good lungful of it, before walking the chief back to his tent. He was a bit dazed from it, and I tried talking some sense into him, but after I mentioned I got the plague he told me I was exiled. So I took a deep sigh and crushed his skull with my maul. I then carried his body out, shouted "The chief is dead, long live the chief!" and dropped the corpse. Unfortunately the DM got a job in another city so we had to end that game.
I still remember when my group first got the initial dark sun setting material. The fact right off the bat they tell you to have players make 3 characters and have rules for how leveling one improves the others because they fully expect a lot of player deaths.
It was create 4 character is a character tree and when one character leveled up you could level up one of the other characters If your character died you could have one of your other characters show up to take its place and then create a new character to fill the void
I run my own DarkSun/Carcosa (lotfp) campaign setting. I've always loved this Setting. Thank you for the energy of this vid. 4years late to the party 😅
I remember finding out about Dungeons & Dragons for the first time in the early 90s and a trashy babysitter and my crazy Catholic dad had 10-year-old me convinced that it was "Satanic." lol... But yeah, Dark Sun, Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Spelljammer... Those are the modules I remember from back then and though I never played any of them I almost feel like that might have been a golden age of D&D.
Lol I still remember our parish priest calling out my (also crazy) Irish-Catholic dad after Mass one Sunday when word caught out he not only introduced me to DnD but let my friends play at our house 🏡😂
Is that a crown royal bag? If so you have gained a huge amount of nerd cred in my eyes. I had to retire the one I had since '88 and made my own out of suede some 15+ years ago. That is something of a rite of passage in this whole rpg experience to have those bags for your dice.
I've been in love with Dark Sun since I first saw it. Its so wildly alien and full of brutal energy that I can't help but get excited just thinking about it. Every time I try a new system I research to see if it has a hidden way to play a Defiler style magic user. I feel like the psionic ua is a good sign. Whenever they release it I'm going to *have* to start going to AL games at the FLGS.
Brom has forged his own style. He did all the artwork for TSR's Dark Sun expansion. I met him at a convention and he was very interesting. Krampus is now my favorite fantasy book. To whom it may concern, these are my 3 favorite art books: - Aviation Art by Lou Drendel - The Joy of Art by Carolyn Schlam - Great Fighter Jets of the Galaxy 1 by Tim Gibson
One of my all time favourite DnD novels was set in Dark Sun called "Tribe of One". Very clever idea where the entire party of characters were all personalities inside one young boy. So he had memories of things he didn't remember, one was a psychic, one was a fighter, and one protected them all from death and was a terrifying whirlwind of destruction. Pretty much like Kevin in"Split". Loads of fun, and clever situations solved in a very unique manner
makes me think about "Bound by flames" SPOILER : the reason why everything is frozen AF is mages trying to upset a balance between Ice and Fire to gain immortality. The reason you get possessed is the counter force. Bonus fact : the covent in the beginning is actually trying to do the same thing with fire while pretending to try to restore balance
i've had this though on the back burner forever now, but when it comes to psyonics or rolling for character creation in general, why dont people "trade" their rolls with each other? lets say you roll an 18 and your friend rolls really well with psyonics, but you wanted the psyonics and your friend wanted the 18 and is willing to take the 8 that you rolled in exchange. why not allow your players to trade with other players at character creation so that they can specialize in what they want?
That sounds like a really bad idea. Every character has wild psionics, every one of them. That's not even considering that Psionicist is a class. And trading 18s is an opening for munchkinning. Or more likely in this, 20s. Besides, each player is going to need that 20 he rolled. You're suggesting an underpowered character in a setting so deadly and dangerous that they suggest keeping three characters as backup all for something everyone gets base skill in and can openly take as a main ability if they so wish.
Dark Sun is awesome had the books and setting since my junior year in high school and the Thri-kreen was hands down amazing . First setting with a character tree because of it’s lethality and most characters start at level 3 again for lethality it alway reminded me of Dune by Frank Herbert DnDized! Plus I have always included psyonics in my campaigns and Dark Sun is psyonics heaven all in all definitely one of the most unique settings ever produced highly recommend
I had a Campaign, back in highschool with Darksun....Love the world Love the whole feel, my DM had A defiler that used Elves as his power source to draw from useing a mixture of Necromancy and blood magic, he kept Resurrecting his 4 Elves just to kill them by useing Defiler magic.
Is land between two rivers on hiatus? It's my favorite campaign to listen too and I miss it quite a bit. Keep up the great work, you guys are the best. Thanks
As I recall, the Halflings are the orginal Darksun Race, and the humans,elves,dwarves,muls, etc where bread/transformed from the Halflings. They Halflings are savagely cannibalistic.
There was the Rul Thaun that were also halflings who were the descendents of the original halflings life shapers and could use minor life shaping to make living items including weapons , airships that were like large whales in a way and other strange items and because they lived so close to the tainted swamps below the cliffs they lived on some became mutated with mutations like a third arm or gills to breathe water with
I remember getting into Dark Suns because I thought it sounded really cool and getting an old box set but being a little disappointed that the metaplot had killed the awesome psychic dragon and introduced a free city, both of which I thought made the setting sort of feel safer. Now I totally knew I could just ignore those and also have no clue if any of that changed later but I do get not liking some of the changes made to the setting if you liked how it originally was.
I know exactly what you mean. The whole vibe of dying world filled slavery and despotism and killer psychic plants... Setting all that up just to be like, "But now the good guys are winning! The slaves are free! The dragon is dead! Viva la revolucion!" It's like...nah man...that's just ruining the whole point of it.
1) not exactly. I don't remember the 2e lore but something about DS's "crystal sphere" made it really hard to enter/leave in the usual Spelljammer ways. And it was kind of isolated from most other spheres. Darksun and Ravenloft were the two settings that never really got looped into Spelljammer or Planescape (might be wrong about Planescape). That's doesn't have to be true in any campaign you or I run though 😉👍
I LOVED Dark Sun. I had burnt out on Greyhawk a bit (not really) and I was blown away by the depth of the setting. A world destroyed by magic use? Metal is too scarce for armor and weapons? No Gods? Sign me up. I'm STILL WAITING for the 5e sourcebook...
I may have missed it in the video, but as far as influences on the setting, we can't forget Clark Ashton Smith. I'd warrant The Abominations of Yondo played at least a small role.
My first 5th ed campaign was in Dark Sun with customization. My half-ogre barbarian with double HP (Homebrew inspired by old rules) on level up was great. I had over 100 HP by level 6... but that was basically my main stat.
Thanks, guys, for keeping Athas alive, by talking about it in your video. IDK if I overstep here, but there is a great podcast on the Dark Sun setting out there. It has a great interview with Troy Denning (co-creator of the setting and author of the Prism Pentad). Check it out: misdirectedmark.com/2018/11/15/bone-stone-and-obsidian-episode-9-troy-denning-part-1/
If you'll indulge me, my idea for the Sorcerer: As they said, unlike all other arcane casters, you can drain from people or animals. This becomes it's own ability (takes an action) or possibly can do it while casting a spell (not sure what would be better). The draining gains 1 sorcery point/HP drained up to your max SP. This is the ONLY way to get SP (you don't start with any and cannot convert slots -> SP) and they are lost with a long rest. The SP otherwise function as normal to get extra spell slots or power Meta Magic. When using Drain, FIRST the amount of desired power is chosen. SECOND, the target is selected RANDOMLY from all eligible creatures in a 20' radius be they friend, foe, or the caster themselves (magic is a fickle beast). The target then takes the 1 Necrotic dam/SP drained with no save or reduction possible. This creates a cost/benefit game for the Sorcerer. If he tries to drain a lot of power, him or his ally may be the target and get hurt/killed. On the other hand maybe the enemy with eat the drain. Or I go for less points to play it safe. Anyway, that's my idea. Feels balanced yet captures the flavour of draining magic from people.
This kept getting recommend to me. If I remember dark sun being described to me as a gladiator setting . The game caters to fighting , and anyone who is sick of wizards should play it I'm told.
That's a huge over simplification. Yes arcane magic is relatively uncommon, especially compared to Forgotten Realms or Eberon. Divine magic is also more limited in some ways. However, almost everyone had at least some Psionic powers. As did many plants and animals. There are Gladiators in the city states but I wouldn't call it a "Gladiator Setting."
I bought Dark Sun in it's first print. It was Powergaming, all the stats were higher you rolled 4d4+4. Every character had psionics, Magic drained the life from the land. And there was only one dragon and he was a BAMF. Most of the people who play 5e nowadays would read it and say it was for murder hobos. It was. I was a Murder hobo DM and I still am so trust me it's for murder-hobo's.
I enjoyed the Undead carapace of a Beetle as a caravan vehicle. There were also rules and spell listed for turning yourself in to the Dragons of Darksun, one Light and one dark. Also, I might be wrong, but the original box set said the the half dwarf half human were supposed to be pronounced "Mule". A work species, like the horse/donkey making a Mule.
Avangeions were the good version of dragons but looking more like butterflies in the middle stages and in the later stages they were large folds of wings looking almost like a manga ray with a body and a head
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I appreciate you guys putting out a video about Dark Sun, I really do, but please talk to me before the next time you make a video about Dark Sun. You misspoke about almost everything you covered in this video. I would love to help you research any future Fark Sun video. I have DMed a 2e Dark Sun game for 27 years. I know very little about what was done to the setting after the end of its 2e run, but I have an extensive 2e Library, and nearly 3 decades of experience running the setting.
I do like what you said about some of what might be done to play Dark Sun using 5e. Here are my thoughts on that. th-cam.com/video/B_Auj8t1O2o/w-d-xo.html
In dark sun you could naturally go over 20, but each race had a max. Like elves and half elves could have 22 dex, but 18 wisdom. All the stats still add up to 20 across the board. Like a half giant can have 24 strength, but like 15 dex, 22 con, and like 19 intelligence or something. So, I'm repeating myself, but if you go over 20 in one, you get capped lower in another.
Also there is an awesome dos game called dark sub: shattered lands. You can play it free on a few websites like classicreload, and i think archive.org. it's good. Check it out.
Was that is with the babyface? Where the beard go?
Where is the beard
"As much as I hate sand due to its coarse and rough texture, by golly do I love me some Dark Sun."
- Anakin Skywalker probably
Do you think there will ever be a time where the Anakin hates sand jokes will stop being funny? Because I don't.
@@HumanoidCableDreads I dont know man. They keep getting everywhere and some of them are fairly coarse.
@@muffincutting6020 I mean if you don't like them we can desert them all together.
Funniest thing I've read all day.
These jokes are everywhere...
Currently DM'ing for the first time and chose dark sun as a setting. My friends love it. It has been such a blast. Don't let the harshness of the world make it seem daunting and for elite dnd players only. I have 2 new players and they've having a great time.
For 5e?
The one feature between Defilers and Preservers that you didn't mention was that, being based on 2nd Ed, the two versions of Mage had radically different Xp costs to level: the Defiler took much less Xp to get from one level to the next than the Preserver did. So if you had a party, for example, with both a preserver and a defiler going through the same challenges, in the end, the defiler will be higher level than the preserver.
I can explain the Cannibal Halflings: A) they do NOT eat other halflings, they religiously refuse to eat another halfling, even in times of extreme lack. B) they only eat other races, and the fact they eat sentient races is why they were termed "cannibal"
The reason why they are cannibal is because they are trying to reclaim lost halflings: all races on Athas were once Halfling. one of the Arcane Ecological Disasters in the history that made Athas barren was the biomanipulation of the halflings into the races you have now, and the halflings are trying to eat the other races to get those halflings back.
There's something appealing about an arcane caster in Dark Sun, who plays more like a Rogue, simply because casting spells is a tool of last resort. The character runs around with a sling, or beats people with a quarterstaff. Having a pack full of mundane tools like grappling hooks, to avoid needing to cast Levitate or the like. Always careful to look and act like a normal person, so no one suspects they're secretly a Defiler. Trying to obtain a steady supply of water, so he can grow plants in greenhouse hydroponics, so he has enough life to accomplish his long-term goal.
That goal? _Escape._ Crack planar travel, and get the hell off of Athis, and somewhere else where magic flows more freely.
Sounds like a badass character idea. Hopefully they get lucky and wind up in Sigil.
unfortunately you're shit out of luck when it comes to "cracking" planar travel, the only places to go from Dark Sun are the inner elemental planes since Athas is completely separated from the rest of the D&D worlds.
also if you're going to try and get a greenhouse going you'd be better served by going the preserver route which takes just enough magic to get the spell going and doesn't bother trying to supercharge everything through defiling, because those guys are major dicks*.
(*everyone on Athas is a dick though)
@Mr420Spy If I wanted to run a Preserver, I'd have said it was a Preserver.
Wow no planar travel it sounds boring .
Hot, without resources or hope, and evil runs the place just sounds like Louisiana or Texas on a bad
Summer day :P
@@kyubii972 Texan here. Can confirm.
The absence of Jim's beard is something I still must get used to
He looks more handsome without it tbh. I like Pruitt with the beard tho.
Conrad Korbol You’re insane. The beard is a symbol of power.
Skeleton Warlord to shave the beard is showing it you have more power
"Naked face" was quite a shock for me - I prefer the beard, even with a little grey
As soon as I saw it I was like "WHAT WHY"
What is this?
*Bruh, what if Conan was Mad Max?*
Keep talking
Yeah I was surprised they didn't mention Howard's work more, especially the hatred of magic users.
@@HumanoidCableDreads robert man bad
Gooooooddddddaaaaaammmmmnnnnnn.
Noob noob gets it.
so...it's set on Dune
@@METALGEARMATRIX Immortan Joe doesn't care about you, Chud.
Honestly, having the infernal war-machines be _infernal_ war-machines, built by bandit factions who have learned to capture and exploit the souls of their victims, seems like it would be entirely in keeping with the setting. It would also allow you to go hard in on the Mad Max front re: weird and insane bandits.
It wouldn't be too hard. Just use soul cage to contain the soul, using it as fuel for the 8 hour duration or until you've used steal life six times. Then the soul is released though that could lead to a rising revenant problem. Essentially making a form of undead pollution, which if not dealt with will lead to all sorts of nasty things beyond simple corpses to combat. 🧐
bit like one barbarian cartoon in 70s
@@karpmageddon4155 that's why they need soul stealing buggies. To out run the undead they leave behind
@@PandorasFolly An interesting cause and effect. They used their souls to fuel their machines to survive, now they have to continue because if they stop the undead pollution will consume them. A vicious cycle indeed.
@@karpmageddon4155 Just. Keep. Driving. Yeah I can totally see that as part of athas. Maybe its left over tech from ancient wars, developed by a failed sorcerer king whose name time has forgot. Maybe it's part of some lich style everlasting life plan. Can't be a dragon so I'll have minions juice me up for all eternity. Somewhere at the heart of the doom buggies is a small innocuous sigil that connects the sorc king to the ritual and apparatus.
I love that in Dark Sun halfllings are nomadic cannibals.
sigmaphidelta8 as someone who's only started during 5E and has heard of but never really read into Dark Sun, *excuse me*? That sounds awesome!
That's why we made the vid Nicholas!!
Web DM and that's why I'm subscribed! :) Love the content you guys have been making, everything from talking about the different classes, races, lore, and even to out of game things like what to do with players at the table who have some problematic behaviors. (It really put things into perspective and helped me realize that I just needed to talk to them and let go of a bunch of my pent up resentment) Keep up the good work guys! 💕
And it makes sense. This notion stems from the idea or "cannibal pygmies" from colonists' accounts during the colonization of America, the Indies and the Caribbean.
And in Eberron, they ride around the Talenta Plains on the backs of Dinosaurs. Halflings seem to be given a weird shtick in different settings.
Dark sun was my favorite thing in Highschool, but never found anyone to play it with me. I had everything for it, all the box sets, books and monstrous compendiums. All lost to damage in storage. Sigh. I feel like it is a lot like Dune meets John Carter done with the classic D&D. Most of the versions I remember had the rule that every player character has at least one psionic talent, and the strength of that talent grew with the player, but you could also have psionisist as a class option to specialize and train in the psionic arts.
I stumbled across Dark Sun because I love post apocalyptic fiction in general. Silt Horrors are really scary and I love the world of Athas!!
I re bought a lot of those classics on ebay this year. Got back into it. The novels are amazing too.
Jim, you know what they say, a dwarf without his beard is surely a sign of madness... I’ll leave you with that.
My first dnd game was Dark Sun, and I love everything about it .
Especially in retrospect the thing I miss the most about 2ndE Dark Sun is the fact they did _not_ care about balance. Or at least not just in game mechanics. Your half-giant had double hp, excessive physical stats, but he would be viewed as a dumb brute slave even if he wasn't. Your thri-kreen was cool as hell, but couldn't speak common. Mages were powerful but illegal.
So much more interesting than anything done in any setting after 2E.
Oh, and it was 4d4+4, the weak have already been culled 😂
What was 4d4+4
@@ataraxia7439 You roll 4 d4's and then add 4 to the result for each stat
@@toxicmute6379 oooooh. thx
@@ataraxia7439 np
Couldn't speak common what? FINISH THE DAMN SENTENCE YOU DUNCE!
Picked up the Dark Sun boxed set back in 1992. It's 2020 and still running the same campaign for the same group this whole time. Love the world of Athas!
Awesome game longevity, man!
Heck yes that's amazing
Why it's great: art by Brom.
Brom is Dark Sun for me. It made the setting complete
Quite a lot of the setting was based off Brom's art. As in, Brom would paint some dude with a weird weapon and the designers would put that weapon in the game.
Same reason I love planescape too really. Toni Diterlizzi's art is masterful.
It almost cancels out the shitty interior art by Tom Baxa.
*waits patiently for a show on metaplot*
Also, Dark Sun is one of my favourite settings, loads of fun
A world destroyed by greed and power? Sign me up.
Give it 4 more years.
yeah, I'd love an episode on metaplot as well!
You love in one that is very much doing that. You *are* signed up, whether you want it or not. We see the signs already and it will be much worse in our lifetime.
Looks like you're already on that world unfortunately friend
@@ProfessorDizHow about now?
I hope they bring an official 5e dark sun supplement soon
Justin Timm hopefully it’ll be soon.
Until then... pathfinder (first edition) is what I’ll be playing
Same
They said they have dark sun ready for years now. Literally the second year one of the guys said they had all the conversion rules for their own game, but they won’t release because it doesn’t appeal to a newer more sensitive audience. For the record I don’t believe being sensitive is bad and I also think that publishers should just publish it and warn people it’s not
For everyone.
I wish they would at least release like Eberron. Where it’s like official play test.
Matt Mercer also requested it while he was working there. There is so much outreach from older fans and some newer fans that I think we have a better chance of getting it. Especially with a public request from Matt Mercer himself.
@@conradkorbol Seriously, just release it with a higher age rating. I want my Muls and playable Thri-Kreen
All signs point to it being a when, not an if.
To people complaining about getting Wildemount instead of Dark Sun or anything else, this is how these things work. Wizards needs to prove to Hasbro that it's worth the cost of developing and printing it. Books like Ravnica and Wildemount being successful will make that case. Wizards needs to prove to the people holding the purse strings that people (not just people like you, but people in general) will buy it. Critical Role is quickly becoming a cultural powerhouse, but board-room suits tend to be 15-30 years behind the real world. If they see that a book based on what they think is an obscure internet thing sells like hotcakes, then something based on the new hotness of 1991 is guaranteed to sell, right?
I'm not trying to be insulting to Dark Sun fans, but lets be honest; the Critters outnumber you right now. I'm not saying that Exandria is better than Athas in any way, but it is more widely known right now.
A good comparison is Star Wars and Dune; you may love Dune to an extreme, but walk down the street and find someone who can quote anything from it as quickly as they can quote anything from Star Wars. Do you think we'd be getting a summer blockbuster film adaptation of Dune this year without Star Wars making over a billion dollars each on 80% of its films (and making over half a billion on the LEAST successful film) in the past 5 years?
Wildemount will sell INSANELY well, and you're likely to see a Dark Sun book sooner as a direct result. That's how the business works.
Dark Sun Primer 2e:
World is a desert destroyed by magic called Athas
Almost no metal
Water is nearly as scarce
There is a sea made of dust called The Silt Sea
Most weapon and armor restrictions are lifted or different but not all (i.e. mages)
1 dragon* (*sort of)
Everything has some psionic ability (every PC too. Wild talents are guaranteed)
No gods, priests and druids are elemental. Templars are evil priests that draw power from their King/Queen
Slaves
No Paladins, Fighters and Rangers are the same
Gladiators can use all weapons and specialize in multiple
Psionics is a class
Bards are assassins. No spells but masters of poison. Thieves are the same. Traders are a mix between merchants, thieves and bards
Preservers and Defilers are the two arcane magic classes. One destroys, the other does not. Both hated and feared
Start at level 3 and make a character tree because you will probably lose a character
Elves are nomadic and tribal. Very tall and thin, long distance runners who refuse to ride any animal or conveyance. They are swindlers and con artists and pick pockets. Think used car salesmen mixed with Gypsies.
Halflings hate magic, love psionics. They are savage and tribal but civilized and smart, will eat any meat, prefer demi-humans (cannibal if you like). They are the only demi-humans that live in the forest and jungle (yes there is a forest and jungle but small, dangerous, and far away unless you live in Nibenay or Gulg)
Half-elves and humans are the same
Thri-Kreen are 7 foot tall mantis men with a poisonous bite (lvl 5) and four arms.
Dwarves are completely hairless (and do not live underground), otherwise mostly the same
Muls are crossbreed of humans and dwarves. Bred as gladiators they are the most feared fighters and athletes on Athas
Half-giants are basically goliaths but bigger. 11-13 feet instead of 9.
7 City-States each with a Sorcerer King(5)/Queen(2). Each Sorcerer King and Queen are 20th level Defilers AND 20th level Psionicists. They are all trying to metamorphose in to dragons. So far only one has succeeded, Borys. Borys lives in his own forbidden city of Ur Draxa, across the Silt Sea
This world is savage.
yee haw g*psy is a racial slur yeeeeeeee haw
@@nope1018 it's an ethnic/cultural slur to be slightly less imprecise. On a side note, was Ur Draxa, somewhat amusingly, meant to translate roughly to 'first dragon'?
Also Darksun introduced the 1st iteration of death saves
@@DyrgeAfterDark I did not know that. 2e was the first I ever play, interesting.
You forgot to mention Pteran and Aaracockra. Also, one of the Sorceror Kings has reversed the Dragon Transformation to secretly undertake Avangion transformation. It's sad that the video didn't delve deeper into Advanced Beings. Elemental Clerics become Eementals, Defilers become Dragons, Preservers become Avangions and Druids become Spirits of The Land. I think Druids (as well as Bards) deserved more mentioning. Not only Assassin Bards are somewhat amazing and really standing out from classical Bards, but Druids have an extremely important role and characterization in Dark Sun, being extremely few, usually powerful and really angry!
What I love about 2nd edition Dark Sun is the sheer amount of new stuff it brings on the table for D&D players. I'd love a boxed set version using the Skills & Powers CP system.
Dark Sun would be the perfect system to run a Kenshi game in.
You start off with the commoner stat block. Have fun! 😈
I certainly feel uneducated but: what is a Kenshi?
@Darkman its a post apocalypse rpg with robots and katanas
@@doughnutboyo6922 that seems like something I need.
Time to play a skellyman.
The way 2nd ed accounted for being a preserver or defiler magic user was by level progression: defilers went up in level faster than preservers. Preservers advanced as normal magic users, but defilers went up somewhere between clerics and magic users IIRC.
Everyone: "Da Beard omfg!!!"
Me: (twitching anxiously) If that table jiggles one more time....
I think the most compelling thing about Dark Sun is considering the moment they realised, that magic had started having a 'drain'.
With that in mind I'm currently running a Dark Sun origin story... set in Fâerun.
Edge Lord Defiler: "This planet is dying, and I shall kill it."
I was obsessed with Dark Sun back in the day. Still think of it as a great setting that turned things on their head.
This was and is still my favorite campaign setting. Any else remember reading the "The Prism Pentad" and "Tribe of One" series!
Just started listening to the Prism Pentad audio book on TH-cam. I read it back on the 90s. It just posted 3 days ago.
Yes! I have both of those on my bookshelf along with the one DS 2nd Ed. box set I’ve managed to acquire over time. Those books have been reread multiple times and ALWAYS make me wish I could have a local group to run a game in that setting.
I had an idea for after the forth book sorak takes her home and years go by but a young pyreen comes to the convent sorak keeps himself to the isolation tower anyway sorak and the pyreen are sent north to discover that another anvagelion has been born and grandpa needs him to merge for the final transformation or something like that .. needless to say sorak discovers that the new anvengelion was a former sorcerer king and the other kings are hunting him and close to seeking his grandfather out ... anyway the pyreen reforms the galdra and sorak also gets quite a following who has to stop the sorcerer kings army
Clean-Shaven Jim: *Blocks your path*
In the future as the suns grew bright. We were lost to greed and violence. And then and then even the GM lost his beard.
I’m a single year into playing dnd, almost all of my knowledge is just faerun stuff, so when I hear about more lore stuff, I always appreciate it.
You might want to look into the Rokugan setting as well, especially the 3rd edition stuff.
@@TheMylittletony I’m definitely gonna look into it, thank you for suggesting a setting :)
Don't feel bad about only being a year into D&D. I've never gotten to play at all! I've been dying to since I was in grade school. I'm 38...Man I wasnt fully prepared for how pathetic that sounds until I read it back...oh well.
My biggest complaint about 5th edition is no Greyhawk setting. Yet every few month they are introducing a classic Greyhawk module. I love how they improve the town setting in Ghost of Salt Marsh. That was a fun adventure to go through.
I enjoyed the Mad Max feeling of Dark Sun.
Dark Sun was my favorite campaign in 2nd Edition. I really hope they bring it back for 5th.
I’ve heard a lot of nonsensical/absurd stereotypes about “SJWs” but “prefers high magic fantasy” has got to be one of the weirdest. Not everything is a political thing my dude.
Oh dang, you got me dude, I’m a... slowtard(?) who wants to kill society by suppressing low magic settings in tabletop roleplaying games. You definitely understand how the world functions, nothing gets past you.
@@AndorianBlues I swear old D&D setting videos are a goldmine for weird political comments, it's absolutely hilarious. I'm glad it looks like you've had fun delving too! Some people take these alt right keyboard warrior edgelords as seriously as they take themselves
The in-world reasoning for cannibal halflings is that they see intelligent races as just other animals. So, they'll hunt humans just like they would a deer or something.
Thank you for making this video so many people talk about dark sun with no explanation for what it is other than it's dark....
Dark Sun was so refreshing. Even as a young teen I could tell that Forgotten Realms was a bit naff. Dark Sun seems so relevant and just cool. The ecological element made it even more appealing.
The most under utilized campaign setting for DnD. I wish more would be done with Dark Sun.
I was a Dungeon Master for Dark Sun. It's an incredible, unique, and very rich universe. I loved it! Today, I have obsidian dice as a tribute to the world of Athas, which holds a special place in my dice collection!
Dark Sun as hopepunk isn't something that'd ever occurred to me... until now.
I remember when I took our 4E group here. It was a long running campaign where we passed along the job of DMing the game, so every player was a DM for a time. I can't remember exactly what all I had planned, but I had the group find a portal to here after a series of strange abductions. Basically it had 2 plot points to deal with though, one being the cult followed here who were trying to create philosophers stones by using blood mixed of every race, as well as pulling in small parts of other worlds to create their own pocket dimension. The other point being this world itself, which was ravaged after the gods abandoned them, so the players were also seeing if they could somehow earn the gods favor enough to give this land a second chance. I also had a fun bait and switch with the players where the ruler of this world was name dropped as "Vecna", full name of Vandam Leonidas Vecna, a very proper, Elven emperor who was actually very nice. There was gonna be a thing about how he wasn't actually the one causing oppression, but the ones under him were in secret, and he was so consumed with trying to earn the gods favor to save the land that he was oblivious to what was going on outside of his tower. Someday I really wanna finish the story if I can get the group together again.
12th level party finds one rusty bronze dagger
Fights to the death for it
I just started listening to the novels for Dark Sun. I read the first two when I was 15 and they hold up well.
One thing that always amused me with athas is the progenitor race for all the major species were halflings. That humans/dwarves/elves all are mutant descendants of halflings.
great video! right now I am creating my own campaign setting and Dark Sun just begs me to take ideas from it! thanks to you guys I have more inspiration to keep on working!
I've always loved this campaign setting.
I always had the idea of a temporary psionic power. As the harsh winds on the desert would shift, so would the player's psionic ability. Basicaly, you reroll your power every 4 or 5 in-game days.
I'd never heard of Dark Sun before this. This sounds amazing!
Thank you for talking about my home away from ravenloft
Eating halfings and hunting with thri keen
24:26 "why are they considered cannibals?"
If memory serves me correctly, halfings were the first race of Athas. Intelligent humanoid races are all decedents of the first halflings via magical transformation in The Green Age. Therein making the consumption of flesh by halflings, cannibalistic.
I thought that I was the only person alive that enjoyed Dark Sun. It was my favorite campaign setting back in the day.
Anyone ever worked Athas into a Spelljammer campaign? I seem to recall there being lore about it being "incredibly difficult" to access its crystal sphere but I feel like it's an idea with alot of potential either with the PCs ship getting stuck there with the goal of escaping or seeing how the world would be affected if more ships started coming and going maybe eventually becoming some kind of D&D Tatooine/Jakku?
From what I remember it was harder to get to in "mainstream" SJ but personally I would probably make it at least possible in my campaign.
I like your idea of it being remote but not inaccessible.
That's how my table did it. The party wanted to change settings so we boarded a spelljammer at the port for a routine flight but then crash landed on Dark Sun because Pitch Black had just come out.
It was great getting all these nifty toys and toolsets being brought in. One of my favorite additions was Avengions; where dragons (specifically The Dragon of the Tyr region) are engions of destruction, Avengions are creatures of hope, of creation. Those 2 pc games, the core paperbacks, etc. hold such a warm place in my heart.
This setting makes me want to play a Divine Soul Sorcerer who was born to be, one way or another, one of the last champions of the now dead gods, and just see what happens from there.
Or maybe an abjuration wizard that has been desperately studying defilement and ways to possibly try and reverse some of the damage that has been done to the world. (Maybe a druid would work for that goal but I kind of like the push and pull of an arcane wizard trying to help fix the problem caused by arcane magic)
Or play as a gladiator who has become a favorite among the elites but has secretly been planning a revolt.
Well now you got 3 charcaters ready for that classic Dark Sun charcater tree. Back in 2e, Dark Sun was so brutal that you literally needed to make three level 3 characters to start off because at least one of them is very likely to die.
If I remember my lore correctly Athas was somehow blocked off from direct contact with mot of the multiverse and never had any gods. I think when clerics went to Athas from the Planescape setting they even started having problems getting spells. Of course, all that's absolutely zero reason not to run with that character idea in conjunction with a good DM and have a blast.
I have been searching for art to use in my Dark Sun campaign, and the fact that it has been so difficult to find just goes to show how specific and different the Dark Sun aesthetic really is.
I've always been interested by Dark Sun but never knew where to begin for reading into it. Is there a single source book anyone would recommend for getting a good gauge of the setting?
The 4e campaign setting, tbh.
It has the best presentation of the lore.
I second (third?) the advice to start with the 4e sourcebook, then if you dig it, dip back into the old 2e adventures and maybe skim the novels. The 2e boxed set has a lot of art and adventure site maps to pillage and admire, so it's worth picking up if you actually decide to run a Dark Sun campaign.
@@GUNNSsheep except for the fact that the world is presented after the prism pentad. I have never followed the timeline after the death of Kalak.
See the page www.athas.org/ for compiled knowledge
@@ondegnom The 4E version of Dark Sun is after the death of Kalak only and not the other stuff that the authors introduced in the rest of the novels.
Loved this so much. Defiler and preservers was my favorite Twist on Wizards
Heh, as if by coincidence I took all the boxed sets and books to have a read through earlier today. Still one of my absolute favorite settings.
My favourite setting! Great video :)
Quick'n'dirty 5e defiling : An arcane caster can increase their class level temporarily while casting a spell by defiling life around them. Something like this.
1-10 yards radius of plants destroyed/level added to your spell depending on where you are.
Also deal d6 (or d4?)damage to life per spell level added in the same area. Constructs and undead are immune to this effect.
I was in a game set in The Ravaged Wasteland of Crifoth last year, that I imagine is close to what Dark Sun is like. Someone summoning demons led to the end of the world, and now most of the world is a desert to the point that being out at midday is deadly. Demons rule, and everyone else tries to survive. Magic is rare, and clerics get their powers from great primordial elementals that returned after the gods left.
We played as members of a tribe of orcs (though not all of us were orcs). I tried the UA stone sorcerer, it worked pretty well as a orc shaman. Our last session ended with my character killing the orc chief because he had been unreasonably warmongering the whole game, taking every chance to try and get rid of the village wisewoman he saw as a threat. He had just tried to execute her for something bs like doing something without his permission, and one of us stopped it by blowing a bag of plague on him. I was close and got a good lungful of it, before walking the chief back to his tent. He was a bit dazed from it, and I tried talking some sense into him, but after I mentioned I got the plague he told me I was exiled. So I took a deep sigh and crushed his skull with my maul. I then carried his body out, shouted "The chief is dead, long live the chief!" and dropped the corpse. Unfortunately the DM got a job in another city so we had to end that game.
A psionics video AND a Dark Sun video? You guys TRYING to give me a heart attack from mirth?
The Thri-Kreen are my favorite race to play.
AND you meantion oWoD in the video? It's too much, I can't take it.
We need and want a 5e Dark Sun!
I still remember when my group first got the initial dark sun setting material. The fact right off the bat they tell you to have players make 3 characters and have rules for how leveling one improves the others because they fully expect a lot of player deaths.
It was create 4 character is a character tree and when one character leveled up you could level up one of the other characters
If your character died you could have one of your other characters show up to take its place and then create a new character to fill the void
"Bring me a shrubbery!"
Brom yes!!! dont forget Baxa he also did lots of artwork for dark sun
Brom's art is so fucking amazing.
I really like Dark Sun, Birthright, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk, but Eberron stole my heart. It’s such a damn good setting.
I run my own DarkSun/Carcosa (lotfp) campaign setting. I've always loved this Setting. Thank you for the energy of this vid. 4years late to the party 😅
I love Dark Sun. I always enjoyed running Dark Sun campaigns. I mainly ran 2nd edition Dark Sun but I even used Athas in a couple of GURPS games.
I remember finding out about Dungeons & Dragons for the first time in the early 90s and a trashy babysitter and my crazy Catholic dad had 10-year-old me convinced that it was "Satanic." lol... But yeah, Dark Sun, Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Spelljammer... Those are the modules I remember from back then and though I never played any of them I almost feel like that might have been a golden age of D&D.
Lol I still remember our parish priest calling out my (also crazy) Irish-Catholic dad after Mass one Sunday when word caught out he not only introduced me to DnD but let my friends play at our house 🏡😂
Is that a crown royal bag? If so you have gained a huge amount of nerd cred in my eyes. I had to retire the one I had since '88 and made my own out of suede some 15+ years ago. That is something of a rite of passage in this whole rpg experience to have those bags for your dice.
It is indeed!
I'm a simple templar. You make a video on Dark Sun, I watch it.
I've been in love with Dark Sun since I first saw it. Its so wildly alien and full of brutal energy that I can't help but get excited just thinking about it. Every time I try a new system I research to see if it has a hidden way to play a Defiler style magic user.
I feel like the psionic ua is a good sign.
Whenever they release it I'm going to *have* to start going to AL games at the FLGS.
I would love to play in a Dark Sun campaign with these guys.
Dark Sun 2nd edition campaign settings are still my favorite to this day.
Please get back together and make more videos.
Best DnD vids ever.
Brom has forged his own style. He did all the artwork for TSR's Dark Sun expansion. I met him at a convention and he was very interesting. Krampus is now my favorite fantasy book.
To whom it may concern, these are my 3 favorite art books:
- Aviation Art by Lou Drendel
- The Joy of Art by Carolyn Schlam
- Great Fighter Jets of the Galaxy 1 by Tim Gibson
Athas, Athas never changes.
*cue Fallout 1's Vats of Goo theme*
Dude a Fallout style game set in D.S. would be absolutely AMAZEBALLS!!
One of my all time favourite DnD novels was set in Dark Sun called "Tribe of One". Very clever idea where the entire party of characters were all personalities inside one young boy. So he had memories of things he didn't remember, one was a psychic, one was a fighter, and one protected them all from death and was a terrifying whirlwind of destruction.
Pretty much like Kevin in"Split".
Loads of fun, and clever situations solved in a very unique manner
Whoa...
makes me think about "Bound by flames"
SPOILER : the reason why everything is frozen AF is mages trying to upset a balance between Ice and Fire to gain immortality. The reason you get possessed is the counter force.
Bonus fact : the covent in the beginning is actually trying to do the same thing with fire while pretending to try to restore balance
i've had this though on the back burner forever now, but when it comes to psyonics or rolling for character creation in general, why dont people "trade" their rolls with each other? lets say you roll an 18 and your friend rolls really well with psyonics, but you wanted the psyonics and your friend wanted the 18 and is willing to take the 8 that you rolled in exchange. why not allow your players to trade with other players at character creation so that they can specialize in what they want?
That sounds like a really bad idea. Every character has wild psionics, every one of them. That's not even considering that Psionicist is a class. And trading 18s is an opening for munchkinning. Or more likely in this, 20s. Besides, each player is going to need that 20 he rolled. You're suggesting an underpowered character in a setting so deadly and dangerous that they suggest keeping three characters as backup all for something everyone gets base skill in and can openly take as a main ability if they so wish.
Yes! Thank you for doing this awesome topic. Been waiting for it!
Dark Sun is awesome had the books and setting since my junior year in high school and the Thri-kreen was hands down amazing . First setting with a character tree because of it’s lethality and most characters start at level 3 again for lethality it alway reminded me of Dune by Frank Herbert DnDized! Plus I have always included psyonics in my campaigns and Dark Sun is psyonics heaven all in all definitely one of the most unique settings ever produced highly recommend
I had a Campaign, back in highschool with Darksun....Love the world Love the whole feel, my DM had A defiler that used Elves as his power source to draw from useing a mixture of Necromancy and blood magic, he kept Resurrecting his 4 Elves just to kill them by useing Defiler magic.
I had the same introduction to D&D, picked up a pack of the cards, and I had to start reading the books, which lead to my first AD&D reprint box set.
Loved hearing Elan and Barsoom getting shoutouts. Also the no beard is a good look on you!
I am calling it right here right now. "Drum Roll" Dark Sun starter set. WotC have had huge success with starter sets.
Everybody have a great day.
Is land between two rivers on hiatus? It's my favorite campaign to listen too and I miss it quite a bit. Keep up the great work, you guys are the best. Thanks
Fun fact: All of the humanoid races (elves, dwarves, humans, etc) are descendants of Halflings in Dark Sun.
Athasian halflings are strictly speaking not cannibals, as they generally don't eat halflings.
I hear @Runehammer screaming "DARK SUUUUN!!!"
I just stumbled across this video again, and it makes me want to run a game of Dark Sun with the Cypher System
As I recall, the Halflings are the orginal Darksun Race, and the humans,elves,dwarves,muls, etc where bread/transformed from the Halflings. They Halflings are savagely cannibalistic.
Spellbooks could be knots on ropes etc.
Technically not cannibals, they ate other humanoids, not each other.
There was the Rul Thaun that were also halflings who were the descendents of the original halflings life shapers and could use minor life shaping to make living items including weapons , airships that were like large whales in a way and other strange items and because they lived so close to the tainted swamps below the cliffs they lived on some became mutated with mutations like a third arm or gills to breathe water with
I remember getting into Dark Suns because I thought it sounded really cool and getting an old box set but being a little disappointed that the metaplot had killed the awesome psychic dragon and introduced a free city, both of which I thought made the setting sort of feel safer. Now I totally knew I could just ignore those and also have no clue if any of that changed later but I do get not liking some of the changes made to the setting if you liked how it originally was.
I know exactly what you mean. The whole vibe of dying world filled slavery and despotism and killer psychic plants... Setting all that up just to be like, "But now the good guys are winning! The slaves are free! The dragon is dead! Viva la revolucion!" It's like...nah man...that's just ruining the whole point of it.
Questions:
1) Could spelljammer ships visit the dark sun world?
2) Also is Master Blaster considered multi-class?
1) not exactly. I don't remember the 2e lore but something about DS's "crystal sphere" made it really hard to enter/leave in the usual Spelljammer ways. And it was kind of isolated from most other spheres.
Darksun and Ravenloft were the two settings that never really got looped into Spelljammer or Planescape (might be wrong about Planescape).
That's doesn't have to be true in any campaign you or I run though 😉👍
The thumbnail for this one really got me good.
I LOVED Dark Sun. I had burnt out on Greyhawk a bit (not really) and I was blown away by the depth of the setting. A world destroyed by magic use? Metal is too scarce for armor and weapons? No Gods? Sign me up. I'm STILL WAITING for the 5e sourcebook...
I may have missed it in the video, but as far as influences on the setting, we can't forget Clark Ashton Smith. I'd warrant The Abominations of Yondo played at least a small role.
My first 5th ed campaign was in Dark Sun with customization. My half-ogre barbarian with double HP (Homebrew inspired by old rules) on level up was great. I had over 100 HP by level 6... but that was basically my main stat.
Thanks, guys, for keeping Athas alive, by talking about it in your video. IDK if I overstep here, but there is a great podcast on the Dark Sun setting out there. It has a great interview with Troy Denning (co-creator of the setting and author of the Prism Pentad). Check it out: misdirectedmark.com/2018/11/15/bone-stone-and-obsidian-episode-9-troy-denning-part-1/
If you'll indulge me, my idea for the Sorcerer:
As they said, unlike all other arcane casters, you can drain from people or animals. This becomes it's own ability (takes an action) or possibly can do it while casting a spell (not sure what would be better). The draining gains 1 sorcery point/HP drained up to your max SP. This is the ONLY way to get SP (you don't start with any and cannot convert slots -> SP) and they are lost with a long rest. The SP otherwise function as normal to get extra spell slots or power Meta Magic.
When using Drain, FIRST the amount of desired power is chosen. SECOND, the target is selected RANDOMLY from all eligible creatures in a 20' radius be they friend, foe, or the caster themselves (magic is a fickle beast). The target then takes the 1 Necrotic dam/SP drained with no save or reduction possible.
This creates a cost/benefit game for the Sorcerer. If he tries to drain a lot of power, him or his ally may be the target and get hurt/killed. On the other hand maybe the enemy with eat the drain. Or I go for less points to play it safe.
Anyway, that's my idea. Feels balanced yet captures the flavour of draining magic from people.
This kept getting recommend to me. If I remember dark sun being described to me as a gladiator setting . The game caters to fighting , and anyone who is sick of wizards should play it I'm told.
That's a huge over simplification. Yes arcane magic is relatively uncommon, especially compared to Forgotten Realms or Eberon. Divine magic is also more limited in some ways. However, almost everyone had at least some Psionic powers. As did many plants and animals.
There are Gladiators in the city states but I wouldn't call it a "Gladiator Setting."
I bought Dark Sun in it's first print. It was Powergaming, all the stats were higher you rolled 4d4+4. Every character had psionics, Magic drained the life from the land. And there was only one dragon and he was a BAMF. Most of the people who play 5e nowadays would read it and say it was for murder hobos. It was. I was a Murder hobo DM and I still am so trust me it's for murder-hobo's.
My home boy Sean had all of the d&d trading cards it was insanely awesome to look through his binders of them and talk dnd
I enjoyed the Undead carapace of a Beetle as a caravan vehicle.
There were also rules and spell listed for turning yourself in to the Dragons of Darksun, one Light and one dark.
Also, I might be wrong, but the original box set said the the half dwarf half human were supposed to be pronounced "Mule". A work species, like the horse/donkey making a Mule.
Avangeions were the good version of dragons but looking more like butterflies in the middle stages and in the later stages they were large folds of wings looking almost like a manga ray with a body and a head