Can we expect Secrets of the Dead Lands to be released or is it dead in the water?

As of 6 months ago it was 65% complete, as per this thread

http://arena.athas.org/forums/the-pit/topics/at…

Extrapolating that time table I would estimate it to be 66% complete now. Just kidding, I’ve just been jonesing for this Document for YEARS.

On another note, if the wonderful crew at ATHAS.org need another set of eyes to help with this project let me know. It’s time to turn my impatience into action….

Ah… Secrets of the Dead Lands… The greatest unreleased AD&D product for every Dark Sun fan!

I would just love to see it, or to just have a look at the original info of it (I’m totally ok if they just release the AD&D scratch of the manual, and to have to convert everything for D&D 3.5).

Looking at Terror of the Dead Lands it seems that the northen part of the Dead Lands are ruled by humanoid undead, and the southern Dead Lands are ruled by the insectoid S’thag Zagath.

IIRC, at darksunrising.info there was a cool (even if unoffical) map of the Dead Lands… Does anyone has it, please?

Do you mean the map in this thread?
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?476190-Dark…

Or the map from Gerald Arthur Lewis’s fantastic Dead Lands write-up:
http://siltskimmer.org/_access/tdloa.pdf

And to re-ask the question, are Secrets of the Dead Lands and the Emissary ever going to be released? It’s been nearly a decade at this point, and I think everyone would agree that if it’s between a finished and polished product that may never actually happen or getting to see the material as it is right now the choice is pretty clear.

@Cyrian Yes, we’ll release what’s available since it has seemed to stall for various reasons. I’ll keep you informed as we figure it out.

That’s fantastic news, I’m really looking forward to it.

Thank you for the links, Cyrian :)

And Thank you for the news, Raddu :D

And about NPC, even with a small thing like “Name (race xx, class yy, level zz)” is ok.

Gerad Arthur Lewis’ work is wounderful. Does he had access to the original infos, or he created all from scratch?

Great news! Thank you! …and I second Hades about the “NPC format”. I can’t wait to see it!

Gerald’s stuff was all original if I recall correctly.

I had a chance to view the original shortly after I made my above post a year ago. Believe me when I say Geralds Deadlands project was much better than the original document. I found the original to be too Ravenloftesque with weird undead kingdoms ruled by goofy undead creatures. Sure it had a couple of cool things like the huge obsidian elemental in stasis that was basically undefeatable (it drew power from the obsidian plain), the Seventh Tree – a huge near dead tree of life that’s root system spanned the Deadlands as a tunnel system, and the bugdead of the far south and their Scarlet Warden leaders. If the athas.org project is based on the original it is better left dead unless the humanoid kingdoms are heavily modified, IMO.

Yeah, honestly I was never a fan of the project. It was too big of scope…bigger than the tablelands and was too alien for most PCs to explore. Now that I think back a lot of the later 2e Dark Sun was pretty hit and miss. Loved the Scorched Plateu, but hated the surfing druid bit of the Last Sea.

I think that those info will be better than nothing.

I’m really looking for the bugdead kingdoms.

I dont have a timeline for it, but SotDL is being tightened up for release relatively soon.

Looking forward to it!