Hello everybody,
my name is Paolo, I’m a 37yo Italian lawyer, and I’ve been a roleplayer for about 22 years or something. With my schoolmates we used to play the first edition of AD&D, then eventually the second. We kept on playing with other people during the university years and sometimes we play in the present days when we have the chance allowed by our (too) hectic lives.
My friends and me have been into Dark Sun for years, and we really love the setting. We also think its potential has been largely underestimated.
I decided to write on Athas.org forum, after contacting the overcouncyl (I’m so glad there are still many fans of Athas), because in a moment of “foolishness” I have decided to write a Dark Sun novel (!). Although I’m not a professional writer, because of my job or just for fun (lyrics for song, short stories, small poems, magazines articles) I have always cultivated my passion for writing. This is my first experience with such a heavier burden (I must say, a very pleasant one).
It’s not a pindaric flight. When I touched page 30, I had the certainty I will reach the end and complete the book. At the moment I have written about 147 pages (in A4 format, meaning that it’ll be more in a book format), and I plan to complete the first draft within the end of 2009. I have a quite busy life, but I’m putting myself in this project when I have some time.
In my crazy mind the project is actually a pentalogy, but I’m doing one thing at time.
What I want to do is that it’s a serious project, with lot of study behind it (integration of timeline, characters development, long term epic campaign, new elements, new factions and so on).
I think that my project would push more sells for the old novels and viceversa, also because part of the events I describe are contemporary to the death of Kalak and other subsequent events of the athasian history. I’m working on a parallel “hidden” chronology of events, and I’m focusing in giving the reader some nice characters. One of them is my old Dark Sun main character, so he “lives his own life”; I know him so well that all I have to do is to “listen to him”. I’m also trying to build several layers of reading, mixing the right amount of adventure with ethic, sociological and pyscological subjects.
I have also created a facebook group about it. Please take a look and join/post freely if you want :)
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=41998124413&ref=ts
The group has about 65 members so far and new joiners would be cool.
I have talked with Jon of the Overcouncil and I’m writing a small prologue that could be possibly hosted on athas.org (once translated in english of course).
So basically I’m here to promote this project and hear opinions, constructive criticisms, feedback and questions. Thanks for your attention.
Paolo :)

That is great news Paolo. I look forward to reading it. Good luck.

Good!
If you need any proofreading done somewhere down the line, I would be interested ofcourse.
Looking forward to a prologue story at athas.org for this.
Good luck on the writing!

Thanks guys :)
As DS fans, which elements/locations would you like to find in a novel?

Personally, I’ve never been a reader of fan-fiction or gamer-fiction, but I have read the Dark Sun novels for inspiration. What I’m most interested in are descriptions of locations, culture and daily life.

Can’t wait to clamp an eye on your project, Paolo. Good luck to your project! thumbs up

hey Paolo
I would like to see believable character development, and you want to develop a ‘hidden chronology’, so I think you are referring to a region outside of the Tablelands/Tyr Region, during the same period as Kalak’s Death & the Age of Heroes?
If so, GREAT, we need more of that, and less discussiou about what already exists (like who are the real champions of Rajaat and such…..boring).

Thanks for the feedback, guys.
@New Order: the Tyr Pentalogy is not meant to be fan-fiction for few DS lovers. I’m writing it as if it’d be sold in bookshops (we’ll see where it’ll end, of course, as I’m not a professional writer – yet). And for sure the DS setting and the game material is barely inspirational. I want to depict a “true” story, not an adventure module. It’s meant to be a beliavable story that could be take place in any setting, even non fantasy ones. For locations I’m helping myself with lof of photographic material of real places, just a trick ;) About daily life descriptions, I agree, we need them. I wanna give a “picture” of realistic places. Will work on it.
@Real System: thanks mate. I’ll do my best.
@Nadal: I’m focusing mainly on the main characters, I think I have to work a bit on secondary ones. I’ll work on them in my next chapters.
About chronology: I’m working on tablelands “not so known, but still epic” events, in this book. Events that will take place maonly in the Tyr area. For books 2-3-4-5 I will involve also extra-tableland regions.
For sure I have a wider chronology idea that starts from the birth of life on Athas and goes trough the known events till adventuring in ther far future. Of course it’s a very delicate matter and I have to work on it (and I’m slowly re-reading every existing novel and all game material, to avoid contraddictions).
Thanks everybody again :) Its nice to talk with you all about something that’s taking much time and energy and that is a real passion.

Hello guys, anyone that cna draw decently and would like to deal with some inspirational/promotional drawings for my project? Would be really cool to “see” what I’m writing (180 pages done, so far; prologue under revision). Thanks in advance for everyone that would like to help in any way.

Hey Panther, I hope the writing is going well. Can’t wait to see it.

Thanks Band, the writing is going on, time permitting :)
If and when I’ll be authorized, I’ll have my prologue translated and updated.

This sounds like an interesting project. Looking forward to checking it out as well.

Just a small update: despite being busy on work and having fun with my holidays, I managed to write like 245 pages so far.
The prologue is finally getting translated in English by a professional mothertongue translator, so I hope to have it ready in a couple of weeks for you all to read.
Also a friend of a friend offered to draw a cover-art for it, and I look forward to have that and more sketches. I’m sure they will add a precious note of colour to my writings.
Don’t hesitate to contact me for more information and suggestions! See you all :)

Big update guyes and gals: as I promised to msyelf I completed the first draft within the end of 2009, and the whole book is ready for the revisions and to be “beta tested”. I hope readers will enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it. While this first novel will be processed for revisions, in the meantime next week I’ll start writing the second book of the series; apparently I can’t stay without Dark Sun and my characters :)
The prologue of the first book, that has been translated into English, will be available on this very site soon (in both versions), hopefully. If you would like more information or just to talk about this project, please don’t hesitate to write either here or in the facebook group of the project; I’ll be more than glad to answer you. Thanks and happy new year everyone

That sounds great Panther. I look forward to reading it when it is ready.

Sorry that it is taking time to get the Prologue up on the site. Flip is working on finding a good way to put it there. It’s cumbersome to use the Article format that all the other fan fiction is posted as, and it’s not an Official athas.org product either (which allows file attachments), so please be patient.

We’ll be patient :) Thanks for your effort, guys.

Is there any news or update to this?