Which version of the Dark sun setting do you use?

Personally I use the very first one as I find it most fitting to the world I want to play in.

The reason that I ask is I am currently going through the process of reading all the material I can obtain about Dark Sun, including reading Troy Denning’s novels. However I do feel the changes that these books herald are too much and leads the setting in a direction I do not like to follow, a direction that causes Dark Sun to lose too much of the appeal it held originally.

SPOILERS

First of all it seems more and more cities are losing their Sorcerer-Kings and then THE Dragon dies.
Of course then there is also the details about the time line before the setting I do not like, such as Rajaat and Borys’s task of keeping Rajaat out of the world.

So anyways, which edition and why?

When you say “edition” do you speak of 2nd/3rd/4th edition of D&D or are you talking about the time period on Athas?

I ask because when I hear the word edition, I assume you speak of 2nd/3rd/4th but when you talked about the sorcerer kings dieing, that (to my knowledge) has nothing to do with D&D editions.

If, when you say, “the very first one” you mean second edition, absolutely not. I refuse to inflict THAC0 on anyone. I like third(or 3.5) edition very well and have been reluctant to switch to 4th. Now that 4th edition for DS has been announced, I am switching my group to 4th so that they can get use to it before I abuse them with Dark Sun. In fact, today is the first day we will all play a session in 4th edition.

Since you brought up the kings, I think you may mean you like the world before Sadira and her crew screwed everything up. I tend to agree with that. While I love stories in which the tyrannical baddy gets pwned by the slaves, it is a little hard to believe. These guys and gals have been unbeatable for a thousand years but a few adventurers with a couple of toys and some REALLY convenient luck can topple an entire region’s social order. I liked the PP and all but it requires a bit of suspension of disbelief. In fact, the Crimson Legion was always my favorite simply because Rikus and has band of marry men DIDN’T win.

Hope that somewhere in the rambling I answered your question,

Yeah, sorry for my misdirection, but I did not mean edition of D&D but which version of the setting you use, or where in the timeline.

So basically before or after the events described in the Pentad Prism series.

Most of my games have been set in the 2nd box set time frame after the prism pentad, ususally starting just before the last book and the death of all the sorcerer-kings.

Also, I have run one or two that were set in the decade of heroes, after Road to Urik but before the rest of the books.

First Box Set, around FY:3.
Still debating on how much of the PP is going to happen in my game, Free Tyr and the following war with Urik I’m keeping. Sandra’s transformation and subsequent whole sale slaughter of the S-K’s, at best a maybe right now.

First Box Set, before Kalak’s death… mostly using Pathfinder rules

We’ve been playing for almost two years now and I haven’t decided if Kalak is going to die or not, but if it does happen, it won’t be according to the events of the prism pentad as Agis, Rikus, Sadira and Tithian don’t exist in my campaign.

IMO, the first Wanderer’s Journal was the best DS product ever published and I’ve limited myself to this as much as possible in planning my campaign. The struggle against the SKs, the mysteries of the ancients and the might of the Dragon were some of my favorite elements of the DS setting and while I enjoyed reading it, the prism pentad kinda took a lot of that away.

Even I prefer the First Box Set, before Kalak’s death.

The part of the PP that I prefer is when Hamanu totally whack Rikus and the Crimson Legion. THAT’s a true SK.

To me it seems too much deus-ex machina that the Scourge of Rkard makes his possessor immune to Champion’s powers (seriously: WHY Rajaat would have created a similar weapon? If Rkard had killed Borys and took his sword, he would have easily killed all other Champions and ruined the First Sorcerer big project)

And for Sadira… Her sun magic (got after a quick trip to the Pristine Tower by ex-Rajaat servants) seems more powerful that the magic of men and women choosen from thousands of people and empowered by the First Sorcerer himself, the full power of the Dark Lens. And those men and women also have millenia to get more power.

I have a mix of the original AD&D and 3.5 rules:
1) I kept the race traits based on AD&D and I incorporated several NWP and WP. For example: I found perplexing to have 1/2 G and Kreen’s w/ lvl adjustments.
2) Parry is now a gladitorial trait @ 14 level!!!!. For crying out loud… parry should be an innate ablity @ 1st level…ain’t that for what they train for too!?!?. I made it as a general Feat with modifications. Similarly with Armor Optimization but for non magic users.
3) I also brought back weapong breakage. Since weapons are of inferior materials they definately bound to break.
4) I flirted to use Call Shots but decided to do random hit location on a confirmed critical hit.
5) I brought back the peac-mail armor.

In an nut shell I stick to the “original” settin and environment but 1000 years later when the exploits of Rikus, Sadira, Neeva, and Agis are basically legends lost in time to most.

When I play, I pitch all the Prism Pentad stuff because it completely changed the setting into something it wasn’t. Destroyed a whole lot of what made the setting awesome, as did all the Rajaat and halfling science stuff. Giant case of “Our NPCs are the story and the PCs are just witnesses”.

I play in the setting of the Original Boxed Setting, but have slowly and nearly completely converted to 3.5 rules. I just can’t wrap my mind around Athas without the SK’s or Dragon. Also, I like the idea of the Pristine Tower “creating” unique and different creatures. These are sometimes encountered in my campaign, but very, very rarely and they don’t ever become key characters or major components in the storyline. Just something out of the ordinary to make the PC’s wonder.

Original boxed set only, plus bits liek Dune Trader :)
hate HATE the metaplot/novel, killing off the SKs, making Athas not-mysterious and the whole stupid history “uuuuuuber halflings in space”! stuff, hehe :p
I like Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar R Burroughs, R E Howard, even John Norman’s early “Gor” stories (before they degenerated into S&M silly), and so on, so keeping Athas bakc at that kind of “idea” is good :)

I started out with the Revised Box set, but found that I actually liked the feel of the original box set better, so when I did my C&C adaptation, I decided to use it. I did not include any of the material released from other DS products.

R-

I never understood why so many people have such a huge problem with Halflings being the original race to populate Athas. What’s wrong with that? I thought it was a wonderful twist.

Everyone thought that the humans or the elves were the original master race, but it turns out that it was those wild halflings all along. And while Rajaat recruited his champions from among the humans, he secretly planned to wiped them all out. I say that’s pretty awesome.

Maybe you have a problem with space travel in your fantasy? But the concept of a planet that was originally populated by extra-terrestrials is an old trope in Sci-fantasy, and… heck… it even forms the basis of some real-world religions (see: Mormonism, Scientology, and many native American and Polynesian mythologies).

Anyway, the emergence of the halflings on Athas happened in such a distant, almost inconceivable past that it doesn’t really matter, does it? Even in Rajaat’s time, the time of the cleansing wars, the age of the halflings was ancient history.

Speaking of space travel, what do you guys think about the rise of the Illithid in Athas? I mean, the gith are there, why couldn’t the Illithid follow?

I pack the illithids in my DM suitcase wherever I go. With the gith there, I just make it a given. The primary questions to ask are:
1. How long has the crystal sphere been closed?
2. How much would the Dragon and the SK’s have cared about an illithid colony somewhere?
3. If the sphere only closed circa Rajaat, then how powerful were the Halflings to keep the illithids out?

I think that since travel to and from Athas is so difficult the SK’s and the Dragon would not really care about an Illithid colony or presence. First, they have the best defense against Illithids: tons of psionicists. Second, the sun and climate make the illithid particularly poorly suited to survival on Athas. These factors make the illithids a non factor to a sorceror king.

I like to place Illithids either off world as part of ancient colonies long disconnected from the larger illithid empire, in dungeons on Athas deep underground, or well out of the Tyr Region where it would make sense that their colony would not offend the Dragon’s lebensraum.

The best part about ancient illithid colonies is that their history records would rival and perhaps surpass the SK’s. They can be a source for players to find out more about the land, and access to dark secrets. For a price.

Illithids, great evil beasties.

I’m not ashamed to admit I snagged Sysane’s idea for their location http://sysane.multiply.com/journal/item/3/Sunde… the far side of the Sea of Silt.

Here’s a map I did for it also
http://darksunofathas.pbworks.com/f/Sundered+Re…

I as well plan to use Sysane’s idea. It hits the right points for location. Its not in the Tyr region, so the SK’s and the Dragon wouldn’t care as much. It has its own way to deal with the climate problem.

What I love most of all is that the Illithids evil becomes less of a problem in dark sun.

Interesting. I would have put them on the other side of the ringing mountains, most likely in the Kano Swamp. It’s humid, and the kreen largely leave the place alone. It also is out of the range of the immediate range of the SKs.

The problem with the Kano Swamp is that the Illithids need to eat brains to survive, and hosts for their next generation. Kano Swamp being surround by bugs who eat/kill any hosts who would come near make it a poor place to set up a colony.

An illithid population requires either a large nearby humanoid population, or the relative safety to create their own herd, while supplementing with a medium size nearby population.

I cannot recommend enough the Second Edition text “The Illithiad”. Its nearly completely, awesomely perfect. A fully realized ethnography of the illithids and their culture. As a piece of useless gamer literature it is up there with the Zombie Survival Guide.

1) I’m a huge Spelljammer fan, hence my art is heavily about Spelljammer and lesser extent Spelljammer ;)
I have no problem with “space travel”, I have a huge problem with all the …novel etc stuff in Dark Sun, ick
doesn’t fit Athas

2) Love love “The Illithiad”! :)
my version of Athas has it in aeons long past, the illithids tried to put out the Sun, gave psionics to humanoids, harvested a fraction of the psi power over millenia for their sun darkening
their project screwed up, Sun was going nova, gods stopped it but got whacked/sealed out etc
Athasian underdark was wrecked by titanic earthquakes
so illithids MAy exist, but if they do…they are more mean, hateful than usual…hehe