New poster here! 
I’ve been a dark sun fan for years and lurk on this site a bit, have run ds games before but never any long term campaigns.
However im currently planning to run a long term game taking players through something like the prism pentad storyline, and I was wondering if anyone here would have suggestions for how to use/build up to Raajaat as a big bad.
Im not a huge fan of the cerulean storm depiction. I envision the first sorcerer as more of a trickster or deceiver figure than an apocalyptic force of nature, it’s really the only way I can see the red age making sense. His expertise lies more in manipulation than outright destruction, otherwise he wouldn’t need champions.
So if he can’t start rampaging and slapping the sorcerer kings around, what would Raajaat do? My current idea is that he doesn’t show himself. He disappears for years, leading the players and sorcerer kings on a wild goose chase searching for him across Athas (could be interesting putting the pcs in a position where they might benefit from working with the SKs). Eventually, he manipulates the Kreen Empire into an invasion of the Tyr region, trying to start another series of genocidal wars, this time between the mantis and humanoids. It will be up to Pcs to stop this or fall to the same mistakes as Raajaat’s champions.
However, he could just as easily claim to want to help restore Athas, create shadow giant champions, start spreading the dead lands further or any number of other things.
Would love to hear everyone’s ideas or how they’ve used Raajaat in games before!
Cool take on Rajaat, and there is definitely a bit of the trickster about him. I think part of the Cerulean Storm plotline is that his confinement has driven him a bit insane, even moreso than he was before, I tend to think as well that he may have merged with the elemental vortex created by the Dragon being wounded by the Scourge. Nonetheless, I think that sounds like a really fun campaign! Welcome to The Arena
Prism Pentad, yuck! I never liked the Dark Sun creation-myth canon. Or the Cerulean-storm.
Anyways, Raajaat wasn’t the first sorcerer, he was only the first surviving-sorcerer.
Maybe he was only an apprentice? I’d stay far, far, away from canon AD&D2e Mages and Magic-Users.
Yes, I think what Raajaat taught at the Pristine Tower in my world is how to mix psionics and magic, rather than being the first sorcerer. I like the idea of Athas having been an ‘ordinary’ dnd world prior to the cleansing wars rather than some bizarre Halfling space colony.
Smaller races make for better space travelers due to less resources needed to sustain life. Plus additional resources can be stacked and packed in densely if simply saved as genetic templates making a whole lot of sense for any civilization attempting to colonize another world.
Just saying.
changing the halfling backstory is probably the least of my dark sun heresies. I also made raddu, as in the owner of the arm, into a godlike figure that is a ‘good’ counterpart to Rajaat. Albeit a dead one.