Exactly why guano would be more valuable. Almost immediately usable as compost and present in huge amounts in the right areas.
Would roc poop have the same composition of guano? They are giant carnivores.
Excellent point!
I must investigate this…
Good points. Just dumping poop onto what you want to eat is a great way to get sick. It could also run off into your water supply, or attract unwanted pests or animals (always dangerous on Athas).
I thought Mekillots were omnivorous. Wouldn’t that change the nature of the feces?
This is actually a big question for me. Does Athas have sewers? We know they do, but are they functional? Do they work the same way as they do in other worlds.
Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.
Hmmmm. Perhaps well trained kanks?
Great! Good info!
Excellent. Love the idea.
What role would an otyugh play in this scenario. This is first suggestion I’ve seen which is tied into the fantasy elements. I did discuss otyughs in a prevous post.
Not sure I agree with you on this point. Any society on Athas is always concerned with water and food. You can’t provide those, it’s game over in a hurry. Getting the best crops possible is always a huge priority.
Straight up wrong. Hamanu has launched more than one war. Gulg and Nibenay have a constant low level conflict to control the forest. Fallen cities like Yaramuke come from conflicts like this. This is to say nothing of campaigns against hostile slave tribes, gith, giants and more. Even if a given SK is not interested in controlling more land, exacting tribute of needed resources is always welcome. Sometimes, even the most defensive and sedentary SK has to go on the attack just to maintain what they have.
Sounds like an improved tax base and manpower pool to me.
Most communities already have harsh punishments for defiling. And if you do fertilize your land, and someone defiles it, you are not necessarily worse off for it. On Athas, you have to defend anything valuable anyway.
Borys flying over, yeah that’s a nightmare. I would think that’s like Batman busting you for jay walking. Even if you live in Gotham, the it would be quite rare to meet him.
Merchant houses would be extremely interested yes. I do think the average SK (if such a thing can be said to exist) would at least care enough to not actively defile farmlands or undermine merchant houses trying to bring verdant back.
I remember that in the original boxed set there was a brief mention of low level Templars being responsible for waste removal. I found it on Pg 83 of the Rule Book.
I never said the SMs don’t war on one another. I said they have no interest in expanding their domains and that isn’t wrong.
Hamanu killed Sielba (well, maybe) and ‘Cathage’d’ Yaramuke. He didn’t install an occupation force, set up a city mayor and run it as part of his fief. Nibenay isn’t seeking to expand his domain in the Crescent Forest, he was seeking to plunder it’s resources (although now apparently is into responsible tree husbandry).
The fact the cities are referred to as ‘City-States’ kinda gives the game away.
If you disagree with my post, that’s fine. It doesn’t make it wrong though.
I think there’s truth in both positions. The CS’s do have client villages and probably sometimes make new ones, but yes, generally the SM’s seem more excited about maintaining what they have then expanding.
Hamanu did try to occupy Tyr to maintain the flow of iron from the mines. There’s an argument that he tried to raize it and control the mines, but i seem to recall the force from Urik wasn’t big enough to destroy a CS and enslave the entire population (but it WAS from a novel, and i could be wrong).
I think the SMs are all about maintaining tight control. Another city/teon in their organization could become another power base, for another individual. IF Hamanu had captured and subjected Tyr, but generally stayed in Urik, Tyr would be the primary target for every would-be Dragon.
@Rajaat99 You are right. I checked all the references in the books and the lists I have.
However, they do turn up in one place. They are in the Shattered Lands computer game. Whether or not the video game is accepted as an official source can be debated. But I also think otyughs can easily be added to the game and fit the setting. Their telepathic communication ability can be written off as psionic.
People arguing over poop, really? Simplifying food production is fine, I doubt the players in any campaign will ever have that much interest in this, aside from fuel for their fires.
Here’s another reference for everyone. In the book City-State of Tyr on page 9:
“Each templar’s duties vary by bureau and standing. A templar in the lowest echelon of the Bureau of Fields, for example, may be in charge of handing out the daily bread ration or driving a dung wagon around town to retrieve the contents of chamberpots from the previous night (to be used as fertilizer in the fields).”
Here’s a new magic item to give your players. I took the 5e the Decanter of Endless Water, changed some wording and added a disease to it:
Chamberpot of Endless Excrement
Wondrous Item, uncommon
This covered chamberpot sloshes when shaken, as if it contains water. The chamberpot weighs 2 pounds.
You can use an action to remove the lid and speak one of three command words, whereupon an amount of fresh excrement pours out of the chamberpot. The excrement stops pouring out at the start of your next turn. Choose from the following options:
“Stream” produces 1 gallon of excrement.
“Fountain” produces 5 gallons of excrement.
“Geyser” produces 30 gallons of excrement that gushes forth in a geyser 30 feet long and 1 foot wide. As a bonus action while holding the chamberpot, you can aim the geyser at a creature you can see within 30 feet of you. The target must succeed on a DC 13 Strength saving throw or take 1d4 bludgeoning damage and fall prone. The creature must also succeed on a DC 11 Constitution saving throw or be infected with Sewer Plague. Instead of a creature, you can target an object that isn’t being worn or carried and that weighs no more than 200 pounds. The object is either knocked over or pushed up to 15 feet away from you.
This is why I love this community and should spend much more time here. You can run into a thread that would cause a sh*t-storm anywhere else and find that people have a fascinating, insightful discussion (with resources and everything). And you even get to make a lame sh&t-storm pun.
'Hanya kept looking over her shoulder as she moved her shovel. She had to hurry. Every minute she spent here was a risk of discovery. Every move of the shovel could get her in mortal danger.
Still, it was worth it. The contents of each of these shovels was worth its weight in ceramics. As long as she could pull it off, she marvelled, she could afford to-
Lost in her thought, she almost didn’t notice the shadow. Almost. She threw herself to the right in the last second. The spot she just occupied was suddenly pierced by a javelin. The shadow - one of a winged humanoid - was circling above her head, hand drawing another short spear from a quiver.
Even as the flying attacker glided for another attack, she heard a keening scream from above.
“ARE YOU STEALING MY SHIT?!?”’
^ this was way more fun to write than it had any right to
This was incredibly informative, great fuel for creative thought. Japanese landlords part really got my attention, this is something that’d totally happen in Dark Sun.
Anyway - I remember mentioning this in a metallurgy conversation one year ago, but I believe Athasians must have incredibly developed animal husbandry. Considering how much the Athasian civilisation depends on animal products - bone, leather, scales, etc. - I always found it reasonable that the people would cross animals to get the exact product they want. Strong or malleable bones, thick or soft leather, chitin carapace of right size and shape, bladders and intestines - there are just too many possible applications.
So, perhaps some merchant house or husbandry guild has bred an animal that either produces or processes fertiliser? That’s certainly canon in my DS games from now on.
Going along with my animal husbandry idea, do you think diet could contribute, too? Would certain kinds of food ‘produce’ better fertiliser? Would it make sense to breed an animal specifically to ‘process’ a specific kind of plant / meat / both - especially if it’s something inedible and/or unfit as feed for edible animals?
At this point, I think it’s really worth mentioning arenas. Athasians love their gladiator games, a lot of which are fought against monsters. That’s bound to produce a huge amount of compostable material. Part of me now imagines compost silos being an integral part of the arenas, with ‘compost duty’ being a punishment for unruly gladiators.
I remember the 3.5 ‘Terrors of Athas’ had a monster unique to that game, complete with name-dropping of the antagonist who created it. That’s about as ‘canon’ as the Shattered Lands ever got, I believe. But if you can have that ooze, why not otyughs?
Just take a more careful look at this thread and you’ll see just how many adventure hooks you can get out of this topic.
This is wondrous indeed. No, really, I can imagine Dark Sun villagers shedding tears when a player generously lets them use it, and the people of Athas don’t shed their moisture lightly. It has the power to save entire communities. And if it raises chuckles over the 4th wall? It just proves what spoiled first worlders we are
This raises an interesting question in my mind: how many Athasians are wandering around with intestinal parasites?
I remember reading about a North Korean defector a few years back. He managed to get over the ROK border despite being shot. When they were treating him, they found he was suffering malnourishment, partly due to intestinal worms which were a result of untreated human sewage being used as fertiliser in the North.
The DPRK economy doesn’t have the money for large amounts of chemical fertilisers so they use human waste. However, if you don’t treat it first (apparently a fairly easy process but costs more), people are liable to pick up parasitic infestations from a) the waste; b) the soil, and c) the food grown.
Are Athasians made of sterner stuff? Do they somehow treat their sewage before using it (or simply properly compost it)? Does a mid-level templar have to cast a cure disease spell on the silos/compost bins once a week to keep them safe?
I was about to make a thread about it tomorrow, but you beat me to it. This topic made me think hard about pestilence on Athas. Parasites are one concern, but others also mentioned the sanitation problems (especially with ‘dirty occupations’). How often do lethal digestive diseases hit the cities? Compost workers in aseptic conditions just beg for typhoid outbreaks, especially if they work with human waste. This could quickly spread all over the city.
Out of sudden, it made me think of another reason why some people would decide to live in small villages: Because the cities are regularly hit not just by famine, but also by rampant epidemics of typhoid and other diseases. Working your own land (including your own compost processing) could give you some (illusion of) control over it, while living in a smaller community may make the villagers feel safer from the spreading of the disease.
I think it’s a mixture of all of the above, plus good/bad luck. Composting would be a department that affects both famine and pestilence problems, so I imagine the SMs would consider it strategically important. Of course, how it actually goes depends on the templars, but if you’re a templar responsible for this process - you don’t want to foul that up. Villages, on the other hand… That’s another story. Just imagine a band of escaped gladiators trying their luck at composting, with zero knowledge!
On the other hand, I always felt that mortality on Athas was very high, often because of what we’d describe as ‘bad luck’. People die for all sorts of reasons beyond their control. Having a high Fortitude save certainly helps, but I don’t think Athasians are necessarily ‘made of sterner stuff’. Many of them simply live short and die young, for a lot of reasons. Parasites sure fit that parttern - they’re the sort of invisible threat most Athasians can’t really protect themselves from.
Oh yes. If Dark Sun 5e. ever becomes a thing, every class should have a ‘Made of tougher stuff’ feature at level 3. ‘You instantly get rid of all digestive parasites in your body and gain immunity to mundane parasites. Parasites specifically mentioned in Dark Sun rulebooks are not affected.’
One point that should be made is only PCs start at level 3 in 2e. Slaves, random thugs, apprentices, and others sheltered from the Terrors of Athas are called out as being levels 1-2. Though that does imply bandits, nomads, dune traders, gladiators, etc are all levels 3+.
