So, Dark Sun tends to touch on the outer planes lightly, but you get occasional sightings of out-and-out fiends (usually mad because they’re stuck on this ball of dust and rock).
But what about Upper planar creatures? What would it look like for an Archon or Deva to be dragged down to the sub-Prime material plane and stuck there for a couple centuries?
(this is just a “play with the idea” topic)
I could see one of the " good " angels to try and make a difference here. However their actions might draw the attention of a SK leading to their capture or to their flight to the underground, perhaps the Veilled Alliance helps them out. Either way it makes for a good hook to bring in the PCs.
If the angels are part of a hierarchy under a deity, it’s possible that they’ll be warned off trying to go and help Athas. The reason for this is that there are no divine conduits on Athas. Worshippers of gods on Athas don’t provide anything to the gods at all.
Part of it is that you don’t really need divinity at all to bring angels to Athas. “Summon Planar Creature” to a Good Plane might net you your Deva or Archon.
Then they’re stuck.
Yeah, if fiends can show up on Athas, logically celestials can too.
However, maybe the celestials aren’t really mentioned in published material because SKs don’t want to summon them (whereas Dregoth is messing with devils) and if one did show up its life expectancy would likely be very short.
Summon Planar Creature is a TSR canon psionic ability that can pull any creature from any planes, it clearly states this in The Will and The Way
^^Per Dark Sun Canon, Summon Planar Creature can bring creatures from the Upper Planes. I can imagine many Celestial creatures who would happily be brought to Athas to perpetuate good in the absence of divine intervention.
I have lots of ideas regarding an Arcanaloth and a Planetar who are both currently dwelling on Athas, but I’m working on getting other things done first.
To the idea of short life expectancy: I would ask you to remember, being Planar natives, they don’t die when killed on Athas, they simply return to their home plane. If they return to their home plane, they take with them the stories of a land which is in desperate need of celestial altruism. This would simply embolden them to be ready whenever a summons might occur. Obviously, Sorceror-Monarchs wouldn’t be actively bringing them to Athas, but the PCs and powerful Good NPCs chosen by the DM might (I played a psychoporter who had SPC and would’ve proliferated Aasimon with it had her PSPs not been desperately needed elsewhere).
I agree Summon Planar Creature would work if it was tried.
I think the rarity (lack of upper planes creatures in published materials) may have more to do with their being very few Athasian psionicists who know that the Upper Planes exist; the planar research done by Rajaat and co. might be known today to sorcerer-kings and some undead in the Dead Lands, but hardly anybody else. And most of those individuals (Oronis being the exception) are too evil to want to deal with Upper Planar creatures.
You make a fair point regarding knowledge of the Upper Planes though RAW, the user has zero control over what creature is summoned.
“In the midst of my righteous advance on the cowering masses of the Blood War, I felt a call deep within me to face a greater Evil in lands starved for the Powers’ attention”–Sumec, Planetar savior of the humble righteous
Imagine the surprise, expecting some fiend to negotiate a contract with only to face a creature as close to Deific as Athas will ever know. And it thinks you’ve been naughty and deserve punishment.
The user doesn’t get to pick the creature, but the user does pick the plane. I agree you could accidentally get a celestial fighting on the Lower Planes, but that’s going to be a rare event - and that’s my only point; not that it’s impossible, only that it makes logical sense that we see mentions of fiends in TSR Dark Sun materials but not mentions of celestials.
Also, most people who aren’t Sorcerer-Kings, Deadlands ancient undead of Rajaat’s faction, or otherwise probably have never heard of the Outer Planes at all (Lower or Upper) so ‘normal’ psionicists with this power are probably picking from the Elemental Planes, Paraelemental Planes, Gray, or Black because those are the only planes they know of.
The most likely NPCs to bring upper planar creatures would be good-aligned ones with special access to that knowledge, like Oronis or those who learned from him personally.
Lack of knowledge of the Outer Planes, especially the Upper Planes, is definitely going to result in a lot fewer celestials coming through, though the idea of a Psychoporter saying “Screw it, I’m going to flood the world with Angels”, go off to the mountains, and just summoning celestials is amusing.
I mean, they might be angry, but if you’re not evil, they’re probably not going to kill you or anything. Heck, toss in Power Manipulation and they’re all gonna be happy you called!
“Sweet Odin’s Toes, this place is messed up. Let’s go see what we can do about it.”
Another thought for a Power Score result from Summon Planar Creatures: The one you summoned was in a very tight place (in the Blood War, if you’re reaching for the lower planes), and pulling them to Athas means they get out of it.
In my strong opinion, Upper Planar Creatures, or standard Outer Planar creatures in general, are inappropriate for Dark Sun. There should be a strong bar precluding them from DS.
All early exceptions to this were included by uncoordinated game designers, before the cosmology of DS was more fully developed (and never truly finished).
The closest to an angel that comes to mind is the psychopomp Rikus encounters during his near-death experience in Verdant Passage. This being remains mysterious and undefined, and is the closest exploration of the “afterlife” in all of DS literature of which i am aware.
Bottom line though, neither balors nor solars belong in DS.
I can see the argument that they don’t fit, but references to standard Outer Planar creatures aren’t only in very early sources. City by the Silt Sea (1994) has hell hounds, and Thri-Kreen of Athas (1995) mentions Cania and gelugons, and the revised box set mentions tanar’ri and baatezu as possible visitors through the Crimson Monolith. I believe Dregoth has baatezu in some source, too.
And, IIRC, didn’t Dregoth explicitly spend time on the Outer Planes, learning about real deities?
Yes. Dregoth is a planeswalker and knows more about the outer planes than anyone else on Athas.
I wrote some stories about that here.
