What I’m curious about are what huge setting changes have people used for their campaigns or have gotten to PC in?
I hope, that in next, good and official version of DS, will be chapter “Athasian Heresies - Uncanonical versions of history”.
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This heat during this expedition was perhaps the hottest Ezra had ever felt all year. Just going from ruin to ruin was a struggle for him, up and down the cliff from one building to another dragging the master’s supplies became a monumental task. The crimson sun beat down mercilessly, even this high in the mountains it was almost unbearable. Ezra could not understand why Master Teodias was so intent on retrieving all of the tablets as soon as possible, rather than wait later in the day, after the noon sun began its descent. But as the dutifully apprentice, Ezra did his teacher’s bidding in the hopes of being rewarded with more instruction in the Way.
Ezra recalled the arduous trek up into the very cliffs of the Ringing Mountains all the way from Tyr. It had been nine days since they had left that city. On their first day out, things went well as they traveled past the verdant faro fields and into the scrub plains, and past the erdlu flocks tended by Tyrian herders.
They attempted to stick as close to the hills of the mountains but nature had other plans for them. On the second night, a fierce dust storm tore through their small caravan dispersing one of the supply wagons. We heard the screams of Onu and Ladis as they fell into a ravine crushed by the wagon itself, their lives extinguished. By morning sunrise we could see that their bodies had been devoured by the beasts of the wastes. On the fourth day, one of our guards, the scarred mul Ulvas, mentioned to Master Teodias, that he saw the markings of anakore dung. Upon that revelation we doubled our effort and pushed the kanks to their limit in order to leave the area. Eventually we arrived at the base of the cliffs where the map that Master Teodias indicated the ruins of a place called Jondoraal lay.
I trusted Master Teodias, but sometimes he relied too much on the veracity of former templars of Tyr who peddled in rare documents acquired from the King’s Libraries. His devotion to his scholarly group and their patron Amiska, was commendable and his loyalty was unshakeable.
“Ah here it is” called Teodias “we start digging in these ruins, if you find tablets, please let me know and go no further” he reminded me.
The guards uninterested in the work, remained at the lower base of the cliff.
“Master Teodias what do you hope to find in these ruins?” Ezra asked.
“Well young Ezra, the knowledge of the ancients has been lost not only to the wastelands, but also to the memory of the living. The tablets that my order has previously found, but of whose provenance I am still uncertain of, say that gods once existed on Athas. It is something that may hold a kernel of truth as my excursions to many of the cities and towns of the ancients that I have explored, have large ruined buildings near the center of the settlements dedicated to all manner of strange beings, each focusing on one philosophy or another. Much like that of the temples of the sorcerer-kings in some of our city-states, such as Draj and Raam.” Master Teodias recounted.
“You see I believe as some of the ancient tablets claim, that during the Green Age, Athas did have gods. Beings of immense power that provided their divine blessings for the devotion and faith of the people. They had priests and holy warriors who received divine power much like the elemental clerics of today.” He continued.
So where did they all go? Did … did they abandon us? Were they killed off? Ezra rattled off a series of questions.
Master Teodias replied “Hmm, it seems in these codices that someone called Lok-tanal the Loremaster claimed that a being called Rajaat, used an artifact of immense power for some unspeakable act, which shifted the metaphysical axis of the world. So much so, that Athas lost its alignment with the rest of the universe and the sun became the bloated and crimson thing we see today. Suddenly the gods went silent and no longer answered the prayers of priests or their adherents. Lok-tanal claimed that his colleague, Kalanthor, a powerful wizard, informed him that he was no longer able to see distant lands or travel into the other planes of existence. Apparently, it was something Lok-tanal also could no longer accomplish, even with the use of the Way.”
“Well, this all sounds like fanciful tales to me, master. There is no way this could be true. What else did this Kalanthor speak of?” Ezra asked skeptically.
“There is nothing else, other than Lok-tanal explaining that Kalanthor was recalled back to his kingdom at the request of his mentor Sacha of Arala. Master Teodias explained.
“Well, that’s not really much information. I don’t ever recall hearing of these names in our previous explorations.” Ezra continued to dig through the rocky soil and yelled excitedly . “Hah! I found another set of tablets master. I’m getting luckier by the minute”.
Master Teodias cleaned the dust off them as he reviewed the ancient script. “ahh, these are just accounting documents of the kingdom. You see here, scribes recounting a decrease in grain production, declining ore returns from mines, and livestock becoming sickly and dying.” He said, uninterested in the contents of the tablets. “take them as well. Lady Amiska always says ‘even a kernel of knowledge can lead to greater revelations.’ ” He added.
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The Pyreen were the Ancients, not the Halflings/Rhulisti. When the rebirth happened, the Pyreen decided to become caretakes of the world, leaving it to the younger races. However, later Rajaat came about in his usual backstory and like was obsessed with the past of the world and the Blue Age. Here, he insisted that the Pyreen should likewise strive to restore the Blue Age no matter the cost, that they should rule this world not these unworthy inheritors. However, he was widely rejected and thus considered even his fellows to be unworthy of the legacy.
Thus did he resolve to wipe out all races and then create a new Blue Age with a new race. And then everything else happens. Teaching Preserving and Defiling, Cleansing War, Red Age, Getting found out, Imprisonment, Dragon rampage ect.
Also, there were gods in Athas’ past, though they’re long dead. There were racial deities who died when all their people were genocided. Nature gods who died for obvious reasons. Also other gods who tried to fight but were killed by the Champions/Rajaat himself.
Same thing with Paladins. There used to be them, but they were all wiped out during the Red Age and now are just things of fairy tales. Perfect setup for a PC who want’s to be a new paladin.
Probably some other stuff I can’t remember off the top of my head…
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But idea “maybe once there were gods” isn’t heretical itself 
Eg. in “Dark Sun: Earth, Air, Fire and Water” we have few notes about the possibility of the existence of “old gods”.
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Stellar objects, if viewed from the correct viewpoint, are not only round (being instead multifaceted), nor are they disconnected from each other as one limited to a physical realm might assume. Each planet extends into and through multiple dimensions and are actually parts of the star or stars which they associate with. Each solar system is a small lacework corner of the web of an entire galaxy.
Athas is no different… or rather it was no different until a certain group constructed a energy harvesting sphere (of fusion negating cold iron) around it in one of the physical planes it coexists with. Unfortunately, the location of the sphere was too close to the ambit coordinates of Athas’ sun’s primary claudication and thus began twisting and draining the flow of energies in that region.
The changed energy flows drew the awareness and attention of certain local sapients, who began drawing off said flows for their own purpose. The increased energy loss caused the sun of Athas to metamorph in an atypical fashion and eventually suffer an effect similar to aging rapidly.
On the metaphysical level, the cold iron energy harvesting sphere manifests in other planes and dimensions as a vast dead grey zone of non-life, severing off access to those entities that rely upon alternate planes and dimensions to interact and travel, and wrecking much devastation as ill-health progresses steadily through the entire section of the local web.
I suppose this counts a heresy?
My DM allowed me to run an Archivist in Dark Sun. Archivist is a divine caster that has to study and learn spells like a wizard. However, the character is not granted that power by an elemental force or a Sorcerer King. As a result it comes across a bit more as an Ur-Priest. It allows for a character to really be into the dark secrets of Athas, which really started popping off when we found the Book of Vile Darkness beneath Giustenal.
Part of the arrangement the DM gave is that my character is not able to research spells independently. To learn a new spell, I either have to find a scroll of divine magic or find the spell in ancient ruins, temples, and catacombs. As a result my character is constantly going into these incredibly dangerous locations to try and recover a new spell if one can be found at all.
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Well survival of Gnomes surely counts as Heresy.
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That is the MOST heretical thing when it comes to Dark Sun that I can think of.
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Good news folks!
Based on this comment thread (and popular demand from within our own team), I’ve added a “Dark Sun Heresies” book to the Pristine Tower’s list of possible future titles. It would be a series of “What If?” scenarios in Dark Sun, and how these would affect gameplay, not unlike “Legend of the Twins” IIRC. This resource would allow DMs to play around with timelines and parallel realities in Dark Sun, and maybe give a facilitating nod to some of the more drastically different homebrews we’ve seen on this forum.
(It’s here on line 24: Pristine Tower DS Projects open for development.xlsx - Google Sheets)
We already have one free writer who’s keen to start this, but we need just one more person to help with the writing and collating of these ideas for this netbook.
Anyone interested in joining on this project?
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I endorse this project, and depending on how long it may go on, might even be able to contribute. Actually, there was a project for the net articles that might work better as a Dark Sun heresy, because it posits the existence of a tiny city-state in the south-west of the Tyr region, and because of this, is probably better as something that people that can drop into their campaigns or ignore altogether. @The_DMs_Revenge is the contributing editor, so this will have to go through him first.
For people that don’t know what this project represents, its an opportunity for you to present your unique vision of Athas without worrying about stepping on any toes, whether that be official canon, Athas dot org netbook canon, or homebrew productions. This is where you put the gnome communities that still live, or by Ral, the kender. Its this project where the Prism Pentad had a different outcome, where Rajaat was freed, or the heroes got eaten by the Dragon, or Tithian became a sorcerer king. This is where you can have demonic outsiders creating conduits from the outer planes to Athas in order to form demonic cults. And because every theme or scenario is modular, as a reader or DM, you can take what you like and discard what you do not.
An excellent example of a D&D supplement that does this is Legend of the Twins. I recommend reading this, or at least doing a google search where you can find a thorough description.
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Farcluun a timelord? A reinterpretation, more than a heresy perhaps.
Now this one is totally wild as the concept didn’t exist when DS was written… Gallard/Nibenay as an isekai protagonist gone horribly wrong. He gets summoned during the time of magic and ends up going on standard isekai adventures (with a bad history with gnomes perhaps?) until progressing into the dark sun metaplot.
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Not quite true, isekai stories have existed for millennia. India mythology has quite a lot, certain Native American tribal legends claim that humanity itself migrated from another world to this one, Hebrew/Jewish creation stories tell of multiple dimensions with beings living in some of them (there is even a specific prayer that must be sung in Hebrew designed to open a portal to another dimension), Europe and America have stories such as Rip Van Wrinkle and other “kidnapped to the realm of the Fey” sprinkled throughout.
Nonetheless, your idea would make for a capital alternate history… especially if they think they are trying to protect Athas from something worse and justifying the moral slide.
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Ok, so Gallard+Lalali-Puy are pretty obviously a controlled opposition to me.
IMO, They’re lovers in reality, who know that the other SM wouldn’t allow their relationship to flourish publicly since it would threatened the stability of the other City-States. I think this makes sense and explains away why Glug hasn’t been turned into a satelitte labor camp or leveled to rubble by Nibenese Half-Giant Shock Infantry (which by canon, outnumber the population of Glug just as a single fighting unit). I don’t really think this is heretical though, it seems implied from the start to me and this has informed how I have run them.
Here’s the Heresy, I don’t believe they’re alone.
Abalach-Re+Daskinor were a thing once, a long time ago. She basked in the attention her heaped upon her until the day she got bored with him and dropped him like a used tissue. This is what broke him, this is really what drove him mad but he still Loves her and pines for her to this very day. It isn’t a healthy Love anymore (if it ever was to begin with) and it has morphed into the jealous paranoia rampant in Eldaarich today. “If you let them leave, they’ll go to her and steal her from you…” and that was the day the city gates were sealed.
Here’s where it gets a little deeper.
House M’ke? Oh, yeah the rumors are sort of true? They’re Templars yes, but they’re not fleeing their SM, they’re serving him. They’re in Raam, messing with the social order, creating chaos so that Abalach-Re might see that she needs her strongman Daskinor and then he can swoop in a save ‘the swooning maiden’. She knows it is his work though and is not interested at all.
I have my own social web detailing the SM’s interactions in my Athas. I also use a modifed timeline though (sort of post-PP, same yet different, I’ll probably post about it at some point)
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Very heretical. But similar to my fake war hypothesis.
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Hamanu is B-Tier.
Rajaat started with S-Tier students who were the best and most malicious that he taught. They immediately begin wiping out their competition
Hamanu isn’t even a consideration until well after the S-Tier Champions have been perpetrating their inhumane crimes upon Athas for centuries.
Even if Rajaat picks the ‘Best in Class’ now, they’ll be a shadow of the original ‘Best in Class’ who became Champions prior to all of the magical/psionic biological/ecological defilement.
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Where are those numbers from? The Wanderer’s Journal lists Nibenay as having 1000 half-giants, which is a lot lower than Gulg’s population, which is technically 8500, if you go by the numbers of Veiled Alliance.
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Perhaps my memory mistakenly added a zero? I will also openly admit that I’ve long preferred Nibenay, so that might have something to do with the skewed memory too
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I thought I posted this here, but was probably in some other forum. My favorite idea (which I don’t really dare to use, because it kinda takes away from Athas’ individual awesomeness), is that Athas is the far future of Krynn and Rajaat is Raistlin 
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