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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I completely disregarded the books and the adventure-modules in favor of running Dark Sun, as is, out of the Box-Set in the early-90’s. When the 3.5 Box-set came out, I was grateful for the expanded Tyr-Region maps and the new PC-classes.
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I don’t think that is heresy, as I agree heavily with it and many others would as well. XD
Best way to play it imho.
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Yeah, this ISN’T my preferred way to play, nor do i subscribe to this play-theory, but i ALSO don’t think this is heretical.
Its just one of the appropriate ways to use the setting. If they run DS long enough, everyone will eventually run out of published adventures and ‘meta-plot’ and have to do their own thing with the setting. 
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