My busy months always have time to interfere with my project, but I have managed to complete this: My take on Priests of Athas, all those who claim an elemental patron, nature itself, or the sorcerer-kings/queens of the Tablelands as their source for primal magic. As always, you are more than welcome to comment and post your feedback.
What this file contains is meatier than the rest of my work: 30 pages of classes, spells, and creatures for you to peruse. I’ve been working on this for a couple months now, and hoped to have it ready by December, but oh well, better late than never. Of the three “priest” classes presented here, only the templar has not been playtested - it might look unbalanced, despite my best efforts, however I make it clear that templars are intended as villainous option, so that DMs can use them at their discretion.
While I’ve designed most of this project with 2e in mind, I’ve borrowed enough from 4e’s take on Dark Sun. To group clerics, druids, and templars into one category, I used the term primal magic to refer to magical abilities that are drawn from the elementals and not from nature itself (as is the case with arcane magic).
Note of worth: At the time of writing this, XGE wasn’t out yet, so I didn’t have access to the new spells and consequently, haven’t included them. When time allows it, I’ll have a better look at them.
So, clerics are a modified reflavoured warlock. This fits neatly since in almost all 2e books about clerics of Athas, we get references of elemental patrons. That, coupled with the restricted list of spells they had, gave me the idea to remodel the warlock class into something more… primal. Elemental clerics choose one Elemental Patron from amongst the four core: Air, Earth, Fire, or Water. I decided not to include paraelementals (Magma, Rain, Silt, Sun), because I wanted to keep things simple. That said, it’s not difficult to design a patron based on the four paraelementals.
Druids have been adapted to Dark Sun setting, but they are mostly unchanged. Instead of Druidic Circles, we now have Druidic Paths, due to druids going nearly extinct and their circles shattered. The wild, shape-changing Path of the Moon has been dropped in favour of the Beast, which is actually the Shepherd refluffed to look more like totemic, spiritualist druid. For the table of expanded spell lists, credits go to azlath’s magnificent post.
Templars are heavily modified paladins. I’ve chosen this route for a few reasons:
- Templars are fierce loyalists and devout followers of a certain sorcerer-king/queen (deity).
- Templars begin spellcasting at 2nd level.
- I once read someone suggesting using a paladin template to build the templar class and found it inspiring.
Since there was no option for paladins as a class on Athas, characters who would enjoy playing a holy warrior, sworn to uphold his or her monarch’s tenets could opt for a templar. To add to the bureaucratic nature of this class, I’ve replaced the Oaths with Devotions, merely different departments of the templar hierarchy: War deals with guard duty, patrols, enforcing law and order, and commanding armies. Clergy deals with administration, taxes, law-making, ceremonies and customs. Sorcery deals with diplomatic matters, policies, and espionage.
What follows after the classes is a list of new (actually, modified) spells suited for Dark Sun, and a few beasts the druid can shapechange into. What is not included are spells that needed alteration due to different conditions on Athas, like create food and water or control weather. I will update the document when I have enough material to include them.
Homebrewery works best with Chrome. I’ve also included a Google Drive pdf file, in case you’re not fond of Chrome. You can find all of my material (updated, as of today 10/01/18) in my Dark Sun 5e Google Drive folder.
Due to my busy schedule, I might not be able to continue my DSRP. I have drafts of social ranking (and backgrounds) on Athas and an alternate take of gladiator (a reskinned barbarian) left to be completed, but eventually I’ll get to them.
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