The Athasian cosmology

#22

My explanation for a lot of Athas’ problems gets into some VERY non canon territory but I figured I’d throw in my two cents regarding the Gray’s origins.

I subscribe by the notion that Athas used to have gods, but that they came in the dawn years of the green age and that the other races aren’t descended from haflings but brought by their respective gods or migrated to Athas through planar or spelljamming means. To make a long story short the gods ended up dying or abandoning Athas. The sun didn’t end up the way it did due the pristine tower drawing THAT much of the sun’s essence, but because the chief of the Athasian pantheon, coincidentally the sun god, died. This is the same reason the sea of silt is the way it is, because the god of the seas perished. The gray exists because there is no god of death ferrying souls to the afterlife. Normal arcane magic doesn’t exist in Athas because there is no deity preserving the balance of magic. This cataclysm, which I called the Iconoclasm is the reason Athas is cut off from other planes, the death of so many deities in so little time caused a lot of unexpected consequences, some obvious, some no one could have predicted.

I’m not intending to take away too much of Athas’ problems from the Cleansing Wars, just offering an explanation for some of the feature of Athas that make no sense to attribute to defiling. Instead it hints at a greater history and that the genocides of the sorcerer kings are but one piece of a greater puzzle.

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#23

I like your idea about the ‘gods’.

What do you think would happen if you removed the gray? Would it affect undead?

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#24

If the Gray was gone I imagine it would screw with undead something fierce. The Gray has shown signs of empowering undead as well as causing a great deal of strife for departed souls, encouraging more restless dead to form. And I don’t mean skellingtans or zombehs, I mean bone a fide sentient undead that eat cleric-less parties for breakfast. If you get rid of the grey then the population of interesting sentient undead with a variety of neat unpredictable powers would be as common as on any other campaign world. Obviously existing ones are still hung up over their death and would be an issue. If you want to keep the Athasian undead especially dangerous and nasty as they’ve always been you’d need a new reason (perhaps a returned god of death or his church are taking advantage of the existing situation).

Now whether or not the loss of the Gray screws with the powers of undead is tricky to say, I honestly could go either way here since the negative energy plane’s connection to Athas would strengthen, potentially compensating for the loss of the Gray. After all even though the inner planes were connected to Athas, Defilers and Preservers made it clear even the inner planes have only a partial connection to Athas so removing the Gray would strengthen ALL of the inner planes connections to Athas.

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#25

Athasian Cosmology as it relates to Living Vortices and Divine Conduits. The gods of the Outer Planes CAN provide spells and power to clerics on Athas, but the reason why they do not is clear in the explanation below.

cosmology4
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Lost Gods & Living Vortices
#26

Not sure if someone mentioned this, but clerics from other worlds CAN cast spells on Athas, so long as the spell is 1st or 2nd level (fire giant shaman trapped in Kragmorta, under Giustenal).

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#27

I remember that.

What I am doing here is giving a more general explanation of why this might be so. So in the case of the fire giant shaman his god has restricted the higher levels of spellcasting because it was costing the god too much. Over time the shaman’s god will probably deny divine power to the fire giant shaman altogether.

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#28

In 2nd Ed 1st and 2nd level cleric spells were a result of your belief - believe strongly enough in the Flying Spaghetti Monster and you can cast Augury or Cure Light Wounds. 3rd level spells and above had to be granted by an extraplanar being. Hence the Fire Giant shaman in CbtSS having only limited spellcasting.

Now that doesn’t really fit Athas as otherwise we’d have lots of charlatans and insane people being able to cast cleric spells. Personally I went with the shaman having an attavhment to the Plane of Fire which gave him the 1st and 2nd level spells, but nothing more until he consummated a Pact with the element of Fire.

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#29

I remember that. There was also something in 2nd Ed about getting spells all the way up to 7th level by belief in a concept or universal principle, although thankfully not in DS.

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#30

Here is a file I have on my web site, if you wish to have more things to think about.

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#31

In the end having Elminister show up in Tyr, sounds just as stupid to me, as having him show up in my living room.
I believe that’s why the original crew wanted to set Athas apart from everywhere else.
In my opinion Athas had no god’s.
If it once had, it doesn’t really have any concern for PC now.
It’s a primitive apocplipctic world where such questions matter little.
More pressing thoughts like, how am I going to survive to sundown, fill up their day.
Don’t get me wrong, the discussion interesting, but I believe essence of a darksun game was never about, god’s and planar travel. More about survival and how mortals wrecked a world all on their own, threw hunger for power and prejudice.

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#32

Happy to see that this cosmology got used in a Dark Sun campaign. I’ve seen this referenced in various places, so it was quite well accepted.

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#33

That’s my game, I’m also surprised to see someone dig up something I posted from a few years ago. I made lots of homebrew additions to Athasian canon.

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#34

I’d love to see the homebrew!

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#35

By homebrew I mostly mean lore, not mechanics – like I smooshed together the histories of the 3pp. setting Violet Dawn, which was inspired by Dark Sun, and Dark Sun, and kind of redid a lot of the fluff.

Urik was basically the ‘City around the Tarrasque’ concept and was known as the ‘Red and Terrible City’ – it was built on top of a great creature called the ‘Godbeast’ that the citizenry harvested materials from for weapons and armor, among other uses. It was also located on the edge of some red wastes that vomited forth abominations on a regular basis.

Tyr was built around an inland lake and had an invisible ‘star tower’ that connected to an orbital elevator from the Blue Age built by the extraterrestrial patrons of the rhulisti. There were a lot more scifi/planetary adventure elements. The city had a huge subterranean area that was dominated by slavers and cultists of the xxyth – giger like entities that I took from Violet Dawn and were natives of the Black. The hinterlands surrounding Tyr contained villages centered on elemental nodes, and these clans had merchant emporia in the city.

Yaramuke was ruled by awakened drakes and a criminal syndicate that was similar to the Hong Kong triads.

Balic had a more complex history and was partially settled by merchant princes from the other side of the Sea of Silt.

more stuff like that. It was more scifi, and there were additional areas of the world.

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#36

I am these days much of the mind that the spirit of Dark Sun is best served by an almost utterly closed cosmology. Whether existing in an alternate PMP, an alternate dimension, or what have you, there should be almost no business or relationship between Dark Sun and the traditional AD&D multiverse. Under the Dark Sun, aasimon and demons do not belong, nor priests of real alien gods who can bring moralistic hope or doom to mortals. Athas must not bloom again because a hierophant druid of Sylvanus walks the Tablelands. If you must have traffic between these dimensions, it must be exceedingly rare, an alien and special thing, occurring only through the most unique circumstances.

I have long contemplated presenting a genuine cosmogony, the beginning of the universe, for Dark Sun, but I now think this would diminish some of the allure of Dark Sun and its mystery. Like our own world, the gods are mute and remote, or at least act and speak in ways that leave doubt nipping at the heels of even the most fervent believer. No true answers, at least not as we mortals often hope for, should come for sages of Athas. Not even the farthest reaching 10th-level divinations of the sorcerer-kings or the deepest contemplations of 30th level character-elementals should reveal these truths, at least not much beyond than what the cleverest scientist or wisest theologian can speculate about the genuine details of Creation, the Fate of All Things, etc. in our own world. If Dregoth’s Planar Gate must exist, and he is aware of other Realities and has walked upon them, he must be left in doubt why his dimension seems not to possess the incarnate and active deities of the Great Wheel, and wonder why the weave of traditional sorcerous magic does not exist for him to craft spells upon.

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#37

I agree. To the extent that a demon or devil might find itself on Athas, it is an outlier. Sylvanus should soon find himself bled dry of divine power if he supports druids on Athas.

That reminds of something. How WOULD Dregoth react to the Outer Planes. It turns out, I have given it some thought.

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#38

A fun vignette, indeed.

It is interesting to imagine the meetings of beings such as these. Whatever would such souls say to one another?

Given that a strong tradition is in place that they are all Lawful Evil, I do imagine there is some order to their meetings, though I imagine they are very rare, at least to mortal thinking. I speculate that they all very much despise and mistrust one another. But they are locked together in hatred due to a very great fear (a fear which likely gives much meaning to their existence), and are in any case forced to cooperate by the absolute tyranny of the Dragon, who exercises their collective will.

It is interesting, by the way, that in the epilogue of the Amber Enchantress, it seems that Borys does not immediately object to the notion that Kalak intended to become a full-fledged dragon. See this exchange:

Tithian shook his head defiantly. “No, we did you a favor. Kalak was trying to become a dragon so he could take your place.”

“I’ll be the judge of what favors me and what does not,” the great beast snarled. “All sorcerer-kings are dragons of one kind or another, though they assume different shapes to suit their tastes. If Kalak wished to fashion himself after my form, that was his business — but he would not have dreamed of taking my place. Saying such things only shows how little you know about what you’ve taken upon yourself.”

Though I imagine Borys would have chafed at a 30th level peer, by this statement it seems he was comfortable in his position as “Leader of the Revolt” as Rajaat put it. Borys’ authority as Master of the Black Sphere seems to have been secure.

It wonder what the dynamics between the Champions would have been had Kalak become 30th level. Would Borys and the others really have accepted it? Nok calculated with certainty that should Kalak transform into a fully metamorphosed dragon that he would be pushed outside of the Tablelands and to the Forest Ridge. I think that may have been true. Kalak seemed driven to finish the metamorphosis, and was utterly heedless of the consequences, even when it came to the maintenance of the Prison and his standing with the other Champions. Perhaps he thought that as a 30th level dragon he would at last be able to transcend the concerns of a sorcerer-king, and aloof to all things do as he would upon the world with no remaining concerns. The old Champions would see to the Prison. With Tyr gone, what would Kalak have to offer in terms of a levy? And what were they going to do, kill him? He may have thought that would no longer be a manageable assassination at 30th level, and if he planned to ravage whatever was left of the outer world after his metamorphosis, what would be the driving factor for them to kill him anyway? Beyond the Ringing Mountains, he would no longer be much of their concern.

Anyhow, it is interesting to imagine their internal dynamics. It seems that Dregoth was assassinated during the era of Borys’ bestial phase (which shows how early and how far advanced Dregoth was when compared with his peers), so I suppose Abalach-Re and the others needed no approval from the Dragon yet for an assassination of one of their own. But once he regained his reason, did such matters need to go before the Dragon for his approval, or at least his tacit consent? How were such appeals handled? How often did they meet? Where did they meet? Did the Dragon allow them to meet without him? How much did they cooperate, or how much did they act independently, fearful of their peers and even more fearful of the Dragon? All interesting questions your vignette brings up redking.

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#39

I took a contrarian position on Kalak after digging deep, and focusing on what Kalak actually DID, rather than what Kalak’s enemies, such as the cannibal Nok, said about him.

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#40

I am also in favor of Athas being completely separated from the rest of the AD&D Multiverse.

If I had to make a Athas that gets rid of most contradictions and still connects it to the rest of the Multiverse I would choose the DC Comics approach. There is a infinite number of Athas, Toril and even Universes (One Universe containes all setting), only separated by a unique vibration. So in one Athas, gods exist, in another Rajaat won, yet another the heroes of the PP failed.

As for the Gray. When Athas was young, it was so far too the edge, that even the young gods, were not really interested or aware of it. The outer gray is a part of the universe, where not even the gods dare to look into, as those who tried, never returned. Being near this outer gray, parts of it went through the grey gates, near Athas and became a weak inner gray. When the rhulisti were at the height of their power, they became aware of the other realms and the false gods. Deeming them dangerous fanatics and despising their wars, they never established a contact. Once the brown tide catastrophe happened, the inner planes began to change, in an attempt to prevent the spread of the Plague the rhulisti used the power of the Pristine Tower and created the gray barrier, forever trapping the infected part of the inner planes, with Athas, behind this gray curtain,seperating it from the rest of the Universe (or making it difficult to reach). The souls now are trapped in the inner gray and depending on their nature, travel through the positive or negative gray gate, to go where not even the gods were able to return, to the outer gray.

In my version of Athas, there simply is just Athas as the sole prime material and nothing else.

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