Just a place to speculate and toss ideas around.
How did it form? Yes, yes, “earthquake”. Was this a spell? A natural earthquake? Something awakening from the Jagged Cliffs?
What does the great rift look like? Is it a piece of the Hinterlands, just dropped into being an inclined plain? Is it jumbled rock?
What lives there? What spirits are there?
Have you read the lore?
Which lore? Generally, I’ve read the non-adventure releases from 2e.
check revised and beyond the prism pentad
This actually answers very little.
So, it’s an inclined plane down to the swamp. But, in BPP it’s 10 miles wide (p. 10), while it’s 25 in CSE&R (p. 115). So, in a year, it’s grown by 15 miles.
CSE&R tells us that swamp monsters and underground monsters have become common in the Rift, and that the tohr-kreen have built a wall, but “monsters from the swamp and horrors from underground” is a pretty wide pair of categories.
And, it seems to have formed simultaneously with an event hundreds of miles away, which implies causation.
So, WHY did it form? An earthquake spell, a natural earthquake, something awakening? Was it linked to Rajaat & Rkard, or an incredible coincidence, or people getting stuff wrong?
The map has it surrounded by scrublands, but it doesn’t look like the rift itself is scrublands; Ashtagon’s map interprets it as stony barrens, but the CSE&R map lacks the texture to denote what kind of land it is. So, we get a question of “what lives there” and “what spirits are there”? If there WERE spirits of the land before the drop, how did the drop affect them?
Not everthing needs to be answered. As the DM you decide, since there is no official answer.
The thing is, I’m not a DM right now. I’m talking about things because they are fun to talk about, and I specified that this was a speculation thread because I want other people to talk about ideas related to Dark Sun.
I want to play with the setting in a way that doesn’t involve dice. I want to have discussions and debates with people who like the setting. I’d love to “yes, and” some creative stuff. I want to take it between my teeth and shake it, and if someone points out something written about it, I want to go look at the written things and incorporate them into whatever I come up with.
Have you, a generic poster, thought about the Great Rift? Have you played there? What did you do? If you were to play there, what would you do? Do you have cool ideas?
Maybe this discussion will encourage someone to write up a full sourcebook on the Great Rift. Maybe it will encourage someone to set their next adventure there. Maybe it’ll just be FUN.
Musing about what the situation there MIGHT BE, and happily collecting canon info about that thing’s deal is exactly what these forums are for, IMO, yeah.
I’d imagine the increase in the width of the Rift is probably from it collapsing a bit, with the sides falling in…
Hmmm, Rocky Badlands feel more right to me, terrain-wise (Stoney Barrens are generally bare rock with accumulated dust/sand, while a pile of crumbled rocks feel more like Badlands to me, but YMMV…) And, obviously the terrain might change over time to become scrub or jungle, depending on local conditions and flora…
With very little cover for bigger animals or plants growing there (yet), there’s probably not many creatures living in the rift, IMO. Rather, I’d imagine predators looking for prey there or crossing through to get to the opposing terrain (Cliffs creatures checking the Hinterlands, or vice versa)
After the kreen set up shop and put up the wall, I’d imagine even less non-intelligent traffic. Still, a great place to set an adventure; any number of factors could lead post-lifeshaped horrors or jungle beasts to rampage through!
Rocky badlands definitely feels more in touch, but starting from scrub, I’d imagine there’s a lot more grass, maybe some remaining bushes and a very few trees, especially if humidity is coming out of the swamp… but that humidity will drop when the wall happens.
For beast, though, I think it depends on what the kreen do once the wall is up. If they start marching columns through there, yeah. But if they filter through in smaller numbers? If the Noble Kreen can take a long view? Moving a few clutches up at a time, and knowing that they’ll grow in the relatively uninhabited lands?
(Of course, that assumes the Noble Kreen have the LUXURY of a long view… if there’s a population pressure on the Crimson Savanah, moving large numbers up might be what’s needed)
More thoughts on spirits of the land later.
I think the timing is too close to the events of “The Cerulean Storm” to be a coincidence. IMO, something elemental-related happened here. I think Rajaat’s temporary freedom and then re-imprisonment caused a planar shift. The Cerulean Storm is the obvious effect of this, connected to the plane of Water and/or Rain … but the Great Earthquake might be the Earth effect. (Perhaps there are other effects elsewhere, Fire or Air related ones - maybe off the map?)
This is maybe parallel, on a smaller scale, to the Inner Planar incursion that caused the Deadlands.
Oh, I definitely don’t think it’s a coincidence, but don’t think it’s something that can be completely dismissed (but it’s also, IMO, the least interesting theory).
Could the Earth effect be Earth balancing out the planar incursion that Rajaat represented? Or the freeing of some earth creature stuck in its own Hollow? Or something else being forced into a Hollow?
I’m thinking, suddenly, of Ansalon and Taladas, where Taladas had to suffer because of the crazy things happening on Ansalon. What if, on the hypothesized other continents, the Fire effect exploded across the land, and people had no idea why?
I really like the idea of elemental eruptions causing the great rift. That leaves room for more elemental eruptions of other elements.
Sun: A bright solar flare erupts causing travel to be even more hazardous. In the cities people stay in the shade to avoid becoming dehydrated.
Silt: The silt surges into the land. Wherever there are nearby villages and cities they become swamped with silt. Many silt creatures now trouble the villages and cities.
Fire/Magma: All of the volcanoes in the Ringing Mountains erupt causing havoc in their nearby areas. Maybe things like campfires and forges burn brighter and hotter for a specific time. Maybe there are brushfires in the lands where there’s more greenery.
Air: There are sirocco’s all over the land. These storms pick up tons of dust and silt making it hard to see any distance. The sirocco’s often combine together creating several massive tornados that cause havoc across the Tablelands.
Oh, interesting! I was actually thinking in terms of the appearance of the Cerulean Storm “nudging” Athas slightly closer to the Planes of Water and Rain, and thus a little farther from Earth.
I personally tend to think a lot of Athas’ problems come from it being “off center” in the Inner Planes, closer to Fire/Earth/Negative and farther from Air/Water/Positive, whereas a Prime world ought to be centrally located. I think this “off-centering” might be what the Pristine Tower did that changed the sun, and allowed things like the Sea of Silt to form.
Have you seen my “Wandering Crystal Sphere” hypothesis, where Athas is on what amounts to a long, inclined, orbit around the center of the Prime Material. The “Blue Age” was when Athas was close to Water and the Positive plane, the Green Age put it closer to Earth, and the Brown Age closer to Fire and the Negative plane (thus the undead).
I always though the earthquake was the consequence of the Messenger crashing down on Athas.
Erosion: when it first started, it was the crack, then, as it rained more often, the Little Rift and now the Great Rift.
The Hinterlands were always my favorite,because no one’s really there.
Stony-barrens can be desert-pavement, which can be bedrock, but, if that rift is collapses, so will the cliffs.
That’s a good idea. Although a crash down that caused the great earthquake would be huge and likely alter life on the planet in even greater ways.
BTW, welcome back @Otello
Well, maybe it’s only a soft spaceship crash. Enough to allow the three space rhulisti to survive 
(…and thanks!)
Yes, that is not far from the idea I had in mind, except I was thinking of it not as a gradual process but something that happened in sudden jumps when the Pristine Tower was used or similar enormous magical events happened (Deadlands forming, Rajaat’s temporary freedom).