Sysane - agreed. Releasing what has been done already also makes a proper map more likely to happen.
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For the record, last year writing was still going on for SotDL (i got looped in for a little bit of it). Last i had heard, it’s “mostly” done. And it needed maps.
I think its really not released yet ‘because RL happens’.
I understand the urge for the Athas.org guys to finish it themselves (and i think they’re all great, btw), but they could have brought any number of onto their projects for a decade now to finish them up, or just released them half-finished.
More DS is always better (in my opinion).
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Same here. I was trying to help with art for the scarlet warden, while close, not exactly what the project’s head envisioned. Which is fine. At this point leave it to DMs and players’ imaginations and just release it with a stat block and call it a day.
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Previous Athas dot org publications have been released in alpha and beta versions. In fact, some of them are still in beta!
Just release them, already.
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Releasing as a beta would mean the community can get involved and some things that aren’t finished would get done by individuals picking things up. We have some amazingly talented artists in the community and some brilliant cartographers (Mike Fleming in the DS FB group combines both IMHO, shout out to you Mike if you read this).
We’re now in 2020. I am incredibly grateful to the Athas dot org team and everyone who’s helped on their 3.X conversions - I love them, I play with them and for me they perfectly capture the real feel of Athas. But if it’s not been possible to finish a final product in 2 decades (ish) then maybe its time to release a MVP and see what can be achieved through a decentralised, community led approach. Maybe nothing. Maybe we’ll get something outstanding. It’s worth a go though.
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I can attest to the truth of this. Legends of Athas is still in beta, and I have used that as my starting point for my Epic Athas minority report.
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Grummore say : “Release.”
But, I’m pretty sure a gofundme or something similar would raise enough $ among the DS believers to have something finished 
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I would love to see the original source material for both this and Dregoth Ascending. I always end up doing my own conversions anyway. I am putting in ground work on a Dark Sun campaign. I ran Dark Sun back in the 90s and it was my largest and most fondly remembered campaign. It veered significantly off what happened in the Prism Pentad (because the campaign started when Dark Sun was released and we were deep into the mid levels by the time the series was done) I always looked at official source material and background and put my owns pin on it. I am researching all the Expanded and Revised material and figuring out how to incorporate it. So any unreleased stuff would fit in great with what I am reading now.
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I would too, but unfortunately the people who have them keep them locked up like a mountain of gold pieces in a sorcerer kings vault.
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Let’s move this thread up some more. Once I’m done with the North, I will come back South and the Emissary would be in order.
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I don’t think Emissary will be finished any time soon. But I hear that maps for Secrets of the Dead Lands are being worked on. As far as I know it was the lack of maps that have held it up for years now.
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How about an alpha version without the maps? Must the perfect be the enemy of the good?
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If you’re looking for maps and information on the Dead Lands, not long ago I came across a French Dark Sun fansite who had made an entire supplement for the Dead Lands, complete with a rough sketch map.
Have a look. At the very least, I reckon it’s worth adding this to the Athasian Cartographer’s Guild set of maps…
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I’m not sure if you are aware of this, but to clarify: The purpose of this thread is discussing the official unreleased Secrets of the Deadlands Supplement made by TSR in their dying days. The fan-made versions floating around might be cool, but none of them that I’m aware of were made with the creator having ever seen the contents of the real thing. Some members of Athas.org had access to the original file and were working on a 3e conversion, but it never got publicly released either.
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Ok. Fine.
So just to make sure I haven’t missed anything else, the story so far regarding this official unreleased material:
There is a massive black patch on the Athas map south of the Tablelands. TSR almost finished a supplement to cover it before they were bought out, and it got shelved for 20 years. Someone connected to this community tried to resurrect it 4-5 years ago, but it’s since been abandoned again for undisclosed reasons.
I wonder why this has been so hard to finish. Is there something setting breaking or game unbalancing in the original material?
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Close. The product was close enough to release that a handful of beta copies were given out at a Gen-Con shortly before TSR imploded. WOTC later gave an electronic copy to certain people that helped build this site, and, as part of the agreement, athas.org was supposed to update it to 3rd edition. Because this site is run by fans with varying schedules, not paid game designers, and had a number of simultaneous projects, the conversion was either never completed or was never given to someone with the authority to post it.
When 4e came out, this site mostly died. Nobody was certain whether or not the agreement made with WOTC that allowed them to publish official material for 3e had ended, even more so when WOTC officially revived Dark Sun for 4e. Basically, as I understand it, a combination of uncertain legality and people just moving on to other things with no more incentive to pass down what they’d been working on resulted in a lot of projects becoming vaporware. I quite literally have no idea who might even have a copy of the 3e version of deadlands, nor how much work on it was completed.
History Note: Dregoth Ascending was another piece of TSR vaporware that this site did actually make a complete conversion for. Even so, I’d like to see the original 2e version.
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The main reasons I gave above. That said, the 2e version is very clearly in desperate need of both an editor and continuity manager. Lots of contradictions and lore problems that range from merely annoying to potentially setting altering. I have no idea what the 3e version was going to do with some of the more irritating bits.
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Ah I see.
Well, if no one is available, I’m pretty knowledgeable about 2nd Edition, and Dark Sun in particular. I’m happy to lend a hand if it is needed. 
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I kind of like the idea of a crab race in any D&D setting. Why not make them the living ancestors of the Bugdead?
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I have silt crabs in my game… silt crab people sounds frickin’ awesome. I might need to expound on this a bit.
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