What things did you add to you campaign that came from a book, movie, or TV show?
Such as characters and villains (ported over unchanged or adapting it to DS), monsters, organizations, cities, or storylines…
For example, porting Bane and the League of Shadows from the Dark Knight Rises over to DS or the One Ring (just the concept maybe, could be anything really, such as a statuette), etc…
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I never really done it but I once considered bringing in a character from Birthright. That would bring the possibility of Godhood to Athas. It would also allow a type of magic to rival the epic magic of advanced beings.
Never imported something from outside D&D, but as I’ve previously mentioned almost the entire Al-Qadim adventure range can be adapted for use in DS quite easily. Years ago my gaming group also adapted M5 Talons of Night and one or two other M series modules for our 20th level+ campaign - yes, we got that far playing a couple of times a week before University and life took over!
Published RPG materials, particularly ones with a vaguely compatible rule system are easier to integrate than concepts from TV, films and books, but then a lot of those sources have inspired various RPG systems and adventures.
Take what you want, adapt it if necessary (we added several large islands to the Sea of Silt for the M-series modules) and discard the rest.
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I’ve imported villages from adventure modules. They villages and adventures required heavy editing to make them have the correct Dark Sun feel to them. I also imported dinosaurs, because dinosaurs are awesome.
Edit: I also added real world desert plants, like yucca and barrel cactus.
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I always thought that’s what the orbs of Kalid Ma were…
I knew a DM that transplanted the Fremen of Arrakis into Darksun once. I was dissapointed that Baron Harkonnen didn’t make the trip
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I can see that transplantation happening rather easily actually. Obviously, things like stillsuits wouldn’t exist, but the organization, ritual combat, and Sayyadina would fit well.
Baron Harkonnen could even work as a leader of a merchant house.
This has me thinking, but I would change all the names to protect the guilty, aka me.
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Stillsuits would be handy on Athas though
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Too useful, that’s why they shouldn’t exist.
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I wove in a lot of Planescape, the party journeyed to several different planes and I wove in the really alien adventures from Dungeon magazine. For example, on the Plane of Water, there were aquatic adventures with sea-elves, etc. Plane of Earth is great for the Underdark. Plane of Fire was the City of Brass and elements of Al Qadim. Sky’s the limit … more than that, infinity is the limit.
I understand the inner plane travel, but did you use the outer planes as well? If so, how did your players avoid getting trapped in the Gray?
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I did not use the Gray, for better or for worse. I just had direct portal travel from one plane to another mediated initially by Dregoth’s mirror. I did use the Outer Planes as the players were in the Nine Hells, Sigil, and the Abyss. The players also traveled to the Astral in Blackspine, of course.
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Just glancing through older stuff again and I loved this post. Since I played for so long in a single PS/DS game, this came up a lot.
At first, there was a gate in the Limbo in a Githyanki fortress (coughblackspinecough), so that could be played and cleared in reverse with some tinkering (and a bloodbath). Good luck finding the same Githyanki fortress over and over again, though. The Githyanki gate was ruled to have a save v… death (?) throw in 2nd and changed to a Will of like 22 in the 3.5 conversion we finished up in. Had to roll to pass, each failure drained requisite attached to relevant save by 1d4 if memory serves, so you could score to 0 and be trapped.
There was a gate “somewhere” in the Abyss. Wizards burned spells just to find the 927465 gobbldygook layer, and again, big saving throws to avoid getting stuck and re-rolling.
One was in Asmodeus’ private chambers for some reason, and it was teased he had encountered Rajaat and it was one of the reasons Rajaat went bonkers and seemed to go to extra lengths to further cut Athas off. No big saves for this one. Getting into Asmodeus’ closet of forgotten worlds was hard enough. I forget if the party ever even tried this route… Maaaybe once.
One was in Sigil. Forget where because my character got banned from Sigil on his third visit for… reasons. No big saves for this one. Gate in was basically on top of the PT on Athas, gate out was up in the CS region.
Orcus/Tenebreous (sp?) was teased to have a way in, likely involving Dregoth, but only the NE party wizard ever got info on that.
Elemental and Paraelemental Planes (all, not just DS variants) each had 1, with big saves to survive transition for non-natives of that specific (Para)Elemental Plane… and of course surviving the conditions of said Inner Plane on top of finding the darn things.
At epic levels my character finally earned enough reputation with Bel and Asmodeous to get a gate crafted in the City of Bones, but keyed to his racial type and alignment so nothing much among the locals could use it even if they found it. Usable 1x to get to Athas and 1x to get out of Athas, per year. No saves, no allies or party members allowed.
Pandemonium was rumored to have a legit gate, much like Dregoth’s (?), but digging randomly in those screaming caverns never got that result.
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Ravenloft has an official conduit to Athas…
Well, that wouldn’t be added material per se (and I think my game pre-dates that being official with the whole Kalid-Ma bampf-ing a City-State out there), and on top of it that would add in getting in and out of Ravenloft on top of getting in and/or out of Dark Sun. That is like doubling the workload… It has been a long time, but I recall Ravenloft being a roach motel in demi-plane form. You can get in, but getting out… might as well be trying to leave Athas.
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I got the Dragon Kings book recently, not the Dark Sun one, the DragonKingsProject.com one. I am far from finished, but I plan on adding some of the human tribes and the Krikis to Athas.
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