I don’t agree that Athas has ores but lacks a mining industry. The Sorcerer Kings would easily jump at the chance of providing superior arms for their armies if they had the sources available. I also find it difficult to believe that none of the Sorcerer Kings themselves know how to smelt metals, or could not have preserved that knowledge from the Green Age if there was advantage to having it. Even if we assume that only Tyr has the knowledge of how to mine/refine/smell iron, you’d at least see elite Tyrian soldiers and Templar armed with metal weapons, and laws prohibiting free men from carrying metal weapons. The fact that Tyr has iron mines and exports iron to other city states - which resulted in tension between the city states with Kalak cut off the iron trade - indicates that this knowledge exists.
IIRC, it is also stated in the lore, either Dark Sun or Dark Sun revised campaign boxes that no one would bother with Tyr’s iron mine on other worlds, because it produces scraps.
What would be the point of equipping an army like that? None of the Sorcerwr Monarchs seem to WANT to rule the Tablelands and all CS’s, unless they feel like they NEED to. As long as all armies are similarly equipped, the (preferred) stalemate continues.
A SM might know (or possess a book with the knowledge of) how to smelt iron, but why would they tell a craftsman, unless it was for a personal project?
The SM’s are, first and foremost, parasites, obsessed with their Dragon metamorphosis, not well-intentioned statesmen. Otherwise they’d all be Oronis.
I’m not so sure that the Sorcerer Monarchs don’t want to rule the Tablelands. I think several of them would quickly leap at the chance if they could. Hamanu, Tectuktitlay, and Kalak all seem like they’d actively conquer if there were no consequences. A loose agreement between Rajaat’s champions to divide power seems more likley, an agreement they enforce on each other, particularly Borys. Hamanu sacked Yaramuke after the two city’s were antagnoists for some time, and slew the city’s Sorcerer Queen, Sielba. He then and paid off Borys to avoid retribution. The two city-states long rivalry also
meant that the sacking of the city didn’t make the other Champions too nervous.
Motives such as losing what they have, the logistics of running an empire when you’re a despot who doesn’t want powerful rivals or potential competition, and avoiding being ganged up on by other city-states seem like more realistic motives that keep the Sorcerer Kings from taking over other city states than a lack of ambition.
The other unspoken rule is that no one else gets to be a full dragon except Borys - the other Sorcerer Kings ganged upon Dregoth when he attempted to complete the transformation.
I agree it seems that way, i just think that their motivations are personal power and stability (to allow them to work on becoming/not becoming) Dragons. Anything else IMO, is secondary.
Hamanu sacked Yaramuke because he’d always had issues with Sielba and she was screwing with his obsidian supply.
IMO, they ganged up on Dregoth not because they feared he’d become a Dragon, but because they feared he’d: a) defile the Tablelands to ash during his Rage, b) The Dragon would defile the Tablelands to ash when they fought, c) his increase in personal power would upset the delicate balance of power (making them have to deal with that, rather than let their Templars cruise along foe another century or two).
But maybe I’m folding Nok’s fears into that.
I think any SM would be happy to have an empire, or not, as long as they can keep doing their thing.
I largely agree with that assessment. I will say that it seems to be a distinction with no difference between “the Sorcerer Kings feared Dregoth becoming a Dragon” from “the Sorcerer Kings feared the direct, undeniable consequences of Dregoth becoming a Dragon.” That is usually why someone fears a thing, after all.
Yeah… I suppose if there was a reliable way to complete their Dragon transformations with absolutely no drawbacks, all the SM’s would be lvl 10 Dragons by now.
Let’s not forget Borys became a full Dragon in a single step. That’s why he went insane for about a century. But the other SK aren’t aware of that. As far as they knew(at the time) once you complete the process boom you go nuts in the head for a century, after that you get to start thinking again. They attacked Dregoth out of fear that he would rage. Not over his relative power. If they knew at the time he would have been fine in his brain they probably would have left him up to Borys to deal with.
I use Dregoth as the origin of the dragon metamorphosis spell. The few times he went insane he took steps to minimize the time and positioned himself near giant strongholds away from civilization.
The other SMs didn’t find out until well after they killed him that the insanity begins much earlier in the process (hence Nibaney’s obsession with controlling the rage and the rest of the SMs suddenly stopping forward movement on becoming a dragon).
Not really a headache. Clearly Big D took a different approach to the metamorphosis. Other SMs have tried shortcutting it with varying degrees of success/failure. He’s shown that he’s smarter than the other SMs and learned from their mistakes.
CbtSS even eludes as much:
“The Dragon had gone insane shortly after coming in to his power, so there was more to
learn about the process. But in that learning would come the answers he sought.”
Honestly of all the SMs Dregoth is the only one that hasn’t tried cheating the metamorphosis. Short of the rules contradiction, seems like the rage is induced by trying to advance too fast rather than following the slow and staged path to full dragonhood.
I was never a fan of the auto-rage in the later stages of the metamorphosis. Felt it should have been an increasing chance that it COULD happen vs instantly flying into a fit for months on end. The 3e rules helped with this a bit, but not fully to my liking.
The 2e Defilers and Preservers book lists the transformation stages, and even then, from level 25 thru 28, aspiring dragons had to make Death Saves or enter a mindless fury for a month. It’s reasonable to believe that Borys jumping the curve, so to speak, caused mindless fury due to the agony of the change and animalistic urges (the reason listed for the mindless fury) far beyond the norm for a slower transformation, and it’s also reasonable to believe that a more cautious Sorcerer King could enchant items, magically or psionically, to held restrain those impulses.
Kalak also tried to jump the curve, which begs the question - did Borys’ extended madness result from an “incomplete” transformation that unleashed the full dragon transformation but didn’t have the energy the complete the change, and thus Kalak may have avoided it, or was it an inevitable result of a rapid Dragon transformation?
Kalid-Ma also tried to fast track the metamorphosis and instantly succumbed to the rage. It took combination of Kalak, Hammanu, and Borys to end his rampage.
I think one thing I missed was density? (unless that’s covered in weight)
The greater the density harder it is to wield but the more force it will impart when it hits.
I’m getting way to detailed on this…
Borys was transformed by the combined powers of 12 other Champions, using the Steeple of Crystals and the Dark Lens (IIRC). Kalak was going to use the life force of tens of thousands of citizens (potentially hundreds of thousands of HD). In either case I’d say that’s enough power to complete the transformation.
I’ve always taken the view a short-cut Dragon metamorphosis is way too much agony for anyone to bear, hence going into automatic animalistic rage for a lengthy period. A Dragon going through their metamorphosis stage by stage has a chance to avoid the rage (as per D&P, Nibenay’s plan etc) because they’re giving themselves time to acclimate to the pain and their new form. A short cut booster Dragon can’t.
