Hello Forum,
First off, I love Dark Sun. It was my first long-term campaign experience in D&D in the mid-90s and it has had a place in my heart ever since. I've been running a small Pathfinder Dark Sun game for my wife and a coworker and I'm finding myself coming up with unanswered questions about some of the Athasian lore and seemingly mundane details. I see the Dark Sun 2015 conversion thread in this messageboard and it is a great read. I was hoping to capitalize on any Dark Sun fan traffic haunting this area of the forums.
If anyone has answers and/or thoughts on the following points, I would great appreciate your chiming in.
1) Sorcerer Kings/Queens defiling. So every city-state is ruled by a wicked king or queen, actively pursuing immortality and power at the expense of the world around them. The campaign setting explicitly states that defiling magic destroys life (flora in particular) in proximity to the spellcaster, and the size of the defiling is proportional to the spell level.
Virtually every citystate has a palace and they're typically decorated with lavish gardens of trees, flowers, fruits, etc...
My question: How are these gardens not destroyed every time a sorcerer king/queen casts a high level spell?
If the answer is that they're not standing right near these gardens, does that mean that their temples/palaces are decorated with char and blackened stone from the 1000's of spells cast over the decades?
In other words, how do the biggest, baddest defilers not defile their own beautiful cities of splendor?
2) Station in society. Simply put-- How do slaves, nobles, and merchants differentiate one another? Since virtually any human/demihuman can be a slave, one cannot distinguish a slave at a glance based on race alone. What is stop a slave from killing a noble in an alley, putting on his finery, and walking out of the city gates?
Are there typical means of identification that I'm not seeing in the campaign setting? (such as branding, clothing articles, scarring, tattoos, etc)
3) Weapons galore! I love the 'Brom' art of Dark Sun. His depictions of the savagery that is Athas was undoubtedly a powerful factor in this campaign capturing my imagination so thoroughly.
I love all the depictions of the myriad non-standard weapons in the artwork, and the descriptions of these weapons in the source material. Sometimes the written blurb isn't sufficient to properly visualize the Athasian weapon in question, so some corresponding art would be extremely helpful.
I've bounced around google and found some help with this, but found nothing particularly comprehensive.
Do any of you know of any illustrations that show all/most of the unique Athasian weaponry? (Ideally with labels for each weapon)
4) Potions as fruits This is a lame question because it is not so much clarification as it is asking for someone to point me in the right direction.
Where is this notion discussed in the campaign setting material? I haven't found where the lack of potions as they're typically conceived of, is mentioned in any books I own. (I have the AD&D original Dark Sun Boxed set, and the Ivory Triangle boxed set)
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I know I have more unanswered questions hiding in the back of my mind right now, so maybe I'll chime in again later with additional requests for help.
Thanks in advance for your input and thoughts.
1) The Kings/Queens are also powerful Psions. Mostly, they don't use arcane magic unless they have to. Those gardens and such exist as a sign of wealth and conspicuous consumption, but they also exist, essentially, as a battery. They are there so that if a sorcerer king has to suddenly defend himself against some usurper, they have access to arcane magic.
2) Similarly to any other slave society - slaves are marked via tattoos or branding, or by something like manacles or collars that are riveted closed (and therefore require heavy tools to remove).
Also nobles are followed by bodyguards or other witnesses, and so on.
3) & 4) I dunno.
1) the sorcererkings tend to be power conservative. They let their minions take actions to curry favor with them by doing so. Being able to provide spell power like a deity to your own army of Templars goes a long way to accomplishing that. Magic items as well. Them having psionics was already mentioned above, and if it comes down to it, they Will devastate their palace without batting an eye. It is simply rare for that actually being needed. In their own city state they are virtually unassailable.
Sorcerer Kings/Queens defiling. So every city-state is ruled by a wicked king or queen, actively pursuing immortality and power at the expense of the world around them. The campaign setting explicitly states that defiling magic destroys life (flora in particular) in proximity to the spellcaster, and the size of the defiling is proportional to the spell level.
My understanding was that those gardens around the Sorcer Kings/Queen's dwellings were massive groves of "Tree's of Life" (Pg 61 of the origial DS rule book). Given that the each of the tree's contained 100 'levels' of magic and only lost 1 'level' of magic no matter how powerful the spell that drained them was, the groves provided a near inexhaustible power source in emergencies.
Even with these though the Sorcerer Kings were very stingy on using magic since they did have their massive Psionics to use without causing damage to their power base.
4) Potions as fruits This is a lame question because it is not so much clarification as it is asking for someone to point me in the right direction.
Where is this notion discussed in the campaign setting material? I haven't found where the lack of potions as they're typically conceived of, is mentioned in any books I own. (I have the AD&D original Dark Sun Boxed set, and the Ivory Triangle boxed set)
Page 62 of the original DS Rule Book under magic items it says:
Potions and Oils: On Athas, potions are drawn from the juices of fruits.
1) Sorcerer Kings/Queens defiling. So every city-state is ruled by a wicked king or queen, actively pursuing immortality and power at the expense of the world around them. The campaign setting explicitly states that defiling magic destroys life (flora in particular) in proximity to the spellcaster, and the size of the defiling is proportional to the spell level.
Virtually every citystate has a palace and they're typically decorated with lavish gardens of trees, flowers, fruits, etc...
My question: How are these gardens not destroyed every time a sorcerer king/queen casts a high level spell?
If the answer is that they're not standing right near these gardens, does that mean that their temples/palaces are decorated with char and blackened stone from the 1000's of spells cast over the decades?
In other words, how do the biggest, baddest defilers not defile their own beautiful cities of splendor?2) Station in society. Simply put-- How do slaves, nobles, and merchants differentiate one another? Since virtually any human/demihuman can be a slave, one cannot distinguish a slave at a glance based on race alone. What is stop a slave from killing a noble in an alley, putting on his finery, and walking out of the city gates?
Response 1: the groves are usually normal trees with trees of life inserted into them. Depending upon which system of defiling was used (energy gathered during preparation vs during casting), the Sorcerer King would memorize or cast spells near the trees of life. The trees of life would absorb all the defiling.
Response 2: the method of identifying slaves varied somewhat depending upon the city state. However, the typical marks are through markings such as tattoos and scarring.
Response 3: I believe the Expanded and Revised Campaign Setting had some pictures. Also look to the athas.org equipment pdf books.
Response 4: Gilfalas had the cite for the original book. The expanded campaign setting and artifacts of athas had some additional information (including growing more potions).