Level 3 party, four PCs, becoming slaves/gladiators in Dark Sun. How do I play it, Im not very familiar with Dark Sun. Anyone did this already? I could use som pointers.
Here is som backstory:
I DM a Planescape campaign and last session the PCs visited Dark Sun Athas in a simple quest to take som bones from an encountered ghosts dead body and lay it to rest. I had planned for them to encounter: the extreme heat, psionics, half-giants, muls, bald dwarves ,Thrii-Kreen, giant scorpions in three keyed encounters and then back to the main quest. But… that didn’t go as planned.
They decided to go to a city, and after barely surviving the desert they arrived. I played it like it was a small city (Narulp 5.000 inhabitants. That is under the rule of Nibenay.) I played the city out clearly evil with slaves all over the place, pick pockets and executionplatforms around the temple square. In honour of King Nibenay gladiatorial games are to be held in the near future. The PCs know this, but decided that to be too dangerous.
Its noon with many witnesses. One PC decides to question/interrogate an elemental fire cleric (who I rule carries out executions and burns the victims to ashes) while he guards the entrance to the palace. Another PC tries to sneak past him. He rolls pourly and I decide to openly roll the spot and he clerly is aware. The first PC mocks the priest openly two times, and I decided that the priest would strike at him! I miss. the PCs continues to fight as more and more guards come running to the struggle until they are all caught. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
They should be executed, but instead I’ll let them be fodder for the upcoming games (They lose all items and gold). How do I play this? I would very much appreciate some help? I like them to get out, eventually, but it should not be easy, a lesson needs to be learned. Can a 3rd level party survive!? The elf fighter/mage, and the tiefling bard are melee and strong, but the week gnome rogue illusionist (without his spellbook) and the pacifist cloistered cleric might not.
If they are off worlders they likely fight with somewhat unusual tactics and Gladiatorial Games - Dark Sun or otherwise - are about entertainment. Have the person in charge running the stable recognize that these guys are more interesting then your run of the mill fodder and choose to A) have them fight together and B) not to make killing them some sort of priority. At this point you have your PCs locked up and doing some fights but not outright being killed. This should buy you enough time to come up with a good plot that ultimately leads to your PCs escaping.
Perhaps the PC should start out for a bit in a gladiatorial school, so they can get an idea of what is about to happen, and get a little time in with whatever basic equipment you are going to give them. The real question is will the PC spell casters spells actually work. And if their spells still work, then that will open up all sorts of questions about how, and why their magic isn't preserver or defiler magic.
It would be interesting to start them out slow in the actual arena, and slowly increase the difficulty of the battles. If they fare well, you could have them then fight other (athian gladiators) or they could even be forced to fight each other if they prove highly resilient.
From a theme perspective I would constantly drive home how the crowd only lusts for blood, whether it is theirs or not. Take every opportunity to reinforce the brutal nature of Athas and its people. Once they (or you) have had their fill of the crimson sun, you could give them a chance to escape the slave pits in a all out fight.
Getting weapons and armor, finding water and supplies, avoiding being ratted out by other slaves, and the constant threat of death in the arena should make it easy enough to entice the PC's with a glimmer of hope when you are ready.
As it happens I have allot of experience with Dark Sun as a setting, and still love it to death, more than happy to give further suggestions if you like.
just make sure you have the special material reference up for bone and obsidian, and wooden weapons, your players are not likely to be terribly familiar with the drawbacks of such.
And if you want to incite them, just note how a decadent noble is wearing one of their metal weapons while watching them bleed from the box seating.
Oh, and also remember that Gnomes are extinct on Athas, so everyone will wonder what he is, or think he is some sort of mutant from the desert created by the Pristine Tower, and the elf is shorter and pale compared to Athian elves, so he will confuse the hell outa people too.
|
Watch the first season of Spartacus on Netflix.
Read up on Athas. Athas.org Dark Sun Wiki ...there used to be good site on Athas but apparently it is largely gone.
Just curious, what version? 5th?
And bravo for beginning a Dark Sun campaign where they don't start out as unequipped slaves escaping a slave caravan in the middle of the slave desert filled with slavering monsters.
I was in a group where we started 3 or 4 different Dark Sun campaigns. Each one started us off as slaves, each one had a slave uprising, and then we would lose interest and play another game, and eventually return and do the same thing all over again.
But which version are you playing???
Not sure it really matters which version they are playing. Giving the OP some pointers on how to keep the campaign alive for long enough to get a taste of Darksun before they return to Planescape seems like an edition neutral task.
Thanks for the relevant advice.
Them being outworlders and recognized as such is a very good idea.
I make sure to emphazise how different they look. While imprisoned. Would they be visited by psions reading their minds once they are rogognized as foreigners ( “mutant” for the gnome)? So everything is revealed. I would think, that in a society with psionics that would be government strategy? Especially them being otherworlders?
Maybe they (after proving themselves as capable combatants in a school of gladiators) are shipped from the small city all the way to Nibenay to join in the grand games there. How would that trip be made through the desert? Caged in a caravan or on foot bound by the hands, so they could join in a fight if the caravan would be attack in a random encounter? In Nebenay they would fight together and be introduced as “Otherworlders”.
The PCs magic works. They travel between many planes so I only modify it a bit. Im not very familiar with defiler/preserver magic. Any pointers to how I could modify arcane and particularly divine magic to fit dark sun?
Should I subtly pinpoint to the PCs that arcane magic is dead? What if they display it openly? Is magic allowed in gladiator games? Are psionics for the other combatants?
What are the drawbacks of obsidian and bone? I have introduced those kinds of weapons, and only a commander has had an iron sword, but I don’t know more, other than following the stats for those weapon?
The idea of the characters items being used by NPCs visible from the box seating is wonderful.
I’ve seen Spartacus, thanks. The many good suggstions as to advance the fights and roleplay their struggle for water, food etc. is good. But I could use some help as to come up with some good ideas for “Behind the scenes” everything that is not gladiator battle. Politics and rivalry, between other gladiators, any ideas? It is a city of 5.000 inhabitants – who rules? And how?
GM_Beernorg: Thanks for the offer on further suggestions.
PS: The stupid decision that was made by the party can be explained by sunstroke, as one of the players argued yesterday :-)
I've not read one way or another about mind reading Psions...Everyone has Psionic powers but usually only pretty much one and it is kind of random so truly potent diversely talented psions are not that common no doubt there are some talented individuals working for the Sorcerer King of Nibenay but it is a lot less likely that some small outpost has such an individual.
Your also going to have to decide whether this campaign is 'taste of Darksun' and your not going to sweat the details or if you want to be more focused on specifics. If your not sweating details then one Darksun City is as good as another but if your being more specific then you should use Google or actual source books to get an idea about Nibenay but the basic gist is Nibenay is ruled over by a very neglectful Sorcerer King who has pretty much let his Templar-Wives run the whole show for centuries and they eventually learned that their master never checked up on them so it turned into a kind of covert war for influence and power among the Templar wives.
The Revolt in Tyr and the death of the Sorcerer King there got all the other Sorcer Kings attention and Nibenay suddenly stirred and looked at how his city was being governed and was not happy with what he found...he has instituted a purge and large numbers of Templar Waives have been killed.
Needless to say if you delving into more detail then when your PCs are on Athas is significant in terms of how the authorities they are likely to interact with are going to behave. In a more detailed version where Nibenay is specifically Nibenay and not a generic 'we are here for the look and feel' Darksun City then the Templar Wives are either scheming among themselves and trying to figure out how they can use the PCs to their advantage or terrified and likely trying to pass on any decision making regarding to another Templar Wife because strange off worlders are an unknown and every unknown in the current environment can result in one being purged, tortured and killed...the key to surviving is not being noticed.
Magic is a difficult one...really the PCs should not be displaying magic in public at all. There can't really be gladiatorial games with anyone using Magic...that is the sort of thing that needs to result in immediate death because the peons are both highly superstitious and also because the rulers will brook no opposition. Generally speaking one does things to hide the fact that one is casting magic (normally you have to take feats for this sort of thing but with your PCs 'alien' magic and the fact that you don't plan to stay...well maybe you just make sure that the PCs pick spells that don't have obvious visible effects, at least coming from them, and have to actively be trying to hide their magic use if they want to not get caught.
Thanks Jeremy for the detailed info. It will be too much reading-up on facts. Im looking for the Dark Sun - feel as you put it. I will remain in the little city. How would that be ruled 5.000 inhabitants? Lead by a man loyal to the shadow king?
Your pointers into magic are very useful, I'll use that
For inspiration I would read as many of the Dark Sun novels from TSR as you can, plus, they are really amazing reads many of them. They also give allot of nice descriptions of locations and habits that are otherwise hard to find outside of the old Dark Sun box sets, which are quite rare, and costly many times.