Okay, here's some ideas I've come up with to adapt the adventures to Dark Sun. I think it actually fits pretty easily. Some of the changes seem like no brainers, like Rajaat/Kyuss and Dragotha/Dregoth, but if anyone has any other ideas I'd like to hear them.
So, Rajaat could easily replace Kyuss. Dragotha, becomes Dregoth, who's always been in search of increasing his powers. The harsh jungles to the south were Kyuss was imprisoned in a spire could become the Dead Lands.
The Free City? Tyr, obviously, there's even a gladiator adventure planned which'll fit perfectly. Diamond Lake could remain Diamond Lake only it's long since dried up and the mines are all at the bottom of the lake bed. Allustan becomes a preserver employed by Manzorian, an avangion also known as Oronis.
The city of Alhaster could become Celik, perhaps the patriarch of merchant house of Mareneth is a powerful defiler who has secretly been increasing Celik's strength and now styles himself the Prince of Celik? Or it could be Balic, and the Prince could be head of merchant house Wavir.
The Ebon Triad, instead of trying to merge Hextor, Vecna and Erythnul could have stolen obsidian orbs from Kalak, Boris and Kalid-Ma in an attempt to use the power within to revive Rajaat.
Finally, Lashonna. She is none other than Abalach-Re, revived somehow by Rajaat to be his pawn on Athas in his attempts to escape from the Black. In return for this unlife Rajaat gave her she must serve him, perhaps she's even controled by him. She could be somekind of vapiric sorcerer queen.
By the end of the adventure path the heroes will have befriended Oronis, allied with or defeated Dregoth, killed Abalach-Re a second time and prevented Rajaat from escaping the black, and finally come to power as the new rulers of the burgeoning city of Celik. (Or they could replace the merchant princes in Balic, giving Athas a second 'free city' to match Tyr.)
So, as you can tell I really want to run these adventures on Athas.
Okay, here's some ideas I've come up with to adapt the adventures to Dark Sun. I think it actually fits pretty easily. Some of the changes seem like no brainers, like Rajaat/Kyuss and Dragotha/Dregoth, but if anyone has any other ideas I'd like to hear them.
So, Rajaat could easily replace Kyuss. Dragotha, becomes Dregoth, who's always been in search of increasing his powers. The harsh jungles to the south were Kyuss was imprisoned in a spire could become the Dead Lands.
The Free City? Tyr, obviously, there's even a gladiator adventure planned which'll fit perfectly. Diamond Lake could remain Diamond Lake only it's long since dried up and the mines are all at the bottom of the lake bed. Allustan becomes a preserver employed by Manzorian, an avangion also known as Oronis.
The city of Alhaster could become Celik, perhaps the patriarch of merchant house of Mareneth is a powerful defiler who has secretly been increasing Celik's strength and now styles himself the Prince of Celik? Or it could be Balic, and the Prince could be head of merchant house Wavir.
The Ebon Triad, instead of trying to merge Hextor, Vecna and Erythnul could have stolen obsidian orbs from Kalak, Boris and Kalid-Ma in an attempt to use the power within to revive Rajaat.
Finally, Lashonna. She is none other than Abalach-Re, revived somehow by Rajaat to be his pawn on Athas in his attempts to escape from the Black. In return for this unlife Rajaat gave her she must serve him, perhaps she's even controled by him. She could be somekind of vapiric sorcerer queen.
By the end of the adventure path the heroes will have befriended Oronis, allied with or defeated Dregoth, killed Abalach-Re a second time and prevented Rajaat from escaping the black, and finally come to power as the new rulers of the burgeoning city of Celik. (Or they could replace the merchant princes in Balic, giving Athas a second 'free city' to match Tyr.)
So, as you can tell I really want to run these adventures on Athas.
Acinonyx,
I'm a big Dark Sun fan, in fact my campaign lasted 8 years. But the problem with adapting the Sorcerer-Kings to AOW is that each one the SK's is deity on to himself.
First, Dregoth or Abalach-Re would never work together. Dregoth would tear hear apart because he view's her as the driving force that killed him originally.
Second, no Sorcerer-king or Queen for that matter would ever want to free Rajaat. That would be committing suicide. Rajaat is basically the father of a pantheon of gods who betrayed him and imprisoned him some 3,000 years ago and last time he got free he ended up killing a half dozen of his kids.
Lastly, putting aside Rajaat, it would take a group of high epic level adventures of characters to just hope to survive in encounter with Dregoth. Remember a dragon is at worst a 20th Psion, 20th Wizard (at least from second edtion prospective). How could they hope to beat that?
Your best bet is to adapt the AOW by generating Kyuss as a high level Sorcerer and/or Psion and Dragotha as a reneged Dragon who hope's to remove the current SK's from power.
Good Luck.
"Your best bet is to adapt the AOW by generating Kyuss as a high level Sorcerer and/or Psion and Dragotha as a reneged Dragon who hope's to remove the current SK's from power."
No offense, but that would be boring. What's the point of playing in Dark Sun and then ignoring all the cool villains already set up for you.
The sorcerer kings are not gods. They may be powerful and all but immortal but they can be killed. Four of them were already killed, three of them by mortal heroes so why would it be impossible for my heroes to beat Dregoth?
And Rajaat? He's not a god either. And the last time he was released he didn't kill half a dozen of his 'children'. He killed one, and imprisoned another. Then he was forced back into his prison, by mortals.
One of the major themes in the Dark Sun adventures was the heroes rising up and conquering their oppressors. Changes were taking place in Athas. If I'm going to run a campaign that takes my players from levels 1 to 20 I'm going to make damn sure they make some kind of difference. Defeating Dregoth and keeping Rajaat from escaping does that. Beating some no-name high level psion doesn't
Anyway, if you read the AoW Overload it looks like Lashonna and Dragota aren't really working together at all. Lashonna wants Dragotha removed and tries to trick the PCs into getting rid of him. I could always say then, that Dregoth doesn't know Lashonna/Abalach-Re is the former sorcerer-queen. She could easily be in disguise and from the summary it's hard to tell how much contact the two of them even have. If any.
So, having two former champions taking Lashonna's and Dragotha's places only causes a problem if you want it to. I'm really not looking for someone to tell me I can't do it this way but for some ideas on how to do it this way. There's no Dark Sun rule that the Dragon Kings can't be killed. It's silly to think they weren't meant to ever be defeated. Especially when the official adventure killed off Kalak.
So, having two former champions taking Lashonna's and Dragotha's places only causes a problem if you want it to. I'm really not looking for someone to tell me I can't do it this way but for some ideas on how to do it this way. There's no Dark Sun rule that the Dragon Kings can't be killed. It's silly to think they weren't meant to ever be defeated. Especially when the official adventure killed off Kalak.
Do what you think is best, I'm just pointing out your ignoring the History of the Champions of Rajaat. The SK's are the closest things to gods on Athas and to expect a group of high level playest to beat beings that have been growing in power for 5,000 seems like a pipe dream.
But like I said it's your campaign do what you think is best. Sorry, you didn't like my answer. Good Luck with your conversion.
Sort of the problem with Dark Sun. The original look and feel they created was one of extreme harshness. Players made four characterrs because it was understood that their characters would be exterminated with extreme prejudice for any mistep. The whole setting seemed to imply a kind of oppressiveness in which small victories where the best that could be hoped for. Living another day was the reward not ammasing vast wealth and power.
But then the plots for books and timeline appeared to violate all that. It became similier to other high fantasy worlds with good triumphing over evil and mortals kicking Sorcer King butt and generally taking names.
There really was a dichotomy between the look and feel of the campaign setting and what then seemed to transpire in the world. Ultimatly it was the look and feel of the world that attracted me to the setting and it was the abandonment of the look and feel that caused me to give up on it.
Personally, the opening epic novels of a setting usually set the tone for me as much if not moreso than the rulebooks. I loved Troy Denning's Prism Pentat, and thought those books were probably the best he ever wrote.
Dark Sun is meant to be harsh. Even in the above books several main characters die by the end of the storyline. I don't think PCs were ever meant to not have big victories, but those victories were never meant to fix everything overnight, i.e. they don't suddenly make the whole world start having rainstorms, or they don't find some missing benevolent gods to guide them
Considering the only official 3.5 support for Dark Sun was in Dungeon and Dragon Magazines, I think that campaign sounds great. Though slimy green worms don't really fit in with Athas as much as segmented, armored brown and red ones might . . . lol.