Warhammer Quest Time Wiki

A D&D Campaign - 25 Years in the making.

DARK SUN: Session Log (Click this link)
Introduction

Athas’ savage, primal landscape is the result of long centuries of ecological and magical abuses. The world is dying. It breathes its last gasps as water turns to silt, grasslands become sandy wastes, and jungles decay into stony barrens. Still, life finds ways to endure even in these hellish conditions. In fact, it thrives.

Children growing up beneath the crimson sun don’t aspire to become heroes. True heroes who champion causes or try to make the world a better place are as rare as steel on Athas. Living to see the next dawn is more important than defending a set of beliefs, so survival ultimately motivates all living creatures—not virtue or righteousness.

Today, Athas rushes toward its future. If the course of destruction is to be diverted, if Athas is to be restored, then heroes must grab the reins of destiny and give new hope and promise to the world.

8 Things You Need to Know

1. Dark Sun is Different from Traditional D&D.

Many monsters, classes, spells or magic items are different from the core rulebooks. This is because Athas has a very different background than most D&D settings.

2. Tone and Attitude.

Athas puts the survival of the fittest concept to its fullest. Those who cannot adapt to endure the tyrannical sorcerer‐kings, the unrelenting sun, or the many dangers of the wastes will certainly perish.

Illiteracy and slavery are commonplace, while magic is feared and hated.

3. A Burnt World.

Thousands of years of reckless spellcasting and epic wars have turned Athas into a barren world, on the verge of an ecological collapse. From the first moments of dawn until the last twinkling of dusk, the crimson sun shimmers in the olive–tinged sky like a fiery puddle of blood, creating temperatures up to 150° F (65° C) by late afternoon. Water is scarce, so most Athasians need to come up with alternative solutions for dealing with the heat or perish.

4. A World Without Metal.

Metals are very rare on Athas. Its scarcity has forced Athasians to rely on barter and different materials, such as ceramic, to use as currency. It also hampers industrial and economic development as well; mills and workshops rarely have quality tools to produce everyday products. Even though most Athasians have developed ways of creating weapons and armor made of nonmetallic components, but the advantage of having metal equipment in battle is huge.

5. The Will and The Way.

From the lowliest slave to the most powerful sorcerer‐king, psionics pervade all levels of Athasian society. Virtually every individual has some mental ability, and every city‐state has some sort of psionic academy available. Athasians use the term Will to refer to someone’s innate ability for psionics and the Way for the study of psionics.

6. A World Without Gods.

Athas is a world without true deities. Powerful sorcerer‐kings often masquerade as gods but, though their powers are great and their worshippers many, they are not true gods. Arcane magic requires life force, either from plants or animals, to be used. All divine power comes from the Elemental planes and the spirits of the land that inhabit geographic features.

7. The Struggle For Survival.

The basic necessities of life are scarce on Athas. This means that every society must devote itself to attaining food and safeguarding its water supply, while protecting themselves from raiding tribes, Tyr–storms, and other city‐states. This essentially means that most Athasian must devout a large deal of their lives just to survive.

8. The Seven City‐states.

The Tyr Region is the center of the world of Athas, at least as far as the people of the seven city‐states are concerned. It’s here, along the shores of the Silt Sea and in the shadows of the Ringing Mountains that civilization clings to a few scattered areas of fertile land and fresh water. The majority of the population lives in the city‐states of Tyr, Urik, Raam, Draj, Nibenay, Gulg, and Balic. The remainder lives in remote villages built around oases and wells, or wanders about in nomadic tribes searching for what they need to survive.

Proposed Quick Fixes:


 * Currency - All currency is non-metallic but is represented by the same numbers
 * Water/Food - they are extremely rare when in the wastes - Daily survival roll - Fail = +1 Lvl of Exhaustion
 * Extreme Heat (wastes) -  one roll per day, not per hour (DMG 110)
 * No metal starting equipment - same stats except your equipment is made of bone, leather, shell/chitin, stone, obsidian, wood, etc. (metal equipment is automatically at least +1) See below for an example
 * Metal Rarity - metal items in equipment section will have costs x100 when available
 * Wild Talent - Characters may take an innate psionic ability rolled at random (I have a table)
 * Magical Sources- casting characters must choose to either be aligned with Preservers or Defilers - either you gain your magical abilities by aligning with life forces or death (entropy) forces (For example a cleric or paladin might draw their power from the defied forms of specific types of flora/fauna/natural processes - not gods like Helm, etc.)

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So basically, I took a 150 pg custom rule book and boiled it down to these fixes. Everything else can stay the same and we can just suspend belief. Basically we will be playing standard 5e with a Dark Sun "skin" laid overtop.

You may want to make an edit to characters. Feel free to make edits and talk with me for ideas. For example: Malice may want to change his Natural Explorer trait as there are no forests on Athas.

Example:

Armor

Breastplate, Full Plate and Half Plate: These armors are constructed using choice plates taken from shelled animals, such as mekillots or braxat.

Studded Leather: This armor is crafted using close‐set rivets made of bone, hardwood, stone, or talons.

Shell Armor: Shell armor is made by weaving giant’s hair around the shells of various small creatures such as an aprig. Shell armor is the Athasian equivalent to the Player’s Handbook’s chain mail armor.

Chitin Armor: This armor is skillfully made by interlocking hexagonal bits of chitin (usually carved from a kank’s carapace). Chitin armor is the Athasian equivalent to the Player’s Handbook’s chain shirt armor.

Scale mail: Scale mail is usually made from the scales of an erdlu, inix or other naturally scaled creatures.

Banded Mail and Splint Mail: These armors are fashioned from shavings of agafari wood, bonded to softer, more flexible woods, and treated with a hardening resin.

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Community Founders: Falco Chubb and his compatriots. 