Hello everybody and welcome to another installment of geekiness in all of it's finest.
Today I'm going to talk about one of my favorite old school AD&D 2nd Ed. campaign settings:
DarkSun.
Yep, that's right, DarkSun
For those of you who don't play rpg's or think that those of us who do are socially inept wierdo's the typical campaign setting is something out of Tolkiens Lord of the Rings, Army of Darkness and LadyHawk, but without the bad LadyHawk soundtrack.
High fantasy with incredible creatures and magic.
And most echo each other.
Imensenly.
There's only one other setting that doesn't come off as cheesy that is original as DarkSun, but that's another topic.
What I love about it?
Well first of all the races.
Half-Giants, a mingling of giants and humans lineage to create a simple though very free race of people.
Thri Kreen: This insect guys are cool. Not only do they have four arms, but they consider anything not a Thri Kreen a potential food source. Not to mention they have a huge ass empire that's just threatening to over take the rest of the world.
Mul's: Who would have thought that half dwarf, half men with no body hair could be so cool. Not only are they tough as hell, but they are one of the coolest concept races I've come across yet.
Elves aren't cheesy wussy's anymore. These folks are tall and lanky, running across the desert that is Athas striking caravans, killing the guards, taking the goods and water and running away.
Dwarves: Ok, admittedly the dwarves of DarkSun are kind of wierd. Obsessive compulsive bastards, they have a life goal that they have to accomplish, or thier children must take up the ball.
Halflings: These folks are cool for two reason; 1) they are the original race of Athas and 2) most of them are feral, barbaric, canabalistic folk with a penchat for savagry. Gone are the serene pastorals of Tolkien. These aren't Bilbos or Frodos
Then of course.. humans: All humans serve the Dragon Kings, or at least pretend too. Either as slaves (sucks to be one of these, as you could end up as a sacrifice or in the gladitorial pits) or as a free citizen who's taxed heavily. Oh there are merchants, using the giant lizards or bugs to pull large convoys of goods and materials from city state to city state. There are also villages of folks either gathered around one of the strange elemental clerics, or groupings of escaped slaves.
The classes changed too.
Fighters were still fighters, but gladiators were more common.
Clerics didn't worship or serve a god, but the elements.
Rogues and Bards typically serve a noble household and are used as espionage tools.
and wizards... well wizards are special.
You see the idea and history of the DarkSun world, Athas, is that magic was discovered my a single man, Rajaat. He discovered two ways to use magic. One is willy nilly and takes the life energy out of things around it, the other is more peaceful and non harmful....
guess which one he used?
Athas has been decimated by magic. The races are struggling for survival, and unbeknowest to them the Kings of the city states, who are slowly turning into Dragons, are using populations of slaves to keep Rajaat in limbo through sacrifice. There are a group of wizards fighting against the evil Dragon Kings using preservation magic, but they are being hunted.
Then there is of course psionic power. Everybody has some sort of psionic power in DarkSun. And the most powerful of the Psionists, the Mind Lords are protecting the last remaining lizard men who, along with all the other races you expect to see in a DnD campaign setting were hunted to extition by each of the Dragon Kings when they were still loyal to Rajaat.
Confused?
Good. It's complicated, sort of.
DarkSun has it's own flavor, and feel. And I love it.
Next week: Al Qadim.
posted by F.G. Shaw @ 1:37 PM
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