Ah! Hello there. Grak! Be a good boy, and inform the Overcouncil that
we have visitors. Quickly now, you can finish your sweetmeats when you get
back.
You'll have to forgive him, he's a bit slow. Good help has been
impossible to find since Tithian freed all of our slaves. Now then, what is
it I can do for you?
What is Dark Sun?
Dark Sun is a campaign setting for the
Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game.
Set on the desert world of Athas, Dark Sun
is about the struggle for survival.
Nine city-states cling to life in the Tablelands. Until recently, they
were ruled by powerful Sorcerer-Kings, both tyrants and protectors. Now,
only five remain; the other cities are cast into chaos and violent strife.
Soon, the desert may swallow them, as it has so many times before. The
wastes are riddled with the ruins of cities long dead.
It is a world where magic drains the very essence of life. Ancient wars
have left vast swaths of the planet sterile; even now, druids fight a losing
battle to preserve the environment. To practice magic is to tempt death at
the hands of the mob, yet the cities themselves are ruled by the most
powerful of defilers.
Originally released in 1991 by TSR for the 2nd edition of AD&D,
Athas.org has been the steward of the Dark Sun campaign setting since the
release of D&D 3rd edition in 2000. In that time, we have released
updated core rules, two
monstermanuals,
numerous setting supplements, such as
City State of Draj and
Wisdom of the Drylanders,
and the epic adventure
Dregoth Ascending.
You can see a list of all of our products
here
Rich Baker has been doing a retrospective on his time working on Dungeons and Dragons, in celebration of it’s 50th anniversary. He’s recently posted about the development of Dark Sun 4e, which includes the origins of what would eventually become the core 5e “Background” character pillar.
Our heroes are caught between opposing forces and old misdeeds as a fresh threat arises in Nibenay. Their decisions will shape the fate of their home - and their lives - for many years to come…
Deep in Nibenay’s Forbidden City, our heroes struggle to reach the Shadow-King’s citadel. But first they must face the sorcerer-monarch’s templar wives and roaming undead horrors!
After several years in the making, I’m pleased to finally announce the Athasian Cartographer’s Guild website is now reborn, thanks to the incredible efforts of @greyorm and the Pristine Tower dev team!
For those not familiar with the site, since 2000 this has been the most expansive source of collected canon and fanon geography for Athas and Dark Sun. And now the site and its maps have been comprehensively updated to better serve its purpose and help DMs and players explore the whole world.
Features:
-Entirely new structure which works across all sizes of computers and devices
-An upgraded planetary map with carefully constructed proportions and scales.
-New vector-based high detail maps for nearly all the map tiles covering the original revised map, plus the west coast of the neighbouring Anattan continent.
-A new scheme for encouraging aspiring mapmakers to join us.
Written by Adam Cieszlak, and first published on 2024-10-06
The Quick Plot Hooks series started as a fun thought experiment - how to develop interesting but reasonable encounters using two types of creatures from randomly determined Dark Sun Monstrous Compendium entries.
Written by ErinM, Neujack, and Adam Cieszlak, and first published on 2024-09-15
Legends, myths, and stories populate the tales of bards. Ancient and neatly-forgotten legends lurk in the minds of these prolific storytellers, sometimes rising to the surface like a morning mist to expose secrets not revealed since the Green Age, if not longer.