The Burnt World of Athas

What If is a series of articles examining how the Dark Sun setting might be different if a single aspect were changed.

This week, we look at how Athas might be different if the gnomes - much like the lizardfolk of the Last Sea - had survived the Cleansing Wars.

What If is a series of articles examining how the Dark Sun setting might be different if a single aspect were changed.

Moongates are a concept introduced in the 4e Dark Sun Campaign Setting, and supposedly provided a means to travel from Athas to the moons of Ral and Guthay, but the concept was never truly fleshed out. If used in a Dark Sun game, moongates should probably be quite difficult to find, with only a handful of gates to be found on Athas and maybe only one or two each on Ral and Guthay. But, what if they weren’t?

An investigation of where tin comes from on Ahtas.

Adventure hooks related to charioteering for your Dark Sun game.

What if the Dark Sun’s development team had eliminated all of the Tolkien-type races from the setting like they had originally wanted to? In fact, what if they had gone even further and eliminated humans as well? Could that be a possible vision of a future Athas?

What if Dark Sun had no “Tolkien” races?

Chariots - how have they been used in Dark Sun in the past, how were they used in the real world, and how might we use them in Dark Sun?

A ruined fortress, once known as the Takaides Compound, stands empty in the desert, its towers shattered, and its walls crumbling.

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.

Four creatures that live as parasites within humanoids on Athas.

Who is that lone defiler you’ve stumbled upon in the wastes?

As they near the silt estuary, just south of Fort Kalvis, travelers along the People’s Road often move with some trepidation. Fears of rampaging monsters give way here to anxiety about the frequent dust storms that permeate the area. During these storms, many traders attempt to push through, rather than be delayed; those that tarry or stop are often unceremoniously robbed of their most precious belongings by a fast-moving gang of creatures under a shroud of silt and dust.

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.

The planar cosmology of Athas differs from the rest of the D&D multiverse. Even the Inner Planes are different. How do the Positive and Negative Energy Planes interact with Athas, and what would their clerics look like?

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.

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.

Some proposed campaigns for the Dead Lands using the content in Adventures in the Dead Lands.

Below is a narrative of the events that could have transpired to turn Athaspace into Doomspace as written in chapter 5 of The Crimson Sphere.

The village of Red Rock is designed to be a relatively generic Athasian village to allow DMs to quickly drop it onto a map wherever they might need a moderately fleshed out village.

Embarking on an adventure in the desert world of Dark Sun can be a thrilling experience for any Dungeons & Dragons player. To navigate the challenging terrain of Athas, here are ten key facts about Dark Sun that every player should know.

My friends. I sail the Silt Sea once again. For today’s clairvoyant missive in the name of the Athasian Survey Project, I share a remarkable sight - the edge of the Cerulean Storm