The Burnt World of Athas

The official Dark Sun website

Dark Sun World Campaign Setting

published by TSR

Amid the barren wastelands of Athas lie the scattered city-states, each in the grip of its own, tyrannical sorcerer-king. Protecting their own positions with dark magic, they demand absolute obedience. The restless mobs are placated with bread and circuses --the arenas overflow with spectators seeking release from their harsh lives.

The land outside the cities belong to no one. Savage elves race across the deserts while insectoid Thri-Kreen satisfy their taste for blood. Dwarves labor at projects beyond the scope of men, and feral halflings lie in ambush.

Athas is a land of deadly magic and powerful psionics that offers promise of glory or even of survival. Those who do not have the cunning to face life on Athas will surely perish - leaving nothing but bones bleached white under the blistering rays of the DARK SUN

  • On the sands of Athas you'll faceThree new PC races!
  • Muls - half-dwarf, half-human; specially bred for combat!
  • Thri-Kreen - the savage mantis-warriors of the Barrens!
  • Half-giants - bred for tremendous size and strength
  • Three new PC classes!
  •  Gladiators - heroes of the arenas, the ultimate warriors!
  • Templars - Wicked priests who serve the sorcerer-kings!
  • Defilers - wizards whose powers drain the life around them!
  • More powerful PC's
  • All Dark Sun game characters begin at 3rd level!
  • Ability scores that can go as high as 24!
  • All PC's have one or more psionic powers!
  • The new character tree allows players to advance many characters at once!

Where to buy

Resources

The following unofficial resources are provided to as player and dungeon master aids to help enhance the experience of using this product.

Jura Dai Fort

    created by:
  • Raddu

A map of the Jura Dai fort in the A Little Knowledge adventure from the original boxed set. Assets by Gabriel Pickard.

  • elven
  • fort
  • map
  • vtt
  • a little knowledge

16.2 MB jpg uploaded January 10, 2023 by Raddu

Wezer Hive Map

    created by:
  • Raddu

A map of the Wezer Hive in the A Little Knowledge adventure from the original boxed set. Assets by Gabriel Pickard.

  • map
  • wezer
  • hive
  • a little knowledge

331 KB jpg uploaded January 10, 2023 by Raddu

Desert Tower Maps

    created by:
  • Raddu

A map of a 3 story desert tower in the A Little Knowledge adventure from the original boxed set. Assets by Gabriel Pickard.

  • tower
  • vtt
  • a little knowledge
  • map

235 KB zip uploaded January 10, 2023 by Raddu

Traveler's Guides to the Cities of Athas

    created by:
  • Logarium

Traveler’s Guides to the Cities of Athas written in the style that appeared first in The Ivory Triangle for Gulg and Nibenay.

  • City-States
  • Balic
  • Celik
  • Draj
  • Eldaarich
  • Gulg
  • Kurn
  • New Kurn
  • Nibenay
  • Raam
  • Saragar
  • Thamasku
  • Tyr
  • Ur Draxa
  • Urik

15.3 MB pdf uploaded January 11, 2023 by Raddu

Cities of Athas - DM's Summaries and Statistics

    created by:
  • Logarium

DM’s Summaries to the Cities of Athas written in the style that appeared first in The Ivory Triangle for Gulg and Nibenay.

  • Tyr
  • Ur Draxa
  • Draj
  • Celik
  • Balic
  • Eldaarich
  • Gulg
  • Kurn
  • Nibenay
  • Raam
  • Saragar
  • Thamasku
  • Urik

3 MB pdf uploaded January 28, 2023 by Adam Cieszlak

Silver Spring Fort Map

    created by:
  • Raddu

VTT Map of Silver Spring fort according to Elves of Athas Map created with assets by Gabriel Pickard.

  • Silver Spring
  • elven
  • vtt
  • map

868 KB jpg uploaded February 01, 2023 by Raddu

Tablelands font

    created by:
  • Ruhl-Thaun_Sage
  • Diesel

Art by Diesel LaForce, font by Gabriel Eggers.

  • font

110 KB zip uploaded February 06, 2023 by Raddu

City-State of Urik

    created by:
  • June Soler

The City-State of Urik as created by June Soler with help from the Dark Sun community. Technically this version is circa FY 300+, but there’s little content that cannot be used in othertimelines. Associated City-State of Urik Map

  • Urik

6.02 MB pdf uploaded April 29, 2023 by Raddu

Opportunities in Chaos

    created by:
  • brax

This adventure is set in the Warrens of the Athasian City-State of Tyr, amid the chaos immediately following Kalak’s overthrow and demise. It is designed for three to five PCs of third to fifth level, at least two of whom should be rogues, preservers, priests, or psionicists. “Opportunities” works best if used as a sequel to David Cook’s excellent Freedom flip-book module. Note that this is an adventure outline, designed to give DMs ideas. DMs should develop appropriate stats, opponents, NPCs, and encounters. You can find an online version in the Articles section.

  • Tyr

1.43 MB zip uploaded June 10, 2023 by Raddu

Excursions: Lost Temple of Rahoon

    created by:
  • June Soler
  • Adam Cieszlak
  • Raddu
  • Logarium

A recent sandstorm of epic proportions has shifted the mountainous dunes of the Great Alluvial Sand Sea, revealing a temple of the ancients. Can you delve into the ancient ruins in search of riches before the next sandstorm buries them once again? This adventure scenario for the DARK SUN® Campaign Setting is designed for play in a 4-hour session with 3 to 6 players using 4th level pre-generated player characters.

By June Soler Editing: Adam Cieszlak, Robert Adducci Art: Stuart Lynch, WOTC Art assets Cartography: June Soler, Diesel, Mark Hope

  • Excursions
  • 5e
  • Adventure

17.1 MB zip uploaded June 13, 2023 by Raddu

Dark Sun Net Handbook

    created by:
  • John M Martz

Introduction to the Third Edition AT LAST! The Third Edition of the Dark Sun Net Handbook is finally out. This is a collection of the work of many players and DMs for the AD&D campaign setting Dark Sun. I see a net.book as a source of knowledge and inspiration. Therefore I’ve included anything I could. Even if I found something totally unusable I included it because I’m sure that someone will instead love that rule/race/class and find it fundamental for his campaign. I especially like the sections wich have something to do with game mechanics such as the one on tattoos. We all should be less concerned with rules and more with those little things. Nothing in this net.book is official or fundamental, take what you like and discard what you don’t

  • 2e
  • unofficial
  • netbook

522 KB pdf uploaded January 31, 2024 by Raddu

Tablelands and Elves of Athas maps

    created by:
  • Raddu

Created by u/diomand20 A while ago, u/logarium posted a hex overlayed version of the Tablelands map and has extra locations added to it. And while that is an excellent resource, there were some locations he put that I either didn’t agree with or didn’t care to use in my games. So I decided to make even more versions of the map for people like me who might disagree with certain locations or whatnot.

This post has scanned maps of the map that comes with Elves of Athas and the OG 1991 boxed set (both the black and white hex version and the colored version). For the colored hex versions, I tried to get the hexes to line up with the OG black and white hexes as best I could, but from what I can tell the hexagons on the OG map are NOT perfect hexagons…they are stretched ever slightly in one direction, so it seems impossible to get a hex overlay to line up exactly matching.

On the OG Tablelands map I also put extra locations on both versions of the map, and put a hex overlay on the colored version. There are also hex versions without the extra locations added, and hex versions without the added scale as well.

Finally, there is a version with extra locations added that only has canon locations. In other words, if the extra site is never seen on a map or never has its location described as being somewhere specific by an official Dark Sun module, I left it off. A good example of such location is the Jura Dai Castle and almost all of the shrine locations from Earth Air Fire and Water.

  • map
  • Elves of Athas

1.05 GB zip uploaded May 19, 2025 by Raddu