Having reviewed some oldies in Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, the time has come for a setting from the 90s.
The early 90s saw TSR embark on the most ambitious period of setting creation that hasn't been matches before or since, releasing no less than seven settings in boxed sets with full support in five years. One of them, developed under the working title of "War World" as a setting meant to support the Battlesystem rules, was Dark Sun, released in 1991.
Dark Sun has a special place for me personally. It was the first setting I bought that was brand new when I picked it up. Settings like Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance all had history by the time I discovered them, but Dark Sun I got to explore from the beginning of it when I picked up the original boxed set at my local game store.
Grognard retrospectives typically argue that this period was the start of the nadir for old school gaming as sandbox exploration, resource management and deadly encounters set in picaresque post-apocalyptic sword and sorcery settings gave way to epic fantasy, story archs and player character fetishization - Dark Sun however, took the old school virtues and genre nods and dialed it up to 12.
Dark Sun is post-apocalyptic Sword & Sandal setting taken to the max. An area of seven city-states ruled by despotic sorcery-kings (each taking their cultural inspirations from Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia/Babylonia, India, Khmer, central africa and the Aztecs), exist in a scorching desert wasteland that is a mashup of Mad Max, Dune, Tekumel, Planet of Adventure and Barsoom, where everything is trying to kill you in the name of survival.
Dark Sun, more than any other D&D setting, is a world where simple survival and resource management takes centre stage - Because it is so scarce. Water in particular remains a concern even at high levels when you roam the desert. Getting rich as you advance is not a given, as everyone is out to get you. Hell, even just getting your hands on some steel weapons or armor is a big deal. But really, to get the setting there is only way to do it - the artwork of Brom:
The early 90s saw TSR embark on the most ambitious period of setting creation that hasn't been matches before or since, releasing no less than seven settings in boxed sets with full support in five years. One of them, developed under the working title of "War World" as a setting meant to support the Battlesystem rules, was Dark Sun, released in 1991.
Dark Sun has a special place for me personally. It was the first setting I bought that was brand new when I picked it up. Settings like Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance all had history by the time I discovered them, but Dark Sun I got to explore from the beginning of it when I picked up the original boxed set at my local game store.
Grognard retrospectives typically argue that this period was the start of the nadir for old school gaming as sandbox exploration, resource management and deadly encounters set in picaresque post-apocalyptic sword and sorcery settings gave way to epic fantasy, story archs and player character fetishization - Dark Sun however, took the old school virtues and genre nods and dialed it up to 12.
Quick intro to the setting
Dark Sun is post-apocalyptic Sword & Sandal setting taken to the max. An area of seven city-states ruled by despotic sorcery-kings (each taking their cultural inspirations from Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia/Babylonia, India, Khmer, central africa and the Aztecs), exist in a scorching desert wasteland that is a mashup of Mad Max, Dune, Tekumel, Planet of Adventure and Barsoom, where everything is trying to kill you in the name of survival.
Dark Sun, more than any other D&D setting, is a world where simple survival and resource management takes centre stage - Because it is so scarce. Water in particular remains a concern even at high levels when you roam the desert. Getting rich as you advance is not a given, as everyone is out to get you. Hell, even just getting your hands on some steel weapons or armor is a big deal. But really, to get the setting there is only way to do it - the artwork of Brom:
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| The Dragon of Tyr |
Further detail
I previously blogged on how a properly realized setting should have its own monster book, magic book and classes. And Dark Sun is a great example of this. All the classes and races get their own twist to fit the setting - Clerics get their powers not from gods but the four elements. Wizards directly impact the environment by draining life from the soil around them. Bards are basically assassins with a social cover identity. Elves are long distance running nomads. Halflings are feral cannibals. You can play a four-armed insect. Only 36 monsters from the monster manual actually exist in Dark Sun, the rest are unique to the setting. there is only one dragon (pictured above) who is the baddest defiling wizard in the game. And pretty much everyone have psionics, including all PCs. Even plants have psionics, so they can better kill you to survive. Playing in Dark Sun feels different to other settings - and the rules all help establish that..
That Dark Sun is a game of survival is emphasized not just by the harsh survival rules and lack of resources available to players, but also with the "character tree", a method for having a folder of PCs you can swap in and out and advance somewhat in tandem. Basically telling players that yes, they should expect their characters to die but at least with this they don't start from scratch every time.
That Dark Sun is a game of survival is emphasized not just by the harsh survival rules and lack of resources available to players, but also with the "character tree", a method for having a folder of PCs you can swap in and out and advance somewhat in tandem. Basically telling players that yes, they should expect their characters to die but at least with this they don't start from scratch every time.
Publication History
The good news is that all you really need is the original boxed set and maybe the Dark Sun monstrous compendium. You may have some tinkering to do with rules to suit your system of choice, but you will never be in doubt about how to run the setting. What the supplements can offer you on top of that is really not that much.
The original boxed set was basically one of the best sets TSR ever made. The Wanderer's Journal booklet in it may be the best guide to a setting ever written - A 1st person narrative that strikes a perfect blend of being evocative and stirring to the imagination, murky on the details a DM would want to fill in himself and terse enough that it doesn't try to be a novel. Its 80 pages of content have no gaming content, can be read fairly quickly and truly immerses you in the world under the Dark Sun. This book alone places the original boxed set as the definitive guide to Dark Sun that all should start with.
The setting had good support with supplements and adventures from the outset, with books like Dune Trader, Slave Tribes and Veiled Alliance offering detail on aspects of the setting you'd want to focus on, without changing anything about the setting itself as many setting supplements end up doing.
We also got Dragon Kings for crunch, the most bad-ass gonzo high-level sourcebook you will never use, giving rules for how 20th/20th level spellcaster/psionicists can become 'advanced beings' (dragons, magic butterflies and elementals) and start casting 10th level spells, whilst fighters amass giant arms and rogues.... become higher level rogues. Pure psionicists also gain the high level feature of being sought out by even higher level psionicists telling them to stop using their powers, or else. But overall, a much better take on high level play than anything else TSR and WoTC ever managed.
A fair number of adventures were published for Dark Sun - all of them can be skipped without missing anything. The intro-adventure in the original box is probably the best of the lot and that doesn't say much. Most of them are rail-roady and/or tie into the novels to advance the metaplot (see below) and cast the PCs as big damn heroes, rather than the picaresque survalists-of-fortune that the setting is basically shouting at you to play. Really, the best way to run Dark Sun is as an exploration-based sandbox, with city intrigue on the side, with a focus on episodic tales rather than evolving story archs.
And then there are the novels of course. Pure bullshit. Within a trilogy or two, more than half the sorcery kings are dead, so is the dragon. They were all apprentices toSauron the biggest evil sorcerer ever who was brought back to life and then killed by a sorceress who got cheat codes to wizardry we never knew existed before mary sue needed them. The environment is now changing for the better and democracy is on the rise! In other words, Rose Estes on Greyhawk levels of completely missing the point of the setting. It genuinely boggles the mind that Troy Denning was co-creator of a brilliant setting in the original set, then proceeded to fucking wreck it with his novels. How can a guy fail so utterly to get the point of the very world he helped create? A total clusterfuck and one so bad that when WotC released Dark Sun for 4th edition, they simply retconned it out of existence - something they have never done before or since to any other setting.
We got a second boxed set off the back of the novels to reflect the massive changes there and also expanding the world to now have savannahs out west and a sea full of dolphins somewhere up north - basically more bullshit. They changed the logo for this as well, which means there is a nice rule of thumb for what to pick up. If it has this logo:
Then you are good to go. If, on the other hand, it has this logo:
It's gonna by infected by the bullshit WotC had to retcon out of existence later on.
The original boxed set was basically one of the best sets TSR ever made. The Wanderer's Journal booklet in it may be the best guide to a setting ever written - A 1st person narrative that strikes a perfect blend of being evocative and stirring to the imagination, murky on the details a DM would want to fill in himself and terse enough that it doesn't try to be a novel. Its 80 pages of content have no gaming content, can be read fairly quickly and truly immerses you in the world under the Dark Sun. This book alone places the original boxed set as the definitive guide to Dark Sun that all should start with.
The setting had good support with supplements and adventures from the outset, with books like Dune Trader, Slave Tribes and Veiled Alliance offering detail on aspects of the setting you'd want to focus on, without changing anything about the setting itself as many setting supplements end up doing.
We also got Dragon Kings for crunch, the most bad-ass gonzo high-level sourcebook you will never use, giving rules for how 20th/20th level spellcaster/psionicists can become 'advanced beings' (dragons, magic butterflies and elementals) and start casting 10th level spells, whilst fighters amass giant arms and rogues.... become higher level rogues. Pure psionicists also gain the high level feature of being sought out by even higher level psionicists telling them to stop using their powers, or else. But overall, a much better take on high level play than anything else TSR and WoTC ever managed.
A fair number of adventures were published for Dark Sun - all of them can be skipped without missing anything. The intro-adventure in the original box is probably the best of the lot and that doesn't say much. Most of them are rail-roady and/or tie into the novels to advance the metaplot (see below) and cast the PCs as big damn heroes, rather than the picaresque survalists-of-fortune that the setting is basically shouting at you to play. Really, the best way to run Dark Sun is as an exploration-based sandbox, with city intrigue on the side, with a focus on episodic tales rather than evolving story archs.
And then there are the novels of course. Pure bullshit. Within a trilogy or two, more than half the sorcery kings are dead, so is the dragon. They were all apprentices to
We got a second boxed set off the back of the novels to reflect the massive changes there and also expanding the world to now have savannahs out west and a sea full of dolphins somewhere up north - basically more bullshit. They changed the logo for this as well, which means there is a nice rule of thumb for what to pick up. If it has this logo:
It's gonna by infected by the bullshit WotC had to retcon out of existence later on.
Conclusion
Dark Sun is easy to sum up as a recommendation - It is a the only D&D setting where simply staying alive is an accomplishment in itself and the only D&D setting that truly departs from medieval fantasy in favor of the more exotic. If you think this sounds cool and you like the artwork pictured above, Dark Sun is going to be awesome for you. If neither is true for you, you won't like it.
