Talk:Dark Sun
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[edit] Group Goals
"Beneath a dying sun lies a world of sand and fire, a world of barbaric splendor and savage desolation. This is Athas, a desert planet laid waste by unchecked sorcery and ancient wars. Immortal sorcerer-kings reign over the cities that remain, celebrating their tyranny with bloody arena games and brutal oppression. Cruel slavers and fierce raiders roam the wastelands in search of captives and plunder. Only the strongest heroes can endure the fury of the crimson sun."
Well, that's what it says on the back of the Dark Sun Campaign Setting, and it's pretty accurate.
On Athas, everything is trying to eat you, enslave you or rob you.
In order to avoid some pitfalls of previous campaigns, I wanted to go over a few things with the group.
Frequently we've had parties that had little reason to stick together: not this time. I'm also looking for heroes who are heroic and willing to take risks. There won't be any evil PCs, and living in a city minding your own business is simply not safe on Athas anyway. (The government is an evil bureaucracy, filled with powerful templars who compete with each other over resources -- you.)
I'm looking for heroes interested in action adventuring, so please design character concepts and pick a goal accordingly. (I'm not talking about stats or combat utility here -- it's pretty difficult to design a 4e character who isn't combat-capable -- but about motivations.) The campaign will have a moderate focus on exploration. Settling down and starting a business is, essentially, creating a plot hook for more of the above. (The crime lords and templars want their cut. They always do. Feel free to play them off against each other.)
[edit] Group Goals Redux
What about our group seeking to set up a kind of free town? Eric and I are both Good aligned, so helping others is a thing. I think freeing a city from marauders, tyranny, and evil would be a noble long term goal. Like, we wouldn't be in charge of it (unless they wanted us to be), but we'd carve out a little corner of the world that wasn't so damned shitty.
That could be really cool. Even if it was a neighborhood in a larger city.
If we could help the leadership or somehow influence the leadership that would be better cause they could introduce plots and adventures to us. Also I think it would be good if we spend significant portions of time abroad from the village.
So maybe coming across some freed slaves who have already started a town, but need some burly protectors to keep away opportunistic raiders and such might be the best option?
What I was picturing was more of a 'help us, valiant heroes, the slavers are attacking again!' So we go kill the slaver king to stop organized slaver attacks.
But oh no! We return and the now safe town has become industrious enough that the local magistrate wants to take control over it. So we have to go stop him. Etc.
The city is just a base and a plot device. As good heroes, it would go against our code to extract subservience from a town that wishes to be free.
I wasn't thinking we necessarily needed to start a village, but that could be extra cool. How about a bunch of escaped slaves that have huddled together for mutual protection? They'd have a lot of the basic labour skills like farming (do they do that in Dark Sun?) and mining, but be constantly having problems of leadership because they're all from different places and have issues with people telling them what to do. They might even have some basic crafting skills, but I assume anything really nice is at least overseen by an actual artisan, if not made by him personally.
[edit] Forming the Group
Giovelli was thrown out of his village, badly wounded. In that time a Thri-Kreen shared his story with Giovelli. He had been part of a clutch to which he was extremely loyal. He was a warrior and prided himself on defending those weaker than himself. One night they were ambushed by fearsome creatures. He saw his clutch losing the battle and in a desperate attempt to help his clutchmates accidentally unleashed a blast of psychic power - something he didn't know he was capable of. The creatures seemed to be susceptible to the attack and fell dead but many of his clutchmates were gravely injured. The clutch decided it was too dangerous to have him around and banished him from their midst. He still does not know if any of his comrades died from their wounds. He has been wandering the desert alone since then.
After Giovelli's wounds had fully recovered he and the Thri-Kreen became a pair of wandering peddlers who also offered their services as mediators, and protectors.
Jon is some kind of emo delusional giant barbarian (who wouldn't want to hang out with this guy?) who is chasing down some imaginary slavers. How about Mike and I met him on our travels of peddling and doing what good we can. When Jon told us his tragic story we didn't have an idea of who the slavers may have been so we offered to let him travel with us in case we stumbled upon any leads.
The fun thing is it keeps the story fluid and tragic, though on second thought quite disturbingly Momento-ish. Its just a complete coincidence that I happen to also be the dpr dude too.
Alex is a reformed(ish) cannibal halfling. He's I think stopped his human child eating ways and adventuring with us because one of us saved him.
Lets say that Jon's character saved Alex's, that way its two teams of 2 joining together to create a team of 4
[edit] Needs subpages
This page seriously needs subpages. Or at least subsections. Right now there's no way to navigate it except by scrolling through the whole thing. Dave
You're not seeing the table of contents? Prince (Speak) 07:38, 7 December 2010 (EST)
- Sorry, I misspoke. It's got some sections, but should be better-delimited. Definitely, there shouldn't be that much text on the main campaign page. Dave 11:44, 7 December 2010 (EST)
- I split out another section. It's just a suggestion, and I'm not actually involved in this campaign, so feel free to undo my change. Dave 11:49, 7 December 2010 (EST)
[edit] Penny Arcade Podcasts
For more Dark Sun gaming: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/podcasts.aspx
