Dark Sun
In 1989, TSR released the second edition of its Battlesystem mass-combat ruleset. The company began pre-production on a new campaign setting that would use this ruleset under the working title War World. Designers envisioned a post-apocalyptic world full of exotic monsters and no hallmark fantasy creatures whatsoever. TSR worried about marketing a product lacking familiar elements. Eventually elves, dwarves, and dragons returned but in warped variations of their standard AD&D counterparts. This reversion launched the project in a new direction.
Contributors to the project at its beginnings included Rich Baker, Gerald Brom, Tim Brown, Troy Denning, Mary Kirchoff, James Lowder, and Steve Winter. With the exception of Denning and Kirchoff, design veterans such as David Zeb Cook declined to join the conceptual team. The majority of project members were new to TSR though not necessarily to the industry. Steve Winter suggested the idea of a desert landscape. His inspiration drew partly from Den by Richard Corben and the fiction of Clark Ashton Smith.
The Dark Sun setting drew much of its makeup from artist Brom's imagery. He stated I pretty much designed the look and feel of the Dark Sun campaign. I was doing paintings before they were even writing about the setting. Game designer Rick Swan described the setting as truly alien and bizarre even by AD&D game standards. The original Dark Sun Boxed Set released in 1991 presented the base setting details wherein the Tyr Region is on the verge of revolution against the sorcerer-kings.
The Wanderer's Journal begins with the Edenic Blue Age when Athas was once covered with a vast body of life-giving water under a blue sun. Halflings ruled Athas during this time building a powerful civilization. They were nature-masters and life-shapers able to produce anything they needed by manipulating the principles of nature itself. The age came to an end by accident. The halflings of the great city of Tyr'agi tried to increase the sea's fecundity in order to produce more creatures and plants. The experiment failed however instead choking the sea with a toxic brown tide that spread across the waters killing everything it touched.
The Green Age began approximately 14,000 years before the setting's starting period. Desperate to save themselves and Athas from the brown tide the halflings built the Pristine Tower a powerful talisman that could harness the energies of the sun. The light of the Pristine Tower burned away the brown tide but also changed the planet. The sun changed from blue to yellow. The endless sea receded revealing a verdant world of plant life. The halflings' civilization came to an end and most of them withdrew from the world and spiraled into savagery.
Among the new races was a rare and powerful race known as the pyreens. One of their number Rajaat would bring about sweeping changes to Athas. He discovered magic eight thousand years before the current age. Seeking more power he took possession of the Pristine Tower. Here he mastered this new force and developed two distinct ways one that preserved nature known as preserving and one that exploited it known as defiling.
Athas is a devastated world the result of magic run amok. Most of Athas is an empty desert interrupted by a handful of corrupt city states controlled by power-mad sorcerer-kings and their spell-wielding lackeys. As rain falls only once per decade in some areas water is more precious than gold. Due to the scarcity of natural resources few wizards have access to books made of paper pages and hard covers instead they record their spells with string patterns and complex knots.
Arcane magic draws its power from the life force of plants or living creatures with the potential to cause tremendous harm to the environment. As a result wizards and other arcane casters are despised and must practice in secret. Psionics are extremely common with nearly every living thing having at least a modicum of psionic ability. The people of Athas have developed laws to govern their use. Each of the major city-states in the setting have organizations that teach or regulate psionics in that region.
The Order is a secret psionic organization composed of supremely powerful psions 21st level and above that sees itself as the secret monitors of psionic balance on Athas. By and large crimes committed using psionics are punished as they would be if they were committed normally. Mind reading controlling the actions of others spying on others using by psionic means are all outlawed.
Pentad. The metaplot's timeline is set back to just after the original Dark Suns first adventure Freedom 1991.
The most notable fourth edition change expanded character building by introducing themes. Themes were a third way to define a player character identity through archetypes or careers allowing them to more clearly describe their place or role within the world. Some variant classes central to the previous editions such as gladiators templars and elemental priests were introduced as themes. Themes proved very popular and were widely adopted in other settings.
Possibly the most significant change to the setting was the alteration to its cosmology. In previous editions Athas had a setting specific cosmology that was isolated from the rest of the D&D universe making it nearly impossible to access via other planes or spacelanes. Fourth edition instead presented Athas squarely within the standard D&D cosmology though it was still difficult to access or exit.
Looking back at the setting Chris Wilson writing for Time describes the world as a good candidate for television adaptation. John Baichtal of Wired described Athas as the swords and sorcery equivalent of Mad Max. A desert world where water steel and kindness are in short supply where magic destroys the environment and the kings and queens are exclusively evil. Elves are untrustworthy merchants and halflings
are cannibals.
In his 2023 book Monsters Aliens and Holes in the Ground RPG historian Stu Horvath noted Dark Sun is perhaps TSR's most obviously political product. Coming as it did in 1991 a year after activists brought the 20th anniversary of Earth Day to the international stage with a multi-million-dollar awareness campaign it is difficult not to read the campaign setting as a grim warning. Thirty years later Dark Sun still feels relevant as a cautionary fable about unchecked power and a disregard for the environment.
Despite player interest game publisher Wizards of the Coast has chosen not to reissue the setting due to ingrained controversial content such as slavery genocide and racial savagery. The company decided against releasing the Mystic class on its own because the class would not be needed until they do Dark Sun.
The original Dark Sun product line was one of TSR's most popular releases in the 1990s with an enduring fan following. In the 1990s fans formed multiple mailing lists fan sites and discussion boards concerning the setting. These fan sites grew to such a size and scale during the 1990s that TSR filed legal paper work against them for infringing on their copyright. TSR eventually relented
after fan outcry and established a formal fan site dedicated to Dark Sun fan creations.
In May 2004 David Noonan wrote a brief update for the setting for the 3rd edition rules. The setting picked up three hundred years after the second edition and the events of the Prism Pentad. Paizo published several articles in Dragon magazine and Dungeon magazine that brought Dark Sun in line with the third edition rules. Athas.org published unrelated source materials in 2007 for Dark Sun under the open game license.
Numerous novels have been based in the Dark Sun setting. Notable authors writing in the world of Athas are Troy Denning Simon Hawke and Lynn Abbey. IDW Publishing released a five-issue comic limited series Dark Sun 2011 by writer Alex Irvine and artist Peter Bergting based on the campaign setting called Ianto's Tomb. Three video games are also set in the Dark Sun world: Dark Sun Shattered Lands 1993 Dark Sun Wake of the Ravager 1994 and the MMORPG Dark Sun Online Crimson Sands 1996.
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Common questions
When was the Dark Sun campaign setting first released by TSR?
The original Dark Sun Boxed Set released in 1991. This product presented base setting details for the Tyr Region on the verge of revolution against sorcerer-kings.
What happened to the Blue Age civilization on Athas during the Green Age?
Halflings accidentally choked the sea with a toxic brown tide that killed everything it touched. They subsequently built the Pristine Tower which burned away the tide and changed the sun from blue to yellow.
How did Rajaat change magic usage on the planet Athas eight thousand years before the current age?
Rajaat took possession of the Pristine Tower and developed two distinct ways to use magic known as preserving and defiling. Defiling magic draws power from life force causing harm to the environment while preserving magic maintains nature.
Which races were created by sorcerer-kings as slave soldiers in the Dark Sun setting?
Half-giants are magically generated human-giant hybrids created as slave soldiers who can only mate with other half-giants. Muls are dwarven-human hybrids bred as slave soldiers who are larger and stronger than humans.
Why has Wizards of the Coast chosen not to reissue the original Dark Sun setting since 2010?
Wizards of the Coast decided against releasing the setting due to ingrained controversial content such as slavery genocide and racial savagery. The company also chose not to release the Mystic class until they do Dark Sun again.