Dark·Sun News
Great News - Dark·Sun set to mount a comeback!
Wizards of the Coast Brand Manager Jim Butler announced that Dark Sun will be returning in the not to distant future as a Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition game setting. He also explains that the design team has not started work on the setting just yet and estimates that it could be 2002 before a definite release date is given. I truly believe the comeback is mainly due to you and I the fans of the Dark Sun world. A big well done goes out to us all. It seems to me that Dark Sun fans are the most devoted over the fans from other gaming systems and worlds, well that my opinion. :)
Tyrian 16/02/2000
Author Lynn Abbey speaks about her Dark·Sun novels
Once in every while a little gem pops up on the Dark·Sun mailing list, in this case Lynn abbey author of The Brazen Gambit, Cinnabar Shadows, and the controversial Rise and Fall of a Dragon King from the Chronicles of Athas series by TSR. Here is what she said:
I hope I'm doing this right...
I hope you'll all bear with me if I'm not.
I got the list address from a list subscriber I met at a convention last year.
Until then, I had no idea that there was still such interest in the Dark Sun
milieu -- or that anyone was reading my Dark Sun novels so carefully. It's
quite an honor; I'm very flattered.
In fairness, though, it has to be said that the three Dark Sun books were not
written during TSR's finest hours. The game department and the book
department communicated primarily by rumor and although I would give the book
department outlines that were roughly one-third the length of the finished book
with the understanding that they would be reviewed and vetted by the game
department, I never once got any feedback. (When it came time to do Dragon King,
I was told that if I could write the novel in next 90 days, there'd be no need
to get the gaming department's approval.)
The downside of all that freedom was that if I had a question about how the
milieu worked, I could never get an authoritative answer -- so I would make
things up. Sometimes I'd make things up that I was sure the game
department wouldn't approve -- on the assumption that in disapproving the prose
they'd have to answer my questions. This strategy never failed to
backfire.
This is why I'm so honored (and surprised) that some of you seem to have enjoyed
the books. You all have FAR more knowledge of Athas than I have or had.
My reference materials were: the first boxed set, the psionicist's handbook,
Troy Denning's Prism books, the hard-cover Dragon-Kings supplement, and (for
Hamanu's biography) something called "Beyond the Prism Pentad".
Anyway, as I understand them, at least a few Athasian druids consider it their
purpose and destiny to restore the Athasian wastelands. Philosophically, they
have a lot in common with contemporary back-to-nature and Earth-First movements.
They're not particularly tolerant of folk who don't agree with them and their
standard of "right" and "wrong" is governed by whether an
act will tend to bring a wasted area back to natural life. The druids I wrote
about avoid places like mountains because mountains don't fit into their world
view (because I thought there were a lot of contradictions in the reference
materials that I had regarding the 10+ Guardians into which druidic characters
were supposed to evolve).
I tried to imply that Telhami and her "congregation" might be
considered heretical by other druids -- I was hedging my bets because I couldn't
get the game department to answer my questions about druids in general... and I
had questions about druids because I knew from the beginning that I was going to
write about the dilemmas of a "good" man (Pavek) in a stable, but
completely corrupt, society and I felt that druids offered a better contrast to
the templars than any other "priestly" variant class.
(You can probably tell that I'm not much of a gamer. I started playing
D&D before it had numbers and when all the rule books could be fitted into a
rather small brown box. We played head-to-head, like poker, usually one PC
(with 3 NPC assistants) versus the DM. We rolled for hit points, but
everything else was negotiated, and you could never be smarter or wiser than you
actually were. Needless to say, my group stopped gaming about the time
AD&D came on the market... we went on to put together THIEVES' WORLD.)
Hamanu's story was a true roller-coaster ride. The only guidance I got
from TSR was that, when the book ended, no reader should be able to tell what,
if anything, had actually changed in Urik, or Athas-proper, because the milieu
was going to be completely re-constructed. (I was told that the halflings
were coming back in planet-killer space ships to do war with the Dragon-kings
and recreate the Blue era. I thought that had zero potential for the sort
of stories I like to write and my goal, when I began plotting the book, was to
keep Urik safe from the game department and put Hamanu someplace where they
couldn't mess with him.)
In order for Hamanu's story to work, he had to go up against a character who was
more "evil" than he was... and that meant Rajaat, which meant Ur
Draxa, the Gray, and the Black. It also meant trying to reconcile the
material in "Beyond the Prism Pentad" with the Pentad itself... and
without TSR's help. I managed to get a few maps of Ur Draxa, but I didn't know
if they were "official", so I had to flood the place with sludge and
fog to create believable confusion on Hamanu's part (since he should have known
how the city was laid out and how it worked). I never did figure out the
Black or the Gray; fortunately, Hamanu didn't understand them either, so it
wasn't difficult to create believable confusion.
After I finished Dragon King, the game department did answer most of the
questions I'd raised over the preceding years... naturally they answered them
their own way, which contradicted much of what I'd laid out in my three books.
There's is the "official" version, but I like to think that Hamanu's
was the truth... at least as he understood it.
I know the old Lion of Urik would be pleased (but not surprised) to find that
Dark Sun continues to exist on the Internet.
If anyone ever has questions about why things are the way they are in the books
I wrote, I'll be happy to answer them -- I only hope you won't be too
disappointed by my answers.
All for now... Lynn Abbey
Well I for one did enjoy the novels very much. As far as Hamanu, "King of the World & Lion of Urik" is concerned he is still alive and kicking in my campaign and giving his subjects grief at every opportunity.
Tyrian 13/02/2000
Official Dark·Sun Website is Announced
Some of you lucky people in the Dark·Sun community may know of a site known as The Burnt World of Athas ran by Chay0s (Robert Adducci). Well thanks to the people who voted for his site and Jim Butler for not forgetting us Athasian fanatics, as The Burnt World of Athas is now the Official Dark·Sun site. According to Chay0s many excellent downloads including the elusive "Dregoth's Ascending" adventure which was ran at the US Gen Con a few years ago will be available for download along with a whole host of other official and unofficial releases. There is too much information to tell you here so all I can advise is go to my links page click on the Burnt World of Athas link and go see for yourself. You will not be disappointed.
Tyrian 11/01/2000
Buy Dark·Sun products online at Wizards.com
I was looking at the Wizards of the Coast web pages recently and I saw that the Revised Dark·Sun Campaign Setting boxed set along with several accessories including Wanderers Chronicle: Mind lords of the last sea and the City by the Silt Sea campaign expansion were available to buy. I suggest you log on to this site and buy as much Dark·Sun stuff as your piggybank allows. Even if you already own the stuff buy it anyway, this could be the last chance we get to have this campaign fully re-released.
Tyrian 04/01/2000
Tyrian attacks CEO of Wizards of the Coast
It all started in the D&D 3rd Edition seminar, when the key members of WoTC and their CEO Peter Adkinson were answering questions, when I asked them about future plans for the Dark·Sun setting. They said that they had been conducting a survey on the Dark·Sun setting and that the feedback was positive. I also got particularly nasty when they told me that some of my generic AD&D 2nd edition stuff would become useless when the 3rd edition is released, such as my monstrous compendiums and players option books, but that's another story.
Toward the end of the convention I managed to get CEO Peter Adkinson all alone (without his extremely fat blonde bloater of a wife/girl friend), he looked a tad intimidated as I put my feelings across to him about the Dark·Sun setting as well as the online and offline support for the game setting. He said that WoTC would like to release at least one product from every game world including Dark·Sun but at the moment they are preoccupied with the development of 3rd edition. But he assured me not to forget about the Dark·Sun setting. I told him I wouldn't hold my breath, as he skulked away to the safety of his underlings.
At the end of the convention the entire European RPGA steering committee staged a walkout, in protest to the interference caused by WoTC. A friend said wizards wanted the plug pulled on some none wizards produced game systems and to push the shitty CCG's to the max, which made many members of the European RPGA very pissed off.
Tyrian 13/09/1999
Dark·Sun back at the 1999 European Gen Con
Well after inspecting the prospectus for the 1999 Gen Con I was very sad when I saw no Dark·Sun games running on any day of the convention. I e-mailed WoTc and asked for an explanation, all they said was that no scenarios had been submitted to the RPGA. I attended the convention anyway and to my surprise a Dark·Sun adventure was running, but to my horror, on only one table with six players. I began to ask how and why this had happened. As I see it, the RPGA had made the fact that a Dark·Sun adventure was running on their website, and that it could only be pre-booked online and people with generic convention tickets could not play. I was not alone as more and more delegates wanted to play Dark·Sun so one of my gaming group offered to DM and then others offered to do the same and soon seven tables were up and running with almost fifty players and DM's involved. As a new Dark·Sun table became available it was selling out, and I am sure if there had been a few more DM's the tables would still have been filled with players.
So what appeared to be a Dark·Sun free convention, turned out to be a success.
Tyrian 05/09/1999
Read this what do you think ?
Dear Tyrian,
As an old role-player... that is I
have had experience with role-playing since the very first
edition of AD&D. I would if it is any consolation, to join
you in your agony and disgust with the so called Wizards of the
Chaos...sorry Coast? It is now my conclusion that the industry
for role-playing has shifted totally to a money making market
that has lost it's way. Now don't get me wrong on this subject..
I have no qualms with a company making some major cash and am in
now way a socialist. But I must refrain when an industry such as
the role-playing market, one that is really untested as cash flow
is concerned( i.e. no real mass market to fall back on) is so
blatantly experimented with!
How the hell can a market, which is made up of a demographic
which crosses such a broad spectrum, be manipulated and
experimented with in such a manor that is so obvious to most of
the people within the industry that the 'powers that be' are
playing with them!?
Please bring back Gary Gygax!!
A very disgruntled Dark·Sun fan
Greg 20/10/1998
Look what a fellow Dark·Sun fan thinks of WoTC
This image was supplied by Liam Powell who strongly feels betrayed by Wizards of the Coast. I must admit that I agree with him 100% .
I wanted to show you a gif I made showing How I feel about WoTC. I hope you like and feel free to use it on your web page. I write to TSR all the time and tell them to bring back Dark·Sun. Well keep playing Dark·Sun and complaining to WoTC.
Liam Powell 11/10/1998
1998 Gen Con UK turns back on Dark·Sun
This years Gen-con UK has pulled out of running any sanctioned Dark·Sun tournaments. After speaking to a member of staff for Wizards of the Coast they said that the adventure they had was unsuitable.
What annoys me the most is that in the pre registration booklet it said that Dark·Sun would run on the Friday evening of the event but they chose to cancel Dark·Sun only a week before the convention started.
I hope Gen-con UK 1999 will be better.
Tyrian 29/08/1998
If
you have any news concerning Dark·Sun which you feel needs to be
seen, 
me and I will
include it on this page.