While there are a lot of more standard fantasy worlds that you can play Dungeons and Dragons in, and I’ve touched on a lot of them, Dark Sun is one that is completely different. Adding in new and dangerous things, Dark Sun is more of a setting that characters survive in than thrive in.

In Dark Sun, magic has failed and corrupted everything. Because of this, casters are despised. But it makes sense in a world where the land has been turned into a desert primarily, magic draws from the life force of the world, and things like metal are extremely rare. Characters are going to be fighting with bone, wood, and obsidian, which are all prone to breaking. The same is true for armor, so no one is really ever safe. With all of that, there is still magic in the world in the way of psionics. More of a mental battle, think of the Doctor Strange weird dimensions that they can get into, almost all races and people have some psionic abilities. Ruling over all the lands are the Sorcerer-Kings. They are the only ones who really have a right to cast spells. And they rule with iron fists. Slavery is common in the lands of the Dark Sun setting. If you’re are able bodied and can be grabbed, you can turned into a slave.

Playing in this setting is going to be about the struggle for survival and making small improvements. You’re more apt to be surviving disasters than you are likely to fix the world. Since magic draws life energy, the world is basically lost at this point. Add in that magic, while a thing, is really frowned upon because it got the world to this point. So if you have a spellcaster in your party, they are going to be an outcast of society. Even clerics are going to be looked at oddly because there are no deities in this setting. Clerics gain their powers from making pacts with powerful elementals, not because of their devotion to a certain deity. It gives them more of a warlock flavor while still having the cleric abilities and this hasn’t even been the case in all editions of D&D. In 4th edition (Dark Sun hasn’t been done for fifth yet), cleric was just not a playable race at all in the Dark Sun settings.

The races also change up as well. Most notably, our friendly halflings now live in tribes ruled by shaman and are cannibals. You can still be a halfling, just know what what means for your character. There are a few other races that were introduced into the world. Thri-Kreen are six legged humanoid mantis folk. Their legs/arms and harder skin allow them to more easily adapt to the dangerous lands of Dark Sun. Aarakocra were another race that were introduced. These are your bird humanoids who are able to fly. Beyond that, you can play most of the normal races without any problem just with slight differences. For example, dwarves in basically all settings are known for their beards and beards can be kind of a status symbol, in Dark Sun, they don’t have hair.

What sort of game would you play in this setting? I would think that it’s going to be heavily focused on survival. Maybe you are a band of former slaves who have escaped their owner, possibly even one of the Sorcerer-Kings, and you need to stay alive. This could mean that you need to stay on the run survive long enough to become strong enough to take on whomever is chasing you down. It could be that you are part of a group who believes that the Sorcerer-Kings are the force that is still corrupting the lands and that if you can take out one or two of them, the lands might return and not be such a wasteland. Or maybe you want to do the D&D version of Mad Max: Fury Road. But, in all the cases, it’s going to be about survival, about making or finding weapons so that you’re never out there defenseless, finding food. It’s going to be a game where you track everything, the arrows you’ve lost, the meals you’ve had, because eventually things are going to run out, will you have found more by the time they do, that’s the question.

So, to wrap this up, would I want to play a game in this setting? Sure, I’d be up for it. The survival nature of the game doesn’t sound highly interesting to me, but because of how the world is created so uniquely, it does seem like it would be a more interesting world to play in. I actually think playing a spellcaster would be interesting in the setting, playing a caster who has the power but doesn’t know if they should be casting spells because of it’s negative effect on the life energy in the world. I don’t know that it would be my first choice, but I’d definitely play in it

How about you, would you or have you played in a Dark Sun game?

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