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Slave Tribes
Out of the swirling, bone-dry sands of Athas come hordes of raiders. They overrun caravans, strip them bare, then vanish into the untracked wastes once more. Who are these ghosts of the desert? Where do they live? How do they survive far from the high walls of the city-states? Slave Tribes answers these and many more questions about the ex-slaves who escape into the desert. The Dark Sun game world is now open to campaigns in realms beyond the reach of the sorcerer-kings. The most prominent and successful slave tribes of the Tyr region are presented in great detail in this accessory. Slave Tribes enables the DM to create entirely new tribes to roam his Dark Sun campaign. It also shows players how to form their own tribes when their characters escape the clutches of the sorcerer-kings. The deadly world of Athas shows no mercy to those who are unprepared for its dangers!
96 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1992
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About the author
Bill Slavicsek
106 books23 followersBill Slavicsek's gaming life was forever changed when he discovered Dungeons & Dragons in 1976. He became a gaming professional in 1986 when he was hired by West End Games as an editor. He quickly added developer, designer, and creative manager to his resume, and his work helped shape the Paranoia, Ghostbusters, Star Wars, and Torg roleplaying games. He even found some time during that period to do freelance work for D&D 1st Edition. In 1993, Bill joined the staff of TSR, Inc. as a designer/editor. He worked on a bunch of 2nd Edition material, including products for Core D&D, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, and Planescape. In 1997, he was part of the TSR crowd that moved to Seattle to join Wizards of the Coast, and in that year he was promoted to R&D Director for D&D. In that position, Bill oversaw the creation of both the 3rd Edition and 4th Edition of the D&D Roleplaying Game. He was one of the driving forces behind the D&D Insider project, and he continues to oversee and lead the creative strategy and effort for Dungeons & Dragons.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 26, 2013
A book about slavery in a fantasy setting? How many ways can this go wrong?
At least, that was my first thought when I went to read this, but I was pleasantly surprised. The first chapter goes into detail about slavery on Athas, and it manages to both indicate how common the attitude that slavery is no big deal is on Athas and how it's absolutely necessary for the economy of the entire region while still never making slavery ever seem like a good thing. It helps that it's written from an in-universe perspective--a dwarf slave named Daled, who points out that even the most popular slave artisan is only a noble's opinion away from being tossed into the obsidian mines or the fields outside the city.
The book is almost entirely fluff, and other than the statistics of the characters inside it doesn't have any new rules at all. This is where the somewhat-infamous metaplot of Dark Sun first reared its head, though, with the occasional mentions of something odd happening in Tyr to disrupt the iron trade, and possibly free the slaves, that would be fully explained in Dragon Kings. And the novels, admittedly, but those are a different genre entirely.
And other than the metaplot, the fluff is really good. I already mentioned the first chapter, and the following chapters go into specifics about some of the slave tribes mentioned in the title. Tribes like The Free, who are almost more of a legend than a tribe, or The Black Sand Raiders, who are a kill-and-loot raiding tribe with a dark secret, or Salt View, who survive through the twin means of raiding caravans and traveling theatre troupes. After the specifics are the general, with a section on life in a slave tribe, how they survive and deal with threats in the deserts, what it means to join a tribe and how life changes after the characters do, what happens when new people join the tribe, how tribes manage the problems of hierarchy when they're all enjoying freedom so much, and so on.
The end of the book is all about making custom slave tribes, including a chart to randomly roll them up, and ways to detail how they survive, their attitude towards things like travelers, other slaves, the sorcerer-kings, magic and so on. There's also a section about players making their own tribes, which is pretty good because "You're all slaves who just escaped together" is Dark Sun's "You all meet a mysterious cloaked man in a tavern."
One of the main problems I have with the book is mentions of alignment. Now, alignment makes very little sense even in the best of times, but it did give us Planescape, so I can't complain about it too much. The thing is, though, that for Dark Sun especially alignment doesn't make much sense. Unlike most D&D settings, there aren't any angels or demons (well, except in limited numbers later), and all the extra-planar entities that exist are either uncaring or explicitly not on the scale of human morality.
There's no reason to actually use alignment except as a rough guide to behavior. It's one thing to say that large-scale slavery makes societies evil, even if it's necessary for survival, but the societies themselves wouldn't say, "Of course it does, and that's great, because evil is awesome!" That's because no one actually thinks of themselves as evil or serving evil. Well, except here:
And, to continue my tradition of mentioning minor nitpicks, one of the tribes lives in the middle of a lake of lava in an volcanic crater. I guess Dark Sun doesn't have convection, or volcanic gasses. Sure, it's cool, but I just laughed when I read it. Sortar's never going to win his war against the city-states when his whole tribe bursts into flame and then asphyxiates.
Other than that, it's an excellent supplement. It's small, but another way to describe that is "focused." It's called Slave Tribes and that's what it's about. If you're running the achetypal Dark Sun campaign you'll find it invaluable, even if you're running in another system or in a later version of Dungeons and Dragons, because so much of it is systemless fluff. If you're not dealing with slavery at all, then give it a pass.
But you're playing Dark Sun, right? When is that ever going to be the case.
At least, that was my first thought when I went to read this, but I was pleasantly surprised. The first chapter goes into detail about slavery on Athas, and it manages to both indicate how common the attitude that slavery is no big deal is on Athas and how it's absolutely necessary for the economy of the entire region while still never making slavery ever seem like a good thing. It helps that it's written from an in-universe perspective--a dwarf slave named Daled, who points out that even the most popular slave artisan is only a noble's opinion away from being tossed into the obsidian mines or the fields outside the city.
The book is almost entirely fluff, and other than the statistics of the characters inside it doesn't have any new rules at all. This is where the somewhat-infamous metaplot of Dark Sun first reared its head, though, with the occasional mentions of something odd happening in Tyr to disrupt the iron trade, and possibly free the slaves, that would be fully explained in Dragon Kings. And the novels, admittedly, but those are a different genre entirely.
And other than the metaplot, the fluff is really good. I already mentioned the first chapter, and the following chapters go into specifics about some of the slave tribes mentioned in the title. Tribes like The Free, who are almost more of a legend than a tribe, or The Black Sand Raiders, who are a kill-and-loot raiding tribe with a dark secret, or Salt View, who survive through the twin means of raiding caravans and traveling theatre troupes. After the specifics are the general, with a section on life in a slave tribe, how they survive and deal with threats in the deserts, what it means to join a tribe and how life changes after the characters do, what happens when new people join the tribe, how tribes manage the problems of hierarchy when they're all enjoying freedom so much, and so on.
The end of the book is all about making custom slave tribes, including a chart to randomly roll them up, and ways to detail how they survive, their attitude towards things like travelers, other slaves, the sorcerer-kings, magic and so on. There's also a section about players making their own tribes, which is pretty good because "You're all slaves who just escaped together" is Dark Sun's "You all meet a mysterious cloaked man in a tavern."
One of the main problems I have with the book is mentions of alignment. Now, alignment makes very little sense even in the best of times, but it did give us Planescape, so I can't complain about it too much. The thing is, though, that for Dark Sun especially alignment doesn't make much sense. Unlike most D&D settings, there aren't any angels or demons (well, except in limited numbers later), and all the extra-planar entities that exist are either uncaring or explicitly not on the scale of human morality.
There's no reason to actually use alignment except as a rough guide to behavior. It's one thing to say that large-scale slavery makes societies evil, even if it's necessary for survival, but the societies themselves wouldn't say, "Of course it does, and that's great, because evil is awesome!" That's because no one actually thinks of themselves as evil or serving evil. Well, except here:
While Lokee follows Zeburon's orders without question, he much prefers the company of the defiler. He can only learn so much about killing and plundering from the ex-gladiator, while he is sure that the defiler can teach him how to be truly evil.Or this one:
Her love of evil was surpassed only by her love of power; serving Nibenay provided her with plenty of power and the opportunity to use it for evil.Both of those are, frankly, ridiculous. It's supervillain mentally, where people do things because they're full of evil and not for any reason that actually humans would use to justify their actions. Alignment always breaks spectacularly when brought into any real-world situation, but anytime characters are doing something "because they're evil" just brings it that much more to the fore. Dark Sun has plenty of reasons for people to perform morally questionable actions just out of need to survive, so there's no need to evoke evil for evil's sake.
And, to continue my tradition of mentioning minor nitpicks, one of the tribes lives in the middle of a lake of lava in an volcanic crater. I guess Dark Sun doesn't have convection, or volcanic gasses. Sure, it's cool, but I just laughed when I read it. Sortar's never going to win his war against the city-states when his whole tribe bursts into flame and then asphyxiates.
Other than that, it's an excellent supplement. It's small, but another way to describe that is "focused." It's called Slave Tribes and that's what it's about. If you're running the achetypal Dark Sun campaign you'll find it invaluable, even if you're running in another system or in a later version of Dungeons and Dragons, because so much of it is systemless fluff. If you're not dealing with slavery at all, then give it a pass.
But you're playing Dark Sun, right? When is that ever going to be the case.
November 27, 2019
As an exploration of how an economy and civilization is built around slavery, this accesory is unprecedented. It gives a very interesting view of its impact on the setting, the main tribes that exist on the athasian desert, and their different outlooks to the world. However the accesory is mostly focused for low-level groups.
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June 3, 20225/32 of my Dark Sun reviews and the first chunk where I'm really tempted to start clumping some of these books together.
That is, this books is the first of a few that follows a general pattern and premise: let's dig into one aspect of life on Athas, and let's do that by describing what that aspect is in the various cities or through various examples, and then let's talk about how the PCs might interact.
In this case, that aspect is slavery and those who escape from slavery to form tribes in the wastes. Now, if you google "Dark Sun slavery," you'll find a bunch of conversations in forums where some people complain "you could never do a game world with slavery these days, the kids are too sensitive, and anyway, the slavery in this world is equal opportunity, so doesn't have any racial component!" Which... feels like a blinkered view of how people in our world interact with stories and history.
I think that also misses the fact that slavery as presented back in '92 was already morally wrong -- it's another danger for the PCs to avoid, like dehydration, only caused and upheld by people. (The people who argue that the kids are too sensitive these days sometimes point out that Dark Sun is a bad place to live, a world in need of saving, which I have some sympathy with, but again, ignores the particular forms of evil and hardship as presented. And like, I guarantee you that a bunch of white suburban kids in the '90s are at some point dropping the rules for dehydration most of the time because it's hard to keep track of and not fun to die of thirst, while they are also engaging with slavery at a very, ah, let's say superficial level.)
Anyway, it strikes me that TSR was thinking about this or at least recognized that players don't really want to be slaves for the same reason that they don't want to be soldiers in an army: players don't like having to follow orders. Which is why the bulk of this book isn't about slavery per se, but about the escaped and ex-slave tribes that give the book its name. About ~56 pages of this 96 page book are devoted to sample tribes: who they are, how they survive, who are important NPCs, where they live (including map!), and how the PCs might interact with them. Some of the tribes are good, some are evil, and both offer at least one adventure hook.
This is a real rules-light book, mostly devoted to describing the world, though it ends with some rules and ideas for how the DM -- or the players -- can design their own tribes.
That is, this books is the first of a few that follows a general pattern and premise: let's dig into one aspect of life on Athas, and let's do that by describing what that aspect is in the various cities or through various examples, and then let's talk about how the PCs might interact.
In this case, that aspect is slavery and those who escape from slavery to form tribes in the wastes. Now, if you google "Dark Sun slavery," you'll find a bunch of conversations in forums where some people complain "you could never do a game world with slavery these days, the kids are too sensitive, and anyway, the slavery in this world is equal opportunity, so doesn't have any racial component!" Which... feels like a blinkered view of how people in our world interact with stories and history.
I think that also misses the fact that slavery as presented back in '92 was already morally wrong -- it's another danger for the PCs to avoid, like dehydration, only caused and upheld by people. (The people who argue that the kids are too sensitive these days sometimes point out that Dark Sun is a bad place to live, a world in need of saving, which I have some sympathy with, but again, ignores the particular forms of evil and hardship as presented. And like, I guarantee you that a bunch of white suburban kids in the '90s are at some point dropping the rules for dehydration most of the time because it's hard to keep track of and not fun to die of thirst, while they are also engaging with slavery at a very, ah, let's say superficial level.)
Anyway, it strikes me that TSR was thinking about this or at least recognized that players don't really want to be slaves for the same reason that they don't want to be soldiers in an army: players don't like having to follow orders. Which is why the bulk of this book isn't about slavery per se, but about the escaped and ex-slave tribes that give the book its name. About ~56 pages of this 96 page book are devoted to sample tribes: who they are, how they survive, who are important NPCs, where they live (including map!), and how the PCs might interact with them. Some of the tribes are good, some are evil, and both offer at least one adventure hook.
This is a real rules-light book, mostly devoted to describing the world, though it ends with some rules and ideas for how the DM -- or the players -- can design their own tribes.
December 29, 2020
There‘s just not much to this book. The first supplement/sourcebook for Dark Sun in April, 1992, the bulk of this short book is a description of some of the tribes inhabiting the Tyr region. Most of them are fairly banal and uninteresting and have little to actually offer from a setting standpoint.
December 3, 2022
Useful supplement if you want to run a game where your PCs are the main defenders of a community of escaped slaves. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
July 11, 2012
A well-written and in-depth exploration of the slave tribes of the Dark Sun world. I was impressed that it not only presented detailed setting information, but philosophical expositions on the nature, origins and purpose of slavery on Athas. Slavery is a touchy subject in America, but you couldn't tell it from this book. It details the institution from the perspective that it is a universal and accepted--if not necessarily desirable--practice.
The detailed descriptions of the various slave tribes--some who take slaves themselves, some who kill for the joy of killing, some who work to free other slaves, and some who are just trying to get by--are very useful, though of course the character statistics are based on 2nd Edition AD&D and need to be updated if they are intended to be used in a 4th Edition Dark Sun game. The village creation information in the appendix is especially worthwhile, and usable under any rules system.
My major problem with this book is that it focuses on a very narrow range of tribes: Those of escaped slaves who have settled down and turned to raiding. Since this is just about all the information we have on the villages of Athas, information on other sorts of settlements would have been really worthwhile. No mention whatsoever is given to halfling villages, half-giant clans, agricultural settlements, barbarian tribes, trading posts, or city-state client villages, and the information on creating villages is also dedicated solely to slave tribes. This is a serious omission, in my opinion, though in keeping with the book's title.
The art also leaves something to be desired (except for Brom's cover, which is beautiful, although the sun seems to be the wrong color). As has been noted many times, Baxa's Dark Sun work is far from top-notch, though nothing here is too awful.
The detailed descriptions of the various slave tribes--some who take slaves themselves, some who kill for the joy of killing, some who work to free other slaves, and some who are just trying to get by--are very useful, though of course the character statistics are based on 2nd Edition AD&D and need to be updated if they are intended to be used in a 4th Edition Dark Sun game. The village creation information in the appendix is especially worthwhile, and usable under any rules system.
My major problem with this book is that it focuses on a very narrow range of tribes: Those of escaped slaves who have settled down and turned to raiding. Since this is just about all the information we have on the villages of Athas, information on other sorts of settlements would have been really worthwhile. No mention whatsoever is given to halfling villages, half-giant clans, agricultural settlements, barbarian tribes, trading posts, or city-state client villages, and the information on creating villages is also dedicated solely to slave tribes. This is a serious omission, in my opinion, though in keeping with the book's title.
The art also leaves something to be desired (except for Brom's cover, which is beautiful, although the sun seems to be the wrong color). As has been noted many times, Baxa's Dark Sun work is far from top-notch, though nothing here is too awful.
November 22, 2008
Long a fan of the Dark Sun world, I've never been the biggest fan of the simplicity attributed to their accessories and supplements. The writing style is too elementary and bland and the artwork has just never seemed to hold up to say that of Forgotten Realms.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews