Dark Sun Campaign Setting

Dungeons & Dragons, 4th Edition

by Wizards of the Coast, Richard Baker, Robert J. Schwalb

Explore a savage, wondrous world...

Aimed at players and Dungeon Masters, this game supplement explores the heroes and wonders of Athas—a savage desert world abandoned by the gods and ruled by terrible sorcerer-kings. Use it to build Dark Sun® heroes and thrilling D&D® adventures set in the Seven Cities of the Tyr Region, the Ivory Triangle, the Sea of Silt, and monster-infested wastelands—or plunder it for your own D&D campaign!
 
The Dark Sun Campaign Setting provides exciting character options for D&D players, including new races, new character themes and class builds, new paragon paths and epic destinies, and new equipment. It also provides everything Dungeon Masters need to run 4th Edition Dark Sun campaigns or include Dark Sun elements in their homebrew campaigns. It has rules and advice for handling survival challenges, arena encounters, desert terrain, and adventure creation. It also presents a short, ready-to-play introductory adventure.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Dungeons and Dragons, Gaming, Reference, Fantasy

222 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC /ˈwɒtˌsiː/ or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. Originally a basement-run role-playing game publisher, the company popularized the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by purchasing the failing company TSR, and experienced tremendous success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington in the United States.[1]

Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.

Reviews

[[Name Redacted]]

The "Dark Sun" setting was my favorite setting when I was a kid. It's a bleak, bloody, brutal world - very atypical for D&D - in which magic is fueled by ripping the life-force out of other living things. Irresponsible use of this power has left the world a blasted desert. Only the strong survive, and this has led many species and races to die out, while others have changed dramatically (for instance, elves are treacherous wasteland scavengers, and halflings are savage, shamanistic cannibals), and still other new creatures have evolved and risen to ascendancy; alien insects and reptiles have filled most of the niches which mammals and birds once occupied. The gods are dead (literally!), and the last few vestiges of civilization are ruled over by a handful of immortal sorcerer-kings/queens, all of whom share a single, secret agenda and all of whom are in direct competition as a result. Life is short and altruism is virtually non-existant. It has a lot in common with Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" stories and Edgar Rice Burroughs' "John Carter of Mars" books, and could definitely teach Cormac MacCarthy a thing or two about how to do post-apocalyptic literature properly.

So yes, I LOVED this setting. LOVED IT. And I own this book in part because I'd like to see what the new version of D&D does with it. However I also own it because I have a really hard time finishing anything I write or sharing it with anyone because of my perfectionism; I want everything to be JUST right, but my view of "JUST right" shifts from moment to moment. For this reason my series of short stories about early-to-medival Coptic monasticism remain half-written, at best. My brother is in Afghanistan and desperate for things to read, so he has asked me to send him stories I have written and to send them as quickly as I can. By writing something based in this setting, I really only need to worry about the characters and the plot because the world and everything in it are taken care of for me. This makes plotting, pacing and characterization MUCH easier; my passion for the setting also helps. What is more, because this setting is not my creation, I have less of a personal emotional or psychological connection to it and feel less invested in what I write about it. I'll be flipping through this book while I write him a short story, in-between studying for quals, working on the Coptic Encyclopedia, and preparing my dissertation proposal. Fun times!

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Things I like about this book: it walks back the Dark Sun metanarrative a good bit from the end of the AD&D and 3rd-party 3rd edition material. It gives a good idea of the feel of the world of Dark Sun. There is some good advice for DMs regarding how to adapt things like treasure rewards and encounters into a Dark Sun campaign. The map that's included is really cool.

Things I don't like about this book: It's 4th edition, which is just not my cup of tea. It attempts to apply 4th edition's overall cosmology to Dark Sun as a setting, which just doesn't make any sense at all from a design standpoint. It also tries to include very 4e stuff like dragonborn which I don't care for at all. Not every creature has to have a place in every setting and, while the book acknowledges this, it still tries to fit in certain new creatures that I don't feel have a place in Dark Sun. The most egregious fault of this book is that it's not a complete campaign setting book. As a DM, you have to buy a whole other sourcebook for creature stat blocks (Dark Sun Creature Catalog)! This is just greedy. In comparison, the 3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting was 100 pages longer and included everything a DM needed to run a campaign in Eberron. Splitting that info into two separate books is unforgivable.

Overall, it's fine as a sourcebook, but it could have been so much better.

[A. J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half decent but simplistic like most of WOC alternative settings.

[Mark Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

★ - Most books with this rating I never finish and so don't make this list. This one I probably started speed-reading to get it over with.
★★ - Average. Wasn't terrible, but not a lot to recommend it. Probably skimmed parts of it.
★★★ - Decent. A few good ideas, well-written passages, interesting characters, or the like.
★★★★ - Good. This one had parts that inspired me, impressed me, made me laugh out loud, made me think - it got positive reactions and most of the rest of it was pretty decent too.
★★★★★ - Amazing. This is the best I've read of its genre, the ones I hold on to so I can re-read them and/or loan them out to people looking for a great book. The best of these change the way I look at the world and operate within it.

[Mcgwire "Pie" · Rating 4 out of 5]

The blistering sun beating down on our heroes in the new world of the Datk Sun. The Dark Sun Campaign Setting, byRichard Baker, introduces a wonderful new place to start playing the game Dungeons and Dragons. With new creatures that are playable and new monsters to fight, your campaign will be unlike any one ever experienced before. Also the book creates new themes which allow the characters to have new special powers that fits the races traits and other abilities. New items are also made that have their own powers and use of the bright sun of the world. If a new exiting campaign is desired read this book, it will be well worth the time.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique DnD setting that strays away from the traditional sword and sorcery settings of the system. Athas was a world that was green and fertile. But, the use of defiling magic countless centuries ago has left it a desert wasteland where water is scarce, savage monsters are plentiful and death and oppression are everyday facts of life. Those that make their home on this planet live under by the whim of the Sorcerer-Kings, being of immeasurable magic power and who are rumored to be the cause of the planets death.

[Keith Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A reference book to an imaginary place within a game I almost never play. I loved it.

[Abraham Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

good dnd book.