![]() Set a decade after the first boxed set, the Expanded And Revised boxed set released in 1995 updated the setting to reconcile the events and characters introduced since the initial 1991 release, and gave more details on the world outside the Tyr Region.įollowing the setting's release, poor sales for Battlesystem soon stopped its further inclusion in Dark Sun products. A five-book fiction series, the Prism Pentad, written by Denning and edited by Lowder, was released beginning in 1991, in coordination with the boxed set. 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. ![]() He said that Athas "shares the post-apocalyptic desolation of FGU's Aftermath game, GDW's Twilight 2000 game, and other after-the-holocaust RPGs". From dragons to spell-casting, from character classes to gold pieces, this ties familiar AD&D conventions into knots". Game designer Rick Swan described the setting: "Using the desert as a metaphor for struggle and despair, this presents a truly alien setting, bizarre even by AD&D game standards. I was very involved in the development process". I'd do a painting or a sketch, and the designers wrote those characters and ideas into the story. I was doing paintings before they were even writing about the setting. The Dark Sun setting drew much of its makeup from artist Brom's imagery: "I pretty much designed the look and feel of the Dark Sun campaign. His inspiration drew partly from Den by Richard Corben and the fiction of Clark Ashton Smith. Steve Winter suggested the idea of a desert landscape. The majority of project members were new to TSR, though not necessarily to the industry (Winter having worked at GDW). With the exception of Denning and Kirchoff, design veterans such as David "Zeb" Cook declined to join the conceptual team (though Cook would write the first two adventure modules: Freedom and Road to Urik). Ĭontributors to this project at its beginnings included Rich Baker, Gerald Brom, Tim Brown, Troy Denning, Mary Kirchoff, James Lowder, and Steve Winter. The designers credited this reversion as a pivotal change that launched the project in a new direction. Eventually, elves, dwarves, and dragons returned but in warped variations of their standard AD&D counterparts. TSR worried about this concept, wondering how to market a product that lacked any familiar elements. The team envisioned a post-apocalyptic world full of exotic monsters and no hallmark fantasy creatures whatsoever. ![]() In 1990 the company began pre-production on a new campaign setting that would use this ruleset, the working title of which was "War World". ![]() TSR released the second edition of Battlesystem, its mass-combat ruleset, in 1989. Development Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (2nd edition) ĭark Sun has been mentioned by developers, most notably Mike Mearls, and appeared in psionics playtest materials for Dungeons & Dragons for the fifth edition of the game. Only third-party material was produced for the third edition D&D rules, but a new official edition of Dark Sun was released in 2010 for the fourth edition. ĭark Sun 's popularity endured long after the setting was no longer supported, with a lively online community developing around it. The setting was also the first TSR setting to come with an established metaplot out of the box. The artwork of Brom established a trend of game products produced under the direction of a single artist. Dark Sun differs further in that the game has no deities, arcane magic is reviled for causing the planet's current ecological fragility, and psionics are extremely common. The traditional fantasy races and character classes were altered or omitted to better suit the setting's darker themes. Dark Sun 's designers presented a savage, magic-ravaged desert world where resources are scarce and survival is a daily struggle. ĭark Sun deviated from the feudalistic backdrops of its Tolkienesque pseudo-medieval contemporaries, such as Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, in favor of a composite of dark fantasy, planetary romance, and the Dying Earth subgenre. The product line began with the original Dark Sun Boxed Set released for D&D's 2nd edition in 1991, originally ran until 1996, and was one of TSR's most successful releases. Dark Sun featured an innovative metaplot, influential art work, dark themes, and a genre-bending take on traditional fantasy role-playing. Game accessories, novels, comics, role-playing video gamesĭark Sun is an original Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) campaign setting set in the fictional, post-apocalyptic desert world of Athas. For other uses, see Dark Sun (disambiguation).
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