So, what else is out there on Athas?

Post/Author/DateTimePost
#1

xanthus

Apr 04, 2006 16:03:07
I decided to post a seperate thread about this due to conversations that have sprung up in the current Cerulean Storm thread (which has been hijacked away from it's stated purpose) and try to move stuff over here.

I know many of you are players and DMs for Dark Sun games and many of you have some part in the Athas.org website (as always thanks guys!) and I'm certain at least some of you have a vision beyond the Tablelands. What kind of vision do you all have for what's beyond our very small knowledge of this world? We know there is a sea to the north (if memory serves me right), there a few city states in the north of the Tablelands (Kurn and that other one I can never remember the name of run by Daskinor). We know the Deadlands are to the south. Again, if memory serves me, to the west we have the Kreen lands. I don't know what's the east if anything. At most that can only cover one hemisphere, however. What's on the other side of the world? What's beyond the Deadlands, the Kreens and what is beyond the Last Sea? What's to the bloody east? :D

Also, do people think Rajaat's influence went all around the planet, as in the Champions themselves have literally been everywhere on Athas to wipe out their prey? Is there on the other side of the planet areas where Borys didn't rampage and devour all life that came across his path? Perhaps a green land of different nations that has never felt the wrath of Rajaat and his Champions? Or is it just endless expanses of desert land the Tablelands are alone with their civilization? A vast Kreen Empire competing restlessly with the armies of the Deadlands in half-a-planet sized battlefield?

These are the kinds of questions I have about Athas and I ask those questions of all of you and seek your thoughts. I've posted some of my ideas already and will post more later, but I figured I'd toss this out there.

-X
#2

xlorepdarkhelm_dup

Apr 04, 2006 16:10:24
Look for brian's thread about Athasian Cosmology and stuff. There's maps, ideas, and a ton of things about many areas across Athas in it.
#3

squidfur-

Apr 04, 2006 19:17:03
...which can be found here: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=498298
#4

zombiegleemax

Apr 04, 2006 20:11:15
Well, I'll go ahead and reply. For my campaign, the Cleansing Wars were global, the Champions using either sailing ships or psionically-powered ones to hunt down their prey on other continents. If I remember right from City by the Silt Sea, Dregoth remembers the wars taking a millennia to fight. I don't think it would have taken that long just in the Tablelands, so for me, it was world-wide carnage.

And there may be other Champions still out there on those other continents, my players will find out one way or the other (I think one of them lurks around here) when they get there. I fully intend to use Brian's gorgeous maps with shrieks of glee and abandonment once he's done with all of them (hint, hint :D ), assuming, of course, that my campaign doesn't outlast me. (I'm 45 this May; yes, I'm an old f***.)

I'll have to dig out my notes and stuff for any more goodies, but rest assured, I will return! (I also have a cake cooling and my family is trying to eat it NOW.
#5

zombiegleemax

Apr 05, 2006 8:57:34
A little more on what's out there in my campaign. If you have Valley of Dust and Fire, you'll see the edges of another landmass to the northeast. On that part of the continent sits An'sarek, the last remaining Library City from the Green Age, just chock-full of crunchy goodness about history, maps of Athas and more. The Champions barely touched the city in their genocidal purges, mainly because An'sarek is hidden in a valley amongst a mountain range and they had no idea it was there.

Dar-adern, the Champion who took the city of Bethana to the east of An'sarek for her own mysteriously vanished not long after claiming her spoils and no one knows what happened to her to this day.

An'sarek still looks as it did during the Green Age, and the city is gigantic, sprawling over an area the size of about 2 square miles. The psionically-powered floaters still work, them and the library maintained by the Librarians (Obsidian orbs that float around the place), just waiting for someone to visit. Of course, as starved for visitors as they are, the overly-friendly orbs might be reluctant to let anyone go... :D
#6

Sysane

Apr 05, 2006 9:54:58
If you click the "Sundered Regions" Project link under my signature you'll see what I have written on an area east of the Cerulean Storm.
#7

xanthus

Apr 05, 2006 16:06:54
Very cool ideas Ablamar, I dig the Library City idea. Nestled away someplace secret where the Champions weren't interested in going. And the orbs... it's like Saragar but without the "Be Happy(tm) or we kill you" thing. Mostly.

The Champion you mention, Dar-adern, in your game/version what is he/she supposed to be cleansing?

Sysane: I was reading through Brian's map thread and I looked into your region. Neat stuff you have there, but as you said in that other thread, the Dark Cupola needs to be shrank down a little. Strikes me as being just a bit too big, but cool stuff

-X
#8

Sysane

Apr 06, 2006 10:17:32
Sysane: I was reading through Brian's map thread and I looked into your region. Neat stuff you have there, but as you said in that other thread, the Dark Cupola needs to be shrank down a little. Strikes me as being just a bit too big, but cool stuff

Thanks. I plan on reducing the Dark Cupola's size by half. I'll be recreating the Sundered Regions map sometime soon.
#9

zombiegleemax

Apr 06, 2006 10:21:34
Very cool ideas Ablamar, I dig the Library City idea. Nestled away someplace secret where the Champions weren't interested in going. And the orbs... it's like Saragar but without the "Be Happy(tm) or we kill you" thing. Mostly.

The Champion you mention, Dar-adern, in your game/version what is he/she supposed to be cleansing?

-X

Dar-adern was the Kenku Killer in my campaign, but she didn't finish the job, leaving a few settlements here and there. She was a powerful Psion, but her specialty was spells that leveled cities and annihilated armies. After she took Bethana, her research led her to An'sarek where she found material beyond her wildest dreams. Using this new knowledge, she accidently transformed herself into a Proto-elemental (one that combines all four main elements) and vanished.

Now, almost two-thousand years later, rumors have started in Bethana and some cities in the Tablelands that a war rages on the Inner Planes... :D