- Balic
The southernmost city of the Tyr Region, formerly ruled by the sorcerer-king Andropinus. It is situated on the edge of the Silt Sea, and is the only city in the region to have a tradition of elected government. - Draj
Located on a vast mud flat in the northeastern area of the Tyr Region, Draj was formerly ruled by the Sorcerer-king Tectuktitlay, but after his death at Rajaat's hand in Ur-Draxa he has been replaced by his putative son, Atzetuk. - Gulg
Ruled by the forest-goddess, Lalali-Puy, Gulg is unique among the city-states due to its construction from living materials of the forest instead of stone and brick. - Nibenay
Nibenay is located closer to the centre of the Tyr Region, just to the east of the city-state of Gulg. Nibenay is ruled by a sorcerer-king called simply "the Shadow King," and he is the most reclusive of them all. The Shadow King will often stay out of sight for years or more due to lack of interest in governmental affairs and having other more important projects to work on. - Raam
Formerly ruled by the sorcerer-queen Abalach-Re, Raam was fermenting with revolt even before her death and is now filled with chaos, an armed camp divided among various struggling factions. - Tyr
Tyr is located just to the east of the Ringing Mountains. Tyr was ruled by the sorcerer-king Kalak until his overthrow on the verge of his ascension. It is now the only free-city of the region, banning the practice of slavery. - Urik
Ruled by the totalitaring Hamanu, Urik has become a closed city since the Great Earthquake, only rarely sending out trade caravans and remaining otherwise sealed.
And from what info I saw in the Dragon Magazine & Dungeon Magazine articles, this doesnt seem to be very up to date. But I dont have those handy so I tried searching for more setting info online and fell very flat. Can someone help me update these little blurbs? I'm attempting to make a handout for my players about the world.
The two things I know need fixing, is replace all mentions of the "Tyr Region" with "Tablelands Region" and change "Sorcerer-Kings" with "Dragon-Kings". But I seem to remember they had a few of the DK's come back and such.
Ok, so the little blurb on the wikipedia entry for Dark Sun, has this to say about the cities.
- Balic
The southernmost city of the Tyr Region, formerly ruled by the sorcerer-king Andropinus. It is situated on the edge of the Silt Sea, and is the only city in the region to have a tradition of elected government.- Draj
Located on a vast mud flat in the northeastern area of the Tyr Region, Draj was formerly ruled by the Sorcerer-king Tectuktitlay, but after his death at Rajaat's hand in Ur-Draxa he has been replaced by his putative son, Atzetuk.- Gulg
Ruled by the forest-goddess, Lalali-Puy, Gulg is unique among the city-states due to its construction from living materials of the forest instead of stone and brick.- Nibenay
Nibenay is located closer to the centre of the Tyr Region, just to the east of the city-state of Gulg. Nibenay is ruled by a sorcerer-king called simply "the Shadow King," and he is the most reclusive of them all. The Shadow King will often stay out of sight for years or more due to lack of interest in governmental affairs and having other more important projects to work on.- Raam
Formerly ruled by the sorcerer-queen Abalach-Re, Raam was fermenting with revolt even before her death and is now filled with chaos, an armed camp divided among various struggling factions.- Tyr
Tyr is located just to the east of the Ringing Mountains. Tyr was ruled by the sorcerer-king Kalak until his overthrow on the verge of his ascension. It is now the only free-city of the region, banning the practice of slavery.- Urik
Ruled by the totalitaring Hamanu, Urik has become a closed city since the Great Earthquake, only rarely sending out trade caravans and remaining otherwise sealed.
And from what info I saw in the Dragon Magazine & Dungeon Magazine articles, this doesnt seem to be very up to date. But I dont have those handy so I tried searching for more setting info online and fell very flat. Can someone help me update these little blurbs? I'm attempting to make a handout for my players about the world.
The two things I know need fixing, is replace all mentions of the "Tyr Region" with "Tablelands Region" and change "Sorcerer-Kings" with "Dragon-Kings". But I seem to remember they had a few of the DK's come back and such.
It is kind of difficult to do without violating some copyright that WotC has. They more or less control the setting flavor/fluff for Dark Sun. That said, for a mere $5, you could get a copy of the PDF for the boxed set of Dark Sun, which includes either the Wanderer's Journal (the first boxed set), or the Wanderer's Chronicle (the second boxed set) -- both of which contain valueable information about the city-states. They can be found on rpgnow.com.
Now, if you are using the (...ugg...) Dragon & Dungeon magazine articles, you'd be best looking at... the information from those articles... for the more "updated" info on the city-states.
Now about references to things.... I personally more or less combined aspects of both the Wanderer's Journal and Wanderer's Chronicle for my own games, and wrote out all references to 'Dragon-Kings', as I don't like my typical Athasian to know that the sorcerer-kings are dragons. I like them to only know of rumors of 'The Dragon', and even though he is really dead, I don't like to make that common knowledge (only be further rumor that has yet to be substantiated one way or the other). I like to make some specifics be rather blurred and faded, adding to the mystery of the setting, and letting me as the DM determine if and when, as well as how the characters find out about those little details.
Nothing quite like deciding to assault a sorcerer-king, get all the way to that SK, who has a somewhat bored and inattentive look on his or her face, attack the SK and find out that all of your preconceptions about that SK were horribly inaccurate, mere moments before the entire party gets annihilated for their insolence -- "You dare to challenge me? I have been queen of Gulg for thousands of years. I have seen civilizations rise and fall, entire peoples have been wiped out by the mere wave of my hand. I am no mere mortal as you apparently presumed. Look now and tremble upon the might of the true queen of Gulg; an honor only granted those who are not long for this world."
Following that off-topic discussion, what is it that everyone seems to have against the magazine updates? They seem pretty useful and not too complicated to use.
The Athas.org updates look long and a little complicated. Plus thats just too much info to print out. I'd break my piggy bank trying to print all those pages for all those supplements. Not to mention that there is basically little to no info on the setting itself. Now I see that you are involved in the work over there and I'm really not trying to knock what youve done, its just alot more than I need when it comes to crunchy info and no where near what I'd like in fluff.
Ah, I didnt realize that was an issue.
One of the main reasons the Athas.org materials has little actual setting material, and focuses on mechanics.
Following that off-topic discussion, what is it that everyone seems to have against the magazine updates? They seem pretty useful and not too complicated to use.
Other than it bastardizes and has heavy-handed drastic sweeping changes to the setting, other than it is extraordinarily watered down to make it be more like 'Forgotten Realms in a desert'... The magazines, while there are some useful kernels of goodness in them, the majority of the work was thrashed in 'editor hell'.
The Athas.org updates look long and a little complicated. Plus thats just too much info to print out. I'd break my piggy bank trying to print all those pages for all those supplements. Not to mention that there is basically little to no info on the setting itself. Now I see that you are involved in the work over there and I'm really not trying to knock what youve done, its just alot more than I need when it comes to crunchy info and no where near what I'd like in fluff.
Well, with the fluff... our hands are tied. It is part of the agreement that WotC requires us to follow, in order to be able to make official releases. Dark Sun isn't some 'sideshow setting to use to take a break from the main campaigns' but is a complete campaign world. Would you expect to be able to print out all the supplements for Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, or Eberron? How about Ravenloft or Dragonlance? Why should Dark Sun be any different? The advantage with the Athas.org Dark Sun materials is the rules are free downloads. Pay a little to get the 2e books for Dark Sun, and you have a pretty good and robust set of materials to run complete campaigns through. I personally also use a couple of the ideas from the Dragon & Dungeon magazines (I do like those defiler rules), but other things (mostly fluff, but also a good portion of the mechanics) from those articles I'd much rather do without.
I can hear what you are saying about how much it costs to print things out. Hell, I've been working on my own set of organized, 'single-source of information' PDFs that I use for my campaigns, and then I go to a local print shop to have them printed and bound. Sure, it's not all that cheap, but I end up with a set of books I then can whip out and use for my personal campaigns. I can't hand them out to people though, because there is materials I pulled out of the 2e books which would be a copyright infringement if they were for anything other than my own personal use.
OTOH, our planet does have a lot of pesky laws against involuntary servitude. If you want neat summaries of everything, you may have to read the sources and make the summaries yourself. ;)
Alternately, you could scan through the online stuff and simply print the pages you find useful. The print dialog allows you to select individual pages or a range of pages without printing the entire thing.
I personally more or less combined aspects of both the Wanderer's Journal and Wanderer's Chronicle for my own games, and wrote out all references to 'Dragon-Kings', as I don't like my typical Athasian to know that the sorcerer-kings are dragons. I like them to only know of rumors of 'The Dragon', and even though he is really dead, I don't like to make that common knowledge (only be further rumor that has yet to be substantiated one way or the other). I like to make some specifics be rather blurred and faded, adding to the mystery of the setting, and letting me as the DM determine if and when, as well as how the characters find out about those little details.
Nothing quite like deciding to assault a sorcerer-king, get all the way to that SK, who has a somewhat bored and inattentive look on his or her face, attack the SK and find out that all of your preconceptions about that SK were horribly inaccurate, mere moments before the entire party gets annihilated for their insolence -- "You dare to challenge me? I have been queen of Gulg for thousands of years. I have seen civilizations rise and fall, entire peoples have been wiped out by the mere wave of my hand. I am no mere mortal as you apparently presumed. Look now and tremble upon the might of the true queen of Gulg; an honor only granted those who are not long for this world."
Beautifully put. Praise Be to Xlore.
How about high quality(copy shop) colour laser prints of Brians maps! THEN laminate them on the wall... NOW thats expensive!
I will do them at some point I haven't had the time to lately.
I am also going to make a DarkSun globe and ship it out to anyone who wants one for minimum cost, so anyone who can get a hold of our Cartographer God Brian - who is in "Workaholic Heaven", slap him around a bit and tell him his divine work is desperately needed to rejuvenate his dehydrated followers.
Now right now, Lost Cities looks to be big. Probably the biggest of the series, because it's the whole regional supplement, detailing the land, cultures, and outlining, whew, a bunch of adventures, maps, art. But if folks are just going to moan and ask for summaries, hell ...