But do we know more about the Gods of Athas and their history? Who where they? What where their roles? What happened exactly? And where did they ended to?
Any canon (or fan-made) answers?
As far as canon is concerned, it has always been the intent that Athas has no, and never had Gods. Although I like to think that before the Blue Age and the Life Shapers the world went through a period where there were Gods, and the Grey was created to keep the Gods out. Now, no one knows about how it was done, why it was done, or that it was done, so no one has a clue. It is much better that Athas has no gods, at least in my book. Make your Athas the way you like; you are, after all, more powerful than the gods of the roleplaying universe, as it is YOU who creates and sustains the world you game in.
After another two years of research, in addition to his previous study of the multiverse, Dregoth
uncovered the reason why the gods of the planes have never turned their attentions towards the
world of Athas. The spiritual conduits that allow the gods of other worlds to draw strength from
their worshipers don’t exist on Athas, and so the powers of the planes have turned away from the
inhabitants since the earliest days of existence. The spiritual conduits have been replaced by
elemental conduits, strongly linking the world of Athas to the elemental Inner Planes. Dregoth
has theorized the presence of the Gray, the endless limbo where Athasians go when they die, is
responsible; because of the Gray, spiritual conduits cannot be linked to Athas. However, the
elemental conduits easily pierce the Gray, granting the elemental clerics of Athas their power.
I see no point in resolving a mystery that made Athas more interesting, unless the resolution makes the story more interesting.
Here, it does not.
Me, personally, I've never liked and always HATED the "official novels/cannon" in DarkSun because...it all sucked.
I much preffer Athas as a weird, no-gods, barbaric world, more akin to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Conan, Thieve's World etc
My own take is that the gods died saving Athas from a mind flayer plot to put out the Sun. In which the Sun almost went nova, the gods died in the backlash, the planar connections got whacked, The Grey is the "fallout/dead gods remains", and psionics were bred/given to creatures by the illithids so they could secretly "harvest" the psionic power for their "Sun Darkening Project". The world is also is in ruins because So-uts were created as "scorched earth" bio-war machines that exterminated buildings/towns/machinery, thus the enemy would have no agriculure, weapons and so on. This wiped out much of the metal weapons and goods.
Sorry but I find that miles more believable and fun than the Prism Pentad etc ;)
I really hate the way folk are herded into "official cannon" in D&D in general, 1st edition Forgotten Realms was ~fantastic~ I adore it, but I despise the way it's been "Elminsterized" and explained in minutae so it's no longer a scary, unkown wonderful world of fantasy.
Fantasy worlds must have mystery and ignorance of much fo what's going on/what's over the next mountain, or the supension of disbelief and sense of wonder goes out the window.
So, in YOUR game, maybe the gods left Athas in disgust, maybe they are dead, mayeb you want to go with Rajaat/Borys etc, or maybe they gods need replacing by heroic Demigods..
I'll limit myself to this question then: You say you like Dark Sun, yet say you hate the flavor of the novels and books (events and politics of the books follow those of the novels as they came out). So how do you personally define Dark Sun, then?
To me there seems to be an impossible dichotomy here. Could it be you only like, among all of the DS products put out by TSR, the original box and nothing more? That I could understand, wanting to preserve in one's mind the setting the way it was first presented...
Btw I loved "koboldcanyon1"
, but was unable to access the other vids 
Additionally, Silverblade is a talented artist and I need his help. He did the cover of my revised "Wisdom of the Drylanders" (which I sent in for final formatting and release a couple weeks ago), and he's currently doing a Tyr Storm and another piece involving the remarkable lightning storms of the Storm Coast, near South Guard. I like you, Pennarin, but if you chase Silverblade away from the board, I'll bite yer kneecaps off. ;)
IMO claims to godhood are political maneuvers or something that followers give to leaders after their deaths.
Silverblade, I decided to edit my post seeing its been pointed out to me it lacks tact.
I'll limit myself to this question then: You say you like Dark Sun, yet say you hate the flavor of the novels and books (events and politics of the books follow those of the novels as they came out). So how do you personally define Dark Sun, then?
To me there seems to be an impossible dichotomy here. Could it be you only like, among all of the DS products put out by TSR, the original box and nothing more? That I could understand, wanting to preserve in one's mind the setting the way it was first presented...
Btw I loved "koboldcanyon1"
Pennarin,
Tact? thought I was quit pleasant actually, sorry
I'm not the only person who loathes the way game worlds were changed and detailed and altered to *fit novels*, that we find it a right pain in the posterior ;)
Yeah I adore the 1st boxed set and some of the other products like Dune Trader. As said though, fantasy games require mystery and also creativity. People don't seem to realize that by supporting too much cannon, as in the Realms, that perversely kills a lot of the creativity and mystery required for fantasy gaming.
it is deeply annoying, to the point of offensive, that you buy a campaign setting, then a series of novels totally alter it within months, and you are supposed to follow it...eh, no, why should we if we don't like it?
It was a terrible decisions on TSRs part, IMHO, and many of the books, from what I remember, have glaring inconsistencies.
Please remember, I really respect what Athas.org has done and am very greatful for their 3rd Ed converions. I printed some of their releases as major resources for my DS game (printer is now on the fritz from that undertaking, lol!), great stuff
So I adore Dark Sun as it originally was, i have my own view of the history of Athas, and ideas of running my campaigns, as do all DMs because we all alter things to suit our tastes. Other folk wish to play it with Rajaat/Borys history, that's their way of fun, please let others have theirs and not make it a "straight jacket" that honestly is bad for us all
Glad ye liked the art! Athas inspires me, I love it. Hm, was it just videos you had problems getting run, if so which ones and I'll try and fix
Lol don't worry 'brax I won't scare off ;)
On the original topic I'll try hunting through the 1st boxed set to find the item I reffer to. And, as said, such things: ancient guardians of long dead gods, give a very "Clark Ashton Smith -Edgar Rice Burroughs" feel to Athas which I adore. Planescape had a major adventure based around the death of gods, and another oneabout killing Orcus so the entire subject is very "fruitful ground" for DMs and players alike
Another and very "DM twisted" idea is that Rajaat etc lied, since he and the CHampions were such twisted xenophobes, and much of Athas true history was lost, perhaps much of the "Official history" is a lie, twisted by Rajaat and Co to fit their own twisted idealologies..hm? What if the Dark Lens sucked in the powers of the original gods and destroyed them...there's an idea for DMs. ;)
As far as gods and reference materials are concerned, in the PP (Verdant Passage, even) there is mention that there "once were gods but they left/disappeared" by Ktandeo, I believe. Doesn't mean it's true, but you've got a temple under Tyr that's guarded by undead followers of the god, so they at least had faith enough to keep them going in the afterlife regardless of whether or not "true" gods existed.
IMPO, I like to think that gods existed in times before the Blue Age, and the Blue Age itself was a "post-deluge" world of sorts; i.e. you had whatever "generic fantasy world" in existence prior to the Blue Age, some great catastrophe or war happened (perhaps just the gods getting mad) and the world was flooded, wiping out all records of past civilizations, and only the kreen, halflings, nikaal (?) and a handful of other land creatures survived it. Over the next XYZ years the halflings create a new civilization, forgetting their old one just like those of the Forest Ridge don't remember their Blue Age heritage, etc.
Another, more pertinent idea that has been brought up repeatedly on these forums (namely, whenever gods are mentioned) is that in such a psionic-rich environment it's possible that, in essence, people were able to "make" gods during the Green Age and later - their faith, manifested psionically, gave "priests" the appearance of having divine powers. I proposed this as soon as Complete Psionics came out, as it even has the perfect class for it (Divine Mind).
I think I suggested the same thing.:D
Probably - there were a couple of us that all had the same idea simultaneously, more or less. ;)
Oh I see, oops!
Now, iirc, there's a bok called "Empire of the East by Fred Saberhagen, read long time ago, which in an odd way, touches on this.
Folk are ensalved, primitive technology, dark ages or less sort of stuff.
One guy falls into a cave and finds...a highly advanced tank (even beyond our current ones).
Turns out it's Earth in some far distant time, catastrophy has wiped out prior knowledge
You know what would rock? Athasian explorers finding a tomb marked "Here lies Elminster, Sage of Shadowdale".
;)
You know what would rock? Athasian explorers finding a tomb marked "Here lies Elminster, Sage of Shadowdale".
;)
*Shudder*
Powerful elementals could also be seen as gods, as could spirits of the land. Isn't there something in the Deadlands book from those Burnt World of Athas guys about this? Something about spirits granting spells - can't remember.
Isn't there something in the Deadlands book from those Burnt World of Athas guys about this?
What's this about "Burnt World of Athas guys"? Is that a website? Anyone heard of it? I've been here for three years and haven't heard of them, guess they're elitists that don't much come here, if at all...
;)
What's this about "Burnt World of Athas guys"? Is that a website? Anyone heard of it? I've been here for three years and haven't heard of them, guess they're elitists that don't much come here, if at all...
;)
They aren't elitist, they are blowhards. They talk and talk and talk, and in the end contribute NOTHING to the furtherment of Athas. I mean, what have they done? Can anyone name anything? I can't think of anything useful. Just a bunch of crap.:P
They talk and talk and talk, and in the end contribute NOTHING to the furtherment of Athas.
Yeah, that's right! Show it to them! If those guys ever show their noses in here I'll just...smack 'hem! Grrr!
At work so don't have the books here, but what about the temple in UnderTyr in the first book of the Prism Pentad? Sadira's teacher/master from the Alliance seems to be very respecful of the place, the whole part definitely implies that there have been gods on Athas. Anyone else thought about this?
Old, old argument.
The information given in the setting's products and novels is very clear on Athas having never had Deities & Demigods' type of beings called "gods".
What the products and novels tell us is that in the past the ancients worshiped gods. That is all. Those gods were different from today's gods - Kalak is such a modern-day "god", for example - and the people worshiped them and loved them all-hearthedly. Ktandeo tells this to Sadira. His information comes from having spoken to the knights of the Crimson Shrine. They believe in a divine being the like of which cannot be found in modern day Athas...this does not mean that being actually existed, only that the very concept of such ethereal beings no longer exists today and has been replaced by the very real "living gods" that the SKs are.
Raaigs and Wraiths are prime examples of this.
Worship in a god is all that takes to make you into a Raaig. There need not be an actual god to do this, only belief in the existence of one.
Dedication to a cause greater than yourself is all it takes to make you into a Wraith.
A Raaig is often a dead devout priest or holy warrior, while the example of Wraiths we have are holly warriors sworn to protect a holy site (ex. Crimson Shrine and its knights) or dedicated warriors in a grand world-spanning war (ex. Borys' lieutenants, still waiting for him in his fortress, even after their deaths).
There was mention of a religion of an old dwarven god Durgonis from the green age in the expanded and revised boxset somewhere... but it was a very odd passing reference... no detail.. probably thrown in to throw players off on athas's green age history and before.. and they did say there were religions with "gods" on athas, but these "gods" were merely constructions of some sort... at least that's what I gathered from it.
The Mystery of the Ancients adventure mentions him:
Though the dwarf god Durgonis has few followers in modernday Athas, those who keep his faith are fervently devoted. Unfortunately, his return is prophesied to occur at the same time that a massive sandstorm buries the world.
During the Blue Age, there were only four, very powerful Gods: Air, Earth, Fire and Water. They lived in the Spirit World, which was the only non-physical plane.
During the events that caused the transition to the Green Age, the Four were shattered into Deities&Demigod style Gods (each aligned with Air, Earth, Fire or water), and Elemental powers. The Spirit World was split into the Astral and the Elemental Planes - the latter being the remnants of the actual bodies of the original Four.
During the Cleansing Wars, Rajaat waged war on the Gods, much as the Champions waged war on the non-Human races. Just as Rajaat wanted to rid the world of the Rebirth races, so he wanted to revert the Gods back to the Four.
However, he failed, instead destroying the Gods, and the Home of the Gods itself, leaving only the dismal Grey.
It was partly due to the exertions Rajaat underwent in his campaign that allowed the Champions to overwhelm him.
Anyway, this is all completely personal, not to be confused with anything official, and unlikely to become important, even if I ever did run a game again.
I believe that the history of Athas has been permanently lost to time... Even what is known, and revealed in the books & materials already available for the setting, doesn't really scratch the surface of what the lost history of Athas really entails. For instance, we really know next to nothing about what the Blue Age really is, how long it was, or even if it was just a single "Age" at all.
What can be somewhat inferred through the cosmology of Athas, is that apparently, Athas is either a naturally-occurring cosmological anomaly, or there was some great cataclysm that left Athas segregated from the rest of the multiverse. Either way, we end up with the Gray, which has attributes and properties of both the Ethereal and Astral planes -- almost like it is a fusion of the two, and a barrier as well. There is the Black, which bears a passing resemblance to the Plane of Shadows, except it is also cut off from anything outside of the Gray. The Gray and the Black pretty much comprise the two "transitive planes" for Athas, preventing travel to or from the world to the outer planes. There is literally nothing at all written about, or even discussed as to how this came to be. It just is.
Of the Blue Age, we know that there were very advanced halflings called the Rhulisti, who had devices that could be magical in nature, or just so far advanced in technology to give the impression that they are magical. We can infer that they were the dominant species on Athas, and that the world was virtually completely covered in water. We don't know anything else, really -- nothing about how Athas was created, or even if there were gods on Athas at one time or another. We do know that there was apparently a pact between the four prime elements (Earth, Air, Fire, and Water) to protect the balance of nature, and that probably led to the Spirits of the Land being able to grant spells to druids during that time. It seems that the positive energy plane had become infused and integrated into the elemental planes, while the negative energy plane became infused and integrated into the Black and Gray.
I say that if the Gray is not a naturally-occuring phenomenon, if it is something that is the result of some mishap... Before it existed, there actually were gods on Athas. It only makes sense, considering how the D&D concepts for worlds tend to work. When the cataclysm that resulted in the Gray happened, these gods became separated from Athas -- they could very well have thought that the world simply vanished and/or was destroyed. It doesn't matter too greatly, because they never have been able to come back. But, the people of Athas at the time... probably Rhulisti at some stage of development, could have retained worship and reverence to their now lost gods.
When psionics became permiated into the world, probably at the end of the Blue Age/during the Rebirth, this led to the eventual development of divine Advanced Beings... which they could have occasionally been percieved by the people who met them as "gods". They could have ended up being worshiped, and reviered, possibly people having vague memories, legends, and myths about the "old gods" helping spur this along. Some of the divine Advanced Beings allowed this, others simply went into hiding I believe many of the "gods" that are talked about in the Dark Sun materials, are actually these divine Advanced Beings. "Elemental gods" and whatnot -- not really gods, but very powerful, able to perform incredible miracles, and able to solicit reverence from people around them.
During the Cleansing Wars, the people shifted away from these "gods" for various reasons -- most notably because of the pursuit of a particular race to extinguish it (for humans), or simply because survival became so tantimount for the races being extinguished -- and they lost faith in their "gods" for allowing this atrocity and evil to happen. Either way, these "gods" lost much of their following, and disappeared into the shadows, more or less, not really being able to help their followers much, since they really were not gods (in the Deities & Demigods sense of the word).
During the Age of the Sorcerer-Kings, worship of the sorcerer-kings probably was very high at the start, people had lost faith or interest in the other gods, and the sorcerer-kings commanded respect from their armies, and fear from their prey. People saw them as living embodiments of gods, and their power was unquestioned. The templars probably were able to help further this at first, providing miracles and healing all in the name of their monarch. However, 2,000 years of this "status quo", where reading & writing were abolished, and buerocracy ran rampant and out of control among the Templars made this belief fade a bit among the people... while clerics and druids showed alternatives to the sorcerer-kings power as well (I see the clerics & druids usually being at odds with templars in many ways). Some of the divine Advanced Beings started to gain small groups of followers again, people who saw them as "gods", but not nearly as great of a following they once commanded during the Green Age.
As such, I would say that the "gods" referred to in the Dark Sun materials are all false. They are either completely made up by the people who follow them, or could be a divine Advanced Being here or there that is worshipped like a god. The "old gods" I talked about at first are long, long forgotten... with absolutely no record of their existences being able to be found. The sorcerer-kings are probably still considered gods by some people, and I could see their Templars promoting this belief, if only to help control the masses a bit more. But no, there are no real gods on Athas, and there hasn't been any in so long that they are completely forgotten.
Yeah, that's right! Show it to them! If those guys ever show their noses in here I'll just...smack 'hem! Grrr!
Having fun?
I always find the evidence that Green Agers used to worship gods as exceedingly flimsy evidence of the actualy existance of said gods. Just because I belive in the Flying spagetti monster doesn't mean he's real.
As for those who were so faithful that they became undead? Well, Psionics is mind over matter, and we know psionics was very prevalant in the Green Age. It's a trivial thing for the devoted to inerpret their own psionic power as gifts from the gods. And it's entirely feasable, within the cosmology and mythology of D&D, for faith to be so strong as to sustain you past death.
Heck, look at the Dwarven Banshees -- they're sustained past death through simple anger at having failed.
As for those who were so faithful that they became undead? Well, Psionics is mind over matter, and we know psionics was very prevalant in the Green Age. It's a trivial thing for the devoted to inerpret their own psionic power as gifts from the gods. And it's entirely feasable, within the cosmology and mythology of D&D, for faith to be so strong as to sustain you past death.
Agreed; I've argued this for some time, that Green age religions probably involved some form of psionics.
I always find the evidence that Green Agers used to worship gods as exceedingly flimsy evidence of the actualy existance of said gods.
I agree here as well. But I'd also note that there's no story reason to show that they didn't exist, either. I've argued since my first day on the Dark Sun message boards that this should remain an open question.
That one line in City by the silt sea was unnecessary to the story, and simply made the world less interesting. Bad storytelling, and weak-minded self-assurance. How would anyone know that no gods had ever existed? If there was no God or gods, then one would never have any convenient little voice coming down from on high to validate one's disbelief. An honest person would have to just make the best he could based on the facts at hand.
Surety about such matters is a matter of faith.
His creation is based off of the information found on the Godshold entry in the Revised Box. I've adopted that religion for my own campaign.
What is masterful about is stuff is that its a roman-like group of gods, a pantheon, that one prays to and goes to temple to but without actually expecting supernatural miracles to occur from it.
A little-known person called (I don't remember his actual name) Lawkeeper Efkenu wrote a good story about the downfall of Bodach. In that story and the historical booklet that comes with it he expunges on the religion of the age, the Great Pantheon.
His creation is based off of the information found on the Godshold entry in the Revised Box. I've adopted that religion for my own campaign.
What is masterful about is stuff is that its a roman-like group of gods, a pantheon, that one prays to and goes to temple to but without actually expecting supernatural miracles to occur from it.
I remember someone with the "Lawkeeper Efkenu" sig, and that sounds like a cool idea.
The first time I ran a DS campaign, I actually carried over PCs from a previous campaign, and used a Thomas Covenant-type theme, where they were sent into Athas in order to accomplish something in particular.
But before you groan, consider that my pre-Athasian campaign was based in the ice age, and that Athasian materials and technology was a huge leap forward for the PCs. Only one of the PCs survived the 5 year campaign and finally returned to her world, and by then everyone had other characters so the game kept going.
If you look at the Ssuran entry in Terrors of Athas, it mentions that the Ssuran believe their spirits of the land to be gods. The SKs say that they are gods. The Mind Lords certainly play god. We mentioned the possibility that Psionic populations could have created projections that seemed like gods to them. Individuals like Taskinar might have seemed like gods to their people.
If none of those things are "real gods," then what is a real god? And if the last sentence was a null question, if there is no such thing as a "real" god, then what would preclude Athasians from saying that their spirits of the land, their psionic projections, their SKs, aren't gods?
You could say, well, that's my campaign, not Dark Sun, but what I told you was a very small part of a 5 year campaign that I think anyone here would have called a Dark Sun campaign. And while the details are obviously not canon (!!!), they don't conflict either. My ice age campaign could have occurred on Ral or in the Black or deep black, the life spirit "gods" that my wife's shaman character worshipped might have spirits of her land, etc.
Another possibility -- what are spirits of the land?
We know that a person may create multiple identities to cushion the effect of a terrible traumatic event; some Athasian fiction refers to this as a "tribe of one." Athas has suffered a traumatic event. Some of the "fluff" in the early 2e books suggested that druids used to have some sort of hierarchy, but that now they don't, and worship different spirits of the land. Is it possible that Athas itself used to have one single, powerful personality, and that the trauma of the brown tide/cleansing wars/obsidian cataclysm somehow fragmented it into different spirits?
There are all sorts of stories that we could tell. Myths can conflict, and evidence can be read in different ways.
It's possible that in the era prior to the Blue Age, an unflooded Athas was the site of massive and bloody holy wars -similar in scale to the Cleansing Wars. Perhaps Athas was a battle ground for both Gods and religion, and the catacylsmic result was the flooding of the planet, the extinction of almost all humaniod races, and the complete isolation of Athas from the Outer Planes / Gods.
itf
what are spirits of the land?
Athas has an animist cosmology. The most basic form of animism is the belief that everything-humans, animals, trees, water, rocks-has a spirit. Humans are only one part of nature and the spirits of the world must be appease if humans wish to survive. Prehistoric cave paintings were an attempt by hunters to appease the spirits of game animals.
Athasian animism is a bit more general and based on the four elements. A farmer will make offerings to the spirits of Air and Water to ensure rain, to Earth to ensure fertility, and to Fire to stave off drought and fire.
Athasian druidism are closer to traditional animists. The spirits of the land, the "souls" of terrain features, offer power in exchange for service. This makes them something along the lines of "proto-gods." I wouldn't be surprised if the old legends of athasian gods were based on very powerful spirts of the land.
My semantic argument was simply that if Athas has never had true gods, that there's no way of saying that its present gods are "false."
So, a god of war may be a god of the forge, sacking by fire, fire as a torture device (read sacred truth-telling), and fire as a powerful weapon that can ravage armies.
So a priest of Kalzen, bodachite god of war, may be in fact a cleric of fire.
And so on.
The internet's a big place. How about we stick to Athas and direct the question of gods on earth to more appropriate boards?
My point being Athasian "gods" may not be traditional DnD gods in the DnD mold or even exist. In a world with psionics any charismatic psionist could probably convince people they're a prophet or something. Baal and Jupiter are real life examples of dead religeons and for the purposes of this arguement may as well have never existed.
OTOH, many Maya today continue to believe in their old religion.(FYI, I suspect that the Athasian year calendar was based on the Maya calendar, which is also based on the confluence of two separate time cycles:
Neither the Tzolk'in nor the Haab' system numbered the years. The combination of a Tzolk'in date and a Haab' date was enough to identify a date to most people's satisfaction, as such a combination did not occur again for another 52 years, above general life expectancy.
Because the two calendars were based on 260 days and 365 days respectively, the whole cycle would repeat itself every 52 Haab' years exactly. This period was known as a Calendar Round. The end of the Calendar Round was a period of unrest and bad luck among the Maya, as they waited in expectation to see if the gods would grant them another cycle of 52 years.
Norse mythology may be dead for most intents and purposes (although I did run into a neopagan adherent of Freya and some Egyptian goddess, online, once; she laughed when I asked how her godesses managed to get along). But we still have a Thor'sday in our week. Vestigial religions leave traces like that.
Trivia for all DS fans out there.
as an aside, i toyed with this idea in a planescape campaign i had run wherein the adventurers had to travel to the astral plane...to the graveyard of the gods, to glean info from a fallen diety. it was here that i had hinted (because many of my group had started with my dark sun campaign) at just such a notion...the body of a dead god - nameless, ancient, forgotten - who's memories weaved a tapestry of despair, loss and sorrow. of a world lost to time and of a home it would never see again. it was fun, and a nice lil idea. they ate it up.
I agree that there was a world before the blue age. But a natural cataclysm doesn't just erase history like that, leaving a fully united societies like that. As Oronis says in Wisdom of Sorrow, it seems awfully suspicious that the world starts off in year one, with a fully united "world age." Frankly, it smacks of Pol Pot's "year zero." And that's very consistent with how sheer monumental arrogance brought Athas to one cataclysm to the next.
I don't think there was a fully united society after the cataclysm. I think that everything was a wreck, I'd tend to think that the Rhulisti civilization didn't even begin to form until hundreds, if not thousands of years later. I dunno, I think that Athas is a very, very old world, that has had more than its fair share of Ages to deal with. What happened to the history of the world before the Rhulisti civlization? Let's see.... a cataclysm that would sunder a world cosmologically from everywhere else, could have wrought some significant damage to the surface. There could literally have been only a handful of survivors -- the progenitors of the Rhulisti -- that existed in the world.
If the world wasn't a waterworld to begin with, but that was rather a side-effect of the cataclysm, who knows? Water is rather corrosive to a great many things. Those things that weren't destroyed by the water, the Rhulisti could have found at some point in their development as a society. Maybe something that made them disgusted, something that led them towards developing biotechnology/lifeshaping rather than mechanical tech. Maybe they themselves purged the world of whatever they could find of ruins under the waves. I don't really see the Rhulisti as being necessarily a united global nation, but more like how human societies developed over the millenia on Earth, just with a different kind of technology. All it takes is a couple very zealous sects or nations through the Rhulisti period gaining a mediocrum of power to go through and "revise" history, as well as destroy any traces of any evidence that contradicted it.
What if the "nature masters" are the descendants of such a powerful group of zealots, which espouses goodness, while had a darker, more totalitarian control of the Rhulisti society? The "nature benders" could have been dissadents, opposing the "nature masters" (not necessarily better, in fact likely worse).
Here I am wandering down a rabbit trail. But my point being -- and I think Brax's point is the same here -- a lot could have happened during the time of the Rhulisti, history could have been revised considerably to hide the truth. We are talking about tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of years ago, after all. I just don't think that Athas' "history" can be ever taken even remotely at face value.
As for the "flood" itself, here's an idea for you: during the Cleansing Wars a portal to the paraelemental plane of magma was accidentally opened, creating the Obsidian Plains...which are huge. Unlike magma water doesn't hit water and/or other cooler materials and cool down until it becomes rock/obsidian...so if an equivalent portal to the elemental plane of water had been accidentally opened, unless someone was able to get to the portal itself and close the thing there's no physical reason why it should have stopped pouring water into the world. *shrug*
Probably that an halfing, living a hundred years before the sun turned yellow, could have told us of all those things that happened before the World's Age calendar started to be used, and what were the names of the previous calendars, and how many years were there in them, etc...
The halflings probably were smart people for a few thousand years before developing the World's Age calendar, time in which they developed ever better mastery of nature. They had many calendars, wars, peace times, etc - just like in the real world - but of this only the inception of the World's Age calendar has survived the ages.
I remember reading somewhere that the obsidian would have cover athas, and that some druids (I think) stopped it from spreading. One of them was the Seventh Tree. Of course, I have no clue what any of that means, but it seems to support your point.
Ahhha yes - the Seventh Tree - the largest living creature on Athas - what a wonder that will be when we all can see what Athas.org has done with this "creature". I am all-knowing and all-powerful (which is not, as some of you reading further might assume, a false belief - it is the only truth that you willl need! :D )
As for the gods - I have to say that I am a purest in this matter - I neither want gods nor feel a huge resounding desire for them to have any significant impact on the nature of Athas.
As for those who claimed to worship gods - I think this was covered in an older thread, but IMO, I think that they were not gods, but very Epic in their power, which can appear godly to norms. As with many things, if you believe something strongly enough and have enough people doing it (expecially with the high level of latent psionic ability on Athas) it is IMO possible for this belief to carry one on past the point of living - hense the undead below Tyr.
Nothing related to gods at all, only a very strong - and incorrect - belief in thier god. I am not at all surprised that this would happen, nor that people would believe in it so strongly - heck, people though that the Earth was a fixed objust in the heavens and everything rotated around it, and also that the world was flat - an example of believing in something that is wrong, but in their minds, it was the truth and therefore correct.
Anyone given any thought to the idea that the SKs might not have been the first creatures to attract the attention of an Elemental Vortex and thus be able to grant spells? Also, I am a BIG fan of the idea that Divine Minds in Dark Sun wouldn't be able to tell the difference between their own psionic powers and the favor of a god. Faith based psionics is funny like that.
That first idea is thought-provoking and the second I agree with full-heartedly.
Anyone given any thought to the idea that the SKs might not have been the first creatures to attract the attention of an Elemental Vortex and thus be able to grant spells? Also, I am a BIG fan of the idea that Divine Minds in Dark Sun wouldn't be able to tell the difference between their own psionic powers and the favor of a god. Faith based psionics is funny like that.
It's especially difficult if Athas never had gods. How could you say what a "real" god was if you never had any basis of comparison.
I showed my oldest son a picture of a Komodo dragon once, and he said, yeah, but that's not a real dragon.;) I said son, hate to disillusion you, but this is the only kind of real dragon.
Which supports the concept of "gods" on athas, without them actually being the outer-plannar-worship-me-I'll-give-you-spells-and-stuff-deities.
Sorry, grad school is in full swing, and the who person-in-environment psychotheraputic model is on my brain. Stupid school of Social Work.