There is some evidence for other realms out there, especially in "Valley of Dust and Fire" and version 2.0 of DS. In the map included with VoDF, you can clearly see a shore line on the far side of the Silt Sea, so there is obviously a land mass off in that direction. In version 2.0, right before it lists the Champions, it also mentions that the list is incomplete; that there were numerous champions and these were just the ones that survived the cleansing wars and had influence into current times, so it's quite possible that there are even large sorcerer king-controlled cities still out there, as well.
As for size, I have always thought that the Tyr region was much smaller in scale than the Prism Pentad led us to believe. In those books, it took Rikus and the entire army, traveling across admitedly rough ground but on a straight shot, weeks to go from Tyr to Urik. On the map, this trip might take 3-4 days if you took your time. Someone mentioned scaling it up by a factor of 4 and I agree with that.
So let's talk maps, people: What lies beyond the Tyr region? Are there other cities and Kings/Queens? Is the scale too small, too big, or just right? Some things you can take into consideration are the location of the Tyr region: the Tyr region is in the Southern Hemisphere around the 45 parallel, making the deadlands damn-near the pole, so most of the "interesting stuff" will lie to the North.
Originally posted by Grummore
What does think the official athas.org team about scaling up by X time the distance on athas?
That's a good question. Since Athas.org are actualy writing adventures as we speak, what planet scale are they considering?
Check out the WJ, pages 3 and 4. Basically, it's saying that there's another stretch of land (almost wholly undeveloped!) on the eastern shores of the Sea of Silt, which is bordered on it's eastern side by another range of "ringing mountains"
There's another resource detailing the land to the east of the silt sea. Great map for it, but I don't think the land itself was given much detail. I know I'm kicking myself for not remembering the webmasters for both sites, but they're out there.
I'm still plodding along on what was to be the eastern land, but its changed a bit to be a far northland (assuming the sea of silt is much, much larger though). Yuan-ti nations, ancient gith, lots o' lizards, weirdo wemics, oh and very few humans. Some is on my website. More will get put up once I get a better host (sometime before I die, hopefully).
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7117/athas/maps.html
That was actually a map made by Stephen Bell and Brax (I think that's how it went). Brax supplied the background and Stephen drew it out. This was actually the page that made me want to make a 3D model of it. I talked to Brax about it, and what we came up with is that 3d model. I still have the skin around somewhere...on one of these harddrives....ummmm.... uh.... I'll see if I can't track that damn file down.
[ed: added this next part in]
As for the Eastern Shore, I always thought of the Sea of Silt as part of the defenses that kept Ur Draxa safe from prying eyes. I seem to remember the original DS sourcebook stating that the Sea of Silt was enclosed by the ringing mountains, so that would seem to hold. Also, if you check the maps from VoDF, you can see the spits of land to the North and South. Of course, since they don't actually show it, it means we can make it whatever we want. :D
[did some googling and found this]
http://www.digitalwanderer.net/darksun/
Amazing site. Does this guy (girl?) post on this board? That's just an amazing site and a great job of pasting in the map.
I think you're referring to the maps located here:
Nope, the first one is
HERE
Still can't seem to track down the second one.
The nice flash site was made by Urgos (sp?) who pops in here and there to toss us hungry tembo a bit of artistic meat. Pretty good stuff if you ask me.
Athas East
There are definitely some interesting elements that seem to have formed the current geo-social structure of Athas. To the west of the Tyr region you have the Sea of Silt, which literally seems to split the world in half. Who knows what kinds of cultures exists there? Being so far away from the magic-laiden events that shaped the Tyrian races, things could be very different. To the west, you have the kreen empire. Why are they so interested in expanding to the east and not in another direction? Is there something (or someone) else that is dictating their movements?
As for the scale of the world, yeah... they've always seemed a little small, especially if you are going for that "hopelessly lost in the desert" feel. Sometimes it felt like the later pieces of source material almost made the world too civilized, with the number of settlements sprinkled throughout the Tyr region. And don't get me started on the surfer dudes to the north!
An geographical expansion of the setting could (and have) yield some very interesting projects.
Urrgos
I certainly think we need to avoid creating fertile areas or areas settled by "nice" folks. Otherwise, when the PC's find out about them, they might just up and move!
Speaking personally, the major theme I want to bring to any Athas gaming I do is Nothing will get better unless the PCs do it.
So having a nicer area just over the horizon kinda defeats that
As for the rest of the world, my thought was that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. All of the races were created at the Pristine Tower and the halflings might not have been in large numbers (after wars with the Life-Benders and the Brown Tide) and might not have created many humanoids from the Pristine Tower. Attached to their halfling ancestors, they might not have gone far. This doesn't mean there aren't far-flung civilizations, just that they might be very rare.
It's a thought.
It seems fairly obvious to me that the Sorcerer Kings wouldn't have settled where they did if the Tablelands weren't "the best of a bad bunch
Not to deter you at all, but this is discussed at length through out several fairly recent threads. No single theory, even those that seem obvious holds enough weight though to stick.
I do agree that if there are places on Athas that are 'better' in one way, they should also be far worse off in several others. If the area is moderately fertile, it should be infested with beast of inceredible savagry or lorded over by mighty beings. If it is a place of little social hardship, then it should be located in a place of hellish environmental conditions. Athas does need some new regions, ones that are vastly different from the Tablelands, simply for the sake of variety. What Athas does not need however, is a Paradise. Everyone should suffer . . . (sorry, been reading too much VtM lately, didn't mean to sound so ominous about it).
Also, I do think the PCs should have an impact, but it should be a smaller one than in some campaign settings. The changes the PCs make should rarely be on a large scale. Fatalism is a reacuring theme through out the first box set as well as the pentad novels. Let the PCs save the village from the long time raiders. When they think they have a safe haven in this village that hails them as heroes, wipe it out with a good sized Tyr storm.
Originally posted by Mach2.5
Not to deter you at all, but this is discussed at length through out several fairly recent threads. No single theory, even those that seem obvious holds enough weight though to stick.
I do agree that if there are places on Athas that are 'better' in one way, they should also be far worse off in several others. If the area is moderately fertile, it should be infested with beast of inceredible savagry or lorded over by mighty beings. If it is a place of little social hardship, then it should be located in a place of hellish environmental conditions.
Agreed - although, again just speaking personally, I'd not be having any "mighty beings" that rival the Sorcerer Kings. I want the emphasis to be on the Tablelands, at least from the PCs point of view - if they want a better life, they should have to build it there.
Also, I do think the PCs should have an impact, but it should be a smaller one than in some campaign settings. The changes the PCs make should rarely be on a large scale. Fatalism is a reacuring theme through out the first box set as well as the pentad novels. Let the PCs save the village from the long time raiders. When they think they have a safe haven in this village that hails them as heroes, wipe it out with a good sized Tyr storm.
Well, ultimately, I want the PCs to have a big impact - but it'll be harder! Think of the impact a PC would have if they finally manage the Avangion transformation...
Of course, a lot of this is "my own private Athas", rather than anything I think should be incorporated into "official" Dark Sun :D
Interesting things you could have: an area where an Avangion attempted to fix things, but It Went Wrong (and the PCs get to find out what went wrong, and learn how not to do that themselves); huge battlefields (ripe for plunder, assuming you can get the undead soldiers to let go); important historical sites (The Orc's Last Stand)...
Originally posted by flip
DS2 ? You don't even need to wait that long to know that there's stuff beyond the silt sea.
Check out the WJ, pages 3 and 4. Basically, it's saying that there's another stretch of land (almost wholly undeveloped!) on the eastern shores of the Sea of Silt, which is bordered on it's eastern side by another range of "ringing mountains"
The problem with this quote, at least, is that just about everything that the Wanderer said about the 'bigger picture' was flat out contradicted in the Wanderer's Chronicle. The Ringing Mountains were so-called because it was thought that they encircled the Sea of Silt. Both of the Wanderer's accounts were supposedly based on the stories of travellers. Presumably over the ten years between them, the Wanderer was able to correct many of his mistakes.
Originally posted by Afghan
Presumably over the ten years between the WJ and the WC, the Wanderer was able to correct many of his mistakes.
True. And I hope there are still mistakes from the W. or at least assumptions like the Koshak mtns( I'd like them to be more then mere barren mountains with a pool of water in the center)
I would personnally see the Koshak mtns at least 4 time bigger then what's charted on the map with a enclosed civilisation of some kind(that could in fact become a new thread; If you could change it, how would you see the koshak Mnts??
)What lies beyond the known regions?
Are there any Champions beyond the 13 known?
I hear mention of a big body of water. Do you agree or should there just be a whole lot of little bodies of water?
I think its simplistic to think that the greater Tyrian region is the sole place on the planet where humanoid life exists. Although that said, shouldn't it have been sought out at some point by the SK's or other powerful beings?
I think, though, that there is probably several other continents all separated by silt seas and all unique in their own rights. Some desolate waste lands completely uninhabited others with humanoid life forms and some even verdant areas but so hard to get to that only a great magic could transport someone there. Again I really liked the hex-cube thing that Brax did. It easily had enough other land masses that someting interesting could be written for all of them. Does anyone know where this might reside? I do not have the link.
One of my goals was to build a "skin" to put on a 3d model and then make a VRML representation of Athas complete with moons and such. I still have those emails with Brax saved, so all of that info is still going to be dumped onto the next map I create, but specific information about what resides on that continent to the North or the Eastern Shore of the Silt Sea was not included.
I have seen the maps that others have made concerning these parts of the world, but these usually include making a "Tablelands-like" area complete with multiple cities and so on. I tend to agree with the earlier post that stated that it's very likely that the Tablelands are the best Athas has to offer. This doesn't mean that there aren't other city-states, or even that there aren't other Champions out there, just that I doubt that there would be huge forests and so on like I have seen on line.
Originally posted by Belyn Goldentree
[b]I would definately agree that there would be small bodies of water beyond the Tyr region. I do not think that there would be an enormous body of water anywhere. If there was I would ask the question why hasn't one of the SK's found it and moved there? Or even the (former) Dragon!
...
I think, though, that there is probably several other continents all separated by silt seas and all unique in their own rights. Some desolate waste lands completely uninhabited others with humanoid life forms and some even verdant areas but so hard to get to that only a great magic could transport someone there. [b]
I have big problems with the Sea of Silt being anything other an inland 'sea'. Whilst silt doesn't work exactly like water, if there were silt oceans then you wouldn't have a Crimson Savannah.
I am sure there might some 'watery' remnants of the oceans that once covered the world. But they are polluted and fouled by the residue of the catastrophe that overtook the Blue Age. The last Athasian oceans are presumably even worse than the deserts.
-the continent at the eastern side of the Sea of Silt should have non-humanoid population, especially in the inland area. Maybe a kingdom of Scrags, and other insectiod/vermin like but intelligent creatures. Not thri-kreens though -they are located in the Crimson Savannah, so I would say we don't mess them here.
-and according to this there can be humanoid outposts at the shore of the Sea of Silt, and they can maintain connection to the locals, and do trading with them sometimes. The outposts keep connection with each other with silt skimmers, as they don't dare to venture inside the continent, even taking landwalk between the outposts. It is too dangerous. Even a skimmer trip on the Sea of Silt is safer than that. The outposts itself are heavily fortified, almost like a city state on the Tablelands to fend off attacks by savage insect forces.
So the feeling is bit like the conquest of America: huge, unknown and very dangerous continent, the outposts are the only safe heavens from the native locals, but of course crime and such things can be quite abundant in them. Or not, if one is under total dictatorship by it's leader (who can be a psion, trader, warrior, wizard, cleric, whatever), but there every people live in continous fear. Of course the power of Borys or Dregoth can be felt here as well. They can have templars in disguise in the area, or even one of the outposts' feared dictator is really a templar of Borys...
Do you like it?
Originally posted by stidwell
Has anyone thought of putting together an atlas of the Tyr region? The adventure modules, and other products have a s**t-load of material on various locations.
For a starting resource:
http://meteu.octoraro.org/sands/locations.html
(I compiled this a *long* time ago ... and it doesn't include anything released by athas.org, because it hasn't been touched in six years ...)
thats what they said in DARKSUN 1.0 computer game by SSI
I never heard what the official team thinks about scaling up the map by X.
Originally posted by KirNaNog
The second can be found here:
Athas East
Cool, I gotta plug for Athas East! :D
In reality, that map is a close up of the region know as Timber Vale. There is a larger map but with little detail done yet.
Athas East - Large
I've been distracted by other things recently but with the renewed semi-support from WotC, I might get back into mapping out more of Athas East.
I really like map of the Sundra Peninsula. Very well done.
Cheers!
Knightfall
As was said, there shouldn't be other paradises on Athas with out a significant disadvantage. If this Athas east existed, the sorceror-kings and Borys would have been trying to conquer it for some time (might have even succeeded, even against the two advanced beings).
In addition, the comments about the pistine tower above (ie that the new races would have had precious little time to radiate from the tower) implies the following:
(1) either a large group of people made the trip accross what is now the sea of silt, and successfully settled there. Of course, they would have had to battle thri-kreen and halflings for the land. But this is doable. But if so, the Sorceror Kings would have been right on their tail during the cleansing wars, meaning this whole region got wasted as well. Remember, the CHampions were oh so close to exterminating all nohuman/nonhalflings.
(2) a large group fled the cleansing wars and settled here. If this happened, they would have been exhausted from years of war, and would have a slim chance of seizing land from the natives.
(3) clearly no large group of people made it after Borys conquered (founded?) Ur Draxa.
I guess there is a possibility that a portal might be around that enabled a large group of people to get far away easily, to a place like Timber Vale, but again, the SK's would have easily followed.
Any map of the world should have minimal population of the "new races" and a maximal pop. of halflings, thri-kreen, and perhaps a few other someone decides are native to Athas.
Originally posted by Dawnstealer
My plan is to make one huge Athas map. I was just going to make it of the known tablelands, but then decided: "What the hell." And started work on this. Basically, I want to make the whole world. Of course, I'm overloaded with art projects right now, so I'll just let you guys build up a lot of good ideas and then I'll swoop in, steal them, and post them on my site. I'm planning on having a map divided into a grid system. You click on a portion of the grid, and it will zoom in on that area. Click again, and it zooms in again. I'm planning on incorporating city maps and so on, so it would hopefully become the difinitive resource for Athas locations. But the critters come first - Once I get those drawn, I'll throw myself into the maps (and drawing some art for my fine Kanook-ian friend Grummore - haven't forgotten about you).
In my homebrew, there is a region(quite big actually) which could fit somewhere on Athas. My homebrew isn’t related to the world of Athas but I admit it was much inspired by.
Anyway, here it is.
Imagine a Sea(about 4 times the size of the silt sea) But instead of water there is mist. The mist is poisonous to air breathers but that doesn’t mean it is lifeless. The buoyancy of this mist is somewhere between water and air. (the mist is actually quite damp). So a human would ”fall” at half speed. Of course no human or humanoid can swim in the mist.(they would automatically fall) On the other hand, creatures who can, have adapted to their environment. This means that like any other sea, life is plentiful in the Mist sea. All the creatures which live in this outlandish mist are either half fish/bird, flying lizards, odd looking jellyfish(and the like) and hundreds of plant variety.(including a strange looking rock/plant called coral) Of course all those creatures have adapted to the poisonous substance in the mist. As a matter of fact, they now need it to live(they can no longer breath air). An other odd aspect of this mist is that where mist is in contact with air,(throughout the whole surface) a chemical reaction transforms the surface into a gas like matter. Mere inches above the mist level the air is breathable though. This means that if somehow, an air breather was able to pock is head out of the mist he would be able to breath as if his head was out of the water. This gas matter is usually thick and eerie white regularly blocking most of the view below. More could said about this Mist sea but you get the idea.
Now inside the Mist sea, are hundreds of islands of all shapes and sizes, sometime, mere jagged peaks, other, flat plateaus big enough to hold mountains. All the islands have one common feature: they’re all shear “columns” of rock/earth and most of their rise are at least 100feet above Mist sea level. The only exception to this are the numerous jagged peaks jutting from the Mist sea.(which are probably mountain peaks or jagged rock formation) and a few “column” islands.
The terrain on those islands are quite diverse from arid desert to tropical-like forest.
There’s more to say but I’ll stop here. If some of you would happen to be intrigued in this idea, post me some questions and I’ll be happy to elaborate on the subject.
On better areas than the Tyr region; the SK could, A. Have an attachment to the Tyr region. B. Be imprisoned there by the Dragon. C. Not know the other regions in the world. D. There are beings more powerful then they, like 10,000 year old Elemental-Kings that control lusher areas.
Isolation is a problem. In the Brax map, there seems to be a lush region beyond the Kreen Empire. However, who is going to cross the Kreen Empire to get there?
The Ringing Mountains are named after the sound they make when the wind blows through them, not because they circle the Tyr Region. However, it would make a lot more sense if they did. You would have a true rain shadow desert.
I have though of many other regions for Dark Sun
Edge of Athas; Has already been discussed. My goal was to create a new region in the style of the first Dark Sun Map that is as unique as the Dark Sun map was. I have to find a new server for Geocities closed my account. I cannot add anything to it.
Towns ruled by Elemental Clerics. Each town worships its element. They are going to be four towns, a raider village and perhaps some other peoples as well. They are isolated from the Tyr region. I have only created two test renders of the Town of Fire.
First drawing. Mono colors. It took a while to draw.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-8/362482/CHVillage.gif
Used filters in Adobe. It took less time.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-9/362482/TownofFire.jpg
A region just beyond the Tyr region ruled by a water element. I have a map, however, I have yet to post it (I may redo it). It is a simple region where those that live in the element's city live a life of slpendor while those that don't have to toil in the fields. However, it is still much better to be a slave there than it is to be a slave in the Tyr Region.
Using Rise of Nation, Star Wars, Galatic Battleground and Age of Kings graphics, I was going to create the City of Gold, a huge (Graphics wise and file size) trade city in a far off land. Their roofs are made of gold.
Non Dark Sun projects, but are similar in genre.
The Desert Sea; a future Chinese society on a far off world has collapsed and become barbaric. They almost had to start over. I am going to draw, from scracth, all beasts (Permian life), all weapons, Hieroglyphics (some done already, they use round stamps to write), a regional map (completed) and name generators based off of Chinese (done).
The Desert of Decadence; useing Caeser 3 graphics, I have created a city were the nobles live in decadence and the average person lives in poverty. This is about contrast. The nobles get gallons and gallons of water a day while the commoners get far less. The nobles are fat, while the commoners are skinny etc. I am going to use Triassic creatures for the fauna. This set should be very graphic intense.
So, for those of you who have seen LOTR (Return of the King), did you see that 3d map with the B/W overlay? I'm thinking of doing something like that for Athas. I was going to do it for all of Athas, but I think Ral's statement has made me reconsider that.
Originally posted by Dawnstealer
So, for those of you who have seen LOTR (Return of the King), did you see that 3d map with the B/W overlay? I'm thinking of doing something like that for Athas. I was going to do it for all of Athas, but I think Ral's statement has made me reconsider that.
Don't remember that, oh well, plan to see the movie a few more times before it leaves the theaters anyways.
Yeah, I would make a map consisting of the entire "official" world, and then leave the rest up to individual DMs.
We're not all going to agree what else is out there and where it is exactly, so it would be best to just stick with the official world and have everyone else design the rest of "their" Athas.
Doesn't mean stop the ideas from flowing, I am really liking what I am seeing on the new areas of Athas, and plan to use a few.
...that's where the giant space hampsters have been hiding, waiting to unleash their horrible cuteness on the world, stuffing their cheeks full of pellets, woodchips, and the mangled body parts of their victims. Oh, yes: the Valley of Fur and Hampster will be classic.
I'm willing to bet there is.
If you look at the map, it's seamless. If you every took a look at the 2e FR maps, they were a hodgepodge of styles and you could tell that they were adding in piece by piece as the world evolved. I have a nagging suspicion that Athas was fully planned out (or largely planned out) and they would simply reveal more and more of that "master map" as time went on. I still think we've only seen 1/4 to 1/2 of what Diesel actually drew. (Diesel was the artist that created the DS map).
Awesome work, i think Grummore was working on revamping it
Originally posted by Dawnstealer
If you're talking about all the released maps of Athas, don't bother. I cut up those maps and scanned them in (making one huge, monstrous picture) a long time ago.
Anyway I can get my hands on a copy? Been wanting to do this for quite some time, and since I don't have a scanner was going to go to Kinko's or something and get it done, but I can already hear their reasoning for not being able to do it, "copy righted material". :P
Although I get clammy hands and start to drool over the thought of new and expanded regional material, I have to agree that further developement should be in a sorta plug and play fashion rather than continuing to expand the known borders further and further. I think this would be the easiest solution to please the most people. Those who don't want to use new material don't have to, nor do they have to worry about it infronging upon canon/their own works. Those who do want new regional material (myself included) can simply plop in whichever new region they want, filling in the slight gaps in the maps to make them fit where ever they like.
I agree with Dawnstealer partially. Having spoken with some people in the industry about how things work behind the scenes, I would think that DS was mostly fleshed out from the start. The peopel making the products had multiple projects through out the year and without a clear direction of each campaign setting (especially at that time for TSR, with so many campaigns to take into consideration), a company wouldn't be able to clearly allocate their resources between different settings. By the reverse though, from what I understand, things are never really carved into stone, just in case. New ideas still crop up between developers and writers that may take things in a slightly different direction than originally intended. While the two maps for DS (between the boxed sets) are indeed seemless, never underestimate the abilities of the modern mapper, especially one as magnificent as diesel (I personally think he left his mark in the cartography industry with the maps in Dungeon Magazine #24 for the all humanoid adventure Rank Amatuers, but that may just be my tastes). I'm sure the Jagged Cliffs region was thought out originally, but the upper basin area may have been a hodgepodge of unused ideas (Saragar, Scortched Plateau, etc). We can only guess . . . or find Troy Denning, kidnap him with an ether rag, and torture him with Banannas In Pajammas reruns until he talks.
Edit: Sarcasm added.
[email]Gr8ScottImsol8@Aol.Com[/email]
Can't remember, oh well.
:D
I would never do such as you are all doing. You, yes you. It's sad. Although, maybe you wish to send these maps (everything that you have, but he probably as some of these already) to this man:
No more man to click, it appear that the edit button as striked, but still, there is a small button in the bottom of the post called email ;)
Silly frog was asked to do this post, but you know, some peoples like him dont mind these violation of copyright...
Originally posted by Dawnstealer
If you're talking about all the released maps of Athas, don't bother. I cut up those maps and scanned them in (making one huge, monstrous picture) a long time ago. What I'm talking about is one that is as big as the designers origninally planned.
If you look at the map, it's seamless. If you every took a look at the 2e FR maps, they were a hodgepodge of styles and you could tell that they were adding in piece by piece as the world evolved. I have a nagging suspicion that Athas was fully planned out (or largely planned out) and they would simply reveal more and more of that "master map" as time went on. I still think we've only seen 1/4 to 1/2 of what Diesel actually drew. (Diesel was the artist that created the DS map).
This is actually not true. There are huge differences between the Wanderer's Journal and the Wanderer's Chronicle about the shape and size of the Sea of Silt and the Ringing Mountains.
wow small planet lots of diversity thoughThis is actually not true. There are huge differences between the Wanderer's Journal and the Wanderer's Chronicle about the shape and size of the Sea of Silt and the Ringing Mountains.
Sorry, but not seeing the relevance to my quote? All I'm saying is that if you look at the map that diesel drew for the original box set, and look at the edges, you can see hints of the add-ons. I don't think they knew exactly what was going to go where, but I believe they said to Diesel: "Draw something like this..." and he did.
Best plan of action would be to get the guy's email address and ask him if there was a much larger map that they just kept pulling from when they needed a new release.
Scott