Dragon Magazine DARKSUN PHB
Sorry.
The usual perspective is - there's two different conversions, both equally official. One's from Athas.org, the other's from the Dragon & Dungeon magazines. Take a look at both, and take from them what you want in your own game.
Heh, anyway, I was just surprised.
Like my current favorite quote says, with a jama
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> Sorry for calling you Carrie before!
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That's how it started. It was about 6 or 7 years ago, when I decided to start looking up websites on Dark Sun. The only computer access I had at the time was my girlfriend that I had recently moved in with. So (with her permission, of course) I subscribed to the Dark Sun mailing list. I didn't know as much about the machines as I do now so I wasn't signing my emails and My girlfriend's name was at the top of the email.
People started calling me Carrie, and I wasn't intending to be on the list for too much longer (at the time) and I didn't care to correct them. 'No dude, really, I'm A dude!' SO before it occured to me that I should have a nome-de-Dark Sun, evryone on the list started calling me Carrie.
The fun part was that people started being real helpful because they thought I was a chick! If I needed some map I was working on, some dude from Portugal would be like 'I shall help you, because I am always nice to the ladies...'
Then people were starting to suspect that I was a guy. I mean, is there REALLY going to be a chick posting on a Dark Sun list for like TWO YEARS?? At this point not only was I concerned that alot of people would be ****** if they found out I was a dude, I was curious if gender really mattered to an online personna. I would deflect direct questions as to my gender. For about a year there people were really grilling me because a suspected gender deception. I survived with people thinking I was a girl by replying in the most girl way possible. A typical conversation went like this:
DS subscriber - "Carrie, you are really a dude, aren't you?"
Me - "Does that matter?"
DS subscriber - "Well not really, but I think you are a dude."
Me - "So that means that if I was a girl my ideas would be cast in a different light then if I was male?"
DS subscriber - "No, you write cool stuff, that's why I think you are a guy."
Me - "So you think that a woman couldn't possibly write things that you enjoy?"
DS subscriber - "Hey why are you grilling me?"
Me - "You started this. I don't think that my contributions should be colored by my gender, they should stand on there own merits."
DS subscriber - "Yeah, you're a chick."
So after that I decided on my drag name... Neeva Barrens. And changed my Dark Sun subscriptions to an email that had that name on top. I was still really active untill 3e came out. Then all the discussion has been about the rules. I don't care so much about the rules as the setting, so I haven't contributed as much.
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That was a reply to Paul Liss about a year or two ago, and the Dark Sun bug finally got me again. What started as a funny game ended up being a gigantic pain in the neck. I still don't think that gender matters online, but EVERYONE else cares. Since I am the only one that doesn't care, blah. I'm an jerk for deceving people, but what should really matter is what I've done, and as it stands right now all I've done is drawn some pictures, and help with the discussions in the beginnings of athas.org. For the past couple of years I've done nothing. I would rather have any stuff I work on now not be dished out under the identity obfuscation that I started contributing with...
I must have come to the boards after you "retired", because I don't recall discussing with you, and I never subscribed to the Mailing List longer than it took to realize I couldn't work the damn thing...
I too now realize I might one day leave DS alltogether and leave virtually no footprints behind. As such I've been trying to help the team in the ways that I can, and started about 6 to 12 months ago to write my own stuff, even if all I'm good at apparently is the exact opposite of you: rules stuff. I found myself liking writing feats, PrCs, spells, monsters, NPCs...
Oh, and arguing a lot about godhood, demons, spelljammers, the Mists, elemental vortices, ...
May I ask what made you come back to the boards this time around, if you were left wanting of the whole DS thing up to now?
So After that long of talking about Dark Sun, I was on sort of a Science Fiction binge with Star Trek, Dune, MMORPGs and whatnot. So since I was getting a bit burnt out on it and the list was talking about stuff I didn't really care about. (BTW the rules are the vehicle to tell the story.) I was going to wait it out untill an opportunity presented itself then athas.org was done with the rules and was ready to expand on the campaign setting. Well during the wait I checked my athas.org email less and less and finally I tried to check it and it didn't work. At the time I wasn't contributing ANYTHING and just lurking so I gave it a rest untill I was back in the Athasian frame of mind... Which started when I saw the undead legions in Return of the King, (I was like: "those are SO Raaigs!") and peaked about a month ago when I found my miniture collection again. (Missing for a decade. WOW)
So to make a long story short (TOOLATE) I never stopped being down with the sun, I just wandered away for awhile. Now all I have to do is to get used to my brand new status as non-overcouncil, non-important person.
Then people were starting to suspect that I was a guy. I mean, is there REALLY going to be a chick posting on a Dark Sun list for like TWO YEARS??
I think Angela Last (Lastard) would have a word or two with you on that one. ;)
What started as a funny game ended up being a gigantic pain in the neck. I still don't think that gender matters online, but EVERYONE else cares. Since I am the only one that doesn't care, blah. I'm an jerk for deceving people, but what should really matter is what I've done, and as it stands right now all I've done is drawn some pictures, and help with the discussions in the beginnings of athas.org.
You misunderstand, no one gives a damn that you are a male or a female, at least I certainly don't. However, I do care that you were deceitful and kept being deceitful until you got a bug up your butt years later and decided to actually start producing projects, or at least helping in producing, through Athas.org and decided to finally use your real identity.
That is what I have issue with, and a major issue at that, I can't stand liars, especially on that level. I like your art work and what little other work you have done and helped me on, but you have to understand that now people's shields are up, at least mine are, and to quote The Cutting Edge "I don't downshift that fast".
So give it time man, and get some work out there, and all will be well again.
Also by the time that athas.org was getting started I was allready on my sixth year of talking on the main Dark Sun list with flip, gab, brax, teos, chay0s, Lastard and others I'm sure you never would have heard of.
I remember the good ol Teos and Chay0s days, don't ask me what my nick was back then though because I can't recall.
Something like Qrycherna, Qrychernate, ToolPrst or something similar.
Time flies by so fast. I remember so many years ago... being in Innwood Hills, nyc, asking myself, what exactly is DarkSun? Isn't it that munchkin game where you can have stats up to 24?
I vaguely remember the controversy (I must admit, I found it funny).
Ah, the internet is a true equalizer. I, myself am a 7 ft potted plant...
(But you've probably guessed that already...)
I think plants should just admit they are plants, I don't care if they have roots or not!
You speciesist! You hate z'tals! What did they ever do to you???
...Of course, if Jon had said carru, then we'd have a problem. I'd have to ask him to step outside... Don't know where he gets off calling someone a carru...
..uh, was that Jon, the Oracle...?
*emites high pitch scream and runs away from possible blue lightning bolts*
Lirr: Reptile that screams and stuns.
Id Fiend: Reptile that screams inside your mind and you run.
:p