Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Jan 11, 2005 14:01:24	I'm getting ready to run a Dark Sun campaign in the next few months with an interesting premise: Essentially, a band of Faerunian adventurers lose their gear (with the exception of spell components and spellbooks, for the spellcaster-types), and get permanently banished to Athas, where they must survive and make a living for themselves. However, I'm blanking in several areas: 1) How the PCs get there? I'm wanting something a little more original than "The group walks through one of Faerun's eight billion portals." 2) What area of the Tablelands to send them to? I have a great scene in mind involving the Sea of Silt, but I don't know whether I should save that for later... 3) How to handle PC wizards, druids and clerics switching over to Athasian brands of magic? I'm wanting the horror of defiling to sink in quickly, but I don't know how to do clerics and druids switching over? --thanks! NB
#2 dawnstealer Jan 11, 2005 17:34:58	Here's one way - they bump into a defiler (Androponis?) and they get sucked into his wake. Um, they could get hit with an experimental spell or psionic ability cast from Dark Sun that sucks them across. They take a trip to the Inner Planes and somehow end up on Athas' Inner Plane. They find a really wicked-cool artifact that zaps them off to Athas, disappearing their stuff and then disappearing itself. Some outer planar creature thinks that something needs to be balanced on Athas and thinks the PCs would be great for it...unknown to the PCs. Zot! That's all I have off the top of my head.
#3 jon_oracle_of_athas Jan 12, 2005 4:49:10	1) How the PCs get there? I'm wanting something a little more original than "The group walks through one of Faerun's eight billion portals." Athas is sealed off from the outside multiverse, for example you can't reach it by using a Spelljammer ship. Apart from forgotten portals, there is no way to get there. Two options: The PCs are summoned to Athas from Athas, or brought back to Athas and the subterranean city of New Giustenal by Dregoth utilizing the Planar Gate, maybe for some horrible experiment in order to study the relationship between gods and their followers. The PCs escape with the help of Absalom, Dregoth's high priest, and are told to flee towards the surface. 2) What area of the Tablelands to send them to? I have a great scene in mind involving the Sea of Silt, but I don't know whether I should save that for later... The above scenario would put the PCs in the ruins of the surface city Giustenal, close to the Sea of Silt. I would recommend you go to svgames.com and purchase The City by the Silt Sea box pdf download. It contains all the campaign information you would need. 3) How to handle PC wizards, druids and clerics switching over to Athasian brands of magic? I'm wanting the horror of defiling to sink in quickly, but I don't know how to do clerics and druids switching over? Wizards could discover their magic doesn't work (until they learn to tap into plant energy), or that it has a horrible side effect, namely defiling. Clerics would no longer have contact with their gods and be without spells until they forge a pact with an element, possibly after encountering an athasian cleric and undergoing a ritual of worship to the element in question. Druids might be the ones with the easiest time. The spirits of the land could recognize them as druids and lend them their energy, but maybe even these spirits would require some form of test - such as slaying their defiling wizard companion.
#4 pneumatik Jan 12, 2005 10:50:13	I would do something similar to what Jon mentioned below re: Dregoth, only I wouldn't start the PC's in Guistenal. I would instead have the PC's use a portal on Faerun (like it or not, the abundance of portals is a significant aspect of FR) at the same time that Dregoth was travelling through his planer gate from Faerun back to Athas nearby. Or maybe Dregoth's planer gate links up with portals/doorways/etc. in whatever plane it's going to, and this time it make a link from itself on Athas to the portal the PC's are supposed to come out of. Now Dregoth walks into the portal the PC's are supposed to come out of at the same time the PC's are supposed to come out of. Dregoth returning to Athas closes the gate, and in the cosmic interplaner wake of this closing the PC's get sucked to somewhere on Athas, too. I realize this is a pretty outrageous series of coincidences, but getting to Athas is supposed to be impossible. The events are so confusing that it should take the PC's a while before their knowledge: planes and arcana skills are high enough to even figure out exactly what happened, let alone how to get back to Faerun.
#5 dawnstealer Jan 12, 2005 11:55:36	Actually, I bounced my players to Athas from FR using a similar tactic. This is what I used: If these are established characters, have them travel to the underdark and "somehow" get captured by Drow. The Drow are certainly going to torture them and make their lives absolutely miserable. They're locked in a cave/cell while the Drow decide what to do with them. They "somehow" manage to escape (they'll get tired of the guard coming to make fun of them, trust me - they'll come up with something. If not, torture one to death and give the others incentive). What follows is a quick sprint down the halls of the Drow, with the dark elves in hot pursuit. The PCs find a side-room with a massive locked door. Hopefully, one of them can pick the lock or magic their way past it. Inside, is a small warehouse-type room. Far to the back is a cabinet that appears to be glowing inside. Let the PCs jump through one at a time, have them leave the room as they do so and don't tell them or the others what happens: they simply disappear. Once everyone's through, they arrive on the Outer Planes. In my adventure, they arrived at Nimicri, a moon-sized mimic that likes to take blood from travelers so it can mimic them. A "helpful inn owner" asks for blood in order to inact a spell to send them back home. The mimic shows them a portal and sends them to Sigil. Once in the City of Doors, it's cake to bounce them to Dark Sun. Some local faction sends them on a mission, but gives them the wrong key, and so on. A bit circuitous, and you end up using a portal, of sorts, but it's not: "There's a glowing portal in front of you. You step through. You are hot. It is sunny outside. You are in the middle of a vast desert. Buwhahhahhahahahahahhahahahhahahahh!!!!!"
#6 jaanos Jan 12, 2005 17:18:33	Impossible, no, difficult, yes. Athas is part of the megaverse, just very, very teneously connected to it, with numerous barriers to travel to it. but getting to Athas is supposed to be impossible. The events are so confusing that it should take the PC's a while before their knowledge: planes and arcana skills are high enough to even figure out exactly what happened, let alone how to get back to Faerun.
#7 zombiegleemax Jan 13, 2005 12:22:52	Athas is sealed off from the outside multiverse, for example you can't reach it by using a Spelljammer ship. Apart from forgotten portals, there is no way to get there. Two options: The PCs are summoned to Athas from Athas, or brought back to Athas and the subterranean city of New Giustenal by Dregoth utilizing the Planar Gate, maybe for some horrible experiment in order to study the relationship between gods and their followers. The PCs escape with the help of Absalom, Dregoth's high priest, and are told to flee towards the surface. Side note: I don't think Absalom would betray Dregoth for anything. There is a mention of an npc, I think it was in Dune Trader, where a psychoporter accidentally got stuck on Athas and couldn't get home. But other than that there are two ways into Athas that I can think of: Dregoth's Gate and the Githyanki Gate. To me it would seem more probable to use the Githyanki one becasue the players can be lost in the Astral somehow and then the Githyanki can abduct the pcs as slave labor because they have had trouble adapting to Athas, like they are trying to aquire slaves from wilderness tribes and elf tribes and need labor for their underground city. You can then make sure the gate doesn't work and a large fire in the underground city forces them to the surface, and BAM! one big scary survival adventure across the desert with say an escaped Balician as a guide.
#8 jon_oracle_of_athas Jan 13, 2005 12:25:00	Hey Jaan. Gab e-mailed you two days ago. Could you get back to him? Thanks.
#9 jon_oracle_of_athas Jan 13, 2005 12:55:14	is a mention of an npc, I think it was in Dune Trader, where a psychoporter accidentally got stuck on Athas and couldn't get home. There is a trading card which might depict the character you reference. He functions as a psionic "leech/vampire" on Athas, draining the psionic points of others. Can't recall his name off-hand.
#10 jaanos Jan 13, 2005 15:25:41	Hmm... i did already, hey Gab, check your spam / junk folder, sometimes hotmail stuff winds up there. I'll re-send anyways. Jaanos Hey Jaan. Gab e-mailed you two days ago. Could you get back to him? Thanks.
#11 zombiegleemax Jan 13, 2005 19:27:40	is a mention of an npc, I think it was in Dune Trader, where a psychoporter accidentally got stuck on Athas and couldn't get home. There is a trading card which might depict the character you reference. He functions as a psionic "leech/vampire" on Athas, draining the psionic points of others. Can't recall his name off-hand. Grrr... now I am going to have to find it! :raincloud :
#12 zombiegleemax Jan 14, 2005 14:15:34	Thanks for the kind replies, guys! Some replies I got at RPG.net have told me what to do, and how to do it. Your ideas were very good, so don't think I ignored them! I just got slightly more useful advice at RPG.net... Further updates as for PCs: I have a zero-level drow, who will eventually become a water cleric; a 1st level fighter/1st level rogue/1st level ranger shield dwarf (he's a scout for Mithril Hall); a 2nd level air genasi wizard; and a 3rd level human psion. The PCs will start off in Mithril Hall, where King Bruenor will hire them to explore an old fey ruin near the outskirts of the dwarf kingdom, where several dwarves have recently disappeared. Bruenor suspects drow involvement, and hopes the motley assortment of PC races and classes will help the PCs better against their enemies. There'll be an NPC dwarf cleric of Moradin going with them to act as a healer, but I plan on him dying before the PCs even remotely get to Athas. As it turns out, the fey ruins once acted as a link between the Athasian pixie city-state of Godtree and this area of Faerun's pixies. During the Cleansing Wars, several thousand pixies fled to Abeir-Toril, only to have Wyan twist the faerie road between cosmologies so that it would never function again. Recently, however, drow scouts working for Menzoberranzan have moved into the ruins, as a prelude to another drow invasion of Mithril Hall. Poking around in the ruins, the drow scouts uncovered the Treestone that acted as a gateway between Athas and Toril. Their faerzress-infused bodies re-activated the Treestone, but only as a one-way portal, and even then only for a short time, before the Treestone dies forever. The drow got sucked through, and murdered by some Athasian beast on the other side. Meanwhile, several dwarves in the region have spotted signs of drow habitation. Some few of these dwarves have also been sucked through to Athas. When the PCs investigate the fey ruins, they'll encounter the last remaining drow, a mad sorcerer, who'll kill the dwarf cleric, and then activate the Treestone one final time. The group'll get pulled into Athas, fight the drow sorcerer...and then realize the Treestone no longer works. :D As to where they'll appear, it'll be in the wastes directly north of Urik, right after the death of King Kalak. They'll hook up with a caravan heading back south from the Forest Ridge, and have their first encounter with the halflings of Athas... --thanks, guys! NB