Last time, I wrote a bit about settlements in the wilderness of DARK SUN. I mentioned briefly the presence of the major city-states, so now's a great time to talk a little bit more about adventuring there ( Read more... )

The DARK SUN setting comes with several built-in settlements: the various city-states of the sorcerer-kings. This gives you plenty of options when you're running a city-based game, with characters hustling, avoiding and bribing templars, looking for patronage from the noble houses, and running small-time operations. Characters who head out of the ( Read more... )

A common tension in running games is the conflict between telling a story - the idea that characters are central to a dramatic narrative and that their challenges should follow a fulfilling dramatic arc - and playing a game - the idea that skill and randomness come together under a set of rules operations to decide on an outcome. These goals wind ( Read more... )

One of the foibles of the DARK SUN setting is the scarcity of metal. This provides several elements: For starters, everyone in the art is always wearing thongs and loincloths, which has a very Frazetta/Vallejo design. It also means that the nonmetal materials used for weapons and armor provide some level of mitigation for the personal power of the ( Read more... )

  Players of the beloved DARK SUN campaign setting will, of course, remember defilers as one of the principal enemies of the setting. In a game replete with environmental motifs, the defiler represents the perils of untrammeled exploitation of nature. The defiler gains arcane power through the reckless theft of life-force from the ecosystem. Of ( Read more... )

In an earlier post, I ruminated on some of the fundamentals of running a DARK SUN D&D campaign. Here, I'll tackle one of the specific cases of the game: environmental hazards!

( Read more... )

I recently picked up and read the 4th edition D&D version of the ol' DARK SUN setting. DARK SUN is a Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting from 1991, set in a divergent fantasy world that is a sere desert filled with bizarre creatures and . . . oh, just go read the wikipedia entry.

( Read more... )