History TabletopGame / DarkSun

** In fourth edition, the people of the city of Tyr have managed to kill the sorcerer-king Kalak. This is actually a huge event as the sorcerer-kings were previously thought to be invincible, and the city is now known as the Free City Of Tyr. Furthermore, news of this has traveled to at least some of the other city-states and emboldened the people there, suggesting the millennia long reign of the sorcerer-kings may finally be coming to an end. That's where your character comes in. It's essentially a slightly toned down version of the Revised Edition.

* BrainInAJar: Guardian orbs from the Green Age, which contain the minds of long-dead mortals. The Mindlords who rule and preserve the Last Sea are themselves confined to these orbs.

** Canonically, Athas is such a hellhole, that the only place that's worse is ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}''. And in spirit, Athas might still be the nadir, because unlike Ravenloft, Athas got to where it is [[HumansAreBastards WITHOUT any help from Dark Powers]].

[[caption-width-right:350:[[WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}} Where its flat and immense and the heat is intense.]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:[[WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}} Where the sand is immense and the heat is intense.]]]]

** There's a monster called the Tembo (which is sort of a [[MixAndMatchCritters combination of dinosaur and cougar thing.]]). In addition to being AlwaysChaoticEvil, they like to [[WouldHurtAChild eat kids]], [[EatsBabies even babies.]] As such, even other evil monsters and people can rarely stomach working with them.

* AWorldHalfFull: Exactly ''how'' bleak the setting is supposed to be is somewhat contentious. Even in the original boxed set, it's stated that there is beauty left in Athas despite its ruined state. Subsequent iterations are more overtly hopeful.

* BadassNormal: Thanks to the increased attributes, most non-magical/non-psionic [=PCs=] in this setting default to this. It's also recommended that characters start play at third level at a minimum, as opposed to the level 1 characters of other settings.

* BlackAndGrayMorality: An intentional part of the setting is the concept of "What will you do if the circumstances are bleak enough?" In ''Dark Sun'', even heroic characters might have to commit immoral acts just to survive. One of the first adventures for the setting opens with the party being part of a band of slaves whose slavers have perished, but there isn't enough water to sustain everyone. The party is thus given a SadisticChoice: do they kill the other slaves to spare them the agony of death by thirst, steal all the water and abandon them to the wild, or insist on sharing the water and risk no one surviving? Depending on a particular campaign, though, this could be darkened to [[EvilVersusEvil Black and Black Morality]], or lightened to GreyAndGrayMorality.
* BlackAndWhiteMorality: The usual CharacterAlignment[[invoked]] system of D&D is unchanged in Athas, and the conditions and culture of Athas are irrelevant; slave-ownership, for example, is canonically incompatible with a good alignment. That isn't to say you can't survive on Athas with a Good alignment, you're just going to have to accept that you're a small spark of goodness in a vast darkness of selfishness and brutality.
* BlackMagic: Arcane casters can choose to be "Defilers", which allows them to reroll the results for any spell they cast at the cost of further desertifying the world, or at least the portion of it they're in.

* BreakableWeapons: On Athas, metal weapons are rare and (for most adventurers) horrifically expensive. Most weapons are made of bone, obsidian, or even wood, making them not only inferior stat-wise but giving them a non-zero chance of breaking if you do too much damage with them.

* TheCaligula: Personality-wise, Abalech-Re acts almost like a female Caligula.

* CheapGoldCoins: A notable aversion. Metal currency of any kind is extremely rare, mostly the relics of earlier ages; most money is instead ''ceramic'' pieces and is backed by the city-states that mint them.

* MetalPoorPlanet: Metal is extremely rare on Athas, to the point that no race alive knows how to work metal, not even the dwarves.

* NighInvulnerability: In the original AD&D, the Dragon of Tyr cannot be killed. [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption Period]].

* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: At 25th level, dragons go through an "animalistic stage" of berserk insanity. This insanity is temporary, but lasts until they're ''30th level'' (which requires 5.6 ''million'' XP). This, as much as the mass sacrifice of living beings required, is what has deterred the sorcerer-kings from evolving even more than they have.

** The ''Valley of Dust and Fire'' module describes the Dragon of Tyr's city. If the [=PCs=] face the Dragon in combat, the module suggests that, properly run, the [=PCs=] should never be able to destroy the Dragon, and if the [=PCs=] somehow win, the Dragon probably has a contingency spell or clones or other cheats available to keep it alive anyway. It's been around for millennia, it doesn't exist to be killed by some epic-level adventuring party, and (more importantly by the standards of Creator/{{TSR}} at the time) the Dragon's death would [[OffTheRails completely annihilate the status quo]] and the {{Metaplot}}. This trope ''only'' applies to the AD&D version of the game.
** The 4th edition of ''Dark Sun'' explicitly statted most of the sorcerer-kings, with the implied assumption that a high-level party could face them in combat.

* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: ''Averted'' -- they're hairless brutes who are generally found being used as slaves due to their amazing endurance.

* NintendoHard: ''Valley of Dust and Fire'', the module detailing the city of Ur Draxa, home of the Dragon of Tyr. It is by far the single most impossible and impenetrable fortress ''ever statted in the history of AD&D''. Yes, that ''includes'' the module where you have to go to Orcus' layer of the Abyss and steal his wand, ''and'' the friggin' TabletopGame/TombOfHorrors. It is entirely possible for a high-level adventuring party to die without ever having made it within ''thirty miles'' of the place, just from the ''weather''. Not to mention the ''surrounding sea of lava''. Which can only be crossed either by flying over 30 miles of open lava (and the regular firestorms over it) or by a series of jumpgates ''directly linked to the Dragon's mind''. Then you reach the outer walls. Which are 720 feet high ''and a quarter mile thick''. And have no gates, but instead require you to win a psionic power contest with a ginormously powerful psionic construct before the passwall portal will temporarily dematerialize for you. Did we mention that the gate sends out a mental alarm whenever unauthorized psionic contact is initiated? Assuming you've gone through all this, congratulations, you're now past the introduction and actually get to try and survive in the city. Good luck! And no, it ''doesn't'' let up once you get past the outer defenses.

* BreadAndCircuses: The sorcerer-kings keep their subjects placated in various ways. Gladiatorial arenas are standard, but some of them also claim to be gods or to be protecting their city from some nonexistent threat.

* {{Butterface}}: The sorcerer-queen Abalech-Re is described as having a shapely body, but in her picture she has a hideous, magically deformed face.

** In fourth edition, the people of the city of Tyr have managed to kill the sorcerer-king Kalak. This is actually a huge event as the sorcerer-kings were previously thought to be invincible, and the city is now known as the Free City Of Tyr. Furthermore, news of this has traveled to at least some of the other city-states and emboldened the people there, suggesting the milliennia long reign of the sorcerer-kings may finally be coming to an end. That's where your character comes in. It's essentially a slightly toned down version of the Revised Edition.

** The post-''Literature/ThePrismPentad'' "Revised Edition" added three other kinds of wizard to the setting; Necromancers, Shadow Mages, and the unimagintively-named Ceruleans, who draw their power from the Cerulean Storm.

** The Monarch of Kalidnay, Kalid-Ma: In the ''Book of Artifacts'', this champion is essentially trapped in his obsidian orbs and can be restored if a high level psion/defiler swallows these. In the ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' source material, however, the city of Kalidnay includings its ruler was swallowed by the mists (leaving only ruins on Athas). Also, Kalid-Ma and Thakok-Ana were described as female and male respectively in their earliest Ravenloft sources[[note]]Forbidden Lore and the Monstrous Compendium Appendix Ravenloft II[[/note]], but as male and female in ''Dark Sun'' lore, which was ultimately retconned into Ravenloft from "Domains of Dread" onwards.

* YourMagicsNoGoodHere: The sourcebook Defilers & Preservers introduced a brand new mechanic where the Gray interferes with certain planar spells, giving them a chance to fail. Spells contacting the Elemental Planes or the Ethereal Plane are more feasible, working on a 66+ on a d100 roll, but contacting the Outer Planes or the Astral Plane are virtually impossible, requiring a 96+ on a d100 roll. As wizards add their level to their roll, directly transitioning from Athas to the Outer Planes (or viceversa) is usually only remotely reliable for epic level wizards... though nothing stops them from traveling to the more accessible Inner Plnes and then traveling to the Outer Planes without impediment.

* OurGnomesAreDifferent:

* RatMen: The Tari are a race of humanoid rats introduced in the second of the 2e monster manuals; "Terrors Beyond The Tablelands". They're largely inoffensive scavengers, but are loathed by humans, who widely refuse to recognize they're even sapient.

* AWorldHalfFull: In fourth edition, the people of the city of Tyr have managed to kill the sorcerer-king Kalak. This is actually a huge event as the sorcerer-kings were previously thought to be invincible, and the city is now known as the Free City Of Tyr. Furthermore, news of this has traveled to at least some of the other city-states and emboldened the people there, suggesting the milliennia long reign of the sorcerer-kings may finally be coming to an end. That's where your character comes in.
** The Revised Edition for AD&D also takes a similar tone; many of the sorcerer-kings have been slain, the Dragon of Tyr is dead, and Rajaat has been permanently banished, without the need for the yearly mass sacrifices that the sorcerer-kings had relied upon. Athas is still a damaged world and struggling to survive, but it also has a chance to heal.
* BadassNormal: Thanks to the increased attributes, most non-magical/non-psionic [=PCs=] in this setting default to this.

** The post-''Literature/ThePrismPentad'' "Revised Edition" added three other kinds of wizard to the setting; Necromancers, Shadow Mages, and an unnamed wizard variety who draw their power from the Cerulean Storm.

* ContinuitySnarl: Because there are three different iterations of the setting -- the original version, the [[UpdatedReRelease Revised Edition]] released after ''Literature/ThePrismPentad'' novels, and the 4th edition version -- there are a number of details about the setting that can get rather contradictory.

** Post-''Literature/ThePrismPentad'' {{sourcebook}}s for 2nd edition added three more types of Athasian wizard; Necromancers and Shadow Mages, who fuel their magic by drawing upon the powers of the planes (the Gray and the Black, respectively), and an unnamed type who have begun tapping the elemental energies of the Cerulean Storm for power. Because of this, all three actually do ''not'' defile when they cast, meaning that necromancers on Athas are, ironically, ''less'' evil. That said, these methods do have some problems; exactly how much energy they can draw for power at a time is unpredictable for all three, Shadow Mages slowly transmuted into living shadows, and "Cerulean Stormcasters" risk summoning a highly destructive Cerulean Storm if they work too much magic in a given area.

* EvilVersusEvil: What 90% of politics on Athas consists of, especially when it comes to the [[SorcerousOverlord Sorcerer-Lords]] and the Dragon. Every Sorcerer-Lord [[spoiler: save one]] is evil by any sane measure, and while their moral spectrum runs from the level of CompleteMonster to "relatively" AffablyEvil, all are genocidal tyrants.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dark_sun.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}} Where the sand is immense and the heat is intense.]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dark_sun.png]]

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: A general rule. One of the main reasons the sorcerer-kings have been able to hold power for so long is because they can defend their citizens in times of crisis. Also, many slave tribes greatly value wizards or powerful clerics for their magic.

** In addition to the usual humans, elves, half elves, halflings, and dwarves, players could play half-giants, thri-kreen (MultiArmedAndDangerous hunting-obsessed tribal mantis people), pterrans (flightless pteranodon people), aarakokra (bird people), muls (half-dwarves) and dray ({{Draconic Humanoid}}s).

** In one place Lalali-Puy of Gulg is named as the Champion of Rajaat who cleansed the Ogres ("Inenek the Ogre-Naught"), while in another it's Kalak of Tyr, the "Ogre Doom" (in this place, Lalali-Puy is the "Aaracockra Scourge").

* EvilVersusEvil: What 90% of politics on Athas consists of, especially when it comes to the [[SorcerousOverlords Sorcerer-Lords]] and the Dragon. Every Sorcerer-Lord [[spoiler: save one]] is evil by any sane measure, and while their moral spectrum runs from the level of CompleteMonster to "relatively" AffablyEvil, all are genocidal tyrants.

* AGodAmI:
** The sorcerer-kings. They're not technically deities in game terms, but they still enforce worship of themselves and channel divine magic to their templars. Not to mention that almost nobody else is powerful enough to contest them.
** Ironically, averted by the Dragon of Tyr. It played at being a god millennia back, but got bored with it. Today, it's secure enough in its power that it doesn't need to bother with manipulating its people through worship.

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: Pterrans, humanoid pterodactyls, are a player race. Yes, we realize pterodactyls weren't dinosaurs.

* ContinuitySnarl: Because there are three different iterations of the setting -- the original version, the [[UpdatedReRelease Revised Edition]] released after the ''Literature/PrismPentad'' novels, and the 4th edition version -- there are a number of details about the setting that can get rather contradictory.
** In the original setting boxed set, mention is briefly made of a creature called a "baazrag", with no further details aside from some sketchwork art of a strange, mutant humanoid. The ''Literature/PrismPentad'' novels promptly establish baazrags as a kind of [[FrazettaMan hulking man-ape]] often enslaved as a beast of burden. ''Magazine/{{Dragon}}'' #185, however, then contradicted this by saying that baazrags were a kind of small, armor-plated reptilian scavenger, which sometimes produced oversized mutants called "boneclaws" -- this is the version that Creator/{{TSR}} canonized into the game in the subsequent Monstrous Compendium expansions, and which Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast would continue into 3rd edition (via ''Magazine/{{Dungeon}}'' #110) and finally into 4th editions. Fans of the setting, however, inspired by a comment from Dark Sun writer Skip Williams in ''Magazine/{{Dragon}}'' #190 that perhaps the two creatures both existed on Athas and [[AccentUponTheWrongSyllable have different pronunciations]], with the scavenger being called "BAAZ-rag" and the man-ape being called "baas-RAG", would create a 3rd edition update to the setting that featured the man-ape as the baazrag (even [[PromotedToPlayable giving it stats as a PC race]]) and renamed the scavenger as the boneclaw.

* OurMagesAreDifferent: Traditionally, wizards in Athas work magic by drawing LifeEnergy from the planet and shaping it into their desired effect, being divided into "Preservers" or "Defilers" based on their approach; those who take only what power they need, draw it out slowly, and construct their spells so the energy returns to the planet once the spell is finished are Preservers, who do no harm. In contrast, those who brutally rip the energy they need from the world and let the excess bleed away are the Defilers, whose spellcasting kills any plant-life around them and burns soil into barren ash. Initially, these types were set in stone, but after the ''Literature/PrismPentad'', the rulebooks began experimenting with making them more "flexible" and allowing a wizard to switch between the two methods. This ultimately culminated in the 4th edition expression of the concept, where Preserving is the "default" casting style and Defiling is a conscious choice made each time a spell is cast, empowering one's casting at the cost of destroying the world.
** Post-''Literature/PrismPentad'' {{sourcebook}}s for 2nd edition added three more types of Athasian wizard; Necromancers and Shadow Mages, who fuel their magic by drawing upon the powers of the planes (the Gray and the Black, respectively), and an unnamed type who have begun tapping the elemental energies of the Cerulean Storm for power. Because of this, all three actually do ''not'' defile when they cast, meaning that necromancers on Athas are, ironically, ''less'' evil. That said, these methods do have some problems; exactly how much energy they can draw for power at a time is unpredictable for all three, Shadow Mages slowly transmuted into living shadows, and "Cerulean Stormcasters" risk summoning a highly destructive Cerulean Storm if they work too much magic in a given area.

** The ''Literature/PrismPentad'' series states that the Dragon takes an annual levy of a thousand lives ''from each city state'' (which are then used as fuel to enable Borys to keep Rajaat imprisoned). The ''The Veiled Alliance'' sourcebook however gives so unrealistically small population numbers for most city states (even for Raam, the most populous city with 40,000 inhabitants, such a drain would be serious problem; not to mention Gulg with a mere 8,000 souls) that this course of action could barely be sustainable - and certainly not for thousands of years straight.

* BlackMagic: Arcane casters can choose to be "Defilers", which allows them to reroll the results for any spell they cast at the cost of further desertifying the world, or at least the portion of it they're in. This makes them about as popular as witches were in 17th century Salem, MA.
** The post-Literature/PrismPentad "Revised Edition" added three other kinds of wizard to the setting; Necromancers, Shadow Mages, and an unnamed wizard variety who draw their power from the Cerulean Storm.

* CosmicHorrorStory: Both pre-4e and 4e Dark Suns apply; in pre-4e Dark Suns, the sorcerer-kings are the closest thing that the world has to gods... and not only are they are also responsible [[AfterTheEnd for the state]] [[DeathWorld Athas is in]], but they don't even care about that fact -- [[AmbitionIsEvil almost all, if not all, of them only desire power]], [[ItsAllAboutMe and nothing else]]. Even LighterAndSofter 4e is little better -- there used to be gods, but they lost a war against primordial forces and were either driven to extinction or exiled, leaving the world under the command of purely elemental forces who couldn't give two shits about the mortals on it. Aside from that, well... [[CrapsackWorld everything else]] [[WretchedHive about Athas]] [[DeathWorld speaks for itself.]]

* DeathOfTheOldGods: Pre-4e Athas never had deities period. In 4e, they all died fighting the primordials so long ago that most people are unaware that they ever existed.

* DragonsAreDemonic: Unlike most of ''D&D'', there are no "good" dragons on Athas. Just ''starting'' to become one requires an act of mass murder, and continuing down that road means giving up more and more of yourself, and the better parts of your personality, to animalistic rage.

** In the absence of true gods clerics receive their powers from the elemental planes. This does not excuse them from the normal clerical conducts-they are entirely capable of losing their clerical powers in a manner quite similar to how a normal cleric can have them taken away by their god.

** Kalak, former sorcerer-king of Tyr, also looked like an ancient old man, and was even more pointlessly sadistic than most of his fellow sorcerer-kings.

* HorrifyingTheHorror: The Githyanki are known as the most feared and badass warriors in the multiverse. They live on the corpse of a god, are immortal, and dedicate their lives to raiding whatever they can get their hands on. The initiation ritual for young Githyanki is ''killing a mind flayer''. When the Githyanki discovered Athas, they packed their bags and went straight home, sealing the portal behind them.

* LighterAndSofter: Post-AD&D versions of Dark Sun tone down the bleakness and make enacting major setting changes much more possible; the 4e version in particular makes attaining the status of an Avangion or a Pyreen far less impossible, and the Dragon of Tyr is no longer explicitly unbeatable.

* LizardFolk: Ssurran are savage nomadic carnivores. They prefer halflings, by the way. Though via being enslaved and then getting freedom some live in human cities, mostly as hired warriors of some or other sort, but occasionally even as templars. ''Mind Lords of the Last Sea'' reveals Athas also hosts a non-evil culture of lizardfolk who have become much more intelligent and civilized than normal lizardfolk of the AD&D multiverse.
* LongLived: Subverted by muls, who are the offspring of humans and dwarves. Unlike dwarves, they live ''shorter'' natural lives than humans.

* MetalPoorPlanet: Metal is extremely rare on Athas.

* SlaveRace: Muls are, in the vast majority of cases, bred in captivity from humans and dwarves. (The various rulebooks don't explicitly say "''all'' Muls are born into slavery", but the only exception is Rkard.)

** The Monarch of Kalidnay, Kalid-Ma: In the ''Book of Artifacts'', this champion is essentially trapped in his obsidian orbs and can be restored if a high level psion/defiler swallows these. In the ''Ravenloft'' source material, however, the city of Kalidnay includings its ruler was swallowed by the mists (leaving only ruins on Athas).
** The ''Prism Pentad'' series states that the Dragon takes an annual levy of a thousand lives ''from each city state'' (which are then used as fuel to enable Borys to keep Rajaat imprisoned). The ''The Veiled Alliance'' sourcebook however gives so unrealistically small population numbers for most city states (even for Raam, the most populous city with 40,000 inhabitants, such a drain would be serious problem; not to mention Gulg with a mere 8,000 souls) that this course of action could barely be sustainable - and certainly not for thousands of years straight.