Athas is a world that is as desolate, post-apocalyptic and savage as it is awe-inspiring, savagely beautiful and fantastic. Deserts dominate the landscape, with a few places where one can find vegetation. The oceans have long been dried out and water is more valuable than gold. But the world wasn’t always like this. Athas had vast forests, wide rivers e great oceans, but something changed the world. Arcane magic devastated the planet. Civilizations, entire races and grand forests were wiped from the maps by Defilers during the Cleansing Wars. Preservers were hunt down and were almost eliminated. Athas is what it is today because of the corrupting power of defiling magic.
Because of that, arcane magic is not seen fondly by the majority of the people in Athas. In some places arcanists are still being hunted, whether they are Defilers or Preservers. The only ones who can use arcane powers without fearing repression of the masses are the Sorcerer-Kings and their Templars.
All of this has a consequence; magic items are scarce on Athas. Whether it is because the numbers of arcanists are very reduced or live hidden in fear, or because the Sorcerer-Kings have collected all the magic items they could put their hands on, or simply because the knowledge necessary to be able to make them is long lost, these objects are even rarer in Athas than in any other D&D campaign setting.
But this brings up a problem. The rules of D&D were designed considering classical fantasy settings where the heroes would acquire a variety of magic items through their adventures. The monsters are also built on this assumption, so higher level monsters are designed to be faced against magic wielding adventurers. What happens with Dark Sun heroes when they need to face such challenges?
Fixed Enhancement Bonus
The Dark Sun Campaign Setting recommends Dungeon Masters to use an alternative system to keep the player’s characters balanced and able to battle face high level monsters even without magic items, that are extremely rare in Dark Sun. Based on the optional rule presented in the Dungeon Master’s Guide 2, the book presents a table that makes the characters get enhancement bonus to attacks and defenses as they gain levels without needing to get magic items (that includes the extra d6 damage dices for critical hits).
This allows the heroes to face challenging encounters with creatures that they could only defeat with the help of magic armors and weapons. However the book does not give any explanation on why or how the characters acquire such bonuses. How the heroes of Athas acquire such powers without magic items?
Athas is a cruel and savage world. The creatures that live in such world had to adapt and evolve to survive. In Dark Sun, Darwin theory is taken to the next step. Only the strong survives, and only the strongest prosper.
Almost all the creatures in Athas have some sort of psionic abilities. Some are great psionicists capable of great deeds with their minds, others have just simple powers only capable of helping them in occasional situations. This means that even characters who are not from the Psionic Power classes have some psionic talent. This way, as they become more experienced and powerful through their adventures, the perils the face and the obstacles the overcome, they learn how to push their limits farther, how to improve every aspect of themselves in extraordinary ways. The psionic powers the possess can make their attacks to be more accurate, they can make their minds to project a force field around them, protecting them from damage, they can have insights of upcoming attacks and so on. That’s a reasonable explanation for the enhancement bonus they receive as they advance in levels, but it’s not the only one.
Athas, despite of being a deserted and savage world, burst with life. Primal spirits abound the land, elemental forces run free through Athas landscape. Barbarians, Druids, Shamans and Wardens are common classes for heroes in Dark Sun. The more learned and experienced those heroes become the stronger their ties to the natural and elemental spirits gets. As the characters get stronger, the spirits that help them get stronger too, and more easily the heroes can channel their powers through them. In the end, Primal Power heroes become stronger as their ties to the primal forces of the world become deeper.
The arcane heroes of Athas use the life energy of the world around them to cast spells. Preservers do this by taking just what they need to cast their spells without damaging any life in a balanced and caring way. On the other hand, Defilers take all they can from the life forms around them, not caring if they are damaging the world and the creatures around them. Both types of arcanists improve the way they cast spells as they learn how magic works and gets more experienced. Preservers learn how to use the energy they harness to its fullest potential, multiplying its power to cast their spells with great strength that others would only believe to be possible for Defilers. In contrast, Defilers become capable of draining all the life force it can from minimum sources, and learn how to use the energy they harness from living creatures in more devastating ways as they learn the secrets and corrupting details of defiling magic.
All the explanations above reflect well the characteristics of Dark Sun. Every creature needs to adapt and evolve to be able to surviving is such a cruel and savage world. The heroes evolve quicker and in a more powerful way than anyone else. Characters in Dark Sun can accomplish things that heroes of other worlds could only do if they had powerful magic items. The perils of Athas make them stronger.
But what would be of the Dungeons and Dragons game without any magic items? What would the players and characters crave to find in the dungeons they explore? Players want to be rewarded for the time and effort they put in their characters, they want nice “toys” for their characters. But we will talk about that on the next post.
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