Talk:Dark Sun

message: I would prefer if the title "Unofficial Material" was changed to something a bit more accurate.  both Dark Sun versions released by Athas.org and by Paizo's Dragon/Dungeon magazine articles are considered official, and are sanctioned by Wizards of the Coast which owns the license/copyrights for the setting.  Placing them in an "unofficial material" section is highly misleading. --Xlorep DarkHelm 19:21, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Rajaat wanted to kill the non-halflings, but the other sorcerer-kings wanted to kill the non-humans. -Sean Curtin 23:15, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Rajaat wanted to return the world Athas to it's initial utopian form; the original race on the planet was halfings. Once the seas receded and many races including Rajaat himself (a Pyreen) came out of that transformation, Rajaat tested all the races for the greatest potential to become magical weapons; humans won out; so he convinced the greatest mages/psionicists of the human race, who became his champions (and later sorcerer/dragon-kings) that he wanted to give the world over to them the humans, so he assigned them each a race to exterminate (excluding halflings) and they went about their work; until they discovered Rajaat was meaning to turn against them at the end and return the world to the halflings; at which point the champions turned against him and imprisioned him in The Hollow. 67.5.147.229 22:57, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Unofficial Material"

message: Should the Last Sea be mentioned in this article? I heard something about it being declared non-canon, although I can't find any sources for that. --MasterGrazzt 21:02, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Last Sea 

message: Considering that the entire setting is focused specifically on the only world that exists, Athas, it would stand to reason that these articles should be merged. Whenever you talk about the setting you are automatically talking about the planet itself and thus it should form part of the setting article. Enigmatical 04:23, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure about that one. It "sounds" right and what I would expect of Dark Sun, where Psionicists believe themselves to be pure due to internal power rather than defiling or having to preserve the environment while using magic. It could be indirectly pulled from one of the books. Enigmatical 22:23, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have any reference for the "purity" bit, but it is arguable.  However, it's the "power-hungry Psionists frequently become Defilers" bit that gets me... Korvar The Fox 11:51, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Agree to merge Dark Sun and Athas 

message: Well, I added a copy of the cover.  I tried to find a version of the logo, but athas.org didn't seem to have any, though I think the old TSR site used to have them.  FrozenPurpleCube 01:34, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure about that one. It "sounds" right and what I would expect of Dark Sun, where Psionicists believe themselves to be pure due to internal power rather than defiling or having to preserve the environment while using magic. It could be indirectly pulled from one of the books. Enigmatical 22:23, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have any reference for the "purity" bit, but it is arguable.  However, it's the "power-hungry Psionists frequently become Defilers" bit that gets me... Korvar The Fox 11:51, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: added a cover

message: Fixed publishing date in the infobox to match the text of 1990, not sure which one is correct at this time.  If anyone has a reference to whether it was published in 1990 or 1991, please change all the sources in the article (I'll try to check myself, but my original box is in another city right now).--WildElf 20:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow, I can't believe nobody caught this sooner. Just corrected it to October 1991. Sources are the copyright statement on my copy of the boxed set, and TSR's Fall/Winter catalog of 1991. Great Cthulhu (talk) 18:36, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Publishing date 

message: * High Fantasy : Enigmatical 03:23, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Votes

message: Could someone change the 'The Champions of Rajaat'  section  to a summary. Extensive details of the campaign setting are encyclopediac. Ashmoo 05:22, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you, and welcome to Wikipedia! 129.33.19.254 (talk) 22:01, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: The Champions of Rajaat 

message: What is the source of the statement, "Unlike other worlds, there are no "commoners" in Athas..."? This stongly contradicts the AD&D 2nd edition material printed by TSR, which makes frequent mention of slaves, freemen, and others, who have no character class (0-level), nor any unusual training.
If this was overruled by new official material by Athas.org or Pazio, this should be mentioned.
24.166.151.236 16:27, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps this simply means none speak "common" tongue. There is no "common speak", but only different languages between different city-states. 74.209.54.156 (talk) 11:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  No "commoners" on Athas? 

message: Where is this stuff about Hamanu coming from? I've read Rise and Fall of a Dragon King and I never read his eyes of fire ability could be used on other champions, and was to kill them after the cleansing wars. Actually, he says during that book that Rajaat is probably making a champion to kill Humans. Nor does it say he used it on Sielba of Yaramuke. It says in that book that "his dagger pierced her heart" The snare 10:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Hamanu Stuff

message: I've been working offline (to put on wikipedia) and a contradictions page for dark sun, a master list, if you would. I remember being on AOL in 96 and Kevin Melka said that the Prism Pentad and Dark sun materials contain good continuity for the most part and that Lynn Abbey's stuff is mostly non-canon. I'd like to get some pdf's of the books to get quotes out of them for my contradictions page The snare 10:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Contradictions

message: Why are the Chronicles of Athas considered non-canon?--Sonjaaa 05:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Chronicles of Athas non-canon?

message: Please, let's bring this up to par.  I only recently found this article on Dark Sun, and it is a very valuable resource that should not be lost.  Here's my brief proposal: we need to find some good third-party references to Dark Sun to back up the value of the setting, especially as a historically important setting in the canon of D&D.  I know that it's out there.  Then, we really don't want to lose the information on the cultures and kings of the setting, but they might be able to be moved to linked sub-articles. DaneWeber (talk) 17:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Non-Notable

message: Wikipedia on some page, should go into depth into this conception of the sorcerer-kings and them all seeking this god-like attainment of becoming athasian dragons. The transformation of high level (20th is it?) multiclass preserver/defiler (wizard/magic-user-mage) & psionicist (psychic/telekinetic mind-power-user) (20th level also), in ten stages (each stage requiring, doing different things, and being bestowed different powers and having different handicaps, etc) to level 30, should be delved into.... In some published work, there was one (or two?) ever Avangions (giant, translucent good aligned demi-god (as far as "god" means anything on Athas) dragonfly-man type beings) this was the "good"/preserver counterpart to the much more common "Dragon".... I use 'common' loosely as there had been only one full 30th level Dragon (Borys of Ebe) but many other partial dragons (at least a third of all the champions?) started the temple building required to become a dragon...... this is why they all own city-states; they require worshippers to build a temple of exceeding value (worth so much, and of such a size, made of such material, stone-wrought, or metal or such at a higher level; hard to come by commodities in the barren world of Athas) and many humanoid sacrifices with each level, so much pre-requirements that it is a difficult task, but full dragons have god-like powers, the same with Avangions. 4.242.174.141 (talk) 10:03, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I had many official Darksun guides: Borys was a final level, not first level, dragon; level 30. 21 was the first level, and the beginning of the transformation, 30 was a final, full dragon. Same is true of avangions. 74.209.54.156 (talk) 11:53, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Avangions (good) & Dragons (evil) 

message: I think the 4th edition information is up to date. I changed the tense on anything already released, and I added a bit more to reflect content provided by WotC. I don't think any of the old information should be out of data, since 4E really just adds material and doesn't really revise much. Just about all of the information on Athas is right out of the previous books, just reworded. --Alphastream (talk) 15:39, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: As you can see below, this is far from the case - the article currently contains much information that no longer is (an official) part of the campaign setting. CapnZapp (talk) 14:03, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: 4th Edition

message: I think the content removal went a bit too far, but I could see possibly either trimming down some of the information, splitting it off to some sub-articles, like geography of Dark Sun for example, or both.  The source book information should definitely stay though.  Some of the external links are bit spammy, however, and I'm going to pull a few. —<B>Torchiest</B> talkedits 15:02, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that a trim is OK, or a split-out might be better.  If whole sections are to be removed, then there should at least be some kind of summary left in their place. 129.33.19.254 (talk) 15:10, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

text: I dunno, I don't think it was a step in the wrong direction.  If you look at the Forgotten Realms article, it really only gives a very general overview, linking to elements that have proven notable on their own (since notability is not inherited).  As much as I love Dark Sun and hate hate hate Forgotten Realms, this is an encyclopedia, not a substitute for the CS books. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:13, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  The recent clean up attempt 

message: This article still needs to be reviewed and properly cited in a number of places, and I'll try to mark those places as best I can.
I don't have access to any Dark Sun sourcebooks myself at the moment, but there are a number of references in the current article that are not brought up again and could probably be elaborated upon. I've made a list of a few of those areas where more information could be helpful: the Cerulean Storm, the Dark Lens, the Shipfloaters, the Mind Lords, Death and the afterlife, and a greatly expanded section on Psionics.
Also, the entries for each city in the Geography section are inconsistent in what sort of information is provided. I don't know that this information is available for each location, but a list of standardized entries for each city might be something like: Relative location, Ecology & trade, History & politics.
I'll be picking up some sourcebooks pretty soon, but if anyone can fill in the missing information in the meantime, it's much appreciated. I also feel that any elaboration of the mechanics of the game should be avoided. Zamarren (talk) 15:46, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your efforts! I will try to help out, too.  :) I wish we had the kind of sources to get this one up to the quality of Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms. 50.151.230.203 (talk) 05:08, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

text: Looking at the article's overall completeness, I think that it may benefit from a history section as well. Something that clearly delineates the events leading up to the Cleansing Wars and what happened afterwards, in a more timeline-like way. Zamarren (talk) 14:57, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

text: I updated city descriptions for the city-states in the Tyr region drawn from the 4e book and created a citation for the D&D 4e campaign setting.  — Preceding Sugarcoma (talk) 23:56, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Holes in content

message: Here is what I would expect to see for the parts where we are saying "region X from Dark Sun is like country X from Earth".  Either we want to see "Game designer Smith said in an interview that he was reading about Ancient Greece when he thought of Blah" or "Game designer Smith said that he based Blah on Rome", or even "In a review of the Dark Sun campaign book, Reviewer Jones says that Blah reminds him of Thailand".  Otherwise, if we random Wikipedians just say we think this is like this, and that is like that, then we are committing original research, which is not allowed; if we can't find sources like what I suggest above, then these lines need to be removed. 129.33.19.254 (talk) 18:35, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Real world inspiration 

message: I decided to have a go at this page as I've recently take an interest in the setting. I've largely been citing from the Revised and Expanded source book (1995), Dark Sun 3, and Dark Sun 4e. Because the metaplot advances between the 1991 and 1995 releases I included those changes. I plan to add in the Paizo version as well as that bridges the gap between the 1995 release and Dark Sun 3. The 4e book was an attempt to return the spirit of the 1991 source book and leaves it up to the players to decide how to advance the metaplot. Much of the "fat" was cut from the 4e book but in my estimation they stayed true to the original source material. Given that the fans have differing opinions about the metaplot at any given point I included the advanced metaplot from the original releases first and then noted how 4e changed those things. The major differences seem to be the omission of some of the minor or already deceased sorcerer-kings/Champions and the shift from the Great Wheel cosmology, which Athas only marginally participated in, to the World Axis cosmology which is fully participates in. I also created a Dark Sun characters list page which needs expanding. The source material list should also probably get its own page at some point and needs more clean up. I removed the world details and gave them their own page to separate the detailed in-game summary of the world versus the actual development of the setting and what sets it apart mechanically from its contemporaries.
Here's a list of stuff the page needs. Feel free to add it. If I can I'll get to it.
* More secondary sources
* Better distinctions between the types of magic. In 2nd and 3rd there was just arcane and divine though the divine was a bad fit for the setting. In 4th they introduced primal power which makes more sense but its not clear to me if clerics were removed from the setting, if they now draw on primal power, or if they still cast divine magic. Sugarcoma (talk) 00:50, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the primary sources and in-game style as the page as been revamped to be out-of-game and numerous secondary sources have been added. Feedback is welcome. Still not sure on the level of detail. Thoughts? Sugarcoma (talk) 04:14, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Page Needs The Following

message: I don't know who tagged the page as containing inappropriate video game information. I altered the section heading to be in line with what was done on the Dragonlance page and changed the working to match how it is done there. Can someone from the video game group have a look at this and let me know what needs to be addressed here? Otherwise I'm going to remove the tag as there is very little information about DS video games on the page. Sugarcoma (talk) 14:51, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: guidelines for video game subjects

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thread_title:  External links modified