Using Existing Proficiencies (DSC)

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Because Athas differs drastically from other AD&D campaign worlds, some of the existing proficiencies from the Player's Handbook don't apply as written. For example, the navigation and seamanship proficiencies are out of place on a world without oceans. The following clarifications modify existing proficiencies in a DARK SUN campaign.
Agriculture: On Athas, the low humidity makes grain storage extremely easy, but raising crops far more difficult. This proficiency covers the best use of land and water for a given crop and how to keep that crop alive through the dry growing season.
Armorer: The lack of metal on Athas means armorers must concentrate on other materials, namely chitin, bone, and stiffened leathers. Metal is so rarely used to construct armor that such an undertaking is usually handled by a team of armorers and blacksmiths—and often under extremely controlled circumstances (like in the guarded palace of a sorcerer-king).
Artistic Ability: This proficiency remains unchanged in its description, but its usefulness on Athas may be more far-reaching. Slaves who have artistic ability are sometimes brought out of the pits and placed in the homes of nobles where they might learn to read. If they fall out of favor, however, these literate slaves can't be returned to the pits. They're either executed or sent to the arena.
Blacksmithing: As with the armorer proficiency, blacksmiths perform the same functions as described but have shifted their main material from metal to other durable substances.
Fishing: Obviously, fishing is only useful in the places where pools of water support fish.
Navigation: The methods of direction finding common to naval voyages prove equally useful for caravans crossing the trackless seas of sand.
Religion: Large, organized religions have never developed on Athas, though sorcererkings make themselves out to be gods or godlike and have surrounded themselves in religious mystique. On a local level, cities and villages have ancient lore about mysterious beings or demigods, but consistent mythic systems are never widespread.
Seamanship: This proficiency is only studied by the mad, fools, the preternaturally ancient, and the people living around the Last Sea.
Swimming: This proficiency is applicable only in rare situations (for example, in the decadent pools of nobles or small bodies of natural water in exotic locales).
Weaponsmithing: Again, this proficiency is unchanged except for the materials used.
==Using the Survival Proficiency==
As described in the Player's Handbook, each slot of survival proficiency must be applied to a specific type of terrain. Terrain types that can be selected by PCs originating in the Tyr Region include the following: sandy wastes, stony barrens, rocky badlands, salt flats, mountains, forests, and scrub plains. Terrain types from other parts of Athas include mud flats, swamps, and grasslands.
The survival proficiency gives a character a chance to locate food and water in a particular terrain, but only in minuscule amounts. A successful check allows a character to find enough water to avoid losing any Constitution points from dehydration. The character won't rehydrate, and he will continue to dehydrate on subsequent days that he doesn't receive water. The same check allows a character to find enough food to sustain him for a day.
The survival proficiency also helps a character avoid poisons. A successful check informs the character whether a plant or animal is poisonous, provided the food source is native to the proficiency's terrain type.