Adventures Under the Dark Sun

Troy Denning and Gerald Brom recently did a 35th Anniversary Dark Sun Q & A. Here's some of what they revealed: Dark Sun was the result of Jim Ward stating that TSR needed a new campaign setting, and the two most important things it needed to have were chainmail bikinis and psionics. Almost EVERYTHING that followed was a direct result of that mandate. Not blood, not gore, not nudity (as WOTC randomly seems to believe.) Bikinis and psionics. Denning said that he believes bikinis were chosen simply because Ward liked to see them and artists liked to draw them. So Athas was made a desert planet to explain why everyone wears very little clothing. Metal was made rare to eliminate the possibility of anyone wearing full plate at night, underground, or for specific battles where the heat might have been otherwise bearable. That's how important the bikini mandate was; not only was Athas made ridiculously hot but they also made metal almost non-existent just to eliminate those fringe occurrences where someone might be fully clothed. Denning said his favorite part of the setting was defiler magic. Athas was closed off from other campaign worlds because TSR didn't want Athasians getting on Spelljammers and suddenly bringing psionics to Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, and Krynn. Gods were removed to also further facilitate that fact. Denning was a massive fan of the two Arnold Conan movies and wanted Dark Sun to be a lot like those. Brom was also a huge fan of Conan but also John Carter and was excited to do Dark Sun because of that, and Brom prefers painting anatomy so he liked the no steel armor mandate (obviously the "chainmail" in chainmail bikini got dropped once they decided that metal was so rare and the climate was so hot.) Denning toured the artists' studio, looking to see who he might poach to illustrate the world and when he came to Brom's desk he saw the now famous painting of Neeva (then titled "Dominator") that Brom had done for himself and immediately said "That's it! That's Dark Sun!" and then when Brom said yes, Troy immediately wrote Neeva into the story. Brom said that he only had one Dark Sun painting rejected by TSR, and that was an elf that they said "looked gay." Oh how times have changed. 😂 Because Denning and Brom wanted Athas to be like Conan or Barsoom, they wanted only humans. TSR said no, you must include all the standard races, so Denning begrudgingly made them the exact opposite of their Tolkien counterparts. He even changed dragons by changing them from creatures that are hatched into things you turn into. Troy said that he's pretty sure he made halflings cannibals without telling the marketing team (lol) and since nobody either caught it or complained they got to stay in. Brom said that years later he was notified by some of the designers at Weta that they were huge fans and based some of the orc and goblin armor in the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films on his Dark Sun designs. Denning was asked looking back what does he wish he had done differently and what would he change if he were releasing Dark Sun today and he said "not one damn thing." 🤘

A little 2E to brighten your day. 🍻