# dark sun novels: where should i start?



## messy (Jan 5, 2009)

allo

i'd like to start reading the dark sun novels. where should i start?

here's what wiki has:

* Prism Pentad - Troy Denning
1. The Verdant Passage (October 1991), (ISBN 1-56076-121-0)
2. The Crimson Legion (April 1992), (ISBN 1-56076-260-8)
3. The Amber Enchantress (October 1992), (ISBN 1-56076-236-5)
4. The Obsidian Oracle (June 1993), (ISBN 1-56076-603-4)
5. The Cerulean Storm (September 1993), (ISBN 1-56076-642-5)

* Tribe of One - Simon Hawke
1. The Outcast (November 1993), (ISBN 1-56076-676-X)
2. The Seeker (April 1994), (ISBN 1-56076-701-4)
3. The Nomad (October 1994), (ISBN 1-56076-702-2)

* Chronicles of Athas - Various Authors
1. The Brazen Gambit (July 1994), by Lynn Abbey (ISBN 1-56076-872-X)
2. The Darkness Before the Dawn (February 1995), by Ryan Hughes (ISBN 0-7869-0104-7)
3. The Broken Blade (May 1995), by Simon Hawke (ISBN 0-7869-0137-3)
4. Cinnabar Shadows (July 1995), by Lynn Abbey (ISBN 0-7869-0181-0)
5. The Rise & Fall of a Dragon King (April 1996), by Lynn Abbey (ISBN 0-7869-0476-3)

thanx 

messy


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## Wik (Jan 5, 2009)

Start with the same place you finish:  Tribe of One.  Everything else is Rubbish.


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## humble minion (Jan 5, 2009)

It's hard to recommend it, to be honest.

The Prism Pentad books are terribly written and the series makes a horrible mess of the established setting in an extremely implausible way - lousy characterisation, poor plotting, no respect paid to the world, you name a reason for sucking, and these books have it.  The Tribe of One books are hindered by a horrendous Mary-Sue of a main character.  If you didn't like Drizzt, you'll HATE this guy (I was a 16-year-old Drizzt fan when this series was released, and Sorak was too much even for me).

Lynn Abbey's books are by FAR the best-written of all the DS fiction.  Brazen Gambit and Cinnabar Shadows stand alone passably well, and Rise and Fall of a Dragon King is probably the best Dark Sun book and is pretty solid fantasy fiction in its own right, though it's very heavily entwined with the events and history of the Prism Pentad and you won't understand what's going on without reading all the way through that mess.

If Lynn Abbey had been the one to plot and write the original Prism Pentad books, then the Dark Sun novel line may well have been the best of TSR/WotCs fiction work, period.  Unfortunately, Dennings' Pentad cast a long and cruddy shadow over everything that came later, fiction and game line equally...

EDIT: but ranting aside, the best order to read them in (ignoring their quality for the moment) is the order you've got them listed in the original post.  Prism Pentad first, followed by Tribe of One, followed by Chronicles of Athas in order of publication.  Broken Blade comes after Tribe of One.  Brazen Gambit, Cinnabar Shadows, Dragon King form an unofficial trilogy, with Dragon King finishing up the whole line.


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jan 5, 2009)

I concur with humble minion. I read the Prism Pentad purely for Dark Sun setting research purposes, hoping to delve into the thoughts of one of the settings co-creators. It IS good for that at least. Lynn Abbey's stuff is very well written fiction. Though her stuff departs from setting canon in areas, it does so in some ways I wish *were* canon . . .


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## messy (Jan 5, 2009)

humble minion said:


> It's hard to recommend it, to be honest.




cripes. that's depressing, but i appreciate your reply.

is there any fiction geared toward gamers that's actually worthwhile??

(maybe that's a question for a different thread )

messy


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jan 5, 2009)

messy said:


> is there any fiction geared toward gamers that's actually worthwhile??



This could be a good thread. IMO, a higher percentage of the Warhammer lines are worthwhile than in the D&D world's affiliated novel lines. But that all comes down to whether the Warhammer settings (40K and Fantasy) are palatable to your tastes, I think.


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## Caliber (Jan 5, 2009)

messy said:


> cripes. that's depressing, but i appreciate your reply.
> 
> is there any fiction geared toward gamers that's actually worthwhile??
> 
> ...




My experience with gamer fiction (that is fiction written in the context of being from the game) is normally a step below standard fantasy. Perhaps the authors simply feel constrained writing within the framework of the game? I'm unsure. 

In my experience, some of the best "fiction" found within the idea of DnD is found in the story hour section of these very boards. Check out PirateCat, Sagiro, Sepulchrave, and Destran off the top of my head.

As for the Dark Sun novels, I read them all and remember them fondly when I was younger. I'm not sure if I'd recommend them, but I don't think they're as bad as some claim.


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## Alzrius (Jan 5, 2009)

I personally thought that the Prism Pentad books were great, because they really get into the heart of what the setting is about. They seriously delve into both what it's like to live on Athas, and deal with the history of the setting, as well as introducing a new time of change, upheaval, and possibility. They worked very well, and the characters were interesting and fairly well fleshed-out. I strongly recommend them as the best Dark Sun books out there.

The Tribe of One stuff wasn't bad, but I agree that the character was too overpowered, and occupied a fairly ridiculous (at best) moral high-ground that made him extremely difficult to like. In such a gritty setting, characters work best when they occupy a moral grey zone, not when they act like a paladin who's above it all.

Finally, I didn't like Lynn Abbey's works at all, simply because she kept deviating from the setting canon. I can't respect a book that does that, because if you can't keep straight basic facts about the setting, why are you writing a book in that setting in the first place? She's a great writer, and her books are good...they're just not Dark Sun, but rather, are a facsimile of the setting, which isn't what I wanted to read.


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jan 5, 2009)

Alzrius said:


> Finally, I didn't like Lynn Abbey's works at all, simply because she kept deviating from the setting canon. I can't respect a book that does that, because if you can't keep straight basic facts about the setting, why are you writing a book in that setting in the first place?



From an interview I read with her, she was asked about the deviation from setting canon. She replied that her connections at TSR gave her the barest, thinnest, of details on the setting beyond what was in the public sources at the time she was writing. So she made things up as she felt would suit her characters and story. By the time her books were published the setting shepherds at TSR had released products that would step on her books.

PLUS, in the era of Dark Sun's run, the TSR novel lines were separate from the TSR RPG lines. Getting the two departments to communicate with each other was a colossal undertaking. The novels line had deadlines to reach and so they told their authors only so much because the RPG guys didn't want to have their metastory all splashed all over the world by poorly restrained authors.

Having the novels line apart from the RPG line is also one of the reasons FR's authors so often seemed to come up with an apocalypse of the week as so many author's tried to make their story as epically important as everyone else's, then the RPG guys were left to pick up the pieces year after year.

Lynn Abbey's Dark Sun books canon deviation was a result of this environment, not her disregard for canon. She wasn't kept in the loop, and TSR's RPG department had no incentive for them to overcome departmental inertia and bring her in to the loop.


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## catsclaw227 (Jan 5, 2009)

I didn't even notice this thread when I posted my other one about the series reprint.

Were the Denning novels really that bad?



			
				Alzrius said:
			
		

> I personally thought that the Prism Pentad books were great, because they really get into the heart of what the setting is about. They seriously delve into both what it's like to live on Athas, and deal with the history of the setting, as well as introducing a new time of change, upheaval, and possibility. They worked very well, and the characters were interesting and fairly well fleshed-out. I strongly recommend them as the best Dark Sun books out there.



Does this mean they are good in general, or just the best of the Dark Sun novels?  How well did they stay on canon or was there even much canon at the time they were being written?



			
				Eric Anondson said:
			
		

> Lynn Abbey's Dark Sun books canon deviation was a result of this environment, not her disregard for canon. She wasn't kept in the loop, and TSR's RPG department had no incentive for them to overcome departmental inertia and bring her in to the loop.




At this point in the whole thing, will current canon be that important if they will be renewing it as a 4e setting?  Maybe, because they are reprinting the Denning books, they are setting up the foundation for the setting to match what is in his novels?

[just speculation]


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## humble minion (Jan 5, 2009)

catsclaw227 said:


> Were the Denning novels really that bad?




In my opinion, yes.  The characterisation was one-note and cartoonish, the character development was ham-fisted, the plotting was ponderous, the prose was adolescent at best, the internal setting integrity and logic was extraordinarily wobbly, and from a gamer's point of view (rather than a reader's), the whole series destroyed some of the major underpinnings of an interesting, compelling, unique game world.  There were some imaginative setpieces and concepts (I think Denning would have been a good GM), but these were wasted opportunities.



catsclaw227 said:


> Does this mean they are good in general, or just the best of the Dark Sun novels?  How well did they stay on canon or was there even much canon at the time they were being written?




I think 'best of the Dark Sun novels' depends on what standards you judge by.  Alzrius and I obviously differ!  

As far as canon goes, strictly speaking, since the novels were one of the first DS products (though the first of the modules fitted in pretty tightly with them - PCs playing in the modules got to watch as the novel characters went through the first couple of novels) they DEFINED canon.  Later DS products, both in the novel and the game line, followed their lead, even though their lead invalidated massive chunks of the newly-released campaign setting box.  

The Pentad used canon (from the boxed set) as a starting point, but by the time they finished, that canon was pretty much unrecognisable. 




catsclaw227 said:


> At this point in the whole thing, will current canon be that important if they will be renewing it as a 4e setting?  Maybe, because they are reprinting the Denning books, they are setting up the foundation for the setting to match what is in his novels?
> [just speculation]




It's possible.  Given the 4e '3-book' campaign setting model, I wouldn't be surprised at all if DS sees the light of day in some form.  Won't be til after Eberron at the very least, and possibly Ravenloft or Dragonlance or a new 4e setting though.  I expect it to get a very major reboot if it does, though.


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## Keefe the Thief (Jan 5, 2009)

catsclaw227 said:


> I didn't even notice this thread when I posted my other one about the series reprint.
> 
> Were the Denning novels really that bad?




No, they were actually pretty good. You are bound to hate them, however, if you like Athas in its unchanged state - the status quo described in the first boxed set. They are good tools to learn about the metaplot of the settings, and quite entertaining. I wouldn´t want to DM Dark Sun without rereading them first.
There are lots of setting tidbits you can glean from them. What does it feel like to travel with a halfling that may want to eat you while you sleep? How do Dwarves deal with their focus? How does it feel when a Mindbender takes away your free will? 
No great literature, but a good introduction to Athas. My advice for RPG purposes: read the metaplot in the novels, ignore it for your game.


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## Dire Bare (Jan 5, 2009)

messy said:


> i'd like to start reading the dark sun novels. where should i start?



Be prepared for major negativity whenever asking for opinions on gaming related fiction.  Not that everyone's opinions aren't valid, but a lot of people unfairly look down their noses at fiction set in game settings.  YMMV, of course.

I personally loved the original Prism Pentad and highly recommend them.  Some fans of the game setting dislike them because they took the setting as presented in the RPG and then made major changes to it by the end of the novel series.  And the RPG and novels came out at pretty much the same time.

The subsequent DarkSun books were good but not great IMO, but then it's been a long time since I've read them.  If you want to read them all, start with the Prism Pentad and follow the books in the order you already have them in your original post.

Coincidentally, the Prism Pentad is currently being rereleased by WotC and you can easily find the first two or three in bookstores.


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jan 5, 2009)

catsclaw227 said:


> Does this mean they are good in general, or just the best of the Dark Sun novels?  How well did they stay on canon or was there even much canon at the time they were being written?



I'm between Alzrius and humble minion in my take. I don't consider them tops in game fiction for the story. They are indispensable for someone who wants to know canon of the Dark Sun setting. The novels defined canon for what was to come after.







catsclaw227 said:


> At this point in the whole thing, will current canon be that important if they will be renewing it as a 4e setting?  Maybe, because they are reprinting the Denning books, they are setting up the foundation for the setting to match what is in his novels?
> 
> [just speculation]



Absolutely could be the case. Though I would have loved for them to reprint the books but rewrite the fifth book. I interviewed Troy personally and he confided that he wished he had ended the series differently.

See. After Troy participated in the setting design, he was shuffled off out of the RPG department and into the novels line. Troy had zero involvement with Dark Sun, except his novels, after he was done with the original boxedset. Even though Troy was a setting co-creator, he was kept out of the loop as much as every author was (Ed Greenwood being the lone exception at that time). While Ed, as creator, received complimentary copies of every FR products (so I heard), Troy got nothing from TSR.

Part of the Dark Sun design team's goal was to create a setting where players could overturn a stagnant and oppressive society and make a world anew. The Prism Pentad was begun as a demonstration of just how PCs could do it. The problem was that as Troy was writing his story as part of the novels line now, he had no contact with the RPG guys designing supplements. As Troy finished his final book, he learned that someone in the RPG department had just authored an accessory defining the area the novels would finish up at. It just so happens in Troy's novel the place gets, well, the Atlantis treatment.

So not only did Troy, with no communication with the RPG teams designing supplements, go off and completely negate certain supplements within months of their releases. Troy also went way off the deep end in overturning the popular themes of the setting itself . . . BY DESIGN and FROM THE START! 

If the fans were let in on the scope of final outcome before it happened there might have been a different reaction. Maybe. Fans might not have gotten so deeply attached to the setting as presented in the first boxed set. But then again,  Troy admitted that he wishes he could have handled the series differently, hadn't wiped out so much of what fans loved. He didn't think his novels would become future canon and would have only been used as inspiration for players and DM's own stories. Boy was he off.


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## Dire Bare (Jan 5, 2009)

Caliber said:


> My experience with gamer fiction (that is fiction written in the context of being from the game) is normally a step below standard fantasy. Perhaps the authors simply feel constrained writing within the framework of the game? I'm unsure.



Gaming-related fictions gets an unfair rap, IMO.  Some gaming fiction is absolutely amazing, some of it is good, some of it is okay, and some of it is drek.  Of course, the same is true regarding non-gaming fiction as well.

Crappy non-gaming fiction quickly gets forgotten and disapears to the place where lost socks go.  Crappy gaming fiction sticks around because it is a part of a larger collection and setting.

The first round of Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms fiction was pretty darn good, IMO.  The original Chronicles for Dragonlance and the Moonshae trilogy for the Realms.  Unfortunately, they were quickly followed by books with a mix of quality leaning towards the not-so-great.  As TSR and then later WotC matured as fantasy publishers, the books picked up in quality quite a bit.

I feel that the current D&D fiction being released today by WotC is universally pretty awesome and I pick (almost) all of them up.  And the best of the current stuff, mostly Realms novels by Kemp, deBie, and others is great reads!!

The only D&D novels I avoid today are the Dragonlance furry fiction books, books where all the main characters are minotaurs, ogres, hobgoblins, etc.  Dragonlance as a novel series also has an unfortunate obsession with the past of the setting, and not enough books are set in the current era of Krynn.  Although even then, some of the "historical" novels being published today are still pretty good.

A lot of the earlier Realms stuff is pretty hit-and-miss, but current Realms fiction is a treat.  I don't care for Greenwood's writing and so avoid his novels, but the rest are gold to me.

The Eberron line is flat-out made of pure awesome, I loved every book and eagerly await each next one.  Good stuff.

Someday I'd love to start a website that tracks all the D&D novels and stories released over the years to help guide people through the novel series, as there are hundreds of 'em.  Set it up to allow for reader's reviews too.  But, first I have to learn how to put together a website, and then I have to find the free time . . .


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jan 5, 2009)

Dire Bare said:


> Someday I'd love to start a website that tracks all the D&D novels and stories released over the years to help guide people through the novel series, as there are hundreds of 'em.  Set it up to allow for reader's reviews too.  But, first I have to learn how to put together a website, and then I have to find the free time . . .



Phenomenal idea!


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## Korgoth (Jan 5, 2009)

messy said:


> i'd like to start reading the dark sun novels. where should i start?




Depends on how much you like the Dark Sun of the first boxed set. Because the Prism Pentad was bascially a thermonuclear enema for that setting.

So if you think that setting is cool you might want to treasure and preserve your ignorance.

You know it's going to be bad when the first adventure tie-in has the PCs standing around while the NPCs casually dispose of the big bad guy.


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## Dragonblade (Jan 5, 2009)

Every product such as the original the boxed set that covers Dark Sun before the events of the Prism Pentad blow up the setting is good. Every other product is crap. The Revised Campaign Setting box set is really atrocious. Talk about nerfing everything that made the setting cool.

The Prism Pentad novels are definitive simply because Troy Denning helped create Dark Sun and he really captured the feel. But they are really bad in that they pretty much blow up the setting and pave the way for all the atrocious Revised Dark Sun products.

Still, I recommend at least reading the Prism Pentad and then read Tribe of One. I disliked all the Chronicles of Athas books, although one of them is actually a continuation of Tribe of One. Read that one and skip the rest. I disliked the others.

And if you ever run a Dark Sun game, I recommend setting it after the first novel of Prism Pentad but then ignore everything that happens in any novel after that. Use the Prism Pentad simply as inspiration for how a Dark Sun game might go, but don't follow it as canon.

Product wise, if you play it using 2e rules, then use the original box set, and all the books that came out prior to the release of the Revised box set. Avoid anything using the revised box set like the plague. For example, Dune Trader, Earth Air Fire Water, Dragon Kings, etc. are all good products. Revised Box Set, Mind Lords of the Last Sea, etc. are crap. Basically, anything with Brom cover art is good, anything without Brom cover art is bad.


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## Spatula (Jan 5, 2009)

The first Prism Pentad book is pretty decent for D&D fiction (so however you feel about lowend genre fiction applies here).  The second book is meh.  The third, fourth, and fifth books are utter crap.

I didn't bother with any Dark Sun novels after that, so I can't comment on the others.


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## Jhaelen (Jan 5, 2009)

Eric Anondson said:


> I'm between Alzrius and humble minion in my take. I don't consider them tops in game fiction for the story. They are indispensable for someone who wants to know canon of the Dark Sun setting.



That's my take, as well.

Back when I DMed my Dark Sun campaign I've read all of the novels and (most) were extremely important to be able to properly portrait the setting - especially Prism Pentad. If I'd only bought them for a good read, I'd probably have been disappointed and stopped reading after the third novel or so.


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## vagabundo (Jan 5, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> That's my take, as well.
> 
> Back when I DMed my Dark Sun campaign I've read all of the novels and (most) were extremely important to be able to properly portrait the setting - especially Prism Pentad. If I'd only bought them for a good read, I'd probably have been disappointed and stopped reading after the third novel or so.




If you guys are reading a novel for gaming purposes how do you do it?

Do you take notes and work up ideas or just take the general flavor away from them and then to your game?


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## Obryn (Jan 5, 2009)

I re-read the Prism Pentad not all too long ago.  At least, the first book or two...  I don't completely remember.  I love the Dark Sun setting...  I think it's an outstanding and even somewhat visionary fantasy world, miles away from most anything else that's come out before or since.

At any rate, the Pentad is far from the worst gaming series out there.  I could pretty easily overlook the writing and characterization for its excellent portrayal of a fairly well-defined, exotic world.  More than the box sets, they provide a glimpse into what life on Athas would be like.

However, like most, I absolutely _hate _how they more or less blow up the setting by the end of them.  "Look, D&D players!  Here's a compelling, detailed, exotic setting with a ton of stuff your players can do!  Now, please sit back while we write novels to do it all for you, so you don't need to trouble yourself with an actual campaign.  Don't worry, there'll be plenty of water eventually!"

-O


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## Obryn (Jan 5, 2009)

vagabundo said:


> If you guys are reading a novel for gaming purposes how do you do it?
> 
> Do you take notes and work up ideas or just take the general flavor away from them and then to your game?



I never take notes.  It's all about the flavor - and maybe some plot ideas or character ideas.

-O


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## Alzrius (Jan 5, 2009)

Eric Anondson said:


> [snip]
> 
> Lynn Abbey's Dark Sun books canon deviation was a result of this environment, not her disregard for canon. She wasn't kept in the loop, and TSR's RPG department had no incentive for them to overcome departmental inertia and bring her in to the loop.




This is a fairly good excuse, but I don't think that gives her a free pass for how her books deviate from the canon.

The actual Dark Sun materials were already on the market when she wrote her books. It's not like she really needed TSR's secret notes on the setting or anything...she could just have picked up the boxed set and read through it, maybe even a supplement or two.

Authors do research on subjects that they write about all the time. It doesn't seem that unreasonable that Lynn could have looked at some of the Dark Sun products to understand the setting better. Communication with the "insiders" at TSR would have helped, but if the fans can have such a dedicated sense of the canon without ever seeing such material, so can the people who write the books.



			
				catsclaw227 said:
			
		

> Does this mean they are good in general, or just the best of the Dark Sun novels? How well did they stay on canon or was there even much canon at the time they were being written?




The books were pretty good in a general sense; I certainly didn't think that they were badly written. They were easily the best of the Dark Sun novels, IMHO. As I mentioned, I particularly liked how flawed the characters were; that seemed to be the best way of portraying what life on Athas was like - Sadira was willing to defile to cast spells when she really needed to, Astinus initially saw no problem with keeping slaves, etc.

They stayed in canon fairly well, though there were a few snafus (though it never got as horrible as it did in other books). For example, in an early book a halfling uses arcane magic, something that's retconned in a later book. Likewise, defiling magic is presented as something that preservers can use if they want to cast spells more quickly/powerfully, which the rules didn't quite support at the time (though later revisions tried to make that more correct). Overall, however, the books kept quite close to the canon, and even set future canon for the setting. I really think they're the best Dark Sun novels to date.


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## megamania (Jan 5, 2009)

messy said:


> allo
> 
> i'd like to start reading the dark sun novels. where should i start?
> 
> messy






* Prism Pentad - Troy Denning
1. The Verdant Passage (October 1991), (ISBN 1-56076-121-0)

Drops into the middle of what jump started the campaign.  The characters here relate to the most important social and activist groups within the campaign.

2. The Crimson Legion (April 1992), (ISBN 1-56076-260-8)

Leaps directly from the novel into war time.  The word "war" seems to be an exaggeration and the outcome seems wrong when considering we talking about several roughly mid-level characters leading many under 4th level vs an experienced army with a 40+ level leader.  If this battle was done within DnD rules it would have ended VERY differently but that's novels.  Okay read. 

3. The Amber Enchantress (October 1992), (ISBN 1-56076-236-5)

Begins to describe the past history of the world and its main antagonist.  We get to travel through the valley a bit and explore somewhat the differences of societies and races.  The super empowerment of the lead character seems wrong but then again the other characters (foes) are all 40+ levels themselves.

4. The Obsidian Oracle (June 1993), (ISBN 1-56076-603-4)

Okay.  More about the world and its races.  Much about Silt and giants.   Lead up to the next novel

5. The Cerulean Storm (September 1993), (ISBN 1-56076-642-5)
Frankly a convient wrap up to a story where the bad guys should have won easily.  50+ level characters are destroyed with one blow.  Very over the top game wise.

Over all-  to get a feel for the game world this is the best bet but what started good quickly power leaps into something that is unrealistic (even for fantasy DnD) leaves one wondering and wanting more for the guys removed than the survivors.


* Tribe of One - Simon Hawke
1. The Outcast (November 1993), (ISBN 1-56076-676-X)

Okay book.  I actually did like it but as someone else mentioned earlier-  Darksun is about grit and despair.  Survival is key.  The hero of the book is so powerful and so good he doesn't fit well but that was the intention.  It gave DMs a way to possibly make Darksun less dark.  It also gives the origins (that rarely make sence) of the forces of good.

2. The Seeker (April 1994), (ISBN 1-56076-701-4)

More of the above.

3. The Nomad (October 1994), (ISBN 1-56076-702-2)

I like the villian and the site of the final battle the most here.  The way the main character is treated at the end bothers me.  So much time related / pockets of ancient time that it somehow takes away from the Darksun

Overall, An decent read but not Darksun.

* Chronicles of Athas - Various Authors
1. The Brazen Gambit (July 1994), by Lynn Abbey (ISBN 1-56076-872-X)

Introduces a character that I like but I get lost in the storyline at times.  Seems more like a lead up to the final book in the series.

2. The Darkness Before the Dawn (February 1995), by Ryan Hughes (ISBN 0-7869-0104-7)

?!?   Level one people become gods?!?   Psionics at the most powerful levels that includes traveling to..... Central park, NYC roughly 1995?   Ruined the entire book with that section alone.

3. The Broken Blade (May 1995), by Simon Hawke (ISBN 0-7869-0137-3)

Follow up to the Tribe of One.  The fact I honestly don't remember what happens in it is a poor sign.  

4. Cinnabar Shadows (July 1995), by Lynn Abbey (ISBN 0-7869-0181-0)

Like the first book, it feels like an unneccessary intro to the final book.  It was okay.

5. The Rise & Fall of a Dragon King (April 1996), by Lynn Abbey (ISBN 0-7869-0476-3)

The BEST book of the series but yeah-  it gets away from Darksun's canon material but name a resource book that didn't.

The last series of books was okay with the exception of the last book which I enjoyed completely.  The ending was a bit "convinent" but how else to end it?

thanx 

I doubt this helped a lot but what it comes down to is-

Back story to the campaign world?

Neat but impossible character that doesn't fit in his world?

Series of lead-ins to the NEW (possibly improved) origin of the campaign world?


as another note-  read each book twice but Rise and Fall I have read at least 4 times (research for time lines)


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## megamania (Jan 5, 2009)

vagabundo said:


> If you guys are reading a novel for gaming purposes how do you do it?
> 
> Do you take notes and work up ideas or just take the general flavor away from them and then to your game?




I read the books twice at least.

The first time I noted on the inside cover a page and name/item/place of interest.  This was my general guide to the Darksun campaign.

I reread them later for creating a timeline.  For the most part there was a time line that was kept.  

When ever there a conflict in times / places/ people I used the best fit for the series and what I had envisioned.  Thus much of Rise and Fall's creation of the Sorcerer-Kings was kept and overruled the prior origins.  Over a score-  there were more races and destroyers of these races that what was in the core books and novels.  I had fun creating and describing these "forgotten" sorcerer-kings and queens.


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## Jhaelen (Jan 5, 2009)

vagabundo said:


> If you guys are reading a novel for gaming purposes how do you do it?
> 
> Do you take notes and work up ideas or just take the general flavor away from them and then to your game?



I made lots of notes.
I noted down monster names and created stats for them (and replaced them with official ones after they'd been published, e.g. in Dragon articles).
I added descriptions of the city states and other places of interest and I noted all of the names of characters to both use them as npcs and add them to the resource files for my random name generator app.

I also accumulated a ton of house rules - enough to fill a three ring binder, e.g. I created complete stats for all the (monstrous) humanoid races, different spell lists for clerics, etc.

I'd like to note that since I also recommened my players to read the novels, I had decided right from the start that I wouldn't use the novels' metaplot as written in my campaign.

In my campaign Rikus was killed when he attempted to slay the sorcerer king of Tyr. The sorcerer king wasn't killed but his ritual was botched, so he was forced to retreat and later returned as a dracolich.

The Revised Setting was a major disappointment and combined with the horrible revised psionics rules eventually caused the campaign to die. Looking back I should have simply continued playing and stopped buying supplements that had become useless to me...


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## vagabundo (Jan 6, 2009)

Thanks for the ideas guys. I've always been really interesting in running a dark sun campaign - it is an amazing place - but have been a bit daunted at portraying the world as it is very different from a standard DND fantasy. And the adventures didnt help as they set about destroying what I like about the place.


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## Obryn (Jan 6, 2009)

vagabundo said:


> Thanks for the ideas guys. I've always been really interesting in running a dark sun campaign - it is an amazing place - but have been a bit daunted at portraying the world as it is very different from a standard DND fantasy. And the adventures didnt help as they set about destroying what I like about the place.



It's a fun setting and system, but you need to walk a fine line between overwhelming the players and making it a cakewalk.

(1) Starting out in slavery is fine.  Being thrown repeatedly into slavery is not.

(2) The world is basically a big desert, and if you don't pay attention, that's all it will look like to your players.

(3) If you are running in 2e, be sure you grab a copy (PDF, since the actual book was $$$ on eBay last I checked) of Earth, Air, Fire, Water (or whatever it's called).  Otherwise, elemental clerics will have very few spells.

There's a lot to do in the campaign if you give it a structure of some sort.  Both the Veiled Society and Dune Traders give some excellent ideas...  The typical root-through-dungeons-finding-treasure gig needs some tweaking to work in Dark Sun.

-O


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## Melba Toast (Jan 7, 2009)

I was kind of enjoying the Tribe of One series until, in the middle of the third book, Sorak actually sits down at a game table and plays himself playing D&D.

I sh*t you not.

It actually happens.

I threw the book across the room.

Here's an actual quoted text from the book (pg. 116). Here, Sorak is observing a "game" in a Casino in Salt View:

"The first this they notice was that no cards were being used, nor were there playing pieces. There were no wheels or boards, and players were in a team. Instead of a dealer, there was a sort of gamemaster who directed the play. Each player assumes a character... The gamemaster then presents them with a scenario... the game that had stopped to watch happened to be called, ironically, "The Lost Treasure of Bodach".

It was ironic, because Sorak was searching for the Lost Treasure of Bodach. And you see, Sorak then plays the game, rolls polyhedral dice and everything, then, it turns out, he's the first player to ever "win" the game. Turns out the game was a "test". 

Now, if this were just a comic aside, it would be fine, but this goes on for 20 pages! The worst part was this comes midway through the last book of the series. By this point, anyone who read this far was heavily invested in the character and the story. This chapter is a mockery of your time and money.

      ****

I'm less critical of the Prism Pentad series. It's not Shakespeare, but Dark Sun was Troy Denning's world, and the books are respectful. 

I haven't read (or even seen) any of the other novels but I liked some of the short stories that came with the modules.


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