Dark Sun

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A campaign setting made for AD&D 2nd edition back in '90. There are 3e conversions approved by WotC, but they were never published as books or anything. WotC has announced it as the next setting to be released for 4e

Setting

The game is set in the world of Athas, a dying planet. Once full of happiness and sunshine, the planet was drained of all resources during the long and rich history the creators came up with. There is no water, no minerals and no hope: only cannibal halflings, a lot of sand and a dying sun. The world is so fucked up it make Mad Max setting look like a hippie paradise, the only few realms are fascist police city states rule by wizards (all of them retarded evil, except Hamanu, who is a pimp served only by the hottest females in Urik and each day in his life is an orgy) who are no longer human at all and beyond civilized lands everything eats everything. The best weapon you can find is the femur of your party's cleric after being eaten by something what looked like a rock and the best armor is mostly the remains of a giant roach. There is no such thing as gnomes,orcs,kobolds or furrys because all them where exterminated by guys who where so badass the only explanation for their power is they where the extradimensional offspring of Chuck Norris,the Champions of Rajaat.

Races

Most of the generic fantasy races were exterminated a long time ago, good riddance!
This means no gnomes! First reason why this setting is full of win and awesome.

• Halfling - Cannibals who live in the remaining strips of forest.
• Elf - No forests for them, ha! They are desert nomads, thieving and griefing all the time.
• Dwarf - Almost typical dorfs, except they're bald and are even more fixated on their stuff.
• Mul - Half-dorfs! Second reason why this setting is full of win and awesome!
• Half-giant - Big bad meanies, with lolrandom alignment
• Thri-kreen - Sentient mantis. Strange, scary folk. Like their elves raw.
• Dray - Horribly deformed dragon-people. Basically a failed magic experiment.
• Aarakocra - Sentient birds, for those who don't want to play anything normal, but hate bugs or lizards.
• Human - Sentient halfling, only larger.
• Pterran - Pterodactyl shamanistic retards what makes you remind certain cheesy villain from the X-men comic books.

Classes

• Clerics - There are no real gods in the setting, so most clerics worship elements or quasi-elements. Druids serve nature spirits or some other stupidity. In a desert world, summoning water elementals will get you pussy until you realize if you level up to much you become a true elemental too, very nasty if you be drank alive for being a water elemental.

• Gladiators - You know. Like the movie. Also was one of the most overpowered classes in the times of AD&D, a low level gladiator could be the personification of certain Frank Frazzeta illustration entitled "The Destroyer".

• Bards - Most bards sing songs and boost the other party members' rolls. Dark Sun bards poison you.

• Templars - Replace Paladins, but more on the police side of things to the point they are like the Gestapo in the occupied France. Worship the Sorcerer King who rules their city.

• Psions - Psionics are considered accepted and normal practices in this setting. In fact, every PC is guaranteed to have at least one psionic power!

• Wizards - Two types exist in the setting, but everyone hates them both:
  • Defiler - Evil mages, who suck out the life force of things and when they level up enough, they usually have an allergic reaction called dragon metamorphosis.
  • Preserver - Mages who are not manly enough to steal life force, so they sacrifice efficiency to keep the stuff around them alive. Unfortunately for them, the commoners think all wizards are the same and except as the cool guys, when they grow up enough for be consider bad ass they turn into manta ray like aliens from Abyss.

External links

Darksun Wiki - a wiki almost as empty as this one

Athas.org - conversion for 3.5, scheduled to be complete just after 5e comes out. Sweet shit, it's actually finished!