REVIEW: SHADOWSUN - A SHADOWDARK SETTING

 

PREAMBLE: ON DARK SUN  

Whenever somebody mentions grimdark and D&D in the same conversation, it is likely attached to the context of the time D&D went Mad Max for a while. The Dark Sun setting, originally published by TSR for AD&D and maintained throughout the years all the way up to D&D 4e is somewhat an outlier amongst Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms which to this day remain the „face“ of D&D to most, and for good reason: Where the two aforementioned settings have their foundation in the tropes, cliches and archetypes of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Robert Howard's Conan and Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Dark Sun invokes more of Jack Vance's Dying Earth, Frank Herbert's Dune, and Burrough's Barsoom: an isolate, post-apocalyptic desert realm under a blazing sun, where water is worth more than gold, gods non-existent, psionic powers run rampant and sorcery that drew on the world's very life force is responsible for its transformation from a lush realm into the blasted hellscape it is today, ruled by megalomaniacal, dracomorphic sorcerer kings. 

Dark Sun came about as a deliberate counter-creation to the Tolkienist fantasy and the aesthetics of Feudal Medieval Europe, and it reflects that on a level that goes beyond just the visual: many standard ancestries and monsters straight up do not exist in the initial iteration of the world of Athas – or rather, not any more, as they were wiped out by the main antagonists of the setting, aforementioned sorcerer-kings, in a mad campaign to restore the world to its primal-most state1. Further, with no gods around, there are no clerics to draw upon divine power and thus, no afterlives beyond the dour plane known as the Grey. 

Instead of chain-mail hauberks, plate and gambesons, our heroes and villains alike walk about in their best Burning Man and BDSM-getup, neatly avoiding heatstroke and extreme skin cancer in the pursuit of exposing as much bulging muscle, flabby fat-rolls, protruding ribs and mutant vestigial limbs as possible, all wrought from leather, hide, chitin and bone harvested from the weird monsters inhabiting the desert. If all of that is starting to sound punk to you, that's because, well, it is. The setting is one defined by the tyranny of an exempt few, powerful mages, who continue to abuse the scarce environmental and economical resources of the planet in order to extend their own lifespan, and oppress the subjects of their city-states through a variety of means, from institutionalised slavery to mass surveillance and brutal policing forces, while holding the public entertained through bloodsports, all the while tribes and clans in the wastes fight and struggle for what little resources are left. 
Yet, there is hope. The players can and should rebel. Preserving magic exists that does not defile the world as the sorcerer kings did. It can, likely, never return to the way it did originally. But you can fight the burning of the world. You can fight the dying of the light. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fantasy fiction. Hell, the metaplot of Dark Sun and its iterations throughout the editions saw the steady destruction of the sorcerer-kings and seeded first free cities and democratic councils in a slow, but steady change to Athas' desolate atmosphere. There were other dangers and monstrous enemies, naturally, all wanting to fill the power vacuum left behind, and the city of Tyr was anything but stable as it tried to sort out its new existence, but it would give anyone something to fight for. 

That is not to say, the setting doesn't have its issues. I mean, it came out in the 1990s, perceptions change over 30 years. The most talked about aspect, the ubiquitous institution of slavery within the setting, on one hand reinforces the bleak nature of the Athas and gives you a clear injustice to fight against with tooth and nail, but is so omni-present once you step out of Tyr, it becomes difficult to actually do anything about it. It also frequently reaches levels of ridiculousness when it comes to the yearly sacrifices of a thousand slaves to reinstate a magical seal that keeps the biggest, baddest sorcerer of all shut in stasis. Like, logistically, where the hell do you get that many in Athas? With the scarcity of water and the brutal nature of the setting, all seven city states should have run out of populations centuries ago. At least Warhammer 40.000 and its God-Emperor's daily snack of about a thousand psykers has the excuse of an overpopulated, literal galaxy-spanning empire to provide the nourishing soil to grow the ingredients in2.
Not to mention, the designer's decision to implement a Templar class, who function as the individual sorcerer-king's zealotic Gestapo and have literal class features to allow them to command, execute and frame the enslaved as well as the freemen within their city-state's territory baked into their core design. Playing evil characters is fun, don't get me wrong, but I can fully understand why somebody might not be comfortable with their friend Bob vehemently abusing and killing enslaved NPCs at their table with glee. It puts a bit of a sour taste in your mouth. 
There is also the inclusion of the various „half-breed“ ancestries, such as half-giants and the unfortunately named Mul3, and in general, the bio-essentialist angle that most early D&D ancestries were treated with. Does it assume that most, if not all members of a species are inherently evil? No. Does it make such all-encompassing statements as “all elves are naturalborn sprinters” and “all half-giants are inherently less intelligent than other ancestries?” Yes. But Dark Sun is not alone in these – most early D&D books have angles and concepts that, nowadays would be in some shape or fashion problematic if viewed through a critical lens. And people should talk about it. And frankly, as dark as the setting is usually assumed to be – its at best a 4 out of 10 on the grimdark scale. 

That said, today we are looking at ShadowSun – A Shadowdark Setting by Greg Christopher AKA Chubby Funster. It claims itself a 216 page long, dark, apocalyptic desert setting designed for use with Shadowdark RPG. The author is currently in the process of revising and expanding the book with an updated re-release, so it may be that some of the criticisms I'll have in this review may already be addressed.

 I should mention from the start that I am going into this review with a bias, as I'm not exactly a fan of somebody taking the work of other authors and designers, filing down the serial numbers and re-selling it. While we as authors and designers all steal in our line of work from previous works and let other texts influence us, there is usually a form of reinterpretation and thought included that transforms inspiration into original, creative work. As such, I will treat this book not as a original work, which at least it doesn't claim to be, but as just that, a conversion of the Dark Sun setting to the Shadowdark system, and see if it succeeds with that goal in mind. With that out of the way, let's dive in. 

PART I: INTRODUCTION

 Naturally, we start out with a map of the world. 
Spread across a double page, it gives you a decent idea of the locations and regions and some hints at the overall geography. Geographical names are readable and clear to see. Its functional and does its job. There is no idea of scale or distance given, but that's always something you can handwave. We are not, mind you, given a dedication or acknowledgement about the original designers of Dark Sun. Should be included, I think, if you are going to make money off of their intellectual property this way. 

Next comes the section Ancient History. 
It is a highly abridged version of Dark Sun's origin story, with some minor changes which I will chalk up to the author not wanting to get sued: the halfling precursors, named the Wee Folk here, spread across the then lush world of Althea. One day, the moon Sheera passed in front of the sun, eclipsing it and causing all manners of monsters to rise in the lands below. After some time, it is shattered by the sun, and its shards, falling to the earth, are used by the halflings to learn magic and change themselves into the humans, elves, dwarves and beastfolk that populate the world today. Those of the Wee Folk unable to transform remain halflings and are very bitter about not getting to reach the new tall shelves. However, the sun grows angry (?) and causes magic to defile the world and forces the newly arrived people to wage war for the ever scanter growing resources and territory, burning the land and turning it into the scorching desert it is today. It is not mentioned anywhere else in the book if we are to take this as fact or as more metaphorical. 
The original Dark Sun explicitly had no gods, with the entirety of the world's current state to be blamed upon the actions of the people that dwelt in it and sought to exploit it for their own gain. As it is, I'll have to take the Ancient History section at face value and be somewhat miffed that we can now blame the entirety of the bleakness of the world on some extant divine source, and have it undermine the punk factor. We are told there are 20 city states ruled by mage-kings that control the major oases and what little fertile land there is, of wastelands scavenged by hunters and raiders, grassland patches tended to by nomadic herders and on the scarcity of metal and natural forest land, the former chased mainly by the dwarves, the latter tended to by the elves4. I don't have much to add about the introduction. It's serviceable enough. Nothing exciting to get my blood pumping as I read it, as the prose is rather dry. 

The Barren Land provides the class restrictions. Again, standard Dark Sun fare: no gods, therefore, I assume, no priests (though the page does not specify), as well as three new classes: Sorcerer, Shaman, Mentalist. Following that, we get a small blurb on the mindset players and GMs should have for running a game in this setting:

Groovy. 
Finally, we are presented with some Survival Rules for Food and Drink and Heatstroke. As expected, water rations are to be tracked separately, failure to consume either food or water for 3 days, you start to lose 1 maximum hit point, with instant death at HP 0. So, if you got without either food or drink, that means 2 HP lost per day. Its a slowly creeping death. Simple, but effective. Heatstroke provides the additional danger of DISADV on all checks if you fail to drink an additional water-ration once per day during overland travel. As introductions go, it provides the essentials necessary to get an overarching feeling for what the setting is supposed to feel like. As said, not that big of a fan of the world being doomed by outer, rather than internal forces, but I assume that GM fiat applies.
 On with the show. 

 

 PART II: CHARACTER CREATION 

 

This is the longest section of the book and, I'll admit, when I spotted its page count in the index, I was concerned. 41 pages of Character options (not counting spells and treasures, which are in later chapters) vs. 33 pages of locations and world-information reads... dire. We first get our background table, with 20 choices worth of desperate survivors, ranging from Bonesmiths to Mercenary to Trader and simple Villager. Some of them offer some neat little tricks, like the “Reader” being able to read the emotions of others. Following that, we get a... page detailing stats. Alright, I suppose. Don't mind it, if a bit superfluous concerning that stuff is already in the standard SD book and quickstart, but it defines which stat matters most to which class, so that counts for something. 

 

Next up, Ancestries. 

We got Dwarf, Elf, Hawkfolk, Human, Lizardfolk and Mantisfolk. Wait, is that it? No halflings, despite their importance to the greater backstory? I understand, the aaracokra, the pterans and the thri-kreen were the most iconic additions of Dark Sun, but no half-giants? No new, weird ancestry to mix things up? Alright. Dwarves are... well, dwarves. They mine the earth, live in clans underground and trade with the surface. They get an extra 3 gear slots, so we got out party pack herder right there. Elves are nomads with a bonus to initiative, hawkfolk get a rather lame once a day hovering of up to near, rather than just a full limited flight per day, lizardfolk can breathe for one hour under sand, mantisfolk get a venom attack that, as it reads, has no daily limit, is made at advantage at all times, and deals 1d4 plus 1d6 poison damage after a failed DC 12 CON check. Interesting choice, but not exactly something that speaks “mantis” to me. Humans get the standard Ambitious talent. Nothing too egregious so far. 

 

New Classes follow: Explorer, Mentalist, Shaman, Sorcerer, Warrior. I wonder how Warrior and Explorer compare to Thief and Fighter. Again, no mention is made of what classes from Core Shadowdark are restricted, so I'll follow my assumption of no priests and standard wizards, as in Dark Sun, and go from there.

 

 Explorer is definitely our Thief stand-in, losing its backstab in favour of a lucky talent that gives a +2 bonus whenever rolling a death timer or using a luck token. You are also easier to stabilize and can hold up to 2 luck tokens at a time. Alright, seems straightforward enough, nothing too abstract, and it makes the explorer more of a survivor, rather than the Thief's quasi-assassin approach. Shadowed as a feature is a bit weird, as it feels like it could've just been folded into the Thievery talent, which already features advantage on checks related to most, well, thievery stuff. Being explicitly able to move silently and being harder to see through a +2 to checks while motionless is nice, I suppose, but it feels a bit superfluous. Otherwise, you gain bonuses to Thievery checks, stealth and you get to learn a new type of armour or weapon to wield/wear on level ups, along with the standard stat up. Its a thief with a bit more survivability. 

 

The Mentalist arrives as our newly sanctioned psionic, while also doubling as our party's bard, it seems, with a Charming talent that lets them fast-talk hostile and non-hostile creatures at differing DC thresholds (DC 12 for non-hostile, DC 18 for hostile). Basically, unless there is an obvious negative consequence to an action, a creature can be convinced of following it. Some devious players could come up with all sorts of loopholes, though it might run the risk of being somewhat socially overpowered. Hm. Wait a minute, let me check something real quick.

I suppose being fast-talked doesn't qualify as philosophical talk, but I imagine with that part in in the introduction, anyone caught trying to fast-talk an enforcer or desert warrior would receive only a spear-end through the neck as an answer? The Mentalist also receives a Palm talent which is a minor sleight of hand that lets them secretly grab a close object, with an opposing check of their DEX vs. onlookers WIS. Isn't that more of a Thief or Explorer thing? And why make it tied to an action? Could’ve just as well made it having advantage on sleight of hand trickery and leave it at that. His level up talents include additional psionic powers, casting advantage and +1 to Charming and/or Palm checks. Mentalist powers are Tier 1-5, like spells, and they start out with 4 powers, as opposed to a standard wizard starting with 3 spells of equivalent tier. I'll have to check how useful those powers are in a later chapter. 

 

Shamans, aside from nature spells and the ability to command/rebuke undead depending on their alignment, get a trance that lets them scout out the far surrounding terrain of a dungeon or region. Interesting, but it can only be done at full HP. Does something happen if attempted at less than full HP? Probably nothing. It should be noted, Shamans roll on the Wizard Mishap table for their spells, rather than lose spells like priests. I am confused by the level up talent adding a cumulative near distance to the Spirit Walk, which already operates at far. Far is everything outside of a bow range. It could, charitably, be described as triple near and upward. Maybe using feet as measurement would have been more useful here rather than using SD's abstract movement, but that's minor. 

 

Sorcerers round out our casters with the Dark Sun Defilement trait: instead of rolling on a wizard mishap table, they have a chance of losing 1 HP or drain 1d4 HP from their allies on a failed spellcasting check. I would've added general bystanders to that Defilement trait, rather than “just” your allies, because what constitutes an ally? Players will argue about it. They also can copy spell scrolls and learn more languages. They are also, compared to the prior classes, the only ones with a d4 Hit Die, rather than a d6, and also get no armour. Mentalists do, along with an assortment of weaponry. Those combat spells sorcerer use better be good to make up for it. Last, the Warrior. Once per day, you gain +2 AC and doubled movement for dealing damage to an opponent for 3 rounds, a potential to stun an opponent creature with a DEX check and some bonus to shields and a shield bash. They are, overall, fundamentally less exciting than the other classes, and are entirely combat focused. You won't find any social skills or survival here. Not exactly up to the Core Fighter's snuff, but you get some barbarian-esque feel to it. 

 

We move on to Gear and good Lord, what is happening in here?

So, not all item descriptions are this long, but they go into superfluous details all the same. I suppose everybody on Althea is a damn alcoholic. Why would you take away the agency of your players with a common alcohol item? That's what Carousing is for. At least the players can earn XP that way and have some interesting stuff happen to them. This way, for just +2 CHA they risk their own characters doing whatever the GM decides they do? Actually, there is no carousing present in this book. At least, no unique options are presented. Can we carouse in Althea? We're not given much options. Lost opportunity for a unique table and consequences there. 

The new gear runs the whole gamut of nice to have to somewhat redundant.

 You get large sacks and small sacks, large tens, small tents, bandages, backpacks that only add a single new gear slot, baskets, boxes, chests, good god. I assume these are mostly for caravan play or if your player own several mounts, because Judas on a Pogo-Stick, so many of these are just about granting you more space to stuff your stuff in. You have a potion chest that you have to carry with two hands and that protects potions from falling? 

Gods, look at the damn year, I am back in 1991 playing AD&D with all the overt details and crunch. Get me outta here. There is a point to be made for more survival tools and gear for your player to interact with, but like, half of these could have been cut, really. There is such a thing as too much verisimilitude.

 

 In the same chapter, we are introduced to the new currency. Chits. Ceramic shards, no gold, no silver, no copper. Get used to it. Weapons, Armours and Traps follow, and again, I feel like some of these do not need a whole paragraph of description unto themselves, each. Just keep it to the tables. Explain some of the exotic weapons. I know what a longsword is. Uniquely, we get the option to set up traps as the player characters. Though some of them require stuff like pressure plates to function. Hope you are not just travelling overland in the sand. And that you find an extant pressure plate to connect the trap to. 

 

We also get a variety of transportation options. Camels, Barges, Canoes, Carts, Galleys, Lizards. I feel like these could've been weirder and more punk-y. Like, they are intended to swim across the Black sand sea. Could've had a bit more pizzazz. How the hell do you row through sand, even soft, buoyant one? 

The Psionic Mishap table is also found here... but not with the Mentalist. Or the Psionic Powers chapter. Weird placement, but okay. There is no Tiered Mishap tables, all Tier 1-5 use the same one. And honestly... they are not that disastrous? Sure you, might forget how to use a power for a week or have some issue focusing, but for the most part, they are not really anything you can't walk away from. Especially at higher levels.

 

 PART III: THE WORLD OF ALTHEA 

 

We're getting to the meat and potatoes of the book and I'm afraid to say, I've instead received some gnawed off ribs and a single fry for a meal. There is an absurd lack of detail, conflict and, frankly, actual world to be found in these pages. First and foremost, there are no factions and no NPC pages. None. You get a brief description of a geographical location and maybe a landmark that stands out, as well as a common enemy monster or other living threat found for most geographical locations. It gets especially ridiculous when you scroll back and realize the description of gameplay mechanics of drinking alcohol is longer and more detailed than more than half these location descriptions. They are also alphabetized, rather than nestled in one another or arranged according to „Major Region –Sub-Region – Landmark“ which would have made things much easier to parse, as several locations are linked to one another in some fashion – even if only as a proverbial threshold or sign post. In terms of direct, gameable conflict or content, most really only mention a monster type that is often found here:

Some of them provide historical background or are simply an impressive landmark left behind by the actions of a mage-king, but with little to actually explore. Why? Some of these could have had something happen in them. Or an item hidden, at least. Give me a reason for players to go there. Others just throw out random lore bits that would've maybe been interesting to know about much, much earlier. Like, did you know that half-dwarves actually exist in this world? They're not called Mul, don't worry. Just Dur.

It is also, once again, basically a location from Athas with its names slightly changed. 

 

The city states fare somewhat better, receiving each a column on the page, but we're only given the most superficial details. Its functional, but I wouldn't call it engaging. 

Sometimes you get a word on a major faction within the respective city. Sometimes, you only get to read what crops they grow and what they trade in. You don't even get that much information regarding the terrible mage-kings, for the most part, aside from maybe one line about their whereabouts, if you are lucky. I can recall three, at most, that are currently actively plotting, either by secretly training a new army for their next conquest and spying on their neighbours. 

There's a definitive dearth of information at play here. Its a shame, because some of these locations offer potential from description alone. 

 

The Adventuring Sites at least offer some interesting hooks and potential for treasure, framed as rumours and stories about specific locations that the GM can decide on how much of them is true, falsified or lacking context. Most of them are evocative enough and could provide a well-enough starting point for an adventure or two. But some of them, such as the Lost City of Tiverius, are linked to ostensibly powerful characters within the setting's history on whom we get no real information. On its own, not enough to salvage a rather lacking world. 

Most I learn about one of the city leaders is that he is a vampire, called King of Cubs, who enthralls the leaders of his city's gangs into service using his own blood. 

We also get a dive into the caste system that rules most of Altheas, along with information on how people of lower castes must prostrate themselves before those of higher ones. Failure to do so is likely to end in violent rebuke. As PCs, you are more likely than not of the Citizen caste, at best, be prepared to kowtow like your life depends on it, because it probably will. Maybe? 

Wait, does that mean Noble PCs can demand other lower-caste PCs to bow before them? Fact of the matter, why do we have a Noble option as a PC background? Why'd they go outside? In fact, does this caste system also apply to the tribes that live outside the City-States? Do they have their own unique hierarchies? They are not mentioned here, so I have to assume they operate under the same caste system. But why though? Confused, I read on.

Bit of a snippy remark by the author that is sure to endear them to the prospective reader. 

It sure would be nice if there were some actual factions or enemies or an adventure in this setting book that would let your players fight against slavery beyond the abstract. As it stands, it doesn't even provide any random encounters players could have in a city or the wilds dealing with such things as a runaway slave or potential slave traders. Could've been a nice to have to reinforce the ideas presented here. As it stands, slavery in this book only really exists in the abstract. 

Hey, you know what the actual problem is with slavery in interactive media? Not that it exists within your world. Not that your players might engage with it. No, the issue is that most books, settings, guidebooks and adventures do not provide a proper enough framework to interact meaningfully with it in any sort of capacity. 

Just saying “we all know slavery is bad” and including it without any kind of afterthought as to how to critically engage with it on an interactive-level is not enough! Kowtowing to a higher social class is not enough! You want to deal with slavery in your setting, fucking commit to letting your players engage meaningfully and maturely with it! Have tools for a GM build into the design so that they don't have to clumsily navigate these waters on their own! Random encounters, factions, anything. Snidely telling your readers to “read some actual history texts” does not help in any way. 

Because as it stands, outside of some scant mentions of the slave trade existing and some mentions of maybe emancipated former victims of it, you, the designer, do not engage with the topic yourself. 

You just use it as set-dressing. As an aesthetic. That is the fucking problem here. 

The original Dark Sun is not free of this sin, either. The Templar class comes to mind. But it had adventures build around trying to free yourself and others from the institution. But your book, your conversion, doesn't have that. 

Instead, you have bowing and throwing yourself to the ground, some lip-service paid to how evil of a practice it is, some mentions of slaves being used as soldiers or drawn into the enforcers and call it a day. Its not up to the reader, the player, or the GM alone to engage with the topic critically. 

The designer and writer, when including specific topics and themes within their work, must be prepared to establish some sort of framework to allow other GMs and Players to interact with it on their level. 

Simply saying “don't like it, don't run it” is not an adequate solution. In fact, if it was your only solution, you shouldn't have included it in the first fucking place. 

 

Why aren't there any NPC profiles or Factions, though? Did it take too much away from describing to me in detail what a longsword looks like? We leave Althea behind. There is nothing really original to cover lore-wise. Time for magic and mind powers. 

 

 PART IV: SPELLS AND PSIONICS 

 

The new spells are divided into arcane and nature spells, as well as general psionic powers.

 

 Arcane mainly deals in combat spells, ranging from conjuring dragon fire to general blighting of the area to twisting and mutating other creatures into vile abominations and binding them to your bidding. Many of them are derived from Dark Sun's theme of defilement, vs. the preserving magic accessed by Shamans. Sorcerers are not utility casters, and with their meagre d4 and no armour, they'll need all the firepower they can get. Most of the arcane spells you'll recognise from 5e or other D&D books. Interestingly, we get a Tier 2 spell that makes you immune to any psionic powers. I assume those directly affecting you, not buffs and powers affecting only the mentalist, but I could be wrong. The spell defilement lets you regain HP by sacrificing any near plantlife. You get a chart determining how much HP you heal based on the terrain. Neat. 

Durations are wack though – sometimes you have 3 rounds, sometimes 7, sometimes you have the new duration of Permanent, which is basically the same as Instant, just more extra irrevocable. Keeping it to Instant, 5, 10 and Focus would've been well enough. The spell Soul Trap, I suppose, is meant to be cast on dying allies, since R.A.W, non-PCs do not receive death timers. Some of the Sorcerer spells also innately deal 1d4 damage to you, even on a successful casting. While it is mostly reserved to the higher tier spells, it adds an element of danger to the practice. 

 

Nature Magic is what you expect it to be: buffs, healing, summoning and speaking with animals. The standard array of spells you would expect to find on a druidic spell list. They also have some wacky durations at times. We also have create water as a Tier 4 spell. Naturally, with the added caveat that any water not cast in a container or not used to hydrate close people is immediately lost once falling onto the ground. 

Which, if you think about, should still be enough over time to re-hydrate the desert world. People urinate. It ain't pretty to think about, but water's water, and the sands filter out everything in time. Dark Sun also chose to ignore this caveat, so I suppose we give it a pass, too. 

Wait, hold up.

 It is mentioned in the landscape section that there do exist icy mountains. Snow is melting off constantly, and the water evaporates entirely before it hits the mountain root. The whole air around those mountains must be moist as hell. 

Why's no wise Shaman going there, casting a Control Weather spell and use the moisture in the air to make it rain? 

We also get the ultimate taboo of Shadowdar RPG, besides permanent darkvision. Resurrection. Its a Tier 5 spell, but why include it? Standard SD doesn't. Its a minor thing compared to the other issues I raised so far throughout this review, but SD has always been pretty adamant about not including resurrection readily available to a player by simple casting of a spell. It vexes me. 

 

Last, but not least, psionics. 

Oh boy. 

Psionics got a bit of a reputation in D&D, and Dark Sun was pretty damn famous for using it throughout. So, a large number of Psionic powers are focus spells and they grow stronger with your level. Tier 1 Block lets you stop a number of physical projectiles equal to your level per round, Tier 1 Improve adds your level to your attack bonus. Some powers ignore boundaries and can only be stopped by another psionic power. Some powers require other prerequisite powers of a prior tier for you to chose, such as Dodge at Tier 2, which requires Tier 1 Improve. You become a Jedi. Tier 5 powers get ridiculous, like this:

I really hope your fellow players like not being needed any more. Most of these powers let you act normally while using them. But 5 actions per round? 4X Speed? +10 AC? Time Stop is fundamentally broken as a spell, but this goes a step into another adjacent extreme. I sure hope the Bestiary has some monsters that can stand up to anything you might throw at your players, because as it stands, even LV 1 players can absolutely body just about anything up to LV 5, I'd say, with some of these spells and powers available so far. 

 

PART V: BESTIARY 

 

Gods, grant me patience, for if you grant me strength, I will indulge in needless violence.

 Its a mess. HP values are all over the place. Mid- and high-level monsters are weird pushovers, with some LV 5 creatures having only a single, meagre attack to deal a d8 of damage with, and overall, lack that specific Dark Sun weirdness I'd be looking for. We have our assortments of worms and a sand-dwelling manta-ray, sure, but the rest are mostly just various kinds of undead, common steppe animals and by and large, monsters that already exist in the core SD rulebook. And even those have some weird alterations done to their stats that effectively make them a walk in the park. It also indulges in the 5e-isms. Dodging area of attacks reduces damage only by half. Most creatures do not deal more than 2d6 damage with a single attack. Even the really high level ones. Why? Some of your players get to act 5 times a round at the high level.

 

 Also, why are none of the mage-kings given stats? Are they supposed to be unchallengeable? Are you supposed to use the Lich or Archmage statblock from SD? Those will not stand up at all to anything your players throw at you with these new tools.

 Oh yeah, we got gnolls, orcs, goblins and goatfolk, too. So I suppose we are also indulging in the standard Fantasy stuff while we are at it, instead of using the space to go weirder. 

Remember dragons in Dark Sun? They were special. The sorcerer-kings of Athas tried to transform into them, and their kith and kin were weird, screwed up creatures. None of that here, just standard Red, White and Blue dragons out of standard D&D. 

It is strange. You go through all this trouble to convert Dark Sun, but forget about most of the weirdness the players could engage with. 

We get ten d20 random encounter tables, for Overland Encounters during the day and night, as well as the Underground and a Legendary encounter table. When do we use the latter? No Level ranges are given here. I assume the GM is supposed to pull it out when he feels like it. Not a single encounter table for any of the city states, which would have been nice to have. Again, wasted opportunity. The encounters present are well enough. They're not all combat focused, some of them just present creatures doing their own thing, and may allow for some interesting approaches. But there are no Sand Sea Encounters, either. Why? You have a whole section on sand-riding vehicles. 

 

PART VI: TREASURES 

 

We arrive at a part of the book I actually have no problems with and it was at the very end of this whopper. There is a God and he does show mercy, at times. The magic items follow the standard Bonus/Benefit/Curse division of Core Shadowdark. They are fine. There's not anything outrageously overpowered or underpowered here. They work in synergy with some of the new rules and classes. Points all around. We also get a row of various ores and gemstones as alternate treasure as well as their value in chits. Tables for unique potions, once again, interacting with the aforementioned mechanics, treasure tables for poor, normal, fabulous and legendary treasures. Wonderful. Finally, some good food. Took me to the end of this book to get here, but here we are.

 

 PART VII: CONCLUSION 

 

So, obviously, I am not going to give points for authorial creativity here. 

It's a conversion of a pre-established setting, albeit one with the serial numbers filed off, and not a very good one, at that. It gets some points for a clean layout that, while not revolutionary, does its job. The stock art fits about as well as it could, with only a few art pieces carrying a Dark-Sun feel to them, but that's not something I can explicitly blame the designer for. Dark Sun's whole shtick required an entirely unique aesthetic by artist Gerard Brom, trying to replicate that with stock art is a herculean task. But the actual content is lacklustre. 

Character options are nice to have and I don't mind the expanded gear list and bonus vehicle options, but the amount of attention they receive make the actual setting almost an afterthought. The smatter of locations we are getting barely have anything going on with them, we have no factions, no dedicated NPCs to get the players moving. 

The few adventuring sites promise treasure, but the legwork will be left up to the prospective GM to come up with hooks and contents that goes deeper than the surface area. 

The bestiary is a list of creatures that do not provide much unique Dark Sun-esque flavour, and also tend toward messy statblocks that make even “high-level” monsters relative push-overs. 

We have a few random encounters that provide more than “just” combat, but they are rather limited in scope and relegated to overland travel regions, with no unique tables for the various city states or even for the seas of sand players should be able to traverse. 

 

When your setting book of 219 pages has little more than a tenth of its page count dedicated to actually building out the world, there's something wrong here. Its not like the author had nothing to work with. Dark Sun had over 20 years of content written for it, and wasn't ashamed from cribbing several locations and concepts with some minor name-changes from the books. 

As it stands, I'm not exactly sure who this is written for. 

If it is meant to be an introduction to Dark Sun for new players in Shadowdark, then it does a pretty poor job beyond the surface aesthetic. A GM with no knowledge whatsoever about Dark Sun will have to do a lot of legwork to make this book work. 

And those already familiar with the Dark Sun setting? They'll just play Dark Sun. 

I think, creating a Shadowdark Setting inspired by Dark Sun could've been the right idea. Take the base themes and concepts of the original setting (post-Apocalypse, brutality, sorcerer-kings, themes of environmental exploitation and oppression of the masses, weird and alien landscapes and monsters) and build something new with it. 

But this book doesn't do that. 

Frankly, for all its boasting about being bleak and brutal and dark, it reads like a severely watered down version of the original Dark Sun, with none of its bite. 

 

As it stands, I do not recommend this book. It feels soulless at best, a cash-grab, at worst. Maybe this will change with the revision and we'll get some more substance. I'll likely take a look at, which is why I'll refrain for now from doing my suggestions for revisions as I did for Formoria. I hope the original writers get some acknowledgement. Next time, I'll be looking at Mice of Legends, a Redwall-inspired setting for Shadowdark. 

 

After two “dark” books, I need some levity.

 

 https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/433340/shadowsun-a-shadowdark-setting 

 

1 At least, such it was envisioned by their own progenitor. Who was a mad nutcase of his own tier. 

 

 2 That, and 9 out of 10 times, writers cannot do math. I should know. I suck at it myself. 

 

3 The word of which doubles as both an in-universe as well as a real-life slur. 

 

4 Remember when I said that Dark Sun was somewhat rebelling against Tolkienist tropes? Not all of them. Dwarves and Elves are just angrier about it in Dark Sun. And ShadowSun, too, I suppose.