Dark Sun setting: IJBM

[Genth]

Ok, so the Dark Sun setting. Great feel to it, dark, gritty, daily struggle for existance, societies barely holding on in a land of desert and no water....

Except a short skip over the mountains are the Hinterlands, with comparatively plentiful water, food, and space. So why does nobody live there? Seriously, sure it's hard for individuals to get over the mountains in any reasonable period of time, but it's been hundreds of years, has there seriously been no group of people moving to it? All the major cities of the tablelands are in the second worst place in their whole world! It's a bit of a bugbear for me to enjoy a really nice setting and feel to a world, because it feels like instead of life being harsh because the world is terrible, life is harsh because all the races except the Kreen and the Halflings decided to hold idiot balls.

For that matter, how come there was zero contact between the Kreen Empire and everyone else? A giant cliff is supposed to be an insurmountable barrier in a world where not only flying exists, there are races of people who can do it naturally without magic!

[Genth]

I'm a muppet. The Tithe.

[EccentricCircle]

I think there are a few things to consider. Its a very oppressive society, so the vast majority of people don't have the option to just up and leave. Even the wealthiest merchants are still the vassals of one city state or other, and their lords would not take kindly to them going to another realm. For the nomads and slave tribes, life is a constant battle for survival. Getting over those mountains in and of itself might be doable, but if they have to travel for weeks in the "wrong" direction, rather than following the water or the prey it might be a hard sell especially if there is no reliable info on this too good to be true land, how exactly to get there etc. If you don't know precisely where the watering holes are then what to us seems like a simple journeys could well be impossible.

[Anonymouswizard]

Honestly, the most densely populated parts of the Tablelands won't be that much worse off than the Hinterlands, simply due to the needs of sustaining people. This is mainly the city states, who spend a lot of time making sure the only wizards within them are the officially sanctioned defilers who are told when they're allowed to cast, but there will also be the occasional village with the resources to support maybe 50 people if everybody works the land and hunts prey.

Which brings us to the next point, that while the populated areas of the tablelands can feed their population, there isn't much in the way of excess food and water. Assuming you live close enough to make it within six months you could leave right after harvest, bringing your entire village's supply of food, seed, and animals, and hopefully get to the Hinterlands in time to start trying to plough fields for the next year. That's not taking into account tolls you might have to pay or resources lost to disasters or bandit attacks, which will be more common when travelling than when staying in the place you've been defending for years. And if you arrive after planting season you'll be scavenging and hunting until the next one comes around.

Which means that even if you know of the Hinterlands, and can make the choice of moving to them, you probably don't want the risk when you can trade excess food and materials to a Sorcerer-King for protection. If moving there is worthwhile to you you probably can't, because you're a slave, and if you have the resources to move there rather easily you don't want to give those resources up. Escaped slaves might occasionally try to make for it, but you're unlikely to see masses of people simply due to not having the resources to justify the risk.

[Tvtyrant]

Isn't there a big mind-barrier around Last Sea that the Mindlords use to keep people from moving through the Hinterlands? I know that's not a popular book but I think it does answer this, they mentally discourage people from going near them because a direct altercation is going to the Sorcerer Kings.

[Corvus]

Feral cannibal halflings, thats why. Cross the mountains and get eaten.

Except crossing the mountains is very hard in the first place. We are talking Himalaya type terrain, with very thin air and no real passes to cross.

From a description of the mountains - 'No sorcerer-kings have tried to conquer the rich Forest Ridge that crowns the mountains, and for good reason. The cold and the thin air are brutal on soldiers, the passes are impossible for heavy wagons and lowland draft beasts, and the forest is protected from defiling by the ancient primal wards of the halflings.'

[Lord Raziere]

Feral cannibal halflings, thats why. Cross the mountains and get eaten.

Except crossing the mountains is very hard in the first place. We are talking Himalaya type terrain, with very thin air and no real passes to cross.

From a description of the mountains - 'No sorcerer-kings have tried to conquer the rich Forest Ridge that crowns the mountains, and for good reason. The cold and the thin air are brutal on soldiers, the passes are impossible for heavy wagons and lowland draft beasts, and the forest is protected from defiling by the ancient primal wards of the halflings.'

Exactly. you have to cross a different kind of hell than the normal Dark Sun variety that most people aren't prepared for, its elevation is 10,000 feet above the usual ground of Athas, and after you get there, its not exactly a paradise. The Forest Ridge is basically Dark Sun's version of Catachan from Wh40k: its predators are numerous, camouflaged and both plant and animal, the halflings use poison, traps and strange magic. oh and there is druid magic guarding the place, yuan ti, the crystal forest, and a volcano there. its just as dangerous as normal Athas, just in a way most athasians wouldn't know how to handle since they'd be too busy marveling at all the greenery to watch out for man-eating planets and tigers. and do you know how dangerous eating random plants can be? there is a reason why hunter gatherer societies have encyclopedic memories about all the plants in their area: so they know whats safe to eat and what will kill you, I doubt there is plants in the Forest Ridge that would yield sustainable crops for people, that sort of thing doesn't normally come about, that takes domestication.

So you have to cross through normal desert hell, to go through cold mountain hell to live in jungle poison hell with cannibals and snakes. Not exactly an appealing notion even if you know whats there. and most Athasians dismiss it as fanciful tales they don't have time for.

also, you assume that if people discover the Kreen Empire that its going to be a good thing. an empire discovering you on athas is never a good thing, because said Empire will probably kill and conquer you for said Empire. I mean no matter how good we assume the Thri-keen are, the fact remains that the average response to one showing up in the Tablelands is to attack, then enslave or kill them and take their stuff. I don't think the Thri-keen will appreciate that whenever they get around to swarming everyone else like locusts to conquer them.

[Kaptin Keen]

Originally, there was only The Tablelands.

Everything they came up with since it legit manure.

Solution: Erase it from all records, and only play in the good part of Dark Sun. Or invent your own, without breaking the world. But do not include the Kreen Empire, or Avangions, or the Cerulean Storm, or any of that crap. In fact, if at all possible, start play with King Kalak still safely on the throne of Tyr, and only remove him if you have a reason to.

[Corvus]

Forest Ridge and the Hinterlands were in the initial setting, though information was limited. It was in the Wanderer's Journal, mostly along the lines of, if you go here you will die.

[Kaptin Keen]

Forest Ridge and the Hinterlands were in the initial setting, though information was limited. It was in the Wanderer's Journal, mostly along the lines of, if you go here you will die.

.... no?

Forest ridge was in the original setting. Halfling cannibals, and all that. It's been a long time, but I don't recall the hinterlands being mentioned at all.

I could be wrong.

[Corvus]

There is a brief 2 page mention of it in the Wanderer's Journal, mentioning the ruins at the Dragon Crown Mountains and saying that no intelligent species lived there.

[Kaptin Keen]

There is a brief 2 page mention of it in the Wanderer's Journal, mentioning the ruins at the Dragon Crown Mountains and saying that no intelligent species lived there.

Well ... that's hardly the same as the Kreen empire. Or is it? Is my memory that flawed?

As I recall, the boxed set describes the Kreen only as nomadic hunters. No mention of any settlements, much less an empire so vast as to literally drown out the entire tablelands.

[Lord Raziere]

Well ... that's hardly the same as the Kreen empire. Or is it? Is my memory that flawed?

As I recall, the boxed set describes the Kreen only as nomadic hunters. No mention of any settlements, much less an empire so vast as to literally drown out the entire tablelands.

Because the "empire" is more like "a few khanates" as in, thats literally what they are called, by themselves and empire is what everyone else calls them because ignorance, and thus the Kreen Khanates are basically exactly what you think they are: nomadic hunters/raiders. they're one Genghis Khan away from trying to do exactly that. and the tablelands are smaller than asia, like colorado or texas sized.

and sure, the sorcerer kings have magic and are real powerful, sure....but you'd be a fool to think seven to eight power-mad evil tyrants, half of which are slowly turning into evil dragons doing anything about it will make it any safer for the people under them, given that they're the ones who laid waste to the world and genocided most of the people within it to begin with. peoples lives aren't their top priority, but finding new replacements with all these new bug subjects around probably is if they're the ones to come out on top.