Game Title: Beneath the Red Sun
System: Dungeons and Dragons, 4th Edition
Players Wanted: Four to six
Posting Rate: Once every other day
Special Rules: (wall 'o' text ahead)
1. No divine characters. Athas is a world of barbarism and tyranny, where every day is a fight to survive (except if you're a sorcerer-king or one of their cronies, of course). The gods either abandoned the world or were wiped out eons ago. Regardless, there is no way to draw power from the divine.
2. Weapon breakage. If you roll a natural 1, your weapon breaks. Weapons are made out of whatever materials one can find, as metal is extremely scarce on Athas. Bone, stone, chitin; you name it, it has probably been used to construct a weapon. As such, one errant sweep of your weapon is enough to shatter it. To compensate for this, the following rule will also be utilized:
3. Fixed enhancement bonuses: In addition to any typical bonuses you gain from leveling up, you occassionally gain fixed enhancement bonuses (p. 209, Dark Sun Campaign Setting). This is to both offset the fact that you will be using sub-par weapons and reflect the rarity of both metal and magic items on Athas. You do the best with what you have.
4. Non-psionic characters may gain a Wild Talent, but I roll for it. Psychic power permeates the entire world of Athas, perhaps an evolutionary adaptation to the harsh environment. As such, it manifests in practically every being in one manner or another. But how it manifests is almost always unpredictable.
5. All themes listed in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting are permitted. Your character may begin with any theme listed in the campaign guide, as well as any others that may be released by Wizards in the future. In fact, it is highly recommended you do so, as you will need every advantage you can get!
6. You, as players, must determine a unifying theme in your party, a reason you are all together. It could be anything: trade cartel, thri-kreen tribe, templar agents, whatever interests you guys. I am extremely flexible and will happily work with whatever you guys devise. Given the nature of the setting and the medium we are playing with, it seems to me that determining (at least the basics) background ahead of time is imperative.
Advancement Rules: At the conclusion of a major plot point or every other combat encounter. Basically, Ross-esque "whenever it seems appropriate" leveling.
This will be an open-ended game, with you players serving as catalysts for change. Will you liberate the oppressed peoples of Athas from the tyranny of the sorcerer-kings? Become the dominant mercantile power in Athas? Scour the world clean of civilization and return it to the primal spirits? Maintain the status quo and live a life of decadence on the backs of the enslaved? Or does it even matter? In the end, you are just individuals - the march of fate is seemingly inescapable.
Prophecies tell of a reckoning, a time in which all of Athas will be consumed by a massive cataclysm. Will a new world arise in its place? Will the gods be reborn and usher in a new golden age of peace and prosperity? Or will everything be simply wiped out, leaving utter, pure, total, absolute nothingness? Only time will tell. You may only be a small group of people, against a harsh environment and an equally harsh populace. Sometimes, however, it requires only the fewest of people to enact the greatest of change...
