30 Days of Dark Sun 18: Favorite Dark Sun character?

[Big Mac]

It's the Dark Sun 25th Anniversary and The Burnt World of Athas (aka Athas.org) is celbrating with "30 Days of Dark Sun".

Here is what Athas.org is doing for Day 18: 30 Days of Dark Sun 18: What is your favorite personal player character or non-player character you've created?

Raddu's favourite NPC is Kuur'Ta'All, a Preserver (Necromancer)/Fire Cleric (check out 2nd Edition stats for Kuur'Ta'All on Athas.org). I never actually managed to get into a Dark Sun game. Tell me about your PCs and NPCs. Did any of them end up having unintentionally awesome stories?

[Zeromaru X]

My dray (dragonborn) sorcerer/wilder, Dargor (yeah, as the shadowlord from Rhapsody of Fire songs)

[Big Mac]

My dray (dragonborn) sorcerer/wilder, Dargor (yeah, as the shadowlord from Rhapsody of Fire songs)

Sounds fun.

I've played a dragonborn in Heroes of Neverwinter. Is there a special Dark Sun spin to them in the 4e products?

[Zeromaru X]

Their morals are inverted.

In the Nentir Vale setting, for example, honor is more important than life itself for dragonborn. Adversaries should be treated with courtesy and respect, even if they are bitter enemies. Breaking an oath is the height of dishonor, and attention to honesty extends to every word. In 4e Dark Sun, they are known for being dishonorable, amoral, for their calculating (and sometimes duplicitous) ways, and for carefully observe the exact wording of any deal or bargain they strike, since it’s good business to have a reputation for living up to agreements.

In the Nentir Vale, dragonborn honor clan and ancestors but are a race of loners who don't see each other all that often, or live in a few small communities scattered across the cities and towns of other races. In Athas, dragonborn clans are tightly knit, and if you mess with one dragonborn in the clan, you mess with them all. They live in their own lands, and serve as merchant houses, deal-brokers and moneylenders. Unlike Nentir Vale dragonborn, athasian dragonborn are disliked in many places, but regarded as very useful to have around.

They are also renowned as sorcerers for hire. Some clans strike deals with the sorcerer-kings of various city-states, paying richly for licenses or dispensations to practice arcane magic in those locations, making them suspicious for members of the Veiled Alliance or anyone who knows the perils of arcane magic.

[Tim Baker]

I created Yarin and Nicolas for a one-shot I ran. They were half-brothers, Yarin an elf and Nicolas a half-elf, who fought as a pair in a gladiatorial arena. Yarin was a dexterous melee combatant whose psionic wild talent allowed him to run over soft or brittle terrain, such as silt, dust, or sand. Nicolas called upon the primal powers of Athas, conjuring spirits and elementals to aid him.

I had a couple players who enjoyed the role-playing aspect of the game, and I knew they'd appreciate a backstory for their pre-gens. They fleshed the characters out as the adventure proceeded, and had a memorable session (until Yarin and Nicolas met their unfortunate demise).

[Zeromaru X]

(until Yarin and Nicolas met their unfortunate demise).

Such is the destiny of Dark Sun "heroes"...

[Big Mac]

Their morals are inverted.

In the Nentir Vale setting, for example, honor is more important than life itself for dragonborn. Adversaries should be treated with courtesy and respect, even if they are bitter enemies. Breaking an oath is the height of dishonor, and attention to honesty extends to every word. In 4e Dark Sun, they are known for being dishonorable, amoral, for their calculating (and sometimes duplicitous) ways, and for carefully observe the exact wording of any deal or bargain they strike, since it’s good business to have a reputation for living up to agreements.

In the Nentir Vale, dragonborn honor clan and ancestors but are a race of loners who don't see each other all that often, or live in a few small communities scattered across the cities and towns of other races. In Athas, dragonborn clans are tightly knit, and if you mess with one dragonborn in the clan, you mess with them all. They live in their own lands, and serve as merchant houses, deal-brokers and moneylenders. Unlike Nentir Vale dragonborn, athasian dragonborn are disliked in many places, but regarded as very useful to have around.

They are also renowned as sorcerers for hire. Some clans strike deals with the sorcerer-kings of various city-states, paying richly for licenses or dispensations to practice arcane magic in those locations, making them suspicious for members of the Veiled Alliance or anyone who knows the perils of arcane magic.

That seems a good way to make them seem different from the Nentir Vale dragonborn. Are dragonborn also different in Forgotten Realms and Eberron or is this something that only 4e Dark Sun does?

[Zeromaru X]

Dragonborn on Nentir Vale are proud of their draconic heritage. They revere the draconic deities, as those deities are tied with their origins, and while some of the dragon lords of Arkhosia left their ancestors for dead in the war against Bael Turath, they do not hate all dragons. They judge them in a personal basis.

Forgotten Realms dragonborn hate dragons because their enslavement in Abeir, and hate deities because they cannot believe in a good deity (because their experiences with primordials in Abeir). They prefer to go to that "wall of souls" if that means to stay in touch with the souls of their clanmates in the afterlife. A minority revere gods, and even few reveres Bahamut or Tiamat, but they are ridiculed more often than not.

Eberron dragonborn, for their part, are still vassals to dragons of Argonessen (much like was in the Arkhosian empire), and they revere dragons as ancestors and living-gods. The dragons of Eberron aren't as evil as the ones from Abeir, thought. Dragonborn in Q'barra are more autonomous than those of Argonessen, but they still revere dragons.