While that was happening, I got in mind a nice transition to talking about how I was introduced to Dark Sun, and thought that I wanted to talk about the art, the ideas behind Dark Sun, then the first adventure I had. But now I just want to get right to talking about it.
DS1 Freedom
"Sunrise on the horizon over a sand dune. Time-lapse forward to approximately 9 a.m., camera swivels with the sun then pans out to a bright desert, zooms slightly on white sand surface dotted with dead critters and few stray cricket-like limbs. Camera leaps over another dune, reveal small town of busy people getting to work and some getting back from their first leg of work earlier in the day, unloading beasties, talking to an elder, one talking to a child assisting. Camera crawl through the city to the party."
That was my first taste of Dark Sun. It isn't how the City of Tyr and adventure is described as written in the book, but it's how I was introduced. I liked that first bite. My second bite was dawdling around town "adventuring." That is, stumbling into highly offendable characters or having ridiculously overpowering groups of slavers thrown in front of the party until the each of the PCs was in jail or knocked unconscious, transported to slave pens somewhere in the desert, processed like criminals (stripped, shaved, etc.) and assigned to some form of slave labor or another. I disliked the second bite enough to step away from the game. Years later, I started reading the book and it immediately solidified my feelings on it:
"The purpose of the Part One encounters is to capture the player characters: the later stages of Freedom take place in the slave pens of Tyr, and thus the players must be captures in Part One. . . . Only after all the PCs are slaves / can the adventure continue."
— from DS1 Freedom (1991) by David "Zeb" Cook, DM's Book introduction
The first part of the adventure — which could last hours — is designed to throw players into various angry, easily-offended, aggressive groups of NPCs, one of which is apparently a segregated area for elves. If they don't end up jailed or enslaved after a while, a large group of militant zealots tear through the city (wherever the PCs are, of course) to arrest the PCs for whatever offense they can come up with, or they end up in a tavern that happens to be owned by someone working with zealots and slavers and who will literally drug the characters and abduct them. I found out I didn't play through Freedom exactly as written, but it was pretty close, and I could hardly believe what a miserable excuse for a fun adventure the first part was, let alone that wasn't just one official product for D&D but the very first official adventure for the new Dark Sun setting.
Skimming through the books made me want to write an introductory adventure for the world Dark Sun which, by now, I had become fairly fascinated in. Obviously I hated the adventure itself and there was a lot I wanted to change. Having the primary goal of the DM for the first hour (give or take) be to enslave the PCs was absurd; the main goal of everyone should be to have fun. I didn't want any of the racist, sexist, hate-mongering zealots and slavers to come anywhere close to an intro game, I didn't want to chain the players in any way. For me, the inciting incident should be exciting, dramatic, and set a wide and open, free stage. The world is full of brutality, but I think most players would rather find danger through exploring the world as opposed to whatever Freedom tried to do. Instead of immediately treating them like criminals for no reason other than "well the people in charge here are terrible," I would want them to experience the world and eventually face the consequences of their actions, for better or worse, in a more natural and deeper way.
Putting it all Together
So, if I were the writer or director for this shindig, what would I change? Well, I would want it to start the same way, but I wouldn't want the adventure to start the same way. I love the opening crawl. I love the sunrise. The dead crickets dotting the sand, the group of scavengers already getting back to town with a big haul. But then, BANG! Or maybe not a bang, maybe a rumbling, a quaking...
We see the dark-skinned father, boulder-y arms and chest and neck with a frayed and faded black bandana on his head, the kid runs over. Instead of the father unloading and handing off to the kid, the father tends to one thing and the kid goes around to the back of the wagon, camera swerves around to follow, kid starts trying to unload something from the bottom of the stack. *bump* Cue earthquake, stack falls onto the kid in a pile. *bu-dump* Workers and father look around the sea of silt. *shuh-fump* Cut to party, what are they doing? They do it for a minute. *rumbling* Kid pokes head out of the pile. *rattling, groaning earth* The "oh shit" realization hits the father and someone in the party. "Burrowers!" (Massive tunneling creatures of some form or another, centipedes or worms, pick your poison.) Everyone goes into desperation mode, scatters, the "lookouts" or somebody figures out that they're burrowing right up the center of town which obviously happens to be right where the party is. Party needs to move asap or die. Wide shot of everyone scrambling around the caravan. BOOM! A massive-tunneling-creature-of-some-form-or-another erupts a "block" or so behind the scramblers in a spray of sand and earth and burst of rock and assorted trash (literal blockbuster). The party either moved asap or take an undodgeable ninety die twenty plus one hundred mega-crushing damage and, if that weren't enough, rocks and debris fall from the burrower, land on anyone who dawdled dealing another undodgeable ten die twenty or so damage. Survivors come to a stop, watch another monstrosity erupt from the earth in the distance, smaller quakes jostle their feet. Cut to party members (if they survived) standing next to the kid who gives a *exhale, inhale, exhale* "oh..." *short gasping breath* "shit." The burrowers whorl away into the distance and back underground. *distant rumbling*
Inciting incident complete. The protagonist's (party's) steady-state world is completely destroyed. Adventure begins right away.
I slapped a few ideas together, nothing special but I felt it would work, and set to testing it out along with some monsters I was fiddling with (or converting/adapting to 5e and/or Dark Sun). The players were acquaintances, mostly unfamiliar with Dark Sun, and the party was made up of a fighter, ranger, warlock, and rogue (all 1st-level, effectively straight out of the Basic Rules). We got through the opening sequence, and the group unanimously decided to head into the desert in search of food and supplies and, perhaps, leave the destroyed town for good and settle in the nearby canyons.
A quick tangent on two special rules we used:
- Unconsciousness. When a PC's health reaches 0, they fall unconscious as described in the 5e Basic Rules. Additionally, they roll on a table to determine short- or long-term effects based on hit location for physical attacks (broken rib, broken ankle, concussion, etc.) or based on damage type (burn scars, temporary paralysis, etc.).
- Healing. Some PCs started with bandages (or a type of medicine/healer's kit) that give a bonus when using Hit Dice to recover HP after resting. Fresh bandages give a full bonus (+3), used/worn bandages give half (rounded down to +1), soiled or otherwise contaminated bandages have other effects (25% chance for infection), and medicated bandages either give greater bonuses (+4, +2 on the second day, +1 on the third) or have other effects. Bandages and Medicine checks can be used to stop unconscious PCs from dying as expected.
I looked through my notes, rolled a six-sided die, and... "Marching under the sun away from the ruins with purpose, you reach the top of the wall of sand and spot the mouth of the canyon, happily sooner than you expected. Five kestrekel (small horn-billed, vulture-like scavenger birds) flutter off of a dead tree..." They continue, making mental notes to keep an eye out for the birds if they don't find a better, larger target. Soon, (after some Survival and Perception checks) "a guttural growling cuts through the quiet sounds of shuffling feet and the breeze scattering coarse sand across the ground..."
A short, mangy humanoid creature (hobgoblin stand-in) mounted on a large, mangy hyena (a worg) leaps out from behind another wall of sand. Fighting ensues. It was meant to be a "Hard" difficulty encounter for the party and it was. The fighter fell unconscious, stabilizing back to 1 HP with some bandaging. More marching, crunching over dead insects (one juicy-ish one was eaten, +1 HP to the fighter), a short break to eat as they make it to the mouth of the canyon. Now was the perfect time to test one of the monsters I tinkered with. Another round of Perception checks, more kestrekel following after the fight flee, and "a bloodcurdling *scraaaw* echoes out of the rocks..."
An aarakocra warrior — a savage, tribal vulture-folk with a hard beak and fierce-looking spear in its sharp talons — dives onto the party, ambushing them with a flyby attack. The fighter falls again, he bleeds out and dies, the rest of the group manage to kill the aarakocra in two rounds right as it flies past and are pelted with a loud shriek as it dies. Another Hard combat encounter, probably too hard. They take a moment to gather themselves (a Short Rest), take what they can off their fallen ally and enemy, and march on. They spot a creature scaling up the canyon cliff but leave them alone, then make it further into the canyon with Survival checks. Still alert from the last fight, they see two more of the same creatures flying at them. Two aarakocra minions (one hit to kill) knockout the rogue in the first round despite the anticipation, the warlock falls in the next round, but all three survive. A fair, short encounter (Normal difficulty) that seemed just right.
One last break (Long Rest), one more struggle through the natural hazards in the canyon and interaction with a battered gnoll, and the day ends. The surviving party members were rewarded with 500 combat XP (200 x 2 [Hard] + 100 x 1) and reach level 2. It ended up being a very simple but fun couple of hours that also gave me a lot of useful information. I made notes to adjust the aarakocra warrior all around, tweak the minions' stats slightly and adjust the CR levels. But, while the day was coming to an end, the adventuring day wasn't over as the sun sets and night reaches the canyon. More predators crawl into the scene: large, poisonous, and hungry lizards lured by the scent of dead aarakocra and other warm-blooded creatures...
That would be all for us for the day, though. The brief nighttime scene was a nice cliffhanger, everyone left after a while, and I started brainstorming and tweaking monsters over a few slices of leftover pepperoni and ham pizza and Flanders Red Ale. I was really happy with it so far and had barely scratched the surface of what I had planned. There were a few notable things I got in mind, one being Jeremy Crawford (Lead Rules Designer for D&D) in some video with D&D Beyond talking about how to set examples of how the world works through the game's design and thinking about what the rules say about the game.
In this adventure, a small group of 1st-level characters overcame an aarakocra attack and reached level 2. Would every wanderer and merchant and caravan leader then have to be around level 2 or 3? Are aarakocra this strong and behave that way because their prey and other predators are so strong? Should the party have more access to medicine in nooks and crannies in the canyon, or should they get better tools (or be given better armor), be more cautious when traveling in open areas, or find someone skilled at healing and have them join the party? And what about the burrowing monstrosities that started this whole thing; how frequently do they demolish small settlements or breach the walls of greater cities?
That experience, as simply as it was retold here, had every basic thing I love about Dungeons & Dragons in it. And it probably wouldn't have happened without DS1 Freedom and the terrible experience I had playing it
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