First official Dark Sun preview released
The first official preview material for the upcoming Dark Sun campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition surfaced on the game’s official website today. The excerpt was included in this month’s edition of Bill Slavicsek’s “Ampersand” column, and is therefore only visible by Dungeons & Dragons Insider members.
The preview featured excerpts from the Dark Sun Creature Catalog: descriptions and stat blocks for the Anakore – a breed of desert monster that stalks its prey underground during the day, only going for the kill once the suns sets – as well as the Sorcerer-King Nibanay and his shadow wives.
The stat blocks look solid, in particular the new monster block design that is set to be debuted officially in Monster Manual 3, but what was even more impressive were the description of how Nibanay and the shadow wives behave in combat. Too often, the current “tactics” sections for monsters only detailed which order to use their powers in, and often times those powers were vaguely named, failing to describe what the monster was actually supposed to be doing when it used the power. The combat descriptions in this preview provide a lot more personality for these antagonists. Its easy to imagine Nibanay as haughty and condescending, trying to goad his opponents into making a mistake, or the shadow wives as frustrated and spiteful, leading to recklessness and targeting enemies that represent what they resent rather than what is tactically sound.
While this is the first official preview posted to the web, Wizards of the Coast did run a preview adventure at this year’s Dungeons & Dragons Experience convention. Gaming blog Critical-Hits.com posted some of the materials from the adventure to the web, and explained some of the setting specific rules for magic and equipment.
Dark Sun will also be the campaign setting for the second season of the D&D Encounters program.
As a fan of the original Dark Sun setting from D&D’s past, I’m glad to see the preview material looking so strong and look forward to the campaign setting’s August release.
Source: Just Like the White Rabbit…
