Feel the heat of the blasted skies in this month’s Campaign of the Month winner, “Dark Sun: Shadow of the Monolith” by MYTH_DM. It’s an artistic, anachronistic, Arcanotech masterpiece that blends several old settings into something so new that even seasoned veterans of the sand-swept wastes will raise an eyebrow… or whatever Thri-Keen have. Antennae? Read on and find out!
We would love to hear a little about you and your gaming group — who you are, what you’re into, creative projects you’re involved in, and how you got into gaming.
Our group of 8 (DM +7 players) are all friends who’ve gamed together for differing periods of time. One player has been with me for 20+ years and two are newcomers to the group for this campaign. The rest have all been players in my previous campaign ‘MYTH’, which ran for close to 3 years and finished with an epic finale last June.
I am a graphic designer with the Department of Defense. I have a wife (who is a player) and an awesome 14 year old daughter who is just as much of a gamer as I am. I’m a published illustrator and a writer with Games Workshop (Warhammer 40k & Black Library) and have had a side business building gaming terrain for clients around the world.
What I’m into…that’s a long answer so I’ll just list them…lol: Writing, reading (historical, fantasy, sci-fi), D&D (obviously), Warhammer 40k + multiple other tabletop wargames (Frostgrave, Gaslands, K47, Reality’s Edge, etc.). I’m a bit of a fitness fanatic, love the outdoors and Jeeps. I enjoy painting miniatures and building terrain for my games.
I got into gaming in the 80s with my cousins when I got the original D&D Red Box edition for Christmas. It’s been all downhill since…
PLAYER: Troy / ‘Venk-Ka’
I’m consumed by my family and job and love the social interaction and mental detachment after long weeks that this campaign offers. I got into gaming during my active duty time where many of us just needed a fun way to get away from reality and lose ourselves in a positive and creative way.
Your action-packed, visually stunning take on Dark Sun is fresh and outstanding, especially to those of us who played old-school Dark Sun and have been searching for a more modern take. Can you tell us a little bit about the setting and system in your campaign?
Thank You! After finishing my previous campaign ‘MYTH’, my players were eager for more so I spent 5 months over this past Summer and Fall developing DARK SUN. While MYTH was pretty standard fantasy I didn’t want to do that again. Don’t get me wrong, I still love fantasy and still wanted it to be a big part of the next campaign. I just wanted to put an ‘out of the box’ twist on things, add in elements that really sparked my imagination with something new that hopefully hadn’t really been done this way before.
DARK SUN had multiple inspirations. First, three existing campaign settings: the 80’s ‘Dark Sun’ (of course), ‘Eberron’ and the Privateer Press ‘Iron Kingdoms’ world. I also have always loved Star Wars, specifically anything on the desert world of Tattotine.When the original TSR Dark Sun was released, I was excited, but ultimately did not enjoy the setting the way I thought I would. So, in high school I created a world called ‘Maelsearth’, which combined elements of low-tech Star Wars and Dark Sun together. It didn’t get far but I still kept all of my notes and illustrations which I pulled out this past summer (nearly 30 years later) – and used them to build the bones of my version of DARK SUN.
A new element I added to the setting was a version of steampunk, which I reframed into DARK SUN’s ‘Arcanotech’ – a mix of steampunk style technology and the arcane. Arcanotech drives everything in my version of ‘ATHAS’ – a world that is struggling to survive after a cataclysmic event called ‘The FALL’. Between arcanotech and ‘the BLEED’ (a corrupted arcane power emanating from the fractured Dark Sun) which powers it, the people of Athas have survived to build a new world in the harsh deserts, wastes and ruins of a former golden age.
The system I use in DARK SUN is a heavily homebrewed version of D&D 5e.
What elements or themes of Dark Sun inspire you most as a GM?
There are several themes that inspire me the most and drove me to create this setting. They were a mix of post-apocalyptic/dystopian world flavor, lost/ancient history, and arcanotech/steampunk style technology – including arcane powered guns, armor, airships and walking constructs made for labor and war (laborjacks and warjacks). All of this is combined with an overarching theme: salvaging, survival and rediscovery in a sweeping desert world hiding the mysteries of its own past.
Salvaging is the main premise surrounding the character’s involvement with the world. Called ‘Freelancers’, the characters are ‘salvaging’ lost arcanotech from the blasted remains of the world that existed before the FALL. This offers a means of survival, which ‘might’ lead them down a road to rediscover what happed to their world in the distant past and possibly even a way to bring it back…
Your first adventure log jumps right into action in the midst of a running battle. What do you like about games that begin in the thick of conflict?
This was new for me. I really wanted to start this campaign off with a bang – drop them right into the thick of things, into a narrative that was already moving forward. Specifically, I wanted the first thing I said in at the start of Session 1 to be: “I need everyone to ROLL INTIATIVE!”.To me, this created instant immersion and set the tone for a campaign centered around danger and high stakes. It allowed me to show them elements of the world through direct action rather than just telling them about it through a long exposition intro.
PLAYER: Troy / ‘Venk-Ka’
As a player, it sets the tone and forces each character to come together immediately. In this campaign, we were “thrown” together instead of coming up with a party background. I like the focus on each individual without the need to explain why Ven-Ka is doing whatever with Vale. We were put in a situation and the GM gets to play with how and why. Flexibility and creativity for all of us.
The campaign has only just started, but has already hooked us as readers with a tale of a secret map, powerful syndicates, and dangerous, magical storms. What have been the most interesting parts of the game so far, and (without giving too much away to your Players) what parts are you really looking forward to, next?
Honestly just exploring the world has been the most interesting part, because – to me – it is such a unique setting with something new always around the corner. I love setting up scenes that help show off all these new trappings to the players. Trappings that step away from classic fantasy that we’re all used too.What I’m looking forward to next is the continued exploration of the world. There is still so much to reveal! Maybe even some stuff about the enigmatic ‘Builders’…
What moments during the campaign seemed to excite your Players the most?
Hard to say, They seem to be enjoying everything so far. I try to keep a balance of combat/action, narrative/story and individual character development with each player getting a chance to explore their backgrounds or having elements of their backgrounds becoming part of the current narrative. Of course, we are still early in the campaign so not every character has had this opportunity yet, but they will. I strive hard to form complete arcs for each character by the time we hit the finale a few years down the road.
PLAYER: Troy / ‘Venk-Ka’
While combat is always fun, I really enjoy the snippets of story that gets unfolded each session. Who gets introduced next? Is this a nemesis to someone, or a link to something deeper? Is there a clue to some yet undiscovered puzzle? I cannot wait for the next session!PLAYER: Kristen / ‘Vale’
I love it when we have to work together on something as simple as a puzzle to figure out a clue or decipher it. I think it helps us figure out our strengths as a group and individually. It gives insight into how each of us thinks about solving a problem, or looking at it from a different point of view. I love learning about other players’ back story (or origin story) in-game and out. What you reveal and how you do it says a lot about the kind of character you play.
Are there any game mechanics in this version of Dark Sun that have been especially fun?
I have enjoyed developing the entire arcanotech / salvaging economy along with developing all magical items around this theme. In DARK SUN there are no pure magic items – or least none have been seen since before the FALL. Magical items are now created in the form of arcanotech devices powered by Bleed by using arcane schema or blueprints. Artificers (or as I call them: Splicers or Relicsmiths) play a huge role in DARK SUN.Also, an especially fun part of the creation process was developing all the customized character races and classes that fit uniquely within the setting – all of which can be found in the wiki.
A mechanic within those classes that I paid close attention to was the ‘cost of power’. If you are a normal martial or rogue-like character, you’re fine. But, if you are a Bleed Sorcerer, psionic or a divine Shardbound then your otherworldly power comes at a cost…
PLAYER: Troy / ‘Venk-Ka’
Ven-ka is the pseudo “Tank”, so the I don’t experience the risk/reward as much as Samara… yet. I’m sure the GM has something planned in time to make me rethink what I’m going to do. This is probably the aspect I enjoy. Bleed corruption causing mutations or negative effects from casting are exciting!I love the customization based on core D&D. A custom realm, with modified races and classes really lets us put a fresh spin on everything from character creation through game play. I genuinely look forward to each session and what we get to experience next.
Our research shows that you used to make some pretty impressive miniature terrain, back in the day. Has there been any creative terrain or prop-making for this campaign yet? Or does your group rely more on digital tools? Or simply theater-of-the-mind style play?
Yes, I did have a commission studio a few years back called ‘Broken Sword Studios’. It was a pretty successful side business that allowed me to create a lot of terrain projects for clients across the US and over-seas. However, it became so busy that after a few years I decided to put it on the back burner to spend more time with family.This did not stop me from making miniatures and terrain set pieces for my own campaigns though. I try to do a mix of physical terrain and digital maps (I built a custom gaming table with a tv inset for digital maps). So far, in DARK SUN, we have just had digital maps, but some physical terrain is coming soon!
The art for the campaign is breathtaking and the overall page layouts and design work are top-notch, as are many of your other campaigns on Obsidian Portal. How did you approach the visuals for this campaign and what advice can you give to other designers who want to achieve this level of imagery?
The visuals for this campaign were driven by some artwork I stumbled across online. It was a desert setting with a combination of fantasy and steampunk style technology that really inspired me.
I know a lot of people are down on AI art, but to get everything created in time over the Summer and early Fall to meet the kick-off date for the new campaign, I taught myself Midjourney. To me it was a fantastic tool that allowed me to create some amazing visuals that all lived in the same world – once I figured out my prompting formula that achieved similar/complementary styles/themes.
Some of the other art is derived form Heroforge – the miniature creation tool that you can use to design and 3d print miniatures. I always create, print and paint custom minis for my players so it was easy to use Heroforge to create art for the site that perfectly matched my setting.
Lastly, the general graphic design/layout of the site all comes from my background as a Graphic artist.
Advice: find a theme and strive to stick to that theme/look & feel across everything you create for your campaign in order to give your world consistency.
As we always do, Obsidian Portal loves to ask if you have any tips, sage advice, or inspiring quotations to share for other creative entertainers?
Absolutely! A gentleman named Joseph Staten was the lead writer for the wildly famous HALO video game. He was invited to do the commencement address at his alma mater and this was a portion of his speech – which I have framed and hanging on a wall in my ‘War Room’ – what we call my gaming room 😊:
‘Create more than you Consume’
“We live in an on-demand world, where everything is there for us to consume. I urge you to resist. I am not asking you to turn off the internet, or the TV or the radio. What I am suggesting, if you can, is to ask yourself everyday:
‘What did I create?’
‘What did I contribute?’If the answer is ‘nothing’ or ‘less than I consumed’, then strive to tip the scales in another direction. Pursue your passion. Time is precious: do not squander it by only reading, watching or playing other people’s accomplishments.
By all means, be ravenous in your consumption because that leads to true inspiration. But do not stop working to create something even more inspiring because it is your own.”
-Joseph Staten
PLAYER: Troy / ‘Venk-Ka’
If you don’t like the answer (or lack of) from the NPC you’ve been looking for, just levitate him until you get what you want!
Thank you to the community for making this campaign of the month possible! That’s all for now, join us on our next adventure April 1st, and don’t forget to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!
