The Burnt World of Athas

This is old news by now, as Dark Sun 4 has been out for about three weeks now, depending on whether or not you have access to a Friendly Local Gaming Store.

I've been rather mum on the topic of Dark Sun 4, in part because I was under an NDA, and didn't want to risk breaking it; I received an early review copy in December.

We're not dead, here at athas.org, but we are working out what our place in the new ecosystem is. I've been working away at some of the backend of the site, bringing the framework up to date with the latest release (and making the mistake of tracking the fast-changing beta) and tinkering with some more collaborative features, trying to balance between external input and spam.

If nothing else, we want to be the place where the community can share adventures, plot hooks, monster builds, new locations and such with a permanent home that's not a forum post; keep your eyes open.

Aaaaand, part 2 is up. here. Actually, it's been up for over a month, and I just failed to notice, and thus announce...

A few months ago, I was interviewed by our friends over at the Dragonlance Nexus about Dark Sun and 4th edition. The conversation went on a bit long; I recall being on the phone with them for well over an hour, so they've split the interview into two parts.

You can find the first part here. I'm told the second part will be posted in about a month.

So, I finally managed to get to the bottom of the problems with the arena login. Those of you who have been having problems logging into the arena should be good now. If you're still having issues, contact me directly and I'll see if I can fix it.

Post-mortem? It was a problem validating new records added to the arena application by my jury-rigged Single Signon patch.

While wizards is busy upgrading it's forum system, I'd like to take this opportunity to point visitors to the arena, our local message board.

We just renewed our domain. Apologies for worries and inconveniences to any fans trying to access the site during the renewal process. Everything is fine now.

Wizards of the Coast has announced that they will publish a 4th edition Dark Sun campaign setting.

To all athas.org current and former members and fans that have supported Dark Sun over the years - Good work! We did it, we kept Dark Sun alive, we grew its fanbase. Finally Dark Sun is resurrected!

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4spot/2009August

[Requires a D&D Insider subscription]

WotC has released a preview of the 4e Psion, which will appear in next year's PHB3. You can find it here: http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20090707

We are currently discussing how to revitalize the Secrets of the Dead Lands project, probably the most ambitious project at athas.org to date.

We will break this down into a series of smaller projects to make it more manageable.

• An adventure
• A rules and NPC guide (3.5)
• A guide to the undead kingdoms
• A city-state accessory

That´s it for news for now.

Sorry folks, having some issues with the server at the moment. The main site seems to be okay (now) but the arena is still having some issues.

update: arena is fixed.