Preparing to set off with the Wavir caravan, the party was sent on their way by a tearful Yeifang and Vimacz (Kwang being nowhere to be found).  Supplies for the journey seemed like small recompense after all that the group had done for the Bear and Kank (as the inn was soon to be re-styled), but that was enough for the heroes, who waved goodbye before boarding the dark, stinking mekillot wagon for a proposed month-long trip to Balic.

The expedition was commanded by Zilae Wavir, a woman past middle-age with many years of desert trading experience behind her.  Her able assistant was the scarred and somewhat crotchety Basil, with the psionicist Mykhail taking command of the draft beasts and the veteran mercenary Reece leading the crodlu and inix outriders guarding the main caravan....

Article - Digital Dark Sun: History of Athas Online 
The history of Athas is long and often lost to the sands of time. Similarly, the history of the Dark Sun setting's online presence is sometimes obscured. From the birth of the setting in 1991 Dark Sun has had a continuous online story.

October 1991 was our definitive introduction to Athas. The original Dark Sun boxed set was something never before seen. I marveled at Gerald Brom's art, covering the boxed set and the Rules Book and The Wanderer's Journal, as I poured over every word of Tim Brown and Troy Denning's unique setting. I was amazed at this new flip-book adventure format and the evocative artwork of Tom Baxa.

This was going to be my world. I had never DM'd a campaign before, but this was it. I read the boxed set and novels

...

While otherwise the novel The Broken Blade by Simon Hawke is offensively awful, it does contain the following passge describing a female mul, which may or may nor help the players of my campaign visualise Raina better...

"Her head was completely bald, accentuating the pointy, swept-back ears that lay close against her skull.  Her eyes were yellow-gold, deeply sunken and hooded by a prominent ridge of brow.  Her mouth was wide and thin-lipped, her chin slightly pointed, and her cheekbones high and unusually pronounced.  Her nose was not as wide as that of male muls, and it was blade straight.  Though Ankhor had seen her fight before, he had never seen Kah up close, and he was surprised to find that she was beautiful - in a terrifying way.
"Her shoulders were almost...

The morning after their criminal frame-up, the heroes were enjoying a breakfast in the common room of the Bear when an old acquaintance of Vlodymyr's, Adran the elf, entered to join them.  Unfortunately, the monk had other places to be, and left him to awkward silence with the rest of his comrades.  (Raina's example of forced conversation:  "So...  Do you get arrested as much as Vlodymyr does?")

Vlodymyr was leaving to go and report back to his templar spymaster, to see how far progression on the 'Get House Tsalaxa In Trouble With The Law' plan was going.  He had to fight his way through a crowd that had gathered in the merchant district, a triumphant templar displaying the corpses of two mages, convicted of acts of terrorism and witchery committed the night before......

Lorath's contacts in the Veiled Alliance acquired a forged Urikite missive, whose discovery by the templars would surely incriminate House Tsalaxa as traitors to the city of Tyr.  The party pooled cash to buy the assassin a fast crodlu mount, and he rode form the city to find a suitable patsy to deliver the letter and take the fall for them.

While he was away, Vlodymyr returned to the templars, taking on the role of a helpful toady willing to inform on his fellow citizens.  His cringing manner didn't endear him to the average templar in the street, and was taken back to the templar district for interrogation by a mindbender.

The monk found himself face to face with templar Validius, the very man that had been responsible for his earlier mind-imprinting.  This bought him a little...

Dark Sun: Summon Balor Illusion

By Fredrick wheeler

This DM deception was designed to be run as part of a combat encounter, from the adventure ‘Marauders of the Dune Sea’. When the party finally enter the temple called the ‘Face in the Stone’, they will be attacked by a tribe of Hejkin’s. The Hejkin chanter in the tribe will cast a spell, creating the illusion that he is summoning a Demon called the ‘Balor’. Read the following to the players when they enter the face in the stone temple.

One of the hair creatures rises its’ arms and starts chanting (in Dwarven). A swirling circle of energy and light appears and a small portal to a fire ravaged world appears. Standing on the other side of the portal is a great red flaming beast with a whip

...

Death Mark

Dark Sun Book Review

Death Mark, subtitled The Dread of this Desolation, written by Robert J. Schwalb.

Dark Sun Novels: A Little History

TSR and later Wizards of the Coast have seen great success (and at times great failures) through their novel lines. For an excellent historical look at novels, I highly recommend Designers & Dragons, A History of the Roleplaying Game Industry, by Shannon Appelcline.

For the Dark Sun setting, novels have long been intricately linked to the campaign world's history. The most famous Dark Sun novels are the Prism Pentad, a set of five books that progress the story of the setting from the fall of Sorcerer-King Kalak in Tyr to the eventual defeat of the Dragon of Athas. The books were incredible in scope and breadth and did much to help gamers...

Upon experimentation, it turned out that the Yuan'Ti's armour did render the wearer somewhat immune to the effect of the obsidian orbs.  Wearing it, Pik began the laborious process of climbing the serpent statues to bring them down, smashing them when their very nature turned out to be soaked with defiler magic.  One he tossed at the black hole in the carved face's mouth, where it vanished from sight without a sound.  

With the orbs gone, venturing into the room was rendered safe once more, and the rest of the team joined the druid, wondering where the artefact the alliance wanted could be.   Poking sticks into the hole revealed nothing, but they at least came back out whole.  Light showed nothing.  The stone itself appeared solid upon all tests.  Pik decided...

Vlodymyr woke up in the Dragon's Head (soon to be the Bear) with the rest of the party gathered around him.  He was deathly ill, with no memory of what had happened to him besides the name of Validius, the templar mind-bender responsible.  Vimacz's (eek, it seems like everyone here has a name beginning with 'v') arcane attempts to identify the problem revealed that the monk had been cursed, his mind made more susceptible to templar enforcement.  Pik, after way too many mugs of broy, began moaning about templar corruption to all who would listen, although Raina was quick to assure him that the noble templars of Balic were upstanding paragons.  Yeifang just wanted them to shut up; even in free Tyr, there were those who would report such talk.

When Vlodymyr hadn't improved...