Dark Sun Convertion for 5e D&D

Once, Athas was was green and good, like many other worlds. Ravaged by war and dark magics fueled with the life force of the land, Athas was devistated by a self-hating monster named Rajaat, known as the First Sorcerer, who brought wizardry to Athas. Rajaat saw all the intelligent life that descended from the halflings at the end of the Blue Age as mistakes, so he turned to humans, selecting a little over a dozen of his most power-hungry students to serve as his Champions. Tutoring them in the dark magic of defiling wizardry and imbuing them with power drained from the once-yellow sun, Rajaat's Champions began centuries of war, exterminating entire peoples with life-stealing magic. Goblins, lizard folk, gnomes, pixies, ogres, orcs, trolls, and more were wiped from the face of Athas during the Cleansing Wars, believing they were claiming Athas for humanity.

In the end, Rajaat's Champions learned that the War Bringer never intended to spare humanity, so they usurped Rajaat's greatest artifacts, the Pristine Tower and the Dark Lense. Combined with their own magic, they imprisoned their "master" in the Hollow, a place that is not a place, a nothing that exists, a prison that demands thousands of lives ever year to maintain. To see to this task, the leader of the Champions, Borys, transformed himself into the Dragon of the Tablelands, and spent the next decades in an insane fury, ravaging and draining life from what fertile lands were left. Now, in the Brown Age, only deserts and wastes remain.

After Rajaat, the Champions, now the Sorcerer Kings, came to a truce of sorts. Power hungry and mistrustful, each claimed one of the few surviving cities in the Tablelands region of Athas, or founded one of their own. As Champions, they could grant power to their own faithful followers, and these templar, as they would come to be known, serve as the corrupt administrators and bureaucrats of the city-states. A sort of peace followed, overseen by Borys, and punctuated by occasional wars between cities, when their interests collided.

Most of what we speak of has been forgotten. Under the burning red sun of Athas, life is harsh and brutal. The surviving life, from dune to barrens to the dead Silt Sea, is hostile and hungry. Psionic power suffuses all creatures on Athas, power turned to hunting the next meal. Water is scarce, and would be worth its weight in silver or gold, if such metals were not vanishingly rare. The peoples of Athas concern themselves with survial, and even if the Sorcerer Kings hadn't banned literacy centuries ago, learning is a luxury only the wealthy can afford.

Oustide of the city-states and their corrupt templar and nobles, in the villages, clans, and tribes scattered across the wastes, superstition rules. Psionic power gives all beings a potential for might, but that only ensures that the conflict for survival is that much fiercer. Mystics who study the Way bend the world with this power, but even barbarians and fighters tap into their energy with tribal rites and spiritual practices or supplemental training.

A Mutated World

The world of Dark Sun is mutated, its life adapting to survive its harsh environment. Familiar races and classes are often changed or function in different ways in the world. While the core classes remain unchanged, but for several, the archetypes are different, to reflect the significant differences between how these classes receive their powers on Athas. Famliar races may only bear a vague resemblance to their namesakes on other worlds, and some new races, unheard of elsewhere, thrive in the brutual world of Athas.

Bards and Paladins do not exist on Athas. If there was ever power to be gained from whimsy and creativity or dedication to a higher cause it was destroyed long ago. Survival is key, and those who forget this simple fact perish.
Wizards are reviled and hated, particularly defilers, while preservers, who do not destroy the land with their magic, have learned to hide their craft.
"Sorcerers", called Mystics, learn to harness the psionic power present among all peoples on Athas, with the discipline and training of the Way.
There are no true gods in Dark Sun. Instead, Athas' clerics are elemental shamans, who revere one of the four elements or four paraelements to gain their power.
Athas lacks the pathways Warlocks use to contact typical Otherworldly Patrons. Instead, the Sorcerer Kings imbue Templar with power, serving as the patron for their minions.

Acceptable Brutality

Dark Sun is a brutal, harsh place. It is a grim, bronze age setting (at least, if the world had much bronze) where life is cheap and survival is at a premium. However, some topics are not comfortable for many players, and while the default setting includes topics such as slavery, they may not be welcome at every table. There are several ways to adjust the setting to accomidate player comfort.

In the default setting, there are three general classes for citizens of the city-states to fall into: Nobles, Freemen, and Slaves, with Templar acting somewhat outside the system, techncially above it but still beholden to the web of power and alliances that binds a city-state togther, making them akin to the nobles. If slavery is not something your group wants to include, then slaves can be easily replaced with an impoverished underclass that lives in slums and is kept politically and economically powerless, and thus beholden to their social betters.

Simialr notes will be left in areas where the default setting may have topics that may not be welcome at many tables.

PART 1 | Introduction

Races of the Tablelands

The Tabelands region of Athas lost many races during the cleansing wars, but some surive, a few are unique to Athas, and at least two were introduced by the Sorcerer Kings to further their own power and designs. Gnomes, Orcs, Tieflings, Lizard Folk, Kobolds, Aasimar, Furbolgs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Trolls, Centaurs, Tabaxi, Tritons, and others do not exist. Some of the most common are listed below:

Aarakocra

Aarakocra are bird-folk who live in the Ringing Mountains. These freedom loving people nest in high places, using the difficult-to-reach terrain as a natural defense against enemies, using ranged and diving attacks against grounded foes who encroach on their heights. Aarakocra are generally good-natured, but harsh experience has taught them to be distrustful of outsiders. The bird-folk fear enclosed spaces and avoid them unless driven by great need. They wither away in captivity, especially in slave pens, making them poor captives. Physically, their features combine those of a vulture and a raptor.

Ability Score Increase: Increase your Dexterity by 2, your Wisdom by 1, and your Charisma by 1.

Age: Aarakocra reach maturity by the age of 5 and live between 30 and 40 years old.

Alignment: Aarakocra tend to be good natured and are neither devoted to tradition or disdainful of authority. They tend to be neutral good.

Size: Aarakocra are about four-and-a-half to five-and-a-half feet tall. They have thin, lightweight bodies that weigh between 80 and 100 pounds. Their size is Medium.

Speed: Your base walking speed is 25 feet. You have a fly speed of 50 feet, but you cannot fly if you are wearing medium or heavy armor.

Talons: You are proficient with your talons, which deal 1d4 slashing damage on a hit. You may use Strength or Dexterity with your talons.

Claustrophobia: Aarakocra fear enclosed spaces intensely. When they are in a structure or cave with four walls and a roof that is not at least 40 feet high, they suffer disadvantage on all saving throws against spells and affects that apply the feared condition, and on or against Intimidation checks.

Dive: During a turn where an Aarakocra flies at least half their speed, the Aarakocra may make a dive attack. The first melee attack they make against a creature gains advantage and deals an additional 1d8 damage on a hit. The damage is of the same type that the weapon deals. If a creature takes damage this way, it cannot make attacks of opportunity until the beginning of your next turn.

Carrion Gullet: Aarakocra on Athas are related more to vultures than eagles, and they can survive on carrion. Aarakocra are immune to diseases from food or drink, and gain advantage to resist any spell or effect that would cause them to become diseased. They are also immune to poison from food or drink.

Language: you can speak, but not read, Common and Aarakocra.

Dray

Dray appeared in the Tablelands after the destruction of Giunstenal, escaped experiments of the Sorcerer-King Dregoth, meant to be perfect creatures made in his image. With the would-be dragon dead and his city sacked, the other Sorcerer Kings spared little thought for their erstwhile brother’s creatures as they crept out from the ruins. Proving to be hardy and surviving the trials of the wastes, despite their defects – scales that molt and grow unevenly, slightly hunched backs, and jagged teeth and claws - these Dray founded small villages dotting the wastes. As a people, the Dray have little direction other than basic necessities for many years.

In time, the dray developed their own hierarchies based on strength and cunning, and began expanding into the city states, when they were allowed. While they have a reputation among the superstitious as cannibal monsters, they are generally considered capable, if unseemly, and allowed to live in specific wards of many city-states. Typically, they hire out as muscle, but are regarded as knowledgable in the Way.

Dray are suffused with psionic power, and easily take to monk and mystic training. They also fall into barbarian with ease, and take to fighter or rogue well.

Being recent creations, the dray have few taboos against wizardry, but no real affinity for it either. Defilers are respected for their power but generally considered impractical, while an occasional preserver may keep a low profile in a dray village.

Dray have little sense of faith or belief, and so rarely become druids or clerics; however, the personal relationship between a ranger and their spirit is one that dray form from time to time.

Ability Score Increase: Increase your Strength by 2, your Constitution by 1, and your Charisma by 1.

Age: Dray reaches maturity at 15 and can live to be 80.

Alignment: Dray tend to be pragmatic or ruthless, and focused. They naturally take to hierarchies, perhaps as a result of their engineering by Dregoth. Dray tend towards lawful behavior, and neutrality or evil.

Size: Dray are Medium sized, between 5 to 7 feet in height, and weighing around 250 pounds. Taller dray are thinner and more wiry, while shorter dray are stockier.

PART 2 | RACES

Speed: Dray base speed is 30 feet.

Engineered Weaponry: Dregoth’s creations have a natural breath weapon, spewing poison or acid. Choose one of the options below:

A 15 ft. cone of poison, Con save for half.
A 5 by 30-foot line of acid, Dexterity save for half.

Your breath weapon deals 2d6 damage on a failed save, or half that on a successful save. The difficulty class of the save is 8 + your Constitution modifier + your proficiency modifier. Your breath weapon deals more damage at higher levels: 3d6 at 6th level, 4d6 at 11th level, and 5d6 at 16th level.

Once you use your breath weapon, you must complete a short or long rest before using it again.

Also, you gain resistance to the damage type dealt by your breath weapon.

Fang and Claw: Your maw and claws are natural weapons, and you are proficient in unarmed strikes with them. If you attack with a bite, you deal 1d6 + your Strength modifier piercing damage. If you attack with a claw, you deal 1d4 + your Strength modifier slashing damage.

Toughened Scales: When you are not wearing armor, your AC is 13 + Dexterity Modifier. You can use your natural armor to determine your AC if the armor you wear would leave you with a lower AC. A shield’s benefit applies as normal while using your natural armor.

Languages: You can speak, but not read, Dray and Common.

Dwarf

Dwarves on Athas are hairless and obsessed with their work. Hardy, reliable, and stubborn, dwarves are set in their ways and difficult to change unless they choose it themselves, usually only after completing their focus, the task or goal they've dedicated themselves to. Dwarves view the world through their focus, seeing those who align with it as good and those who oppose it as bad. This is part of dwarf’s deepest nature – a dwarf who dies with an unfinished focus may rise as a skinless banshee, desperate to finish their work. Even immolation may not prevent a dwarf from returning this way - only finishing their work , destroying it completely, or a solemn oath from another dwarf to carry one the focus of the dead dwarf can lay them to rest.

Dwarves are a common minority in the Tablelands, present in all city-states and many villages, with some villages mostly populated by dwarves. Nomadic dwarves are rare, but they do exist, their wandering tied to their focus in some way.

Taking to their profession with a vengeance, dwarves can be found in any class, but rarely study wizardry. They have an innate dislike of the practice, even preserving magic, and their stoic, unchanging beliefs means that many will gladly lynch a wizard. The dwarves who tolerate wizards are usually ones with long-time friends who are wizards that managed to reveal the fact without destroying the trust the dwarf had in them, or dwarves who become involved with the Veiled Alliance and develop a compatible focus.

Ability Score Increase: You increase your Constitution by 2 and your Wisdom and Intelligence by 1.

Age: Dwarves reach maturity at 50 and live to be 300 to 400 years old, if the wastes do not take them before then.

Size: Dwarves are 4 to 5 feet tall and weigh up to 200 pounds. They are stocky and brawny.

Speed: Dwarves have a speed of 25 feet, but it is not reduced by wearing heavy armor or having a medium or heavy load.

Alignment: Dwarves are almost always lawful and tend towards neutrality on matters of good and evil. Their focus matters more than other considerations.

Darkvision: You can see in dim light as if it were bright light, out to 60 feet, and you can see in darkness as if it were dim light to the same distance. You cannot discern colors in the dark.

Dwarven Resilience: You have advantage on saving throws against poison and are resistant to poison damage. You have advantage on saving throws to avoid exhaustion from environmental effects such as extreme heat or cold, hunger, and thirst.

Dwarven Combat Training: You are proficient with all axes and hammers.

Dwarven Toughness: At 1st level, you gain an extra hit point. You gain an additional hit point whenever you gain a new level.

Focus: Choose a clearly defined goal or task that will take, at minimum, six months to complete. You are dedicated to this task, and any attck roll, saving throw, ability check, or damage roll taken to directly advance or complete this focus gains a +2 bonus. However, if you are prevented from working towards your focus for more than a month, you suffer disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws until you can pursue it again.

If you complete your focus, choose a new one after a month of contemplation and reflection. If your focus becomes impossible or infeasible, make a DC 15 Wisdom save. On a failure, you take your hit dice in psychic damage. You auto-stabilize if this reduces you to 0 hit points. With the loss of your focus, you may choose a new one after a month, but suffer disadvantage on all attack rolls and saving throws until you do.

If you die with an unfulfilled focus, make a DC 10 Charisma save. If you fail, you rise as a banshee after 2d4 weeks, regardless of the state of your body, haunting your work. If your body was cremated, dismembered, or otherwise largely destroyed, you gain advantage on this saving throw. Should a trusted dwarven friend or descendent make a sollemn vow to take up your focus, and does so, you automtically succeed on this saving throw.

PART 2 | RACES

If your banshee is destroyed, it returns after 2d4 weeks. Only fulfilling the banshee's focus, making it impossible to complete, or having a descendent take up the focus will lay the banshee to rest.

Languages: You speak, but cannot read, dwarven and common.

Elf

Elves are tall, thin desert Bedouins nomands who largely avoid settlements. Running on foot for hours each day, elves roam the desert foraging, hunting, trading, raiding, herding, and whatever else is needed for the day. Elves focus on the here and now, rarely making plans and preferring a happy present to fretting over an uncertain future. Elves have two sets of traditions: deal honestly with members of their tribes, and taking as much as they can get away with from outsiders, including other elves. An elf will only trust an outsider after several loyalty tests, often arranged by the elf themself.

Most outsiders consider elves dishonest, as shifty merchants found in trade towns and the outskirts of city-states, if not raiders. Elves rarely keep slaves, except for other elves. Non-elves simply cannot keep up.

Elves tend to lack the focus for the Way or the devotion demanded for clerics or druids, but have few taboos towards wizardry. While the study and dedication required for wizardry keeps many away, elves are one of the few races who may accept defilers, but this is rarer and restricted to raiding tribes. Preservers are easier to hide and do not scar their souls with their magic.

Ability Score Increase: Increase your Dexterity score by 2, your Wisdom score by 1 and your Charisma score by 1.

Age: Elves reach adulthood after 15 years and live to be about 120 years old.

Size: Elves stand 6 to 7 feet tall and are wiry and thin. They are medium size.

Alignment: Elves are carefree, loath long-term planning, and see little wrong with trickery and theft when when it comes to outsiders, but generally refrain from wanton harm or sadism. They tend to be chaotic neutral.

Elf Weapon Training: You gain proficiency with long bows, short bows, long swords, and short swords.

Dark Vision: You can see in dim light as if it were bright light, out to 60 feet, and you can see in darkness as if it were dim light to the same distance. You cannot discern colors in the dark.

Keen Senses: You have proficiency in the Perception skill.

Fleet of Foot: Your base speed is 40 feet.

Mask of the Desert: You can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by dust, dirt, shrubs, sand, and other natural phenomena.

Elf Run: You gain proficiency with Athletics. When making checks for traveling more than 8 hours during a Forced March, you may make a Strength (Athletics) check or a Constitution saving throw, and you gain advantage on the check.

Finally, you cover more distance when traveling during a Forced March:

Forced March

Pace	Minute	Hour	Day	Effect
Fast	500 feet	5 miles	40 miles	-5 penalty to Wisdom (Perception) checks
Normal	400 feet	4 miles	30 miles	--
Slow	300 feet	3 miles	24 miles	Able to use Stealth

Desert Affinity: You gain advantage on checks and saves to avoid gaining exhaustion from environmental effects, such as severe heat or cold.

Half-Elf

Children of humans and elves lurk in trade villiages and near the trade districts of city-states. Neither humans nor elves accept mixed-blooded offspring - humans mistrust the elf, and elves mistrust the human. Humans shun and mistrust half-elves, giving them menial, repulsive work, and if something goes wrong, odds are that any nearby half-elf will get blamed. Elves are even harsher, exiling such children and even their mothers from the tribe – half-elves cannot run like elves, and elven honor demands that that tribe members keep up or be left behind. It should come as no surprise that many half-elves end up sold into or condemned to slavery for crimes, real and imagined.

Half-elves who luck into a more tolerant life, perhaps adopted by a third race, or simply fortunate enough to have a less judgmental family, can lead reasonably successful lives. They tend to be loners regardless, keeping their distance from judgemental humans and elves. The discipline of the Way is appealing to these half-elves, as well as the spirit bond rangers develop. Wizardry is a solitary pursuit, and with human dedication, half-elves make capable casters.

Many half-elves spend more time with animals than humans, but they also find friendships with dwarves, half-giants, muls, thri-kreen, or even stranger creatures. Being sold as a dwarf's apprentice is likely one of the kinder fates for a half-elven child. Dwarves are demanding, but fair, and are rarely attracted to humans or elves. Half-elves who meet a dwarven master’s expectations are treated as children by their owner, and are usually given their freedom after a period of service.

Ability Score Increase: Increase one of your ability scores by 2, and two of your ability scores by 1.

Age: Half-elves reach maturity at 15 and have a similar lifespan to humans, living 100 years.

PART 2 | RACES

Alignment: Half-elves have no real propensity towards any alignment. They a small chaotic tendency, but this has mostly to do with growing up on the margins of society.

Size: Half-elves tend to be tall and thin, ranging between 5 and 6 feet tall.

Speed: Half-elves are a bit faster than humans, with a speed of 35 feet.

Dark Vision: You can see in dim light as if it were bright light, out to 60 feet, and you can see in darkness as if it were dim light to the same distance. You cannot discern colors in the dark.

Desert Adaptability: You gain advantage on checks and saves to avoid gaining exhaustion from environmental effects, such as severe heat or cold.

Animal Friend: You may cast Find Familiar once per week without spending a spell slot. Also, you have advantage on Animal Handling checks with non-hostile beasts and similar creatures. If the creature is animal-like, but not a beast, it must have an Intelligence score of 2 or less.

Skill Versatility: You gain proficiency with two skills of your choice.

Languages: Half-elves speak, but cannot read, elven and common.

Half-Giant

Bred by the Sorcerer Kings as reliable laborers and soldiers with great strength, half-giants have and a human willingness to cooperate and work with others, and an exploitable dimness, their value in their vast strength. In the city-states, overseers direct laborers, and templar the soliders, while half-giants rarely have any authority. In the wastes, where raw might is the ultimate authority, an ambitious half-giant can gain a measure of power. Successful half-giants need help handling the complexities of leadership, and are often the muscle of a partnership.

Half-Giants have no real tendency towards any alignment. Generally friendly and eager to please those they consider to be either "in charge" or their friends, Half-Giants adopt the values of their community, a flexibility of morality and attitude which makes it easier for them to bond with new groups. Given their pliability and power, most tend to be treated decently in turn.

Half-Giants usually end up in straight-forward martial classes, such as barbarians and fighters, but some are trained as rogues. Exceptional half-giants may be trained in the Way, made a templar (usually as enforcers), or form pacts and bonds with spirits or elemental powers. Half-Giants wizards are rather rare, and considered apocryphal.

Ability Score Increase: You increase your Strength score by 4 and Constitution score by 2.

Simple Minded: Your Intelligence score is reduced by 2 and your Wisdom score is reduced by 1.

Flexible Alignment: Half-Giants tend towards neutrality, but they adopt some of the values of their friends and the people around them. Choose one fixed axis (good – evil or law – chaos). That aspect of your alignment never changes. The other axis shifts one step towards the alignment of the culture of the prevailing group the Half-Giant is a part of at the end of a long rest. If a Half-Giant is openly a member of an organization within a society (such as a city guard or templar), that group’s alignment is favored over the society’s if it differs.

Size: Half-Giants are 7 ½ to 8 ½ feet tall, and weight 320 to 380 pounds. They are tall, brawny, and muscular, but they are Medium size.

Natural Athlete: You have proficiency in the Athletics skill.

Hardy: When you take damage, you may spend your reaction to reduce that damage by 1d12 plus your Constitution modifier. Once you use this ability, you must complete a short or long rest before you can use it again.

Powerful Frame: You count as one size category larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can pull, push, drag, or lift. Also, your maximum Strength and Constitution scores are 22, not 20. This stacks with class features and items that increase strength or constitution maximums. For example, a 20th level Half-Giant Barbarian has Strength and Constitution score maximums of 26, not 24.

Due to your size, you need twice as much food and water as other medium-sized creatures.

Languages: You can speak, but not read, Common.

Halfling

Halflings tend to be rarer in the Tablelands. Natives to the cliffs of the Ringing Mountains and the surrounding forests, halflings generally avoid humans and the wastes. The call of wanderlust is common enough that halflings are generally known among the peoples' of the wastes, while others are outcasts and criminals exiled from their clan.

Halflings have a strong sense of unity and respect for their traditions and culture, but look down on other races and their accomplishments. Halflings make cultural references frequently in conversation, and outsiders who cannot keep up seem uncivilized to them. Mainly carnivorous, halflings have a hard time seeing other races as more than talking food, and while they can engage peacefully with outsiders when it suits their purposes, troublemakers and enemies end up in a cooking pot. Since halflings live in harmony with the natural world, their victims's spirits receive prayers of thanks.

Adventuring halflings develop a greater tolerance for the failings of outsiders, both out of necessity and as they gain understand of the wider world. Halflings find the lack of unity and identity among Tablerlands to be perplexing, and a sign of the inferiority of the creatures around them. Their irreverence for the natural world offends them, and halflings tend to hate wizards as a result; however, many clans know the difference between defilers and preservers, and a few have one or two preservers of their own, so halflings do not always kill wizards on sight. Conversly, halflings revere druids.

PART 2 | RACES

Since halflings found in the Tablelands are exiles or left their clans for deeply personal reasons, they tend to break the traditional mold of halfling society more often than in other races, and may starkly deviate from these norms.

Ability Score Increases: You increase your Dexterity score by 2 and your Wisdom score by 1.

Age: Halflings mature at the age of 20 and live to be around 200 years old.

Alignment: Halfling society sees itself as superior to others and regard halflings as intrinsically better than other races. Other halflings who abide by tradition and social norms are worthy of respect and kindness, while other races must prove that they are worth more than the meat on their bones. Halflings tend to be lawful evil.

Size: Halflings are between 2 ½ and 3 ½ feet tall. They are Small size.

Speed: Haflings have a base speed is 25 feet.

Brave: Halfings gain advantage on saving throws against being frightened.

Resilient: Halflings gain advantage on saving throws against poison and are resistant to poison damage.

Nimbleness: Halflings can move through the square of any creature that is a larger size than them, but may not end their movement in a square it occupies.

Nature Lore: Halflings gain proficiency in either Survival or Nature. You gain Druidcraft as a cantrip. At 3rd level, you may cast Enhance Ability once between long rests. At 5th level, you may cast Speak with Plants once between long rests. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Magical Resilience: Haflings may roll one saving throw against a spell of their choice with advantage. After using this fetaure, you must complete a short or long rest before you can use it again.

Languages: You may speak and write Halfling. You may speak, but not read, Common. Halfings have no laws or taboos against reading, though they prefer oral stories. They do not teach their langauge to outsiders except under harsh coersion, and they usually have little reason to go through the trouble of learning to read the language of inferior outsiders, particularly when there are legal consequences and few documents written in those languages.

Human

Humans are the predominant race of the Tablelands. Victors of the Cleansing Wars and the largest population in any given city state, humans are ubiquitous. Found in many tribes and villages scattered throughout the wastes, humans are represented at every echelon of society.

With little innate adaptation to the harsh environment of Athas, the brutal realities of life cull the weak from the strong, whether in the cities or out in the desert. Adaptable and versatile, humans, like cockroaches, tend to survive where one least expects them.

Ability Score Increase: Increase one ability score by 2 and two ability scores by 1.

Age: Humans mature at 18 and live to be around 100.

Alignment: Humans have no affinity for any alignment.

Size: Humans are between 5 to 6 feet tall. Their size is Medium.

Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Skill Versatility: You gain proficiency with two skills or tools of your choice.

Aptitude: You gain one feat of your choice.

Languages: You may speak, but not read, common, and one other language of your choice, other than halfling.

Mul

Muls are hybrids of humans and dwarves. Inheriting a human’s stature and a dwarf’s hairless musculature, they are hardy, tireless people who can work for hours on end. However, muls are sterile, and humans and dwarves rarely find each other attractive. Pregnancies are risky, and so most muls are born in the slave pits, their parents forced by overseers to produce a lucrative child destined for the gladiatorial arena or skilled labor. Too expensive to waste on common tasks, Muls tireless work makes them excellent at smithing and other exhausting professions.

Muls rarely know much beyond a life of bondage, but unlike other slaves, tend not to care as much. Treated better and even pampered by their owners, successful muls adapt to slavery better than most other races and tend to survive longer due to their value. A mul's friends and loved ones are often punished in a mul's place, and only the most stubborn or incompetent mul is killed. Most will try to sell a troublesome mul before disposing of one.

Escaped muls are hunted far longer than other slaves, and even the rare muls born to freedom must be cautious not be "recovered" by opportunistic slavers. Muls who gain their freedom fight fiercely to retain it and are exceedingly difficult to break if captured.

Ability Score Increase: Increase your Strength by 2 and your Constitution by 2.

Age: Muls mature by the age of 20 and can live up to 200 years.

Size: Muls are 5 to 6 feet tall, but are broad and brawny, with dwarven musculature. They are Medium size

PART 2 | RACES

Speed: Muls move 30 feet, and their speed is not reduced by armor or load.

Low Light Vision: You can see in dim light as if it were bright light, out to 60 feet, and you can see in darkness as if it were dim light to the same distance. You cannot discern colors in the dark.

Mul Resilience: You have advantage on saving throws against poison and are resistant to poison damage. You have advantage on saving throws to avoid exhaustion from environmental effects such as extreme heat or cold, hunger, thirst, staying awake, and from exertion.

Dwarven Toughness: At 1st level, you gain an extra hit point. You gain an additional hit point whenever you gain a new level.

Mul Endurance: You are proficient in the Athletics skill, and you ignore the first level of fatigue you would gain from any source other than hunger or thirst between short rests. Additionally, the first time between long rests you are reduced to 0 hit points, but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead.

Acceptable Brutality - Muls

Many groups will find the idea of force-bred slaves to be repugnant, which is a normal reaction. The Sorcerer Kings are corrupt, their templar are corrupt, and ruthlessness is a common trait among Athas' wealthy and successful. Suffice it to say, these abuses should be kept to background material and not involved in a scene the players encounter.

However, if a group decides they do not want this element in their game at all, then the recommendation is to adjust the setting so that, while dwarves and humans are not usually attracted to one another, those who live in poor, desparate conditons take comfort where they can, leading to the occasioanl birth of muls. Since muls are valuable laborers, slave overseers -- or, if your group decided to remove slavery, the local authorities -- and slum lords do as little as possible to prevent such couplings, and many encourage them with additioanl food or even a healer's care, if it is affordable.

Thri-Kreen

One of the few intelligent races not descended from halfings, thri-kreen are mantis people, short-lived hunters of the wastes. Alien to other races, the four-armed thri-kreen lived by stalking prey across the land. Thri-Kreen understand the world through the lense of the hunt, and even their mystics and scholars view their pursuits as hunts for knowledge and inner strength.

With a hardened carapace and a venomous bite, the sleepless Thri-Kreen have many tools to survive the wastes from the day they are hatched, and are always active.

Unlike halflings, thri-kreen do not have a strong tendency to view other intelligent races as a source of food. Many packs avoid humanoid flesh, only hunting intelligent prey when there is no other game. However, there are enough raiding packs who eat any meat they can kill for most humanoids to regard approaching Thri-Kreen warily. This is especially true for elves - Thri-Kreen who've tasted elf crave more, and many packs turned to raiding after circumstances drove them to eat elves. Naturally, elves take a dim view of thri-kreen, so the two are often hostile with one another whenever they meet.

The clutch, or hunting pack, is the core of thri-kreen society. Formed from three to a dozen thri-kreen, clutches trust and rely on each other implictly in their hunts across the wastes. Thri-kreen treat their clutcmates with an instictive compassion, even if they are utterly ruthless and cruel to any outsiders. The need for a clutch is so intrinsic that a thri-kreen will form a clutch-bond with non-kreen if they are cut off from their people. Mantis folk who live in or near city states or who end up along among other races adopt close traveling companions as clutchmates, which can lead to trouble if the thri-kreen’s fleshy clutch does not understand the responsibilities of the bond. Betrayal by a clutchmate is utterly unforgivable to a thri-kreen, and drives one to a roaring fury like nothing else. Fortunately, thri-kreen are careful about whom they bond with.

Thri-kreen are often barbarians, with fewer fighters - formal battle training is less common among the instinctive kreen. Thri-kreen have traditions of monks and mystics, who recruit a few students in their short lives as apprentices to pass on the kreen’s version of the Way. They also have an affinity for the land, and tend to become druid and rangers, while clerics are less common. Traditional rogues, such as thieves and assassins, are rare among the kreen, but rogues who focus on the hunt, such as scouts and soul knives, are common.

Sorcerer Kings almost never recruit thri-kreen as templars. While nothing specifically prevents a kreen from becoming one, the viscious political battles and the all too frequent betrayal of close allies are confusing and henious to thri-kreen. Even Oronis of Kurn likely has no thri-kreen templar, simply because kreen find little appeal in dedicating themself to the strange life of soft-skinned city folk or serving a 'god'.

Thri-Kreen wizards are rarer than thri-kreen teeth. They have no affinity for wizardry's unnatural practices, and are actively repulsed by defiling. A young, lone thri-kreen cut off from their pack and adopted by a preserver could learn wizardry, but they would likely be one not even a handful of kreen wizards in the Tablelands, if not all Athas. Thri-kreen despise defilers, but are not automatically hostile to preservers, and may cautiously work with one if their interests align.

Ability Score Increases: You increase your Strength by 1, your Dexterity by 2, and your Wisdom by 1.

PART 2 | RACES

Age: Thri-Kreen reach maturity by the age of 3 and live to be between 20 and 30 years old.

Alignment: Thri-kreen are pack hunters and have an aversion to chaotic alignments. They are also pragmatic, but generally not malicious. Most thri-kreen are neutral, but raiding thri-kreen tend to be evil. All thri-kreen will behave in a lawful good manner towards their clutch mates.

Size: Thri-Kreen are longer than humanoids, and have a somewhat slanted thorax. They are usually between 5 and 6 feet tall and are Medium sized.

Speed: Thri-Kreen have a speed of 35 feet.

Multi-Armed: Thri-Kreen have four arms with clawed hands. You are proficient with your claws, which deal 1d4 slashing damage. You may use either your Strength or Dexterity for attack rolls and damage with your claws. At 5th level, when you take an attack action with your claws, you may make two attacks. This does not stack with other features that provide additional attacks.

At 5th level, if you have a class feature that allows you to make two or more attacks when you take an Attack action, you may spend your bonus action after your attack action to make a claw attack.

Superbe Agility: Thri-kreen are naturally fast and agile, with greater coordination than other humanoids. Their maximum Dexterity is two higher than normal -- 22, instead of 20. This feature stacks with any other features that increase a thri-kreen's maximum Dexterity.

Venomous Bite: You have a bite attack that you are proficiency with, that deals 1d6 + your Strength bonus piercing damage.

Once between long rests, when you make a successful bite attack on a target that deals damage, you may inject them with poison. If they fail a Constitution saving throw, DC of 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier, they are paralyzed for one minute.

At the end of each of the creature’s turns, they may repeat the Constitution saving throw, ending the paralysis on a success.

Hardened Carapace: Thri-Kreen have odd dimensions, and they cannot wear armor or clothing made for humanoid creatures. A Thri-Kreen’s carapace gives them two options for calculating their armor class:

13 + Dexterity Modifier.
16 + Dexterity Modifier (maximum of 3). This requires the character to have medium armor proficiency
A shield’s AC bonus adds to Armor Class normally.

Thri-Kreen find wearing armor to be unnatural and uncomfortable, and almost never wear armor. Armor costs are doubled for thri-kreen, and they always suffer non-proficiency penalties in armor. They can use shields normally.

Leap: Thri-Kreen are always considered proficient when jumping, and they may use their Dexterity instead of their Strength for any rules related to jumping. When jumping, a thri-kreen covers twice the normal distance. For example, a thri-kreen covers feet equal to twice their Strength or Dexterity score when making a running long jump, or feet equal to their Strength or Dexterity score when making a standing long jump.

Sleepless: Thri-Kreen do not sleep. During a long rest, you are free to keep watch and undertake light activity. Thri-Kreen are immune to magical or psionic sleep from any source, but they can be rendered unconscious.

Desert Creature: Thri-Kreen gain advantage on saving throws to avoid exhaustion from environment effects, such as extreme heat and cold, and need only half the normal amount of food and water.

PART 2 | RACES

Classes on Athas

Most classes found on other worlds are present on Athas, but often take different forms. Classes present on Athas are described below, with informaton about how the class appears in Dark Sun.

Class Features with Bonuses

If a class feature gives a bonus cantrip, bonus talent, bonus spell known, bonus power known, bonus invocation, or other such bonus feature, it does not count against the class' normal limit for that feature. If it is a cantrip, spell, power, talent, or invocation, and the character already knows that cantrip, spell, power, talent, or invocation, they may choose a new one.

Barbarian

Barbarians are common in nomadic tribes and villages. Those who fight survive, and those who survive learn to fight. Rage is just the start – many Barbarians adopt superstitious practices, which often have no power of their own, but tap into the latent psionic energy of all living creatures on Athas. Others form bonds with minor spirits of the land, or elemental powers.

Path of the Berserker: This is an incredibly common Path among Barbarians, drawing on amplified, focused fury.
Path of the Totem Warrior: Some tribes and clans live or wander near places of natural power. Members of these tribes may perform rites to honor the spirits and gain the attention of and blessing a patron. Many of these tribes are led by druids.
Path of the Ancestral Guardian: Many tribes revere the history of their people and the heroes who came before. Empowered by the psionic energy of the tribe, their rites call forth manifestations of the honored dead to aid them in battle.
Path of the Storm Herald: Storm Heralds honor nature spirits or elementals, calling on their blessing with tribal rites. The Desert environment is the most common pact Storm Heralds make with the land, but Storm Heralds of tribes that wander or live near a body of Silt may choose Silt. Silt uses the same rules as Sea, except for the following:
- Silt (Storm) Aura deals cold damage, not lightning.
- Silt (Storm) Soul gives resistance to Necrotic damage, and allows for breathing in Silt, as well as a swim speed that applies in Silt.
- Raging Storm causes the target to suffer disadvantage on their next attack before the beginning of your next turn, as Silt whips up in their eyes and face.
- Silt Storm Heralds are often led by a Silt Cleric, leading to conflict with villages and other tribes.
Path of the Zealot: More common among the Barbarians who fight for the Sorcerer Kings’ armies, they are all religious fanatics devoted to their faith – whether the templars’, an element's, or a druid's. They are ready to fight and die on the front lines, waiting to be returned to life to fight and die again.
Path of the Beast: Barbarians tribes emulate the animals of the wastes, adopting rituals which change their very flesh, manifesting the power of the strongest predators. Many of these tribes minimize the use of weapons, preferring to rely on the power of their limbs and rage.
Path of the Wilder (Wild Magic): While truly mastering psionic power requires training and discipline, unleashing that power does not. Wilders batter the world with uncontrolled psionics, sparked with rage, usually to the barbarian's benefit. Some tribes hold taboos against such wilders, citing tales of warriors who killed their own comrades or themselves in a burst of uncontrolled power. Tribes with many wilders may be shunned by tribes who heed such stories.

Cleric

There are no gods on Athas – no true gods, at least. There are mighty beings that offer power to followers, but no dieties with portfolios who gain power from faith, prayer, and belief. Instead, the elements form connections with shamans who wield their magic and spread their influence on Athas. Unlike gods, the elements have few requirements – while their shamans honor their element, protect it where they can, and promote its presence on Athas, they are pleased.

There are four prime elements – Air, Earth, Fire, and Water – and four paraelements, bastardized amalgams created from the ecological destruction of the world – Magma, Rain, Silt, and Sun. The four prime elements are largely interested in pure, untainted manifestations of their element in the world, while the paraelements seeks to spread their presence in any form as far as possible. Elemental clerics are welcomed among cities and villages, while paraelemental clerics, other than Rain, are mistrusted or shunned, with a reputation for destroying fertile land and spreading ruin, particular clerics of Silt and Magma.

Within the city-states, elemental clerics are tolerated if they toe the line and obey the laws of the Sorcerer-King. Templars do not see clerics as direct competition, but do not tolerate clerics with ambition beyond a dozen members and a small shrine. Paraelemental clerics are often shunned or forbidden, particularly Magma clerics, given how destructive the paraelement is in cities.

The standard cleric domains are not suitable in Dark Sun. Instead, choose one of the following elemental domains:

Air

Air Clerics are often nomadic, following currents of air and offering their aid to villages and tribes who meet their price or pique their interest. Pure, clean winds please Air, and these clerics build shrines in places with natural breezes and winds, or do their best to build structures that promote them. They are known for mercurial temperaments, willing to bring down the wrath of the sky on those who displease them.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Domain Spells

Cleric Level	Spells
1st	Feather Fall, Thunder Wave
3rd	Gust of Wind, Warding Wind
5th	Lightning Bolt, Thunder Step
7th	Freedom of Movement, Summon Elemental
9th	Control Winds, Scrying

Bonus Cantrip: You know Gust as a Cleric cantrip.

Expanded Cantrips: You consider Shocking Grasp and Thunderclap to be Cleric spells.

Elemental Mastery: The following high-level spells are considered cleric spells for you:

Elemental Mastery

Spell Level	Spells
6th	Chain Lightning, Investiture of Wind
7th	Whirlwind
8th	--
9th	--

Wind Shield: At 1st level, Wind deflects harmful energy. As a reaction, you may gain resistance to acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage until the beginning of your next turn. You may do this a number of times between long rests equal to half your proficiency modifier, rounded up.

Channel Divinity: Wind Walker
You may spend a use of Channel Divinity to cast Levitate. At 6th level, you may choose to cast Fly on yourself instead.

Force of Air: At 6th level, whenever you deal damage with Lightning or Thunder damage, you move one of the damaged targets 10 feet directly away from you. Huge and larger creatures are immune.

Potent Spellcasting: At 8th level, you add your Wisdom modifier to any damage you deal with a Cantrip.

Avatar of Air: At 17th level, once between long rests, you may spend an action to infuse yourself with elemental power for 10 minutes. You gain the following benefits:

Ranged weapon attack rolls made against you have disadvantage on the attack roll.
You gain a flying speed of 60 feet. If you are still flying when the spell ends, you gain the benefits of Feather Fall.
You can use an action to create a 15-foot cube of swirling wind centered on a point you can see within 60 feet of you. Each creature in that area must make a Strength saving throw against your spell save DC. Creatures that fail take 2d10 bludgeoning damage, or half that if the save succeeds. If a Large or smaller creature fails the save, that creature is also pushed 10 feet away from the center of the cube.

Earth

Earth Clerics tend to be traditional, slow to change, and serious. The Earth has been scarred by wizards, making Earth clerics staunch enemies of Defilers, who they kill them whenever they can. Many villages welcome Earth clerics for their stalwart and reliable nature. Shrines of Earth tend to include healthy soil and gemstones, or metal if the cleric can find any. Plants may be allowed to grow, as long as they honor the Earth. Loose earth, like sand, gravel, or the like, stinks of Silt, and Earth clerics will clear it away or attempt to compact it into solid, pure earth.

Domain Spells

Cleric Level	Spells
1st	Earth Tremor, Magic Stone
3rd	(Maximilian's) Earthen Grasp, Earthbind
5th	Leomund's Tiny Hut, Erupting Earth
7th	Stone Skin, Summong Elemental
9th	Transumte Rock, Wall of Stone

Bonus Proficiency: You gain proficiency with Heavy Armor.

Expanded Cantrips: Mold Earth is a Cleric spell for you.

Elemental Mastery: The following high-level spells are considered cleric spells for you

Elemental Mastery

Spell Level	Spells
6th	Investiture of Earth, Bones of the Earth, Move Earth
7th	--
8th	--
9th	--

Hard as Stone: At 1st level, you gain Blade Ward as a bonus cantrip. You may cast Blade Ward as a bonus action a number of times between long rests equal to half your proficiency bonus, rounded up.

Channel Divinity: Strength of Earth
As an action, spend a use of your Channel Divinity. If you wish, you may summon a one-handed stone simple weapon to your hand. Then, impart the earth's strength to a weapon in your hand, granting the chosen weapon a +1 bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls for 10 minutes. During this time, the chosen weapon is considered magical for the purposes of overcoming damage resistance. This bonus does not stack with any bonuses to attack and damage rolls that a magical weapon already has.

The bonus to attack and damage rolls increases to +2 at 7th level and +3 at 10th level.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Stone Bulwark: At 6th level, you may cast Blade Ward on a willing creature within 30 feet of you, and you can use your Hard as Stone feature to cast Blade Ward as a bonus action or reaction on other creatures. Using Hard of Stone on another creature counts against your daily limit.

Divine Strike: At 8th level, once on your turn, when you successfully hit with a melee attack, you deal an additional 1d8 magical bludgeoning damage. At 14th level, this increases to 2d8 magical bludgeoning damage.

Avatar of Earth: At 17th level, once between long rests, you may spend an action to infuse yourself with elemental power for 10 minutes. During this time you gain the following benefits:

You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non-magical attacks.
When you cast Blade Ward, including with your Hard as Stone feature, the resteistances apply to magical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
You can move across difficult terrain made of earth or stone without spending extra movement. You can move through solid earth or stone freely and without destabilizing it, but you cannot end your movement there. If you do so, you are ejected to the nearest unoccupied space, you are stunned until your next turn, and this feature ends.
You can use an action to create a 15-foot radius earthquake centered on you. Other creatures on that ground must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC or be knocked prone and take 2d6 bludgeoning damage. Those who succeed are not knocked prone and take half that damage.

Fire

Fire Clerics exhibit great passion, but successful ones develop self-control. It often takes time for Fire clerics to prove they've mastered their volatility, but once they gain that trust they work hard to keep it. Fire clerics tend to pure flames, which they use to burn their enemies to cinders.

Fire shrines have braziers with carefully tended fires meant to never burn out, and they often bake like saunas. If the cleric can afford it, they will enchant the braziers to maintain the fire.

Domain Spells

Cleric Level	Spells
1st	Burning Hands, Absorb Elements
3rd	Scorching Ray, Pyrotechnics
5th	Fireball, Remove Curse
7th	Summon Elemental, Wall of Fire
9th	Immolation, Flame Strike

Bonus Cantrip: You know Firebolt.

Expanded Cantrips: You consider Control Flames to be a Cleric spell.

Elemental Mastery: The following high-level spells are considered cleric spells for you:

Elemental Mastery

Spell Level	Spells
6th	Investiture of Flame
7th	--
8th	Incendiary Cloud
9th	--

Flame’s Retort: At 1st level, when a creature deals damage to you or an ally within 30 feet, you can spend your reaction to deal 1d6 + your Wisdom Modifer fire damage to the attacker. You can do this a number of times between long rests equal to your Proficiency Modifier.

Channel Divinity: Flame’s Wrath
When you deal fire damage with a spell, you may use your Channel Divinity before you roll damage. If you do, any dice on that roll with a result of 1 or a 2 are considered a 3.

Comforting Flames: At 6th level, you gain resistance to Fire damage, and you regain hit points equal to your Proficiency modifier when you deal fire damage.

Potent Spellcasting: At 8th level, you add your Wisdom modifier to any damage you deal with Cantrips.

Avatar of Fire: At 17th level, once between long rests, you may spend an action to infuse yourself with elemental power for 10 minutes. During this time, you gain the following benefits:

You are immune to fire damage and have resistance to cold damage.
Any creature that moves within 5 feet of you for the first time on its turn, or ends its turn within 5 feet of you, takes 1d10 fire damage.
You can use your action to create a line of fire 15 feet long and 5 feet wide extending from you in a direction you choose. Each creature in the line take 4d8 Fire damage, or half that with a successful Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC.

Water

Water Clerics are coveted, creating and communing with one of the rarest necessities of life in the wastes. They tend to be flexible, and live under heavy guard whereever they dwell. Tribes in the wastes will kidnap Water clerics, and killing one is considered a terrible crime.

Water shrines are built around a pool of pure water, tended by the faithful, and drawn from only in need.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Domain Spells

Cleric Level	Spells
1st	Cure Wounds, Ice Knife
3rd	Lesser Restoration, Blur
5th	Wall of Water, Tidal Wave
7th	Summong Elemental, Watery Sphere
9th	Mass Cure Wounds, Maelstrom

Bonus Proficiency: You gain proficiency with Heavy Armor.

Expanded Cantrips: Shape Water is a Cleric spell for you.

Elemental Mastery: The following high-level spells are considered cleric spells for you:

Elemental Mastery

Spell Level	Spells
6th	Investiture of Ice
7th	--
8th	Tsunami
9th	--

Water of Life: At 1st level, whenever you restore hit points with a spell, your target heals additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell’s level.

Channel Divinity: Flow Like Water
When you are hit by a melee attack or melee spell attack, but before damage is rolled, you may spend your Channel Divinity as a reaction. If you do, you gain resistance to that attack, and your attacker takes the same damage you do.

Channel Divinity: Blunted Strike
At 6th level, when a creature within 60 feet would be reduced to 0 hit points, but not killed outright, you may use your reaction and spend your Channel Divinity to set the creature's current hit points to 1d4 + your Wisdom modifier instead.

A creature can only benefit from this feature once between long rests.

Divine Strike: At 8th level, once on each of your turns, you deal an additional 1d8 cold damage on a successful melee attack. You deal 2d8 cold damage at 14th level.

Avatar of Water: At 17th level, once between long rests, you may spend an action to infuse yourself with elemental power for 10 minutes. While this feature lasts, you gain the following benefits:

You are immune to cold damage and have resistance to fire damage.
If you happen upon difficult terrain created by mud, silt, fine sand, ice, or snow, you can move across or through it normally and you can breath in it.
The ground in a 10-foot radius around you becomes waterlogged, either muddy or slick, and becomes difficult terrain for other creatures. This effect moves with you.
You can use your action to create a 15-foot cone of crashing water extending from your hand in the direction you choose. Each creature in the cone must make a Strength saving throw or take 3d6 bludgeoning damage, and are pushed 10 feet back from you. Those who save take half that and are not moved.

Magma

Magma clerics are among the most notorious paraelemental clerics. Usually found on lava flats, obsidian planes, and volcanic slopes, their efforts create dead lands covered in glassy rock and destroys settlements. Their isolation tends to be their saving grace, as few can survive in desolate regions Magma clerics favor.

Magma clerics tend to be passionate and explosive, often lacking the discipline that fire clerics cultivate. They make volatile allies and dedicated foes. Shrines are built in volcanic caves or near lava pools, places where magma can be seen bubbling onto the earth.

Domain Spells

Cleric Level	Spells
1st	Absorb Elements, Earth Tremor
3rd	Flaming Sphere, (Melf's) Acid Arrow
5th	(Melf's) Minute Meteor, Erupting Earth
7th	Summon Elemental, Vitriolic Sphere
9th	Wall of Stone, Flame Strike

Bonus Proficiency: You gain proficiency with Heavy Armor.

Expanded Cantrips: Create Bonfire is a Cleric spell for you.

Elemental Mastery: The following high-level spells are considered cleric spells for you

Elemental Mastery

Spell Level	Spells
6th	--
7th	--
8th	--
9th	Meteor Swarm

Burning Blood: At 1st level, your blood becomes infused with fire and venom. When an attacker deals damage to you in melee, you may deal 1d8 fire and 1d8 acid damage back to them, or half that if they succeed on a Dexterity saving throw.

You can do this a number of times between long rests equal to your proficiency bonus.

Channel Divinity: Unavoidable Eruption
When you cast a spell that deals fire or acid damage, you may spend your Channel Divinity. If you do, and the spell uses an attack roll, you gain advantage on the attack roll. If the spell requires a saving throw, one of the creatures affected by the spell suffers disadvantage on their first saving throw against that spell.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Volcanic Home: At 1st level, while you linger in volanic lands or obsidian planes, you do not need to eat or drink. Additionally, you are not affected by extreme heat or cold in such places.

Magma’s Embrace: At 6th level, you gain resistance to fire damage and acid damage.

Divine Strike: At 8th level, once per turn, when you hit with a melee attack, you can deal 1d8 fire or acide damage of your choice. At 14th level, you deal an additional 2d8 damage instead.

Volcano: At 17th level, once between long rests, you can call forth a volcanic eruption from a point of your choice within 60 feet as an action. The eruption has a 60-foot radius and reaches 120 feet into the air. All creatures in the affected area, other than you, take 6d6 Fire damage + 20 Acid damage. Those who succeed on a Dexterity saving throw take half damage.

Rain

Rain, unlike other paraelements, is welcomed by the tribes of the wastes. Rain is scarcer than Water, and few can imagine an Athas with so much water that Rain would ever be a threat.

Spreading rain's influence demands consideration and caution, as simply evaporating pools of water wins no friends and may not spread Rain effectively. Most are wise enough to realize that supporting the spread of forests and vegetation is a better long-term solution, and travel between oasises and the few forests left in the Tablelands.

Rain clerics are often strangely nuturing for Athas. For now, the spirit of Rain is a gentle one, matching the welcoming balm of its rare clouds and showers. Rain clerics often travel, but a kidnapped Rain cleric is rarely left to their own devices, chafing at captivity in a way a Water cleric won't, waiting for the right moment to escape.

Rain Shrines tend to be damp or wet, and carefully enclosed. Using heated stone pits, these enclosures create an environment where water cycles between evaporation, condensation, and Rain -- or at least dew.

Domain Spells

Cleric Level	Spells
1st	Cure Wounds, Fog Cloud
3rd	Gust of Wind, (Snilloc's) Snowball Swarm
5th	Call Lightning, Sleet Storm
7th	Ice Storm, Summon Elemental
9th	Cone of Cold, Mass Cure Wounds

Bonus Cantrip: You know Ray of Frost.

Expanded Cantrips: Gust and Shape Water are Cleric spells for you.

Elemental Mastery: The following high-level spells are considered cleric spells for you

Elemental Mastery

Spell Level	Spells
6th	--
7th	--
8th	--
9th	Storm of Vengeance

Comforting Rain: At 1st level, whenever you cast a spell, you may choose a creature within 60 feet. That creature regains hit points equal to the spell’s level.

Channel Divinity: Rain’s Blessing
When you cast a Cleric spell that targets a single creature and has an instantaneous duration, you may use your Channel Divinity to have it affect a second willing creature within 30 feet of the first creature. This feature may not be used on spells above 4th level.

Spark the Storm: At 6th level, you can cast Call Lightning once between long rests without using a spell slot. You may cast Call Lightning in locations that the spell normally prohibits, such as indoors.

Potent Spellcasting: At 8th level, you add your Wisdom modifier to damage dealt by your cantrips.

Grace of Falling Water: At 17th level, you can call upon a gentle rain once between long rests by spending your action. The rain falls in a 60-foot radius from you. The rain falls for one minute. At the start of your turn, you and up to 5 other willing creatures under the rain gain one of the following benefits of their choice:

Heal 10 points of damage.
Cure one disease.
Remove one of the following conditions: blinded, deafened, or poisoned.

This class feature requires concentration, as if concentrating on a spell. Unlike most spells and class features that create water, the rain from this feature remains after it ends, persisting as natural water.

Silt

Silt is shunned by many in the wastes as a slow and steady killer. Silt clerics work to expand the Silt Sea, bringing more and more land into its desolation. Beyond the erosion they spread at the edge between land and Silt, the suffocating grasp of Silt, drowning in its cold dark, is another terror that these clerics do not hesitate to inflict.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Silt clerics tend to be driven and unforgiving. They are often loners, but the Silt Sea has its denizens, especially along the borders. Silt Clerics often demand tribute from the tribes sail the sea on skimmers and psi-powered craft, and most pay to be allowed to pass unmolested.

The Silt offers "life" to those who fall into its grasp, but not as most know it. Undead rise in the embrace of Silt, their veins filled with the a dusty "water". Undead who rise in Silt's embrace serve Silt and its clerics.

Beyond the Silt Sea, clerics of Silt live among the sand dunes, another form of Silt. They often die quickly, their attempts to erode more fertile lands met with hostility by local tribes, rangers, and druids. Some few find harmony with a local community or tribe, mixing water and earth to create fertile Silt which can support crops.

Silt clerics normally eschew shrines, offering their veneration wherever Silt lies.

Domain Spells

Cleric Level	Spells
1st	Grease, Inflict Wounds
3rd	Blindness/Deafness, Hold Person
5th	Meld into Stone, Wall of Sand
7th	Blight, Summon Elemental
9th	Transmute Rock, Hold Monster

Bonus Proficiency: You gain proficiency with Heavy Armor and Martial Weapons.

Expanded Cantrips: Mold Earth and Poison Spray are considered cleric spells for you.

Elemental Mastery: The following high-level spells are considered cleric spells for you.

Elemental Mastery

Spell Level	Spells
6th	Flesh to Stone
7th	--
8th	Abi-Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting
9th	--

One with Silt: At 1st level, you gain a swim speed equal to your walking speed while in silt (including fine sand) or water, and you can breathe normally in Silt, sand, earth, or water. You can consume silt or fine sand instead of drinking water.

Channel Divinity: Choking Silt
You exude a cloud of choking silt. As an action, you may cause creatures within 20 feet of you to take 2d10 Cold damage plus Necrotic damage equal to your cleric level, and they suffer disadvantage on their first attack roll during their next turn, unless they succeed on a Constitution save with a difficulty equal to your spell save DC.

Those who succeed take half damage and do not suffer disadvantage on their next attack made before the start of your next turn. Anyone with total cover relative to you is unaffected.

Suffocated Dead: The Silt welcomes those who slip into its embrace. At 6th level, as an action, you can touch a humanoid corpse of small or medium size that has been covered in silt or fine sand. The corpse rises, reanimated as a skeleton or zombie, depending on how much flesh is left. Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Undead animated with this feature can be directed as described in the Animate Dead spell. You control undead animated with the feature indefinitely, but you can only have four undead animated with Suffocated Dead at a time. If you animate a fifth, the first dissolves into Silt.

Your Cure Wounds and other spells that restore hit points can heal undead creatures.

Divine Strike: At 8th level, one per turn, when you hit with a melee attack, you may deal an additional 1d8 cold or necrotic damage of your choice At level 14, you deal an additional 2d8 instead.

Drowning Darkness: At 17th level, you can pull a creature into the Silt’s embrace once between long rests. As an action, you can force a creature within 60 feet to take 7d8 cold damage + 30 necrotic damage, unless the creature succeeds on a Constitution saving throw. Those who do take half damage.

A humanoid reduced to 0 HP by this feature dies, suffocated by the Silt, and rises as a zombie under your permanent control at the start of your next turn.

Sun

Sun Clerics are regarded cautiously. The burning crimson Sun scorches skin, bakes fertile earth to cracked, dry clay, and withers crops in its unforgiving glare. While Sun clerics do not have the fearsome reputation of Silt or Magma, they are afforded trust slowly, and only if they do not destroy.

Honest to the point of bluntness, Sun clerics tend to be direct, forthright, and lacking subtlety. Bombastic and attention grabbing, they find ways to draw the eye wherever they are, announcing their presence for all to hear. Such confidence often leads young Sun clerics to their deaths, but those who survive can scorch their foes with pure light.

Shrines to Sun are built in high places, open to the Sun's burning warmth. They rarely have rooves, and may not even have walls. Terraces, pavillions, and other open air structures are a Sun cleric's choice, on those occasions where they have the funds or skill to sustain a temple.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Domain Spells

Cleric Level	Spells
1st	Color Spray, Guiding Bolt
3rd	Branding Smite, Continual Flame
5th	Blinding Smite, Daylight
7th	Sickening Radiance, Summon Elemental
9th	Dawn, Wall of Light

Elemental Mastery: The following high-level spells are considered cleric spells for you

Elemental Mastery

Spell Level	Spells
6th	Sun Beam
7th	--
8th	Sunburst
9th	--

Light in the Darkness: At 1st level, you gain Light as a bonus cantrip. You may cast the Light cantrip with a range of Personal. While it is active on you, you suppress all darkness within 20 feet of you, including magical darkness.

Dazzling Light: At 1st level, whenever you deal Radiant damage to a creature with a non-cantrip spell or a cleric class feature, you may choose to inflict disadvantage on that creature's next attack roll. You can use this feature a number of times between long rests equal to your proficiency bonus.

Additionally, you are always considered to be in the shade, and are unaffected by sun burns, sun stroke, and environmental damage caused by the Sun.

Channel Divinity: Radiance of Dawn
As an action, burning light bursts forth from you. Any magical darkness within 30 feet is dispelled, and each hostile creature within 30 of you must make a Constitution saving throw. Those who fail take radiant damage equal to 2d10 + your cleric level, while those who succeed take half that. Creatures that have total cover from you are unaffected.

Solar Flare: Starting at 6th level, you can trigger Branding Smite or Blinding Smite when you succeed on an attack roll to hit a creature with a cantrip, instead of only when you hit with a melee attack. Additionally, you may cast Branding Smite or Blinding Smite without using a spell slot once between long rests.

Potent Spellcasting: At 8th level, you add your Wisdom modifier to damage you deal with Cantrips.

Fury of the Sun: At 17th level, You may cast Sunbeam once between long rests without using a spell slot, and your Concentration on Sunbeam cannot be broken by damage.

Druid

Defenders of a dying world, druids protect the land as servants of Great Spirits. Too often, druids fail in their charge, but they remain resolute, ready to die to preserve an oasis, protect a scrubland, or even a rolling hills of dunes. Implacable foes of defilers and most paraelemental clerics, Druids kill threats to nature whenever they can.

Druids revile the Sorcerer Kings and their templar, but lack the power to fight the city-states. While not explicitly banned from most city states, druids easily run afoul of templar, and are usually forbidden to organize. Few druids enter city-states without a specific need, and do so as covertly as possible.

Druids attract the attention of a Great Spirit in some way. They often have an affinity for nature, and their work with the land brings notice. The spirit comes to them in their dreams or moments of lucid clarity, and the prospective druid either accepts the spirit’s presence and begins their druidic journey or turns away, the presence fading, never to return.

Inexperienced druids tend to travel, learning the wisdom of their Great Spirt and the ways of nature. As a druid grows in power, they tend to fall into two molds, either becoming stewards of natural treasures, helping shepherd communities to tend and defend the land, or they stalk the desert, following the cries of the land and slaying the enemies of Athas.

Circle of the Land: Great Spirits are often guardians of large swaths of land, so this circle is common among druids. The most common types of land are deserts, mountains, and the occasional grasslands. These druids typically settle in their territory and shepherd any people living there. Athas has no Underdark, but druids bonding with cave systems may use this option to represent their subterranean charge.
Circle of the Moon: These druids often end up being avengers and are given power by Great Spirits of animals. They make excellent hunters, able to track foes over land or in the air, picking the best form to hunt, fight, and travel.
Circle of Dreams: Considered aberrant among druids, the Great Spirits who lend the power of this circle are rare and believed to intersect with the Black. The stark realities of Athas leaves little rooms for dreams or whimsy, unlike the endless possibilities of the Black. Druids of this circle often wander, trying to restore the natural beauty of what was, following dreams of what Athas could be. They rarely last long, consumed by grief at what can never be.
Circle of the Shepherd: Some Great Spirits reflect the creatures of the land more than the land itself, but unlike the Circle of the Moon, these druids call upon those creatures for aid, instead of becoming them.
Circle of Spores: Intersections with the Gray draws a Great Spirit towards nature’s death cycles. Other druids find the circle of spores unsettling. Animating dead to fight for nature, the Circle of Spores are shunned by superstitious Tablelanders, leaving many to solitary lives.
Circle of Stars: Great Spirits of Air and Sky draw on the power of stars and night. More contemplative than many druids, they look to the stars for practical knowledge to chart a path through an uncertain future. Many seek their guidance

PART 3 | CLASSES

Circle of Wildfire: Fundamental forces in nature empower these Great Spirits. Even if they draw strength from a volcano or lava plane, these spirits seek equilibrium with their environment, and the destructive power the lend their druids make them capable of fighting both defilers and paraelemental clerics who threaten the balance.

Fighter

Trained warriors are a valuable commodity in a world where violence is a common solution to life’s problems. Whether found employed by noble houses or the Sorcerer-Kings’ armies, defending larger villages and more organized tribes, or raiding, fighters are everywhere.

There is little else to say about them – they are almost as common as barbarians and come from all walks of life, though the exceptional ones often lack the political skill and patronage to rise to high rank.

Champion: Fighters who rely on natural talent as much as training, or who hone their pure athletic prowess over technique. These Fighters typically have little aptitude or interest with psionics.
Battle Master: These fighters focus on technique and skill, using precise applications of force to gain the advantage. Like Champions, these fighters have little interest or aptitude with psionics.
Cavalier: The Sorcerer-Kings’ mounted troops are an important component in their armies, but whether they are in a saddle or not, they are trained in defensive combat, to better hold the line.
Samurai: Samurai turn their power entirely inward, bolstering their fighting spirit and battle resolve. They may or may not have any formal psionic training, but they are almost universally disciplined in their approach
Psi Warrior: Psionics are common, accepted, and readily taught to recruits. Noble houses and military academies often teach students with the martial aptitude and discipline how to develop a measure of their psionic potential.
Rune Knight: Like most Tablelanders, Rune Knights are illiterate, but they incorporate the practices of monks, using calligraphy-like art to harness their psionic energy and manifest it by investing it into their equipment.
Arcane Archer: Like the Eldritch Knight, below, magic is rare, illegal, and usually hated and feared. There are no arcane dabblers on Athas.
Eldritch Knights: Wizard magic is rare, illegal, and usually hated and feared. It is a difficult craft that requires total devotion and cannot be studied in half-measures. Eldritch Knights simply do not exist on Athas.

Fighter Archetype - Gladiator

Arena combat is a popular spectator sport in the city states and villages of Athas. Bloody battle entertains the masses and distracts from a day’s troubles and woes, and many fighters are professionally trained to fight in the arena. Popular arena combatants gain fame and fortune, and so professionally trained arena fighters come from all strata of society, though a noble rarely fights a slave. Gladiators train to fight with different weapons and minimal armor, and they thrive on the adulation of adoring crowds.

Put on a Show: At 3rd level, when you gain this archetype, you gain proficiency in Performance if you do not already have it.

Inspired by the Crowd: At 3rd level, when you drop a creature to 0 hit points or critically hit, and there are at least 3 other conscious characters within 30 feet, you gain an Inspiration die. This die is a d6, and you may spend an Inpsiration die to add it to any ability check, attack roll, or saving throw before your next long rest.

After you finish a long rest, set your Inspiration dice to half your Proficiency bonus, rounded down. You cannot have more Inpsiration dice than your Proficiency bonus.

Blood Sport: At 7th level, you gain an Inspiration die the first time you deal piercing or slashing damage to a living creature in an encounter.

If you hit with an attack roll that you did not spend an an Inspiration die on, you can spend an Inspiration die and add it to the attack’s damage instead. Inspiration dice spent for damage are not doubled on critical hits.

Versatile Defense: At 7th level, when you are not wearing Heavy Armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC. If you are wearing neither Heavy Armor nor Medium Armor, you gain a bonus to your AC equal to half your proficiency bonus, rounded down.

An Eye for Weakness: At 10th level, you critically hit on a 19 or a 20.

Rush of Fame: At 10th level, your inspiration dice increase to d8s. If you have no Inspiration dice at the start of an encounter, you gain 1 Inspiration die.

Never Say Die: At 15th level, when you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, make a Performance check, and set your hit points to the result of that check. You can only use this feature once between long rests.

Also, you add your Proficiency bonus to hit points gained from your Second Wind class feature.

Victor’s Strike: At 18th level, after you hit with an attack that did not critically strike, but before you roll damage, you may make a Performance check. If that Performance check exceeds the AC of the creature you hit with the attack, the attack becomes a critical hit. After you successfully use this feature to upgrade a normal hit to a critical hit, you may not use it again until you complete a short or long rest.

Additionally, Inspiration dice spent for damage are doubled on critical hits.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Monk

In the study of psionics, there is the the Way of the Mystic, there is the Path of the Monk. Monks, also known as Mystic Warriors, channel their psionic energy through their bodies instead of directly into the world, achieving superhuman feats of physical prowess. Fighting with their spirit as much as their bodies, monks master their psionic power using several different methods, all of which stress different forms of meditation, excercise, and drills. Monks from different schools express their powers in different ways, channeling the energy through different chakras, or other key points between the body and the spirit.

Schools of the Path compete for recognition in the city states, and any larger village will have at least mentors of the Way who teach monks for a price, either in goods or service. Monks are common on Athas, as common as Mystics, though the dedication and money need for this kind of training often means that Monks are concentreated in civilized places and rarely from poverty. However, some monks are trained in less reputable techniques, passed from mentor to student in lineages of skill and knowledge.

Way of the Shadow: These monks focus on infiltration and assassination, and occasionally serve as scouts.
Way of the Four Elements: By adding mystic training to their meditations, these monks manifest some kinetic powers, making them forces of mobile destruction.
Way of Mercy: With a name that belies their ability to heal and harm, these monks draw on Egoist training to directly injure or mend, unraveling flesh or keeping allies standing.
Way of the Kensei: All monks study the Path, but monks from this Path focus on weapon training and their fighting spirit more than other monks. Academies that teach the Way of the Kensei often train Samurai as well.
Way of the Astral Self: While monks are said to fight with body and spirit, none take this maxim more literally than the Way of Astral Self, who use telepathy to draw out their spirit, one fighting as two.
Way of the Drunken Master: Rarely found in respectable schools, the Way of the Drunken Master is passed on by disreputable masters to small groups of students. These "alley monks" often end up as mercenaries, though criminal organizations, merchant houses, and smaller noble families may keep a proven monk on retainer.
Way of the Sun Soul: To hear the stories, the Way of the Sun Soul was founded by a monk who turned to the worship of the Sun. Forever associated with that paraelement, Sun Soul monks are considered tainted and are not trained by respectable academies. The monks of Sun never hide, as their patron teaches, though they are not as flamoyant as Sun's clerics. Many wander and take pay for bloodshed, though some guard Sun clerics and shrines. Rumors of Sun temples, built in high places where the Sun never sets, are largely considered to be tall tales.

Mystic (Sorcerer)

On Athas, no creature bears magic within themself. However, every living being on Athas, and some dead ones, have innate psionic energy. Following the discipline of the Way, mystics learn to shape this mental energy and manifest it directly into the world. The training of the Way develops one of six disciplines in a student. These disciplines are the origins for mystics, and replace the sorcerous origins for the class.

Psoinic Lexicon

Mechanically, mystics are sorcerers follow the same rules, with the unique nature of psionics on Athas reflect by the mystic's Discipline. Psionic powers are not considered magic, drawing from an inner energy instead of gathering power from and external source. Thus, mystic's hone thier minds like a fighter trains their muscles. Because mystics use psionics instead of magic, mystics use different terms for their powers. The Disciplines below refer to their abilities using these terms.

Psionic Lexicon

Sorcerer Term	Psionic Term
Spell	Power
Cast (a spell)	Manifest (a power)
Metamagic	Metapsionic
Cantrip	Talent
Sorcery Points	Power Points

Psionic Disciplines - Common Features

Like typical sorcerers, mystics choose a psionic discipline at 1st level. There are features common to all psionic disciplines, which express their psionic nature. Common features are described below, and they are referenced in each psionic origin. Please refer to the rules below when those features are referenced:

Psionic Casting

At 1st level, a Psionic Origin ignores any verbal, somatic, and material components of powers (spells), except for material components that both have a ceramic piece (gold piece) cost and are consumed by the power. This allows a mystic to manifest powers when they cannot speak or move their hands or when they do not have a focus or a component pouch, but not when a spell, class feature, or other rule prevents spell casting entirely, such as when the mystic is wearing armor they are not proficient in or when they are under the effects of the Polymorph power or spell.

This feature only applies to powers gained from the mystic class, and not spells gained from any other class.

Psionic origins pay a price, howevever. At 3rd level, when typical Sorcerers would select two Metamagic options, psionic origin characters only choose one Metapsionic option. Additionally, the Subtle Power Metapsionic option only has utility if a mystic multiclasses into a second class that casts spells -- mystics effectivly get a better version that only applies to psionic powers from this class at 1st level.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Mystics are common on Athas, so the fact that powers can be manifested with little outward sign is well known. Most people will be on the lookout for strange occurances, and authorities have developed methods of tracking down criminal mystics. When a mystic manifests a power, any witness can attempt an Insight check to realize that a power was used.

Discipline Powers

Each Discipline focuses on specific powers which help channel and shape the mystic’s psionics. Starting at 1st level, and at each of the indicated levels on the Discipline Power chart, a mystic chooses one of the listed powers and gains it as a bonus power known. Also, all powers listed on this chart are considered mystic powers for that character.

Discipline Versatility

A mystic's training unlocks their inner potential, reflected in their discipline. Discipline powers become second nature, almost reflexive. At 6th level, a mystic can manifest any power they know from their Discipline Power list (not their Master Powers list) by spending power points equal to the level of the power instead of using a power slot.

Master Powers

Each discipline unlocks potent powers that are unavailable to other mystics. These powers, ranging from 6th to 9th level, are considered mystic powers for students of that specific discipline.

Psionic Disicplines (Origins)

Egoist

Egoists’ inner power reveals secrets of living things and their own flesh. They can heal wounds, warp their bodies, and enhance the physical form.

Expanded Proficiency: Egoists add Medicine to their list of class proficiencies.

Psionic Casting: At 1st level, Egoists gain the Psionic Casting feature, described above.

Discipline Powers: At 1st level, Egoists begin gaining Discipline Powers, as described above.

Discipline Powers

Mystic Level	Powers
1st	Cure Wounds, Healing Word, Jump
3rd	Alter Self, Enhance Ability, Lesser Restoration
5th	Aura of Vitality, Life Transference, Protection from Energy
7th	Aura of Life, Guardian of Nature, Polymorph
9th	Mass Cure Wounds, Greater Restoration, Raise Dead

Note: When you manifest Guardian of Nature, use Charisma instead of Wisdom for all of the power's mechanics.

Bonus Cantrip: You gain Spare the Dying as a bonus cantrip.

Psionics vs. Magic

While psionics is largely alien to what most D&D settings consider magic, by default, psionics interacts with magic as if it were magic, and vice-versa. Energy is energy, no matter what its source is, whether internal mental energies, the life energies that wizard draw on, raw elemental power, or the gifts of powerful spirits. The world sees each of them differently, but a Dispel Magic manifested by a mystic can affect a cleric's spells, and vice-versa.

In older editions, this was not the case. Psionics and magic were considered radically different, and could not directly interact on a basic level – a mystic’s powers ignored a wizard’s Globe of Invulnerability and a wizard’s spells were immune to the psionic equivalent of Dispel Magic. This option provides an extra level of mechanical nuance between magic and psionics, if your group wants to keep track of the extra rules.

With this option, spells and effects from magic classes that directly suppress, counter, dispel, remove, or move spells and magic effects do not work on powers and psionic effects from psionic sources, and vice versa. This includes, but is not limited to, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Globe of Invulnerability, and Antimagic Field.

Magic users include the spells and supernatural class features from Clerics, Druids, Rangers, Templar (Warlocks), and Wizards. Psionic users include the powers and supernatural class features from Barbarians, Fighters, Monks, Mystics (Sorcerers), and Rogues.

Psionics and magic that protect from damage types, like Protection from Energy, interact normally, since they are acting on the energy created by a spell or power, and not the spell or power itself. Similarly, a spell that manipulates stone can affect a Stone Wall created by a psionic power. This rule only applies to spells and powers that directly affect other spells and powers.

Master Powers: These are considered mystic powers for you.

Master Powers

Power Level	Powers
6th	Tenser's Transformation, Flesh to Stone
7th	Regenerate, Resurrection
8th	--
9th	Invulnerability, Power Word: Heal, Shapechange, True Polymorph

Discipline Versatility: At 6st level, Egoists gain the Discipline Versatility feature, described above.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Cell Adjustment: At 6th level, you gain greater control over your biology. When you manifest a power that restores hit points on yourself, you may spend 1 power point to heal the maximum amount that power can heal.

Also, damage taken from Life Transference cannot break your concentration on powers. You may heal 8d4+4 damage instead of 4d8 damage when you use the power.

Second Skin: At 14th level, your ability to retain and focus on bodily enhancements and alternate forms deepens. You gain the following benefits:

When you manifest a power that changes your shape, such as Polymorph, you can retain your Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores if you wish, even if the power normally changes them to match the form you are taking.
When you manifest a power to change your shape (not anyone else's), such as manifesting Polymorph on yourself, your concentration cannot be broken by damage.
If you are unable to manifest powers because of a Transmutation power you manifest on yourself, such as Polymorph, you may manifest a power by spending power points equal to the level of the power. This feature does not bypass any other effects that prevent you from manifesting powers, such as Antimagic Field.
Tenser’s Transformation is improved for you:
- You do not gain exhaustion at the end of the power.
- While under the effects of the power, you can use your Charisma modifier for weapon attack and damage rolls, instead of your Strength or Dexterity.
- Your concentration on Tenser’s Transformation cannot be broken by damage.

Resilient Body: At 18th level, your body becomes exceptionally adaptable. At the end of each long rest, you can choose one of the following options, gaining the listed resistance(s) until the end of your next long rest:

Resistance to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage from non-magical sources.
Resistance to Psychic damage and one of the following damage types: Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Poison, or Thunder.
Resistance to one of the following damage types: Force, Necrotic, or Radiant.

Kineticist

Kineticists focus on shaping their inner power into raw energy, either the invisible force of telekinesis or the various destructive energies of the world.

Psionic Casting: At 1st level, Kineticists gain the Psionic Casting feature, described above.

Telekinetic Hand: At 1st level, you gain Mage Hand as a bonus talent. Your Mage Hand is invisible.

Discipline Powers: At 1st level, Kineticists begin gaining Discipline Powers, as described above.

Discipline Powers

Mystic Level	Powers
1st	Absorb Elements, Burning Hands, Thunder Wave
3rd	Gust of Wind, Scorching Ray, Shatter
5th	Daylight, Fireball, Lightning Bolt
7th	(Outiluke's) Resilient Sphere, Fire Shield, Wall of Fire
9th	Bigby's Hand, Wall of Force, Telekinesis

Master Powers: These are considered mystic powers for you.

Master Powers

Power Level	Powers
6th	(Otiluke's) Freezing Sphere
7th	Forcecage
8th	Sunburst
9th	--

Discipline Versatility: At 6st level, Kineticists gain the Discipline Versatility feature, described above.

Energy Sculpting: At 6th level, when you mainfest an evocation power that targets an area, you may select a number of creatures equal to your Charisma modifer. Those creatures gain resistance to the power.

If you have the Careful Power Metapsionic option, it does not cost you power points to use, and the creatures you select with the Metapsionic option gain immunity to the power.

Improved Telekinetic Hand: At 6th level, your Mage Hand's range increases to 60 feet.

Also, as an action, you can use your Mage Hand to shove a creature 5 feet towards or away from you. The affected creature does not move if they succeed on a Strength saving throw. A creature can choose to fail its saving throw. The DC is 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier.

Telekinetic Focus: At 14th level, damage cannot break your concentration on Telekinesis.

Energy Exchange: At 14th level, when you manifest an evocation power that deals cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage, you may spend one power point to change the damage type to cold, fire, lightning, or thunder.

If you have the Transmuted Energy Metapsionic option, this feature costs no power points to use, or you may spend 1 power point to change the damage type to radiant or force.

Energetic Empowerment: At 18th level, when you manifest a damaging evocation power, you may spend 1 power point to reroll a number of damage dice equal to your Charisma modifier.

PART 3 | CLASSES

If you have the Empower Power Metaposionic option, you set the chosen dice to their maximum value instead.

Nomad

Nomads attune themselves to the mysteries of space, motion, and time. They manipluate these forces to accelerate, decelerate, and teleport, to travel great distances in the blink of an eye, or lock others in place.

Psionic Casting: At 1st level, Nomads gain the Psionic Casting feature, described above.

Discipline Powers: At 1st level, Nomads begin gaining Discipline Powers, as described above.

Discipline Powers

Mystic Level	Powers
1st	Expeditious Retreat, Longstrider, Zephyr Strike
3rd	Hold Person, Misty Step, Sider Climb
5th	Blink, Haste, Thunder Step
7th	Banishment, Dimension Door, Freedom of Movement
9th	Hold Monster, Far Step, Steel Wind Strike

Psionic Nimbleness: At 1st level, you gain proficiency in Acrobatics. You may make Charisma(Acrobatic) checks instead of Dexterity(Acrobatics) checks.

Master Powers: These are considered mystic powers for you.

Master Powers

Power Level	Powers
6th	Word of Recall
7th	Demiplane, Maze
8th	--
9th	Imprisonment

Discipline Versatility: At 6th level, Nomads gain the Discipline Versatility feature, described above.

Flicker: At 6th level, when you use a bonus action to manifest a power of 5th level or lower that teleports you, such as Misty Step, you may spend 3 power points to manifest a power with your action.

Invisible Beacon: At 14th level, you gain Teleportation Circle as a bonus power. The material cost for this power is reduced to 10 ceramic pieces.

Unconditional Motion: At 14th level, you gain Freedom of Movement as a bonus power. Once between long rests, you may manifest Freedom of Movement on yourself as a bonus action or reaction.

Travel without Movement: At 18th level, you gain Teleport as a bonus power. Whenever you manifest Teleport, you improve your position on the Mishap chart by two steps.

Unconditional Teleport: At 18th level, you can overcome effects that block teleportation or planar travel into, out of, or through an area by spending power points. The cost depends on the source:

If the blocking effect is a spell or power, such as Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum, or mimics a spell or power, the power point cost is equal to the highest-level effect blocking your teleportation or planar travel.
If the blocking effect does not use a spell's mechanics and comes from a creature or a class feature, the power point cost is equal to half the CR rating of the creature or half the level the class feature is gained at, rounded down.
If the blocking effect does not use a spell’s mechanics and comes from an item, the cost depends on the rarity of the item:
- Common: 1 power point
- Uncommon: 2 power points
- Rare: 4 power points
- Very Rare: 6 power points
- Legendary: 8 power points
- Artifact: 10 power points

You never need to spend more than 10 power points to overcome a block on teleportation or planar travel. However, the DM may rule that god-like beings, such as the Sorcerer Kings, may still stop your travel. This feature does not allow you to pierce the planar barrier surrounding Athas and its planes.

Seer

Seers peer through the skein of time and fate, peer on distance events, and perceive the hidden and obscured. Powers that Seers manifest which are based on spells that normally contact greater powers instead directly scrutinizes the fabric of fate and chance.

Psionic Casting: At 1st level, Seers gain the Psionic Casting feature, described above.

Expanded Knowledge: Starting at 1st level, whenver your Discipline Powers class feature would grant you a bonus power known, you may choose a second bonus power known from the same level.

Discipline Powers: At 1st level, Seers begin gaining Discipline Powers, as described above.

Discipline Powers

Mystic Level	Powers
1st	Detect Evil & Good, Detect Poison, Detect Magic
3rd	Augury, Locate Object, See Invisibility
5th	Bestow Curse, Clairvoyance, Nondetection
7th	Arcane Eye, Divination, Locate Creature
9th	Commune, Legend Lore, Scrying

PART 3 | CLASSES

Bonus Talent: You know Guidance.

Minor Reading: At 1st level, you many manifest Identify as a ritual, using your Psionic Casting, even if you do not know the power. You do not need a focus to manifest Identify this way.

Master Powers: These are considered mystic powers for you.

Master Powers

Power Level	Powers
6th	Contingency, Find the Path, True Seeing
7th	--
8th	Mind Blank, Glibness
9th	Foresight

Discipline Versatility: At 6st level, Seers gain the Discipline Versatility feature, described above.

Bend Fate: At 6th level, once per round, after a creature within 30 feet rolls damage, you can use your reaction and spend 2 power points to reroll a number of that creature's damage dice equal to your Charimsa modifier. Each die may only be rerolled once with the feature.

A damage roll can only be affected by Bend Fate once. If multiple attempts are made to use Bend Fate on the same roll, the character with the highest Mystic level affects the roll.

Visions of the Past: At 14th level, you can call up visions of the past that relate to an object you hold or your immediate surroundings. You spend at least 1 minute in meditation, then receive dreamlike, shadowy glimpses of recent events. You can meditate this way for a number of minutes equal to your Charisma score and you must maintain concentration for that time, as if you were manifesting a power.

Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you complete a short or long rest.

Object Reading – Holding an object as you meditate, you can see visions of the object’s previous owner. After meditating for 1 minute, you learn how the owner acquired and lost the object, as well as the most recent significant event the object was involved in involving the object and its owner. For every additional minute you spend meditating, you gain the same vision about the second most recent owner, then the third, and so on, assuming they exist. However, this feature can only provide visions from events that happened in a number of days in the past equal to your Charisma score.
Area Reading – As you meditate, you see visions of recent events in your immediate vicinity (a room, street, tunnel, clearing, or the like, up to a 50-foot cube), going back a number of days equal to your Charisma score. For each minute you meditate, you learn about one significant event, beginning with the most recent. Significant events typically involve powerful emotions, such as battles, betrayals, marriages, murders, births, and funerals. However, they might include more mundane events that are nevertheless important in your current situation.

True Sight: At 18th level, you gain Truesight out to 60 feet. This has the same mechanics as the True Sight spell, but is constant and not a supernatural effect.

Shaper

Shapers focus their power on manipulating matter, animating objects, and congealing temporary servants from raw ectoplasm. Their Summon powers do not conjure spirits, but form a temporary creation shaped by their Will.

Expanded Proficiencies: At 1st level, a Shaper can choose artisan tool proficiencies as one or both of their two class skill proficiencies.

Psionic Casting: At 1st level, Shapers gain the Psionic Casting feature, described above.

Discipline Powers: At 1st level, Shapers begin gaining Discipline Powers, as described above.

Discipline Powers

Mystic Level	Powers
1st	Grease, Floating Disk, Fog Cloud
3rd	Spiritual Weapon, Earthen Grasp, Web
5th	Conjure Barrage, Tiny Hut, Tiny Servant
7th	Fabricate, Stone Shape, Summon Construct
9th	Animate Objects, Conjure Volley, Transmute Rock

Talented: You gain Mending as a bonus talent.

Master Powers: These are considered mystic powers for you.

Master Powers

Power Level	Powers
6th	--
7th	Magnificent Mansion, Mordenkainen's Sword
8th	Mighty Fortress
9th	--

Discipline Versatility: At 6st level, Shapers gain the Discipline Versatility feature, described above.

Constructed Resolve: At 6th level, your concentration on spells that summon or conjure a creature, or that animates objects, cannot be broken by damage.

You also gain an artisan tool proficiency of your choice.

Psychic Construct: At 14th level, you can create a psionic golem. This requires 500 ceramics worth of psionically prepared clay or stone to shape into the animated construct. Metal can be used, but costs 50,000 ceramics, a fortune.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Your Psychic Construct uses the stats from the Summon Construct power, manifest as a 5th level power, and gains the abilities matching the material used in its construction. This construct remains animate indefinitely, but you can have only have one psychic construct at a time. You may still manifest Summon Construct normally.

You can communicate telepathically with you Psychic Construct. You can command the Psychic Construct on your initiative. Commanding it to attack requires your bonus action, but no action is required to order it to move. If the construct is damaged, you may spend hit dice during a rest to restore hit points to your Psychic Construct instead of yourself.

If your Psychic Construct is reduced to 0 hit points, it is destroyed, crumbling to dust or rust. The materials cannot be salvaged for any useful purpose, but you can animate a new Astral Construct using this feature.

If you animate a Psychic Construct while you already have an animate Psychic Construct, the original deanimates, but the body can be reused. Renaimating the inactive golem requires a psionic ritual that costs 100 ceramics. You can only animate Psychic Constructs you created yourself.

Also, you gain an artisan tool proficiency of your choice.

Master Shaper: At 18th level, you add Stone Shape as a bonus power known. Your Stone Shape can affect any materials less durable than metal in the affected area.

You can improve your Stone Shape by spending additional power points when manifesting the power to use any or all of the following options, in any combination:

If you spend 2 additional power points, you can craft the materials with Stone Shape as if you were using the Fabricate power.
If you spend 2 additional power points, you can affect an object Huge size or smaller, or a section of material no more than 20 feet in any dimension.
If you spend 2 additional power points, you can affect metals, including esoteric or magical metals such as adamantine or mithril.

Your Stone Shape cannot affect animate creatures, thier gear (held or worn), or crafted magical/psionic items. You can affect large objects that a creature is operating, such as ballistae or wagons. You cannot use Stone Shape to deal damage or leave a creature in a deadly situation, such as sealing them inside a stone wall.

Empowered Craft: At 18th level you can craft psionic items as described in the DMG.

Telepath

Telepaths are perhaps the most iconic mystics, sharing, sculpting, and controlling thought directly.

Psionic Casting: At 1st level, Telepaths gain the Psionic Casting feature, described above.

Telepathic Speech: At 1st level, you can form a telepathic connection between your mind and the mind of another. As a bonus action, choose one creature within 30 feet that you can see. You and the chosen creature can speak telepathically with one another while you both remain within a number of miles equal to your Charisma modifier. You must share a language to understand one another.

This connection lasts for a number of minutes equal to your mystic (sorcerer) level. It ends early if you are incapacitated or die or if you use this ability to form a connection with a different creature.

Once you reach 6th level, you no longer need to share a language to understand one another.

Discipline Powers: At 1st level, Telepaths begin gaining Discipline Powers, as described above.

Discipline Powers

Mystic Level	Powers
1st	Charm Person, Command, Dissonant Whispers
3rd	Detect Thoughts, Suggestions, Tasha's Mind Whip
5th	Enemies Abound, Fear, Intellect Fortress
7th	Charm Monster, Confusions, Dominate Beast
9th	Dominate Person, Modify Memory, Rary's Telepathic Bond

Master Powers: These are considered mystic powers for you.

Master Powers

Power Level	Powers
6th	Otto's Irresistible Dance
7th	--
8th	Antipathy/Sympathy, Feeble Mind, Telepathy
9th	Astral Projection

Discipline Versatility: At 6st level, Telepaths gain the Discipline Versatility feature, described above.

Resilient Mind: At 6th level, you gain resistance to psychic damage.

Alter Memories: At 14th level, you can conceal your psionic influence. When you manifest an Enchantment power to Charm one or more creatures, you can alter one creature’s understanding so that it remains unaware of being Charmed.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Additionally, once before the power expires, you can use your action to try to make the chosen creature forget some of the time it spent charmed. The creature must succeed on an Intelligence saving throw against your Mystic (Sorcerer) power save DC or lose a number of hours of its memories equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier (minimum 1). You can make the creature forget less time, and the time it forgets cannot exceed the duration of your enchantment power.

Absolute Control: At 18th level, when you use the Heightened Power metapsionic option with a power that imposes the Charmed or Frightened ondition, the creature targeted suffers additional penalties:

If the target would gain advantage on the saving throw because it is in combat with you or your companions, such as with Charm Person, the creature does not gain advantage.
If the target is immune or the Charmed or Frightened condition, you may spend 2 additional power points. If you do, then the target's immunities do not apply to this power.

If you do not have the Heightened Power Metapsionic option, you may exchange one of your existing metapsionic options for Heightened Power.

Ranger

Many survive wandering the wastes, and spirits wander the wastes. Usually unseen and unheard, spirits can be called forth with rites of honor and respect. Rangers form a bond with smaller spirits, who travel with the ranger, lend them strength, and guide their training. These are the Greater Spirits who empower druids – they demand much of their priests. These lesser spirits favor specific strengths in their rangers, but do not direct the ranger or have the same expectations of service. So long as the ranger performs the proper rites, refrains from defiling to aiding in causes that will harm its kin, the spirit will not be angered.

Among wasteland communities, rangers are well received, able to navigate the land and understand the secrets to survival in the wastes, possessing some magic, and being capable warriors. Rangers themselves run the gamut but tend to come from those who spend a great deal of time in the wastes – tribal Tablelanders, members of villages, or citizens of city states whose work frequently takes them outside of the city walls.

Hunter: Many rangers are hunters, focusing on their martial skills. They tend to attract spirits of hunters, who are impressed by their skill in stalking and killing prey, whether hunting for meat or raiding the caravans of fat merchants. The spirit guides the hunters' training, but other than its magic it rarely makes its presence known.
Beast Master: The animal spirits of these rangers manifest themselves in tangible form and fight alongside their companion. The spirit does not evidence more intelligence than is normal for an animal of its type but has an innate empathic bond with its ranger. The Primal Companion option (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, p. 61).
Gloom Stalker: The spirits of creatures that hunt in the dark, whether at night or in the deep places of Athas, respect hunters who value cunning and stealth.
Horizon Walkers: These rangers are rare. Elementals are tied to natural rhythms, and do not disturb the spirits enough to change how they bond with a ranger. Only when the Black or the Grey intrudes on the world do the spirits take notice and form a bond with a mortal who has the courage to hunt the wrongness that exudes in such places. Adapting to what they hunt, these rangers end up using the power of their prey against them.
Monster Slayer: Few things in nature take risks or seek glory, but some spirits have a sense of pride and seek to take down the strongest, most powerful prey. These spirits find warriors with the same inclination, and bond with them, lending their strength to rangers who hunt larger game and ever greater threats. Most of these rangers die young, eventually fighting a foe they cannot defeat.
Wanderer of the Way (Fey Wanderer): The spirits of these rangers train them in some aspects of the Way. Focusing more on telepathy than anything else, the spirit melds its magic with the ranger’s inner power, strengthening both in the process.
Swarm Keeper: Hive insects and swarm predators are present on Athas, and often temperamental and deadly. Tablelanders who can impress a spirit of such creatures with their dedication to their community and ruthless handling of threats.

Rogue

Duplicity, sabotage, assassination, and stealth are all weapons of civilized strife, and common tools among nobles, templar, criminal syndicates, merchant houses, and many others. Thieves guilds and smugglers are always present and never legal, but legitimized assassin guilds offer their services to those who can pay, while noble families and other powerful organizations have traditions for the engagement of spies and other subversives, with the templar ultimately governing the rules of these games of influence and intrigue. Entire troupes of bards – entertainers who are also trained in assassination and subversion – are sent as “gifts” between nobles, who are honor-bound to accept in many city states when sent by an equal.

Outside the city states, rogues have the same jobs in the larger villages, but in the smaller villages and among the tribes, rogues are scouts, skirmishers, and ambushers, who strike distracted or unaware enemies. Many rogues in the wastes are simply tribals and villagers who were born more nimble and lithe than strong. In the wastes, only survival counts, with the ruthless and cunning surviving to see another day.

Thief: A dime a dozen in city states, most thieves die young, caught by guards or rival gangs and thieves guilds. Those who survive make a living by giving a cut to the neighborhood boss as unofficial agents of a noble house. Illegal thieves guilds rule slums, surviving by reaching agreements with templars to turn a blind eye.
Assassin: Murder for hire is common enough that money buys death regularly. Legal assassin guilds accept contracts bound by the Sorcerer King’s law, but criminal murderers kill at their own discretion. Assassins who survive are either exceptionally talented or consummate professionals.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Inquisitive: Investigators are useful in politics and crime, making inquisitives one of the few rogues who can be publicly respectable. The powerful kill to protect secrets, making discretion and political sense survival skills. In the wastes, inquisitives are rare, but useful enough when a tribe happens upon ruins, strange occurrences, and hidden misdeeds.
Mastermind: Expert schemers, masterminds may hide their activities behind a veneer of respectability, set their sights on criminal leadership, or serve wealthy patrons as spies. Those whose reach exceeds their grasp die. Masterminds are vanishingly rare outside of city-states.
Scout: Many scouts are never considered rogues. They serve in militaries and mercenary forces, collecting intelligence for their commanders, checking the path ahead for dangers to their tribes, and ambushing enemies.
Swashbuckler: Eschewing the subtlety typical for most rogues, swashbucklers are often enforcers, graceful warriors, and gladiators. Turning common wisdom on its head, those who expect a cowardly rogue who fears a fair fight will be unprepared for a swashbuckler’s flair, and these rogues are common among the tribes of the wastes, particularly elves.
Phantom: These rogues generally follow ancestral traditions and superstitions found among tribal Tablelanders or the poor and downtrodden in the slums and ghettos. Unlike most other rogues, phantoms are rare in the city states, and tend to terrify civilized folk who chance upon them.
Soulknife: There are rouges, like fighters, who hone their craft with training in the Way. Unlike fighters, little formal training exists for rogues, so most Soulknives are agents of powerful patrons, though some free agents train apprentices from time to time.
Arcane Trickster: Wizardly magic is rare, illegal, and very often hated and feared on Athas. It is a difficult craft that requires total devotion and cannot be studied in half-measures. Arcane Tricksters simply do not exist on Athas.

Athasian Bard

While traditional bards do not exist on Athas, there are performers called Bards who are trained to be performers and muscians, to better establish cover identies among noble houses, mechant houses, trading guilds, and even lesser templar. Specialising in poison, an Athasian Bard's perfect job involves infiltration, spying, and poisoning.

Synsane has made a great set of rules expanding poisons significantly, as well as their own archetype for the Athasian Bard. It's well worth the read here.

Bonus Proficiencies: When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with the disguise kit, the poisoner’s kit, and either Performance or one instrument of your choice.

Infiltration Expertise: Starting at 9th level, you can unfailingly create false identities for yourself. You must spend seven days and 25 cp to establish the history, profession, and affiliations for an identity. You can’t establish an identity that belongs to someone else.

For example, you might acquire appropriate clothing, letters of introduction, and official-looking certification to establish yourself as a member of a trading house from a remote city so you can insinuate yourself into the company of other wealthy merchants.

Thereafter, if you adopt the new identity as a disguise, other creatures believe you to be that person until given an obvious reason not to.

Poison Expert: At 9th level, you gain advantage on any skill, ability, or toll check to harvest components for a poison or to manufacture a poison. Additionally, when you poison a creature, the minimum save DC for that poison is 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier.

Impostor: At 13th level, you gain the ability to unerringly mimic another person’s speech, writing, and behavior. You must spend at least three hours studying these three components of the person’s behavior, listening to speech, examining handwriting, and observing mannerisms.

Your ruse is indiscernible to the casual observer. If a wary creature suspects something is amiss, you have advantage on any Charisma (Deception) check you make to avoid detection.

Poison Master: At 17th level, your expertise with poison allows you to create twice as many doses of poison as normal. Your poisons consider poision immunity to be poison resistance, and ignore poison resistance.

When you poison a creature, they roll any saves against that poison at disadvantage.

Templar (Warlock)

The Sorcerer Kings are not gods, but the Champions of Rajaat can bestow power on chosen followers. Far more involved with their servant’s lives than a warlock’s patrons on other worlds, templar who survive the first few years of their service will see their master in the flesh.

Pleasing their patron is the fundamental first rule of a templar’s life, though for many templars this means pleasing their templar superiors. Feared and often hated by their fellow citizens, templars are corrupt administrators, the only restraint on their authority are the practical considerations of their Master's wishes, their superiors ambitions, and the political landscape of their city state. In theory, a freshly minted templar can arrest any denizen in their Master's city, but the leaders of merchant houses and powerful nobles are protected by their connections, traded favors, and the coin to buy assassins if all else fails.

The world of templars is one of privilege and power, danger and intrigue. At the height of power any man or woman can expect to achieve, templars compete fiercely for the favor of their superiors and their Sorcerer King, making and breaking alliances to maintain and solidify their status and power.

Sorcerer Kings punish failure according to their desires, but many promising templar receive more than one chance once they've established themselves in their master's city-state. Still, the Sorcerer Kings are neither compassionate nor forgiving, and a templar who steps out of line can always been replaced.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Templars are found almost exclusively among the city states, but important client villages may be overseen by a templar directly.

Literacy: At 1st level, unlike most Athasians, templars are literate in any language they can speak.

Otherworldly Patron: A templar’s Otherwordly Patron is always their Sorcerer King.

Abalach-Re, First Vizier of Raam

Abalach-Re claims to be the emissary and chosen First Vizier of a mystic creature from beyond, ruling in its name instead of her own. Her templar are gurus and teachers who dispense the wisdom and lessons of this entity, the Being Beyond. Yet, despite their power and prestige, Raam’s templars have a tenuous hold over the city, which rejects most forms of authority. This, they claim, is by the design of Abalach-Re and her patron, but the lack of order spurs assassination attempts on her templar more than anything else. Raam is a city of armed camps which fight over wealth and power to their own detriment, where hunger constantly gnaws at the citys from a simple lack of secure farming. Only the raw power of the Queen and her templar give them any authority, and only city's willingness to unify against invaders protects Raam from conquest.

Expanded Spell List

Spell Level	Spells
1st	Cure Wounds, Bless
2nd	Lesser Restoration, Projection from Poison
3rd	Mass Healing Word, Spirit Guardians
4th	Guardian of Faith, Evard's Black Tentacles
5th	Hallow, Commune

Spritual Rites: At 1st level, Abalach-Re’s templar study the ceremonies of the Being Beyond, using these teachings to minister to the masses. You know Ceremony as a bonus spell. When you cast Ceremony as a Ritual during a ceremony, service, or other religious function, you may target a number of creatures you touch during the 10-minute casting time equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1). Each target benefits from the same option. Additionally, your Ceremony’s options are improved as listed below:

Coming of Age: You may use this option on the same target multiple times, but no more than once per day.
Dedication: You may use this option on the same target multiple times, but no more than once per day.
Funeral Rite: The body may be covered in a ritually prepared shroud, which costs 10 ceramics. The body cannot be animated as an undead, so long as the ritual shroud securely covers the corpse, even after the initial seven days. Only a Wish spell can bypass this protection.
Wedding: After the initial seven days, both members of the wedded couple may spend a bonus action to gain a +2 bonus to AC that lasts until the beginning of their next turn. This requires them to be within 30 feet of each other, and this effect may only be called upon once per long rest. It ends if it is dispelled (such as with Dispel Magic), the couple divorces, or one spouse dies.

Fool the Eyes: At 6th level, templars of Raam learn tricks to protect themselves from unsubtle attackers. Once per long rest, as a reaction to an attack that you are aware of, you may cast Mirror Image without using a spell slot. The level the spell is cast at is equal to your templar spell slot level.

At 14th level, you may use this feature even if you are not aware of the attack.

Willing Servants: Raam is a chaotic place, but the dead can be counted on to protect the templar who inter them. At 10th level, you know Summon Undead as a bonus spell. You may cast Summon Undead once per long rest without using a spell slot or a material component, and the spell is cast at a level equal to your templar spell slot. Additionally, your concentration on Summon Undead cannot be broken by damage.

Master's Path: A templar of Raam who lives long enough to reach their 14th level can sense when things are out of place, gaining Blindsense out to 30 feet. Additionally, poison is not as dangerous for the masters of the Being Beyond’s teachings: you gain resistance to poison damage and advantage on saving throws against poison.

If you already have resistance to poison damage, you gain immunity to poison. If you already have advantage on saving throws against poison, you gain immunity to the poisoned condition.

Andronopis, Dictator of Balic

Andropinis maintains the pretense of a republic in Balic, including elections of templars by patricians and freemen. Andropinis rules with a lighter touch than other Sorcerer Kings, preferring to appear as a statesman than a god, and so tolerates election upsets, so long as the candidates refrain from displeasing him. Indeed, templar who fail to win reelection are exiled or killed for their failure.

Balic’s templar wield power with a deft hand, appearing to cater to public interest and opinion, the better to maintain Adronpinis’ pretense, while working tirelessly to ensure that they retain their true master’s approval. Fortunately, Andronopisgives his templar the room to balance the Dictator's wishes against the needs of the people who elected them - most of the time.

Expanded Spell List

Spell Level	Spells
1st	Cure Wounds, Silent Image
2nd	Lesser Restoration, Blur
3rd	Mass Healing Word, Major Image
4th	Guardian of Faith, Confusion
5th	Hallow, Seeming

PART 3 | CLASSES

Personal Magnetism: Andropinis’ templar must have more personal appeal and magnetism than in other city states, but they are not shy about how they sway others.

At 1st level, you gain Friends as a bonus cantrip. The first time you cast Friends on a creature before your next long rest, its attitude does not become Hostile after the spell ends. You may prevent Friends from making a creature Hostile to you a number of times between long rests equal to half your proficiency modifier, rounded down (min. 1).

Magical Misdirection: Using illusion to misdirect opponents is a common political tool among Andropinis’ templars. At 6th level, when you cast an illusion spell that has a duration of 1 minute or longer, you can use your action to change the nature of that illusion (within the normal parameters for the spell) if you can see the illusion.

Adoring Masses: Gaining the respect and approval of the many citizens who vote for templar is important in career politics. At 10th level, you gain proficiency in Persuasion. If you are already proficient, you gain expertise in Persuasion, adding twice your proficiency bonus to Persuasion checks. Additionally, while you are not in combat, when you cast a spell that imposes the Charmed condition, you may choose an additional legal target within range of the spell.

Lies Made Real: Making good on promises is important for a successful templar, but sometimes there are too many wants and not enough to go around. In these situations, making people believe that you have kept your word, at least until the election is over, is important to retaining power.

At 14th level, you may cast Creation once between long rests without using a spell slot. When you cast Creation using this feature, the item or object you create lasts until you cast Creation using this feature again, or until one month passes.

Hamanu, the Lion of Urik

A master strategist and proud warrior, Hamanu demands obedience, intelligence, and cunning from his templar. Not given to caprice, Hamanu’s Law is comprehensive, and he expects his templars to execute its judgements faithfully. This does not mean that they are not open to bribery and personal interpretation, only that these activities are bound by the codes of his Law. Hamanu’s Law regulates everything, including criminality, so professional assassins, thieves, and others of such ilk may hang their sign if they obey the law and pay the proper tithes.

Hamanu's focus on planning and long-term goals leads to better organization and leadership among his templar, which helps in rooting out subversives and criminals who step outside Hamanu's codes.

Expanded Spell List

Spell Level	Spells
1st	Cure Wounds, Speak with Animals
2nd	Lesser Restoration, Zone of Truth
3rd	Mass Healing Word, Clairvoyance
4th	Guardian of Faith, Divination
5th	Hallow, Scrying

Hamanu’s Wisdom: At 1st level, you know Guidance as a bonus cantrip. Also, the first spell slot a templar of Hamanu expends to cast a Divination spell before their next short rest is refunded. Zone of Truth is considered a Divination spell for you.

Inquisitive: At 6th level, a templar of Hamanu may demand the truth from any citizen. You gain Zone of Truth as a bonus spell known. Creatures who enter your Zone of Truth are not automatically aware of the fact. Once, during the duration of a given casting of Zone of Truth, you may impose disadvantage on a creature rolling the saving throw for the spell.

Lion’s Roar: At 10th level, you can instill terror in those who would defy Hamanu’s will, roaring with the fury of the Lion. All creatures within a 30-foot cone of you must make a Charisma saving throw or drop whatever they are holding and become frightened for 1 minute. Maintaining this feature’s frightened condition(s) requires concentration, as if concentrating on a spell.

While frightened by this feature, a creature must make a Dash action and move away from you by the safest available route on each of its turns, unless there is nowhere to move. If the creature ends its turn in a location where it does not have line of sight to you, the creature can make a Charisma saving throw. On a successful save, the spell ends for that creature.

Once you use this feature, you must complete a long rest before you can use it again.

Avatar of the Lion: At 14th level, a templar of Hamanu can assume the form of a winged lion-man by spending an action, once between long rests. This transformation lasts for up to one minute, and provides the following benefits:

You are immune to fire and radiant damage.
You are immune to the charmed condition.
You gain a fly speed of 40 feet.
Maintaining the frightened condition(s) caused by your Lion’s Roar feature does not require concentration.
You have a +2 bonus to AC.
All your weapon attacks are magical, and you may use your Charisma modifier for attack or damage rolls with weapons.
You attack twice, instead of once, when you take the Attack action on your turn. This does not stack with features that grant extra attacks during an Attack action, such as Extra Attack, unless it is from a templar class feature.
You may attack with Eldritch Blast as a ranged spell attack or a melee spell attack.

This feature requires concentration, as if concentrating on a spell. Concentration on this feature cannot be broken by damage.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Kalak, the Tyrant of Tyr

Kalak is despised by his people, even for a Sorcerer King. His templar, called Black Cassocks (after their uniforms), are hated as well, relying on intimidation and brutality to keep the populace in line. These templars must walk a fine line between enforcing submission and inciting riots. Even if Kalak dispatches a defiler to purge a mob with fire, the templar responsible for letting it get out of hand in the first place will meet a grisly end. Kalak’s templar must be above reproach in their Sorcerer King’s eyes – he tolerates no dissent, and those who fail to obey without question are quickly purged.

Expanded Spell List

Spell Level	Spells
1st	Cure Wounds, Bane
2nd	Lesser Restoration, Detect Thoughts
3rd	Mass Healing Word, Wall of Sand
4th	Guardian of Faith, Phantasmal Killer
5th	Hallow, Bigby's Hand

Repress the Populace: At 1st level, you gain proficiency in Intimidation and gain Cause Fear as a bonus spell. Additionally, when you cast a spell that causes the frightened condition, you may cause one target affected by the spell to suffer disadvantage on their first saving throw against that spell. You may penalize saving throws this way a number of times between long rests equal to your proficiency modifier.

Root Out Dissent: A Black Cassock must be ready to arrest those who harbor thoughts of sedition or treason. At 6th level, you may cast Detect Thoughts once between long rests without spending a spell slot. If the creature fails their saving throw against your Detect Thoughts, they do not become aware that their thoughts are being probed, and you may cast Cause Fear on that creature immediately after Detect Thoughts ends without using a spell slot or requiring any spell components.

If the creature you cast Detect Thoughts on has surface thoughts that are disloyal to Kalak, Kalak’s law, or Kalak’s templar, they suffer disadvantage on their Wisdom saving throw to avoid deeper probing. If the creature fails its saving throw against deeper probing, they get no save against Cause Fear, if you choose to cast it on them using this feature.

Eldritch Burst: At 10th level, a Black Cassock learns how to channel their Eldritch Blast to drive off mobs or other clustered foes. When you cast Eldritch Blast, instead of the normal attacks, you may choose to affect a 15-foot radius burst around you or a 30 foot cone. Each creature takes 2d10 Force damage, or half that with a successful Dexterity saving throw.

If you know Agonizing Blast, you add your Charisma modifier to the damage dealt, and if you know Repelling Blast, you may apply the invocation to any creature who fails their Dexterity saving throw against this attack.

At 14 level, your Eldritch Burst deals 3d10 Force damage. At 17th level, it deals 4d10 Force damage.

Kalak's Hand: Few of Kalak’s Black Cassocks survive long enough to reach 14th level, and those who do have earned the closest thing Kalak has to trust. Their Sorcerer King grants them a greater latitude, signified with a special arcane bequeathment: once between long rests, you may cast any one wizard spell of 5th level or lower without spending a spell slot.

Lalai-Puy, Oba of Gulg

Lalai-Puy rules as the caretaker of the Crescent Forest and a goddess of her people. Unlike other Sorcerer Kings, who are usually regarded with fearful respect, Lalai-Puy is revered by her people, and her shaman-templar enforce her worship and will. They are rarely seen, often coming out at night and enacting Oba's will in darkness and shadow. Tending to the forest,the Oba's templars often end up in uncomfortable alliances with druids against Nibenay' minions, who ravage the Crescent forest without care.

Expanded Spell List

Spell Level	Spells
1st	Cure Wounds, Disguise Self
2nd	Lesser Restoration, Spike Growth
3rd	Mass Healing Word, Speak with Plants
4th	Guardian of Faith, Giant Insect
5th	Hallow, Wrath of Nature

Night Friend: The Oba’s templars use darkness and night to cover their entrance and egress. At 1st level, you gain proficiency in Stealth, and you may use your Charisma in place of your Dexterity when making Stealth checks. Also, once between long rests, you may ignore the verbal and somatic component requirements of a spell you cast.

Forest Steward: The shamanistic templar of Gulg use their Queen’s blessing to bring fertility to the land. At 6th level, once per long rest, you may cast Plant Growth without expending a spell slot. Your plant growth may become hostile, if you choose – you may also cast Spike Growth in an area affected by your Plant Growth, using the same action, and without expending a spell slot.

Defilers and forces aligned with Nibenay suffer 4d4 piercing damage for traveling through your Spike Growth, instead of 2d4 piercing damage.

Speak with the Grove: As they grow in power, the shaman-templar gain the ability to commune directly with nature. At 10th level, you may cast Commune with Nature once per day without using a spell slot. In addition to the information the spell normally provides, you become automatically aware of any defilers (other than Lalai-Puy) or Nibenese forces in the area. While in the area, your Eldritch Blast deals an additional 1d6 damage the first time it hits one of these foes in a turn.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Plague of Vermin: At 14th level, a shaman-templar can anathematize a foe, calling upon small insects and other vermin to descend on them in a hungry swarm. Once between long rests, you may cast Insect Plague without using a spell slot. If a Nibenese target or a defiler fails their save against the spell, it will follow them, flying 60 feet per round on your initiative if you choose - no action is needed. If there are multiple targets, you choose the one the swarm follows.

Defilers suffer disadvantage on the saving throw against the Insect Swarm, and if they fail their saving throw, they cannot cast spells until the end of your next turn.

Nibenay, the Shadow King of Nibenay

Nibenay’s Shadow Wives are his hand-picked servants, ceremonially wed to him before receiving his power. Always beautiful, strong women, these templars clothes reveal more flesh as they rise in rank. Spending most of their time in Nibenay’s walled-sub city, the Naggaramakam, the inner city is forbidden to any not given Niebnay’s dispensation. Shadow Wives are often dispatched to bring objects, records, and people of interest to the Shadow King back to Naggaramakam.

The Nibenese have little regard for the Crescent Forest, taking whatever is needed, and Nibenay’s court defilers are often escorted to lush areas of the forest to glut themselves on its energy. The Shadow King’s forces frequently battle the Gulgan warriors, who have dedicated themselves to defending the forest.

Nibenay keeps more court defilers than other Sorcerer Kings, assistants for his arcane experiments. Nibenay’s Shadow Wives serve their lord by keeping these wizards in line.

Expanded Spell List

Spell Level	Spells
1st	Cure Wounds, Protection From Evil & Good
2nd	Lesser Restoration, Enhance Ability
3rd	Mass Healing Word, Haste
4th	Guardian of Faith, Private Sanctum
5th	Hallow, Skill Empowerment

Shadow King’s Armor: Nibenay’s Wives do not suffer for protection, despite their lack of armor. At 1st level, you gain Armor of Shadows as a bonus invocation, even if you normally would not have invocations yet.

Nibenay’s Ward: Nibenay trains his Wives to defend themselves from mystical attacks, and to strip away arcane defenses from enemies. At 6th level, once between long rests, you may cast either Counterspell or Dispel Magic, using an effective spell slot equal to your Templar spell slot level.

Marked and Hunted: Proven templars are dispatched to hunt down items and people who interest the Shadow King, who usually disappear into the Naggaramakam and the clutches of Nibenay’s defilers, never to be seen again.

At 10th level, you may cast either Locate Object or Locate Person once per long rest without using a spell slot. A Locate Object or Locate Person cast with this feature can track a target as long as they are within 1 mile of you, and you only need a detailed description or detailed sketch of the creature or object to target that query with either spell. If you damage a creature with your Eldritch Blast while it is the target of your Locate Person, the creature’s speed is reduced by half until the start of your next turn. Additionally, you may automatically stabilize a creature targeted by your Locate Person if you reduce them to 0 hit points, regardless of how you dealt it damage.

Expanded Arcana: Nibenay’s most experienced templars are tutored in great arcane secrets, to better aid their master in his research and police his defilers. At 14th level, choose a second spell for your 6th and 7th level Mystic Arcanum. These spells can be any spell from the wizard spell list for that level. You may only cast each Mystic Arcanum spell level once between long rests, but you choose between the two spells you know.

When you gain your 8th level Mystic Arcanum, you choose two spells you can cast with those slots. One must be an 8th level warlock spell, and the other can be an 8th level wizard spell.

Additionally, the first time you cast a Mystic Arcanum between long rests, you regain a spent templar spell slot.

Tectuktitlay, Emperor of Draj

Tectuktitlay is a warrior-king who demands martial prowess from his templar, the Moon Priests. His priests officiate the blood sports of the arena, and often participate in ritual battles and trials by combat. When at war, captives are wont to end up as ritual sacrifices for the god instead of being assigned to some labor. Tectuktitlay rewards his templar who bring him valuable captives from the battlefield.

Wearing auspicious, ornate armor and carrying the best weapons they can afford, Draj’s templars are girded and trained for war from the first. No Draji templar can enter the service of their god without taking at least one life.

Warrior-King's Chosen: At 1st level, Moon priests gain proficiency with medium armor, shields, and two martial weapons of their choice. Moon priests may add their Charisma modifier instead of Dexterity or Strength to weapon attack and damage rolls with weapons they are proficient with.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Expanded Spell List

Spell Level	Spells
1st	Cure Wounds, Compelled Duel
2nd	Lesser Restoration, Moonbeam
3rd	Mass Healing Word, Crusader's Mantle
4th	Guardian of Faith, Staggering Smite
5th	Hallow, Holy Weapon

Smite of the Two Moons: At 6th level, Moon priests gain the Eldritch Smite invocation as a bonus invocation.

Capture and Collar: At 10th level, when you critically hit a creature with an attack, the creature is incapacitated until the start of your next turn.

When you drop a creature to 0 hit points, you may choose to have it automatically stabilize, regardless of how you dealt the damage. If you do, you regain 1d8 + your Charisma modifier hit points, and the creature cannot regain consciousness for 1 minute, even if its hit points are restored above 0.

A Remove Curse spell cast on the creature will allow it to awaken normally, if its hit points are raised to at least 1.

Twin Moon’s Blessing: At 14th level, when you or another creature within 30 feet makes a saving throw, you may add your Charisma modifier as a bonus to that saving throw as a reaction.

You may use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency modifier between long rests.

Oronis, Shepherd of Kurn

A carefully kept secret, Oronis is the only Sorcerer King to turn his back on defiling. After centuries of laboreous experimentation, Orinis ceased his Dragon transformation and develop a preserver equivalent. Now an Avangeon, Oronis keeps his distance from the Tablelands while perpetrating the falsehood that Kurn is in decline, and has been for centuries. In truth, Oronis is slowly relocating his people to a new city unknown to the other Sorcerer Kings. Oronis’s templars work with the city’s citizens for the good of all, and are expected to act with an altruism rarely seen on Athas. The other Champions regard Oronis as an irrelevant recluse, with a city distant enough and strong enough that it isn't worth conquering, but dwindling to nothing.

Expanded Spell List

Spell Level	Spells
1st	Cure Wounds, Sleep
2nd	Lesser Restoration, Zone of Truth
3rd	Mass Healing Word, Blink
4th	Guardian of Faith, Private Sanctum
5th	Hallow, Geas

Demands of Duty: Oronis’ templar are expected to maintain the illusion that Kurn is in decline. At 1st level, you gain proficiency in Deception. Additionally, you may cast Charm Person once between long rests without using a spell slot.

Stalwart Mind: Templars of Kurn are trained to protect their minds from intrusion. At 6th level, you know Intellect Fortress as a bonus spell.

You may cast Intellect Fortress once per long rest without using a spell slot, and it is considered to have been cast at the level of your templar spell slots. When you cast Intellect Fortress using this feature, you may cast it as a reaction.

Binding Command: At 10th level, a templar of Oronis can use enchantment to force a creature to keep the secrets of Kurn. This is used as a mercy, to ensure secrecy without bloodshed.

You gain Geas as a bonus spell. You may cast Geas once between long rests without using a spell slot. When you cast Geas on a willing, incapacitated, or unconscious target, it gains the following modifications:

It lasts indefinitely, as if cast using a 9th level spell slot.
Instead of rolling damage, the target takes 50 psychic damage if they go against the restrictions or compulsion of the Geas.
This Geas is immune to detection by Diviniation spells and similar effects.
The Geas can only be lifted by you, a higher ranking templar of Oronis, Oronis himself, or a Wish spell.

Illusionary Prosperity: This powerful illusion is the primary means of hiding Kurn’s true state. At 14th level, you may cast Mirage Arcane using your 7th level Mystic Arcanum slot. Your Mirage Arcane is empowered by Oronis with the following benefits:

You can add creatures to the illusion. They cannot be especially fearsome or noteworthy, and a maximum CR of 3, and only interact with others in a basic, but believable manner. They do not attack except in self-defense of themselves or other people created by the illusion, and the illusions cannot kill. All the damage the illusions deal fades after an hour, and if they reduce a creature to 0 hit points, that creature automatically stabilizes.
Items up to 10 cubic feet in volume that are removed from the illusion linger for a time before fading away, as if they were a product of a Creation spell:

Creation Material Durations

Material	Duration
Vegetable Matter	1 day
Stone/Crystal	12 hours
Metals	1 hour
Gems	10 minutes
Adamantine/Mithril	1 minute

PART 3 | CLASSES

Wizard

Shunned and feared, wizards and their magic are responsible for the state of Athas. Arcane magic draws on the life force of the land itself, and those who drain it with abandon have turned the Tablelands into the wastelands of today. Few can tell the difference between the defilers who destroy the land and preservers who do not, and many would not care even if they did. Wizardry is illegal in the city states, punishable by enslavement or death, and many villages and tribes have laws or taboos against wizardry.

The antipathy most Athasians have for wizards should not be understated. One of the few times the oppressed masses of a city-state will gladly aid templars is when hunting down and eliminating a wizard. Only in Kurn are wizards accepted, and only preservers.

However, preservers have a loose network of allies interested in stemming the damage caused by the Sorcerer Kings and restoring the land, the Veiled Alliance, and most druids and rangers know that not all wizards are inherently wicked. While druids and their ilk dislike wizards in general, they ruthlessly hunt defilers. Preservers are watched and barred from sacred spaces, but if they do not harm the land, they are left alone, though many druids will expect preservers to help protect Athas, in payment for the energy they draw from the world.

Defilers, on the other hand, have no friends or allies, only lackies they can entice with greed and power or intimidate into service, and all hands are raised against them, except for clerics of Magma, Silt, or Sun.

Unlike other Athasians, all wizards are literate in any langauge they can speak.

Defiler

Defilers tap into the life of the land and consume as much as they can with abandon, leaving behind sterile, ashen land whenever they prepare spells. Further, as their power grows, a defiler’s aura becomes tainted by their thirst for power and endless hunger. Even worse, defiling is addictive, and few wizards who defile can refrain from the gluttonous practice. Defilers disdain subtlety in most cases, preferring intimidation and brandishing their power as a weapon. Ruling through fear when they can rule at all, defilers are heavy handed tyrants by necessity. Most are hermits hiding in the wastes, who avoid conflict unless victory is certain or battle is unavoidable.

Defilers are typicaly motivated by a lust for power. Power draws them to the taboo, and power drives them on when they leave dead land behind and their friends and loved ones abandon them. Power affords them obediance, if not respect or loyalty, and bends the world to their will when all hands are raised against them. Up until a druid's claws, a creature's maw, or a mob's noose ends their lives, defilers sacrifice more and more for the singular end of their ambition.

Only a rare few accept defilers:

The Sorcerer Kings keep court defilers to take care of magic too petty for their patron’s attention. These defilers are kept on short leashes and disposed of if they show any real ambition or grow too powerful, to stop them from ever becoming a rival.
Silt Clerics will tolerate a defiler who spreads Silt with erosion, while Magma and Sun clerics are largely indifferent to them. Rain clerics, druids, and all elemental clerics despise defilers and will kill them if possible.
Among the elven raider tribes, leaving destroyed land behind with the dawn is simple enough, and they care little about the angery locals, so a defiler or two is not a problem - at first. The defiler' cursed auras and unclean magic inevitably results in exile.
Some Dray villages accept defilers, if they prove their strength and cunning. Like elves, the growing unease defilers inflict on others bring more and more challengers, and a defiler who destroys land important to the villiage's survival will be killed.

Rajaat's Champions

The Sorcerer Kings are the most power defilers on Athas, and should suffer all of the consequences of defiling, including the defiler's cursed aura. While the Sorcerer King's spirits are horribly scarred, Rajaat knew that his Champions would need to be leaders of men, able to command respect and loyalty, not only fear. When Rajaat empowered the Champions at the Pristine Tower, he imbued them with power far beyond that of normal defilers, including the ability to supress their unclean aura.

Unlike other defilers, the Sorcerer Kings can supress the Stained Aura, Defiler's Mark, and Corrupted Spirit defiler features. They are affected by the mechanics of the Twisted Spirit feature, but they do not exude any external signs of their evil.

Rumors circulate that Kalak commands through fear because he is weaker than the other Sorcerer Kings. There may be some truth to that rumor, but not in the way the gossip mongers could ever suspect.

Defiler's Destruction

Defilers destroy a circle of land centered on their square as they prepare spells. The radius of the circle is 5 feet times the highest-level spell they prepare, plus an additional 5 feet. Thus, if the defiler's highest level spell is 1st, the defiled land is a 10 ft radius, while a 17th level defiler with a 9th level spell slot defiles the land in a 50 ft radius. Defiled land is barren, the topsoil and all plant life are reduced to ash, and standing water in the radius is reduced to dry, dusty Silt.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Animals are not damaged, but living creature in the defiling radius are afflicted with great pain, suffering disadvantage on all ability checks and attack rolls while they remain in affected area. Plant creatures who remain in the area suffer 1d10 Necrotic damage per 5 feet in the defiling radius each minute, and this damage ignores resistance or immunity. A plant creature reduced to 0 hit points this way dies and crumbles to ash.

Defiler Archetype

Devour Energy: At 2nd level, when the wizard prepares spells, they devour all the energy in the land around them, swelling with power. Your Arcane Recovery feature restores a maximum number of spell levels equal to your wizard level, instead of half your wizard level. Further, you can refresh spell slots up to 6th level with your Arcane Recovery.

Stained Aura: At 2nd level, defiling stains your aura, marking you as unclean. You suffer disadvantage on any ability check to hide that you are a wizard or a defiler.

If your alignment is good, it becomes neutral. Your alignment cannot be good for as long as you remain a defiler.

Defiler's Potency: At 6th level, a defiler learns to harness their glut of energy to enhance their spells. Choose two Metamagic features from the Sorcerer class. You can apply them to your spells using the normal rules for Metamagic, except that you spend spell levels from your Arcane Recovery feature as if they were sorcery points when using your Metamagic features.

You gain a 3rd Metamagic option at 10th level, and a fourth at 14th level.

Defiler's Mark: At 6th level, the unease caused by your defiling grows worse as the stain of your craft spreads across your soul. You suffer disadvantage to all Persuasion checks with living creatures, and you suffer disadvantage on any Deception checks made to convince living creatures that you are innocent, harmless, or somehow not dangerous.

Defiled Spells: At 10th level, when you cast a spell, you can rip at the life force of a living creature. You can only draw life energy from plant life, but the attempt debilitates others.

When you cast a spell, you may choose a living creature within 30 feet. They suffer disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and skill checks they make before the end of their next turn, as pain wracks their body.

If the target is also a plant creature, they suffer Necrotic damage equal to the spell's level. This damage ignores damage resistance and immunity. You regain a spent Arcane Recovery spell level, up to your normal maximum.

Corrupted Spirit: At 10th level, your corruption is so severe that all living creatures see you as a threat. You automatically fail all Persuasion and Deception checks made with living breings. While this does not give affected creatures any magical ability to know the truth, they refuse to give you the benefit of the doubt and automatically assume the worst.

Your alignment becomes evil if it not already, and remains evil for as long as you remain a defiler.

Obsidian Defiling: A terrible secret of defiling is that pure obsidian orbs can serve as a focus to tear life energy from any living creature, not just plants. At 14th level, you learn this secret. When you cast a spell, you can include an obsidian sphere with a minimum ceramic piece cost of 1,000 * the spell's level as an additional focus. If you do, your Defiled Spells class feature treats all living creatures as if they they were plant ctearures.

Even worse, if there are other living beings within your defiling radius when you prepare spells, and you have an obsidian sphere with a cost equal to 1,000 cp * your highest spell level, you can draw on their life force to augment the energy you steal from the land (the sphere is not consumed). For every 5 helpless, restrained, or willing creatures who remain within your defiling radius while you prepare spells, you get one of the following benefits:

If you do not use the Spell Preparation and Terrain rules, you gain an extra Arcane Recovery spell level for every 5 non-plant creatures you draw life energy from, to a maximum of half your wizard level, rounded down.
If you do use the Spell Preparation and Terrain rules, you consider the land one stage more fertile for every five non-plant creatures you draw energy from. If you draw energy from 50 creatures, you do not harm the land, and prepare spells as if you drew from Abudant terrain.

Creature you draw life energy from reduce their maximum hit points by 40. Their maximum hit points remain reduced until they receive a Greater Restoration spell cast using a 7th level spell slot, or complete 7 long rests. Creatures whose hit points are reduced to 0 this way crumble to ash, leaving their equipment behind unharmed.

Defilers in the service of Sorcerer Kings who reach this level of expertise have outlived their usefulness and willl be disposed of.

Defilers and PCs

Defilers are not meant for player characters. They are undesputed villains, particularly after low levels. While nothing specifically prevents a PC from playing one, defilers find that interacting with others becomes more and more difficult, until those around them act on their fear and hatred. The destruction of their spell preparation leaves a trail that druids and other antagonists will use to track them. The archetype is also far stronger than a balanced PC archetype should be. Defiling attracts practitioners with its raw power, but most characters, including other PCs, will grow to see the defiler as a threat or monster to be destroyed.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Twisted Soul: At 14th level, your defiling has twisted and corrupted your soul to the point that it is all but impossible to recover. You exude a palpable aura of death, and anyone who can see you realizes that you are a deadly threat. Detect Magic detects that you are a defiler. You are affected by spells and effects as if you were an aberration and a fiend, and spells that detect aberrations or fiends detect that you are a defiler.

Turning from the Path

Redemption is a difficult task for a defiler, that requires ever more difficult restrictions and self-discipline to throw off the temptation and addiction to the elation of swelling with life energy. Inexperienced defilers can turn from the path with dedication and, perhaps, an occasional death threat. More experienced defilers have felt the rush of consumption for long enough, and deeply enough, that turning away is a truly herculean task. Redemption is rare. Few defilers even think of the possibility, much less consider it, and others will usually just kill a defiler they encounter.

To be redeemed, a defiler must abide by any restrictions listed below, and succeed on any listed saves or checks, for a number of months equal to their class level to throw off the hunger of defiling. A defiler who succeeds in doing so removes all defiler archetype features and replaces them with preserver archetype features.

Before reaching 6th level, defiling is more a question of training and discipline than raw addiction. Some preservers are willing to try and turn a neophyte wizard from defiling, but few others.

You must refrain from refreshing your Arcane Recovery at each long rest. If you do not, you give up on redemption and all time spent towards it is lost.
You do not have to prepare spells after any given long rest, but if you do, you must make an Intelligence check, DC 5 + your highest-level spell slot, to refrain from defiling after each long rest you spend preparing spells. If you fail, you defile half as much land as normal, and lose your time accumulated that month towards redemption, but not previous months.

Once a defiler reaches 6th level, but before they reach 10th level, the hunger sets in, and abstaining becomes quite difficult.

You must refrain from refreshing your Arcane Recovery and your highest-level spell slots at each long rest. If you do not, you give up on redemption and all time spent towards it is lost.
To refrain from preparing spells after any given long rest, you must make an Intelligence saving throw, DC 10 + your highest-level spell slot. If you prepare spells, you must make an Intelligence check, DC 5 + your highest-level spell slot. If you fail, you lose your time accumulated that month, and defile half as much land as normal.
If you defile the land, you must make a DC 10 Wisdom saving throw or give up on redemption entirely, until a notable or significant interaction or event convinces you it is worth trying again.

A defiler who has reached 10th level, but is not yet 14th level, is almost too far gone to throw off the addiction.

You must refrain from refreshing your Arcane Recovery and your two highest-level spell slots at each long rest. If you do not, you give up on redemption and all time spent towards it is lost.
To refrain from preparing spells after any given long rest, you must make an Intelligence saving throw, DC of 15 + your highest-level spell slot. If you prepare spells, you must make an Intelligence check, DC 10 + your highest-level spell slot. If you fail, you lose your time accumulated that month, and defile half as much land as normal.
If you defile the land, you must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or give up on redemption entirely, until a notable or significant interaction or event convinces you it is worth trying again.

Once a defiler reaches 14th level, there is little chance they can be redeemed, and even the few who would try to help a less dissolute defiler will usually just kill one this far gone. If a defiler who has tasted animal life can even try to abandon their addiction, they must either succeed at a difficult 20 Wisdom saving throw or suffer a truly wrenching experience, unlikely for a wizard who’s unclean aura has driven off anyone and everyone they’ve ever considered a friend or loved one. After that, only the aid of potent magics or psionics, along with a truly draconian regime that likely involves Antimagic Field, confinement, and years of effort offer any chance of redeeming the defiler, and these measures are as likely to kill or break the defiler as help them.

If a defiler is redeemed at 6th level or higher, they still retain a stain of defiling. They keep the Defiler's Mark feature until they find and convince a druid to help them atone, which is no easy task. Most druids will try to kill a repentant defiler, only offering the quest if they are in desperate need or if they defiler is notably more powerful than them. If the druid agrees, the reformed defiler must complete a quest with at least 1 encounter that is 2 CR higher than their level. If they succeed, the druid will cleanse the reformed defiler, removing the Defiler's Mark feature, and the last stains of defiling.

If a defiler who was redeemed at 6th level or later ever defiles, for any reason, they fall, and replace their preserver archetype features with defiler archetype features.

Preserver

Preservers draw life from the land carefully and slowly, taking what Athas can provide to avoid destroying the environment. Preservers are careful not to draw on the same land too often, probing the terrain to see how much energy it can spare. This does not stop superstitious mobs from lynching any wizard they find, ignorant of the difference between preservesr and defilers, if they would even care in the first place.

Hiding as a matter of necessity, preservers and often set up fronts as mystics and lore keepers, or sometimes as clerics. Literacy is illegal in the city states, so preservers who live under templar authority must be especially careful not to expose themselves.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Reading is associated with wizards, nobles, and templars, so many Athasians mistrust someone who is literate. The Veiled Alliance, a loose organization that opposes the Sorcerer Kings, can provide some protection, if the preserver can find a contact and gain their trust - the Alliance does not sacrifice itself for the foolish, or the many for the one.

Even among tribes and villages in the wastes, known preservers attract superstitious ire, and the templar will spare no effort to track down and eliminate any suspected wizards in towns under their protection. Elven tribes and Dray settlements are the only groups that freely accept preservers, and only among their own tribe members. They keep them hidden from the outside world, a much easier task when the wizard does not leave a trail of defiled land to follow.

Preserver Archetype

Preservers do not wield the raw power of Defilers, but they can hide among other people if they are careful. As preservers draw power from the land, they gain an affinity for it, and many come to champion the restoration of Athas, using their power to slowly heal the environment and reverse the damage of defilers.

Concealed Casting: Preservers learn to hide their magic as something else, usually psionics. At 2nd level, you gain proficiency in Slight of Hand and Deception, if you do not already have them. You have established a cover of some kind, usually as a mystic, but potentially as a cleric. If you don’t give others a reason to suspect that you are a wizard, you automatically conceal your spells as mystic powers or cleric spells.

When lying or dissembling to convince others that you are a member of your cover class, or to hide that you are a wizard, you can make an Intelligence (Deception) check instead of a Charisma (Deception) check.

When a member of your cover class sees you casting a spell that is not normally available to your cover class, or when a druid, wizard, or templar witnesses you casting a spell, you must make an extra effort to conceal your casting.

When this happens, use your reaction and make an Intelligence (Slight of Hand) check opposed by the Wisdom (Insight) of the witness(es). If you succeed, you convincingly hide the spell as a mystic power, cleric spell, or other ability appropriate for your cover. If you fail, they realize that something isn't right about your spells or powers, and become suspicious. Suspicious characters who succeed on an Intelligence (Arcana) check (difficult 15, or 10 if they are also a wizard) realize you cast wizard magic.

Even if a suspicious character does not identify the spell as wizard magic, they will take appropraite action to learn more. Unless bribed, templars will detain someone caught using strange powers or odd magics for interrogation.

If you have class levels in the class you are using for your cover, you gain advantage on the Slight of Hand check; however suspicious characters actively scrutinizing your character (as a bonus action they take on their turn, and lasts until the start of their next turn) when you cast the spell gain advantage on their Wisdom(Insight) check.

Lonely Researcher: Sharing knowledge is diffciult and dangerous for wizards, so preservers focus on personal research. At 2nd level, and whenever you gain a wizard level, you add three spells to your spell book, instead of two.

One with the Land: At 6th level, your ability to draw energy from the land improves, and you can reach out farther to avoid harming the environment. If you are using the optional rules for Spell Preparation and Terrain, you consider the land one step more fertile for preparing spells, except for Dead land, to a maximum of Infertile.

At 14th level, you consider the land two steps more fertile when preparing spells (to a maximum of Infertile), and you can prepare spells on Dead land as if it were Desolate.

A Wizard's Spellbook

Wizards are literate and disguise their spell books to evade capture. Even defilers disguise their spell books, to help protect the source of their power. Wizards rarely use actual books, instead concealing their spells in various ways, using stone etchings, sketches, carved staves, arrangements of beads, knotted hair or string, mosaics, and more. Discerning that an object records wizard spells requires an Intelligence(Arcana) check against a difficulty of 11 + the wizard’s proficiency modifier + the wizard’s Intelligence modifier. Illiterate characters suffer Disadvantage on this check, while other wizards have advantage. While their methods of gathering energy differ, defilers and preservers use the same spells. Some wizards, especially defilers, track down other wizards to steal their secrets.

Preserver Bond: Bonding with the land and drawing energy from it creates an affinity for the terrain you use to prepare spells. At 6th level, after you prepare spells during a long rest, you gain several advantages that apply in the specific terrain type that you drew energy from (salt flats, boulder fields, stony barrens, etc):

You gain advantage on Survival checks and Animal Handling checks with animals native to the terrain.
Once before your next long rest, you can cast Summon Beast without using a spell slot. The summoned beast takes the form of an animal native to that terrain.
When foraging, you find twice as much food and water.
Your group cannot become lost except by magical means

These benefits last until you complete your next long rest.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Restore the Weary: At 10th level, your preservation becomes a catalyst, allowing you to share more the land’s energy without draining the environment.

During a long rest, when you prepare your spells, you and a number of other creatures equal to your Intelligence modifier gain the following benefits:

They add your Intelligence modifier to every hit die rolled to recover hit points.
A creature at full hit points or healed to full hit points during the rest may spend a hit die and gain temporary hit points equal to the amount of that the die would have healed. These temporary hit points last until used, the creature’s next long rest, or they are overwritten by other temporary hit points.
The creature removes an additional level of fatigue. Even if they normally cannot reduce their fatigue due to starvation, dehydration, or other effects, they still remove one level.

Those affected by this feature are not aware of it unless they are druids or preservers themselves. This feature cannot be used on defiled or Dead land.

Return to the Land: At 14th level, you can expend spell levels from your Arcane Recovery feature when you complete a long rest, using the energy to heal the land and gaining a boon from the spirits.

When you complete a long rest, you may spend any number of spell levels from your Arcane Recovery feature. For each spell level you spend, you improve the terrain quality of a 5-foot square of land by one step, including turning Dead and defiled land into Desolate land. Restored land is subject to the environment, so unless the surrounding terrain can sustain the improved land (such as on the border of a more fertile terrain type), it will be degraded by surrounding conditions. However, a slow return of energy over the course of months and years can improve the land in the long term.

In exchange for this sacrifice, the spirits bestow a gift. You and the DM each choose one Druid spell of a level equal to or less than the number of Arcane Recovery spell levels you spent restoring the land, up to 5th level. You may cast each of the chosen spells once, without using a spell slot, before your next long rest. Those spells are cast using an effective spell slot equal to the number of Arcane Recovery spell levels you spent restoring the land, to a maximum of 5th level spell slots.

Falling to Temptation

There is a Temptation to Defile that can tug on any preserver in dire need or a difficult situation. It is only a small inkling at first, but it can grow stronger and stronger with each glut of life energy, eroding discipline and care. Eventually, a preserver who defiles too much will turn into what they were taught to hate.

A preserver can defile when they cast a spell, adding any metamagic option available to a sorcerer by defiling a number of 5-foot squares of land equal to the number of sorcery points the metamagic option requires. When the preserver does this, they must make a DC 10 Wisdom saving throw, plus 1 for every previous defiling that year, or gain the Stained Aura defiler feature.

Once a presever has the Stained Aura feature, they must seek out help from a druid to cleanse the taint. Druids are usually ambivalent when approached in this manner, but at this point, when the corruption is relatively minor, the druid usually agrees, assigning a quest with at least one encounter 2 CR above the level of the preserver and which furthers the cause of Athas.

If the wizard succeeds, the druid will cleanse their spirit, using a Lesser Restoration. The spell alone is not enough - the quest is a form of atonement that Athas requires to purify the wizard.

This help comes at a price - once purified, the wizard is marked by the druid. Word of the wizard will be sent to other druids, who will know to watch them. The wizard will be approached to show their commitment to Athas with further quests, which are best not refused, but will be properly rewarded. Once purified, the perseverer will become an ally of Athas or have word of their wizardry spread far and wide. If the druids learn of the preserver defiling again, for any reason, they will kill them if they can.

If the preserver defiles again while they have the Stained Aura feature, they gain the Defiler's Mark feature, with no save. At this point, they can choose to become a defiler, exchanging their Preserver archetype and features for the Defiler archetype and features.

If the preserver does not, they must make a Wisdom saving throw, difficulty 10, when they prepare spells. If they fail, they defile land as if they were a defiler, and gain the benefits of the Defiler’s Devour Energy feature, doubling their Arcane Recovery spell levels before their next long rest. The preserver must then make an Intelligence saving throw, with a DC of 10 + the number of times they have defiled since gaining the Defiler's Mark feature, intentional or not, including defiling for individual spells. If the wizard fails the saving throw, the preserver becomes a defiler, and exchanges their archetype and features accordingly.

Druids are much less likely to help a preserver with the Defiler's Mark feature recover. Killing the wizard prevents a potential threat surviving to scourge the land, and a wizard who did not heed the warnings when they felt the stain on their aura lacks the discipline to be trusted. However, if the druid is desparate enough, or if the preserver is powerful enough that killing them isn't a realistic option, then the druid assigns a quest with at least one encounter that is 3 CR above the preserver's level.

PART 3 | CLASSES

If the preserver succeeds, the druid can begin cleansing the preserver by casting Greater Restoration, but they may need the preserver to provide the material component, or send word for a stronger druid to come, if they cannot cast the spell themself. This removes the Defiler's Mark feature, but the Stained Aura feature remains, which can be removed as described above. If a druid has already gone through the trouble of allowing a preserver to begin cleansing themself, they will usually assign a second quest to complete their atonement. A preserver who is allowed to cleans themselves of the Defiler's Mark is watched even more vigilantly, and assigned tasks by the druids regularly.

Optional Rule: Preparing Spells and Terrain

Since wizards prepare spells by drawing on the life force of land around them, their abilities and effectiveness changes based on the fertility of the land they draw on. When a wizard prepares spells, confer the chart below and apply the appropriate modifiers. This rule is recommended, but it is not strictly necessary if a group does not want to deal with the additional details.

Preparing Spells and Terrain

Terrain Type	Examples	Effects
Dead	Obsidian Planes Defiled Land Volcanic Slopes	Wizards cannot prepare spells, refresh Arcane Recovery spell levels, or use other supernatural wizard class features, except for ones that affect how they gather energy for spells.
Desolate	Salt Flats Silt Sea	Wizards do not refresh their Arcane Recovery spell levels, and lose one spell slot per spell level. Defiling radius increases*
Barren	Boulder Fields Stony Barrens Rocky Badlands	Wizards refresh half the normal number of Arcane Recovery spell levels, and they lose a spell slot from their two highest spell levels. Defiling radius increases*
Infertile	City-States Scrublands	Normal Arcane Recovery and spell preparation.
Fertile	Grassy Plains Savannahs Mud Flats Swamps Irregated Fields	Wizards refresh their normal number of Arcane Recovery spell levels, plus an additional 3 spell levels above their normal maximum. This bonus cannot exceed the wizard's class level.
Abundant	Gardens Forests Jungles Oceans	Wizards refresh an additional 5 levels of Arcane Recovery above their normal maximum. This bonus cannot exceed the wizard's class level.

*Note: If a Defiler prepares spells in Barren or Desolate terrain, their defiling radius increases to their highest level spell slot + 3, even if the defiler loses spell slot(s) due to the lack of life. Defilers have little control over how they gether energy, consuming more land and getting less in return in barren places.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Advanced Beings

Athas lacks gods, but it has beings who dominate the land with incredible power. The Champions of Rajaat rule by virtue of not only of the power Rajaat stole from the sun, but also their defiling magic. Very few know that a sufficiently powerful defiler can transform into a dragon - the only dragons found on Athas. This long, painful transformation leaves the defiler prone to bouts of mad rage and requires numerous components and a great deal of treasure, but it makes the defiler immortal and gives them massive magical power. The ability of dragons to steal and shape life energy is far beyond what any mortal defiler could ever hope to achieve, and is not limited to plants.

This is the true reason why the Sorcerer-Kings persecute wizards and ban literacy. By controlling knowledge and learning, they can eliminate any true competition. The rare defiler who survives to achieve the mastery needed to begin the transformation is ruthlessly exerminated by the Sorcerer Kings, and their own court defilers are executed long before they can even consider the attempt.

After Borys' accelerated his transformation's completion, he spent decades rampaging across the Tablelands, ravaging what survived the Cleansing Wars. Since then, Sorcerer-Kings leerily watch each other. Fear of another rampage drove them to beytray Dregoth when he grew close to completing his own transformation. The other Sorcerer-Kings sacked his city, Giunstenal, and murdered the aspiring Dragon. Borys, for his part, welcomes the infighting, which ensures his supremacy as THE Dragon of the Tablelands.

What the Sorcerer-Kings do not know, but some suspect, is that preservers can attempt a similar transformation. As far as they know, no preserver has tried, and it may be impossible. Not only is it possible, but Oronus of Kurn secretly reversed his dragon transformation and has begun transforming into its counterpart, an avangion: a gossamar-winged, insect-like creature. Unlike dragons, avangions are fonts of energy, who fuel their own spells and are even capable of restoring life to the land. More importantly, the avangion transformation inflicts no madness or easily tracked, corrupting sacrifices that scar the land. Because of this, Oronus is able to maintain a facade of decline as he relocates his city, better to ensure secrecy and security as he continues his transformation.

Out of all the other Sorcerer Kings, only Lalai-Puy, the self-styled protector of the forest, would be interested in reversing her transformation in this way, but Oronus has no reason to trust her or her dreams of godhood over his own hand-picked apprentices, recruited from Kurn's citizens.

Court Preservers?

Why don't the Sorcerer Kings keep court preservers instead of court defilers? Preservers don't have a transformation spell, as far as the Sorcerer Kings know, they don't cause harm to the the Sorcerer King's land, and they aren't as automatically treacherous as defilers. As with most decisions, the reasons are based on self-interest and politics:

First, defilers can be easier to control - since a defiler can't hide their energy gathering, a defiler ordered to refrain from gathering life energy would have to go to elaborate lengths to memorize spells and avoid notice.
Second, the Defiler's Mark means they have a hard time gaining allies. While members of the Sorcerer King's court may make short-term bargains with a court defiler, long term relationships or loyalty almost never happens. Conversly, while the Veiled Alliance never makes overtures to court defilers, they would try to recruit a court preserver.
Third, court defilers cement the belief that wizardry is evil in the eyes of the Sorcerer King's citizens, which gives them something to focus their hatred on instead of the powers that oppress them. A court defiler may be beyond reach, but the witch uncovered in the market? She is as good as dead.
Finally, defilers and preservers are natural enemies. Their approach to magic is dramatically different, with one path exploiting the land in destructive, addictive cycles and the other forming a symbiotic bond with it. Defilers consider preservers utterly contemptible, and preservers consider defilers to be abominations.

Still, a few Sorcerer Kings make use of preservers. Oronis of Kurn, naturally, only permits preservers in New Kurn. Lalai-Puy also keeps court preservers to fulfill her role as protector of the forest. It is difficult for the Oba to restrain her animalistic aggression towards her preservers, but their worshipful attitude mollifies her instincts most of the time. The Oba selects only zealous subjects to join her select cadre of preservers, who are carefully watched by her templars. Gulg's citizens believe that the Oba's wizards are cleansed by their goddess - other preservers are still persecuted. Rarely, an arrested preserver is offered a chance to serve, but these offers only come from the Oba herself to noteworthy wizards who do not have any ties to the Veiled Alliance, and they must be fully committed to her faith.

Hamanu of Urik developed an alterate solution. Other than Hammanu's court defilers, wizardry is still punishable by death, but as everywhere, some wizards slip through. Bribery is legal and regulated in Urik, and by tracking bribes and other trades, Hamanu is able to track hidden preservers in his city with some consistency. By crushing activities that do not support his interests, while allowing the Veiled Alliance to deal with troublesome court officials and nobles, he puts this thorn in his side to use. At a few points in his city's history, Hamanu even used his hidden wizards against threats to the city that demanded more magical power than he was willing or able to harness. Afterwards, the wizards were given a choice: a reward and life in exile to a village, or an unwinnable battle against a Sorcerer King and a city state. Naturally, most chose the former. One such village grew to be a threat, but after Hamanu's army exterminated every man, woman, and child, the remaining preservers Hamanu permits in his villages have learned not to bare their fangs at the Lion of Urik, and to come when summoned.

PART 3 | CLASSES

Planes of Athas

Athas has no true gods, and is cut off from most planes. The four elemental planes exist for Athas, but do not match the elments of the other settings. They wage wars against once another and the paraelements: Magma, Rain, Silt, and Sun.

Theare are no Outer Planes near Athas. The other planes of Athas are the Grey, the bleak, featureless afterlife, and the Black, a realm of all possibilities.

The Gray

Dead souls drift to the Grey, where they dissolve into the background energy of the plane. Only ressurection or being raised as undead stops this fate.

In the near-Gray, where the Gray bumps up against Athas, one can see a dead reflection of what once was. Ruins dot the grim landscape, and spirits of the dead populate these strange places. Here, the ruins of crumbled, but largely entact buildings host recently deceased souls, but as one journeys to the far-Gray, the ruins become more and more decayed, the landscape and souls erroding until nothing remains but an endless gray miasma. Souls and ruins drift further into the Gray over time, slowly diminishing as they float away, until they dissipate entirely into the fog. The far-Gray is deadly to the living, but some occult rumors claim that portals leading out of the Gray, and escape from Athas, exist in the far-Gray.

Souls can be pulled from the Gray to animate undead. Relative mindless undead, such as common zombies and skeletons, are animated by ambient Gray energies, but more intelligent undead possess a soul. In places with a great deal of death, the film between Athas and the Gray frays, and dead souls can slip back onto Athas. Howecver, unless they can find a body, they will eventually be sucked back. Places of truly horrific death may form permanent breaches between the Gray and Athas, where the dead rule and the livivng are only tolerated at their sufferance. Such breaches are spread across the Obsidian Planes, the site of a terrible calamity where defiling magic destroyed vast span of land and ended civilizations.

Undead are often foes of the living, but are not innately evil. Death does little to improve one's disposition or view of the world, much less the bleak afterlife of the Gray, but thinking undead can have a variety of motives. Some are neutral, and a few are even good. Thinking undead are often passionate, as stronger, more driven souls are more likely to return to their corpses, and often obsess over unfinished business. They remember their past lives, but without the spark of life their drives tend towards extremes. An undead parent still loves their children (or hates them), but is much more likely to be overprotective and demanding. Thinking undead, espeically naturally occuring ones, tend to be somewhat unique, and may differ from others of their kind.

Undead can be created by powerful magics, usually by ambitious, amoral sorts focused on power and immortality.

Some Sorcerer Kings offer undeath to truly exceptional servants, saving their minion from a slow annihilation and preserving a willing servant. These spells tend to enhance a minion's loyalty, and otherwise sculpt their personality to better suit their master.
Paraelmental clerics may serve their Paraelemental Lords in death, particularly among Silt. The magic is rare and powerful, and, like Sorcerer Kings, their rituals cement their loyalty to their paraelement.
Wizards and the occasional mystic who transform themselves into an undead creature are usually the driven, power hungry sort. They tend to supress or remove higher passions as "weaknesses", but a few do the reverse.
Rarely, a Druid of Spores will become a form of undead, suffused with spores and the energies of their Gray-touched spirit until they become a kind of half-living fungus. Spores suffuse their blood and grow in patches on their skin, giving them an unhealthy, unnatural look. They remain servants of Athas, but their fellow druids give them a wide birth.

With few exceptions, intelligent undead must feed on something to sustain themselves. If an undead creature dwells in a Gray breach, they can drink the energies of the Gray directly. Other undead must feed on blood or flesh, while others consume souls or drain minds. Undead wizards can use gathered spell energy if they wish, but only the rare non-evil undead wizards consider this sacrifice. Some naturally occuring undead, particularly dwarven banshees, have a specific purpose, and working towards that purpose or haunting the subject of their purpose sustains them and their connection to the Gray. Undead druids of spores feed on carrion and the remains of slain threats to Athas. They consume rot, decay, and corruption, returning it back to nature.

Undead paraelemental clerics and undead servants of the Sorcerer Kings are sustained by their lords, for as long as they please their lord with their service.

Undead who cannot feed reduce their maximum hit points until they feed, and are destroyed if they reach 0 hit points.

Note: Corporeal undead are not considered native to the Gray, but incorporeal undead are, and can be banished back to the Gray by magic and psionics that returns planar creatures to their native environment. However, if the conditions that allowed the spirit to cross into Athas in the first place persists, the spirit will return after a number of days equal to the level of the spell or power (or half the CR or class level of a character who used a class feature, rounded down) unless the cause of the haunting is dealt with.

PART 4 | PLANES

The Black

The Black encompasses infinite possibilities, with the most probable, minor variations of Athas' reality being closest, followed by the possible, to the implausible, to the unfeasible, impossible, and fantasatic. In the Black dwell the Shadow Giants, who sometimes contact mortals with their own inscrutable agendas.

Because Athas does not contact the typical planes, many creatures, such as celestials and fiends, are not present on Athas. Similar creatures may be pulled from the Black with complciated summonings, however, and are mechanically identical.

Athas is not visible from the Black. The near-Black presents probabiltiies, starting with minor, easily possible changes. Everything is tinged with shadow or somehow darker. As one travels further into the Black, the changes grow less probable and more significant. While the scenes and events in the Black are not "real" in the sense that did not take shape on Athas, they are real in the Black, and the wrong probability dredged from a traveler's life can lead to danger and death. One possibility may be those few words that stopped a fight, but they may be the failure of successful words. Blows that did not strike may hit, and other chaotic tangles of what could-have-been can be a singificant threat.

Eventually, one reaches the deep-Black, where the probable gives way to the possible. Few who wander into the deep-Black ever escape, either trapped in blasted landscapes of an Athas even bleaker than life under the Crimson Sun, where the Champions drained all life from the Tablelands and rule over the dead or strange, aberrant creations of their own, or are willing prisoners in false realities of a kinder Athas, where the Champions were defeated during the Cleansing Wars, the sun's warmth is a gentle yellow, and the land is green and good, save for the shadow of the Black that darkens everything just so.

Beyond the deep-Black is the far-Black. Basic assumptions about reality fade away there, where the impossible is anything but. Falling up, cold fire, thirst-quenching Silt or sand, and more all exist in the far-Black. The further one travels into the deapths of the Black, the stranger and stranger it becomes, until the mind-bending unreality grows so deviant that no creature from Athas, living or dead, can survive. Only the most powerful beings can contemplate an expedition to such depths, and must protect body, mind, and soul.

Portals leading from Athas likely exist in the far-Black, but portals leading to Athas may be more common. Any luckless fool who stumbles into a portal to such a deadly place and somehow survives may wind up on Athas. While such a being would be powerful enough to defend themself, the wastes and hostile life under the Dark Sun will lead many to conclude that they've ended up on some lower plane.

Elemental Planes

Eight elemetnal planes are near Athas - the four prime elements, and the four paraelements. The Etheral plane is a buffer between them and Athas, where their energies meld and merge into the Ethereal plane before emerging onto Athas.

The Elemental planes are pure manifestations of their element - endless expanses of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water, with little else to be found. They are constantly at war with the paraelements, Magma, Rain, Sun, and Silt, who fight constnatly to expand, pulling energies from the prime elements to fueld their own growth. Endless waves of elementals battle at the borders, fighting over and through portals between the elemental planes that take the form of natural gateways, arches and other structures.

On the elemntal planes, the native elementals blend with their environment almost seemlessly. They always have advantage on Stealth checks against planar visitors, and can attempt to make a Stealth check after moving as a bonus action to hide from planar visitors. Despite having this ability, many elementals aren't cunning enough to take advantage of it.

Clerics of a given element are immune to harmful environmental conditions of the plane of their faith. Prime elementals are unaffected by their native plane's environment and the enviornments of the paraelemental planes that are based on that element, while Paraelmental elementals are unaffected by their native plane's environment and the environments of their parent elemental planes. So, an Air elemental is unaffected by the environment on the planes of Air, Sun, and Rain, while a Silt elemental is similarly adapted to the planes of Silt, Water, Earth, but not Rain or Magma.

Air

The plane of air is constantly shifting and energetic. At any given moment, one area of the plane may be calm, only to suddenly burst into a rainless crashing of thunder and lightning.

Sun

The endless light is so bright that all unprotected visistors are blinded until they leave the plane and receive a Lesser Restoration spell, assuming they survive the burning radiance.

Fire

Solid sheets of pure flame burn any unprotected visitors to a crisp, spawning more flames.

Magma

Rivers of magma run through tunnels of obsidian and shale. Those who do not suffocate are incinerated by molten stone.

Earth

The plane of Earth is a solid mass of various forms of stone, clay, dust, sand, dirt, and other manifestations of the element. Suffocation in an earthen tomb is the greatest threat to Athasian visitors.

PART 4 | PLANES

Silt

Visitors drown on Silt, as the tiny particles force their way down visitors' throats, shredding their lungs. The Silt preserves such corpses, calling on these zombies to fight in its wars.

Water

This plane feels smaller and weaker than the others somehow. Drowning kills most travelers who visit the plane, their bodies slowly eroded by the water over the centuries.

Rain

Perhaps the weakest elemental plane, Rain is the most hospitible - it has both air and water, but it is still a chaotic realm, prone to shifting from gentle storms of warm rain to torrents of cold, chilling sleet, punctuated with lightning and thunder.

Modified Spells

Several spells work differently or do not exist at all on Athas.

Create Food and Water does not exist on Athas. Food and water must be found the hard way, with few exceptions.
Create or Destroy Water does not exist on Athas, except for specific Cleric Domains.
Spells and other effects that create ice, sleet, and other water sources instantly evaporate after the duration expires. Water drunk during the duration vanishes as well, providing no benefit to anyone who drinks the fake liquid.
Water Breathing and Water Walking are called Silt Breathing and Silt Walking, and work in both Silt and Water, the later being very rare in quantities large enough for these spells to be relevent.
Spells such as Commune and Divination do not contact gods. Depending on the caster, they contact Elemental Lords (Clerics), Great Spirits (Druids), Sorcerer Kings (Warlock), or the skien of fate directly (Mystic).
Fey do not exist as such on Athas. Spells that summon fey instead summon spirits of Athas, and they may not take the forms typically expected. Any beast can be substituted for a fey creature, espeically if the fae is especially virtuous or wicked. Athas cares mostly about preserving nature and the balance of life, and its spirits reflect this.
Spells that summon spirits or conjure creatures draw on the following sources:
- If the spell summons or conjures an elemental, it is pulled from the appropraite elemental plane.
- If the spell summons or conjures a fey/nature spirit, it is pulled from the spirits of Athas.
- If the spell summons or conjures undead, it is pulled from the Gray
- All other summoned or conjured creatures are pulled form the Black, including "fiends", "celestials", and aberrations.
Psionic powers that summon spirits or conjure creatures congeal them using ether and ectoplasm, and they dissipate once the power ends.
Since Athas is cut off from the Outer Planes, spells that involve planar travel can take travelers to one of the eight Elemental Planes, the Ethereal Plane, the Gray, or the Black.
Spells that create Demiplanes, such as Demiplane or Maze, use the Black to create the spaces the spells describe.
Spells that can target quicksand or mud can target Silt as if it were quicksand or mud.

Cleric Spells

The following spell changes only apply to clerics.

Create or Destroy Water does not exist on Athas, except for the following exceptions:
- Water Clerics have access to the spell, but can only Create Water. The spell only creates upto 5 gallons of Water, but can convert upto 10 gallons of Silt into an equal volume of water.
- Silt Clerics also have access to the spell, but can only destroy Water, turning it into Silt. Silt created this way is like the stuff from the Silt Sea, and is devoid of life giving properties.
  - A Silt cleric might develop a version of the spell that combined 5 gallons of water and 5 gallons of earth into 10 gallons of fertile silt, capable of supporting crops, but this would be rare. It might require a higher-level spell slot, finding a Water or Rain cleric to help the Silt cleric develop this use of the spell, or a quest to find the version in the Paraelement Plane of Silt.
- Rain Clerics can also cast the spell, destroying upto 5 gallons of water or upto 10 gallons of Silt. In either case water falls from a small rain shower that affects cylinder with a 5 foot radius and 20 feet high. If Water was destroyed, twice as many gallons rain down. If Silt was destroyed, half of it comes down as rain, and half of it remains as solid Earth.
- Suffice it to say, Water, Silt, and Rain clerics can easily come into conflict over the use of this spell.
Clerics consider Elemental Weapon to be a cleric spell. The damage type of the spell depends on the cleric's domain:
- Air: Thunder
- Earth: Magical Bludgeoning
- Fire: Fire
- Water: Cold
- Magma: Acid
- Rain: Lightning
- Silt: Necrotic
- Sun: Radiant
Clerics who cast Summon Elemental summon an elemental that matches their domain. Air, Earth, Fire, and Water Elementals are listed already. Use the following rules for paraelementals
- Magma: Damage Resistance (Acid and Fire), the Slam attack deals 1d10 Acid damage and 4 + the spell's level Fire damage, Amorpehous Form.
- Rain: Damage Resistance (Lightning and Thunder), Amorpheous Form
- Silt: Damage Resistance (Cold and Necrotic), Amorpheous Form
- Sun: Damage Resistance (Fire and Radiant), the Slam Attack deals Radiant damage, Amorpheous Form.
  
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  PART 5 | SPELLS

Clerics do not have access to spells that summon celestials or fiends. They gain access to any spell that summons or conjures elementals. These spells summon elementals from the cleric's domain, and the summoned elementals do not turn on the cleric if their concentration is broken on the spell. Instead, they return to their home plane.
Earthquake is only available to Earth and Magma clerics.

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PART 5 | SPELLS

Dark Sun Convertion for 5e D&D

Table Of Contents

Dark Sun Convertion for 5e D&D

A Mutated World

Acceptable Brutality

Races of the Tablelands

Aarakocra

Dray

Dwarf

Elf

Forced March

Half-Elf

Half-Giant

Halfling

Human

Mul

Acceptable Brutality - Muls

Thri-Kreen

Classes on Athas

Class Features with Bonuses

Barbarian

Cleric

Air

Domain Spells

Elemental Mastery

Earth

Domain Spells

Elemental Mastery

Fire

Domain Spells

Elemental Mastery

Water

Domain Spells

Elemental Mastery

Magma

Domain Spells

Elemental Mastery

Rain

Domain Spells

Elemental Mastery

Silt

Domain Spells

Elemental Mastery

Sun

Domain Spells

Elemental Mastery

Druid

Fighter

Fighter Archetype - Gladiator

Monk

Mystic (Sorcerer)

Psoinic Lexicon

Psionic Lexicon

Psionic Disciplines - Common Features

Psionic Casting

Discipline Powers

Discipline Versatility

Master Powers

Psionic Disicplines (Origins)

Egoist

Discipline Powers

Psionics vs. Magic

Master Powers

Kineticist

Discipline Powers

Master Powers

Nomad

Discipline Powers

Master Powers

Seer

Discipline Powers

Master Powers

Shaper

Discipline Powers

Master Powers

Telepath

Discipline Powers

Master Powers

Ranger

Rogue