How NOT to Run a Dark Sun Campaign
The following was taken from the Dark Sun mailing list. It was by a member who has some rather unfortunate DM problems. If any one has any suggestions for this poor soul, you can e-mail him at the adress listed at the bottom of the page. Enjoy!
I have some problems with my DM. In Dark Sun he played a character for 1 1/2-2 yrs. In that time I guess he aquired the 14 million experiece points to become the 45lvl ranger, 30lvl bard, 30 lvl psionic that his character is. Now, keep in mind that he was also DM when he ran her. Her name is Siltviper and she is a half elf originaly from Forgotten Realms but wsa transported to Dark Sun somehow( don't recall ). He claims that nobody can beat her in the athas world. She has eliminated almost all of the Sorcorer-kings, and The Order won't touch her because they are to afraid of not only her but her thykreen friend( a 45lvl psionic who ran in his adventures. He aquired all his power from this headband that you wear, and when you kill someone you gain all of their exp. He teleported in to The Order's temple that they were in and started killing them in their sleep. He remained unnoticed the entire time he was doing this. He also went ot the Forgotten Realms once because he needed weapons and money, and what better place to get those things than the council of wyrms. He used the power of disintegrate and killed about 4 great wyrms,5 wyrms,about 10 adults, and I don't remember the rest but about 25-30 dragons were killed total. He transported all that money and materials back to Dark Sun somehow to the Great Rift. All of that could be done it is possible, just HIGHLY-IMPROBABLE) She wears elven full plate made from dwarves fthe forgotten realms made of admantite&mithral. She also carries in Dark sun the Forgotten realms weapons/artifacts: Tunnelrunners Axe, Axe of Dwarven Lords, Some golden sword that gives her a 25 score in all her abilities and control over ALL dragons. Yet all these weapons still work the same in Dark Sun. She is an elf so I don't think Tunnelrunner or the dwarven Lords would let her even use them. She knows all the metapsionics from the will and the way, even though he does not have this book he still has these powers(we got it now but for the longest time we just had to take his word on what they did) I never heard of this so maybe you can help me out, I guess ther are superpowerful psionics BORN on Athas called valecha's or something like that, but because he is him he didn't have to be born with it the valecha's gave him all there powers. He has an entire city in Athas that is under an invisibility spell that Detect Invisibility/true seeing or scring can't detect. His army consists of 4000 elite gladiators(that don't go through the rigorous training normal gladiators go through but they are still just as good if not better fighters, all at least 15lvl) 200-500 arch wizards from forgotten realms, but can still use their magic of course even though Mystera can give them those powers. About 500 priests that continuously produce water & food for every one and make all there citiy green with instant forest for the 350 preservers that she has. A pet Great Wyrm Red Dragon, and also get this your going to love this one, a infant tarrasque that she got after killing the mother tarrasque in the realms. than she has about 10,000 regular gladiators aleast lvl 9) Nobody in this town, the villagers included are poor or at a poverty level. Everyone, including villagers, is at least a 3rd lvl fighter and all carry around at least a magical +1 steel weapon. Now remember he has only been playing her for 1-2yrs. now as a DM he holds this character over our heads as an enforcer for example: In our campain Tyr is at war against Dregoth and his undead Army,(He did end up destroying his magical city but almost everybody survived the attack) Now we have three gladiators that escaped from Kalak's gladitorial arena, and we had this plan that during the war when Kalak was fighting that we would attempt to kill him like any normal gladiator would want to do, but he said that if we attempted this she would appear before us and kill us. First off is she is busy commanding her armies how would he know that we were doing this, Second why would she be working with him in the first place( remember earlier when I told you that she wants and did destroy almost all the sorcorer-kings). So far in are campain we had to go and recruit an army out side of Tyr to help in the fight, by fifth level we all had magical +5 steelweapons, and we have had to never look for water. I was happy when it happened at first but then I started to understand Athas better and relized how stupid that was. He is super hard on my one friend Jeff and I because we were exp players for 5-6yrs but the rest of the group got away with anything(I understand being a little harder but the things that he gives them and the caracter that he runs get away with is pitiful) Jeff and my character have each died at least 5 times in the adventure, but his character has never died, has stolem at least 1,000,000 gold,etc...Now I want to kill Siltviper. The best chance I got I think is have my gladiators (Jeff and me and some other members of my party,) built up the damage of his Kenetic Control ( which is ALWAYS up, along with all 5 defense,and teleport trigger) than have my one theif character ( now he done a shit load to aquire what he has, died about three times trying to get it, But he is a theif defiler psionic whoi is aspiring to be the most ruthless SANE DRAGON in Dark Sun. I guess this is a real artifact he said but I have books that when read straight will take me through all the stepps of dragon metamorphisis instantly) use his magic to hit her so she takes all the damage that she has saved and my spell damage(also you know that if you are multi-classed that you have to divide you hit points rolled by three, well he didn't so his character has 800 some hit points) But now tell me what would you do about my situation, any info on valecha's or any ideas on how to kill silt viper would be greatly apreciated. Characters in my party: Rickus 14lvl gladiator(idolizes the actual rikis( my character))Crax 10 lvl gladiator(Jeff,s (also a tribe of one type of person with 7 personalities priest/watcher/dwarven vindicator/psionic/insane murderer/wolfwere.))14lvl fire Cleric(Jeffs), Antalicus 10/8/8(My theif defiler psionic) a wercat gladiator 11lvl,a bard/ psionic named blackstaff 12/14(the DMs character) two more theives two mre gladiators, a defiler and a noble. HELP
Mr Hand 01@aol.com