Editing Dark Sun (section)

===Races===
What really made Dark Sun stand out compared to some of TSR's other offerings was the very distinct and weird playable racial assortment on offer for prospective PCs, which made Dark Sun stand on the level with [[Planescape]] and [[Spelljammer]] as ''the'' setting to play if you wanted to get away from the bog-standard neo-Tolkien brigade. (Although the fact characters used a 4d4+4 [[Ability Scores]] system compared to the 3d6 one, meaning Athasian characters had an '''8-20''' AS range vs. the 3-18 range of regular D&D characters, didn't hurt!)

...At least, that's how it's remembered ''in hindsight''. In actual execution it's a little more... topsy-turvy than that. Let us try and break it down for you.

First and foremost, of course, we have the '''[[Human]]s''', because do you really think [[TSR]] would ever do a setting without them? Standard dominant race stuff, nothing particularly noteworthy here.

Then there's the [[Demihuman]]s of Athas. You'll notice there's no [[gnome]]s here; that's because they are one of several races officially exterminate in Athas' ancient past, which is often regarded as the first reason why this setting is full of win. Here, you get:
*'''[[Dwarf]]''' - Almost typical dorfs, except taller, waaay more muscular, bald with Klingon-like head plates and are even more fixated on their stuff than the hairier, stuntier variety.  So fixated, in fact, that if they died without completing the shit they were obsessing over, they came back from the dead as banshees (sentient zombies that looked like a dwarf without skin).
*'''[[Elf]]''' - No forests for them, ha! They are desert nomads with tendencies of mental instability, thieving and grieving all the time. 
*'''[[Halfling]]''' - Cannibals who live in the Ringing Mountains, one of the last remaining strips of forest. Despite [[Troy Denning]]'s initial fuckup in ''The Verdant Passage'', where he has the dragonfly riding midgets flinging spells hither and thither, no they cannot use arcane magic. Tries to retcon this in ''The Cerulean Storm'' but it doesn't quite work.  MAJOR PLOT LOOPHOLE.  Actually (spoilers!) the origin of all other demi-human races on Athas, as theirs was the high civilization of the Blue Age.
** Actually, that bit about halflings not using arcane magic? It ain't true! In the original Boxed Set, Athasian halflings can become [[wizard]]s - 16th level [[Illusionist]]s using the [[Preserver]] mechanics, specifically; it's even stated that halfling chiefs are always [[multiclassing|multiclassed]] Illusionist/Psionicists. They lost the ability to use arcane magic in the Revised Edition boxed set, but a halfling illusionist is one of the sample NPCs in the Veiled Alliance [[splatbook]]. It's possible that [[TSR]] originally planned to use [[gnome]]s in place of halflings, but made a last minute swap.
* '''[[Half-Elf]]''' - Basically the exact same as half-elves in every other TSR setting of the time; miserable little shits that nobody likes.
*'''[[Mul]]''' - [[Half-dwarf]]! Second reason why this setting is full of win and awesome!  Bred for size and strength, but without the lack of agility of the typical stunty dorf, no slave was worth more than a Mul.  Except a better Mul. Very prized as gladiators. Suck it, Russell Crowe. Unfortunately, like real-life hybrids tend to be, Muls are sterile, and they also tend to be [[Grimdark|born into slavery and kill their mums on the way out]].
*'''[[Half-Giant]]''' - Big dumb muscle, with a ''lolrandom'' alignment because they're ''so'' impressionable. Usually really fucking stupid. 3e shrank them down to "Medium-Plus" sized. 4e reinterpreted them as a local term for [[goliath]]s mechanically and made them smarter and less lolrandom in their fluff.
*'''[[Pyreen]]''' - A non-player (though 4e made them an epic destiny) race of ancient guardians from before the world was burned to shit, [[Rajaat]] was one of these guys before he went screaming off the deep end. Looks like a prettier version of how 3.5's [[Mongrelman|Mongrelfolk]] are supposed to look based on fluff; a harmonious blending of human, halfling, dwarf and elf. This mysterious & mystical mongrelfolk nature is strange, considering that halflings were the original inhabitants, and it also ignores several now-extinct but previously prominent (or at least "normal" non-monstrous) races, such as orcs. Epic-level immortal multiclassed druid/psions attempting to fix the world. Not getting very far.

Now we move on to the ''weirder'' races, which for some reason basically means [[beastfolk]]:
* '''[[Thri-Kreen]]''' - Pack-hunting giant mantis-folk. Actually debuted in the [[Forgotten Realms]] a whopping ''15 years'' before Dark Sun existed, but this was the first time they got PC stats. In the Original Boxed Set, they were the last of the playable races after the aforementioned humans and demihumans. Most known for their four arms, which gave them inherent multiple attacks in 2e, a trait that was steadily stripped from them over the edition. Also known for seeing nothing wrong with cannibalism - elf is considered a delicacy.
* '''[[Aarakocra]]''' - Tribal bird-people. Unlike their counterparts on other settings, Athasian aarakocrach look like humanoid vultures, are prone to raiding and theft, and have [[psionics]]... but then, few races ''don't'' have psionics in Athas!
* '''[[Pterran]]''' - Shamanistic flightless humanoid pterodactyls that wandered into Athas from somewhere beyond the tablelands.

The "Official" 3e update in [[Dragon Magazine]] #319 added:
*'''[[Elan]]''' - An experiment in creating human uber-psychics by a psionicist order that went wrong due to being too powerful
*'''[[Maenad]]''' - Alien berserker-psion emos that Andropinus recruited from somewhere beyond "The Black", then turned loose to die in the wasteland after they helped him get his city-state back. Rather pissed at that.

4th edition added these races to the canon:
*'''[[Eladrin]]''' - The dwindling remnants of the ur-elf race that once ruled the [[Feywild]], which on Athas has literally dissolved into nothing, leaving only a scattering of extradimensional oases as a result of defiling.
*'''[[Genasi]]''' - They claim they were originally set up as rulers over Athas by the [[Archomental|Primordials]] once they killed all of the gods... but they became decadent and indolent, so the other races drove them off the thrones. And then they blew Athas all to fuck, which the genasi are still gloating about. Now they're starting to emerge from the wastes because they believe it's their job to take command again and fix this shit. Known subraces: Earth, Fire, Wind, Ember, Magma, Sand and Sun.
*'''[[Tiefling]]''' - Brutal raiders from the most hostile and barren regions of the desert, descendants of people who turned to fiend-worship for the strength to survive in the wasteland.

Now, you might think that the above list is pretty decent already, right? Well, it's technically incomplete!

First of all, the original boxed set mentions that '''[[kenku]]''' and '''[[yuan-ti]]''' both exist on Athas, though it doesn't flesh them out much - most fans even forget that Athasian yuan-ti are canon, despite their prominent role in the [[CRPG]] [[Wake of the Ravager]], a game nobody remembered until GOG.com began selling many (most?) of the SSI AD&D modules of the 80s and 90s. Now that WotR is readily available, the thing people remember most about that game is the numerous, game-breaking bugs. (But you should still buy it, as workarounds to the bugs do exist.) Anyway, since both races are playable depending on your base edition, they should be legitimate options in your Dark Sun campaigns.

Secondly, the adventure [[City by the Silt Sea]] introduced the '''[[Dray]]''', a race of dragon-men engineered by Athas' sole [[dracolich]], as both monsters and an optionally playable race. 4th edition promoted these guys to a fullly fledged mainstream race in the setting, although they did just recommend they use [[dragonborn]] stats for them.

Thirdly, the 4e Dark Sun Campaign Guide notes you could justify [[minotaur]]s as the "[[Half-Giant]]" counterpart to [[Beasthead Giant]]s.

Finally, the Monstrous Compendium Appendixes for Dark Sun, especially the second one, detailed a number of species who live on Athas who are sapient but non-playable - the "humanoids" of Athas, essentially. Since Dark Sun coincided with the release of the internet, fans took matters into their own hands and converted a good number of these races to be playable in either 2nd edition ("The Complete Book of Athasian Humanoids") or 3rd edition ("Terrors of Athas"), with the latter in particular promoting a fair number of [[giant]]s and Monstrous Humanoids. Admittedly, some of these are more likely to make you go "what the fuck were they smoking?!" than others.
* '''[[Anakore]] ''' - Sand-burrowing carnivorous predators. Basicall Athasian mole-people.
* '''[[B'rohg]]''' - Four-armed [[giant]]s who are really good at hitting stuff, but not much good at anything else.
* '''[[Baazrag]]''' - Camel-humped sloth-man with a really convoluted history.
* '''[[Belgoi]]''' - Desert-wandering cannibals who use psy-boosted bells to lure suckers into the wastes for dinner.
* '''[[Braxat]]''' - Hulking, armor-plated, acid-spitting [[lizardfolk]] with genius IQs, telepathy, psychoportation, and a sadistic streak.
* '''[[Bvanen]]''' - Armor-plated frog-people from the last surviving swamp on Athas.
* '''[[Drik|High Drik]]''' - Giant, spell-casting [[lizardfolk]] magically engineered as super-soldiers.
* '''[[Feylaar]]''' - Four-armed gorillas with genius intellects and [[psionics]].
* '''[[Giant]] ([[Beasthead Giant]], [[Crag Giant]], [[Desert Giant]], [[Plains Giant]])''' - The last surviving giant species of Athas.
* '''[[Gith|Athasian Gith]]''' - The degenerate descendants of a [[githyanki]] army which was mindblasted into madness by a [[githzerai]] psy-bomb.
* '''[[Hej-kin]]''' - Cannibalistic burrowing creatures that resemble a cross between a [[gnome]] and a mole.
* '''[[Jozhal]]''' - [[Dinosaur|Little raptors]] that have a natural affinity for preserver magic. 
* '''[[Lask]]''' - A weird race of reptilian humanoids newly emergent from the spellwarped wastelands of Athas.
* '''[[Lizardfolk|Athasian Lizardfolk]]''' - The last surviving lizardfolk of Athas, who inhabit its last surviving sea.
* '''[[Magera]]''' - Literally just Athasian [[ogre]]s.
* '''[[Mindhome Folk]]''' - Telepathic, pacifist, [[Underdark]]-dwelling little humanoids.
* '''[[Nikaal]]''' - Acid-spitting reptilian humanoids who travel Athas in great trading caravans.
* '''[[Reggelid]]''' - Mad elf-like beings obsesed with defiler magic and who have a bitter enmity against Athasian halflings.
* '''[[Scrab]]''' - Hive-dwelling sapient centipedes with arms.
* '''[[Silt Runner]]''' - [[Kobold]]-like little lizard-people that inhabit the silt sea and its surrounds.
* '''[[Slig]]''' - Perpetually hungry carnivorous humanoids.
*'''[[Ssurran]]''' - 2-legged sentient komodo dragons. Lives in the desert and loves them some lava. Very resistant towards heat and the Dark Sun, these guys enjoy worshiping Fire and Magma.
*'''[[Tarek]]''' - Earth-worshipping, hulking, ape-like humanoids from the mountains. Pretty obviously an "evolved" strain of Athasian [[Orc]]s, like how Ssurrans are Athasian [[lizardfolk]].  Take obvious inspiration from the ape-men of popular pulp novels and Frazetta/Vallejo paintings the same way the rest of the setting does.
* '''[[Tari]]''' - The [[ratfolk]] of Athas. Supposedly nobody in the modern city-states knows they're sapient, despite the fact they had their own empire in the southern regions a couple centuries ago.
* '''[[Trin]]''' - The more primitive and savage cousins of the thri-kreen. Because thri-kreen aren't already mantis-y enough. Have four legs instead of four arms, so they run really, really fast.
* '''[[Tul'k]]''' - Descendants of a tribe of elfs warped into brutish giant ape-men by magic run amuck.
* '''[[Amazon|Villichi]]''' - [[Abhuman|A emergent human subspecies]] consisting of albino psychic women.

We gotta talk dragons now.

*'''[[Athasian Dragon|Athasian]]''' - Only "playable" by a very technical definition of the term, since it was an epic-level class for level 21+ characters with nastily-difficult requirements, though 4e made it an epic destiny.  Not at all like the normal ''D&D'' variety, which don't exist on Athas, Athasian Dragons are horrible monsters that embody the corrupted nature of arcane magic in the setting: rapacious, violent, and filled with rage and a lust to dominate or destroy.  Depending on source, there's either many or only one being that has ever successfully completed the transformation, and he's the ''other'' [[BBEG]] of the setting, as mentioned above, but almost all of the Sorcerer-Kings are at least part of the way there.
*'''[[Avangion]]''' - The opposite version of an Athasian dragon, being the life-nurturing embodiment of what arcane magic ''should'' be.  Looks like a bizarre glowing manta ray-dragonfly, with a huge wingspan.  Not as much balls-out murder power as a dragon, but able to no-sell many of its abilities, actually support its party, and not be an insane rage-cauldron the DM could take over whenever he felt like it. Just as hard to qualify for though, and also a 4e epic destiny.  No one in the Tyr region has ever successfully become one, though one NPC as far down the process as most of the Sorcerer-Kings are to being dragons, and unlike many of them is actively trying to advance.