Post-apocalyptic desert survival in a world scoured by magical catastrophe. Athas is a dying planet where arcane magic drains the life from the land, water is more precious than gold, and immortal sorcerer-kings rule brutal city-states with iron fists and psionic power. Metal is scarce — weapons are crafted from bone, obsidian, and chitin. Slavery is commonplace, gladiatorial combat is the primary entertainment, and the wilderness teems with mutated predators adapted to the endless wasteland. Hope is a dangerous commodity, but a few brave souls dare to imagine a world reborn.
Story Arcs
Slaves of Tyr
The adventurers begin as slaves in the city-state of Tyr — some captured in raids, others born into bondage, all laboring under the whip of King Kalak's templars. They fight in the gladiatorial arena for the amusement of the masses, forming bonds of survival with fellow slaves and learning to fight with improvised weapons of bone and obsidian. When a secret cell of the Veiled Alliance — an underground network of preservers (wizards who draw magic without draining life) — makes contact, the party is offered a chance at freedom: participate in a daring escape through the ancient tunnels beneath the arena, but only if they agree to carry a stolen map to the hidden Preserver enclave in the desert.
The Wastes Between
Free but hunted, the party must cross the deadly Athasian desert — the Tablelands — to reach the Preserver enclave marked on the stolen map. The wasteland is a crucible of survival: sandstorms that strip flesh, oases guarded by territorial monsters, and raiding parties of gith and elven tribes that view outsiders as prey or merchandise. Water and food are constant concerns, and the crimson sun beats down without mercy. Along the way, the party discovers that the map leads to more than a hideout — it points to the ruins of a Green Age city buried beneath the sands, where an artifact of tremendous power lies dormant, capable of restoring life to dead land. King Kalak's templars are in pursuit, and they are not the only ones who want the artifact.
The Dragon's Shadow
The buried city is real, and the artifact — a seed of the pristine Tower of Life from the Green Age — could begin the slow restoration of Athas. But activating it requires enormous magical energy, and doing so will draw the attention of the Dragon of Tyr, the most powerful being on Athas — a sorcerer-king who has transcended mortality and roams the desert consuming entire villages to fuel his transformation. The party must choose: use defiling magic to power the artifact quickly (destroying the surrounding land in the process), find enough preservers to channel the energy slowly (risking the Dragon's arrival), or attempt to redirect the Dragon toward King Kalak's forces, letting the two powers destroy each other while the party activates the seed in the chaos. The fate of Athas hangs in the balance.
Seeds of Renewal
With the artifact activated — regardless of the cost — the party witnesses the first green shoots emerging from dead earth for the first time in centuries. But the political fallout is immediate: King Kalak sees the restored land as a resource to conquer, the Veiled Alliance wants to protect it at all costs, and opportunistic warlords and merchant houses descend to stake their claims. The party must navigate a web of political intrigue, defend the nascent oasis from armies and monsters drawn by the sudden abundance of life, and decide what kind of world they want to build on the bones of the old one. The campaign culminates in a siege that determines whether the seed of renewal will flourish or be trampled back into the dust.
Session Outlines
These outlines are for planning reference only. Actual sessions are not created by the template.
The Arena of Tyr
Open in the slave pens beneath King Kalak's ziggurat. The party members are slaves from different backgrounds — perhaps a captured elf ranger, a mul gladiator born in the pits, a half-giant laborer, and a hidden preserver who conceals their magic. Establish the brutal reality: bone weapons, no metal, rationed water, and templars with absolute authority. The party is forced to fight in the arena as a team against a pack of trained beasts. Introduce the harsh mechanics: obsidian weapons that chip and break, searing heat that causes exhaustion, and the social hierarchy of the slave pens. After the fight, a fellow slave named Sadira whispers that the Veiled Alliance is watching them.
The Veiled Alliance Contact
Between arena bouts, the party is contacted by Kivrin, a preserver posing as a water seller who smuggles messages to the slaves. Kivrin explains the Veiled Alliance — preservers who practice magic without defiling, hunted by the sorcerer-kings for their defiance. The Alliance has stolen a map from Kalak's templars showing the location of a buried Green Age ruin and needs someone to carry it out of the city. In exchange, the Alliance will arrange an escape through the ancient tunnels beneath the arena. The party must decide to trust Kivrin — and prepare for the escape while surviving another day in the pits. Introduce the concept of defiling vs. preserving magic and the psionics that are common on Athas.
Escape Through the Undercity
The escape. The Alliance creates a diversion above — a staged magical accident in the templar quarter — while the party slips into the ancient tunnels beneath the arena. The tunnels are pre-cataclysm ruins, older than Tyr itself, filled with crystallized psionic traps and basilisks that have made their lair in the dark. The party must navigate by torchlight, avoid or fight the basilisks, and reach a hidden exit in the desert beyond the city walls. Kalak's half-giant guards are not far behind. The session ends with the party emerging into the blinding Athasian sun, free for the first time, the vast and deadly Tablelands stretching before them.
The Burning Tablelands
Survival session. The party must cross open desert with limited water, no shelter from the crimson sun, and predators adapted to the wasteland. Introduce Athasian survival mechanics: water consumption, heat exhaustion, and the dangers of traveling by day versus the different dangers of traveling by night. Encounter a salt flat where a caravan was ambushed — the merchants are dead, their water stolen, but their cargo of obsidian weapons is intact. The ambushers, a raiding party of gith, are still nearby and attack when the party investigates. First taste of Athasian combat: bone and obsidian weapons, psionic abilities, and the desperate ferocity of creatures fighting for survival.
The Oasis of the Silver Hand
The party discovers an oasis — a rare pocket of life in the wasteland — but it is controlled by an elven trading tribe that charges exorbitant rates for water. The elven chief, Toramund, is willing to trade water and supplies for a service: a giant scorpion has made its lair near the oasis spring, contaminating the water supply with its venom. The party must descend into the creature's burrow and slay or drive it off. The burrow is a network of sandy tunnels with ambush predators. After dealing with the scorpion, Toramund reveals he has heard rumors of Kalak's templars heading into the deep desert — they are also seeking the buried city.
The Templar Pursuit
Kalak's templars have picked up the party's trail. A squad of veterans and a defiler (a wizard who drains life to fuel magic, leaving dead earth in their wake) are closing in. The party must choose: stand and fight, set an ambush in the rocky badlands, or try to outrun them across the open desert. If they fight, the defiler demonstrates the horror of defiling magic — plants wither, insects die, and the ground turns to ash in a widening circle around the caster, powering devastating spells. The session should make the party viscerally understand why defiling magic is reviled and why the sorcerer-kings, who are the greatest defilers, have turned Athas into a wasteland.
The Buried City
The party reaches the map's destination — a section of desert where glass-smooth stone peeks through the sand, the only visible remains of a city from the Green Age, when Athas was verdant and magical. Digging through to the entrance, they find the ruins remarkably preserved beneath the sand: green marble halls, dry fountains, and murals depicting a world of forests and rivers. The city's guardian — a psionic construct that has waited millennia for someone to activate the artifact — challenges the party with trials of worthiness. The artifact, the Seed of Life, is a crystallized sphere of pure life energy, warm to the touch.
The Defiler's Temptation
With the Seed of Life in hand, the party learns from the construct that activating it requires enormous magical energy — enough to drain a small army of preservers, or a single act of massive defiling that would turn a hundred square miles to lifeless ash. The moral dilemma is stark: destroy land to save the world, or find another way and risk failure. Kivrin arrives with a small cell of preservers, offering the slow path — but scouts report the Dragon of Tyr has been spotted in the distance, a massive shadow on the horizon consuming a nomad camp. Time is not on their side. The party must plan their approach while fortifying the buried city against attack.
Kalak's Legions Arrive
King Kalak sends a full military expedition: gladiators, templars, defilers, and a half-giant siege battalion. They surround the buried city and demand the Seed of Life — Kalak wants it to fuel his own transformation into a dragon, following the same path as the Dragon of Tyr. The party must defend the ruins while the preservers begin channeling energy into the Seed. Combat encounter: waves of gladiators and bandits assault the entrance while templar defilers try to break through the walls with destructive magic. The party can turn some of the gladiators — many are slaves who would defect if given the chance.
The Dragon Approaches
The Dragon of Tyr senses the massive magical energy building around the Seed of Life and turns toward the buried city. The party has perhaps a day before it arrives. They must accelerate their plans. Options crystallize: redirect the Dragon toward Kalak's army (sacrificing soldiers, many of whom are slaves), use defiling magic to power the Seed immediately (devastating the surrounding land), or attempt to channel the Dragon's own energy as it attacks (incredibly dangerous but would provide more than enough power). Each option has consequences the party must weigh. Preparation montage: fortifying positions, crafting weapons, and saying things that need to be said.
The Battle of the Buried City
The Dragon arrives — a mile-long shadow that blots out the crimson sun. It descends on Kalak's army first, consuming soldiers by the hundreds to fuel its power. In the chaos, the party executes their plan. This is a multi-stage combat encounter: fighting through Kalak's remaining forces to reach a vantage point, activating the Seed of Life using their chosen method, and surviving the Dragon's attention when the Seed's activation sends a pulse of life energy across the wasteland. The mummy lord templar commanding Kalak's forces makes a final stand, unwilling to return to his king empty-handed.
Green Shoots in Dead Earth
The Seed of Life activates. For the first time in living memory, green plants push through the dead earth around the buried city. A patch of vibrant grassland spreads across the wasteland, fed by underground water the Seed has drawn to the surface. It is a miracle — and immediately a target. The session focuses on the aftermath: tending to the wounded, dealing with Kalak's surviving forces (who are shell-shocked and leaderless), and the arrival of the first refugees drawn by rumors of living land. The Veiled Alliance sends word that the sorcerer-kings are alarmed — living land threatens their power by proving the world can be healed.
The Merchant Houses Circle
Word of the restored land spreads across Athas, and the powerful merchant houses — the trade cartels that control commerce between city-states — send representatives to stake claims. House Stel arrives with a caravan of warriors disguised as traders. House Wavir offers a genuine alliance but demands controlling interest in water rights. The party must navigate cutthroat negotiations, identify which houses are sincere and which plan to seize the land by force, and establish governance for the growing settlement. Political intrigue: an assassin attempts to poison the settlement's water supply on behalf of an unnamed sorcerer-king.
The Siege of New Hope
King Kalak, humiliated by his army's defeat, sends a massive force to destroy the settlement and claim the Seed of Life. This is the climactic siege: the party must organize the defense of the fledgling community using the allies they have gathered — Veiled Alliance preservers, defected gladiators, elven scouts, and the settlers themselves. Encounter: waves of Kalak's veterans and gladiators assault the walls while defilers try to corrupt the Seed from a distance. The party must hold the line, make tactical decisions about where to deploy limited resources, and personally engage the enemy commanders.
A New Dawn on Athas
The siege breaks. Whether through military victory, a daring strike against Kalak's command post, or a last-ditch activation of the Seed's defensive capabilities, the settlement survives. The campaign epilogue shows the passage of time: the green patch expanding slowly, new settlers arriving, the first trees in generations growing tall. The party's choices throughout the campaign shape the ending — did they use defiling magic, and at what cost? Did they make alliances or enemies among the merchant houses? Are they rulers of the new settlement, guardians who move on, or something else entirely? The crimson sun still burns, but for the first time, there is shade beneath new leaves.
NPCs
Sadira
Half-Elf · Gladiator Slave and Secret Preserver
A wiry, sun-darkened half-elf who has survived three years in King Kalak's gladiatorial pits by being faster and smarter than everyone else. She conceals her preserving magic behind a facade of brute survival, using subtle cantrips to gain edges in the arena that spectators attribute to luck. She is the party's first ally in the slave pens — cynical, guarded, and fiercely protective of anyone she considers a true friend, which is a very short list.
Kivrin
Human · Veiled Alliance Operative
A soft-spoken water seller who moves through Tyr's markets with a wooden yoke and clay jugs, invisible in the way that all common laborers are invisible to the powerful. Beneath this cover, Kivrin is a senior operative of the Veiled Alliance, coordinating the underground network of preservers who resist the sorcerer-kings. He is patient, methodical, and haunted by the operatives he has lost — every decision is weighed against the cost in lives, and he will sacrifice individuals to protect the network without hesitation.
Toramund
Elf · Trading Tribe Chief
The tall, whipcord-lean chief of the Silver Hand elven trading tribe, who controls a vital oasis in the Tablelands. Toramund is a pragmatist who deals fairly but never generously — water is life on Athas, and he who controls the water controls everything. He respects strength and cunning equally, despises the sorcerer-kings for enslaving elves, and will aid the party if they prove useful to his tribe. His runners are the fastest messengers on Athas, and his intelligence network rivals the Veiled Alliance's.
High Templar Siemhouk
Human · Templar of King Kalak
Kalak's most fanatical templar — a gaunt woman with sunken eyes and ritual scars covering her shaved head, who channels her sorcerer-king's power with zealous devotion. She leads the expedition to recover the Seed of Life, commanding through fear and genuine religious conviction that Kalak is a god. She is brilliant tactically but inflexible ideologically, unable to conceive that Kalak could be wrong about anything. Her defiling magic is devastating, and she uses it without remorse, viewing the destruction of land as a sacrament.
Grudvik
Mul · Freed Gladiator
A massively built mul — the sterile offspring of a human and a dwarf, bred for the arena — who escaped Tyr's pits years ago and now leads a band of freed slaves in the desert. Grudvik is laconic, battle-scarred, and deeply moral beneath his gruff exterior. He measures people by their actions, not their words, and he will fight to the death for anyone who treats freed slaves as people rather than property. His fighting style with a bone greataxe is legendary among the gladiatorial circuit.
Nibenay the Shadow King
Human (Sorcerer-King) · Sorcerer-King of Nibenay
One of the immortal sorcerer-kings who rule the city-states of Athas, Nibenay is the most reclusive and enigmatic of the tyrants. He rarely emerges from his palace of shadow, ruling through his templar-wives and psionic projections. Unlike Kalak, Nibenay is patient and subtle — he watches the party's actions from afar and may offer a dangerous alliance: he will protect the restored land from Kalak in exchange for access to the Seed's power. His true motives are unknowable, and trusting him is a gamble with civilization-scale stakes.
Ulara
Thri-Kreen · Desert Scout
A thri-kreen — a mantis-like insectoid humanoid native to Athas — who serves as a scout and hunter in the wastes. Ulara communicates through a combination of clicks, gestures, and broken Common, and she understands the desert better than any humanoid alive. She is fascinated by the concept of "green" land, having never seen a living plant larger than a scrub bush. She joins the party out of pure curiosity and proves invaluable as a guide, her four arms wielding chatkcha throwing weapons with lethal precision.
Locations
Tyr
The largest city-state on Athas, ruled by the sorcerer-king Kalak from his enormous ziggurat at the city's center. Tyr is a sprawling metropolis of sandstone buildings, slave markets, and gladiatorial arenas, all baking under the crimson sun. The free citizens live in relative comfort while slaves — who outnumber the free three to one — labor in iron mines, construction gangs, and the arena. Kalak's templars enforce his will with psionic and defiling magic, and the Veiled Alliance operates in the shadows, waiting for the moment to strike.
The Tablelands
The vast, arid expanse between the city-states of Athas — a nightmare landscape of rocky badlands, salt flats, and sand seas stretching to every horizon under the unblinking crimson sun. Nothing grows here except the hardiest scrub, and water exists only in hidden springs guarded by territorial predators. Caravans travel in armed convoys, and solo travelers simply vanish. The bones of ancient civilizations occasionally surface from the sand — remnants of the Green Age when this was fertile farmland.
Oasis of the Silver Hand
A rare pocket of life in the Tablelands — a spring-fed pool surrounded by stunted palms and scrub, controlled by Toramund's elven trading tribe. The oasis serves as a neutral trading post where caravans from different city-states meet to exchange goods. Tents and lean-tos cluster around the water, and the elves enforce a strict peace within the oasis boundaries. Water is the currency here, and Toramund sets the exchange rates with an iron will.
The Buried City of Kalidnay
The ruins of a Green Age city, preserved beneath the sands for millennia. Its green marble halls and crystal domes are eerily intact, protected by psionic wards that kept the desert at bay. Murals on the walls depict Athas as it was — lush forests, flowing rivers, cities of elegant spires. The city's heart contains the Seed of Life, a crystallized artifact of pure life energy, guarded by a psionic construct that has waited for worthy bearers since the world began to die. The ruins are vast, and deeper levels contain treasures and dangers from an age of wonders.
The Dragon's Wake
A scar across the Tablelands — a miles-wide strip of terrain that has been utterly drained of life by the passage of the Dragon of Tyr. The ground is powdered ash, the air is dead and still, and not even insects survive. Blackened skeletons of settlements dot the Wake, their inhabitants consumed to fuel the Dragon's transformation. Walking through the Wake is profoundly disturbing — the silence is absolute, and the ash crunches underfoot like old bones. It is a preview of what all Athas will become if the sorcerer-kings are not stopped.
New Hope
The fledgling settlement that grows around the activated Seed of Life — the first new community built on living land in generations. What begins as a circle of tents around a patch of miraculous green grass grows into a proper village with irrigation channels, gardens, and the first timber structures built from newly grown trees. Refugees stream in from across the Tablelands, bringing diverse skills and dangerous attention. The settlement has no walls at first, relying on the party's leadership and a growing militia of freed slaves and hopeful settlers.
Quests
Escape the Slave Pens of Tyr
Freedom is the first and most urgent goal. The party must survive the gladiatorial arena long enough to make contact with the Veiled Alliance, plan their escape through the ancient tunnels beneath the city, and emerge into the desert beyond Tyr's walls. Every day in the pits risks death in the arena or discovery of any hidden magical abilities that would draw the templars' lethal attention.
Deliver the Map to the Preserver Enclave
The stolen map shows the location of a buried Green Age city containing the Seed of Life. The Veiled Alliance needs this information to reach the artifact before the sorcerer-kings do. Crossing the deadly Tablelands with templar pursuit forces on their trail, the party must protect the map and themselves while navigating a wasteland that kills the unprepared without prejudice.
Activate the Seed of Life
The Seed of Life can restore verdant growth to dead Athasian soil — but powering it requires an agonizing choice. Defiling magic provides quick, devastating energy at the cost of destroying more land. Preserving magic is slow and risky, requiring many willing spellcasters. The Dragon of Tyr approaches, forcing the decision under impossible time pressure. The method the party chooses will define the moral character of the world they are trying to save.
Forge Alliances Across the Tablelands
No single group can stand against the sorcerer-kings alone. The party must build a coalition from the fractious peoples of Athas: the suspicious elven trading tribes, the militant freed slave bands, the enigmatic thri-kreen hunters, and perhaps even a rival sorcerer-king willing to see Kalak weakened. Each alliance requires proving the party's worth through deeds, not words.
Defend New Hope
The settlement growing around the activated Seed of Life is the most precious place on Athas — and the most vulnerable. Every power on the continent wants it: Kalak wants to destroy it, the merchant houses want to control it, and opportunistic warlords want to seize it. The party must transform a cluster of tents into a defensible community, establish governance, and prepare for the inevitable siege that will determine whether hope survives on a dying world.
Encounters
Gladiatorial Blood Sport
The party is forced to fight as a team in Tyr's arena against trained war beasts and rival gladiators. The crowd roars from the stands, and Kalak's templars watch from their shaded boxes, evaluating the newcomers. Weapons are bone and obsidian — they chip and crack under heavy use. The sand is uneven and treacherous, and the arena master can release additional threats through trapdoors in the floor. Victory means survival for another day; defeat means death or worse.
Basilisk Lair in the Undercity
The ancient tunnels beneath Tyr's arena are home to a nest of basilisks that have thrived in the darkness for centuries. The petrifying gaze of these creatures has turned sections of the tunnel into galleries of stone statues — previous escape attempts frozen in moments of terror. The party must navigate the winding passages by torchlight, avoiding the basilisks' line of sight while moving quickly enough to stay ahead of the pursuing guards above.
Ankheg Ambush at the Oasis
A monstrous burrowing predator — adapted to the harsh Athasian desert — has made its lair beneath the spring feeding Toramund's oasis, contaminating the water with its acidic secretions. The creature attacks from below, erupting from the sand to drag prey underground. Its burrow is a network of sandy tunnels that collapse easily, and the creature uses hit-and-run tactics, retreating into its tunnels to digest before striking again. The confined underground spaces make this a claustrophobic, terrifying fight.
Templar Defiler Ambush
High Templar Siemhouk's pursuit force catches the party in the rocky badlands. The templars are disciplined veterans wielding obsidian blades and backed by a defiler whose magic visibly drains the life from the surrounding terrain — plants wither, insects die, and the ground turns to ash in an expanding circle. The defiler casts from behind a shield wall, forcing the party to break through the templars to reach the true threat. The environmental devastation of defiling magic should be viscerally apparent.
The Mummy Lord's Final Stand
The mummy lord commander of Kalak's elite guard makes a last stand at the gates of the buried city during the climactic battle. This ancient undead templar channels the sorcerer-king's power, wreathed in necrotic energy and commanding lesser undead soldiers. Its Dreadful Glare paralyzes attackers, and its rotting fist carries a curse that resists healing. The fight takes place amid the chaos of a larger battle, with siege engines, defiling magic, and desperate combat on all sides.
Factions
The Veiled Alliance
Chaotic Good
An underground network of preservers — wizards who practice arcane magic without defiling the land — operating in secret across the city-states of Athas. They are hunted relentlessly by the sorcerer-kings, who view preserving magic as a threat to their monopoly on power. The Alliance is decentralized by necessity, with independent cells that communicate through coded messages and dead drops. Their members include scholars, artisans, merchants, and slaves — anyone willing to risk death for the dream of a restored Athas.
The Templars of Kalak
Lawful Evil
The bureaucratic and military arm of King Kalak's rule over Tyr. Templars derive their spellcasting power directly from their sorcerer-king, making them both priests and soldiers of a living god. They enforce Kalak's laws with absolute authority, oversee the slave trade, and hunt preservers with fanatical zeal. The templar hierarchy is cutthroat — advancement comes through ruthless ambition and demonstrated loyalty, and failure is punished with demotion to the slave class or worse.
The Elven Trading Tribes
Chaotic Neutral
Nomadic elven clans who traverse the Tablelands as traders, herders, and occasional raiders. They control many of the oases and water sources between the city-states, giving them disproportionate economic power. The tribes are fiercely independent, deeply suspicious of outsiders, and governed by complex codes of honor that can seem contradictory to non-elves. They despise the sorcerer-kings for enslaving elves but deal with anyone who can pay — pragmatism is the highest virtue in a desert that kills idealists.
The Merchant Houses
Lawful Neutral
Powerful trade cartels that operate between the city-states, controlling the flow of goods, water, and information across Athas. Houses like Stel and Wavir maintain private armies, caravans of hundreds, and intelligence networks that rival the templars. They are officially neutral in the conflicts between sorcerer-kings, selling to all sides and profiting from every war. In practice, each house has its own agenda, and they are perfectly willing to destabilize regions to create profitable opportunities.
Recommended Characters
Pre-built characters designed for this campaign setting. Create them separately from the character templates page.
Karn the Unbroken
Human · Fighter · Level 5
A former gladiator from the arenas of Tyr who won his freedom through blood and spectacle. Karn survived the pits through sheer brutality and force of will, and now struggles to find purpose in a world beyond the arena walls.
Nara Seedkeeper
Human · Druid · Level 5
A preserver druid who protects the last vestiges of life on the dying world of Athas. Nara draws her magic carefully from the land, never taking more than it can give, fighting to preserve what little green remains in a world scoured by defiling sorcery.
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