A Dark Sun Adventure: The Runaway Slave Girl

Plot Summery: In a City-State, Post Kalak Tyr and Gulg would not be suitable, lived a lovely slave girl named Heba. She grew up as an attendant for a noble woman named Esraa. While Esraa treated Heba well, the distinction between noble and slave was always present, the two were never friends. Now, at sixteen years old, Heba is growing into quite a lovely young lady and has been granted some authority over the other house slaves.
Another slave, Jamila, is a house slave and is extremely jealous of Heba's beauty and her elevated status. Jamila knows another slave, Ziad, is infatuated with her. She used her feminine wiles to convince Ziad to lie to their mistress, Esraa. Jamila then met with Heba in the kitchen and handed Heba a knife, the knife had blood on it and Jamila had a cut on her arm. Before Heba knew what was going on, Jamila screamed and Ziad rushed in and grabbed Heba by the arms. They then lied to Esraa about Heba attacking Jamila and in an attempt to escape.
Esraa was appalled and ordered Heba to be taken outside, whipped and beaten. Heba had never been whipped or beaten and was very panicked. Once outside, she broke free of the house guard and fled into the streets of the city-state. The guards gave chase.
This is where the player characters enter the adventure.

Secret Societies of Athas - Eazim Taghia

Secret Societies are simply societies that conceal their activities from outsiders. The Veiled Alliance and the Order are two major examples of secret societies on Athas. Even the Merchant Houses can be considered secret societies, in some aspects, because they hide many of their activities from others. Other secret societies can, and should, exist in your own games.

Secret Societies have ratings based upon their wealth, influence, size, and secrecy. All of these ratings, except for size, has a rating of one through twelve. One is a low rating and twelve is a high rating. The ratings may change for each of the city-states and various settlements.

The ratings are to give the dungeon master an idea of how powerful a secret society is. Although, if a dungeon master wishes, they can roll a d12, to determine if the secret society is capable of an action. For example, if a dungeon master thinks the secret society would want to hire a band of assassins, to take care of a group of meddling adventurers, the dungeon master may roll a d12 and consult the secret society's wealth rating. A roll lower than the rating is a success and the secret society is able to afford to hire the assassins.

Wealth is how much money the secret society may call upon to meet their ends.
Influence is how much pull the secret society has on the local government.
Size is the number of members and employees the secret society has. Employees may not realize that they are working for a secret society.
Secrecy is how well the society remains hidden from the common people of a city-state or settlement.

Below is an example of a secret society.

Eazim Taghia
Tyrian Secret Society
Wealth: 10
Influence: 9
Size: 12 members, 32 employees.
Secrecy: 10

D100 Non-Combat City-State Encounters

DMs may use this chart to liven up the PCs stay in a city state. Some of these may work for larger client villages, or trade forts as well. 

Roll 1 D100

001: A procession is approaching. The Sorcerer King or Queen is moving through the city.

002: A templar and their guards want to arrest a player character, for crimes real or imagined. The crime should be serious, such as murder or sedition.

003: A man fleeing the templars bumps into one of the characters and slips something small into their pouch, backpack, or hand. The person then flees and is killed by the templars moments later.

004: The player characters see the templars arresting someone they know. Preferably someone close to them.

005: A young noble, seeking to make a name for themselves or showing off for their friends, challenges one of the player characters to a duel. The noble is a psionicist and will use this to their advantage.

006: A slaver will offer to buy the shoddiest dressed player character from the other characters.

007: A merchant offers to sell the group a cure for poison, or disease, at a reasonable rate. They should be very charismatic. There is a 50% chance that the cure is fake and the merchant, a charlatan. A 25% chance that the cure is fake, but the merchant did not know it was fake. And a 25% chance that the cure is real and the merchant, honest.

Athasian Hygiene

Here on Earth, we use water to keep clean. With water being a precious resource on Athas, you might ask, "How would an Athasian keep clean?" Like most things on the desert world, it breaks down to location, money, and social status.

Soap

Athasian soaps vary from city-state to city-state. Tyr creates soap made from animal fat and wood ash, while Urik creates soap from animal fat, vegetable oils, and alkaline salt. Balic uses a liquid soap mainly crafted from olive oil.

Cleaning Sand
Sand is used to clean clothes and some people. This sand is very fine and mixed with salt. This mixture bonds to dirt and sweat, then is brushed away with a cleaning brush, scraper, or rag. Clothes cleaned with cleaning sand are often scrubbed and then hung outside and beat with a rod, to remove residual dust and dirt.

Cleaning Tools

The most common cleaning implement used among all social classes is the cleaning brush. Cleaning brushes are made of a bone, wood, or metal base and stiff bristles. The bristles are generally made from stiff carru or aprig hair. These brushes are made for the sole purpose of cleaning dirt and grime from bodies or clothing. They may be used to clean other surfaces as well.
In addition, there are other tools used to keep clean. In Urik and Raam, pumice stone is used to clean the body, in all, but the most sensitive of areas. In Balic, a strigil is used to remove olive oil from the skin, taking dirt and dead skin with it. A strigil is a thin, wide, blunted hook, made of wood, bone, or metal.
Other scrapers are used by other city-state residents as well. These scrapers come in various sizes and shapes, but are all used in the same way. Before or after a bath, or any cleaning time, these scrapers are used to removed unwanted dirt and grime. After using cleaning sand, soaps, oils, or salts, the scraper is rubbed across the skin.
The common person almost always uses wood or bone cleaning tools, while wealthy individuals use metal tools. The wealthiest individuals often plate their tools in precious metals and embed them with gemstones. Simple cleaning tools can be purchased from any market, but fancy tools must be custom ordered.

D100 Non-Combat Roadside Encounters for the Tablelands

I've seen many non-combat roadside encounter tables, but few of them work well for Dark Sun's unique setting. So, I've decided to make one myself.
In lieu of a combat encounter, DMs may use these instead. If an encounter does not make sense, roll again. A lot of these are just ideas, that should be fleshed out by the DM. Enjoy.

Roll 1 D100:

001: Dark clouds are overhead. It looks like it might actually rain. There is a 50/50 chance of it raining. If it does rain, however, it's torrential and easily causes flash flooding.

002: A small group of bandits are hiding near the road and waiting to spring out and attack. There are two bandits per PC, but they are one to two levels lower. Most of them are not very good at hiding and should be spotted by alert PCs.

003: The PCs find a flat stone near the road, with a crude skull painted on it. If the PCs look around, or travel further up the road, they find two more. These could be a warning, painted by an illiterate traveler, of danger up ahead.

004: A large armored wagon is slowly moving past the PCs, pulled by two mekillots. It will not stop for the PCs, without a very good incentive. There are 2d4 crodlu outriders. The crodlu outriders will yell at the PCs to clear the road.

005: A small group, 1d6, of recently escaped slaves come upon the PCs. They threaten the group with harm, if they outnumber the PCs, despite having no weapons or armor. Or they beg for food, water, and any other survival tools.

Adventure Idea 6

 For DM eyes only.

Adventure Idea 5

 For DM eyes only.

Adventure Idea 4

A special thank you to gigabein for their assistance.

For DM eyes only. Players should not read on.

A man is fleeing some templars in any city-state and bumps into the party, literally. No words are traded and the man flees. The templars catch up with him and kill him.

Review of Dark Sun Vignette: "Red Well"

Jesse Heinig wrote this short adventure for AD&D 2nd Edition Dark Sun. I am going to review it. Just to let readers know: I do not know Jesse Heinig, except through the vignettes he's written, and have no reason to have an opinion of this vignette before reading it. You can read it yourself: Download it here.
Red Well is a good vignette. It introduces some characters that can be reused again and again. It also adds some more intrigue to the battle for control of Tyr after the fall of Kalak. The TL;DR version of the review is that Red Well is worth a read and can be used in a post-Kalak Tyr quite easily. In fact, I believe it could be run right after the official adventure: Freedom, if you so choose.
Read the full review after the jump.

Review of Dark Sun Vignette: "Bad Bits"

Jesse Heinig wrote this short adventure for AD&D 2nd Edition Dark Sun. I am going to review it. Just to let readers know: I do not know Jesse Heinig and have no reason to have an opinion of this vignette before reading it. You can read it yourself: Download it here.
Calling "Bad Bits" a vignette is, in my opinion, incorrect. This is a short adventure. The TL;DR version of this review is: "Bad Bits" is fantastic, download it now.
Read the full review after the jump.

A Dark Sun Adventure: The Great Erdlu Caper

Plot Summary: Near Nibenay (or any city state with scrub planes nearby) lived a poor erldu herder named Roget. Roget lost most of his herd to sickness and has a single erdlu left. Roget named this erdlu Tongo. Roget loved to sing and play the flute with Tongo nearby and Tongo always seemed soothed by the music.
Tongo spied a female erdlu with her owner in another field one day and dragged Roget over to them. Roget met Enita and her erdlu, Kirdeta. Roget and Enita fell madly in love, mainly because there are few choices for erdlu herders. Enita had almost all of her teeth and Roget didn't smell that bad, so they soon built a hut and herded erdlu together.
It wasn't long before Kirdeta started laying eggs. Now, Enita's old friend came to visit her. She's a merchant named Humilda Diablo. She wanted to know when the erdlu were hatched. Roget doesn't like Humilda, but Enita assures him that she's harmless.
Eventually, the eggs hatched and the herders now had fifteen healthly erdlu chicks. Humilda returned and offered to buy them all for half of what they were worth. Roget refused. He wanted to rebuild his herd and could not do it with such a paltry sum. Humilda left their hut in a furious state.
A few weeks later, when the erdlu chicks were old enough to survive without their mother, Roget and Enita took Tongo and Kirdeta out to forage. While they were gone the pen was broken into by two thugs, Jast and Horak, who stole the erdlu chicks. Roget suspects Humilda, but does not have the resources to go after her.
This is where the player characters enter the adventure.

Review of Dark Sun Vignette: "Cold Tower"

Jesse Heinig wrote this short location reference for AD&D 2nd Edition Dark Sun. I am going to review it. Just to let readers know: I do not know Jesse Heinig and have no reason to have an opinion of this vignette before reading it. You can read it yourself: Download it here.
The first thing I did was look up what a vignette was, because I was educated in California and had no idea what that meant. Turns out, in this instance it meant: "a short descriptive literary sketch" or "
a brief incident or scene." Now, on to the review.

A yakhchāl in the early morning on Athas.

Introduction
The vignette begins by explaining that Cold Tower can be dropped into an existing campaign in almost any location. While that is true, I believe it would be most suitable in the sandy wastes or stony barrens, which the author agrees with me about.
It also discusses that this could be made into a short, one shot adventure by making this location a current home of a magic or psionic item. This is true and would make an interesting one-shot for introducing new players to Dark Sun.
The introduction continues by explaining that the village was founded by free people and escaped slaves. The village was constructed, but then the people died of a plague not too far afterward. As a location in a long running campaign, I believe this history is fine. However, if you choose to use this location as a one shot adventure, I would suggest giving it a more interesting backstory with defilers or psionicists.
The rest of the introduction explains the science behind the cold tower, which is called a yakhchāl in the real world. The description is as accurate as I could find without getting too much into the exact science. Yakhchāls basically work as an evaporative cooler. I think Heinig's conclusion that these structures would exist on Athas is a good one.