Since the very first 5e release, D&D players around the world have dreamed of the return of the Dark Sun campaign setting for Dungeons and Dragons. As time goes on, the demand heightens. Many players grow tired of the typical high-fantasy tropes that are present in many 5e adventures and have asked Wizards of the Coast to shake things up a bit. Due to this, Dungeons and Dragons players have already seen the return of iconic settings like Ravenloft, Greyhawk and Eberron, which bodes well for an eventual return of Dark Sun for 5th Edition.

In the mean time, there are thousands of people out there already playing a 5e Dark Sun game that they’ve spent their own time creating. Homebrew sourcebooks that contain rules translations are plentiful online for those who don’t want to spend the time creating their own. It’s also very possible to adapt the available Dark Sun adventures from older editions into 5th Edition. That task can be daunting for some, especially those that didn’t play older editions and aren’t familiar with the rules and feeling that the game had back then. Dungeons and Dragons has come a long way from 2nd Edition to 5th Edition and reading back through older edition modules can sometimes feel like reading a different game entirely.

So let’s figure out how we can adapt existing 5e adventures to the Dark Sun theme.

Though Dark Sun is a campaign setting, I would argue that Dark Sun is a theme first and foremost. You can adapt adventures to fit that theme. Slavery, low magic, starving for resources, tyranny and survival are all themes that exist in Dark Sun and most - if not all - of these themes exist in 5e adventures as well. They just need some re-skinning. Any travel scene, town or mountainside journey can be described instead as a savage desert world of endless wastelands and you’re already part way there. Remove the gods and several races, make water and magic items hard to come by, sprinkle in some Mul and Thri-Kreen and make sure that slavery is prevalent and you can represent most of the Dark Sun theme.

Some may argue that what I propose is blasphemy and that without having a Dark Sun sourcebook or adapting old adventures, it won’t truly be Dark Sun. That’s true. I fully agree. But it is possible to dip your toe into the world of Dark Sun by creating a homebrew setting based off of Dark Sun, just as many homebrew settings are based off of Forgotten Realms. It’s for you to decide how heavily you want to overlay the Dark Sun theme onto your adventures.

Let’s take a look at the options for each 5e adventure and how they could be adapted.