Colors of the Moons

 

The color of Athas’ moons has been descried differently in many of the Dark Sun products but seems to be largely neglected as being defined in any of the 2e rulebooks. With Dark Sun being a collaboration between Troy Denning, Gerald Brom, and Tim Brown, I believe their original conceptions to be the ultimate word on defining the world of Athas and the Dark Sun universe in general.

Brom frequently painted the moons of Athas in the backgrounds of his art.  In each of these he depicts both moons as approximately the same yellowish color, although their relative size sometimes varies. (More on that later). These depictions match the written descriptions of the novels released between 1991 and 1993.

In the Prism Pentad series, Troy Denning frequently describes their colors as “flaxen,” "yellow," and “golden”.  With “flaxen” being defined as “a light soft straw color”.  The Verdant Passage, the first book of the series, published in October 1991, appears to contain the earliest written description of the color of the two Moons.  The prologue contains the phrase "The bastions flanked an enormous staircase, which ran straight from base to summit, reaching for the flaxen moons that hovered over the monument's lofty crown and infused the hazy predawn sky with an amber blush." 

Denning's subsequent novels maintained the use of these descriptions through September 1993.  In book 3 Amber Enchantress published 1993, in chapter 3, describes a "scarlet haze over the yellow moons."  Then in 1995, book 5 in the series, the Cerulean Storm he uses the phrases "golden moonlight" and "light descending from the golden moons." However, subsequent authors have described the colors different from Denning’s depictions.

The “Road to Urik” adventure from 1992 includes the short story, “Loyalties”, by M. C. Sumner.  Though not a direct reference to the color of the moons their light turns the desert “yellow under their baleful light.”

In the 1992 adventure Arcane Shadows, the short story “Facets” by William W. Conners includes a reference of one of the moons (he doesn’t say which) as casting “pale orange light”.

Similarly, in “Boneyard Lights” by Allen Varney and Aaron Allston from the 1992 adventure Asticlian Gambit the moon Ral is described as casting “orange light”.

In 1993 Conners again wrote descriptions of the moons for the short story Equinox included with the adventure “Marauders of Nibenay”. This time he describes them a “one a pale pink and the other as a wispy violet” but left no distinction as to which moon was which color.

One 1994 adventure, “Black Spine”, has two depictions of Athas’ moons from the characters’ point of view while trapped in a dream.  Both these references appear to be a possible negative image of their surroundings while in the dreamscape, as even the colors of the sky and sand are off.  “The sand is dark black and the sky is a deep red with a pair of violet moons high in the sky.” Followed by “…the black sand stretches out in an almost endless desert under a crimson sky and twin purple moons”.  Assuming this is describing a negative image then the actual colors of the moons here could have been a yellowish color.

In the Chronicles of Athas series, Lynn Abbey describes Guthay as “golden” and Ral as “silvery” in her books The Brazen Gambit (1994), Cinnabar Shadows (1995), and The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King (1996).  I have yet to review the other books in the series, but I assume they may have followed Abbey’s convention.

Finally, I’ve yet to review the Tribe of One Trilogy by Simon Hawke to determine what his take on moon coloring was.

As D&D moved into 3rd edition Wizards of the Coast left Dark Sun largely alone.  The first officially published conversions by Paizo in 2004, in various issues of Dungeon Magazine and Dragon Magazine, also left many of the defining characteristics of the moons alone.  No mention of the moons or their colors were found there.

Prior to the Paizo’s Dark Sun conversion, the folks at Athas.org had put together their own fan created content in 2003.  But no mention of the moons’ colors is mentioned there either.  Their work has largely been a conversion of material that relied heavily on and stayed true to the 2nd edition rules and content for a 3.5 audience.  So far, I can find no description of the colors of the moons in Athas.org products, but I suspect their official color of the moons would be the yellowish, flaxen colors originally provided by Denning and Brom.

The one mention of moon coloring posted on the Athas.org website is contained in a fan fiction short story called “Lady of Shadows” by Duskweaver. The colors here are given as Guthay as yellow and Ral as Green.  This story takes the same approach as that other authors of short stories set in the Dark Sun universe; which is the author makes Athas his or her own including the moon color.  (Many DMs probably also think this would be acceptable to do in their own games as well.)

 4th edition ushered in a new official release of the Dark Sun universe.  Using 4th edition rules new Dark Sun art and material was produced. In the Dark Sun Campaign Setting the moons and their colors were mentioned. In this new re-envisioning; many things stayed the same, but some details had significant change.  Here, not only do the colors of the moon change, but also the size as well.  The 4ed Dark Sun Campaign Setting was the first to include description of moon colors as in an official rule book.  Here it states: “Athas has two moons, Ral and Guthay. Ral, a mottled green in color, is the closer of the two. Sages who have scried Ral report that it is covered in great green seas and mountain-islands of dizzying heights. Guthay, the smaller and more distant moon, is a golden orb mantled in steaming mists beneath which lie scarlet jungles and marshy seas.”  These descriptions fail to match the original art in both color and size.

Where Athas is largely a dead planet, 4^th edition has the provided descriptions of two moons potentially teaming with life with Ral’s “green seas and mountain islands” and Guthay’s “steamy mists”, “scarlet jungles” and “marshy seas”.  Blah!  These moons are just waiting for your next seafaring adventure or jungle cruise.  While I am biased towards to the descriptions and artwork of the colors provided by the original creators, I prefer to think of the two moons as dead and lifeless with Athas on its way to becoming lifeless as well.

With that, what are the colors of the moons on your Athas?  Are there other references I’ve missed?