Forget about fighting dragons and finding treasure. On Athas, your epic quest is to simply survive.
- Athas is a Crapsack World in every possible respect. The entire planet was devastated by genocidal wars of attrition using life-draining "Defiler Magic" that turned 99% of the world's ecosystem into a waterless wasteland. Even the sun was forever tainted by the dreaded Sorcerer Kings, swollen into a dark red orb that scorched whatever the wars didn't destroy. It's surprising that anything survived this age of bloodshed, but extinction is probably the better option compared to the societies that would come after. And you can't even pray to save your life, because the gods were killed, too.
- Everyday life on Athas is an unforgiving hell that would make the nightmare worlds of Ravenloft look cozy and inviting. Magic is something to be feared and abhorred, slaves outnumber free citizens, war is commonplace, metal is priceless, and the climate is so unbearable that you might — even if you're Lawful Good — end up killing a man without a second thought just for a mouthful of water. The only thing keeping the hated Sorcerer-Kings in power are their magical talents, their fanatical Templars and the many gladiatorial games they host that serve as the only source of public entertainment. Hell, even reading is a privilege held only by the aristocracy and forbidden from the commoners on pain of death.
- What's worse is that for the historically inclined, this is essentially the Bronze and early Iron Ages taken to the next level and run through a Crapsack filter. Cruel Gods, unaccountable God-Kings, inhospitable climate, slavery as an integral part of society, endemic war, natural disaster, fearful superstition, precious little in the way of life's necessities, and lack of learning for the masses? Check, Check, Check, and check. Babylonians, Egyptians, and the peoples of the Indus River Valley may not have lived in a world ruined by magic or under leadership quite as evil and unchanging as that of the Sorcerer-Lords, but Athas is so inhospitable and alien to modern audiences both because of what it fictionalizes, and what it doesn't.
- Millennia of carnage and devastation have warped even familiar D&D races into grim mockeries of their former selves. Elves are no longer mystical beings that commune with nature, having been turned into mercurial assassins, thieves, and raiders. Halflings have turned from short, jolly and humble folks that treasure wine, food and song into xenophobic cannibals that will slaughter anyone that trespasses on the last remaining forests. Dwarves gain a special focus ability... and the burden of becoming undead monsters if they should die with a focus unfinished.
- The Mul are an artificial species, with the stature of a Human and the strength of a Dwarf. That's not the scary part. The scary part is that they take twelve long, painful months to gestate and will more often than not kill the mother during labor. And because of their inherent sterility and popularity as slaves and gladiators, the Sorcerer Kings make sure that there's a steady supply of them.
- The Thri-Kreen. Mantis-like humanoids obsessed with hunting to the point where even a simple commercial transaction is seen as predatory act. And they are so accustomed to the scorching hot climate that it's almost a miracle that they haven't taken over the entire planet. One particularly unnerving aspect about the Thri-Kreen is that they have no biological need to sleep, even finding its very concept to be a strange curiosity. So much so that they will sometimes stand over their sleeping party members and just stare at them for the rest of the night.
- The wastelands of Athas are perhaps even more dangerous than the bandits and monsters that roam it. Even experienced adventurers can find themselves hopelessly lost and fatally dehydrated after becoming lost in the most hostile regions. They're the lucky ones. The less fortunate may be skinned and scalded alive by blazing sandstorms.
- The Mayincatec city of Draj is ruled by the feared and revered Tectuktitlay: a self-styled deity who demands sacrifice. And he does the sacrificing himself, cutting out the beating hearts of his prisoners and throwing them down the pyramid steps like yesterday's news. The city-state is in a state of constant war with its neighbors, ensuring that there's always a steady supply of slaves and sacrificial slaves.
- The city of Gulg is fortified not by walls, but by massive hedges with thorned vines — enchanted to catch and bleed anyone stupid enough to trespass. The Dark Templars that police the city are known to be extremely secretive — masked, cloaked and almost always just out of sight, just to keep the citizens in line through sheer paranoia. According to rumor, they will gladly murder transgressors in their sleep, and their punishments include sealing offenders' souls inside their own shrunken heads.
- Water is so scarce on Athas that every oasis is viciously guarded by merchant houses, city-states or gangs of bandits for their control, charging hefty sums for a taste of the foul, brackish water that so many will kill for. Wars have been fought for the control of these meager pools and particularly cruel bandit gangs have been known to bribe merchants into giving naive city folk wrong directions to the next oasis.
- The Sea of Silt. A dry seabed that has become a waterless parody of its former self. Situated on the very edge of the official map, attempting to cross it will almost always result in certain death. If the heat doesn't kill you, drowning in silt will. And if the silt doesn't kill you, then hungry pterodactyls will. And even if you are able to use a silt-skimmer to cross the sea, you will still be at the mercy of hungry giants that will wade waist-deep through the sands to devour you. And if the giants don't get you, then the Silt-Horrors will.
- Silt Horrors. Giant, fanged, half-kraken half-fetus-like monstrosities that sleep beneath the desert. As soon as you are ensnared by their tentacles, then you are already dead.
- Sink Worms. Little different from their inspiration and just as deadly.
- The Sand Vortex is a fanged, disk-shaped creature that will suck anything - even flying creatures - into its mouth with vacuum-strong winds. And, like Sink Worms and Silt-Horrors, it's impossible to tell when you're walking over them until it's too late.
- The tembo. Believed to be a Living Weapon left over from some long-forgotten war, a tembo looks like a nightmarish exaggeration of a hyena, but has the intelligence of a genius and the personality of a sadist. In a world filled with cannibals, raiders and slavers, the tembo is the single most despised monster of all: they specifically prefer to eat children, just for the grief this causes their parents. Every humanoid race on Athas will put aside their differences and team up if a tembo is reported hunting nearby. And there's more than one of them...
- The belgoi are a race of spindly, desert-haunting humanoid monsters who use little bells crafted from the bones of humanoids as a focus for their psychic powers, which they use to lure victims to abandon their campsites and wander out into the desert, where the belgoi are waiting to eat them. Worse, their "hypnotic chiming" is only audible to the victim, so their closest companions have no idea what is happening when their friend gets up and says they're going off to relieve themselves or whatever excuse they instinctively make.
- Sligs are voracious humanoids whose mutated biology leaves them incapable of storing body fat, forcing them to hunt incessantly to survive. And since humanoids are the most common prey on Athas, they mostly hunt people.
- Anakores, as reinvisioned in 4th edition. They were already creepy as a race of monstrous mole people that attack victims by dragging them below the sand to eat them alive, but 4e makes them worse. In this edition, not all of an anakore's victims are eaten. Some are just Buried Alive in dark nests beneath the sands... where they slowly transform into a new anakore.
- The hideous hej-kin are another race of burrowing humanoids who stalk prey from beneath the sands. In 4th edition, they also worship Eldritch Abominations and are often found working alongside aberrations. Worse, it's suggested that the hej-kin may be all that's left of the once peaceful and benevolent race of gnomes.
- Psurlons; giant worms with incredible Psychic Powers, descended from humanoids who destroyed their own world in a psionic ritual gone awry and survived by latching their spirits onto once-normal worms and mutating them into something more compatible. They come to Athas for only two reasons; to conquer, and to feed...
- Agony beetles are a particularly nasty insect found in the jungles of Athas. Not only do they cause extreme pain in their victims, they feed off the very torture that they're responsible for. And Halflings love to use them as sling ammunition.
