Death Mark: A Dark Sun Novel (Dark Sun, Abyssal Plague)

Death Mark: A Dark Sun Novel (Dark Sun, Abyssal Plague) [Robert J. Schwalb] on leondumoulin.nl *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In the aftermath of.
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While it is probably very fitting for the setting to include graphic details in combat and other scenes, I found it over the top and even disgusting at times. So, for me, this was a turn-off and it happened often. Beyond that, there were few negatives. On the scale of Dark Sun novels, canon is extremely well handled.

The amount of undead at one point seemed without proper explanation. While Athas certainly has tons of undead, the number appearing just needed an explanation. Portals to the Dead Lands, ancient battle and the necromancer had a tome describing it, anything to explain it and not make it so jarring. Alternate and final artwork by Justin Sweet.

That one major and other minor bits aside, this is an excellent novel.

Death Mark

I highly recommend it for any Dark Sun fan, and for fans of this type of fiction as well. The story is really very good. The characters are well developed, they have interesting goals and motives, they are dynamic, and they interact in cool ways. The novel has many surprises, especially around how the characters come together and the choices they make — this is not a novel where you guess the ending or even the middle and that is a strong positive.

The conclusion is both interesting and fitting for the story.

The novel does a great job of showing how these houses compete and how they market goods in a place such as Tyr. The treatment is sufficient for any DM to come up with several ideas around a merchant-centric campaign, and the characters in the novel make great NPCs foes, allies, or both.

Death Mark does a great job of portraying Dark Sun halflings, mul, half-giants, and especially dwarves.

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This is very useful for any Dark Sun fan and a lot of fun to read. In the interview on Athas. This novel brings it back in an excellent way. Friends can become foes and the other way around. Action is brutal and fast and furious, and everyone seems destined to die.

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Nothing is safe and from start to finish every character is struggling against a world that seems devoid of hope. That depiction is fantastic for the setting and invaluable to gamers as a reminder of how to portray Athas. Athasian Undead A mixed bag. I thought the novel did a great job of reminding us how undead can play a role in the setting, through Under-Tyr or necromancers. But, I thought it could have done a better job of highlighting Athasian undead from old books rather than zombies and ghouls and Far-Realm variants.

Tyr as a City-State The novel is invaluable for getting a feel for a Tyrian-based campaign. From details of Shadow Square to the Golden Tower to Caravan Way and more, the novel really does a great job of making Tyr a robust and interesting part of the campaign setting. Other locations, especially Silver Spring but also the mountains and rocky badlands near Tyr, see some valuable attention. Dark Sun by Robert J. In the aftermath of revolution, King Kalak of Tyr is dead and all eyes fall on the lucrative iron mines of his once mighty city-state.

Merchant houses scramble to seize what scraps they can while King Hamanu of Urik, the Lion of the Desert, rallies his armies to crush the Tyr rebellion underfoot. But fate chooses the most unlikely heroes. Mass Market Paperback , pages. Published December 6th by Wizards of the Coast first published November 1st To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Death Mark , please sign up.

Lists with This Book. Feb 26, Travis rated it it was amazing Shelves: Death Mark is the third stand-alone novel in the recent relaunch of the Dark Sun series of novels based on the Dungeons and Dragons universe of Dark Sun. This is Robert J. Schwalb's first novel, but he has written many adventures, source-books, and rule sets for various d20 role-playing systems.

Tyr has fallen in revolution and a new Sorcerer-King has claimed Tyr's throne. After freeing the city's slaves and clos Death Mark is the third stand-alone novel in the recent relaunch of the Dark Sun series of novels based on the Dungeons and Dragons universe of Dark Sun. After freeing the city's slaves and closing Tyr's iron mines, the city of Tyr is far from recovering from the death of King Kalak. The city's merchant houses fight for anything that is left as a rival city marches to take over the reeling city.

However, that's not the only problem that Tyr has to deal with. House Vordon is looking to take the city under its control, and placing Thaxos Vordon as the new leader. But at the same time, another merchant house is on the move to take the city. Being forced into servitude after becoming a free man, the former gladiator Loren leads House Shom towards Tyr under the watchful and mysterious Temmnya.

Death Mark: A Dark Sun Novel - Robert J. Schwalb - Google Книги

Another merchant house, House Stel, wants to gain a foothold on Tyr or more importantly, its iron mines. Alaeda Stel journeys towards Tyr where she awaits her assignment, but something just doesn't feel right. The disgraced templar Korvack looks to get back into King Tithian's good graces by trying to uncover any plots against the new Sorcerer-Kings new throne and enlists the aid of Melech, a thief with connections. Tyr's future looks bleak. The build up of Death Mark's fantastic story is almost ruined by the rushed and hurried ending. That said, the ending isn't all that bad.

It still does attempt to tie up the loose ends and bring the story to a satisfying conclusion, however it felt underwhelming and rushed. Things happen to mostly get the book to the three hundred page length. Truth be told, Death Mark feels like it should have had a sequel with everything that was going on feel like it was better concluded, along with helping to make the ending feel a bit more satisfying. Death Mark is a complex, multiple plot-line story done right.

There are five main plot-lines, with many little minor plot points, in Death Mark. Most novels with multiple story-lines, four or more, tend to lie on the rushed, clustered side of the road. There's too much going on without a moment of respite or reason for why. In Death Mark everything that happens really does happen for a reason. You can see the progression of how a situation got to where it is currently. Another problem with most multiple story-lined novels is that the multiple plots seem to be either loosely connected or forced into one another.

With Death Mark the stories really did come together in a nice and fitting way. Where Death Mark also shines is with its characters. The main characters and the minor ones both came off as extremely developed and interesting. No character felt wasted or misused. Everyone had role and they either met it or exceeded that role's expectations.

While the minor characters were good, Death Mark's main cast is fantastic. Diverse, deep, and interesting really do help in summing them up. From the recently freed gladiator to the imprisoned and disgraced templar, each social status is represented and really gives the reader an excellent look into what makes Athas tick. The characters themselves are fleshed out and really do go through some great development as the story progresses.

These characters do make reading through Death Mark an extremely enjoyable experience. After the recent relaunch of the Dark Sun novel line, this is the first book that really gave the world and setting some depth and understanding.

Death Mark – Dark Sun Book Review

Personally, I have no experience of the world outside of the two newer released novels and what little information I gathered from a quick search, but the world seemed a lot more explained and defined in Death Mark than it did in the previous two novels. Honestly, without the great use of background I would still think very little of Dark Sun and would still be wondering what exactly the world is. Great descriptions, explanations, and great usage of exposition really makes Dark Sun seem like a totally different and new setting that makes you yearn to learn more if you have little knowledge of the universe.

All this can point back to how well Death Mark built up the surrounding world. After reading Death Mark, I have this sudden interest in learning more about the city where the story takes place in. Why, exactly, was the former Sorcerer-King overthrown and how different was the city before? Out of all the great characters and their own personal arcs, Pakka's seemed the most interesting and heartbreaking. It's not much for me to warrant a whole praise section for this character out of the other great ones alongside her, but it is worth mentioning that her character was in my opinion the best of the bunch.

Death Mark has a very standard fantasy novel cover, but honestly, I just don't care for it. The colors are drab and boring and there is nothing there to make it "pop". It has the standard brown color scheme that seemed to have become popular in the past few years and that, while fitting, just doesn't seem to work.

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The character on the front, who is possibly Temmnya, kind of looks unappealing. She's just there in skimpy, impractical clothing doing nothing. She isn't tantalizing, but just boring.


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Other than that, there isn't much else to this drab, bland cover. Even with the rushed ending, Death Mark really sparked my interest in the otherwise flat world of the recent Dark Sun novels. With its great cast, interesting story-lines, and an informative, yet entertaining look at the world of Athas, Death Mark was a great read. Aside from the rushed ending, which I still believe would have worked better if this was a multi-part series, there is little that really holds Death Mark back. The story is wonderfully complex and understandable, along with showcasing a lot of depth and intrigue of the world.

The characters are just great and you'll soon find one that you will attach yourself to. There is not much more to say about Death Mark other than go pick it up. If you were on the fence or even remotely interested in the world of Dark Sun, I would say this is an excellent place to start. Aug 28, R. Vesna rated it it was ok Shelves: This was a physically tough book to read. The sentence structure lacked flow and more significantly the font was very small, making it a tiring read. The story was almost 2 different stories. The answer of course is ZOMBIES controlled by a young enchantress that needs to be more powerful than the sorcerer-kings in order to control the army of undead that she creates.

The characters lacked believability, one being so far as to lose an eye and his manhood and continue on as if nothing had occurred because he could survive without them. Overall a lot of huge problems with the writing. Jan 24, Mphecker rated it liked it. An enjoyable book, and a vast improvement over City Under the Sand.