The original Dark Sun Boxed Set is an accessory for the 2nd edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, published in 1991.

One of the campaign guides, called The Wanderer's Journal, explains the background of the Dark Sun world and is written in the style of a first-person memoir.

The Dungeon Master's Book details a simple adventure, complete with encounter descriptions, game statistics, and role-playing notes.

Travelers risk dehydration from the scorching heat, ambushes from brutal elven raiders, and attacks from giant tentacles lurking in the dust-filled Sea of Silt.

[1] Owing to the scarcity of natural resources, few wizards have access to books made of paper pages and hard covers; instead, they record their spells with string patterns and complex knots.

The ceramic coin, made from clay and glazed in various colors, is the primary medium of exchange, worth about a hundredth of a gold piece.

Priests comprise three distinct categories: clerics, who derive their powers directly from the elemental planes; templars, who serve the sorcerer-kings and are dependent on them for magical energy; and druids, who are bound to the essence of a particular oasis or other geographic location.

[1] The Dark Sun rules encourage players to follow the alignment guidelines used in other AD&D campaigns, though allowances are made for extreme circumstances.

Defilers have no qualms about exploiting the environment, as every spell they cast sucks the life from the surrounding area and turns it into a sterile wasteland.

From dragons to spell-casting, from character classes to gold pieces, this set ties familiar AD&D conventions into knots, resulting in one of the most fascinating and original game worlds that TSR has ever produced.