Dying Earth Shattered Verisimilitude

A while back I mentioned that I would start work on my Magic Using class after I finished Jack Vance's Dying Earth series.  I have since done so and begun work and even initial playtesting but I've been silent on one thing.  I love Dying Earth, I love the setting, the tumultuous tales of Turjon and T'sais, the times I caught my breath reading the dastardly deeds and devious ploys of Cugel the Clever or his perpetual misfortune. Then there is Rhialto the Marvelous.



Rhialto's story ruined Dying Earth for me.

Now for something a little less dramatic, Rhialto the Marvellous did away with the very thing that made Dying Earth so appealing.  Its very namesake, the pervasive tone of it's inhabitants moods and actions.  The feeling that at any time the sun may go out, stirring an abject fatalism in the waning earth's inhabitants.  This message is conveyed quite beautifully, by observation of the principal characters and exposition by men of ancient knowledge.[1-2]

"...these people of waning Earth, feverishly merry, for infinite night was close at hand, when the red sun should finally flicker and go black."  [1]