In one of the what do you want next threads Spelljammer got mentioned a lot. Some of the people wanting Spelljammer did not seem to know much about it so this thread ius an introduction to Spelljammer using my near mint boxed set I picked up on Ebay back in 2004.
So what is Spelljammer? Put simply it is D&D in space. THis is not science fiction space bnut fanatasy space where you do not need space suits and agiant catapult or something similar could fire you to the moon. The Gnomes of Spelljammer are tinker Gnomes and they have rubber band and giant hamster powered space ships. Spelljammer was released in 1989 and it was the 1st 2E campaign setting released the same year as the 2E PHB.
THe boxed set is a bit thinner than the 5E boxed set but it was packed full off goodies. The guts of the Spelljammer setting are in 2 softcover books the Concordance of Arcane Space and Lorebook of the Void. These explained the Spelljammer universe and had rules for things such as ship to ship combat.
The books+ 2E DM screen on the bottom.
Several terms.
Spelljammer. The 2E campaign setting.
The Spelljammer. The Spelljammer was a legendary spaceship in the Spelljammer multiverse.
Spelljamming. To travel through space at spelljamming speed (think hyperspace).
Spelljammer also connected three TSR gameworlds with information there for Krynn (Dragonlance), Toril (Forgotten Realms) and Oearth (Greyhawk) and the solar systems of those worlds. A starting location was also provided for the PCs which was the Rock of Bral which came on a poster sized map. The Rock of Bral was suggested to be located on the Tears of Selune orbiting Toril assuming the DM did not want to place it somewhere else.
2E boxed sets often had a world map or something similar in them. The Menzoberranzan boxed set for example had 4 poster sized maps detailing Drizzt Do Urdens home city. The Spelljammer boxed set of course also had a poster sized map of the Spelljammer itself which is the size of a large capital ship from Star Wars. It is basically a flying city in space.
Also included in the boxed set was a large hex based grid for ship to ship combat, sheets of cardboard with artwork and stats detailing the Spelljamming ships and punch out cardboard ships with plastic bases to use on the sheet.
THis is only some of the boxed set contents BTW. The blue plastic in this photo is the plastic sprue bases intact and unused as I use the SJ PDF for running the games. Well that is more or less it for my introduction to Spelljammer. I would like to see it released officinally for 5E and would buy it to support WoTC and the Spelljammer legacy. Spelljammer is a very silly campaign setting but that is fine for D&D IMHO outside the core books.
Some online fan art for Spelljamming ships.
Elven Man O War.
Dragonfly
Mindflayer Nautiloid
Neogi Mindspider
Thanks for sharing Zard. I never played much Spelljammer back in the 2e days but always enjoy trips down memory lane. Seeing your books reminds me of when I'd see it at the book store or comic store back in my college days.
Yeah, thanks for sharing Zard. These are beautiful old maps and pictures.
Spelljammer was so awesome.
one "problem" with speljammer is that it effects other settings, sudenly all other settings need to have sities where spelljammer ships dock, and acount for how spelljamming is efecting that world.
I think Mike Mearls tweeted a while back that if they where going to do a new spelljammer setting it would be seperate from the other worls.
Maybe going the way of stars without number, this game alouws you to generate a random star cluster with difrent power groups within that star cluster.
D&D meets a Roger Dean album cover!
edwin_su wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
SleepsInTraffic wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
I never really liked Spelljammer. A little too silly for my tastes. I just really hope we see Eberron, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, and Planescape (in no particular order). Those four are my personal favorite. Birthright is the only "traditional fantasy" setting that would interest me. I would probably buy anything though...
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Hasbro has a really good reason for a reboot of Spelljamming: toys and action figures. Spelljammer is the closest one for a arcanepunk version of G.I.Joe, and don't forget the Kre-O building toys.
My advice is to use Spelljammer to recover the alien races from d20 Future (Gamma World, Star*Drive and Star Frontiers)... why not a "non-canon" Spelljammers Transformers? Only a comic miniserie would be enough.
Who would buy Spelljammer? The fanboys who want to create their own mash-up and D&D version of sci-fi franchises like Star Wars, Star Treck, Farscape, Mass Efect, Halo, Andromeda (tv show), Babylon 5, Doctor Who (who said Chronomancers and Time Dragons?)..and for the videogames.
* A question...why not the scros (I hate that horrible name!! It sounds like scrotum) land in any land to kick-ass all the barbarian goblinkin and orc tribes? Gnolls are asking to be terminated.
I enjoyed Spelljammer and Planescape both because of the cross-world capability. Even with Spelljammer most of the worlds that were connected knew nothing of Spelljamming as port cities were few and usually in gnomish territory. The main port on Faerun was in the now destroyed gnomish volcano island/city. Dragonlance had one in the gnomish city (can't recall the name now). Athas didn't have spelljammer as it was cut off from the phlogiston.
Phlogiston: Deep space area that was flamable. It was the areas between Crystal Spheres.
Crystal Sphere: A solar system and the container of a campaign world. Spheres could be cut off from the phlogiston by the gods of that setting (Athas) or open. Portals through the sphere were the stars in the night sky. This implied that all campaign worlds actually shared a single Prime Material Plane and that Deep Ethereal, Shadow, and Astral travel to get to them was just an alternative method of travel between spheres.
Neogi: These spiderlike slavers were introduced in Spelljammer and were one of the major Spelljamming races. Others included Humans, Tinker Gnomes, Elves, Griff, and Illithids.
Spelljammer: The Spelljammer is a legendary spelljamming ship that's believed to be sentient and resembles a giant manta ray. Tales of it appearing in various worlds did occur and it was believed it's appearance was tied to important events. It also had a comic book series.
Spelljammer vessels were powered by spelljamming helms that came in a variety of formats but usually worked on willpower, magic (arcane or divine), or a few other methods. Ship designs varied by race with human ones tending to look like ocean vessels, elven ones having insect/nature themes, Illithid tend to look like nautiloids and Neogi had spidery appearances.
Nice!
thanks for the memories, I haven't seen this stuff in yonks!
We busted open that box and added to our setting back in 89, incoprerated it into the campaign after running Expedition to Barrier Peaks. played on spaceships for about a year 
, fun times!
Almost of topic. Have you thought about the background of AD&D Chronomancer? Let's imagine "Time spheres" with alternative timeline of the canon events. For example a sphere where we can see a mixture of the main D&D worlds (Mystara, Dragonlance, Greyhawk and FR).
I am imagining something like the manga/anime Bokurano: Ours and the marvel comics event "Time Runs Out". I call them "the war of the nodes. The different world fight to get the "nodes", something like an anchor of the space-time continum... the worlds who lose the nodes are more vulnerable to invasion by the far realm and another hostile groups. One of the spheres would be a demiplane, the future high-tech "city of the gods" from the Mystara module..
I never played it but I sure as heck would buy it. It could add some great late game variety as well as just be an interesting read.
LuisCarlos17f wrote:
Man, those maps and ship cards take me back. I’ll have to crack open my Spelljammer stuff and take a look, it’s been a while.
The Neogi, Mind Flayers, and Beholders had the creepiest ships, too.
Spelljammers could be used to test new things, for example an "almost-canon" movie. In the right hands with a good story, a Spelljammer movie could be a blockbuster like "Guardians of the Galaxy", or a cartoon show.
Spelljammer could used to mix another Hasbro franchises like Transformers or G.I.Joe (arcane punt version)... or little pony(!!!!), at least the first effort could be a comic, or a webcomic.
Maybe in a Spelljammer world could find d20 Future meets Dark Sun.. (like Mad Max + John Carter).
Another option is a videogame, something like "Pirates of the Caribean in the space".
Spelljammer is one of my favorite settings.
A few more tidbits from memory
Ships were powered by spelljamming helms. Standard (minor and major) required a spellcaster (wizard or cleric) to use and would drain their magic for the day. Minor helms could power ships up to 50 tones if I remember correctly and major could go to 100. There were a few other types used by different races. There were lifedraining helms that I beleive were utilized by the Neogi and Mindflayers. The Dwarven citadels used a type of forge helm that I don't recal the details on.
Space was a vacuum but virtually everything had an air envelope. A person might only have enough for a minute of breathable air but something like a dragon could have enough to fly around for a good while. A ship would have to stop off and refresh it's air or it would begin to get toxic. Elven ships were living plants so they could go much longer.
There were flintlocks and cannons but they were uncommon. You couldn't use them in the phlogiston though or you would blow yourself up due to the flamable air.
It did have a few silly things that I tended to ignore. Giant space hamsters for one. And the elven bio weapons (mecha and Guyver like parasite).
If they do a remake, I would really like to see them drop the air bit and just say that all of space is breathable. Much like the animated film Treasure Planet. In fact, divorce the technology from the movie and treasure planet would make an outstanding Spelljammer game.
I'm currently running a 2E (with lots of houserules) pseudo-Spelljammer/Planescape campaign, with a heavy dose of Rod of Seven Parts. It's not really any of them exactly and I rendered things post-apocalyptic. It's been pretty cool. This is the continuation of a long running campaign that got revived. It always had a rather nautical and world-hopping feel to it, so this was an obvious way to take it. I used this to really push an alien feel, though, and have gone out of my way to make use of monsters I never used much before.
Integrate new settings into the adventure path's. 90% of players just want a cool adventure and don't care specifically what setting it is in. So make a cool adventure to please the 90% and do different settings to please the other 10%. By the way those numbers are an exaggeration, please let's not have a long thread about the math on the 90%/10%.
Today the future of lots of IP/franchises aren´t in pen & paper RPGs, but also videogames, comics, cartoons, toys.
And in this age, people don´t spend money to buy books about background, but the collectors, becaue now we can read the wiki of videogames, movies, etc.
Damn, now I want to play a Spelljammer/Birthright crossover.
Planetary fleet against planetary fleet, to conquer the crystal sphere!
LuisCarlos17f wrote:
Maybe a part of the future of the comic is the online webcomics... and you could click sponsorpay videos to get points and to buy those comics and online DLC for videogames.