Since, from what I understand, it treats all the settings as spheres on a single plane it actually works quite well for my mutliverse since I had already houseruled all the official settings, some 3rd party settings, and my homebrewed world into different earth-like "Material Worlds" on my Material Plane. I was even thinking about how I would make ship travel across these places and the two moons of my homebrewed world. I had thought the Mind Flayer ships in Lords of Madness would be the only option.
Can any of the older players here please give me some advice, tips, etc about this setting?
Can anyone who has done it, please tell me how you can incorporate this setting, or as I am thinking about it "another dimension to the planes/worlds", into my existing campaign? Right now I am running my first campaign, which I am trying to piece together as the games go into "My setting" in the hopes that I will set the foundation for a world/multiverse which I will hopefully use for many games/groups/years to come. So I want to makes this all nice and right.
Oh, and does anyone know how to incorporate the elemental/inner planes and the outer planes into this? I also want to make it so travel between the planets/spheres is restricted to ships (what was the term for spelljammer ships again?), and not as easy as jumping to inner/outer plane x and then shifting back to the Material Plane but to a different world, if this is at all possible to work out somehow. I guess some things like purposefully hard to find astral plane portals and such would also be OK, but again I would like the ships to be the main form of travel, so I need a way to seriously limit other ways of just plane hopping a bit while still keeping the 3.x cosmology I like so much.
Also, I would REALLY appreciate some advice for how to convert all this (I assume complicated) material to 3.5. I saw the semi-"official" spelljammer site, but it seemed to seriously lack any form of fluff or background. Plus, I believe some of the links are broken, and that the whole site might even by abandoned, so I have the feeling things are not complete there and some things might have been lost. And again, it seems to lack fluff and background on the setting, so I believe that I will need to find and buy those old books anyway (was this intentional?). Also, If someone knows how to save whole webpages, please let me know, because I want to save what is there before it disappears for good.
And if you oldies just want to talk about this old setting, reminisce of old times/games, or just want to say something about it please do! All that stuff often gives me both inspiration and ideas.
edit:
p.s. One of my players owns his own little fleet of ships, and the party is often traveling around my homebrewed world on a galley they/he owns, so I think it might be a fun treat for them to be able to convert it (and maybe the whole fleet) into jamming ships (was that the term?). Was this posible in the rules? Heck, the PC/player even named it the Galaxia, so I almost feel like fate had intended for this.
There is even a recently ruined civilization of humans (they are near extinct in my "setting") which was working on two FF5 styled flying ships before they fell. One of the PCs is directly tied to this fluff wise, and I have been planning for when/if he decides to go searching for the ship he knew about (currently in the city's ruins under a bunker). The players have even flown in the second ship, which was salvaged and is being used by a major NPC (a former PC of mine), although he doesn't knwo the history/significance of it. Maybe this could be a good/convenient way to introduce this world to jamming/space travel? I eblieve I read that world with little/no space travel, contact with the jamming community, or trade with other worlds were cosnidered "worldies" or soemthing similar and were considered primitive and isolated. If this is true, would this be a convenient way of explaining why this is suddenly new, and maybe have the PCs introduce this world to the space/jammer community? Maybe even have give the possible option/quest for the one PC's fleet to be the first trade ships from this world (and possibly make him rich in the process)?
Also, check out the Complete Spacefarer's Handbook for all kinds of kits and even more exotic (but playable) spacefaring races. Of course, the Monster Compendium for Spelljammer is a must. There's a ton more product I'm missing (this is all off the top of my head) but this should be a good start.
As far as Spelljammer campaigns, there were a few. After picking up the Adventures in Space boxed set, I developed what I call "Everspace" (my homebrew setting's cyrstal sphere) and detailed two star systems within (with nine planets each).
Caught in a suspended orbit between these two star systems was a tenth planet: Everest, a flat world. One side always faces one star and one faces the other. We only ever explored one planet side (the side of my homebrew) but the idea was always to add more.
Bral was our homebase (a natural) and could be found in a pirate-infested asteroid belt. The dwarves of Everspace were even more totalitarian than they are in my homebrew; real tyrants.
I've lost most of my notes over the years, and can't remember exactly now, but from Everspace I think we could travel easily to Krynnspace. Greyspace took more effort but was possible. I think Realmspace was hardest of all (don't remember why). That's what was so fun about Spelljammer though, the settings were all there and wide-open.
I've always been a bigger fan of Spelljammer than other "massive" 2nd edition campaign settings like Planescape or the enigmatic Ravenloft. Played a lot of Forgotten Realms but after that, there was a lot of Spelljammer. I'm right there with ya ;), I fell in love with the setting as soon as I got home and opened it up. It been twenty years since I played my first camapaign but, I can honestly say I still love the setting today.
I'm kinda writing this at a run, but I hope you have fun with the setting, Celestialkin ;). I'll check back in later when I have a bit more time. See ya!
http://www.spelljammer.org/
It includes conversions to 3e.
I haven't started crunching through it yet, because I have not gotten by core book/set yet. I figure reading the how to update stuff before reading what I need to update is like putting the cart before the horse.
However, I have been having some fun doing what I can do. I have mostly mapped out my sphere/solar system, and have jotted down some basic notes and names for a few of them. Plus I love (trying) to sketch stuff, so drawing the solar system reminded me of my childhood a bit.
Here is the sphere/solar system (please forgive me the 99.999999% of you who will probably not be bale to make heads-or-tails out of this):
Show
Notes on this images:
Notes on this images:
- The most outer circle is the Sphere. I will make it thicker, and color it crystalish blue tomorrow.
- The circular lines within the outermost one are the orbits of the celestial bodies as they relate to the sun, or in some cases to each other as well.
- Each letter corresponds to a matching letter in the Index below.
Haven't had enough time to look over your information. I did think it was odd that the second sun and surrounding planets/moons seem to travel through asteroid belts. Wouldn't a path get cleared out for them over time? Maybe that is answered and I just didn't read it. I'll try to give it a closer look when I get a chance.
You might want to move this topic over to the spelljammer forum here or over to the spelljammer forum on the piazza. (I would recommend the piazza as the spelljammer community moved over there after the forum reorg and hasn't entirely moved back.).
We have a Spelljammer forum here?!
My bad. I thought the few forums under the Previous Editions heading were all that was left.
Can a mod please move this thread? Sorry about that.
Now let me see if I can find that forum.
Oh, and I thought Piazza (the forum made for the pre-3.x refugees right?) was strictly for Basic-2nd Ed. Do they now allow 3.x?
Haven't had enough time to look over your information. I did think it was odd that the second sun and surrounding planets/moons seem to travel through asteroid belts. Wouldn't a path get cleared out for them over time? Maybe that is answered and I just didn't read it. I'll try to give it a closer look when I get a chance.
Oh, my bad. I'll add that info to the notes. Basically, those asteroid belts (or are they more like clusters?) also travel along the same orbit. That is why I drew the line through them as well. I was kind of confused myself whether or not they would be subject the orbit/gravity, tough.
And thank you for replying and the help!
We have a Spelljammer forum here?!
Link if needed.
Oh, and I thought Piazza (the forum made for the pre-3.x refugees right?) was strictly for Basic-2nd Ed. Do they now allow 3.x?
Piazza welcomes all editions. There is a SJ 3.5 conversion project and a Mystara 3.5 conversion project. Some people appear to be working on a 4E Mystara. I've posted some thoughts on a 4E SJ. It does have a lot of fans of early editions but everyone is friendly.
Oh, my bad. I'll add that info to the notes. Basically, those asteroid belts (or are they more like clusters?) also travel along the same orbit. That is why I drew the line through them as well. I was kind of confused myself whether or not they would be subject the orbit/gravity, tough.
Ah. Regular orbits and gravity aren't that big of concern for SJ. The fantasy setting allows you to ignore the normal physical rules. Fire planets for example might just be an opening to the elemental plane of fire. Making things too crazy can lose the suspension of disbelief of your players.
One idea I liked for spheres in SJ is to make one thing really unique and usual. For example for the Mystara sphere, it has been suggested that all planets/moons should have a hollow world. For a DragonMech sphere I thought it would be interested if each planet has it's own set of traits like the lunar subtype in the game.
BTW you take a look at this contest.
Link if needed.
Thanks, but it seems that board seems kind of dead.
Piazza welcomes all editions. There is a SJ 3.5 conversion project and a Mystara 3.5 conversion project. Some people appear to be working on a 4E Mystara. I've posted some thoughts on a 4E SJ. It does have a lot of fans of early editions but everyone is friendly.
Cool. I'll make an account. Hopefully it is a bit faster and more useful than these boards.
Ah. Regular orbits and gravity aren't that big of concern for SJ. The fantasy setting allows you to ignore the normal physical rules. Fire planets for example might just be an opening to the elemental plane of fire. Making things too crazy can lose the suspension of disbelief of your players.
What did I make "too crazy" there?
One idea I liked for spheres in SJ is to make one thing really unique and usual. For example for the Mystara sphere, it has been suggested that all planets/moons should have a hollow world. For a DragonMech sphere I thought it would be interested if each planet has it's own set of traits like the lunar subtype in the game.
I see. I wonder what I can do for this sphere...
...... No real clue honestly. Anyone got some ideas?
What did I make "too crazy" there?
I didn't mean to imply you've done something too crazy. I just meant that if you do go over the top with lots of weird things the players may not buy it. I still need to read through your posts.
Full of possibilities, lots of detail, very nice work, ;)). If I could offer any advice, it would be this: Developing a fantasy setting can be a lot of work (as I'm sure you realize ;)), especially one as massive in scope as Spelljammer. Develop what interests you most. That is, don't get too bogged down in detail; just be sure to have fun. Looks like you're on the right track.
***
@ dulsi: Having each planet in "Knownspace" have it's own version of a Hollow World is a neat idea, very applicable to the setting I think.
Is this mentioned on the Piazza? I'll have to check out "Piazza", haven't heard of it.
I see. I wonder what I can do for this sphere...
...... No real clue honestly. Anyone got some ideas?
I wouldn't worry about it. You've got a lot of unique planet organizations. One sun orbitting another but also having it's own planets. I think it has enough character with that.
@ dulsi: Having each planet in "Knownspace" have it's own version of a Hollow World is a neat idea, very applicable to the setting I think.
Is this mentioned on the Piazza? I'll have to check out "Piazza", haven't heard of it.
I believe it's been mentioned in some threads on the Piazza. I haven't really participated in discussions about Knownspace. I like the Mystara setting but never got much of the supplements so I don't know enough about it to really help.
Spelljammer Wiki is still very small (especially compared to GH Wiki the Forgotten Realms Wiki or Dragonlance Lexicon), but you might want to bookmark it (or help out).
You might also want to join the Spelljammer Mailing List (SJML).
As for the WotC Spelljammer forum being small, we recently had some fairly unhelpful forum staff who decided to merge together all the Other Worlds forums for the out of print TSR settings. The new forum staff have demerged the forums, but the threads from those forums are being moved back manually (and that is probably going to take months to do).
So while The Piazza (or the SJML) are more active that WotC's Spelljammer forum, it is by no means dead.
If a 4e edition of Spelljammer is announced, you will probably see a lot more activity over here.
@ dulsi - don't forget that if you want to organise a 4th edition conversion project for Spelljammer, the management of The Piazza would be happy to consider setting you up with a subforum. (When I applied for the 3e conversion project*) I didn't want to muddle 4e conversions in with 3e conversions (as that would make my project a mess) but I'd be happy to wave pom-poms at a project that could give Beyond the Moons some 4e SJ material.
* = I'm the moderator over there too.
Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com **Celebrating 10 Years!**
There were also five spelljammer novels published,Amazon.com might have some from z-sellers. They sort of have a travellougue flavor to them and involve a tour of the Spelljammer universe to find the Spelljammer. Contains some interesting fluff.
Correction: There were six novels in The Cloakmaster Cycle. Check out the Novels and Comics section on the Products Page of the Beyond the Moons website for the names (and a link to a page showing the covers).
That page also shows the details of three Spelljammer short stories that have been published (as well as all the SJ RPG products and other SJ products, like the one SJ computer game).
Oh, and I thought Piazza (the forum made for the pre-3.x refugees right?) was strictly for Basic-2nd Ed. Do they now allow 3.x?
Actually, this is wrong. I think you might be mixing The Piazza up with Dragonsfoot (which is AFAIK a retro forum). The Piazza was made for Other Worlds fans when former Wizards of the Coast forum staff decided to delete subforums, such as the Spelljammer forum and the Mystara forum.
They person who set it up is a Mystara fan, but wanted to support the entire campaign setting loving RPG community. So the core target audience of The Piazza is people like Spelljammer fans.
These campaign settings are mostly ones that were born in 2nd edition, 1st edition or classic D&D, but the fact that they were not updated to 3rd edition by Wizards of the Coast doesn't mean that fans of those settings are against the new rules. It just means that WotC have decided not to support their own settings with 3rd edition rules (beyond the official sites for these settings - like Beyond the Moons - and things like the ESD Conversion Agreement).
The Piazza is actually edition neutral (and always has been), so Spelljammer fans that play with the original 2nd edition AD&D rules coexist with Spelljammer fans that play with 3rd edition or 4th edition rules. The Piazza is actually hosting two conversion projects designed to help bring two campaign settings up to 3rd edition (one of them is for Spelljammer
). I know that 4th edition conversion projects will also be welcome there (although, personally I'm in "wait and see" mode on 4th edition - its far too new for me to get involved with it).Because it is edition neutral, The Piazza is also a place where people can talk about old school rules (or retro conversions of new rules). People have recently been talking about retro-converting Eberron to older D&D rules. Perhaps this is where you have got this misimpression of the community. (Or perhaps, as I said before, you mixed it up with Dragonsfoot.) So OD&D fans (or as they prefer to be called Classic D&D fans) that want to play Spelljammer are just as welcome as 4th edition fans who want to play Spelljammer - there is no edition of D&D that is not welcome at The Piazza. Even Pathfinder RPG fans (fans of things like C&C) are welcome to talk about using those rules with Spelljammer at The Piazza. (But then that is how things should really be over here, too. People who slate older editions of D&D or newer editions of D&D are really standing in the way of the true purpose of this forum - the Spelljammer Campaign Setting.)
I suggest you surf over to The Piazza as we have had over 100 active Spelljammer threads in a very short time. (In other words The Piazza has had far more activity on it than the pre-deletion Spelljammer forum here used to have.) The lack of activity here, may have partially been connected to the fact that the forum kept going down, so I think this forum will pick up again. But I know that the deletion of the Spelljammer forum at WotC's forum deeply offended a few people who have (so far) refused to come back. You'll need to read The Piazza or the SJML if you want to see everyone in the community.
Actually, I'm interested in Spelljammer myself. I plan to have a very special ship, crewed by a strange mix of characters, drop by in Union. Hint, the crew includes an Elven Warlock named Magnus, an Artificer named Luccs, and a Warforged named Reggy...oh and the ship is called Epoch.
That sounds interesting.
What do you mean by "special ship"? Are you creating a new hull type? If so, do you have deck plans?
Pretty much everything I have left on Spelljammer. Some of it is still interesting or useful but I haven't even looked at those files in years now.
That sounds interesting.
What do you mean by "special ship"? Are you creating a new hull type? If so, do you have deck plans?
Ever heard of an SNES game called "Chrono Trigger", by chance? The ship I'm planning is going to be an updated version of the flying time machine from that game, primarilly crewed by cameos of the characters (names slightly altered, D20 stats).
For fans of the game who didn't get it, I was referencing Magus, Lucca, and Robo (R-66Y).
Ever heard of an SNES game called "Chrono Trigger", by chance? The ship I'm planning is going to be an updated version of the flying time machine from that game, primarilly crewed by cameos of the characters (names slightly altered, D20 stats).
I haven't got a game console (of any type) so hadn't heard of Chrono Trigger.
I suppose that if you want to use time travel in your game you should check out the Arcane Age subsetting from Forgotten Realms (which is set in the past) and try to extrapolate a past version of Realmspace from that. I don't personally like the 4e FRCG changes, but they could give you a basis for a future Realmspace and the 2e or 3e FR fits in with the present day Realmspace.
There have been some big changes with Dragonlance (namely moving the planet!) so check out Dragonhelm's Guide to Krynnspace to see how you can create a future Krynnspace. Legends of the Twins (by MWP) can help you to design a pre-cataclysm Krynnspace.
If you really want to go far into the future, I suppose you could use the Future rules from d20 Modern for inspiration. (If you hunt around the Internet, you can find several copies of the "Modern SRD", so that you can read the core rules.)
For fans of the game who didn't get it, I was referencing Magus, Lucca, and Robo (R-66Y).
Are you going to do and of the other characters of Chrono Trigger?
I haven't got a game console (of any type) so hadn't heard of Chrono Trigger.
Nor I.
For fans of the game who didn't get it, I was referencing Magus, Lucca, and Robo (R-66Y).
And here I thought you were referencing Obi-Won, Luke, R2D2, and that the good ship Epoch really was the Millenium Falcon
Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com **Celebrating 10 Years!**
You know I own all six Spelljammer novels but keep writing five,must be a mental block.
I've spoken to plenty of SJ fans who wish the last SJ novel didn't exist! :P
I like spelljammer for the freaky astrophysics and the weird cultures. What would it be like to be the king of an 600 ton dwarven asteroid that flies thru space selling weapons and tools,something like james blish's cities in space series? What would life be like on a world where humans,dwarves,orcs etc. never evolved and 3 million elves formed an advanced magic using civilisation? Suppose a sphere was filled with air and you could fly from planet to planet,like larry niven's Smoke Ring? What would a world made by Xixchil look like? RANDOM THOUGHTS.
I like the weirdness of Spelljammer. In fact, I like the special weirdness of all unusual campaign settings.
These are all questions that are worthy of their own threads. ;)
I found for Spelljammer it helps to get a bunch of folders for each concept world. Use a piece of notebook paper to describe the star system,fill the rest of the folder with scraps of paper with ideas you jot down at work,once a month or so sit down and try to make a coherent whole of the folder.
That would probably work for a lot of different types of campaign settings.
With Spelljammer you can use an "episodic" style of play and have PCs visit a world once and then move on,this removes the need for realistic worlds,all these worlds develope in isolation untill visited/destroyed by the PCs.
That sounds very similar to the way that Star Trek (TOS) treated planets. Of course you always run the risk (if you create an interesting planet) that the PCs will want to return and explore more of your world (assuming you don't let them destroy it the first time). ;)
I actually like the idea of forcing SJ players to run a Bat*21-style campaign, where their spelljamming ship gets destroyed on (occupied) Spiral and they need to escape from the invading Scro forces, escape off-world and let the Elven Navy know that Spiral has been invaded.
I think that robbing the PCs of their spelljamming ship, will make them appreciate the next one they get a bit more.
I haven't got a game console (of any type) so hadn't heard of Chrono Trigger.
I suppose that if you want to use time travel in your game you should check out the Arcane Age subsetting from Forgotten Realms (which is set in the past) and try to extrapolate a past version of Realmspace from that. I don't personally like the 4e FRCG changes, but they could give you a basis for a future Realmspace and the 2e or 3e FR fits in with the present day Realmspace.
There have been some big changes with Dragonlance (namely moving the planet!) so check out Dragonhelm's Guide to Krynnspace to see how you can create a future Krynnspace. Legends of the Twins (by MWP) can help you to design a pre-cataclysm Krynnspace.
If you really want to go far into the future, I suppose you could use the Future rules from d20 Modern for inspiration. (If you hunt around the Internet, you can find several copies of the "Modern SRD", so that you can read the core rules.)
Are you going to do and of the other characters of Chrono Trigger?
I'm planning to represent all the main characters, and maybe some minor ones. No time travel though. It's going to be more of a "Oh haha, look who it is!" cameo moment then anything else...maybe a side quest to help Tempus (Crono) find his cat (one of the game's endings has Crono's cat run through a portal just before it dissapears).
I haven't been able to get back to this in a while, but now I have some free time to continue this.
Sadly, I had to disband my campaign due to single player, but I hope to start a new group up soon to finally do all the stuff I have been thinking about and planning. Hopefully I will get the chance.
I didn't mean to imply you've done something too crazy. I just meant that if you do go over the top with lots of weird things the players may not buy it. I still need to read through your posts.
I see.
I guess that making Rita Repulsa a power in my sphere on my planet's moon is a bad idea?
Rita info:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94368
Hey, Celestialkin. The idea of the celestial bodies having different names in elven and dwarven is a nice touch.
Why thank you. I am glad someone liked that idea.
"Origin" is an awesome name for a homebase world.
Really? I was worried it was too cliche and obvious.
I really like the oral history, done in a Native American flavor.
Thanks again. I was worried it wasn't very good. I am not a good writer at all, and I do not wish to be offensive to Native Americans, or make them seem stereotypical or anything like that.
Full of possibilities, lots of detail, very nice work, ;)). If I could offer any advice, it would be this: Developing a fantasy setting can be a lot of work (as I'm sure you realize ;)), especially one as massive in scope as Spelljammer. Develop what interests you most. That is, don't get too bogged down in detail; just be sure to have fun. Looks like you're on the right track.
I see. But how much is "too much" detail? I am trying to run a sandbox game, so I believe I need to have a lot of stuff read, since I actually encourage the players to "do what their characters" would want to do. I do not like A-Z module like games, but at the same time I believe this means that I need to have a lot planned out ahead of time.
For example, how much of my world, and how much details and information would I need done before I can be safe when letting the players roam around it at their leisure?
I've read over your info. Fathoms: Aquatic Adventures could help fill in the water world. It is 2E so you would need to convert things but it could be useful for ideas.
Thank you. I will look into that. You might have just saved me a ton of time!
[QUOTE=dulsi;17109393
I wouldn't worry about it. You've got a lot of unique planet organizations. One sun orbitting another but also having it's own planets. I think it has enough character with that.
Really?
Damn. I made some unique trait for my sphere without even knowing it. :D
Spelljammer (like most of the classic D&D campaign settings) has a wiki that is collecting the canon of the campaign setting into a hyperlinked encyclopedia.
Spelljammer Wiki is still very small (especially compared to GH Wiki the Forgotten Realms Wiki or Dragonlance Lexicon), but you might want to bookmark it (or help out).[/i]
Great. Bookmarked.
From what I have researched online, there really doesn't seem to have been much material made for this setting, so I am not sure there would be much more to expand that wiki with.
You might also want to join the Spelljammer Mailing List (SJML).[/i]
How does a mailing list work?
As for the WotC Spelljammer forum being small, we recently had some fairly unhelpful forum staff who decided to merge together all the Other Worlds forums for the out of print TSR settings. The new forum staff have demerged the forums, but the threads from those forums are being moved back manually (and that is probably going to take months to do).
So while The Piazza (or the SJML) are more active that WotC's Spelljammer forum, it is by no means dead.[/i]
I see. Yeah, they really screwed thing up for us older editions players. I came back when I saw the Psionics forum was restored, but it seems it's too late to restore the community. Quite dead.
If a 4e edition of Spelljammer is announced, you will probably see a lot more activity over here.[/i]
I am not really looking forward for that myself.
* = I'm the moderator over there too.
Sweet!
I am finally going to make an account there then.
Would it be OK if I make another thread about this there?
There were also five spelljammer novels published,Amazon.com might have some from z-sellers. They sort of have a travellougue flavor to them and involve a tour of the Spelljammer universe to find the Spelljammer. Contains some interesting fluff.
Well, I don't have much time for reading at the moment, but I really do need to start reading books for DMing inspiration.
And of course, Spelljammer wouldn't be Spelljammer without ship-to-ship combat! If you're looking for fold-up models you can print out onto cardstock, check out the SJ page on my website at http://melkot.com/mechanics/sj-ships.html
Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com **Celebrating 10 Years!**
Dude, that is so awesome! :D
Thank you!
http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/dnd/spelljammer/spelljam.htm
Pretty much everything I have left on Spelljammer. Some of it is still interesting or useful but I haven't even looked at those files in years now.
Thank you for shearing that with me.
Hopefully I can keep some of your old material alive.
I found for Spelljammer it helps to get a bunch of folders for each concept world. Use a piece of notebook paper to describe the star system,fill the rest of the folder with scraps of paper with ideas you jot down at work,once a month or so sit down and try to make a coherent whole of the folder.
Thank you for the tips.
I am currently trying to work out a system with binders.
I have three binders for the sphere so far (these are the binder covers I made):
This one has tabs for each of the celestial bodies in my sphere. Under each tab I further break down the celestial body into nations or large areas (with tabs above the page this time). I am trying to list and organize all the settlements in my sphere in this binder, with any notes concerning them, and hopefully I will eventually have all their populations and military forces generated.
Again, this binder has tabs for each of the celestial bodies in my sphere, and under each tab I further break down the celestial body into nations or large areas (with tabs above the page this time). This is where I am trying to place all the NPCs encountered in my sphere, and ones I have planned for later (even if they are never met...).
I was having a hard time with this one, but thanks to you I now believe it was because I was seeing this as a chore. I LOVE your idea of just collecting things I right down over time, and then just sit down once a month (or when I feel like I want to) and organize it. Much appreciated!
I am not too happy with this one. Someone suggested keeping a binder of dungeons, but since I am starting to use programs like Fractal Mapper and CC3 for whenever I actually plan a dungeon, this will all be stored in digital mapper anyways.
Hence why I have really not done anything with it yet.
I also have a 4th binder titled Misc. NPCs for NPCs from outside the sphere, or even from outside the plane. So far these usually seem to ones which pop in-and-out of the sphere.
With Spelljammer you can use an "episodic" style of play and have PCs visit a world once and then move on,this removes the need for realistic worlds,all these worlds develope in isolation untill visited/destroyed by the PCs.
Well, I really don't like that for myself.
I am kinda unusual I guess, in that I actually enjoying wasting lots of time creating these big worlds and nations and populating them. Probably why I like games like Age of Empires and Etrian Odyssey (not a clue why it's realted, though).
Like I believe it said in the 3.5 DMG. Most people/DMs like building from the ground/locally up, but I really seem to enjoy working from the very top (originally a planet, but now a whole solar system) down to the local towns and NPCs. Not a clue why, but it is strangely fun for me. Getting concentrated to do it though, means I usually think about it for a while then slap it all down on text in a day or two of dedicated work (I am bipolar, so go figure...).
Plus, the way I think it will turn out is that once I have this whole massive mess worked out, and I have all the major NPCs, and the major (and perhaps some not-so-major) conflicts between them set up (in the binders I am guessing) I will be set for a long time without as much work. Can any of the experienced pros at spelljammer, or in sandbox games period please confirm this?
I am still on the first book in the Spelljammer series Spelljammer: AD&D Adventures in Space (only by page 12), but I already saw some decisions I need to make for my games. I would like to run them by the Spelljammer pros here for some opinions.
Notes on my Spelljamming setting:
- I designed my sphere before I even had my first Spelljammer books, so I did not know a sphere should be twice as big in diameter as the furthest celestial body from the center. Would this cause problems?
- There are no stars in the sphere of Naaira.
Exception:
The second smaller sun Dareshar/Lafrua in Naaira looks like a third bright (or even burning/on fire when the two celestial bodies are close enough) moon from Origin's perspective. However, for the portion of the solar cycle while Origin and Dareshar/Lafrua are on opposites sides of Baz/Sha (the sun) Dareshar/Lafrua is not visible from Origin.
The inhabitants of Origin are not sure why their third moon mysteriously vanishes for about half the year (remember, no Spelljamming technology is know here yet), but many of the various sentient cultures have their own beliefs and traditions concerning this, and some even have rituals and/or celebrations centering around the disappearance and reappearance of Dareshar/Lafrua. A theme common concerning these beliefs has to do with it merging or being absorbed by the other fiery/bright/light giving celestial body in their sky (the sun Baz/Sha) in some form or another for various reasons.- Divine Magic does not function outside the spheres in the Phlogiston, nor does it function in spheres where an individual's deity has no influence (see pg.9 of Spelljammer: AD&D Adventures in Space as to why).
Divine casters simply lose access to all their spells, and any special abilities granted by their class/deity while away from an area where their deity holds influence. However, they retain any uncast spells they had prepared or would normally have access to (for divine casters who do not prepare spells), and any special abilities granted from their class/deity until they awaken from their next rest cycle (which includes the Elven trance). If the creature is unable to rest, chooses not to rest, or does not require any form of rest the divine magical energy stored within it by it's deity is expanded within 24 hours of leaving it's god's influence.
This is all due to the gods not being able to refill their chosen vessels with their divine energies once they leave the range of their influence and vision.
The only known exception to this are the chosen of the over-deity Death. His vessels claim this is due to Death having dominion everywhere in existence, for no one is beyond the reach of his scythe.
Notes on this:
-In my games/homebrewed multiverse all divine power comes from deities, and all "Divine Casters" are essentially chosen representatives of their god, and are essentially walking vessels who their god bestowed a portion of it's divine power within. Hence all divine casters are required to have a deity, and no one may pick domains which their deity does not posses.
-I have written Death up as a deity. He essentially functions as an over-deity, and all other gods with the Death domain are "technically" under his service (he is an unusual, fickle, and very comical individual, so he varies on how he deals with these deities, much like he varies on how he deals with his followers). Since creatures can die outside the spheres in the Phlogiston, I figured I should deal with the issue of their souls before it came up, which I am certain it eventually will...- All the celestial bodies in my sphere (including the asteroid clusters) orbit around the center star/sun/whatever (haven't decided what it really is yet), and are affected by it's immense gravity (like in real world physics). Some bodies are captured by much larger celestial bodies then themselves which are closer by, though.
Now that I am leaning towards making divine magic useless in the Phlogiston, I will definitely need to convert this all to psionics. However, I will wait until I finish reading the entire first boxed set before I attempt this.
Additions to the celestial bodeis:
Show
I have also decided to make D in my sphere the planet Falx from the Spelljammer book Practical Planetology. (I got the book as a PDF at Paizo.com cheap)
For those who don't know, Falx is a desolate world which is supposedly (up to DM's discretion) the original home of all the "unique" tarresques on the more popular settings/worlds. There are hundreds of them on the surface (along with some other big lizards). There are also huge mind flayer cities underground in a very large underdark.
D: Falx (Elven for "scum". It is how the original Elf colonist referred to the mysterious creatures who suddenly appeared from no-where and attacked them.)
Notes:
For those who don't know, Falx is a desolate world which is supposedly (up to DM's discretion) the original home of all the "unique" tarresques on the more popular settings/worlds. There are hundreds of them on the surface (along with some other big lizards). There are also huge mind flayer cities underground in a very large underdark.
D: Falx (Elven for "scum". It is how the original Elf colonist referred to the mysterious creatures who suddenly appeared from no-where and attacked them.)
Notes:
- I have decided to make it the actual original world of all tarrasque. This would also help explain why this sphere is so unknown and secluded, because who in their right mind would want to come to the homesphere of these guys?
- This would essentially be where the various groups of ******-off gods come to get one of these buggers when they need to "punish" an entire world and such.
- This would also explain why there are a number of tarrasque running around this sphere. This includes one wearing a very large top-hat and monocle who some clever (or foolish?) adventurers long ago used multiple intelligence boosting powers/spells on in the hopes of making him "realize what he's doing", and one reduced to small size long ago by some powerful manifesters and stuffed into a special bag of holding (with no apparent sides to puncture), which was then left at the bottom of a large an very protected dungeon (I am thinking of putting it at the bottom of the Tomb of Horrors......would this be too much/cruel?).
- I plan on using the Mind Flayer fluff of them coming from the far future when the multiverse was/is/will/might end due to some disaster, and mix it with my sphere's fluff. Basically, they would have returned to the very time and point when the first colonist in this sphere came (the Elves mentioned earlier in this thread) to attack and enslave them to have the first (and in their minds permanent) foothold in this sphere. However, the "primitive" elves somehow managed to be victorious. Although most of the mysterious ships with their mysterious and vile crew were destroyed, a few of the massive colony ships crash landed on one of the uninhabited worlds. These ships are the massive underground settlements mistaken for cities in the Geonomicon (the IRL book Practical Planetology as an item in-game as described as an option in the IRL book).
- Most of the inhabitants upon these massive colony ships were inside stasis pods located within large enclosed chambers since before they left the future. They had all assumed the "primitive" elves of the past would be no match for their attack ships with their primitive spelljamming technology, so they were not expecting for their enormous vessels to end up embedded miles within an uninhabited planet. Because of this, and the fact that the colony ships were not intended to enter actual combat, these ships were being manned by skeleton crews with very limited numbers of troops to watch their "livestock" which were too numerous and of too little value to be place in costly stasis devices. When their ships crashed into the planet in a desperate attempt to escape the pursuing elves, most of these awake mind flayers were instantly killed, and those that survived were quickly overrun and killed by the large numbers of "livestock" which had escaped during the crashes.
- The above mentioned creatures which escaped from the mind flayer ships account for the orcs, and smattering of other races and creatures mentioned in Falx's entry in Practical Planetology. Since there was no reason to teach their "food" anything, and that doing so would certainly have been a danger to the mind flayers, the creatures that escaped had no knowledge of the future's advanced technology, or how to use anything on the mind flayer ships. Because of this they all eventually left the massive ships to search for food and shelter in the massive network of tunnels beneath Falx's surface (see Falx's entry in Practical Planetology for more information concerning the planet Falx), and many simply wanted to get as far away from the sleeping mind flayers as they possibly could. The descendants of these creatures still exist on Falx today. Although the true story behind the three massive ships (often mistaken as cities) has largely faded into antiquity, bits and pieces of the truth still remains in legends and myths passed down from generation to generation. However different one telling of the story might be from one group to the next, one underlying principle remains prominent: Do not enter them under any circumstances!. Almost all tellings also speak of ancient and evil godly creatures who slumber within them, which is why a common name for these three places is the Sleeping Cities throughout the various races and tongues.
- This planet was named Falx by the space fairing elves, a word meaning "scum" which they used for the mysterious vile creatures they had just encountered, as their ships turned to leave it's orbit with their crew believing that the last of the monsters had just died in fatal crashes into the planet's surface.
- The Illithids remain asleep inside the plant's underdark, which could make for a(n) interesting adventures for games. And if a group of PCs/players awaken them, it would make for a very...interesting...mess in my setting/sphere.
- Illithids in my homebrewed setting are extremely rare and few in number, but have D20 Future level technology. So there is obviously loads of it inside these ships/cities, but then there is also the danger of awakening these epicly bad hornets nests.
- Since this was a pretty quick, and unusual incident I doubt it would have been remembered long after the elves settled on their new worlds, especially since they would have had far more to worry about very soon after. However, I could imagine a small mention of this heroic and deadly battle with unknown monsters just before they found their new home could remain in the stories and legends the elves tell of their first-generations ancestors. Only the handful of "First Ones" who still remain in the sphere (on the Elven Peninsula on Origin) still remember these creatures, for they were there during the event.
- This all means that there is probably a field of damaged and destroyed mind flayer ships (and odds are some first-generation elven ones) near the general area of Falx. Good plot-worthy material in that!
- The sleeping Illithids are not aware of what had happened, or of the insanely long period of time they have been in stasis (this was around the time the Elves first left Fey as a whole group in my mutlivers, and in essence the point in time when the elves began their presence as a non-fey race on the material plane and elsewhere).
- The last First Ones getting wind of the fact that these creatures are still alive could make for an interesting event. Especially since none of their ships remain (unless they themselves still have one or a few/handful locked away) (most were either cannibalized during the early days, or were taken over the years by First Ones who either tired of this world over the millennia, wanted to go adventuring[epic level adventuring for them], or wanted to find a way to return to "what they were"), since so few of them remain, and since even if some jamming ships remained they would fear the younger generations would not be a match for those creatures.
me = crazy Spelljammer artist, so if you want inspiration and some re-workings of deck plans, have a look!
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/sj/htm/spelljammer.htm
Wow, thank you all for all the help and replies so far. I don't even know where to start.
I haven't been able to get back to this in a while, but now I have some free time to continue this.
Don't try to do too much in one go. I've been keeping track of Spelljammer links for several years now and have seen a lot of people try to "reinvent" Spelljammer from scratch and run out of energy before they finish. So I suggest you make a rough outline of your crystal sphere and if you want to change any rules* try to make as few changes as possible.
* = Changing rules in Spelljammer crystal spheres, makes each sphere seem different to other crystal spheres, but be aware that anything you tinker with will possibly mess about with existing rules and force you to do a bunch of number crunching paperwork that doesn't really add to your setting. Your players will not benifit from any time you spend making air envelopes bigger or smaller or any time you spend tinkering with the size of planetary atmospheres. And if you get caught up with that sort of stuff, you might never get your worlds finished.
Sadly, I had to disband my campaign due to single player, but I hope to start a new group up soon to finally do all the stuff I have been thinking about and planning. Hopefully I will get the chance.
Good luck getting a new group. Let us know how it goes.
"Origin" is an awesome name for a homebase world.
Really? I was worried it was too cliche and obvious.
Maybe it is a slight cliche, but don't think you need to be J.R.R. Tolkien and create an entire culture for every inch of every planet in your crystal sphere. Keep things easy for yourself and build your own stuff up slowly.
Origin is fine, if there is a reason for it. Our planet is named after the ground, so maybe your planet was only "named" after people left it and needed to create a name for the place they came from.
A lot of elven names (in D&D) mean "the people". "Origin" is no less cheesy than a race that calls themselves people.
I suggest you get a first pass on your planetary system and then go back and change anything you don't like in your second pass. If you come up with a "better" name than "Origin", then by all means change it. But don't change it just to try not to be "cliched". D&D relies on a suspension of disbelief and if you try to find flaws in your own game - you will. Everything in D&D is based on nonsense, after all. ;)
I really like the oral history, done in a Native American flavor.
Thanks again. I was worried it wasn't very good. I am not a good writer at all, and I do not wish to be offensive to Native Americans, or make them seem stereotypical or anything like that.
Have you got a copy of Legends and Lore (the 2nd edition AD&D product)? If not, you can download an RTF copy of Legends and Lore from Wizards of the Coast. That has an entire chapter on Native American mythology and would allow you to run clerics. If you are playing by 3rd edition rules, you would need to convert the religions to that ruleset, but that is possible.
That is, don't get too bogged down in detail; just be sure to have fun.
I see. But how much is "too much" detail? I am trying to run a sandbox game, so I believe I need to have a lot of stuff read, since I actually encourage the players to "do what their characters" would want to do. I do not like A-Z module like games, but at the same time I believe this means that I need to have a lot planned out ahead of time.
This is a hard call. You are going to make your best guess, and none of us are perfect, so expect to get it wrong one way or the other, from time to time. But in general, I would say:
- Make a rough pass of your sphere and work out the basic themes of each planet/sun/whatever,
- Work out where your players are going to start and add enough detail for "groundling" adventures,
- Work out some main locations on the other worlds that your PCs can visit,
- Document the main areas on the other planets and make basic information about the areas you are not intending your players to visit and
- Add additional information based on what your players are interested in.
The last stage is the key stage, because by that stage you should have a crystal sphere that is good enough for you to play your first games. If you try to document everything before you start you will never start.
However, while you haven't got a gaming group ready to go, you can use that time to add extra detail or (and this is just as important) do some research on SJ that might give you some ideas.
For example, how much of my world, and how much details and information would I need done before I can be safe when letting the players roam around it at their leisure?
You can never have "enough" information for a Tolkein-like world. Even he didn't get to finish creating his world before he died. You can't get perfection. What you need to get is something between perfection and nothing. Some amount of "winging it" will be required, but you have to decide how much of that you can cope with.
The level of your characters will help control how mobile they are. If you start off with low level characters you can limit them to a single planet and run a "groundling" game that uses elements of Spelljammer as a background theme.
For example you could start your game in a nomadic "groundling" nation that has been periodically raided by Neogi slavers for hundreds of years. They could know about spacefarers, but have no contact with them. That might fit in well with the Native American thing, as spelljamming is often associated with civilisations and large cities - something that nomadic people don't usually value. Maybe you could create a distant Aztec-like country that does have a spelljamming port. Your initial adventures could be a quest through dozens of Native American countries on a journey to the Aztec-like city where your players can find out how to get into space and find the slavers that have been attacking their people.
If you did something like that, you might spin the game out for a year as a "normal" D&D-style game. Your players might know they are headed for space, but their characters could develop in a "natural" environment that fits in better with your Native American theme. When they finally go into space the characters would be as ignorant as the players (about how Spelljammer works) so the roleplaying might be a bit easier.
Once your players are in space, they will learn what their characters learn and if one of the PCs dies, you could then allow the player to start a spacefaring character from one of the civilisations they already know about. (In other words, you could let the players "unlock" cultures and races as they go along.) If you let your players "unlock" races and cultures as they go along, you will not need to create them all before you start. This will let you spend the time putting "Dragonlance-level detail" into your initial country and the surrounding nations. Everything else can be a more fuzzy overview.
You've got a lot of unique planet organizations. One sun orbitting another but also having it's own planets. I think it has enough character with that.
Really?
Damn. I made some unique trait for my sphere without even knowing it. :D
Don't panic. It is perfectly OK for each individual crystal sphere to have special things about it. As long as you are not doing weird for the sake of weird you are doing a good thing.
Anyhoo, a lot of sages would call one of your suns a "fireworld" and say that its planets were in fact "moons". So those sages would argue that there was "nothing special" about your crystal sphere. But there would be planetologists who would visit your sphere and jump up and down with excitement at the thought of visiting the new planets orbiting those suns.
Spelljammer (like most of the classic D&D campaign settings) has a wiki that is collecting the canon of the campaign setting into a hyperlinked encyclopedia.
Spelljammer Wiki is still very small (especially compared to GH Wiki the Forgotten Realms Wiki or Dragonlance Lexicon), but you might want to bookmark it (or help out).
Great. Bookmarked.
From what I have researched online, there really doesn't seem to have been much material made for this setting, so I am not sure there would be much more to expand that wiki with.
Well, the purpose of the Spelljammer Wiki is to explain the canon of Spelljammer - rather than expand it. Expanding things is what Beyond the Moons (the official Spelljammer website) is for. When the Spelljammer Wiki is finished, you will be able to look up an organisation mentioned in several SJ products and find a basic description of the organisation as well as a citated list of all the sources for various elements of that information.
I get bogged down in my own Spelljammer research and am hoping this will do for SJ what the Hypertext d20 SRD does for the system reference document. (So the wiki articles that get finished first are likely to be the ones about the parts of SJ that I, personally, am more interested in.)
You might also want to join the Spelljammer Mailing List (SJML).
How does a mailing list work?
There are basically two parts to a mailing list:
- A control part - where you can join, leave, edit settings and other "admin" stuff and
- The mailing list "proper" where you can post messages for distribution.
I'll let you read Wikipedia's article on electronic mailing lists for information on exactly how they work.
But the basic thing is that if you join the SJML, it will send you Spelljammer related emails. And you can reply to the address to send your own Spelljammer emails to everyone else on the mailing list.
A mailing list works slightly differently to a forum. With a forum like this your text is listed on a website and you rely on people surfing by to read it. In a mailing list your text is pushed out to everyone who is already on the list.
Both things have their advantages. Random people are less likely to read things on the SJML, but the minority of people who do read it are all SJ fans. (WotC also has a bunch of other mailing lists for other in print and out of print campaign settings.)
As for the WotC Spelljammer forum being small, we recently had some fairly unhelpful forum staff who decided to merge together all the Other Worlds forums for the out of print TSR settings. The new forum staff have demerged the forums, but the threads from those forums are being moved back manually (and that is probably going to take months to do).
So while The Piazza (or the SJML) are more active that WotC's Spelljammer forum, it is by no means dead.
I see. Yeah, they really screwed thing up for us older editions players. I came back when I saw the Psionics forum was restored, but it seems it's too late to restore the community. Quite dead.
Well, I don't really want to get into WotC bashing. We've made our point and, to be fair to them, they did listen. The new people are trying to put things right, but it will take a long time. But with this being the official WotC forum, it will always attract some new people who don't look for Spelljammer forums elsewhere.
If a 4e edition of Spelljammer is announced, you will probably see a lot more activity over here.
I am not really looking forward for that myself.
I'm not really looking forward to 4th edition either. But D&D is a game of fun and if some people have fun playing it then good luck to them. There is no law that says we all need to buy the latest books to be "proper" players or own a copy of the earliest D&D books to be "proper" players. People should just play with the D&D rules that they get the most fun from.
My preferred game system is 3rd edition - mainly because I love all the third party d20 System compatible campaign settings that are out there. But my preferred D&D era is the 2nd edition AD&D era when all my favorite D&D campaign settings were out. But that is just me and I don't hope for other people to want to have the same "combo" as me.
I'm sure that a lot of people will get fun out of mixing 4th edition with Spelljammer. If people find they prefer 4th edition, they should give it a go and see how it works.
Sweet!
I am finally going to make an account there then.
Would it be OK if I make another thread about this there?
LOL. You don't need my permission to start a thread on The Piazza. But be aware that if you try to run two parallel threads, it might be a tiny bit confusing for some people. You might end up doing a lot of saying "this guy said this in the other thread on the other place".
There were also five spelljammer novels published,Amazon.com might have some from z-sellers. They sort of have a travellougue flavor to them and involve a tour of the Spelljammer universe to find the Spelljammer. Contains some interesting fluff.
Well, I don't have much time for reading at the moment, but I really do need to start reading books for DMing inspiration.
I never used to read shared worlds novels and didn't initially enjoy any D&D novels, but I did really enjoy The Cloakmaster Cycle novels. Of course, it might have helped that the story starts out on Krynn with a Dragonlance-style character.
With Spelljammer you can use an "episodic" style of play and have PCs visit a world once and then move on,this removes the need for realistic worlds,all these worlds develope in isolation untill visited/destroyed by the PCs.
Well, I really don't like that for myself.
I am kinda unusual I guess, in that I actually enjoying wasting lots of time creating these big worlds and nations and populating them. Probably why I like games like Age of Empires and Etrian Odyssey (not a clue why it's realted, though).
I don't like that style of play either. But if that is what works for taradusis's group then the players are going to enjoy it. You need to work out what works best for you, but I'd suggest that you need to put some sort of limit on the amount of detail you put in, if you hope to actually "finish" the crystal sphere.
Like I believe it said in the 3.5 DMG. Most people/DMs like building from the ground/locally up, but I really seem to enjoy working from the very top (originally a planet, but now a whole solar system) down to the local towns and NPCs. Not a clue why, but it is strangely fun for me. Getting concentrated to do it though, means I usually think about it for a while then slap it all down on text in a day or two of dedicated work (I am bipolar, so go figure...).
Top down is good for getting an overall theme. Bottom up is good for getting things ready for play fast. I'd suggest you mix the two, so that your sphere gets its main themes (gods, planets, any special local laws of nature, etc) and you are also able to give your players a fairly large number of things to play with (nearby villages, NPCs, adventure hooks, playable cultures, playable races).
If you switch between the two approaches, you should be able to get the advantages of both design syles.
Plus, the way I think it will turn out is that once I have this whole massive mess worked out, and I have all the major NPCs, and the major (and perhaps some not-so-major) conflicts between them set up (in the binders I am guessing) I will be set for a long time without as much work. Can any of the experienced pros at spelljammer, or in sandbox games period please confirm this?
I don't actually know what a "sandbox game" is.:embarrass
If you want to "save time", I think you should at least skim through the AD&D Adventure in Space boxed set (and maybe The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook) to see the multi-sphere organisations that Spelljammer uses. If you set up local branches of some (or all) of these organisations, you can use the material from SJ to help build your sphere faster.
The key would be looking at those organisations and seeing how they might fit in best with your theme. If you like the idea of a Native American theme, then perhaps a South American theme would dovetail with it. If that is true, then you might be able to use both the Legends and Lore pantheons as well as harvest some ideas from the Maztica product line. You could then perhaps use a mixture of Wood Elves and Wild Elves as the crew of your local EIN ships (instead of the High Elves and Grey Elves found in other crystal spheres).
I think that little things like that are going to be good shortcuts. (Maybe not that idea, but other ideas you can get from comparing two things and thinking about how they can fit together.)
Oh! And I have done some work so far, since I got my first Spelljammer set in the mail a few days ago.
I am still on the first book in the Spelljammer series Spelljammer: AD&D Adventures in Space (only by page 12), but I already saw some decisions I need to make for my games. I would like to run them by the Spelljammer pros here for some opinions.
I'd suggest you at least skim through the entire CoAS and LotV before locking down your ideas permanantly, but your initial ideas seem pretty OK to me.
1) The double diameter rule is not something that should stand in your way. SJ allows for "additional astronomicals" outside the distance of the "outer planet", so sages who support the "double diameter" theory, will just argue that half of your planets are additional astronomicals. In any case, it is very easy for you to move the crystal sphere at this stage. So get your system built before you worry about that.
2) Not having stars is a different way to do things. I don't think I've seen that done before. Just be aware that it causes two problems. Firstly, you will make celestial navigation impossible (because stars are used to fix directions of known points on the crystal sphere surface). Secondly it is going to make planetary night very dark (unless you stick some nebular around the place to create a replacement for star-shine).
3) Divine magic isn't entirely useless in the Phlogiston. Clerics, druids, rangers and paladins all continue to gain access to low level spells. This means they can continue to prepare some spells and act as helmsmen.
4) Be very careful about trying to replicate real-life gravity in Spelljammer. In SJ, gravity has been spit into two forces. The gravity that holds people on the floor and an unexplained force that makes planets stay in their orbits.
I've seen plenty of people try to bring real-life physics "back" to Spelljammer and end up tying themselved in scientific knots that just delay creation of game content. I suggest reading up fully on what the Grubbmeister created for SJ and trying to work with it, before giving up on it and creating your own house-rules for gravity. (I'm not saying don't do this - just warning you that it is a lot of extra work, that will probably only be useful to you and not be of much interest to your players. Your players really only need to know about where the bad guys are and how they can fight them.)
Now that I am leaning towards making divine magic useless in the Phlogiston, I will definitely need to convert this all to psionics. However, I will wait until I finish reading the entire first boxed set before I attempt this.
Psionics have their own "problems". They can't be used to power spelljamming helms. Your players would need to get hold of some series helms. Sadly psionics rules for spelljammer were never properly developed, so you would need to build your own psionic helmsmen rules yourself.
BTW: Before raiding Practical planetology you should be aware that Bralspace/Spiralspace already raided some of the planets. Spiralspace is a great fanon sphere that is based on The Cloakmaster Cycle novels. You might want to grab that from Beyond the Moons, so check that out before using all those extra planets.