I have to admit, I didn't get into this until much later, and didn't play it all that much (a couple of sessions, really)... I was sort of anticipating an Age of Sail vibe, and didn't get it. Could any of the fans or experienced folks sort of recap their experiences with it?
Personally, it never worked right with me. The Princess Ark stuff for Mystara (for D&D "basic") on the other hand, was totally awesome.
RPGPundit
I introduced Spelljammer to my Forgotten Realms campaign in '93, I think.
My players discovered a spelljamming craft inside a dungeon, which was itself inside an inactive volcano. Therein they discovered the Arakyd, a Viper class ship, with an artifact drive. And bonus points if you caught the star wars reference.
A Viper with an artifact drive in Spelljammer terms is kind of like going "Here, have the Millenium Falcon. Have fun." The players were about 6th level at the time.
Upon taking to the stars, they decided to fly to the moon. There they fought some Egyptian werewolves and various undead. Discovering that the moon was actually a pretty boring place, they decided to check out a nearby asteroid belt.
There they discovered a Dwarven stoneship the size of a small moon, the Dwarf Star, which was harvesting adamantine from asteroids. They were building weapons to supply the Elven Armada in their war against the Illithids.
Then the Neogi attacked trying to steal processed metal, the players helped the dwarves fight them off, and then went off in search of the Armada to deliver a message from the dwarves (the Viper totally outclassed the Dwarf ships in speed).
Once the players showed up at the Armada, the elves demanded that they turn over the Arakyd, claiming it was stolen from an Armada warehouse (which is was, but not by the PCs). The players invoked "possession is 9/10ths" and wouldn't relinquish the ship. The elves then told them of their pressing need for a ship with the speed of of the Arakyd, to complete a mission vital to the future of Realmspace.
The illithids were building a "sun devourer" that would swallow up all of the suns in Realmspace. But it was still "gestating" in the darkest depths of space, and vulnerable. The Illithid had created a zone of pure darkness by bending light around a large pocket of space, and it was in this womb that their sun devourer was growing. If exposed to sunlight before it gestated, it would be destroyed. But it would take a LOT of sunlight, and there wasn't much time. Only a ship as fast as the Arakyd could reach all the necessary people and gather them quick enough to stop it.
The mission was essentially: Go to the Toril, Oerth, Mystara and few dozen other worlds and collect a high level priest of the local Sun god from each world. Then deliver all of them to Athas, where they will cast a spell. Since Athas is completely closed off, that last part turned to be quite tricky.
The spell created a link between the Arakyd and one of Athas's many suns, which could be triggered at a later date. The final stage of the mission was, of course, flying past the Illithid barricade, delivering the "payload," and hoping you could out run it.
So they do that, and the entire Illithid fleet explodes as one of Athas's suns suddenly appears in the dark zone, with the heroes activating the "ultimate burn" option on their artifact drive.
The campaign ended with the heroes slingshotting through time and space, lost in some great unknown void, with a completely burned out artifact drive and a dwindling supply of air.
And then we all graduated, and I got new players when I went to college. That's when I turned to Planescape. All of the above amounted to about a year and half of gaming (clearly I only hit the highlights), meeting three or four times a week for ten hour sessions.
Oh, and I have got to mention Major General Harumph, the Griff elder statesmen and military veteran who had served nobly in the Elven Armada's Griff Marines (their version of heavy infantry), and travelled the length and breadth of Wildspace in various military campaigns. The old waterhorse was an invaluable aid to the players, helping them understand the Spelljammer universe. One of my favorite NPCs of all time. Imagine Wilford Brimley, except he's a giant hippo.
And space hamsters. Oh lord, did my players come to hate the mere mention of space hamsters.
Wasn't there talk a while ago from WotC, that they might revisit this setting for 4e?
Quote from: One Horse Town;258263Wasn't there talk a while ago from WotC, that they might revisit this setting for 4e?
There was talk of them revisiting a lot of settings. I read a one-liner from someone's blog or something that this might be the last hurrah for D&D anyway, due to the layoffs and NDAs they are sending out for their freelancers. Seemed a bit overwrought, but I haven't had much time to look into it.
All freelancers sign NDAs.
Mentioned along with Spelljammer, were Dark Sun and Ravenloft, IIRC.
I always thought that in a D&D High Magic society there would be a logical progression of magic transportation. First you would have sailing ships explore the world, followed by permanent Teleportation Circles to allow free flow of trade with sailing ships used for bulk item transport, followed by spelljammer ships to explore the worlds nearby, with Permanent Portals to allow Gate travel between worlds for trade and spelljammers for bulk item transport.
No particular reason why, it just made sense for me that way.
Quote from: One Horse Town;258269All freelancers sign NDAs.
My bad. It wasn't NDAs, because you are correct, that is sensible legal precaution. The hubbub was over signing non-compete clauses. Not something unusual in the tech industry where I work, but someone mentioned it like that was the last step before closing out, or closing off, or some dire consequence in the publishing world.
QuoteMentioned along with Spelljammer, were Dark Sun and Ravenloft, IIRC.
I lost track, which was slim to begin with. I thought I heard over on ENWorld that Greyhawk and Planescape would get a book, as would the ones you mention, but that would be the extent of it. Released one per year or something.
In the absence of that, I guess there will have to be some OGL material written. WotC's negligence is turning into a virtual gold mine of material to work on. :)