Free D&D playtest hints that Spelljammer reboot is on the way

Continue reading Friday, Wizards of the Coast released new playtest materials for Dungeons & Dragons’ fifth edition. Titled Undiscovered Arcana: The Travelers to the Multiverse, it details six new playable races for D&D. Four of these races have a strong connection to the Spelljammer setting. This could signal that Spelljammer’s long-awaited reboot will be coming in 2022.

Spelljammer was originally released for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (also known as AD&D or second edition D&D) in 1989 by its original publisher, TSR. It effectively connects the many worlds of D&D, including Toril (The Forgotten Realms) and Krynn (Dragonlance), with a well-traveled network of interstellar trade routes. It allowed players to navigate space for the first time in D&D with exotic, open-decked starships reminiscent of the Age of Sail. Spelljammer introduced several new races including the autognome and giff as well as hadozee and plasmoid. These four races were all included in Spelljammer’s book. Multiverse TravelersThese races can be played alongside the astralelf and insectoid the thri­kreen.

Hadozee is an apelike species with wings that allow them to glide in the air. Plasmoids on the other hand are an amorphous, similar race to large amoeba. They were both introduced together Monstrous Compendium Spelljammer Apendix. As the name implies, autognomes are sentient robots made in the likeness of tiny humanoids. Giff on the other side are huge bipedal hippospotami. These two races were first introduced in Monstrous Compendium Spelljammer Appendix 2.This is the. Both books were published by TSR in 1990 and are still available for purchase on Dungeon Master’s Guild.

It’s not the first time that Spelljammer has been teased for fifth edition D&D. In a campaign called “Spelljammer”, a Spelljammer ship was seen. Waterdeep: Dungeons of the Mad Mage. Of course, there is no guarantee that Wizards will include these six races in any books at all, or that they’re not destined for another product entirely. Notable is however the fact that six of the races in the playtest use the optional rules to create characters, as detailed in Tasha’s Caldron of Everything. That’s the same set of rules used for the new races in Wild Beyond the WitchlightThe following races are also featured in Unearthed Arcana playtest materials. We could be seeing a Spelljammer new book this summer if that timeline is correct.

Wizards’ publishing calendar for 2022 is beginning to take shape. The company revealed Tuesday that it would be teaming up with Critical Role to publish a campaign book. Call of the Netherdeep: Critical roleThe book is due to be published in March 2022. This is the next volume. Fizban’s Treasurey of DragonsThe book, will be published later in the month, on October 26.