Preview: Take a look inside D&D’s rebooted Spelljammer setting

Spelljammer, Dungeons & Dragons weirdest experiment, is back. Three decades ago, Spelljammer was published by Wizards of the Coast. We look back on its origin story, and connect its most important elements to this latest revision — due out in a three-volume set on Aug. 16.

In 1989, Dungeons & Dragons was already over one decade and two editions old. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons had multiple campaign settings — worlds like Oerth in the Greyhawk setting, Krynn in Dragonlance, and Toril in the Forgotten Realms. Where were the adventurers who wanted to venture out on their own in a world of mundane life? Jeff Grubb, along with the TSR team were given the task of creating a fantasy world that was not only connected but also able to be used as a portal. AD&D’s biggest landmarks, but also one didn’t violate or supersede any of those settings’ internal rules. They met at Lake Geneva’s diner to brainstorm. Their solution, much like many other ideas that are conceived after drinking too much coffee in a diner over the hours, was quite wild.

What they came up with was a wide-ranging pastiche of pulp science fiction space operas — everything from Buck Rogers to Planet of the Apes — plus steampunk, the Age of Sail, and some second-century Ptolemaic astrophysics. It had a little of everything — unknowable aliens, insectoid ships, living moons, and giant space hamsters. Wizards will use that to start, keeping the most iconic elements of the original and adding some Star Trek nostalgia for good measure.

Cosmology

Adventures in D&D usually take place on (or below) a single region of a single planet in a planetary system (whether a planet orbited the sun or vice versa generally depended on the setting). Spelljammer is a setting that requires players to adjust their perspective.

Image from Hydro74/Wizards of the Coast

In this setting’s original cosmology, each solar system with all of its moving parts is contained in a massive bubble called a crystal sphere. Crystal spheres were made of an unknown material that didn’t have any gravity and couldn’t be damaged by any known means. Everything inside a crystal sphere was known as wildspace — generic sci-fi space with its vacuum and planets and asteroids. A campaign setting was roughly equivalent to crystal spheres. Greyhawk was equipped with a sphere, Dragonlance had one (Greyspace), while Dragonlance had one (Krynnspace). The Forgotten Realms also had one (Realmspace).

A portal may open periodically (and occasionally randomly) on the crystal sphere’s surface. The portal allowed players to move from the inner wildspace into a sea called phlogiston by passing through it. The luminous, brightly-colored, highly volatile, and turbulent sea of phlogiston was formed between the spheres. These massive, crystal-shaped spheres floated on the sea and its currents created rivers that could be crossed by phlogiston.

In this latest iteration, creative director Chris Perkins is taking a slightly different approach — less phlogiston, more fun.

“When we were building this version of Spelljammer, we were trying to hook it into the cosmology that is described in the [5th edition] Dungeon Master’s Guide,” Perkins said during a preview event late last month. “This concept of the Astral Plane is like a sea, like an ocean where you githyanki ships and mind flayer ships zipping back and forth.”

“What happens now is, if you are on a planet, and you hop aboard a spelljamming vessel, and you head into space, you are entering the vast ocean — that is wildspace,” Perkins continued. “And if you continue outward to the edge of your system, rather than bumping into a crystal shell, you start to enter or see around you this kind of silvery haze, and the brilliant colors of wildspace sort of give way to kind of a silvery, purplish void through which the light of the stars of other wildspace systems shine.”

Spaceships

To navigate D&D’s cosmos, players will need a special ship called a spelljammer. It can be anything, really, so long as that ship contains a spelljamming helm — essentially a magical chair (think Captain Kirk’s command dais on the bridge of the Enterprise). Spelljamming helmets can also be made from whatever you’re able to sit on, just like in the previous editions.

The new magical physics of a bolted helm to a ship opens up. Apart from the ability to navigate wildspace and fly, spelljamming ships also maintain their gravity and bubble of atmosphere while they move.

This is how it works. Well, as Jeff Grubb put it in his introduction to the original Spelljammer book, “We cut ourselves fully loose from real science and began creating a ‘fantasy physics’ that was true to its own rules and laws. […] It’s magic and it knows it’s magic. The rules are still there and must be obeyed, but it is a different set of rules from what we are used to in our world.”

Image by Bruce Brenneise/Wizards of the Coast

Spelljamming helms provided the oomph to get a ship moving, but they didn’t provide much maneuverability. To achieve that effect, ship’s come with fins, sails, and oars.

You can choose from many different types of spelljamming vessel designs. The shape of the ship will depend on what they are used for and how frequently they have to land. This can also be affected by whether they land on ground or water. Simple ships are often only naval vessels converted to spelljamming, although these ships can be small, portable, or even large-sized.

All kinds of ships were available to humans, including catamarans and Viking longships as well as galleons. It doesn’t matter if the ship is able to sail or if you can attach a spelljamming helmet, it will be able to reach space.

Shawn Wood/Wizards of the Coast

Aliens

New to Spelljammer 5th Edition, the new 3-volume set includes rules for six races. Wizards’ take on the astral elves will be more Spock-like, while the charming autognomes are pure mechanical constructs. They look like flying squirrels, and have a Dr. Zaius-like vibe. The giff, among the setting’s most iconic races, are hippo-folk with a penchant for firearms. Plasmoids are a popular choice for fans of Deep Space NineFans have their first opportunity to experience ooze as an actual game. Lastly, the thri-kreen, an insect-like mantis race originally introduced in TSR’s Star FrontiersThey are joining the journey. Download a past public playtest to get a sneak peek.

Image from Hydro74/Wizards of the Coast

The original spelljammer introduced loads of new races to the game, like the dragon-centaur dracons, murderous lizard-spiders known as neogi, and a race of insectoid body modification-enthusiasts called the xixchil. This latest iteration will lean into the setting’s campy horror vibe, adding piratical space clowns to the mix.

“D&D has always been this delightful admixture of serious fantasy, horror fantasy, and whimsy,” Perkins said. “I think this setting succeeds in bringing some of the whimsy forward. […]These space clowns are an homage to one of my favorite science fiction films from the 1980s: Space Clowns. Outer Space Killer Klowns And I felt since this product is, to some extent, an homage to a number of science-fiction-slash-fantasy films of the 1980s that we would be remiss if we did not include space clowns in the mix.”

Imager: Robin Olausson

Rock on!

There is so much to see in Spelljammer that it can sometimes be hard to know where to start. The setting is a great place to start, but it has been able to allow adventurers to drift in and out of their own home campaigns. This time around the Rock of Bral will offer new players a better foothold, filling in for the Forgotten Realm’s Waterdeep and the Yawning Portal.

Rock of Bral (a city constructed into an asteroid) is often called the crossroads of wilderness space. Previous editions of the Rock were an anarchic spaceport with many markets, where anyone could make a profit. Waterdeep is not the only city with many levels. In the distant past, the outpost was an illithid fort; later beholders took control. A few hundred years ago, the mysterious disappearance of the settlement by the Dwarves left the area. It was a safe haven for pirates, who made it a bustling port city.

Are there any other ways for players to grab onto these waypoints? It’s across the Astral Sea, incidentally, where you’ll now find D&D’s newest location, the bright and shining Radiant Citadel described in The Radiant Citadel: Journeys.

Spelljammer – Adventures in Space will include three 64-page books — The Astral Adventurer’s Guide, Boo’s Astral MenagerieAnd an adventure is called Light of Xaryxis — along with a Dungeon Master’s screen. Wizards boasts lots of beautiful artwork inside. This could explain why the overall page count is quite low in a current 5th edition. A setting is also available in the catalogue. Dungeon Master’s GuildThis means that any designer can create and sell their own adventure and supplements online. Is this really the first and last official Spelljammer publication for this classic line, which was in production for almost 10 years and featured 20 official sourcebooks?

“We built Spelljammer – Adventures in Space to stand on its own,” Perkins said. “But if it’s a smashing success — which I hope it is — we may consider revisiting it. There’s certainly a lot of Spelljammer material that we didn’t have room for that could serve as a foundation for another visit to wild space, and so I hope that that can be a reality.”