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Spelljammer: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Common questions
What is the Spelljammer in Dungeons & Dragons?
The Spelljammer is a living biological ship shaped like a manta ray that consumes heat and light to produce air and food for its inhabitants. It serves as the namesake for the entire Spelljammer setting and can only exist as one true vessel at any given time.
When was the original Spelljammer boxed set released by TSR?
TSR released the Spelljammer boxed set in 1989, which introduced Realmspace for the Forgotten Realms, Krynnspace for Dragonlance, and Greyspace for Greyhawk. The product line expanded with boxed sets and accessories such as Lost Ships in 1990, Realmspace in 1991, and The Astromundi Cluster in 1993.
How does travel work between crystal spheres in the Spelljammer universe?
Crystal spheres are separated by the phlogiston, a bright extremely combustible gas-like medium that exists between the spheres and flows in currents known as Flow rivers to facilitate travel. Portals in the sphere wall can open and close spontaneously, and ships or creatures passing through a portal when it closes may be cut in two.
What new Spelljammer products did Wizards of the Coast release in 2022?
Wizards of the Coast released a new boxed set titled Spelljammer: Adventures in Space on the 16th of August 2022, which updates the Spelljammer setting for the 5th Edition. This release includes a Dungeon Master's screen, a double-sided poster map and three 64-page hardcover books: Astral Adventurer's Guide, Boo's Astral Menagerie, and Light of Xaryxis.
Which alien races populate the Spelljammer universe?
The Spelljammer universe is populated by a diverse array of alien races including xenophobic beholders, rapacious neogi, militant giff, centaurlike dracons, hubristic elf armadas, spacefaring orcs called scro, mysterious arcane, the Thri-kreen insectoids, and bumbling tinker gnomes. Illithids were another major race, but were presented as more mercantile and less overtly evil than in other D&D settings.
Spelljammer
The Spelljammer is not merely a vessel; it is a living entity that consumes heat and light to produce air and food for its inhabitants, a biological ship that has been sighted in countless crystal spheres for as long as records exist. This legendary manta ray-shaped ship houses an entire city on its back and serves as the namesake for the entire setting, yet most spacefarers will never see it, much like the mythical Flying Dutchman. When the Spelljammer does take a captain, it undergoes a complex procreation process to spawn miniature versions called Smalljammers, which mature into full Spelljammers if their predecessor is destroyed. There can only be one true Spelljammer at any given time, making its existence a singular, wandering anomaly in the cosmos. The ship's biology defies the laws of physics, absorbing energy through its ventral side to sustain life, creating a mythology that has persisted across generations of groundlings and spacefarers alike. This unique creature-ship forms the heart of the Spelljammer universe, a place where magic and biology merge to create a living ship that roams the void without a fixed course.
Magic Helms and Crystal Spheres
The Spelljammer setting introduced a comprehensive system of fantasy astrophysics that replaced scientific reality with the Ptolemaic concept of crystal celestial spheres, each containing an entire planetary system. These spheres are separated by the phlogiston, a bright, extremely combustible gas-like medium that exists between the spheres and flows in currents known as Flow rivers to facilitate travel. A spelljamming helm is the central mechanism that allows any spellcaster to move a ship through wildspace, converting magical energy into motive power without the need for engines or fuel. The ships themselves are not spaceships in the science fiction sense but resemble galleons, animals, birds, fish, or wildly fantastic shapes, complete with open decks and their own fields of gravity. Gravity in wildspace is either nonexistent or directed toward the center of planet-sized bodies, while on large objects like spacecraft, it is directed toward a flat plane running through the object's long axis, allowing characters to stand on decks. The crystal spheres are not nested within each other as in the Ptolemaic system, but float independently in the phlogiston, bobbing slowly over time. Portals in the sphere wall can open and close spontaneously, and ships or creatures passing through a portal when it closes may be cut in two, adding a layer of danger to interplanetary travel.
The Big Three and Astromundi
In 1989, TSR released the Spelljammer boxed set, which introduced Realmspace for the Forgotten Realms, Krynnspace for Dragonlance, and Greyspace for Greyhawk, known collectively as the Big Three and Astromundi. These spheres were designed to unify most of the other AD&D settings, providing a canonical method for characters from one setting to travel to another, such as from Dragonlance to the Forgotten Realms. Dark Sun, Ravenloft, and Mystara were excluded from the initial release, as the first two did not fit with the setting and Mystara only used the D&D rules, not the AD&D rules. The product line expanded with boxed sets and accessories such as Lost Ships in 1990, Realmspace in 1991, and The Astromundi Cluster in 1993, which acted as a soft reboot of the Spelljammer line. The first adventure module, Wildspace, was released in 1990, followed by four connected adventure modules, and a longer campaign module, Heart of the Enemy, in 1992. The monsters of Spelljammer were detailed in two installments of the Monstrous Compendium series, Spelljammer Appendix in 1990 and Spelljammer Appendix II in 1991. In 1993, Space Lairs and The Astromundi Cluster were the final products of the line, as TSR's fifth second-edition campaign world, Planescape, was released to replace Spelljammer. Planescape offered a new world-spanning setting with a strong geographical center, the City of Sigil, resolving a flaw in the Spelljammer setting that denied players a good home base.
What comics and novels were published in the Spelljammer universe?
Sixteen comics set in the Spelljammer universe were published by DC Comics between September 1990 and November 1991, with the creative team of Barbara Kesel as writer and Michael Collins, Dan Panosian, and other contributors. Six novels set in the Spelljammer universe were published by TSR before TSR was incorporated into Wizards of the Coast, and the novels were interconnected and formed The Cloakmaster Cycle.
The Spelljammer universe is populated by a diverse array of alien races, including xenophobic beholders, rapacious neogi, militant giff who are humanoid hippopotami, centaurlike dracons, hubristic elf armadas, spacefaring orcs called scro, mysterious arcane, the Thri-kreen insectoids, and bumbling tinker gnomes. Illithids were another major race, but were presented as more mercantile and less overtly evil than in other D&D settings. The simian Hadozee were also introduced into the setting, and later incorporated into the 3.5 rules in the supplemental book Stormwrack. The Arcane are the sole manufacturer and distributor of spelljamming helms, a mysterious race that controls the technology of space travel. The setting features a strong Age of Sail flavor, with ships that look more like galleons, animals, birds, fish, or even more wildly fantastic shapes. The phlogiston, also known as the Flow, is a bright, extremely combustible gas-like medium that exists between the crystal spheres, and travel through the slow flow is possible but very dangerous. The crystal spheres are separated by the phlogiston, which does not exist within the boundaries of a crystal sphere, to the degree that it cannot be brought into a crystal sphere by any known means up to and including the direct will of deities. Every crystal sphere floats in the phlogiston, very slowly bobbing up and down over time, and travel between Crystal Spheres is facilitated by the formation of Flow rivers, sections of the phlogiston which have a current and greatly reduce travel time.
From Comics to the Cloakmaster Cycle
Sixteen comics set in the Spelljammer universe were published by DC Comics between September 1990 and November 1991, with the creative team of Barbara Kesel as writer and Michael Collins, Dan Panosian, and other contributors. The first appearance was in TSR Worlds Annual #1, where the Jammers were introduced in a third of the 72-page book, and two weeks later, their own title went on sale, but both comics have a shelf date of September, 1990. The comics also use Jasmine, a winged human character originally introduced from Forgotten Realms comics, as one of the lead characters. Six novels set in the Spelljammer universe were published by TSR, before TSR was incorporated into Wizards of the Coast, and the novels were interconnected and formed The Cloakmaster Cycle. The novels tell the story of Teldin Moore, a groundling farmer on Krynn who has a powerful and apparently cursed magical cloak that was given to him, and he then ends up on a quest, which takes him first into wildspace and then away from his home sphere to distant crystal spheres. The series showcases the wonders and perils of the Spelljammer universe, and the novels are now out of print. In June 2024, Memory's Wake by Django Wexler was published by Random House, continuing the legacy of the setting. The only Spelljammer computer game ever produced was Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace, published by SSI in 1992, and in 2002 a team of freelance game modification developers created The Arcane Space Tileset for Neverwinter Nights, which included Spelljamming ships, space and atmospheric terrains, along with monsters and NPCs, all set within the Spelljammer Campaign setting.
Reception and the Return to Space
In the January 1990 edition of Games International, James Wallis was not a fan of the initial release, Spelljammer: AD&D Adventures in Space, finding inconsistencies in the combat rules and saying that the cumulative effect of these inconsistencies is to make space combat unplayable. He did find the background imaginative and consistent, but very little of it, and although he admired the production values of the components, he found the book disorganized to the point of disarray and confusion. He concluded by giving the game a poor rating of only 2 out of 5, saying that Spelljammer may score well physically but fails mentally. Alexander Sowa, for CBR in October 2021, commented that Spelljammer should be one of the classic settings Wizards of the Coast brings back for the 5th Edition, writing that players have been asking for Spelljammer to be introduced to 5e since the release of the first setting sourcebook. Spelljammer was #3 on The Gamer's 2022 The 8 Best Dungeons & Dragons Settings Ever list, with the article stating that Spelljammer is one of the most unique settings on this list, with endless possibilities brought up in its planet-hopping realms. In his 2023 book Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground, RPG historian Stu Horvath called the game gloriously bewildering, noting the new edition being launched for the 5th edition of D&D, commenting that he can't imagine something so weird as the original coming out today, and the new version already seems different, a little less odd, a little more formulaic. Wizards of the Coast released a new boxed set titled Spelljammer: Adventures in Space on the 16th of August 2022, which updates the Spelljammer setting for the 5th Edition, including a Dungeon Master's screen, a double-sided poster map and three 64-page hardcover books: Astral Adventurer's Guide, Boo's Astral Menagerie, and Light of Xaryxis.