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[[File:Spelljammer 4016 2701.jpg|thumb|350px|In the left corner: [[Cthulhumanoid|Mindflayers]]. In the right corner: [[Big Creepy-Crawlies|Neogi and Umber Hulks]]. The winner gets to fight [[Space Elves]].]]
An ''Advanced [[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' setting that adds up to D&D [[Recycled in Space|in
The year was 1989. It was a dark time for gaming. Although the influence of [[The Fundamentalist]]s upon gaming had diminished, the forces of TSR had fallen under the control of [http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/539/539628p1.html Lorraine Williams], who was forcing [[Doing It for the Art|talented and dedicated writers]] to turn out reams of crap. One piece of crap she demanded they create was a [[Standard Sci
But the [[Magnificent Bastard|Magnificent]] writers hit upon a [[Zany Scheme]]; though they were [[Cosmic Deadline|denied time]] to [[Obvious Beta|playtest the game]], they ''could'' cram the poor thing with as much [[Crazy Awesome]]ness as they could, as she wasn't paying attention to them. So was born '''''Spelljammer''''' - the most bizarre and wonderful setting ever seen in gaming.
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A 3rd edition remake of the setting appeared in an issue of ''Dungeon Magazine''. While thematically identical to the original Spelljammer (although with its own default campaign setting limited to a single system), it removes the Phlogiston/Crystal Spheres to replace them with the vacuum of space and star systems/galaxies, with the notable difference that suns are also portals the Elemental Plane of Fire with their own atmospheres and natural satellites (apparently magic still outright ''replaces'' physics). Additionally, a later issue of ''Dragon Magazine'' included 3rd edition versions of popular Spelljammer races. Other than that it was mostly abandoned (no proper products) and left to fans.
Spelljammer
There's one series of novels (''[http://spelljammer.wikia.com/wiki/Cloakmaster_Cycle,_The The Cloakmaster Cycle]''), one short-lived [http://www.comicvine.com/spelljammer/4050-21104/ DC comic book series], and one [[Video Game]] (''Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace'') using this setting. The dedicated fan portal also tracking usenet groups and keeping mirrors of Spelljammer fan-sites that go down is [http://www.spelljammer.org/ spelljammer.org].
In 2022, it was confirmed that a 5th Edition relaunch of the setting would be released sometime in the summer, consisting of (for now) three books and an online supplement.
{{tropelist}}
* [[All Theories Are True]]: Phlogiston! Crystal spheres!
** [[Crossover Cosmology|All Cosmologies Are True]]. Somewhere.
* [[Exclusively Evil]]: One of the first major ''D&D'' settings to start playing with this, from genocidal elves, to a community of relatively decent illithids, to a non-evil Beholder bartender.▼
* [[Artificial Gravity]]: Technically, gravity "carpets" on small objects were a natural phenomenon.
* [[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever]]: lots of, up to Giant Space Hamsters <ref>Including breeds like the Subterranean Giant Space Hamster, Sabre-toothed Giant Space Hamster, Rather Wild Giant Space Hamster, Invisible Giant Space Hamster, Sylvan (or Jungle) Giant Space Hamster, Miniature Giant Space Hamster (otherwise known as...a hamster; the breeding came full circle...), Armor Plated Giant Space Hamster, Yellow Musk Giant Space Hamster, Ethereal Giant Space Hamster, Carnivorous Flying Giant Space Hamster, Two-Headed Lernaean Bombardier Giant Space Hamster, Two-Faced Giant Space Lagan Hamster, Fire-breathing Phase Doppleganger Giant Space Hamster, Great Horned Giant Space Hamster, Abominable Giant Space Hamster, Tyrannohamsterus Rex, and the legendary Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen. ...See?</ref>
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* [[Death From Above]]: Averted. A flying weapon platform obviously could have an enormous advantage over groundlings, but spelljammers are clumsier in the atmosphere and thus are sitting ducks for anything that ''can'' get them. Spelljammer shock can be caused by any sort of damage and failure to replace the helmsman in free fall before hitting the ground means [[Total Party Kill]]. Did we mention helms are ''expensive''?..
** An example from [[Forgotten Realms]] is "The Three Greenwings Wars". IEF sent Monarch Mordent to aid the defenders of Myth Drannor. It helped a lot, but as the name implies, emerged in one piece from only two battles. The third time man-o-war descended to have a good shot, one huge winged fiend flew up and began chopping a wing with great axe, simply ignoring most of the stuff elves can quickly hurl at him without harming their own ship. The wing falls off, spelljammer shock kills their helmsman, the ship crashes.
* [[Ditzy Genius]]: Tinker gnomes; they love to build things, but stuff they build rarely works the way they intended.
* [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]]: The distribution of Fire (suns) and Earth (planets) especially, determined the structure of a system, and the fact that Air tended to "stick" to objects and people made interplanetary and inter-sphere travel possible.
* [[The Empire]]: The campaign-length adventure ''Under the Dark Fist'' introduced the Vodoni Empire, a totalitarian and expansionist human empire that controlled no less than twelve solar systems.
* [[The Emperor]]: Vulkaran the Dark, overlord of the Vodoni Empire.
* [[Everything's Better with Penguins]]: Spelljammer has the Dohwar, a race of telepathic, merchant penguins [[Recycled in Space|in SPACE]], who ride flying pigs, wear swords on their beaks, and get drunk by eating apples.
▲* [[Exclusively Evil]]: One of the first major ''D&D'' settings to start playing with this, from genocidal elves, to a community of relatively decent illithids, to a non-evil Beholder bartender.
** Played straight with the neogi, however. They are universally despised, and one of the few races the arcane refuse to deal with. Their only real allies are the illithids.
* [[Expy]]: A lot of the races are recycled from the aliens from TSR's earlier sci-fi RPG, ''[[Star Frontiers]]''. Rastipedes are based on vrusk, hadozee are yazirians, syllix are sathar, and plasmoids are dralasites.
* [[Fantastic Racism]]: Not much, given [[Loads and Loads of Races]], but still.
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* [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink]]: and admits this (and encourages in others):
{{quote|...the writer once described his own campaign as a "cosmic vacuum cleaner, sucking up every fantasy idea that crossed its path."}}
** Dracons apparently come from an illustration (by Dan Beard) for ''[[A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court]]'', of all things. [http://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/image/beard-they-thought-i-was-one-of-those-fire-belching-dragons Behold].
* [[Forgotten Superweapon]]: Second Unhuman War has elements of the Forgotten Super Arms Race, so to speak.
* [[Gentle Giant]]:
** Radiant Golems. Unlike most golems, these giant metal constructs are intelligent, and continually wander the universe looking for... [[The Unsolved Mystery| something.]] While they are strong enough to flatten most foes in one punch, they are pacifists, usually fleeing if threatened with violence. Bluntly referred to as "orphans" in the manual, they seek acceptance and companionship, but sadly, as their name implies, [[Poisonous Person| they are radioactive]] and [[Power Incontinence| their mere presence can kill organic beings]] (possibly why their creators perished), making them [[Tragic Monster]]s.
** A Great Dreamer is a colossal space whale so huge that it makes sperm whales look like sardines in comparison. It does not like to fight unless its subjects (other whales) are threatened, and it rarely has to. Anyone who even sees a Great Dreamer will likely succumb to its aura and be so fascinated by it's majesty that they would be unable to take any action until it leaves.
* [[Good Guy Bar]]: The World Serpent Inn mentioned in several sourcebooks was built in its own demiplane by an archmage from [[Forgotten Realms|Toril]], '''Arcane''' and [[Cthulhumanoid|Illithid]] as a [[Truce Zone|neutral ground]] when Sigil turned out to be too violent and inconvenient for quiet business and rest. Not only is it connected to many worlds, but is accessible to powers, and some gods visit it to relax and chat with creatures they deem interesting. It's a [[Good Guy Bar]] since no one wants to annoy peacefully grazing deities, and some clients in a common room ''can'' turn out to be gods on a tea-break. And even if there aren't any, [[The Bartender]] is an avatar himself—if some god just likes to meet new people and thinks it's funny, why not?
* [[Grey and Gray Morality]]: Scro vs. IEN frequently approaches this. Scro are [[Lawful Evil]] but honorable in their own way and elves are theoretically Good Guys, but they're official [[Jerkass|jerks]] who frequently poke into other people's business. Both think that a piratical attack on a neutral party is perfectly acceptable if there's a little chance to get the strategical advantage from it. In the ''Cloakmaster Cycle'' some IEN guys even topped it with a random murder just to show they're serious about it. While acting offended that others weren't too eager to join their side in the First Unhuman War, no less. Both try to control all the wildspace as they see fit; and as far as other races are concerned, neither the idea of bloodthirsty scro collecting tribute nor excitable haughty elves snooping around makes for a particularly ideal situation.
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* [[I Am Not Shazam]]: Sort of--''the Spelljammer'' is a legendary [[Living Ship]], ''spelljamming'' helms are the [[Applied Phlebotinum|phlebotinum]] that powers space travel, and ''spelljammers'' can refer to ships (usually just "'jamming vessels") or sailors (as opposed to [[Talk Like a Pirate|landlubbers]], er, ''groundlings''). Or only helmsmen.
{{quote|'''Jeff Grubb''': In the game we used it to describe the act of moving through space magically. And it was the class of ship that moved through space. And it was the proper name of the legendary Spelljammer, a supposed Flying Dutchman/White Whale. It was a noun, a proper noun, and a verb. If I could have made it an adverb I would have done that as well.}}
* [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons]]: You certainly can't have a Dungeons & '''Dragons''' setting without Dragons, and this setting has two of the most awesome, the Sun Dragon and Moon Dragon. The Sun Dragon's breath weapon is basically spitting a small star at its foes, while the Moon Dragon can command and control lycanthropes. The color of their scales also change much like the phases of a moon; when in "new moon" stage, they are lucid, very intelligent and possibly friendly, but not very powerful (compared to other dragons) while in its "full moon" stage, its power is near godlike, but it is also [[Axe Crazy|completely out of its gourd]] to the point of being an engine of raw destruction.
* [[Living Ship]]: Though, technically, this was supposed to refer almost exclusively to the titular Spelljammer, it is applicable in a much less interesting fashion to the Elven vessels, which are shaped from a living spacefaring plant. Reigar Esthetics are more potentially dangerous as a lifeform, though just as mindless. Borderline cases are Tick - Neogi vehicle powered by [[Powered by a Forsaken Child|life draining]], designed to be used as a "saddle" for [[Space Whale|something big]]. And some people just live on the backs of [[Space Whale|kindori]]—they are big enough for a village and travel in herds.
* [[Loads and Loads of Races]]: That's a lot of people collected from most D&D setting and then some more.
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* [[Mad Artist]]: The Reigar. [[Planet of Hats|Every last one]]. Add a spoon of [[Mad Scientist]] and two drops of [[Parody Sue]], shake until it tastes great and mildly scary.
* [[Mad Doctor]]: [[X Meets Y|meets]] [[Be Careful What You Wish For]] in the Xixchil. An ideal choice to acquaint all [[munchkin]]s in range with, and [[Tabletop Games/Funny|see]] [[Body Horror|what sort]] of [[Hilarity Ensues]].
* [[Made a Slave]]: This will ''definitely'' happen to anyone taken alive by the neogi, an evil race of bug-like creatures who first appeared in this setting, but now appear elsewhere. Turning other races into slaves [[Planet of Hats| is their hat]], so to speak, and powerful neogi even do it to weaker neogi. They view the whole universe in terms of ownership: in their culture, the strong possess and dominate the weak.
* [[Made of Phlebotinum]]: This [[Verse|setting]] as a whole.
* [[Magitek]]: Crops up here and there, with the likes of Autognomes (whose malfunctions can be either hilarious or horrifying), and Clockwork Horrors, a race of mechanical spider-like robots that can strip a world of all life over a couple centuries.
* [[Massive Multiplayer Crossover]]
* [[The Multiverse]]: The characters travel between Crystal Spheres, each containing a solar system or some variant thereof. Basically, [[Crossover Cosmology|every]] non-scientific legend of what the stars and planets are wind up being literally true in at least one crystal sphere. Additionally, ''Spelljammer'' took place within the greater multiverse featured in ''[[Planescape]]''.
* [[Monster Progenitor]]: The Great Dreamer is a giant space whale surrounded by a small ocean, and is so huge, it has an entourage of Leviathans (which in most settings, are giant whales averaging about 300ft long. Supposedly, the Great Dreamers are the progenitors of ''all'' cetaceans ''everywhere.'' It is [[The Maker]] of all whales.
* [[Moral Event Horizon]]: Using [[Weapon of Mass Destruction|Witchlight Marauders]]. Or just living a normal life of a Neogi (surprisingly, it's not so simple even with [[Brain Food|mindflayers]]).
* [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot]]: Lots of. See also the footnote on [[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever|Giant]] [[Recycled in Space|Space]] [[Fluffy the Terrible|Hamsters]] above.
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** The Spacefaring Elves had the unpleasant characteristics of their landbound cousins turned [[Up to Eleven]]. They were haughty, aloof, snobbish and though of everyone else as semi-civilized smelly yokels. They were supposed to play the role that the Spanish/British Navy do play in swashbuckling fiction.
{{quote|'''Rozloom''': Please, Captain, you see before you a man in great danger.
'''Teldin''': [[Properly Paranoid|"Captain"?]]
'''Rozloom''': This one calls you "sir". ''An elf shows you respect? If you are not great captain, you must be small god''. }}
* [[Our Gnomes Are Weirder]]: Hoo ''boy'' [[Dragonlance|are they.]]
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** They were the result of goblinkind races being almost totally expunged from the spelljamming space by the Elven Armadas and hence turning to strict discipline and regimentation to make a comeback - [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]], literally. Some of them learned to speak Elvish well ''just so they could properly tell the elves who was killing them''. The comeback of the Scro formed the centerpiece of early editions of Spelljammer, with adventures including death star-like Scro stations which looked like [[Gamera]] and the "good" races of the setting having to put aside differences to fight the common threat.
* [[Our Monsters Are Different]]: There were whole new manuals about D&D species adapted to "Wildspace", and a few unique to the setting.
** Mindflayers and Beholders, already moderately popular in normal settings, were elevated to new heights of
* [[Powered by a Forsaken Child]]: Lifejammers tap the life force of living beings to power vessels. Employed by Neogi and other evil spacefaring races. Death Helms do the same, but operate much like a normal helm - the pilot stays on the seat voluntarily (as in, gets addicted by charm) until forcibly removed or falls off it as a withered husk.
* [[Proud Merchant Race]]: The Arcane. They sell nearly anything (mostly expensive things, including Helms) and will sell to almost anyone. Later appeared in ''[[Planescape]]'' as the "Mercane".
* [[Rube Goldberg Device]]: Nearly ''everything'' ever made by tinker gnomes.
* [[Rule of Cool]]: This trumps science every time. Though [[Magic A Is Magic A|consistency]] beats it.
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* [[Sapient Ship]]: "''the'' [[Title Drop|Spelljammer]]". It also spawns little cute Smalljammers—unarmed, but very agile living boats capable of [[empath]]ic contact and [[Glamour|magical mimicry]].
* [[Sdrawkcab Name]]: [[Our Orcs Are Different|Scro]].
* [[Secondary Fire]]: Catapults can throw stones - or scattershot. Jettisons can throw scattershot - or dump debris fields.
* [[Short-Range Shotgun]]: Jettisons, special anti-personnel weapons that fire slow clouds of debris. A good thing to use on pursuers ready for boarding, but useless in long range combat.
* [[Shout-Out]]: [http://www.spelljammer.org/ships/deckplans/Dolphin.gif Dolphin]: the ship with a detachable shuttle on top of an extended curved "neck"? Hmm, [[Star Trek|what]] this strange construction could possibly [http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/File:MPost16057E-PlotDevices%2Ejpg resemble]?..
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* [[Space X]]: Many variant monsters. The best known would likely be "giant space hamster" thanks to the nod in [[Baldur's Gate]].
* [[Unit Confusion]]: More than a whole army of umber hulks could make. Those "space tons", dagnabbit. In one [[Sourcebook]] a mass of 1 ton allows an atmosphere of 100 cu.yd. of air, in another it means body's own displacement of 100 cu.yd., so...
* [[Villainous Glutton]]: An Astereater is beholder-kin that looks like a giant beholder made of stone without eyestalks; they aren't too bright, their only goal being to eat anything and everything it encounters. It can't digest metal, so a crew brave enough and strong enough to slay one could conceivably gain a fortune in treasure that has wound up in its stomach, but this is ''much'' easier said than done.
* [[Viral Transformation]]: Aside of usual ([[The Undead]]): Bionoid, an artifical [[Shapeshifting]] [[Person of Mass Destruction]] can also be created by infection, as some eggs are still stashed here and there. Did we already mentioned that [[Neglectful Precursors|elves are nice guys]]?
** For added subtext, the Bionoids are clearly an [[Expy]] of or [[Shout-Out]] to [[Guyver]].
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----
== The specific stories and
* [[Clingy MacGuffin]]: The Cloak that Teldin Moore gets at the beginning of ''The Cloakmaster Cycle''.
* [[Cool Horse]]: Comet steeds. A timid herbivore (after all, they would need to fight only something they can't outrun). Rather smart - for a horse, that is. Trails sparkles. Fast enough to make interplanetary travel practicable (only 1 point below Ol' Manta herself).
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* [[Half-Human Hybrid]]: And not just any, but a half-''[[Dragonlance|kender]]''.
* [[Hollow World]]: Herdspace, described in ''The Maelstrom's Eye'' by Roger E. Moore got an inhabitable landscape on its internal surface. Oh, it's rather small... for a crystal sphere.
* [[I
* [[Magnetic Plot Device]]: an Ultimate Helm.
** That's the magic item that lets you control ''the'' Spelljammer, for those of you who don't know.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Tabletop Games]]
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▲[[Category:Tabletop Games]]
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