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 Introducing spelljamming SUDDENLY back to Toril
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see
Learned Scribe

235 Posts

Posted - 30 Sep 2020 :  06:09:05  Show Profile Send see a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by AuldDragon
We know of dozens of wizards in the Forgotten Realms who COULD do what I described, but don't. Yet this is never seen as a problem that still needs to be solved beyond saying "it just doesn't happen," whereas that is not the case with Spelljamming. Spelljamming within the gameworld is supposed to be even rarer than that.


Yeah, sure, if you assume the conclusion ("spelljamming is rare"), you can avoid the work of actually making the design support the conclusion.

Spelljammer, as it was presented, assumes that spelljammers are regularly used to ship cargo in trade. A whole bunch of common-enough-to-be-standard ship designs are presented as being used primarily for trading; note especially the Tradesman. Helms are freely purchasable from the Arcane. The Realmspace supplement has multiple port cities on Toril that deal with spelljammers frequently enough to have explicit laws and polices for dealing with traders arriving in them (Waterdeep, Calimport, Chunming, Iiso), and a whole pile of groundling governments (Shou Lung, Wa, Thay, Evermeet, and Waterdeep) as having their own fleets of spelljammers.

The idea that none of the spelljamming traders or groundling governments in Realmspace would notice, "Hey, there's a fortune to be made flying galleon-loads of goods from the Moonsea (or Kara-Tur) to the Sword Coast a lot faster and more easily than anyone can send the same quantity via caravan!" under those circumstances is utterly ludicrous. It's a gaping hole in the setting logic that's only fixed by actually making spelljammers rare, rather than simply saying that if they were as rare as high-level wizards there'd be no problem.

quote:
Originally posted by AuldDragon
quote:
Originally posted by see

(I also make series helms "legendary", while lifejammers and furnaces are "very rare", and other types are not known to have survived.)


Series helms would be useless to PCs and the trading costers, lifejammers should be things PCs wouldn't want to use, and furnaces would be extremely expensive to operate. They don't need to be as rare as standard major and minor helms.

Right, the latter two don't need to be as rare as standard helms, which is exactly why I designated 'em very rare rather than legendary. (Note "very rare" is the rarity level for a 5th-to-10th level party to have one item of the given rarity, by the default 5e assumptions, while "legendary" is the one-for-a-party-of-11th-to-16th-level rarity. So if something is supposed to be as rare as an 11th-or-higher-level wizard, "legendary" is exactly the right rarity level.)

The series helm, on the other hand, is treated as a PC-accessible device, because in 5e, all sorts of standard PC races have innate magical powers (high elves, drow, forest gnomes, and tieflings in the PHB, plus aasimar, firbolgs, tritons, gensai, and gith in other material). In principle, "locking" them to one species (as was done in 2e) would do much the same thing, but between eliminating the Arcane as being able to supply them in Realmspace, and then explaining why (say) elves wouldn't use a species-locked series helms in 5e to eliminate the ability of rivals to seize and use their helms, I felt it was better to make them generic-and-legendary-rarity. A "series helm" in this context has five seats anyway, so on a per-seat basis they're effectively "very rare".

Edited by - see on 30 Sep 2020 06:21:44
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see
Learned Scribe

235 Posts

Posted - 30 Sep 2020 :  07:00:59  Show Profile Send see a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
One idea I proposed was that within atmosphere spelljammers may have to switch to acting like Halruaan Skyships and thus losing their motive force and relying upon actual sailing via the wind. However, Halruaan skyships are also limited on how high they can go, and spelljammers are not. Another idea was that leaving the atmosphere to wildspace might take a long time depending on the size of the air envelope of the planet.

Yeah, see, I'm assuming the the Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage writeup is 5e canon, and that's explicit about the helm's speed in air.

I mean, it would be potentially a useful idea otherwise, but, well. 10 MPH per level of the helmsman's highest-level unexpended spell slot is how fast a 5e spelljamming helm goes in air or space.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
A) Helms must be attuned to a spellcaster if they are a standard helm. No more than 5 spellcasters can be attuned to a standard helm at a time, and only a single spellcaster can manage the helm at once. There would be exceptions to this rule with special helms (such as the quad of Thay, a ki helm that uses monks, etc...) that we'd have to develop rules for. Perhaps spellcasters DON'T give up all their spell slots when they run the helm, and we come up with some alternative. "Full" spellcasters that have cantrips might be better pilots for instance, but maybe they must temporarily make one cantrip spell unavailable. Alternative spellcasters that don't get cantrips (say paladins and rangers for instance) might have to give up all spellcasting or spells of below a certain level, etc...

Yeah, this is all pretty much decided by the 5e writeup. Spellcasters have to attune the helm like an ordinary magic item, the speed is based on their highest-level unexpended spell slot whatever their class, and you can't cast spells while attuned to the helm.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
C) Ki helms and rudders of propulsion were created specifically by the nation of Wa and were supposed to be state secrets, revealing of which was punishable by death.

With 5e classes and subclasses instead of the original OA classes, I feel "ki helms" don't particularly work well (especially in the face of the recent controversy over WotC even selling OA PDFs, which prompted WotC to put sensitivity disclaimers at the tops of the 1e and 3e OA PDF pages).

Since rudders of propulsion can only affect small craft and can't move craft against gravity, they're okay to have in numbers, except for the fact that the 2e SR 6 is a tad over 100 MPH. Using the 5e rule on movement for ordinary helms (one-tenth the speed when pushing a vessel through water as through air/space) helps some; having them unable to make a craft hover in a planetary atmosphere then wipes out the remaining insane uses.
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist

USA
11686 Posts

Posted - 30 Sep 2020 :  13:20:03  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by see

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
One idea I proposed was that within atmosphere spelljammers may have to switch to acting like Halruaan Skyships and thus losing their motive force and relying upon actual sailing via the wind. However, Halruaan skyships are also limited on how high they can go, and spelljammers are not. Another idea was that leaving the atmosphere to wildspace might take a long time depending on the size of the air envelope of the planet.

Yeah, see, I'm assuming the the Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage writeup is 5e canon, and that's explicit about the helm's speed in air.

I mean, it would be potentially a useful idea otherwise, but, well. 10 MPH per level of the helmsman's highest-level unexpended spell slot is how fast a 5e spelljamming helm goes in air or space.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
A) Helms must be attuned to a spellcaster if they are a standard helm. No more than 5 spellcasters can be attuned to a standard helm at a time, and only a single spellcaster can manage the helm at once. There would be exceptions to this rule with special helms (such as the quad of Thay, a ki helm that uses monks, etc...) that we'd have to develop rules for. Perhaps spellcasters DON'T give up all their spell slots when they run the helm, and we come up with some alternative. "Full" spellcasters that have cantrips might be better pilots for instance, but maybe they must temporarily make one cantrip spell unavailable. Alternative spellcasters that don't get cantrips (say paladins and rangers for instance) might have to give up all spellcasting or spells of below a certain level, etc...

Yeah, this is all pretty much decided by the 5e writeup. Spellcasters have to attune the helm like an ordinary magic item, the speed is based on their highest-level unexpended spell slot whatever their class, and you can't cast spells while attuned to the helm.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
C) Ki helms and rudders of propulsion were created specifically by the nation of Wa and were supposed to be state secrets, revealing of which was punishable by death.

With 5e classes and subclasses instead of the original OA classes, I feel "ki helms" don't particularly work well (especially in the face of the recent controversy over WotC even selling OA PDFs, which prompted WotC to put sensitivity disclaimers at the tops of the 1e and 3e OA PDF pages).

Since rudders of propulsion can only affect small craft and can't move craft against gravity, they're okay to have in numbers, except for the fact that the 2e SR 6 is a tad over 100 MPH. Using the 5e rule on movement for ordinary helms (one-tenth the speed when pushing a vessel through water as through air/space) helps some; having them unable to make a craft hover in a planetary atmosphere then wipes out the remaining insane uses.



In THIS thread, I understand people's always wanting to stay canon, but the premise here is to discuss what we think would need to be done to make them work on a somewhat common level without breaking the world (and by somewhat common, I mean "the world knows about them"). So, don't worry about what the rules were in 2e unless you just want us to regard "don't change that, it makes sense". Don't worry about what the rules in some 5e adventures are, because its easy enough to retcon a single instance and say "that one was a SPECIAL ship". I mean, let's face it, they didn't present it as "and here's the rules for all spelljammers". Nor did they say "and this ship has a minor helm", so we don't know what's on that ship. It's presented as "The helm of the scavenger", and thus can be an illithid made helm for all we know (because illithids made helms), and perhaps an experimental one at that. It's all about food for thought, and sometimes doing this due diligence after the fact can help fix things either in a non-canon product or even make its way into something published by WotC. Don't get me wrong however, I do want to look at what they're doing for 5e... because they may make improvements that we don't think of that we want to keep. They may make simplifications of rules that are better than the ones in 2e.

So, the reason why I say things like "5 people can attune to a helm but only one activate it at a time" is so that you don't have the instance of "kill the helmsman and the ship will crash". There should be a way that that person isn't always the target or that the ship can be run around the clock in shifts, etc.... I feel like this is a flaw in the 5e design, and we should fix it. To note, this isn't a problem as much in 2e, as someone else can take over quickly.

The speed is a minor bit problematic with what they did, because that means most parties are cruising along at 50 or 60 mph or up to 90 MPH no matter what the surroundings are like. That being said, what is presented is with a nautiloid and it may work differently because "its attuned to the astral where thought equals movement" or some other BS. Perhaps Halaster even captured this one because it was different and he wanted to study it. There might be a "hidden secret" as to why most spelljamming ships have some kind of sails besides "we can't let grounders know about us", or this could just be an instance of "things work that way now". Wording and rulesets for this would need to be worked through, because honestly I don't think we have 5e rules for a Halruaan Skyship either (do we have eberron rules for similar?). They should be the same for both though within atmosphere with the exception of spelljammers being able to reach a higher altitude. If we use the generic rules of it taking a long time (days) to reach wildspace, I'm thinking we don't need to develop some per round elevation change rules beyond what we might need for skyships as well.

The idea that the ships are extremely maneuverable should be one that should be addressed (i.e. having them tossed about by high winds like a skyship). That being said, what they wrote up doesn't state that you have anywhere near good control, so I think we're on a similar page as 5e canon for that piece.

From Dungeon of the Mad Mage
Provided you have at least one unexpended spell slot, you can steer the vessel, albeit in a somewhat clumsy fashion, in much the same way that oars or a rudder can maneuver a seafaring ship.


BTW, I would need to check, but one thing I noted about the nautiloid as presented in rime of the frostmaiden is that the twisted tentacles that are presented out in front of the ship are splayed out and not cohesive. Were the ones on a standard nautiloid able to unwrap themselves for grasping other ships or something? I always just pictured them as carved in that shape, but it could easily be different.

On Ki helms and some need for "sensitivity disclaimers", honestly I don't think that real world politics and its insanity should impact us having some fun in our game. Ki helms can make a lot of sense. That being said, I think we COULD modify them and probably should. I view "Ki" and "Psionic Meditation" as somewhat similar, as a projection of the mind and/or mental powers. I believe they've only presented Unearthed Arcana type rules for psionics in 5e (i.e. mystics), but still, perhaps Ki helms allow monks AND the 5e equivalent of psions both to use a helm. Maybe we "find out" Wa has a lot of mystics as part of this exploration? Another alternative and/or addition if one wanted to introduce some alternate rules might also be that "air benders" can also interact with these helms (there is a DM's guild product that tries to adapt avatar bending rules to 5e).

On rudders of propulsion... I agree that they shouldn't zip everywhere. I honestly picture them a lot like "brooms of flying that can carry a small craft". So, let's maybe consider them always under load (moving 30 feet per sec / 20 MPH), but able to carry maybe 1000 pounds (first stab). That extra weight though is taken up with a reloading ballistae and a pair of reloading catapults. Let's face it, in 5e brooms of flying are cheap (they are "uncommon"), so a rudder is only special because it surrounds you with a ship that you can load a little bit of stuff in. I agree on the no hovering, it should require you to constantly move forward. Within atmosphere though, I can see ships that have a multitude of brooms of flying and people using them to move between ships in the same way that tsunamis are used. In fact, one thought I had been having was of a captured tsunami taken by red wizards that has more people on brooms of flying than they do locusts.

Alavairthae, may your skill prevail

Phillip aka Sleyvas
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bloodtide_the_red
Learned Scribe

USA
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Posted - 30 Sep 2020 :  17:23:57  Show Profile  Visit bloodtide_the_red's Homepage Send bloodtide_the_red a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Well, if you are trying to make some "logical" sense of a shared fictional game world, really the first thing you have to do is start from scratch. You simply can't make sense of the random words typed, typed by random people over years and years. And this goes double for any random 'game rule scribble'. And even worse nearly ALL 'game rule scribble' is made with no thought other then 'fill this blank space'. It's nearly literately a writer simply falls out of a chair and hits the keyboard and the words 'movement speed 100 miles' is typed and then they hit 'save' and it's Officially Published to stand Forevermore.

And this was just as true back in the '90's during 2E. The Spelljammer rules are written with a very basic premise: make a easy fun "swashbuckling" space adventure game. With that in mind, Spelljammers "are just there and they work", so don't think about it and just play the game. Sure, er, oh this new race makes helms, and their are other, er odd helms....but look the ships just fly in space, so now just go 'pew pew' and roll.

So if you take a "13th century kinda like Earth setting" of Toril, even just a couple flying ships will UTTERLY CHANGE THE WHOLE SETTING. Even just say five cargo skyships, not even spelljammers, would do that. Though, if you could have massive flying cargo ships, you could also just have massive flying cities. And if you can have massive flying cities...well, you could just have massive mass teleport too(like the ENTIRE city of Waterdeep teleports right next to the city of Orvyltar (in Ulgarth) and trades for an hour.

So unless you want a setting totally unlike the one presented in any book, you have to fix everything to make it just right.
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist

USA
11686 Posts

Posted - 30 Sep 2020 :  21:24:08  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by bloodtide_the_red

Well, if you are trying to make some "logical" sense of a shared fictional game world, really the first thing you have to do is start from scratch. You simply can't make sense of the random words typed, typed by random people over years and years. And this goes double for any random 'game rule scribble'. And even worse nearly ALL 'game rule scribble' is made with no thought other then 'fill this blank space'. It's nearly literately a writer simply falls out of a chair and hits the keyboard and the words 'movement speed 100 miles' is typed and then they hit 'save' and it's Officially Published to stand Forevermore.

And this was just as true back in the '90's during 2E. The Spelljammer rules are written with a very basic premise: make a easy fun "swashbuckling" space adventure game. With that in mind, Spelljammers "are just there and they work", so don't think about it and just play the game. Sure, er, oh this new race makes helms, and their are other, er odd helms....but look the ships just fly in space, so now just go 'pew pew' and roll.

So if you take a "13th century kinda like Earth setting" of Toril, even just a couple flying ships will UTTERLY CHANGE THE WHOLE SETTING. Even just say five cargo skyships, not even spelljammers, would do that. Though, if you could have massive flying cargo ships, you could also just have massive flying cities. And if you can have massive flying cities...well, you could just have massive mass teleport too(like the ENTIRE city of Waterdeep teleports right next to the city of Orvyltar (in Ulgarth) and trades for an hour.

So unless you want a setting totally unlike the one presented in any book, you have to fix everything to make it just right.



Maybe I'm being optimistic, but I think we can fix a lot of the bigger problems and then we could bring them in such that they fill their main role (i.e. space exploration) without breaking the in world markets. Will it change things? Yes, but it will be more of a slow "rush"... very slow due to lack of ships... to discover the other planets. If they're effectively no or marginally better in world than skyships then their main purpose becomes what they were designed for, space exploration. They effectively become something like what the space shuttle was to America, minus the satellite and computer technology that was the real improvement for modern life. It might start a small "space race" to start colonies on other world's though, which could prove interesting. Without the resources to mass produce ships though, that "space race" would have hindering factors in it, mostly how to keep a remote colony loyal. You also would need to send only people strong enough to withstand threats (so adventurers), who also tend to not be the most patriotic either.

Just to do a guesstimate for number of the ships we'd be talking about based on some of what I threw out:
moon base - say 10 ships
Nimbral - say 3 ships
Shou Lung - say 10 ships
Wa - say 5 ships
Thay - say 5 ships
Evermeet and other elven nations - say 10 ships
Waterdeep - say 1 ship
Halruaa - say 2 ships
Lantan - say 1 ship
Mulhorand - say the 1 or 2 ships that the gods own

Then a roughly equal amout of "random" ships found throughout the rest of the world. Puts us actually right around 100. If this all came about suddenly like I proposed (i.e. a lot of them are coming back from Abeir or the Feywild... which is where Nimbral, Halruaa, Evermeet, Lantan, Mulhorand, etc.... were... and places like Wa are just getting their facilities rebuilt). Perhaps the Shou had quit using their ships due to their captains going rogue and not coming home.

So, in essence all of these groups show up on Toril. They've been stuck somewhere else for a century. They don't know what the hell is in the stars HERE. Suddenly they're gathering crews to be the "national heros" who will get sent to discover and setup a colony on some remote colony like karpri and try to harvest resources. Meanwhile they have to keep this one ship going back and forth from this world to that colony to bring raw materials, supplies, etc..

But then, this is a magical world, so how would magic help with that exact idea of setting up a remote colony? For instance, they could supply them with something like a murlynd's spoon, cauldron of plenty, decanter of endless water, etc... to keep them fed. The creation of constructs to help with heavy lifting might help the colonies, and things like a Daern's instant fortress or Mord's Mansion can provide them living quarters.

Alavairthae, may your skill prevail

Phillip aka Sleyvas
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AuldDragon
Senior Scribe

USA
549 Posts

Posted - 30 Sep 2020 :  21:24:57  Show Profile  Visit AuldDragon's Homepage Send AuldDragon a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by see

Yeah, sure, if you assume the conclusion ("spelljamming is rare"), you can avoid the work of actually making the design support the conclusion.


Again, my point is that this is ALREADY the conclusion for teleportation magic and there is no fuss made about that. There is frequently a fuss made about Spelljammer, even though that is easier to solve IMO (weather, pirates, flying monsters, rogue wizards, etc.). Yes, it is admittedly handwavy, but there's *tons* of handwaving already in the game. I'm saying that handwaving is fine.

quote:
Originally posted by see

Spelljammer, as it was presented, assumes that spelljammers are regularly used to ship cargo in trade. A whole bunch of common-enough-to-be-standard ship designs are presented as being used primarily for trading; note especially the Tradesman. Helms are freely purchasable from the Arcane. The Realmspace supplement has multiple port cities on Toril that deal with spelljammers frequently enough to have explicit laws and polices for dealing with traders arriving in them (Waterdeep, Calimport, Chunming, Iiso), and a whole pile of groundling governments (Shou Lung, Wa, Thay, Evermeet, and Waterdeep) as having their own fleets of spelljammers.


Helms are purchasable from the arcane, but whether they are *freely* purchasable is up to a DM. Do the arcane have a stock of dozens on hand, or do you order one and wait? That isn't stated, because it is left up to the DM and how they to run their campaign. The Arcane are also mysterious and have unknown motives, so it can easily be said that for their own reasons they don't make them available in typical groundling cities like Waterdeep. None of this would "break" Spelljammer OR the Forgotten Realms, and would preserve the Groundling nature of the Realms.

It's also important to remember that a lot of trading needs to be basic commodities; most asteroid ports can't produce enough food on their own. Further, there are plenty of helms (such as nonmagical engines, etc.) that can allow high trade volume in places like the Tears of Selune without ever once getting down to Toril or even Selune. This easily explains heavy ship traffic in that area and the well-known ship types. Also don't forget that a high volume of helms are used for other purposes (the elven navies, neogi fleets, etc.) and intersphere trade, so this can also be used to reduce the number of people going to and from Toril. We don't need to work out the math to say that these would be more profitable or anything, and just handwave it like literally all trade details in D&D are handwaved.

Regarding the groundling fleets, I agree that most of them are problematic in various ways, and I've said that before. The Quad of Thay is IMO *very* out of character for Thay, while also having little actual purpose. The extremely powerful Wa fleet makes little sense as well. Evermeet makes sense simply because they would be aware of Spelljamming, and they are only used for defense. For the Shou, my main issue is that they are essentially the only canon source for eastern people in the wider Wildspace community. They should just be one of many, just as there are elves "western" humans, etc. from a variety of sources.

quote:
Originally posted by see

The idea that none of the spelljamming traders or groundling governments in Realmspace would notice, "Hey, there's a fortune to be made flying galleon-loads of goods from the Moonsea (or Kara-Tur) to the Sword Coast a lot faster and more easily than anyone can send the same quantity via caravan!" under those circumstances is utterly ludicrous. It's a gaping hole in the setting logic that's only fixed by actually making spelljammers rare, rather than simply saying that if they were as rare as high-level wizards there'd be no problem.


The easiest way to explain it is that *they don't know* about it. How many of these organizations are aggressively going after the more well-known Halruaa Skyships, to the exclusion of all else? They may not be as good as a Spelljammer, but they would still do much the same job of getting rare goods from place to place fast.

Fear of attack would keep the Spelljamming ships in typically standard types like Caravels and Galleons, landing offshore and sailing into any given harbor in order to pretend they're normal traders. Further, bringing in exotic materials from other spheres, such as Silversteel from Wayspace or Bronzewood from Greyspace would probably be more profitable than silk or spices from Shou Lung. There would be no competition for that material from normal traders at all. Adventurers might land, sure, but they already have a variety of strange objects, and Spelljamming adventurers generally observe the same precautions as the traders, lest their ship be impounded or something by the local authorities who might want to take their magic for themselves.

Now, yes, if you *want* the setting to be fully Spelljammer aware, this presents problems. But that's a significant change to the setting (and not necessary IMO).

quote:
Originally posted by see

Right, the latter two don't need to be as rare as standard helms, which is exactly why I designated 'em very rare rather than legendary. (Note "very rare" is the rarity level for a 5th-to-10th level party to have one item of the given rarity, by the default 5e assumptions, while "legendary" is the one-for-a-party-of-11th-to-16th-level rarity. So if something is supposed to be as rare as an 11th-or-higher-level wizard, "legendary" is exactly the right rarity level.)


Ah, I didn't realize that had a mechanical element to it. I would treat them all as artifacts in that case, or whatever category would require a DM to manually place them in adventures. I've never liked these categories being used to dictate what PCs should or shouldn't have. That's best left up to a DM IMO.

quote:
Originally posted by see

The series helm, on the other hand, is treated as a PC-accessible device, because in 5e, all sorts of standard PC races have innate magical powers (high elves, drow, forest gnomes, and tieflings in the PHB, plus aasimar, firbolgs, tritons, gensai, and gith in other material). In principle, "locking" them to one species (as was done in 2e) would do much the same thing, but between eliminating the Arcane as being able to supply them in Realmspace, and then explaining why (say) elves wouldn't use a species-locked series helms in 5e to eliminate the ability of rivals to seize and use their helms, I felt it was better to make them generic-and-legendary-rarity. A "series helm" in this context has five seats anyway, so on a per-seat basis they're effectively "very rare".


It seems to me that if you're making substantial changes to items that make them more useful to players, that causes serious problems with your goal, especially when series helms are the primary mode of transport by relatively common Spelljammers, such as illithids and hurwaeti. Mind you, I also prefer to stay as close to the canon as possible.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

BTW, I would need to check, but one thing I noted about the nautiloid as presented in rime of the frostmaiden is that the twisted tentacles that are presented out in front of the ship are splayed out and not cohesive. Were the ones on a standard nautiloid able to unwrap themselves for grasping other ships or something? I always just pictured them as carved in that shape, but it could easily be different.


No, the original Nautiloid tentacles couldn't do that. They were fixed in place and made of wood, and used as a ram. This new feature is simply a case of "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if this thing made to look like an animal were actually ALIVE?!" I am not a fan of it. :P

Most of the actual living ships like elven man-o-war aren't that flexible; they're rigid and woody/crystaline. I think the only one that might be able to do anything like that would be the Reigar's esthetics.

Jeff

My 2nd Edition blog: http://blog.aulddragon.com/
My streamed AD&D Spelljamer sessions: https://www.youtube.com/user/aulddragon/playlists?flow=grid&shelf_id=18&view=50
"That sums it up in a nutshell, AuldDragon. You make a more convincing argument. But he's right and you're not."
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist

USA
11686 Posts

Posted - 30 Sep 2020 :  21:42:06  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
By the way... in talking in the above about a "space race" with the people of Faerun.... I so just hit on an idea that I hadn't really realized before until I started noting who had what where.

So, MOST of the places that I'm talking about disappeared after the spellplague OR like in the case of Shou Lung they already in canon were bleeding ships. That really only left 2 groups still on Toril after the Spellplague (if the Arcane here died mind you) with knowledge for building spelljammers. Wa and Thay. Wa we're creating a "destruction of their facilities" to shut them down too. Thay ... well, they had a civil war... and presumably the people building spelljammers were with the Guild of Foreign Trade... who were the ones that FLED Thay. Tam likely didn't have anyone to make spelljammers, and the facilities was probably destroyed in the civil war. But with numerous refugees with no home to live in.... might it be interesting if the Thayan refugees still on Toril had actually secretly setup a colony elsewhere and only the leaders of the Guild of Foreign Trade knew about it?

Alavairthae, may your skill prevail

Phillip aka Sleyvas
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist

USA
11686 Posts

Posted - 30 Sep 2020 :  22:35:19  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by AuldDragon


Regarding the groundling fleets, I agree that most of them are problematic in various ways, and I've said that before. The Quad of Thay is IMO *very* out of character for Thay, while also having little actual purpose. The extremely powerful Wa fleet makes little sense as well. Evermeet makes sense simply because they would be aware of Spelljamming, and they are only used for defense. For the Shou, my main issue is that they are essentially the only canon source for eastern people in the wider Wildspace community. They should just be one of many, just as there are elves "western" humans, etc. from a variety of sources.

quote:
Originally posted by see

The idea that none of the spelljamming traders or groundling governments in Realmspace would notice, "Hey, there's a fortune to be made flying galleon-loads of goods from the Moonsea (or Kara-Tur) to the Sword Coast a lot faster and more easily than anyone can send the same quantity via caravan!" under those circumstances is utterly ludicrous. It's a gaping hole in the setting logic that's only fixed by actually making spelljammers rare, rather than simply saying that if they were as rare as high-level wizards there'd be no problem.


The easiest way to explain it is that *they don't know* about it. How many of these organizations are aggressively going after the more well-known Halruaa Skyships, to the exclusion of all else? They may not be as good as a Spelljammer, but they would still do much the same job of getting rare goods from place to place fast.

Fear of attack would keep the Spelljamming ships in typically standard types like Caravels and Galleons, landing offshore and sailing into any given harbor in order to pretend they're normal traders. Further, bringing in exotic materials from other spheres, such as Silversteel from Wayspace or Bronzewood from Greyspace would probably be more profitable than silk or spices from Shou Lung. There would be no competition for that material from normal traders at all. Adventurers might land, sure, but they already have a variety of strange objects, and Spelljamming adventurers generally observe the same precautions as the traders, lest their ship be impounded or something by the local authorities who might want to take their magic for themselves.

Now, yes, if you *want* the setting to be fully Spelljammer aware, this presents problems. But that's a significant change to the setting (and not necessary IMO).


quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

BTW, I would need to check, but one thing I noted about the nautiloid as presented in rime of the frostmaiden is that the twisted tentacles that are presented out in front of the ship are splayed out and not cohesive. Were the ones on a standard nautiloid able to unwrap themselves for grasping other ships or something? I always just pictured them as carved in that shape, but it could easily be different.


No, the original Nautiloid tentacles couldn't do that. They were fixed in place and made of wood, and used as a ram. This new feature is simply a case of "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if this thing made to look like an animal were actually ALIVE?!" I am not a fan of it. :P

Most of the actual living ships like elven man-o-war aren't that flexible; they're rigid and woody/crystaline. I think the only one that might be able to do anything like that would be the Reigar's esthetics.

Jeff



Jeff/Aulddragon,

First, let me say, thank you very much for joining this conversation, because I get the idea that you were possibly involved in the design and you definitely played it. Though I was around for spelljammer, I didn't have the money for it back then, nor the time. I've never played it, but as you can see in this thread, I've seen the discussions and thought about it. Its probably only the past 10 years that I've actually picked up more and more knowledge of it enough to appreciate it. Given the idea of the "race to mars" that's being launched at us by today's media, I actually think that roleplaying in this environment where it would be "new" information to nearly everyone in the world that you can go to "places in the sky" could be very enlightening for ourselves. Also, as we've seen with star trek, if you dream it, it will happen in some form in reality.

That's partly why when I started this thread I specified on the word SUDDENLY. The people of Toril adapt amazingly well, probably because they're used to magic. However, this idea of travelling to other worlds without a lot of the dangers of planar travel (because despite everything, I view wildspace travel within the sphere as a lot less dangerous) might appeal to many. It would probably also open up exploration within the world as well, but most of that IS probably populated. Still, this idea would somewhat mimic what's happening with US.

I will agree that the Quad of Thay seems extremely out of character and I was really surprised when I found out they existed a few years ago. But, then as with many "canon" things, I tried to find a way to "fit it in", and after I did it started making other ideas work. For instance, the idea of the remote enclaves everywhere became much easier to explain if they were landing a ship in the forest to pickup and deliver goods (and yes, portals also help with the same ideas, though the problem with portals is setting up the network of them... so spelljamming becomes much more suitable to less long term trading in high risk markets). In the end, it was weird, but I think I found a way to make it make sense.

On keeping the ships secret. I think it can be done, but only for a while. At some point, the cat is going to get out of the bag. To use a star trek reference, I view what was happening in the 1300's as "first contact". The world had at one point found out about spelljamming, but that society failed (Netheril). Probably a few more people knew about things over the years, but they kept it quiet, as slowly more and more ships started coming to realmspace. They were probably on the verge of people finding out... then spellplague.

With so much upheaval in the world after the second sundering, if the returning people were literally finding out about spelljammers like we're starting to see, I don't see this "secret" being secret much longer. Quite frankly, in a lot of people's eyes "The world ain't stable enough to be keeping all these secrets, so let's share what we know, and maybe we can get our hands around it together". That's kind of why I figured "hell, let's embrace it and see if there's a way we can add it quickly and see where it might lead". I think even as I write in this thread, its making me think more about how it might affect the world, but I appreciate insight from someone who has actually played with it.

For instance, as I think about remote colonies, my thoughts turn to portals being setup between Toril and these remote colonies... and suddenly I'm seeing a need to make construction of such much more expensive than a portal that jumps goods from say Waterdeep to Aglarond (which itself should be expensive). However, with magic, I think setting up these remote colonies would be a heck of a lot faster than what we can do in our real world.

Alavairthae, may your skill prevail

Phillip aka Sleyvas

Edited by - sleyvas on 30 Sep 2020 22:40:34
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Wooly Rupert
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quote:
Originally posted by AuldDragon

No, the original Nautiloid tentacles couldn't do that. They were fixed in place and made of wood, and used as a ram. This new feature is simply a case of "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if this thing made to look like an animal were actually ALIVE?!" I am not a fan of it. :P

Most of the actual living ships like elven man-o-war aren't that flexible; they're rigid and woody/crystaline. I think the only one that might be able to do anything like that would be the Reigar's esthetics.

Jeff



The Octopus Ship and the Cuttle Command had some movement to their tentacles, as I recall, but it was purely a mechanical thing and was more of a "reposition so this weapon has a different firing arc" thing than anything else. I do seem to recall, though, mention of some individual Octopus Ships having magically animated tentacles.

While I'm not a fan of the current design team's shtick of "Who cares if X was this way before, we're doing this other thing now!" I gotta admit that having a grappling Nautiloid is thematically appropriate. I'd not make it a standard feature on all Nautiloids, obviously, but if it was stated that this was a one-off, I'd not complain.

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bloodtide_the_red
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The problem is that Spelljammers have been officially around in Realmslore for roughly 2000 years. So even if you have a "dark age" of like 1,000 years, you still have like a 1,000 'empty' years. A Flight of Dragons attacks the Elven island of Evermeet on Toril and are fought off by their spelljammer fleet in 889 DR. Stardock in the Tears of Selune is built in 1069, and The Dock in the Wu Pi Te Shao mountains is founded by the Arcane a couple of years before that. And by at least 1200 DR Toril is well known as a planet throughout the Known Spheres.

So, assuming you use 5E, the Offical Timeline is almost up to 1500 DR. So even if you do the "we ruined the Realms with the spellplauge thingy" that does not happen until 1385 DR. So, if you feel you "must" follow whatever random scribble is put out, your game world would be set in about 1490 DR.

So guess the 'space race' could have started in 1380 DR, but then got...sigh, put on hold by wacky goofy 4E AND that EVERYONE in Known Space NEVER went to Toril for 100 years or more....er, for no reason. Then you can say that "when the Realms was sorta fixed back to undo the 4E nightmare " in 1484 DR that "everyone" suddenly remembered Spelljamming or they 'popped' back from 4E limbo, and re started the space race......
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quote:
Originally posted by bloodtide_the_red

The problem is that Spelljammers have been officially around in Realmslore for roughly 2000 years. So even if you have a "dark age" of like 1,000 years, you still have like a 1,000 'empty' years. A Flight of Dragons attacks the Elven island of Evermeet on Toril and are fought off by their spelljammer fleet in 889 DR. Stardock in the Tears of Selune is built in 1069, and The Dock in the Wu Pi Te Shao mountains is founded by the Arcane a couple of years before that. And by at least 1200 DR Toril is well known as a planet throughout the Known Spheres.

So, assuming you use 5E, the Offical Timeline is almost up to 1500 DR. So even if you do the "we ruined the Realms with the spellplauge thingy" that does not happen until 1385 DR. So, if you feel you "must" follow whatever random scribble is put out, your game world would be set in about 1490 DR.

So guess the 'space race' could have started in 1380 DR, but then got...sigh, put on hold by wacky goofy 4E AND that EVERYONE in Known Space NEVER went to Toril for 100 years or more....er, for no reason. Then you can say that "when the Realms was sorta fixed back to undo the 4E nightmare " in 1484 DR that "everyone" suddenly remembered Spelljamming or they 'popped' back from 4E limbo, and re started the space race......



There was also the Monarch Mordent, an elven Man-O-War that was involved in the Weeping War (the fall of Myth Drannor). That ship is now partially a wild, tangled area, partially a part of the green dracolich Dretchroyaster, and in my version of the Realms, part of the dozen elfbane golems (variant warforged) that can be found in Cormanthyr.

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sleyvas
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Posted - 01 Oct 2020 :  13:31:48  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

quote:
Originally posted by bloodtide_the_red

The problem is that Spelljammers have been officially around in Realmslore for roughly 2000 years. So even if you have a "dark age" of like 1,000 years, you still have like a 1,000 'empty' years. A Flight of Dragons attacks the Elven island of Evermeet on Toril and are fought off by their spelljammer fleet in 889 DR. Stardock in the Tears of Selune is built in 1069, and The Dock in the Wu Pi Te Shao mountains is founded by the Arcane a couple of years before that. And by at least 1200 DR Toril is well known as a planet throughout the Known Spheres.

So, assuming you use 5E, the Offical Timeline is almost up to 1500 DR. So even if you do the "we ruined the Realms with the spellplauge thingy" that does not happen until 1385 DR. So, if you feel you "must" follow whatever random scribble is put out, your game world would be set in about 1490 DR.

So guess the 'space race' could have started in 1380 DR, but then got...sigh, put on hold by wacky goofy 4E AND that EVERYONE in Known Space NEVER went to Toril for 100 years or more....er, for no reason. Then you can say that "when the Realms was sorta fixed back to undo the 4E nightmare " in 1484 DR that "everyone" suddenly remembered Spelljamming or they 'popped' back from 4E limbo, and re started the space race......



There was also the Monarch Mordent, an elven Man-O-War that was involved in the Weeping War (the fall of Myth Drannor). That ship is now partially a wild, tangled area, partially a part of the green dracolich Dretchroyaster, and in my version of the Realms, part of the dozen elfbane golems (variant warforged) that can be found in Cormanthyr.



So, possibly the elven communities were "in the know" and were specifically keeping the information hidden as to the extent of what the ships were from groundling communities. Hell, it may have only been known to the elven leadership at that? People may have known that they had flying ships, but not that they could leave the world with them. In that way, they may have thought of them as similar to Halruaan Skyships.

Thank you for the dates on stardock and when the arcane arrived here. I actually didn't know those. If the people were more outsiders coming to Toril as a market that didn't know about wildspace travel, they very much may have wanted to keep the groundlings out of the know, quite simply so that they could get good deals. Maybe they successfully hid this information from a lot of folks (and even those who "knew" didn't know the EXTENT of how much trade was going on... i.e. they might have thought there was only a ship or two visiting the world even into the 1300's)?

This kind of makes me want to think about the cultures that knew about this space travel and how the information got spread. I don't know that we have any canon information on such, so maybe I'll throw out some ideas and we can work it from there?

So, the Netherese knew, but they gave up on spelljamming because it was dangerous as hell for them. Then they fell from power. Their people went down to Halruaa for the most part, and perhaps some of this travel used some spelljammers (some of my homebrew history does indeed involve this and the "cloaking" enclave of Doubloon). Presumably though, Halruaa knew of spelljamming, but as isolationistic as they were their experimentation with exploring was shushed such that space exploration was minimalized.

173 DR. Then comes the exodus of the Leirans to found Nimbral. In this, I believe this is how Nimbral became more of a point of contact between spelljamming cultures and Toril. In my homebrew, the Leirans stole the enclave of Doubloon and flew it invisibly to Nimbral in addition to skyships being used.

Time passes. Nimbral trades with the rest of the world via secret agents (illusionists being great at such, Leirans even better). They then trade with the spelljamming cultures what they've gathered. Nimbral is secretly getting rich and its lords extremely powerful. Some Nimbraii go to the moon and discover cultures there (got my own views of who is there), and they share the idea that secrecy is the best way to keep safe, and they spread the worship of Leira. Perhaps even Nimbral is actively venturing out to other worlds and even spelljamming cultures don't know where they're from
Perhaps they always stop off at the moon to trade cargoes in case they are followed, and they secretly transport the cargoes to the surface (maybe even via a secret portal). Maybe this eventually is what gets trade going with people coming to the moon to trade. In my homebrew, the mythallar of the enclave of Doubloon is fitted with a homemade artifurnace of some sort that's slow and pathetic, but its able to reach orbit, and under cloak of invisibility it is put in orbit as a new place for the Nimbraii to return to, since the moon is being watched so much. Eventually Nimbral starts allowing ships to land on their surface ports, but only people they especially trust, and they don't allow them to leave their ships and roam the island. This is probably after the arcane arrive.

Time passes. Some Halruaans who are fed up with the secrecy of their own country and the lack of freedom flee to "the Priador" where they meet up with discontent Mulan citizens. 922 DR - Thayan rebellion. These people don't know about spelljamming, but perhaps hidden in the history books that they bring with them are some hints. Perhaps in time, they study the Halruaan histories, the netherese histories..... they spy on Halruaa... they spy on Nimbral... and they come to realize that space travel is possible. So, like any good Thayan, they realize this secret is powerful, and they don't know how to get a ship, but they start trying to design a ship that eventually becomes the Quad of Thay. To note, this ship's helm perhaps doesn't work in the Phlogiston, because they didn't KNOW about the Phlogiston yet. In my homebrew, its Zulkir of Illusion, Mythrell'aa, that uncovers this secret by looking into all these histories and being especially interested in both the wizards of Halruaa and the illusionists of Nimbral, and she shared this information with the guild of foreign trade along with millions of gold pieces to begin researching building a helm. Neither of them shares this information with their fellow zulkirs. In my homebrew, other stuff ensues.

But, prior to the Thayans getting a clue, the arcane decide that this world needed to be negotiated with. Around the same time, mind flayers from Glyth setup stardock because of the activities of spelljammers around the moon coming to their world. The arcane think to introduce themselves to the world by finding the most powerful leader and having a secret meeting with them. So, Shou Lung's emperor is contacted, because he controls the biggest territory. The arcane give him an idea of expanding to other worlds and colonizing if he'll just buy helms from him. Initially this works, and the emperor buys a LOT of helms, and he decorates them with his own dragonship theme.

Problems creep in... spies in the court of Shou Lung report to the emperor of Wa that space travel is possible. They discover the link to the arcane, and perhaps they even contact them and get a few helms. However, the ever suspicious Wa emperor decides that he needs his country to not be dependent on these foreigners like "the foolish Shou emperor", and so he orders his spellcasters to develop a helm of their own. In my homebrew, they would setup this secret facility on the island of Machukara.

Eventually, the mind flayers of Glyth decide to setup a portal to Toril, and they do so beneath undermountain where they can trade with skullport. Eventually, some spelljamming cultures learn of this link, and they decide it's a safer way to trade with mind flayers than landing on Glyth, plus they decide to try to trade with the cultures of skullport and Waterdeep as well, since both are large trade gatherings.

Would the above give a feasible history for spelljamming as an overview with Toril? I know its not all encompassing, just trying to come up with something that makes some sort of sense while maintaining the secrecy that it held for so long while also having these active ports, etc....


Alavairthae, may your skill prevail

Phillip aka Sleyvas
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Wooly Rupert
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For reasons that I don't think were ever described, Khelben once spent most of a century going around, destroying crashed spelljammers.

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sleyvas
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Posted - 01 Oct 2020 :  16:34:08  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

For reasons that I don't think were ever described, Khelben once spent most of a century going around, destroying crashed spelljammers.



Really? Where's that from? I can see it from his paranoid viewpoint mind you, but I'm just curious. Was it that short story (forget its name, but one o the realms of anthologies)?

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George Krashos
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quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

For reasons that I don't think were ever described, Khelben once spent most of a century going around, destroying crashed spelljammers.



Really? Where's that from? I can see it from his paranoid viewpoint mind you, but I'm just curious. Was it that short story (forget its name, but one o the realms of anthologies)?



Sea of Fallen Stars (pgs.138-139).

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bloodtide_the_red
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Posted - 01 Oct 2020 :  17:41:06  Show Profile  Visit bloodtide_the_red's Homepage Send bloodtide_the_red a Private Message  Reply with Quote
"Ships that sail between the stars? Next ye will spin tales of a talking hippopotamus that walks on two legs and carries a bow. I asked ye to research facts about other worlds, not spend a week in an opium den."
— Elminster's note to Volo in Volo's Guide to Monsters

So this quote makes it seem like Elmisnter does not know about wildspace or spelljamming, and even more so does not even believe in the whole idea. Though it's a fair guess old El is also being a bit coy here. But it's interesting that Elminster is most intentionally trying to hide wildspace and spelljamming to the unknown person he is talking too.

But, speaking to someone else most likely years earlier he said: ì"Come, then, if ye are so bold. See what the deeps of wildspace have to offer, Elminster said, and he smiled at me, almost sadly. But mind: The Realms, now they are home,an í ye know enough to recognize trouble when it raises blade or hand to smite ye. Ye will have no such comfort in space. Some places even the gods avoid!. He gestured toward the Helm, dark, silent, and menacing. It waited patiently. Sit,he said simply, and take thy vessel to the stars. "

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Gelcur
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I must say I find this scroll interesting. More in the fact of condensing as much stray Realms related Spelljamming into one place.

I know Ed wrote SJR1 "Lost Ships", the first spelljammer supplement I'm pretty sure. In there Elminster gives us some of this banter through Ed. I also recall something like a half dozen 'jamming ships being stationed in Evermeet. And two in Everlund. And vaguely remember a few spelljamming ships being listed among the Cormyr's defenses, I may be wrong though.

I always thought introducing Spelljamming into my Realms would be fun. But I never had a good enough grasp of all the lore that existed to feel confident to present it right. Things like does it break the economy I'm sure are solvable, and likely have behind the scene/screen answers. Again I vaguely remember Ed saying something along the lines that portal networks are highly sought after and highly guarded but also that mishaps often do happen especially when magical items are sent through.

Wish I had more time to research and find the exact posts and sources on these but maybe others here can help. Keep up the great work.

The party come to a town befallen by hysteria

Rogue: So what's in the general store?
DM: What are you looking for?
Rogue: Whatevers in the store.
DM: Like what?
Rogue: Everything.
DM: There is a lot of stuff.
Rogue: Is there a cart outside?
DM: (rolls) Yes.
Rogue: We'll take it all, we may need it for the greater good.

Edited by - Gelcur on 01 Oct 2020 19:57:20
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sleyvas
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Posted - 02 Oct 2020 :  00:45:40  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by bloodtide_the_red

"Ships that sail between the stars? Next ye will spin tales of a talking hippopotamus that walks on two legs and carries a bow. I asked ye to research facts about other worlds, not spend a week in an opium den."
— Elminster's note to Volo in Volo's Guide to Monsters

So this quote makes it seem like Elmisnter does not know about wildspace or spelljamming, and even more so does not even believe in the whole idea. Though it's a fair guess old El is also being a bit coy here. But it's interesting that Elminster is most intentionally trying to hide wildspace and spelljamming to the unknown person he is talking too.

But, speaking to someone else most likely years earlier he said: ì"Come, then, if ye are so bold. See what the deeps of wildspace have to offer, Elminster said, and he smiled at me, almost sadly. But mind: The Realms, now they are home,an í ye know enough to recognize trouble when it raises blade or hand to smite ye. Ye will have no such comfort in space. Some places even the gods avoid!. He gestured toward the Helm, dark, silent, and menacing. It waited patiently. Sit,he said simply, and take thy vessel to the stars. "





Interestingly enough, if Volo's Guide to Monsters is supposed to be a "treatise" of some sort written by Volo on the subjects that that book covers and being delivered to the common folk of the realms, then in theory he IS letting the cat out of the bag on some things I believe (because it did have Giff in it, and I think it did cover some on spelljamming didn't it? I know it covered neogi, and talked about them having plane travelling ships. That might be why Elminster is being coy. Kind of like talking to a reporter and saying "off the record" and telling them some facts. Elminster may think the world still isn't ready for the revelations, but putting the cork back in the bottle can be really hard.


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comradecrunk
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The way I have it figured is that the rest of realmspace doesn't want Toril out there. Each planet has its own conflict and there are plenty of shenanigans happening in space, but nothing on the scale of worlds being destroyed every 100 years or so. It's so bad that on receiving bad news its not uncommon to be met with snarky phrases like "what have the elves done this time?" or "don't tell me, mystra got herself killed again." Since the gods of Realmspace are all the same, think about the Time of Troubles. You're some small village of rock gnomes out on some asteroid somewhere and to you Ibrandul is a big deal. One day you wake up and all your village's magic just stops working. Come to find out your actual god was murdered on Toril. Not to mention the sphere wide Armageddon the Netherese caused on any magical/spelljamminng society a few thousand years earlier.

In my version of Realmspace, things are bumping along in Waterdeep and spelljamming is still kept a secret from the general population. Kara Tur is home to three open spelljamming ports. And in Calimshan it is somewhat of an open secret. Space is about to be blown wide open, creating all the trade and military questions you mentioned.

So then the Time of Troubles happens, and The Era of Upheaval begins. Life slowly starts to go back to normal but trade from other worlds has all but ceased and spelljamming is sort of lost in the events, at least on Faerun. The Shou Long, the Wa, and The Dock are still operational at the time. The mages like Elminster, Khelben, and Gamalon who had taken charge of Faerun's transition to space just shelved it and over time anecdotes became rumors and rumors became legends and legends became at best superstitions. A few ships might crash here and there, a visitor might come, people still study the stars, but spelljamming is cut short.

Then the Spellplague happens. From space this is an astronomical event that engulfs every planet out to Garden in a blue supernova and all attention is suddenly shifted towards Toril. The neogi see an opportunity to raid in the chaos, The elven navy rushes to Selune and begins rescue operations, and some nations on Coliar and Karpri saw it as a declaration of war. Even the Beholders on H'catha saw the explosion and have taken an interest. Fortunately, the chaos created by the Spellplague had occupied all their time and they couldn't respond, those who did discovered that when exposed to the blue fire for too long spelljamming helms had a tendency to explode. Toril was basically sealed off from the rest of realmspace.

After the 2nd Sundering, when Evermeet was planning to return to Toril, there was a summit called to discuss what had become known as the cerulean storm. Through careful negotiation over several years most of the big factions of space including the Illithid, Neogi, Shou Long, Elminster, Royal Court, and others had reached an agreement called the Treaty of Evermeet. In basic terms, they agreed that Toril would be off limits as long as they never reached for space and cut it out with all the apocalypses. The elves were forbidden to return to the planet and the nations of Kara Tur were effectively grounded, cutting the fleet off from the rest of their people. Despite these concessions, it was the weight of Mystra's return that kept most spacers away, as it was well known that Toril was her favorite planet.

Anyway, so everything has been all well and fine. Space is doing space things, Toril is just as problematic as ever with the world ending according to Wizards' release schedule, and life goes on. The problem is that people took notice when Halaster kidnapped The Scavenger and some are calling it a violation of the treaty.

Also the crystal sphere is locked only by Mystra's will. The sphere itself is her spell book and she has effectively shut it to travel in phlogiston. every spell written in every known and unknown language in the entire sphere is there, but actually trying to read from a spell you're not supposed to (such as phlogiston travel or 10th level spells) just basically kills you. As far as economics goes, this has a two fold effect. First, the Arcane are gone, which means the amount of spelljamming tech in the sphere is finite. This has the secondary effect of making Realmspace really only suitable for 10th level characters and above, as even the most humble space vessel is a prize for pirates thanks to its helm.

And that brings us up to the current timeline. The adventure I'm writing is set sometime in the current timeline and it involves taking the helm from Dungeon of the Mad mage and going to investigate Stardock, there they find neogi invasion plans that sends them off to Anadia to stop a brood of neogi religious fanatics.

Edited by - comradecrunk on 02 Oct 2020 02:06:37
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bloodtide_the_red
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Posted - 02 Oct 2020 :  03:39:39  Show Profile  Visit bloodtide_the_red's Homepage Send bloodtide_the_red a Private Message  Reply with Quote
The Realms are a bit odd as they have no skyship trade. Somehow no place....worldwide for 2,000 years plus of history has skyships....except the couple of "secret" ones Hallura and Nimbral have. But making a skyship is not that hard, even for just an average level spellcaster......and the Realms is over flowing with arch wizards and high level spellcasters. To just pick one super easy example: Cromyr. The War Wizards alone could take say ten high level members, give them say ten years and build a massive fleet of skyships. Really making a flying ship is way down at the bottom of a list of what a powerful spellcaster can do.

So it's hard to say no one knows how to make a sktship. Really take ship add magical fly is very basic. But it makes no sense that no one does.

Plus you have the Wildspace problem. Starting in about 1100 DR, Known Space includes Troil. So.....why don't people from Known Space go there? The temptation of normal trade is more then enough......but just like a skyship, a spelljammer breaks all the rules. Like all the "poor places in the NORTH that are Officially locked in show and ice all winter with zero trade....well except for the ship that just zips out of the sky to trade. Or say even a single spelljammer could make a TON of money just trading things in the east to west route. So why don't they?

There is plenty of spelljammer activity in Realmsspace, and even more so the Tears of Selune.......but they ignore the huge planet that they literary are right next too?
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist

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Posted - 02 Oct 2020 :  14:08:52  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by bloodtide_the_red

The Realms are a bit odd as they have no skyship trade. Somehow no place....worldwide for 2,000 years plus of history has skyships....except the couple of "secret" ones Hallura and Nimbral have. But making a skyship is not that hard, even for just an average level spellcaster......and the Realms is over flowing with arch wizards and high level spellcasters. To just pick one super easy example: Cromyr. The War Wizards alone could take say ten high level members, give them say ten years and build a massive fleet of skyships. Really making a flying ship is way down at the bottom of a list of what a powerful spellcaster can do.

So it's hard to say no one knows how to make a sktship. Really take ship add magical fly is very basic. But it makes no sense that no one does.

Plus you have the Wildspace problem. Starting in about 1100 DR, Known Space includes Troil. So.....why don't people from Known Space go there? The temptation of normal trade is more then enough......but just like a skyship, a spelljammer breaks all the rules. Like all the "poor places in the NORTH that are Officially locked in show and ice all winter with zero trade....well except for the ship that just zips out of the sky to trade. Or say even a single spelljammer could make a TON of money just trading things in the east to west route. So why don't they?

There is plenty of spelljammer activity in Realmsspace, and even more so the Tears of Selune.......but they ignore the huge planet that they literary are right next too?



For spelljamming, that's why I went through what some might call juxtapositions in the timeline I gave as a general idea (i.e. with Nimbral being the country that was acting as the liason to the stars and eventually the moon trying to horn in on this action). I can understand outside spelljammers being willing to hide their ability and work through a single culture if said culture is willing to do a lot of the groundwork for them. Essentially, Nimbral is kind of acting like Wal-Mart or Amazon for them and providing the best deals to incoming merchants by gathering the goods from around the world for them in secret. In doing this, the incoming merchants keep the world from "horning in on their markets" by keeping them in the dark AND they have quick one stop shopping for the best goods there are. To note, this is probably a good way to explain why the people on the moon are always worried about "finding the best stuff".... the best stuff is what they sell to the merchants coming in, and being known as having the best stuff makes them a good market. So, in essence, I picture Nimbral initially being the merchants, then they actually get competition with the moon base that they helped get into the business. Then the arcane show up and get the Shou buying helms and then the merchants were going in two directions (and perhaps the arcane knew the shou would lose their ships to attrition and they set them up. Perhaps even the arcane were pirating back their own helms to resell. I half wonder if the arcane don't target smug, self-assured groundling emperors to sell helms to because they know these are cultures they can dupe into buying lots of helms quickly and then recover them.... I'm now picturing the arcane as con artists with their own privateer fleets for just this type of service).

Now, why we don't see more "atmosphere-locked" skyships developed (not spelljammers, but just skyships), yeah, that one has perplexed me as well. Its even noted that Thay knows how to make them as well in the lore, and yet we don't see any there. Thematically, I get that Halruaa is isolationist, so I get why the hundreds of skyships that they have are staying home to a degree (at the same time, why have skyships if you don't travel.... I mean they make great patrol vessels, but...). The only thing I can come up with is that there's a materials issues, but the only materials I can see might be A) turtle shells and B) the gas in the balloons... and I don't see either being an insurmountable issue. They aren't even using fly... they're using levitate and then sailing AND they have to periodically renew the levitate spells, so its not even permanent. I feel like any culture with any decent level of organized wizardry should be able to recreate them for their country at least, and same for any merchants who have a significant spellcaster percentage. If Halruaa has hundreds, I feel like the Zhents should have a dozen or more easily. Thay should have dozens. Cormyr, Calimshan, Amn, Sembia, Tethyr, Impiltur, Mulhorand, etc.. should all have a small fleet of at least a half dozen or so just to patrol their borders (and I'd put Sembia and Amn having 2 or 3 dozen privately owned ones for merchant companies). Baldur's Gate having a famous mercenary company of its size should have a handful for tactical reasons. Even large city-states like Waterdeep, Silverymoon, Cimbar, etc... should have a couple in addition to any aerial cavalry they have. The only thing I can figure is that the damn things provoke dragons and similar flying creatures, who basically act like pirates and steal the things if they're being used for merchant vessels, or destroy them out of spite just to prove their air superiority. As a result, I figure any flying airship is going to have an escort that's separate. This might be aerial cavalry on griffins, pegasi, hippogriffs, asperii, giant eagles, etc... or simply a bunch of folks on brooms of flying (which admittedly, used to be much rarer and not as common as say a potion). Thematically, this fits the imagery we see on the cover of the 3e shining south where that skyship is escorted by dragonne mounted cavalry.

Alavairthae, may your skill prevail

Phillip aka Sleyvas

Edited by - sleyvas on 02 Oct 2020 14:17:52
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bloodtide_the_red
Learned Scribe

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Posted - 02 Oct 2020 :  17:53:23  Show Profile  Visit bloodtide_the_red's Homepage Send bloodtide_the_red a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I'm not a fan of the silly hot air balloon type skyship. They just don't fit. They might be fine for casual travel, something like a yacht, but nothing else. But it's so easy, by the rules, to make even a simple cargo skyship. By 3E rules it's a simple flying 'stronghold space', and with a couple simple spell effects like levitation, shrinking(item spell) and extra demensional space....you could have a single cargo skyship that could load ALL the trade goods of the ENTIRE city of Waterdeep in it's hold and then just fly over to Kara-Tur to trade. Plus crazy battle skyships...like an all metal skyhawk: a giant animated metal hawk ship that can protect wand blasts from it's eyes (and the beyond cool Archangel variant that can fire metal Feathers of Sharpness).

How could any single location like Nimbral possibly "gate keep" and spelljamming trade world wide? Any one can land anywhere and trade. Even if Nimbral wanted to, blockading a planet is a bit silly.

I do have two solutions to both the above, from my own home Realms:

1.The Skyshield (taken from Mystara) toril is surrounded by a massive sphere of force. For the most part, things can't get in or out. There are occasional breaches and powerful magic can smash it's way in (plus you can teleport or plane shift past it). BUT even passing through the Skyshield by any method is dangerous....like a 50% chance of death and destruction.

So simply put....it's not worth the risk for most. Maybe the Skyshield is natural? Maybe it's a left over after effect of the Imarski Barrier? Maybe it was created at the dawn of time to protect the world/Chauntea from the fighting of Shar and Sel#251;ne (so...maybes it's part of Mystra/The Weave). Oh, also floating clouds of anti magic.

Nimbrial, with illusions (plus the folks on the moon too) could easily hide any natural breaches in the Skyshield AND, worse, make plenty of fake breaches. This would sure make Nimbral an effective gate keeper. Though, sure, some people do slip through....but not whole merchant fleets.

2.For skyships (or any powerful magic) I add the idea that Ed uses a lot that "powerful magic can act up if too much is in one place" and "magic is strange, unknowable, wild, dangerous, and deadly" . And a skyship is a very small place. So once you get a basic skyship with say a dozen enchantments....you will have problems. The ship might explode...or produce any other magic effect. Or wild magic effect. Or burn out and go dead magic. And so on and so on. So it's easy to build a skyship, but it's hard and tricky to keep one flying.

3.Much of the above can assumed to be Natural....or not. As the Realms are not a natural place. Maybe Mystra, Azuth, Bane or Talos (or anyone else) does target skyships for some reason. Maybe is a bunch of arch spellcasters (Sharn? Dragons?)

4.Plus there are a ton of anti magical monsters, plus anti fly ship/anti spelljammer monsters, and again dragons. And maybe that massive swarm of jammer leeches formed naturally....maybe Mystra cast mass polymorph on some flies or maybe an archmage found them elsewhere and slipped them through a portal.

5.Espionage. It's not just a sky space race....it's a cold war. Nobody wants someone else to get the first skyship or spelljamming fleet. So it's all spy vs spy. Governments, religious groups, merchant groups and private folks....all in a vast cloak and dagger game.

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comradecrunk
Acolyte

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Posted - 02 Oct 2020 :  22:12:01  Show Profile Send comradecrunk a Private Message  Reply with Quote
There are some eerie similarities between your thoughts and mine on Realmspace. This topic inspired me to compile my notes on the subject into a 2 page document. I've been writing tons of Realmspace lately. Here is a short version of a timeline through 4e. In 3e I just kind of assume it's like 2e. Lots of secret spelljamming and gathering information while trying to ease Faerun into being a spacefaring civilization, mostly because of how volatile the continent is without adding space monsters to the mix.

Check it out! Let me know what you think. Fair warning, it needs a bit of an editing pass and I am **horrible** at coming up with names of all sorts.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wfx522oeaaeqzx9/Realmspace%20I%20-%20The%20Dawn%20Heralds.pdf?dl=0

Edited by - comradecrunk on 02 Oct 2020 22:12:45
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AuldDragon
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Posted - 05 Oct 2020 :  01:20:19  Show Profile  Visit AuldDragon's Homepage Send AuldDragon a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

Jeff/Aulddragon,

First, let me say, thank you very much for joining this conversation, because I get the idea that you were possibly involved in the design and you definitely played it.


I was definitely not involved; it's just my favorite campaign setting, and I'm currently running a 2e campaign in the setting. :)

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

For instance, as I think about remote colonies, my thoughts turn to portals being setup between Toril and these remote colonies... and suddenly I'm seeing a need to make construction of such much more expensive than a portal that jumps goods from say Waterdeep to Aglarond (which itself should be expensive). However, with magic, I think setting up these remote colonies would be a heck of a lot faster than what we can do in our real world.



There is a New Waterdeep somewhere, although it hasn't been detailed much beyond some quotes from residences. Spelljamming actually has some issues with setting up colonies, given the air requirements on vessels, although that is less of an issue if they bring multiple low-level priests and wizards along. Setting up magical portals would help, but that gets to what I was saying before about teleportation being an easier and cheaper way to handle shipping.

quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

The Octopus Ship and the Cuttle Command had some movement to their tentacles, as I recall, but it was purely a mechanical thing and was more of a "reposition so this weapon has a different firing arc" thing than anything else. I do seem to recall, though, mention of some individual Octopus Ships having magically animated tentacles.

While I'm not a fan of the current design team's shtick of "Who cares if X was this way before, we're doing this other thing now!" I gotta admit that having a grappling Nautiloid is thematically appropriate. I'd not make it a standard feature on all Nautiloids, obviously, but if it was stated that this was a one-off, I'd not complain.



Yeah, the Cuttle Command and Octopus have wooden tentacles that are mobile due to machinery, and I wouldn't mind a special Nautiloid that replaced the piercing ram with a grappling ram, but my serious issue is with the living nature of the redesign. That causes some serious issues with the canon of the Astromundi Cluster. They made the choice *because* they thought it would be cool, rather than doing something that makes sense that is *also* cool.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

So, possibly the elven communities were "in the know" and were specifically keeping the information hidden as to the extent of what the ships were from groundling communities. Hell, it may have only been known to the elven leadership at that? People may have known that they had flying ships, but not that they could leave the world with them. In that way, they may have thought of them as similar to Halruaan Skyships.


It is canon that the Imperial Elven Navy maintains contact with most planetary elven nations that they are aware of. The Monarch Mordent was a ship sent by the IEN to aid Cormanthor specifically, but it was also about the only aid they were capable of giving at the time. It's probably reasonable to see the fall of Cormanthor as one of (a multitude) of elements that prompted the First Unhuman War.

quote:
Originally posted by bloodtide_the_red

"Ships that sail between the stars? Next ye will spin tales of a talking hippopotamus that walks on two legs and carries a bow. I asked ye to research facts about other worlds, not spend a week in an opium den."
— Elminster's note to Volo in Volo's Guide to Monsters

So this quote makes it seem like Elmisnter does not know about wildspace or spelljamming, and even more so does not even believe in the whole idea. Though it's a fair guess old El is also being a bit coy here. But it's interesting that Elminster is most intentionally trying to hide wildspace and spelljamming to the unknown person he is talking too.


I would say it is a certainty that Elminster is trying to hide the fact of Spelljamming, considering he has a remote hideway in Realmspace and has traveled the stars.

quote:
Originally posted by bloodtide_the_red

Plus you have the Wildspace problem. Starting in about 1100 DR, Known Space includes Troil. So.....why don't people from Known Space go there? The temptation of normal trade is more then enough......but just like a skyship, a spelljammer breaks all the rules. Like all the "poor places in the NORTH that are Officially locked in show and ice all winter with zero trade....well except for the ship that just zips out of the sky to trade. Or say even a single spelljammer could make a TON of money just trading things in the east to west route. So why don't they?

There is plenty of spelljammer activity in Realmsspace, and even more so the Tears of Selune.......but they ignore the huge planet that they literary are right next too?



They don't ignore it, they just stick to the known ports. Toril is known as a Groundling world, and groundlings are looked down upon as "Clueless" are in Planescape. The known ports basically where cargo is sold off, and bought by merchants who would use Groundling style vessels to sell it at other ports. This preserves the secrecy, while also allowing it to be a trading destination. As I mentioned, think of it like cargo from China arriving at Los Angeles, then being shipped into the Midwest, rather than being shipped directly to the midwest.

Jeff

My 2nd Edition blog: http://blog.aulddragon.com/
My streamed AD&D Spelljamer sessions: https://www.youtube.com/user/aulddragon/playlists?flow=grid&shelf_id=18&view=50
"That sums it up in a nutshell, AuldDragon. You make a more convincing argument. But he's right and you're not."
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
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Posted - 05 Oct 2020 :  04:41:51  Show Profile Send Wooly Rupert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by AuldDragon

quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

The Octopus Ship and the Cuttle Command had some movement to their tentacles, as I recall, but it was purely a mechanical thing and was more of a "reposition so this weapon has a different firing arc" thing than anything else. I do seem to recall, though, mention of some individual Octopus Ships having magically animated tentacles.

While I'm not a fan of the current design team's shtick of "Who cares if X was this way before, we're doing this other thing now!" I gotta admit that having a grappling Nautiloid is thematically appropriate. I'd not make it a standard feature on all Nautiloids, obviously, but if it was stated that this was a one-off, I'd not complain.



Yeah, the Cuttle Command and Octopus have wooden tentacles that are mobile due to machinery, and I wouldn't mind a special Nautiloid that replaced the piercing ram with a grappling ram, but my serious issue is with the living nature of the redesign. That causes some serious issues with the canon of the Astromundi Cluster. They made the choice *because* they thought it would be cool, rather than doing something that makes sense that is *also* cool.


I wasn't aware that the tentacles on this one were living; I've not even seen a copy of the book, yet, and I'll not be laying hands on it until I find it for a reasonable discount. Does the book say that this is standard issue?

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AuldDragon
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Posted - 05 Oct 2020 :  05:13:17  Show Profile  Visit AuldDragon's Homepage Send AuldDragon a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

I wasn't aware that the tentacles on this one were living; I've not even seen a copy of the book, yet, and I'll not be laying hands on it until I find it for a reasonable discount. Does the book say that this is standard issue?



There was a picture and short bit of text from the book posted over at the Piazza, and the image shows the tentacles clearly splayed about limply, and this is some of the text:
"Designed to move through the Astral Plane, nautiloids are bizarre flying ships that can also transport mind flayers between the various worlds of the Material Plane. The Id Ascendant is one such ship.

A nautiloid looks like an enormous nautilus shell fitted with one or more exterior decks and a large, forward-facing mass of rubbery tentacles. The mind flayers use these tentacles to scour the surface of a world for interesting creatures to take back home for study or a feast.

The mind flayers have lost the secret of manufacturing nautiloids, meaning that the loss of any vessel brings them one step closer to remaining trapped on the Material Plane."

Here's the thread:
http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=25222

So I guess *technically* it doesn't say they're alive, but they're certainly not wooden vessels like they used to be. The artwork makes it look much more organic than the classic vessel, too. The description and imagery matches what's been shown in Baldur's Gate III, loosely at least. So I suppose they might be enchanted to be life-like (it does say "manufacture" but that could be applie to elven vessels, too, even though grown is the standard comment), but I'm not sure how much difference that would really make.

Jeff

My 2nd Edition blog: http://blog.aulddragon.com/
My streamed AD&D Spelljamer sessions: https://www.youtube.com/user/aulddragon/playlists?flow=grid&shelf_id=18&view=50
"That sums it up in a nutshell, AuldDragon. You make a more convincing argument. But he's right and you're not."
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Ayrik
Great Reader

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Posted - 05 Oct 2020 :  05:37:00  Show Profile Send Ayrik a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Illithids are powerfully psionic predators. Masters of telepathy and psychokinesis. They could deceive observers into seeing and sensing things which aren't real. They could imbue inanimate objects to be moving - or living - or possibly even thinking creatures. They could mentally subjugate and alter any "organic" being under their control. They can use their psionic "technology" to construct things.

I'd always thought their nautiloids were some Cthulhu-inspired version of "living" spelljammer ships, not unlike the ones "grown" by the Elven Armada. Perhaps even the same species, though perverted by illithid manipulations. Maybe even the result of implanting one of their own tadpoles into the ship's "brain".

But I agree, none of this is explicitly described in Spelljammer lore. It's all speculation.

[/Ayrik]
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist

USA
11686 Posts

Posted - 05 Oct 2020 :  11:53:37  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

quote:
Originally posted by AuldDragon

quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

The Octopus Ship and the Cuttle Command had some movement to their tentacles, as I recall, but it was purely a mechanical thing and was more of a "reposition so this weapon has a different firing arc" thing than anything else. I do seem to recall, though, mention of some individual Octopus Ships having magically animated tentacles.

While I'm not a fan of the current design team's shtick of "Who cares if X was this way before, we're doing this other thing now!" I gotta admit that having a grappling Nautiloid is thematically appropriate. I'd not make it a standard feature on all Nautiloids, obviously, but if it was stated that this was a one-off, I'd not complain.



Yeah, the Cuttle Command and Octopus have wooden tentacles that are mobile due to machinery, and I wouldn't mind a special Nautiloid that replaced the piercing ram with a grappling ram, but my serious issue is with the living nature of the redesign. That causes some serious issues with the canon of the Astromundi Cluster. They made the choice *because* they thought it would be cool, rather than doing something that makes sense that is *also* cool.


I wasn't aware that the tentacles on this one were living; I've not even seen a copy of the book, yet, and I'll not be laying hands on it until I find it for a reasonable discount. Does the book say that this is standard issue?



Just like the Waterdeep book, which also has a nautiloid, the information given is more of a "this is this ship". For instance, the one in the dungeon of the mad mage is called "the helm of the scavenger". The illithids on the one in rime of the frostmaiden aren't even standard illithids, but rather gnome ceremorphs and "squidlings" whose bodies are so small that they walk around on their oversized mouth tentacles. My take when I'm seeing this stuff is to not try and backwards engineer the rulesets by considering it standard, but rather to look at each as a one off, and then hopefully we can come up with our own rules or they can come up with some rules for spelljamming. Basically, I see this stuff as exactly the kind of design I expect people to do... give a small hint, and work out the broader details as they see some kind of feedback from the public (which partly is what this thread is about, is I hoped that we could give some insight from us, the end public, about what we'd like to see beforehand rather than after they've put something out).

Alavairthae, may your skill prevail

Phillip aka Sleyvas
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist

USA
11686 Posts

Posted - 05 Oct 2020 :  12:24:57  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by AuldDragon


I was definitely not involved; it's just my favorite campaign setting, and I'm currently running a 2e campaign in the setting. :)

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

For instance, as I think about remote colonies, my thoughts turn to portals being setup between Toril and these remote colonies... and suddenly I'm seeing a need to make construction of such much more expensive than a portal that jumps goods from say Waterdeep to Aglarond (which itself should be expensive). However, with magic, I think setting up these remote colonies would be a heck of a lot faster than what we can do in our real world.



There is a New Waterdeep somewhere, although it hasn't been detailed much beyond some quotes from residences. Spelljamming actually has some issues with setting up colonies, given the air requirements on vessels, although that is less of an issue if they bring multiple low-level priests and wizards along. Setting up magical portals would help, but that gets to what I was saying before about teleportation being an easier and cheaper way to handle shipping.

Jeff



Yep, the New Waterdeep is on Maztica's northern side, and actually it was delving these far flung bits of Toril that got me to thinking more and more about spelljamming, in relation to red wizard trade enclaves along with there being now refugees that would probably look more favorably on those enclaves. Granted my favorite bit of the canon new world is Fort Flame and the City of Gold.

It was in the world that I saw definitely there should be some kind of "network" setup between red wizard trade enclaves, but it also needed to be profitable, so only select enclaves would have it, etc... and trade occurring within a continent via standard shipping to the focal point and then between continents via portals once its shown "its worth it".

I guess maybe we should think along the same lines with spelljamming colonies being setup by Torilian countries (or groups of countries working in a small alliance, though that's harder to picture working). Also, I think I'm kind of jumping the gun with considering building a portal between worlds, because the portal SHOULD be expensive as heck and thus.... maybe they might actually WANT to spend 10 or 20 years researching a planet, sending colonists to study and find "the best place to put the expensive portal's endpoint". After all, just because they can go to ... for instance karpri... doesn't mean they're rolling in dough. Yes, there are resources there, but they do have mostly similar stuff at home. So, perhaps they create away teams of adventurers, and maybe they even create "support teams" of laborers, cooks, farmers, etc... that they also send over way before they ever consider where to finally put their end portals.

So, IF they were going to setup some kind of remote colony, what would be the "driving things" that they'd want? I actually am thinking portability of the community becomes a very important thing. However, I don't think you can make everything portable. You can make say some base that's composed of a handful of daern's instant fortresses that you connect or surround with simple wall spells or "daern's instant curtain walls". You can use bags of holding to carry tools, food, etc... You can have something like a murlynd's spoon, cauldron of plenty, etc... for feeding people. You can have lots of portable lighting in the form of continual flame torches. You can have construct or summoned mounts (or even a figurine of wondrouse power that's just a donkey or draft horse for farming). But the farm itself would be hard to transport simply because of how much acreage it would require to feed animals and people.

So, that being said... maybe the idea of building remote farms is then cast aside in favor of a leaner crew with magic that can either produce food OR the use of spelljammers to travel back and forth with new supplies on a say 3 month basis. This of course also ties the colonies back to the home world and keeps them loyal. Maybe only once they find an area that seems safe and habitable enough for farmers does that stage of colonization begin.

I would also note, that while this all seems very impacting, in truth other than providing a dream... it won't impact the average person living on Toril all that much. I only stress on this because its natural for us to put on the "our world" goggles and try to think of it like what's happening here. But there's still no mass media or television to deliver images of what's going on on the remote colonies. So, the average person might hear about it, and maybe periodically the "king" sends someone around to relay stories about what's happening with "the famous adventurers that are exploring another world for us", but its nothing more than a dream that "one day we may go onto the new world". They might even have multiple adventuring groups that do the exact same thing, but sending them somewhere closer (i.e. Maztica, anchorome, katashaka, etc....).... and in fact a lot of the ideas behind my United Tharchs of Toril mindset are kind of exactly that... people expanding somewhere else in a smallish way and seeing whether they can thrive and grow there.

So, if the building of teleportation means between worlds only comes after they've gotten a good handle on setting up a place that they have good control over (extremely good control, because they also don't want the portal being used for invaders from another world), are there any topics or ideas I'm not covering that might be something people might consider or need?

Alavairthae, may your skill prevail

Phillip aka Sleyvas
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AuldDragon
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Posted - 05 Oct 2020 :  16:37:03  Show Profile  Visit AuldDragon's Homepage Send AuldDragon a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

Just like the Waterdeep book, which also has a nautiloid, the information given is more of a "this is this ship".



I don't read the text I shared as "this is a one-off." I read it as "this is standard for the line." I could certainly be wrong, but considering BG3 matches it, it is at least not a one-off, even if there are others, but there's no precedent for it in Spelljammer.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

quote:
Originally posted by AuldDragon

There is a New Waterdeep somewhere, although it hasn't been detailed much beyond some quotes from residences. Spelljamming actually has some issues with setting up colonies, given the air requirements on vessels, although that is less of an issue if they bring multiple low-level priests and wizards along. Setting up magical portals would help, but that gets to what I was saying before about teleportation being an easier and cheaper way to handle shipping.


Yep, the New Waterdeep is on Maztica's northern side, and actually it was delving these far flung bits of Toril that got me to thinking more and more about spelljamming, in relation to red wizard trade enclaves along with there being now refugees that would probably look more favorably on those enclaves. Granted my favorite bit of the canon new world is Fort Flame and the City of Gold.


Sorry, I specifically meant in somewhere in Spelljammer, not somewhere else on Toril. There's a few quotes in the Complete Spacefarer's Handbook that set up a funny little back-and-forth between New Waterdeep and a goblinoid port nearby. The quotes are also supposed to give DMs some adventure ideas.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

I guess maybe we should think along the same lines with spelljamming colonies being setup by Torilian countries (or groups of countries working in a small alliance, though that's harder to picture working). Also, I think I'm kind of jumping the gun with considering building a portal between worlds, because the portal SHOULD be expensive as heck and thus.... maybe they might actually WANT to spend 10 or 20 years researching a planet, sending colonists to study and find "the best place to put the expensive portal's endpoint". After all, just because they can go to ... for instance karpri... doesn't mean they're rolling in dough. Yes, there are resources there, but they do have mostly similar stuff at home. So, perhaps they create away teams of adventurers, and maybe they even create "support teams" of laborers, cooks, farmers, etc... that they also send over way before they ever consider where to finally put their end portals.


Given the distances and logistics involved, I would actually say that most of the (human) Spelljammer colonies are wholly independent and unauthorized. The aforementioned "New Waterdeep" in my view was probably set up by some adventurers who were originally from Waterdeep, gained access to a helm, adventured in space for a time, surpassed 9th level, and settled down to set up a fortress and gain followers. Most of the followers would not be from New Waterdeep, but since the adventurers were, they just decided to name it that. Even if Spelljamming is known, setting up authorized, supplied, and protected colonies would be a logistical nightmare. Instead, it would probably be a group of people from the city who just decide to travel to the stars on their own.

Jeff

My 2nd Edition blog: http://blog.aulddragon.com/
My streamed AD&D Spelljamer sessions: https://www.youtube.com/user/aulddragon/playlists?flow=grid&shelf_id=18&view=50
"That sums it up in a nutshell, AuldDragon. You make a more convincing argument. But he's right and you're not."
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