D&D 5E Spelljamming in 5e

[Bleys Icefalcon]

When our gaming group took the plunge and committed, creating a group of brand new 5e characters and starting our first game one of the things we did was shatter the spaceways as we knew them. The crystal spheres have disintegrated, the flows (wormholes) became unstable and collapsed and all space, everywhere is now Void Space. There are still the varried and different gaming worlds, Krynn, Faerun, Athas, et al - but now there are vast and uncharted voids, with nothing bridging them.

When the flows collapsed I determined (for my universe) that there were exactly one hundred vessels in what our groups perceived as the Known Flows. I rolled percentile and got an 87. Only 13 survived being torn from their wormholes.

I am writing an adventure for one of these crews. To be more specific, I am writing it for the small number of them that survived being torn from their particular wormhole. Alone. Adrift in interstellar space roughly twenty million miles from the Rock of Bral.

Now... the way I have been running things was DnD Space was fully enclosed within a much vaster galaxy of space that functioned they way that science as we know in the real world funtions. Now that this magical mebrane is gone, just think of the possibilities... Kree, Asgardians, The Empire, The United Federations of Planets... pick your poison and run with it.

 

[nomotog]

Neat. What kind of ground work have you done for this idea. Like do you have ship combat rules and the like? I always want to run a spelljammer game, but support for it is so minimal that it's actually easier just to make up my own spelljammer light.

 

[Shasarak]

It seems like such a waste to use the Spelljammer universe but limited to just 13 ships.

 

[CaptainGemini]

Any rules for mixing technology and magic?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Interesting idea. I have to admit it never occurred to me to inflict cataclysmic transformation on the phlogiston itself. I'll keep that idea in my pocket for now but maybe someday... Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.

Currently the worst thing my players have done so far is accidentally end the IEN Interdict that was protecting their planet (Armistice) from colonization by the space powers.

 

[Jaelommiss]

Alone. Adrift in interstellar space roughly twenty million miles from the Rock of Bral.

Although the exact numbers are probably irrelevant, twenty million miles is pretty much nothing in astronomical terms. That's slightly more than halfway from the sun to Mercury, almost a quarter the distance from the sun to the Earth, or a mere 0.5% of the distance from the sun to Pluto. For reference, the next closest star is 24808000 million miles away. At its last reported speed of 17km/s, Voyager 1 would cover twenty million miles in roughly 22 days. Since most people don't really understand just how big space really is, I doubt it will end up being a problem. I also know practically nothing about Spelljammer, so it's entirely possible that a logical way to bypass distances exists in the setting.

Other than that it sounds like an interesting campaign concept. Long term isolation, limited resources, and a nearly endless journey are always fun to play with. I'd be interested to see how scientifically advanced factions perceive the characters' magical abilities ("No, really. I just wave my arms like this, say these funny words, and BANG! Fireball.)