D&D 5E Unearthed Arcana: Travelers of the Multiverse

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Looks like Spelljammer and/or Planescape is back on the menu!

 

[Demetrios1453]

I'm thinking we'll get a generalized multiverse book, which will likely have a lot of stuff about Sigil - and unless a Planescape gets an adventure path, I suspect that's all we'll see from Planescape for the next few years.

Since we're seeing something of a Multiverse theme for 2022 stuff so far, I'm leaning a bit toward Spelljammer and Planescape being our two classic settings next year, one in the spring and one in the autumn.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Oh the factions would ABSOLUTELY start controlling the portals, and I think there would be quite of bit of financial intrigue going on.

But, then again, some of the stuff I've heard from Spelljammer, you could leave with a shipment and then disappear for a century because you got caught in a time storm or something. And if the Factions are willing to attack a caravan in Sigil, they'd be more than willing to hire privateers to patrol the area near the ports too.

It isn't that Sigil is completely without risk and adventure, it is that it is far far more predictable and just normal business compared to the absolute Chaos I've heard the Spelljamming space to be.

So I actually am curious as to how to reconcile this, so did a bit of digging on Sigil and its portals here; Sigil - 1d4chan

It looks like the majority of portals require specific keys or are only temporary (sometimes both), meaning they can't be relied upon for free trade on a large scale. It also looks like most permanent portals are directly controlled by factions, who use them for specific purposes (ie not trade). For example, the Doomguard has four permanent portals to the Negative Energy plane in the armory, but they use that specifically to connect Sigil to their strongholds there.

My takeaways from this are that if I am a merchant, traveling through Sigil is very unreliable. I probably don't have access to permanent portals, and if I do it's from inside information from factions that are pretty loathe to share secrets. So trade is possible through Sigil, but only on a small-business scale of merchants tracking down temporary portals to maintain business.

If I'm a bigger trader who relies on larger scale, I can't build a business around this. Although trading via Spelljammer has its own risks, it is risk I can plan around. There are stable routes through the Phlogiston which are always traversable. There are raiders and pirates, but this I can plan around by hiring mercenaries, adventurers and the like.

Spelljammer has a lot of chaos, but there are permanent stable routes from world-to-world as well. So travel via Spelljammer is definitely possible, and can co-habit a world with Sigil and its infinite doors.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Most large-scale trade on the Outer Planes goes through the gate towns on the Outlands anyway. Stable (as long as people there don't start strongly believing in something!), and large enough for trading.

Yep. But that isn't trade between worlds on the Material Plane, which is Spelljammer's wheelhouse. So I think the two travel systems can both function, as their largely for different things.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Yep. But that isn't trade between worlds on the Material Plane, which is Spelljammer's wheelhouse. So I think the two travel systems can both function, as their largely for different things.

Which is why I stated "Outer Planes". Spelljammer does indeed cover this for the Material Plane...

 

[Superchunk77]

Since we're seeing something of a Multiverse theme for 2022 stuff so far, I'm leaning a bit toward Spelljammer and Planescape being our two classic settings next year, one in the spring and one in the autumn.

Spelljammer seems to be all but confirmed, but I think the other setting for 2022 will be Dark Sun. I'm thinking Spelljammer will be Spring/Summer to align with this UA and the Multiverse book release, and Dark Sun will likely be later 2022 after we get another psionics UA in the next few months.

I'm anticipating more psionic feats and subclasses in the next UA, maybe the Mul race, but I doubt we will see a Psion/Mystic core class again.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I remember a meme about Pokemon being designed as a videogame for children, but practically played by adults, and Call of Duty created for adults but played by children. Dark Sun is perfect for the young adult audence, but not too grimm if teenages are present in the tabletop. We can bet Dark Sun will return some time, but we can't safe when. It is not only the rules about defiler magic and psionic powers, or the spirit of the setting, but also the right tribal-punk look as potential hook.

About Spelljammer we should wonder about the possible cultural, technologic and economic impact with the trade between the different crystal spheres. In the second edition the orcs oficially weren't wellcome in the Krynnsphere. Or let's imagine a psionic mystic arrives to Ansalon and the order of the seekers are refunded studing the psionic arts. Or the kenders travelling to Greyhawk to explore. Here I imagine Nentir Vale like a middle point in the trade between worlds, allowing new races and classes arriving to other places.

Spelljammer is the ultimate "sandbox", with lot of unknown zones to be discovered and explored by the PCs. And lots of creatures and factions from Planescape could be reused in Spelljammer.

* Maybe planar tears are created accidentally by fault of some high-tech alien civilitation with faster-than-light spaceships (fraals, for example).

 

[Parmandur]

So, I got busy and couldn't keep up with the thread... How did it become an argument over wich is the worse of the two settings? Both are similar in scope, but can coexist...

That's what is weird: of course bothvan coexist, because they are specifically not similar in scope. It's like saying the Underdatk exploration if Out if the Abyss is in some sort of competition with the seafaring rules from Ghoats of Saltmarsh because they are similar in scope...like, no, on both counts.

 

[Parmandur]

I think the thing to notice is all the lineages featured are either Spelljammer, or Dark Sun/Spelljammer. None of them are characteristically Planescape. There are no more varied tiefling linages, no updated genasi, aasimar, gith, rogue modron, nathri etc.

So, either Planescape is folded into Spelljammer, or there is no Planescape book coming.

I think both are on WotC to do list as seperate products, but apparently Spelljammer is first.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm thinking we'll get a generalized multiverse book, which will likely have a lot of stuff about Sigil - and unless a Planescape gets an adventure path, I suspect that's all we'll see from Planescape for the next few years.

I see no reason to suspect this: I forsee a specifically Spelljammer product, and a specifically Planescape product, that have as much to do with each other as Ravenloft and Strixhaven: both are D&D, and you could mix them.

 

[Bolares]

That's what is weird: of course bothvan coexist, because they are specifically not similar in scope. It's like saying the Underdatk exploration if Out if the Abyss is in some sort of competition with the seafaring rules from Ghoats of Saltmarsh because they are similar in scope...like, no, on both counts.

I'm not trying to say they are the same. I just don't get why people are trying to argue wich is worse and shouldn't be published....