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

New free content from WotC - the latest 4-page Unearthed Arcana introduces six new races: astral elf, autognome, giff, hadozee, plasmoid, and thri-kreen.

News Archive | Dungeons and Dragons

Read the full archives of Dungeons & Dragons news, Sage Advice, Unearthed Arcana, and D&D Studio Blogs.

dnd.wizards.com

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

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Still don't see the contradiction. You can make a D&D Space Opera while still playing with Ye Oldde Tyme physics.

Yep. My Space Fantasy setting is basically space opera that takes more from Victorian era futurism than modern sci-fi, with sailing airships riding Aether winds, moth-people who live on asteroids and eat Aether, coral planets, naturally formed halo ring planets, space dragons, and energy weapons and knights in power armor.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Again,

"the City of Doors" for the sheer number of portals, but was also called "the Cage" for the difficulty to enter or exit the city"

A statement that makes absolutely no sense, either from real world logic, how it is depicted in adventures, or what it needs to be as an adventuring hub.

Fortunately, nothing pre-5e is canon, and it's an easy error to fix in any new version of the setting.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yep. My Space Fantasy setting is basically space opera that takes more from Victorian era futurism than modern sci-fi, with sailing airships riding Aether winds, moth-people who live on asteroids and eat Aether, coral planets, naturally formed halo ring planets, space dragons, and energy weapons and knights in power armor.

The Michelson-Morley experiment, that cast shade of the existence of any "aether" was very much a Victorian discovery - 1887. The ideas about the universe depicted in Spelljammer where being rapidly debunked during this period.

Michelson–Morley experiment - Wikipedia

"Crystal Spheres" had already been killed of by Newton in the 17th century.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The Michelson-Morley experiment, that cast shade of the existence of any "aether" was very much a Victorian discovery - 1887. The ideas about the universe depicted in Spelljammer where being rapidly debunked during this period.

Michelson–Morley experiment - Wikipedia

"Crystal Spheres" had already been killed of by Newton in the 17th century.

Okay?

It’s a fantasy space opera, not a historical Victorian science story.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'd agree if the complexity was less repetitive and more interesting... but the Astral has always filled me with more wonder than Phlogiston has.

Well, obviously that's a matter of opinion. I find the phlogiston and the Astral both interesting in very different ways.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A statement that makes absolutely no sense, either from real world logic, how it is depicted in adventures, or what it needs to be as an adventuring hub.

Fortunately, nothing pre-5e is canon, and it's an easy error to fix in any new version of the setting.

Easy piece of lore to change, you mean.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Okay?

It’s a fantasy space opera, not a historical Victorian science story.

That's my point. The original Spelljammer had too much 16th century science story, to the determent of the Space Opera.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Easy piece of lore to change, you mean.

Given that is was contradicted within the same book, I think it's more of an erroneous statement, rather than lore.

I think the point the author was trying to make is using portals isn't free. You either need money or luck. Which means to the poor, the city is a cage. But I agree, the language used does not make that clear.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The Gatetowns have been forgotten, but they are a good space to continue the faction war. Other option is special demiplanes linked with the Sigil zones. How to explain it better with an example? If Planescape was a MMO, the Lady of the Pain would be the onwer of the "server" Sigil, but the factions could use their own "private servers", demiplanes created or discovered by them. The demiplane linked to the hive would be the ultimate mother of the dungeons, a mixture of gladiator arena and penal colony, with lots of threasures for the dungeon raiders who dare to explore it. How was this possible? Easy, "a wizard did it!" (one whose name start with a V and ends with a "ecna", and with a good eye and good hand for this type of business).

I miss the planar dragons, even that with a ridiculous duck beak from the Elyseum, and the paraelementals.

The nerra, from the mirror plane, appeared in Fiend Folio have got a great potential.

Mirror Monster - TV Tropes

Mirrors are inherently creepy objects. If you're looking in a mirror, there's also someone looking at you. A movement in a mirror can make you jump. It's no surprise that they're associated with badness. But what if there were something more than …

tvtropes.org

The limbo could be the place for planar trade, not too easy, not too hard, and enough unpredictable to avoid be boring. Here you can elemental creatures.

 

[Azzy]

For the record, since some people are getting the impression that most people here are for replacing the Phlogiston with the Astral Plane, I would be against it. I said that about thirty pages ago, but this thread is getting long enough that there is a need for repeating some claims. The Phlogiston works just fine as it is. I am for keeping it as is.

Right? I haven't seen any indication that WotC even wants to get rid of the Phlogiston, let alone any reason to get rid of it. It just seems like some people are projecting their preference with no evidence for it.