Spelljammer D&D Direct Live Report: 9am PDT (5pm BST) SPELLJAMMER CONFIRMED! DRAGONLANCE!

D&D Direct, WotC's new video-format announcement show launches today at 9am PDT (5pm BST). If you aren't able to watch it, I'll be updating this article live. Feel free to comment below! Once it launches, you will need to refresh this page when you want to see new updates. The video is expected to last about 30 minutes.

If you CAN watch it, you'll find it on YouTube or Twitch at the above times. Otherwise, follow along below!

• 45 mins to go. Live updates incoming!
• 30 mins to go!
• 5 minutes to go!
• Here we go! Opens with a sea shanty.
• Forgive typos. They talk fast and I can't type.

• Spelljammer is confirmed!
• They talk REALLY FAST!
• Spelljammer Adventures in Space, project lead Chris Perkins, Trystan Falcone graphic designer
• Cities built on asteroids, dead gods floating in the ether
• 6 races---astral elves, autognomes, hedozi(?), gif, plasmoids, thri-kreen
• 3 hardcovers in a slipcase: Astral Adventurers Guide, Boo's Astral Menagerie, Light of Xaryxis adventure
• Prequel adventure in July
• Wizkids miniatures

Other stuff also discussed!

• Baldur's Gate 3 CRPG preview video (game is in 2023)
• Journeys Through Radiant Citadel intro video -- 3 of the adventures are: Wages of Vice (5th level), Caribbean; Orchids of the Invisible Mountain (14th level), feywild, far realm, Whistler new monster; Fiend of Hollow Mind (4th level), skeletons and spirits

• "Campaign Cases" -- Creature tokens! Terrain tiles! July!

D&D Movie directors now onscreen. The movie in March 2023 is called HONOR AMONG THIEVES.

• New D&D starter set. Comes with 'digital onboarding'. Dragons of Stormwreck Isle. We knew about that one.
• D&D digital monstrous compendium. Available to those with WoTC or D&D Beyond Accounts. Volume 1 has an eldritch lich and the 10 legged asteroid spider. And the starlancer. Might have misheard some of that!

• MMO Neverwinter video. Dragonslayer begins June 2022. (I wonder if they'll need a dragonance for that?)
• New D&D actual play video, Legends of the Multiverse. Lots of 80s cartoon style soft rock music. Boo is in it.

WIzKids skirmish game D&D Onslaught. October

Finally -- DRAGONLANCE WARRIORS OF KRYNN! SHADOW OF THE DRAGON QUEEN!

 

[michaeljpastor]

I only have one DM screen, so I'm perfectly fine with buying another. Most DMs that I know only have one DM screen (at least, per edition). How normal is it for people to have a ton of DM screens for one edition?

Everyone has a "first" DM screen. Don't need another one? Give it away to someone who needs one or ebay it.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

To me, Fizban's made it sound like previous editions Planar Dragons (at least the ones connected to the Outer Planes, which the Astral Plane is technically a part of in 5e) won't exist at all this edition. The whole "Humanoids are Material and Spiritual because they're connected to both the Inner and Outer Planes, but Dragons are purely Material so they're only connected to the Inner Planes and are the true inhabitants of the Material Plane" thing makes me think that stuff like Styx Dragons, Astral Dragons, Celestial Dragons, and so on just don't exist in D&D 5e's Multiverse.

My guess is that Solar/Lunar Dragons will probably end up being Chromatic or Metallic Dragons that migrated to space and evolved to live in those extreme environments, rather than a whole new class of True Dragons in D&D 5e.

I can see it going either way. The First World is a clever creation myth for the dragons that fits with the multiverse theme. However, it could also just be that, a myth, one that can be used or ignored. I can easily see them releasing more planar dragons and leaving it up to interpretation on how they came to be.

Honestly I’m fine either way, I just want more cool dragons!

 

[Mezuka]

My 1981 Doctor Who annual is hardcover and only has 62 pages. 64 if you count the covers. It cost £1.95.

A cover has 4 pages. Two outside pages and two inside pages. In your example, it's 60+4.

In US and Canada printers using continuous paper rolls (web printing) have presses that print spreads of either 8, 16 or 32 pages, at the same time. Sure, you can have another number of pages but you will pay extra money for the manipulation and waste perfectly good paper for the unused white pages. China uses the same technology.

I have European comic book albums at 48 and 64 pages with a hardcover. They look anorexic when compared to a regular rpg book of 120+ pages. That extra transportation costs for the weight of a hardcover is not cost-effective on such a thin book.

I would have preferred a box set, with 3 booklets like the starters. Maybe get extra setting books that fit inside the box, afterwards.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

• I had been pretty sure the UA thri-kreen were either a smokescreen for xixchil, or a hint at Dark Sun plans. I guess they're replacing the xixchil in 5E Spelljammer?

I remember Athas also has the Xixchil, though they're called Zix Chil or something like that, they're a subspecies of Kreen in the Kreen imperium.

It isn't much of a stretch to say they're just Thri Kreen of a particular caste in Spelljammer.

 

[Quickleaf]

Astral elves = Reigar?

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Maybe I missed it, but do we know yet if 5E Spelljammer still has crystal spheres? (The description @overgeeked referenced doesn't acknowledge them.)

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Astral elves = Reigar?

That was one of my theories about "Astral Elves" from the UA when they first showed up. But Reigar in 2e at least to me, were very much based on David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust persona.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Perhaps it's this from @brimmels ' post:



That definitely sounds like crystal spheres are gone, but I guess we'll see. (My bet at this point is that they are, and with it the remaining meta-structure of 2E Spelljammer. Not a deal-breaker for me, but I dunno about others...)

Now that I've read the quote, it seems that it would be minimal work to change "silvery mist zone" to "crystal sphere" if one wanted to...

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Thinking about the aspects of the Astral Plane they might use in this version of Spelljammer. They've already mentioned the corpses of Dead Gods, but one of the things brought up in the PS book On Hallowed Ground was that the Egyptian God Anubis gave up his position as a deity to become a Guardian/Caretaker of the Dead Gods. I think somewhere in 3e he's simply just referred to as the Guardian, and any reference to him being Anubis has been removed.

There's also Tu'narath the Githyanki capital city, which might get some mentions.

And finally there's the psionic worm/lamprey like Psurlons a monster from Dark Sun and later PS that are very much another threat to the Githyanki.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

A cover has 4 pages. Two outside pages and two inside pages. In your example, it's 60+4.

In US and Canada printers using continuous paper rolls (web printing) have presses that print spreads of either 8, 16 or 32 pages, at the same time. Sure, you can have another number of pages but you will pay extra money for the manipulation and waste perfectly good paper for the unused white pages. China uses the same technology.

I have European comic book albums at 48 and 64 pages with a hardcover. They look anorexic when compared to a regular rpg book of 120+ pages. That extra transportation costs for the weight of a hardcover is not cost-effective on such a thin book.

I would have preferred a box set, with 3 booklets like the starters. Maybe get extra setting books that fit inside the box, afterwards.

It's 64 if you include the front and back. Which is still pretty standard for Christmas annuals and the like. I don't think they would have been using web printing in 1981 though!