Spelljammer Spelljammer Shows Up In The Wild - Check Out The Tables of Contents

Copies of Spelljammer are starting to show up. Mike Long of Tribality is in receipt of the books and has tweeted some photos!

 

[darjr]

This doesn't actually answer what was done for the PHB backgrounds

I could ask. Do you have specific verbiage for a question?

 

[Charlaquin]

It wasn't necessarily inaccessible. They left it to the DM to determine why Spelljamming was unknown on Athas.

"Athas. The world of the DARK SUN™ campaign is not on the spacelanes where Realmspace, Krynn-space, and Greyspace can be found. No spelljammer travels its skies; no ancient tome tells of the routes to its crystal sphere. Whether it is unreachable by spelljammer or merely so far from these worlds that any journey would take lifetimes is unknown. The current inhabitants of Athas have no knowledge of spelljamming. There is no way to know whether the closely guarded library of some sorcerer-king conceals an ancient tome revealing the basic concepts of wildspace. Even if such a tome were found, the defiling power of such powerful magic would certainly wreak havoc on the fragile balance of life on Athas."

I mean, that still describes functional inaccessibility. It just leaves why it can’t be accessed up to the DM.

 

[Charlaquin]

Based on the "Athasspace" leak and the Dark Sun monsters in the TOC (including a defiler!), I'm 99.9999% sure this was meant to be an updated Dark Sun setting... but at the last minute they decided to make it a Suspiciously Similar Substitute. Based on the responses upthread, that was apparently a wise choice. Maybe they learned some lessons from the Ravenloft reboot after all.

I suspect that you’re correct, although I think it’s more likely feedback from playtesters of this product that persuaded them to make that change. If it was the general response to Van Richten’s that convinced them, I don’t think it would have been a last-minute change.

 

[Parmandur]

I could ask. Do you have specific verbiage for a question?

Already asked myself, my man, we'll see if he drops amything.

 

[Parmandur]

I suspect that you’re correct, although I think it’s more likely feedback from playtesters of this product that persuaded them to make that change. If it was the general response to Van Richten’s that convinced them, I don’t think it would have been a last-minute change.

The Athasspace on Beyond was too much for it to be a coincidence or typo: you don't get cartography with thst sort of a typo. Smoking gun right there, along with all the Dark Sun critters. Still, it probably works even better this way, they get to have their Barsoom Cake and eat it, too.

 

[vecna00]

It wasn't necessarily inaccessible. They left it to the DM to determine why Spelljamming was unknown on Athas.

"Athas. The world of the DARK SUN™ campaign is not on the spacelanes where Realmspace, Krynn-space, and Greyspace can be found. No spelljammer travels its skies; no ancient tome tells of the routes to its crystal sphere. Whether it is unreachable by spelljammer or merely so far from these worlds that any journey would take lifetimes is unknown. The current inhabitants of Athas have no knowledge of spelljamming. There is no way to know whether the closely guarded library of some sorcerer-king conceals an ancient tome revealing the basic concepts of wildspace. Even if such a tome were found, the defiling power of such powerful magic would certainly wreak havoc on the fragile balance of life on Athas."

Even traveling to Athas in a planar fashion was doable. In theory, Sigil had a portal to every world in the multiverse. Meaning there would be a portal to Athas on Sigil (DM willing).

Traveling to Athas via the Ethereal was a bit more dicey, but not impossible. There was about a 35% chance of breaching the Gray through the Ethereal, if I'm remembering those charts correctly. There was one chart in Planeswalker's guide to the Ethereal Plane, and another in Defiler's and Preservers of Athas.

 

[Parmandur]

Hmmmm, well...

 

[Charlaquin]

Even traveling to Athas in a planar fashion was doable. In theory, Sigil had a portal to every world in the multiverse. Meaning there would be a portal to Athas on Sigil (DM willing).

Traveling to Athas via the Ethereal was a bit more dicey, but not impossible. There was about a 35% chance of breaching the Gray through the Ethereal, if I'm remember those charts correctly. There was one chart in Planeswalker's guide to the Ethereal Plane, and another in Defiler's and Preservers of Athas.

Wasn’t Athas also cut off from the planes?

 

[Parmandur]

Wasn’t Athas also cut off from the planes?

Isolated, not cut off, is my understanding. Like a distant island, rather than a other universe.

 

[Charlaquin]

Also, note that the tweet confirming that Doomspace is not Athas said it’s “kind of“ like Athas. This suggests to me that there had been sweeping changes planned, which to me is the bigger concern than the accessibility-by-spelljammer.