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!

 

[darjr]

Hey, they brought back murderoids!

BTW, darjr, thanks for posting these. I don't do twitter and usually within a few seconds of trying to read a twitter thread it stops me and tries to get me to sign up. I wouldn't be able to see any of these thinks if it weren't for posts like yours.

I'd prefer to get screen caps too, but I'm torn, I wan't them preserved here but yet want to preserve the posters right to delete them. So I waffle.

I'm glad folks find them helpful. I love twitter and have a good time there but also realize that for some folks it's pure hell.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm not loving the overall Spelljammer format/price, but I will applaud WotC for the free Monstrous Compendium. I get the idea is to give you a reason to subscribe to their platforms that I assume they'll want you to purchase stuff on... but they still didn't have to give out this PDF of new monsters for free, and it's pretty good!

I mean, how can one complain about 5E art, this stuff is cool af!

View attachment 155733

A gorbel?! If so, I never thought I'd see one of those again.

 

[Faolyn]

Just when I thought most of the big news dropped.

View attachment 155738
B&G Spelljammer Platinum and Silver editions

Rock 'em sock 'em T-rexes?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah I think a lot of people are ignoring the screen in the price hike. Sure, a lot of times they’re cheap add-ons but assuming this is one of the thick ones (rather than the flimsy ones we get in starter boxes) with a lot of SJ specific tables and charts, I think that’s deffo worth an extra $20.

I don't like being forced to buy a DM's screen, since I have several but never use them.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah I think a lot of people are ignoring the screen in the price hike. Sure, a lot of times they’re cheap add-ons but assuming this is one of the thick ones (rather than the flimsy ones we get in starter boxes) with a lot of SJ specific tables and charts, I think that’s deffo worth an extra $20.

The standalone one from WotC goes for $25, and the photos make it look like a lot of material that would make it into the books, like random tables, bit be on the screen instead.

 

[JEB]

Assorted thoughts:

Spelljammer

• I don't hate the slipcover approach, but I'd rather have had the single hardcover, especially with the leaner total pagecount. I don't think the plusses outweigh the minuses here. (I do admit that alternate version of the boxed set looks amazing, though. Very tempting.) My brother suggested it would be nice if they sold the books separately as well; that would provide a good alternative.
• I also don't hate the removal of the Phlogiston (though I feel like it could have stuck around in some way, perhaps as an effect around some star systems/crystal spheres). Or the overlap with the Astral Sea. (If you need a meta-reason for the cosmology change from 2E, just blame Vecna.) But I worry those changes might be a deal-breaker for enough veteran Spelljammer fans to turn them off to the update. (And if that happens, I'm likely to skip the book on principle. I don't want to support products that drive away veteran fans.) I hope they didn't pile on any more alienating changes.
• 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?
• That free Monstrous Compendium is very cool... and marked "Volume One", so there should be more! I certainly can't complain about having my favorites, clockwork horrors, back. And is the goon balloon an updated gorbel? Also, I'm a sucker for that 2E-style design, that's the stuff that hooked me on the game.
• But what does the free MC (and prequel adventure) mean for the future availability of official Wizards PDFs? And the DM Guild, in particular? I don't like the idea of being required to subscribe to D&D Beyond or Wizards' site for content like this.

Campaign Cases

• The monster/token case doesn't do much for me, though I don't begrudge anyone who wants it. (I recall something like that idea being suggested a long time ago, maybe even during the Next playtest?)
• The terrain case looks somewhat more useful (though the tiles sort of look like the ones from the D&D board games).

Dragons of Stormwreck Isle

• Including a digital add-on to help new players is a cool idea, especially if there are localized variations. But it better not be substituting for similar guidance in the print product.
• Disappointed that the D&D cartoon characters are only artistic design, and not actually part of the set. Also, so much for my conspiracy theory about this being a sneaky way of teasing a cartoon revival.
• Based on Twitter, sounds like this may be our first preview of how the 2024 core options will look. (Maybe something of a playtest as well.)

Legends of the Multiverse

• Just a wild guess, but they're going for a Guardians of the Galaxy vibe here? Could be fun.
• Hey, ProZD is in this! Cool.
• If the tech levels in this art are reflective of the new Spelljammer material, that suggests more significant changes to the setting.

Dragonlance

• Shohreh Aghdashloo as narrator, awesome.
• Looks like the predictions of a Strixhaven approach were correct! Makes sense.
• I am relieved that this (apparently) will not reboot Dragonlance, but instead be a side story to the original continuity. A Dragonlance reboot would have been a riskier move than Spelljammer.
• I hope they ease the explicit Feywild ties for the kender's abilities, and just make them mysterious for maximum DM flexibility. (Bonus points for suggesting multiple possibilities.)
• Betting draconians will just be variant dragonborn (as indicated way back in the 2014 PHB). I'm fine with this.

European releases

• Glad to see them stepping this up.
• As previously noted, pretty sure the new Starter Set was made with the overseas market in mind, especially Brazil.
• I wonder if MOTM might have partly been made with this in mind, as well. Fewer books to translate for most of the key secondary game content.

 

[overgeeked]

The standalone one from WotC goes for $25, and the photos make it look like a lot of material that would make it into the books, like random tables, bit be on the screen instead.

Yeah, this is not a copy & paste duplicate of other screens. It has…gasp…actually useful stuff on it. At least from what we’ve seen in the pics.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Hey, they brought back murderoids!

One thing that I've always thought was weird about Spelljammer is how it often had 2-4 distinct monsters that are basically identical in purpose. There's Astereaters (the cousins of Beholders that look like asteroids, have no eyestalks, and eat the crew members of spelljamming ships), Asteroid Spiders (giant spiders that look like asteroids and eat the crews of spelljamming ships), Meteorspawn, Gravislayers (giant asteroids with faces and gravity-manipulation powers), and Murderoids (even bigger living asteroids that eat spelljamming ships).

There's also lots of different "living comet"-type creatures (Elmarin, Firelich), multiple different types of sentient oozes (Argos and Plasmoids), multiple different types of sentient/humanoid insects that serve similar purposes (Bionoids, Xixchil, Insectares, K'r'r'r etc), and so on.

 

[overgeeked]

If the tech levels in this art are reflective of the new Spelljammer material, that suggests more significant changes to the setting.

Yeah, same. The Killer Klowns from Outer Space with rayguns gave me a chuckle and a pause. The clockwork horror that’s clearly a sci-fi robot with buzzsaws for hands isn’t filling me with hope this is still Age of Sail in space.

 

[reelo]

I wonder if they're going to retcon the Crystal Spheres into being the fragments of Sardior's fractured body. It certainly fits their First World and 5e Multiverse lore. I'm also confused as to how the Solar and Lunar Dragons fit into 5e's dragon classifications. Are they "True" Dragons? If they are, do they count as Chromatic, Metallic, or Gem Dragons? Or something else, like the Moonstone Dragons?

(Gosh, having both "Lunar" and "Moonstone" dragons is going to get confusing. I'm just going to get rid of Faerie Dragons, rename the Moonstone Dragons to Fae/Faerie Dragons, and then keep Lunar Dragons in whatever form they'll be published in.)

Since often a grognard's concern about setting or verisimilitude is being defused with a "who cares, because MAGIC!", I think I can finally use that (non-)argument the other way around.