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!

 

[Faolyn]

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.

Agreed. I'm guessing most of them were to fill up page space because yeah, lots of redundancy. Planescape is just as bad, although it has the benefit of decent color artwork.

Murderoids are cool because of their weird illusion magic. They're traps, but they're clever, evil traps who are also load-bearing bosses with built-in plot hooks. Asteroid spiders are also pretty cool, but that's because I like spiders and I like the idea of one weaving a web that's miles wide. Plus with giant spiders come giant cocoons with who know what inside, so that's useful. Meteorspawn and gravislayers feel more like plot contrivances you can kill than actual monsters and I have little use for them. Astereaters are no different than any other big toothy monster that can swallow you whole.

Elmarin are rather pointless. In 5e, they'd be a hazard instead of a monster. I feel the same way about fractines, which are cool in concept but shouldn't be in the MC.

Fireliches are Yet Another Failed Lich and I'm not sure we needed any back then, let alone now, where there are at least three other undead in 5e I can think of that fill the same niche. OTOH, a giant flaming face is just so evocative of cheesy sci fi and fantasy that it kinda works for me.

 

[Demetrios1453]

My guess is that there's "normal" space, but that once you're sufficiently far away from a planet you can shift into the Astral Sea which acts sort of like hyperspace, allowing you to rapidly travel from one planet or universe to another. But you don't need to go to double the distance to the outermost orbit, which is where the crystal sphere shell was located in OG Spelljammer.

In the Goon Balloon entry in the new Monstrous Compendium, it mentions the "edge" of Greyspace. So there's... something that marks where each system's Wildspace ends.

I wonder if they are being coy about it because there might be different options available, giving a list of said options and leaving it up to the DM?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I really don't think you need to take that personally - the internet is full of reviewers who breathlessly announce that every time WotC puts out a book, it's the best RPG product invented by Man.

So much so that I find it difficult sometimes to find a review I can trust. I'm sorry, but every WotC product is not a rave.

 

[Micah Sweet]

From my experience, this is true for literally every fandom on the face of the Earth, so long that it is of sufficient size.



I was just saying that your post was overly negative for no real reason. I get that you're salty about this release, but that's really no excuse to add to the toxicity for what could have been a neutral post ("I really wish that they would officially publish Planescape and Dark Sun").

So you're saying that if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all? In no way realistic for any conversation, let alone one on the internet.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Now I am thinking about simbiont crafts in Spelljammer, and a plasmoid creature used as a mixture of exosuit, living armour and ooze monster mount. Yes, it is a freak idea, but in Spelljammer is possible.

Other idea is wereoozes, a mixture of zombies/infected and the "blob".

 

[overgeeked]

In the Goon Balloon entry in the new Monstrous Compendium, it mentions the "edge" of Greyspace. So there's... something that marks where each system's Wildspace ends.

I wonder if they are being coy about it because there might be different options available, giving a list of said options and leaving it up to the DM?

Buried in the replies to the thread I linked above is a comment that there’s a silvery mist around a system’s wildspace you have to traverse to ender the astral sea. You travel the astral sea and kind find other wildspace systems.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

The Light of Xaryxis, cover art.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And I don’t like having to buy stripped down basic rule books and pre-gen sheets in starter sets that I’m only buying for the adventure (and maybe dice) that comes in it.

We all have our crosses to bear.

Yeah, I just don't buy the starter box then.

 

[overgeeked]

Helms take an atunement slot, not spell slots.

So a high-level artificer ship-based hivemind? One artificer controlling a flotilla? Yes, please.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Buried in the replies to the thread I linked above is a comment that there’s a silvery mist around a system’s wildspace you have to traverse to ender the astral sea. You travel the astral sea and kind find other wildspace systems.

OK, that sounds reasonable. And sounds like it could easily be modified back to a crystal sphere if one wanted...