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!

 

[overgeeked]

Actual defiling rules:

View attachment 256864

Huh. Thanks. That’s not terrible…but that’s not defiling.

 

[vecna00]

Actual defiling rules:

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It's an interesting take, but it only seems like an AOE Vampiric Touch-ish. It mentions nothing about it happening when it casts spells.

 

[Yaarel]

Oooh, and the 'defiler' is actually a psionicist, which'll put Athas lore nerds' teeth on edge everywhere...

The statblock might be both arcane and psionic.

Pretty much everyone − and everything − is psionic. (Love psionic features of nature!)

So even the arcane caster can have some psionic ability. In this case, the presumable arcanist has psionic Mage Hand (cantrip) and modified Invisibility (spell).

 

[Yaarel]

It's an interesting take, but it only seems like an AOE Vampiric Touch-ish. It mentions nothing about it happening when it casts spells.

The top of the image crops of the rest of the of the statblock but ends with the phrase: "... defile (if available)".

The beginning of this phrase might explain what happens when using arcane traits.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

That's all true. And one of the major things that put me off Planescape back in the day was the shocking and overwhelming arrogance of its in-world presentation. The setting seemed unnecessary enough before busting in on the older settings and their lore like a locker room bully.

I thought for years I was in the minority there, but seeing the setting's (surprisingly) abysmal sales numbers makes me feel a bit more on the right side.

There was always a certain smugness inherent to Planescape.

 

[Yaarel]

Yeah, the seams are pretty obvious.

Now, I have no "reasonable doubt".

Dark Sun → Doomspace

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Actual defiling rules:

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Why does it restore hp? Shouldn’t it aid spellcasting instead.

 

[overgeeked]

Now, I have no "reasonable doubt".

Dark Sun → Doomspace

It kinda sounds like the “destroy Athas” idea is what they went with. The center of Doomspace is a black hole. The name still makes me think of Dr Doom.

 

[overgeeked]

Why does it restore hp? Shouldn’t it aid spellcasting instead.

We only have part of the stat block. As pointed out the text cropped at the top suggests another related ability.

 

[vecna00]

I'm guessing they originally planned it, realized that an incomplete cameo might annoy more than it would please, and are now using this as a trial balloon to gauge interest in a fuller update.

Relatedly, from the vibe I'm getting around here and elsewhere, it looks like, outside pricing, this Spelljammer update seems to be hitting all the right buttons. I'm not seeing much in the way of any real dislikes. Even the change in the cosmology has pretty well been accepted (probably as it's very simple to ret-con if you want to change it to something different or go back to the original).

That's what I was originally planning to do, but the change has been winning me over slowly but surely.