Spelljammer What is Spelljammer, video interview with Chris Perkins

[GMforPowergamers]

Interesting idea, but I'm not sure how I feel about every planet's night sky being essentially a mirage. Why would that be the case?

yeah I can spit ball crazy ideas... I hope WotC have an answer (not betting they will) but in my homegames I will most likely just change the night sky in spelljammer worlds

 

[darjr]

They could also be the Astral artifacts seen through the mist. Also they could be portals to other realms like in some spheres from previous editions.


Potential artifacts from the astral as stated here from the PHB

The Astral Plane is the realm of thought and dream, where visitors travel as disembodied souls to reach the planes of the divine and demonic. It is a great, silvery sea, the same above and below, with swirling wisps of white and gray streaking among motes of light resembling distant stars. Erratic whirlpools of color flicker in midair like spinning coins. Occasional bits of solid matter can be found here, but most of the Astral Plane is an endless, open domain.

 

[darjr]

From the Spelljammer Wiki

However, a high number of stars are portals to the Plane of Radiance or the Plane of Fire. Flying a ship into one of those stars would be fatal.[1]

 

[Demetrios1453]

Also, remember that illustrations are going to feature the most interesting areas, so of course they are going to focus on the colorful nebulae, asteroid belts, and so on, and while such sights would presumably be relatively easy to find, they wouldn't represent the whole. It's like assuming from wildlife books that all of non-urban Africa is like the Serengeti, when in fact the wildlife in many places will much more sparse....

 

[GMforPowergamers]

From the Spelljammer Wiki

However, a high number of stars are portals to the Plane of Radiance or the Plane of Fire. Flying a ship into one of those stars would be fatal.[1]

we could even do different colors go to different places... nothing says blue stars have to burn blue... maybe they are water suns.

 

[Demetrios1453]

From the Spelljammer Wiki

However, a high number of stars are portals to the Plane of Radiance or the Plane of Fire. Flying a ship into one of those stars would be fatal.[1]

Yeah, they used to be portals located on the crystal sphere itself, so they definitely might have just re-done them as free-standing portals.

 

[Quickleaf]

What do you think it is then, if you don't have a problem with it? Genuinely curious.

Well, this is just my personal conjecture, but I think they're going for a less binary approach. It's easy to require that a described location be located on either the Material or the Astral, but the vibe I get is more of an organic gradient where there's some ambiguity. Sort of ecological edge-zones (e.g. tide pools), but applied at the level of planar cosmology, such that you have "deeps", "shallows", and "mixed zones."

So that when a character looks up at the night sky they're seeing only the brightest elements – stars – that overpower the brightness of other elements due to atmospheric conditions and sheer luminosity. However, once you escape the atmosphere you start to notice hues of indigo and violets in the backdrop of the darkness, and maybe more colors to the various stars. And the further you get from planetary bodies and stars, the more the wondrous palette of colors becomes apparent.

The basic idea is one that we can understand at a fundamental level: Light acts as both revealer and concealer. During the daytime, we cannot see the stars. But wait till sunset and you start to see the stars come out. Get out of the city, and you might even see the Milky Way.

My thinking is that "Wildspace" is sort of like a massive continuous portal, using the latter bolded part of this quote from the DMG page 45 as the guiding principle...

Some portals function like doorways, appearing as a clear window or a fog shrouded passage, and interplanar travel is as simple as stepping through the doorway. Other portals are locations-circles of standing stones, soaring towers, sailing ships, or even whole towns-that exist in multiple planes at once or flicker from one plane to another.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

For some worlds the stars seen in the sky won't match the position of other worlds. I think I remember Krynn being an example, because the stars are arranged in constellations resembling the Gods of Krynn's Pantheon.

 

[darjr]

Yeah, they used to be portals located on the crystal sphere itself, so they definitely might have just re-done them as free-standing portals.

That quote I posted is from 2e

 

[Demetrios1453]

That quote I posted is from 2e

Yes, I have the Realmspace accessory and have been referencing it extensively in posts over the past few days. The part on stars being portals on the surface of the sphere is covered on pages 3 and 4 of that book.

As I said in previous posts, the question is whether they are now free-standing portals, or something else (just bright objects just within veil, or something seen through the veil, like other systems)