Okay, this is a pretty simple premise, but I'm excited to see what people say.
Based on the recent
Travelers of the Multiverse Unearthed Arcana (
and the Boo cover art that we saw during the D&D Celebration), it's pretty clear that Spelljammer, or something Spelljammer-adjacent (such as Planejammer) is coming to D&D 5e within the next year (
possibly being the new D&D product that's being announced in a few days). And I could not be more excited about it, but how Spelljammer is going to be approached in its modern translation is still uncertain. The recent UA made some fairly major tweaks to the setting, and though none of them are completely solidified yet, they could be a sign of things changing significantly. (Astral Elves are a new concept, and could be a reworked race for the Elven Imperial Navy, Thri-Kreen are more prominent, Giff have no mention of firearms or gunpowder in their whole description, and Scro are nowhere to be seen.)
This leads us to this thread's main topic (and title); What would your idea Spelljammer book be like? What would you include in it? Would it be a complete setting book, like Eberron: Rising from the Last War, Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, and Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft? Or, would it be a hybrid book, like Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos (maybe Acquisitions Incorporated would count as this, too), or potentially even an Adventure Compilation book, like Ghosts of Saltmarsh, that has Spelljammer as the setting it takes place in, but has a collection of adventures all across the Multiverse as the main chunk of the book?
Would you include more races than just the 6 provided in this UA? The same amount, but with some dropped/switched out for different races (possibly adding in Dohwar, Scro, etc)? Or would you have less races than the ones presented in this UA?
What about its bestiary? What creatures would you include? Astereaters, Thought Eaters (those
Psionic, Ethereal Platypuses), NPC stats for the different races of the world (potentially members of the Astral Elves' Navy, Giff Mercenaries, Scro Warriors, Autognome Servants, Hadozee Swashbucklers, Plasmoid Slime-Soldiers, Thri-Kreen Psions, Vodoni Legionnaires, etc). There's almost definitely going to be reprints of Neogi, and possibly some of the Mind Flayers from Volo's Guide to Monsters (maybe even Gnome Ceremorphs/Squidlings from Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden), and they could also include some of the newer more "alien" monsters, like Star Spawn (Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes), Core Spawn (Explorer's Guide to Wildemount), Kruthiks (Mordenkainen's), etc. (Probably going to reprint the Gnomish Clockworks from Mordenkainen's, now that I think about it.)What of its classic monsters, like Astereaters, The Arcane (Blue/Purple-Skinned Space Giants), Bionoids, Space Mimics, Giant Space Hamsters, Dracons, Infinity Vines, Meteor Spawn, Oortlings, Cosmic Dragons, and similar monsters? Are any of them too silly to be translated to 5e, or should the book lean into it all the way?
And its Vehicles? Maybe reprints of the Vehicle rules from Ghosts of Saltmarsh/Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, but with Spelljamming rules applied to them, and some Spelljammer specific ones as well (Elven Living Plant Ships, Squid-Ships and Nautiloids, Beholder Ships, etc).
What about Magic Items? Do you think that there will be different types of Spelljamming Helms in 5e, or will they be more or less identical to the one contained in Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage? Would there be any other magic items, like magic items that create air-bubbles so that you can survive in the void, possibly a magic Space Suit (as a type of magical armor that lets you survive in Wildspace), and similar options? Maybe reprinted Symbionts from Eberron?
What do you guys think? How would you do your perfect Spelljammer 5e book?
