There is a legend told by a deranged ancient tiefling gypsy space-witch. In a place far from the known worlds there is a large planet with a single hint closed eye. It is orbited by moons that are also closed eyes. She says that beholders now hunt her, for she has found the place where the "sleeping father" that dreamed them into existence dwells. She needs a crew. Maybe your cadre of adventurers are up to the challenge. "The Dreaming Eye" For characters level 10-16
Ha ha. My DM catchphrase is always "I will never tell you what you can or cannot do, just the consequences of your actions." It's nice to hear I'm not the only who has seen parties killed by this practice.
My two game shops over a ten year time frame had open campaign settings where it had player vs player group actions, and the winner lays claim to the other party's equipment. Had a lair in Forgotten Realms/ Water Deep/ Skullport. AD&D2ndE It was an unbalance dungeon with the one goal was to kill other player groups. It was design by a player to keep other player/PC parties from raiding. It was not design by a DM to hand out Xp snacks to murder hobos. End result, I had my front door broken in a few times, half my zombie dragons killed off and more than a few hobos sitting in deep 50ft pits waiting to be turned into Soul Stones. 3.5e system rules just made it deadlier. Had one group of Paladins that raider my place cause the door wight was pizzing with them. They .. borrowed a few magic items and left a note on who they were, why they needed the items, where they were going, and their local Water Deep temple will cover the damages. If they fail in their mission, where I could recover my items. After my PC & his Baator butler had a talk with their local Water Deep temple , my PC & their high cleric and paladin had to go and recuse their backsides. My first game shop was a 40 minute drive from the state's university campus town, so we had more than a few player group vs player group contests. Also it was a larp foam weapon fight club. Fun times.
I want to use the "it was just a dream?" scenario to have the players play urban mercenary adventurers in Waterdeep, but have them go into a total party wipe when some horrible and unprecedented event occurs, such as the terrasque suddenly surfacing in the middle of the city. This would be a glitch in the simulation and several thralls would suddenly be forcibly ejected from pods, where the party learns they're not in Waterdeep or even Toril at all, and have them proceed into a quasi-futuristic science fantasy portion of the campaign, focused on the ilithids and getting to a home they never actually lived in.
That's sick. Do it. Taking a page from the Matrix you can have things get really weird in the simulation before their inevitable "death." Perhaps things start glitching out real bad spawning multiple demon lords, gods, etc. All into one area as doorways seem to connect to impossible areas and commoners start matrix dodging and wall running everywhere and so on and so forth. Could have some real fun with the first session before the adventure even begins. This could take away from the surprise you were looking for and instead you can make these glitches far more subtle or glimpses from beyond the simulation in their dreams as hints of what's to come. Great idea! Either way
I've thought about a story like this but adding an Ender's Game twist. The players are ejected from the simulation but they were actually controlling real beings on the planet far from the simulation pods. Hell, let's even ape Assassin's Creed and through the magic, they retained the powers and abilities they had in the simulation.
A good way to think about how to play spelljammer is: In any town, on any planet the drudgery of the day-to-day is almost never interrupted, and even then usually by you looking for it. However sometimes forces outside this town happen to it. In spelljammer, your party *IS* that event.
I tend to keep my custom worlds outside of the phlogiston because I like propulsion ships. This video was really interesting. My current campaign takes place on a planet free floating through space trapped by the gravity of a huge eldritch horror with a fiery eye that the inhabitants think is a star. The surface of the planet experiences an extinction event every millennium with the subterranean sections being a wasteland of old technology and the insane remnants of a once technologically advanced race. The eldritch entity exudes a special substance that has saturated the planet that causes life to evolve at accelerated rates that allows for playable races to exist after only a few hundred years. This is the first campaign I'm running here and I'm planning on using it in the future. It's taking place at the end of the cycle with the campaign being normal for awhile and then slowly becoming a horror game before the players try to escape the planet.
My last shop 15years ago just drop psionic mindflayers into our Star Wars campaign. D&D3.5e psionic + Star Wars force user class + mindflayer = cosmic terror
This custom world sounds AMAZING! Well thought out, & I can only imagine the types of adventures/shenanigans your players are getting involved in! Cheers!
Wahoo, another spelljammer vid! You make me happy sir. I am a legally blind father who DMs a bit of a sandbox type campaign for my four kids. They quite enjoy the spelljammer setting, lore, and mechanics. Unfortunately for me, because of my terrible eyesight, I cant go to the local TTRPG store and pick up any books/magazines and so I rely pretty heavily on YT lore vids such as what you do here to help me flesh out their universe. Thanks a ton man!
That's awesome man! Hope to run games for my own children someday when they're old enough. It's got to be great for children's developing minds, critical thinking, both inside and outside the box, teamwork, empathy, good stuff. How did you lose your eyesight if you don't mind me asking?
@@17Scumdog I dont mind. I have Stargardt's Disease. It's a rare genetically inherited thing (domt worry, I can only pass one half to my kids, they would need the other half from my wife to actually get the disease too and she doesn't have the any of the bad gene,, we had her tested. So none of my kids have it) that basically made it so my eyes couldn't clean away dead cells and as such, my vision has been fading and getting worse with each passing day since I was born - altho didnt know I had it until I was 12.
@@MrTehPuppy dang, that's a raw deal sir! 😮 Glad to hear that you don't let that keep you down though, pretty inspiring honestly! Was thinking about, when your running games for your kids that, while in game you can see it all so clearly in your minds eye right? When you are the dm you're not blind, you're the over God Ao, and you know all, see all! Really makes a guy stop and appreciate something most of us take for granted. Thanks for sharing your story 😁
Haven't even watched it at the time of writing, but I can say without doubt; after the day I just had, this is exactly what I needed. Will update after the kids get to sleep and I can crawl into my cacoon and just enjoy this.
Star Bound Crusaders...? *Stardust Crusaders theme plays.* "Yare Yare Daze. I'mma squash you Neogi like the bugs you are and burn your ship out of existence." *Nat 20 for Intimation.* *Menacing....*
Always wanted to do a surprise spelljammer campaign, one that starts with no inkling of such things then gets suddenly catapulted into the stars😂 we had a post-campaign mini campaign where a bizarre blotch began spreading across the moon and we found a portal to travel up and find that a demonic incursion had begun up there. Basically the video game Doom but with our veteran team and my demonslayer dwarf ranger Kolgrim in his element, great fun 🎉
Very informative video AJ. The biggest thing that lingers in my mind is a world of *EVIL* flumpfs. That's crazy. I'd have to sit for more than an hour to think of what those guys as evil beings would be like. I mean, they can escalate to being absolute nightmares quite quickly.
This is some crazy shit. I'm currently running a Spelljammer game (though in a homebrew campaign setting) and what I've learned from this video is that I really need to step up my game on the Weird Factor.
I really loved your comment. It’s exciting to see others jumping into the total possibilities of the realms from beyond. It’s totally daunting to enter this space (literally) without a jumping off point. AJ seems to outline a really good diving board too use for this jump. Might I suggest taking notes from each of the planets 🌎 🪐 discusses and outline all the talking points that AJ spoke about. This way you have general picture of the prime material world (Toril, or whatever you call your world) and the celestial bodies that inhabit the Sun’s crystal sphere. Once you have that, you have confidence in your mind that if players wished to leave Toril and travel the celestial worlds around the sun they can. You can introduce this whole concept through the introduction of the academy of celestial bodies, where they are working on developing a Spell Jammer and need your players help in finding a few final pieces to get it “off the ground”. Keep the new ship basic, by giving it a standard helm without any dimensional powers that can open the doors to other crystal spheres of influence (places of gods and the astral sea). You should however allow them, if they are brave enough, to travel beyond the crystal sphere and enter one of many openings where the flogyston flows to other realms (all awesome quest adventure possibilities). I’d recommend that (your world) be powerful enough for the protection from other celestial bodies in the solar system, but could easily be the beginning plot twist to the seeking of the Academy of celestial bodies and the gathering of information that leads to the grander plot where one of the many planets have built up enough power to unleash it on Toril (your world). I hope all the best things for your world and players!
Excellent video man. Very informative. Spelljammer is a criminally under used setting in D&D. We need more games in this setting.. they would be so amazing...
Too many people are just into dungeon crawls or map hopping in land base campaign settings. My last game shop 15 years ago had a hard time trying to run a campaign out of a single town for very long. They were not much into .. world building. So world hopping spell jammer was out of the question, they would rather play Star Wars. But with 3.5e rule system we did have the Gith try to raid a Star Destroyer and battle it out with Darth Vader.
I promise you, D&D has at least a little of everything. If you find something that isn't encompassed in the lore; congratulations. Your own stuff is the best stuff to play.
So if the sun is heated by portals to the plane of fire, could these said portals be closed by some impossibly powerful dispel magic from an artifact or other power? Perhaps this is the plot of a cult of Atropus to plunge all world's into a never ending night as they all wither and die reinvigorating Atropus. Really hope this is one of the settings we see rebooted for 5e as the possibilities are even more endless than regular ol' D&D. Could even be the nice bow on the other two classic D&D settings as well as ones already printed by connecting them all with greater detail of their surrounding wild spaces. Edit: perhaps the way they try and dispel the portals is by somehow moving the anti magic zones surrounding the sun into it.
Weird - I'm assuming this came first, but on the mindflayers' planet, those baths they keep their humanoids in sounds a whole lot like what was show in the Matrix movie series. Where the humans are all in those pod things and have dreams of a sort believing they are living "real" lives. If indeed all these D&D details date to the early 90's, then I have to wonder if the maker's of the Matrix didn't get some inspiration from this stuff. It would be interesting to find out.
@@naughtseeingeye7767I think you're right. And then also, I think, though I'd have to check to be sure, Shadowrun got it from William Gibson, in his book Neuromancer (a really good book, and in fact good series, that any fan of sci-fi/fantasy/cyberpunk should check out). A lot of concepts used in Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 came from his books.
@@zorkwhouse8125 IO was going to reply just that, but I then reread your reply and you are 100% correct, "The Matrix" was, in fact, penned by William Gibson in Neuromancer, published 1984. It is also where we get the term cyberspace despite it predating the internet.
Off topic : in the stream before the last, someone asked about Ghost In The Shell - like games. Aside from Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun (which are mostly advanced tech, and many themes are there) there are three games that are heavy on the transhuman : Eclipse Phase (which has an unofficial GITS hack,) Transhuman Space and Mindjammer. They're also more sci-fi (w/r to the cyberpunk of the other two) and EP has lovecraftian elements too.
3.5e system for D&D/ Star Wars, even back in WEG west end games Star Wars d6 system made mention on slicing/ hacking, my pass two game shops since the early 2000's just borrowed Shadowrun hacking system over into Star Wars. In a few games we even had a fleet of Gith spelljammers assault a star destroyer and battle it out with Darth Vader. Crossing D&D psionic class character + force user classes + mindflayer = cosmic horror.
Viewer prime, sounds like something to look into. There's also Bitchute too and DLive for Livestreams. Yet I agree, RUclips needs competition. Competition is good for improvement and growth. Even certain popular D&D shows could use some competition.
An amazing source inspiration and lore, ones imagination begins to whirl in nerdy fascination at the possibilities of exploring each of these mysterious location sketches, thank you for this wondrous sampling!
Garden and its many moons is probably the coolest introductory campaign to Spelljammer I've ever heard of, but it's also so far away from Toril that any Spelljammer campaign will almost certainly not start there. Oof.
>had two total party kills last year But, like, with how the whole outer realms system in DnD also constitutes afterlife, a party death could just be them suddenly being reincarnated in limbo and the adventure continuing there.
That's a dishearteningly cavalier attitude to have about having two total player kills. I think as DMs we serve our players better by learning the mechanics of how the game is balanced rather than explaining why the game isn't over after they all just died.
Templar seems like a reaaaaallly interesting place considering I've been planning a campaign where the villain is a helmed horror which became sentient and learned spellcrafting... 🤔🤔🤔🤔
Druid spell " Awaken Animal," then figure out variants such as Awaken Undead. Then treat it as AD&D2ndE Similacrum spell which is enhance by the spell Reincarnation, which draws in a air/fire elemental.
Plot hook: a seed from the garden. One of the towns surrounding the city have had their 3rd year of bountiful harvest, but this was a drought year... Backstory: somehow a crop plant from “Garden” is being grown in this town. Twist: Does the crop leave the soil barren for decades after its second harvest. Does it spread like wildfire. Does it chock out all native vegetation. Is it addictive causing horrible withdrawal. Does it cause birth defects. A selection of the above? (Influenced be tiberium Re: C&C) Who introduced it and why? Is this the only infection?
AJ Pickett posted this a while back on one of your videos think you might like it... Speculation on the once and future birth of the illithid race by AceGambit (Tony Oliver): many Millenia from now it will come to pass that a worth band of adventurers will slay an aboleth as it retreats to isolation to gestate. The broken body of the dead aboleth will sink to the briney depths. One of the unfertilised, unimprinted eggs will survive its parents demise but unfertilised, it will not mature as normal. The mucus of the aboleth corpse protects the parent from the oxygen and subsequent decay as well as scavenger that would eat the corpse. This unique circumstances lets the surviving embryo mature and feast on the preserved brain of its once parent. After a decade or so the gargantuan brain is devoured and the unimprinted/unfertilised embryo (tadpole) has reached a semi state of maturity. Burrowing out of its parents corpse it strikes out in search of cranial food. Finding a medium sized creature it borrows into the brain to feed. The intelligent creatures still living brain tissue and cerebral fluids act as fertilisation for the tadpole, creating an abomination of aboleth and humanoid. And so the first illithid ceromorphisis comes to pass... the rest as they say “is histo.... the future!” Feel free to use this as you wish, all I request is to be accredited!
@@tonyoliver4920 T Oliver oh yeah I remember reading your original posting of this, absolutely love it! So would the proto- ilithid have all of the memories of it's ancestors the way aboleth do? If so maybe throw in a reference to the paradox of the mindflayers origins and downfall, have illithids or some such be the reason that the adventures go and find this aboleth on the first place, ensuring the proper chain of events occurs to spawn their race. Aj also has a video which details how you could portray time travel in a campaign by having the party inexplicably and suddenly attacked for a single round. Then later when they are actually fighting the thing, it uses it's actions to attack the adventurers in the past, maybe have some hazy portal showing the PC's earlier in the campaign being attacked for a single round by this creature. Probably not explaining this too well, I'll try to find the video lol.
17Scumdog I’ve seen the video your referencing. I wrote it for the community, a jumping off point. I’d love people to use it and expand on it. Come to your own conclusions. Ideas are meant to be shared. And always remember, Tharizdun will be free eventually. If not, how will we get 6 edition
25 years ago at my first game shop running AD&D2ndE before 3rdE rolled in, we had an on going Planescape campaign running the Blood War. Baator had its own spelljammer fleet. When 3rdE rolled in we ran a battle where a Gith spelljammer fleet took on a Star Wars star destroyer and face off with Darth Vader. The only way Vader won was cause we treated Vader as being another Darth Psion. Lightning Bolt spell took out his life support which just enraged Vader even more.
5minutes in " .. No one knows why fire elements enjoy living on a sun/ star instead of their own native plane of existence .." Simple, .. less native .. predators. Also now they are the biggest fish in a small pond.
i could see a shadow or umbral dragon or such taking residence in the ship graveyard somehow just to loot the ships and a ready supply of undead to eat
We all miss that Craft Spelljammer Helm feat, a Planeshifter specialty (makes their Craft Wondrous Items prereq. more useful). You can modify ships in 5e now with the "living vessel" upgrade (thanks, Ghosts of Saltmarsh!)... the spacefaring elves in Realmspace feel infringed upon, for sure. Those haughty Eladrin stole their tech! "This vessel's hull was crafted in the Feywild under the direction of master eladrin shipwrights. It is a living plant, drawing sustenance from water and sunlight. Vines covered in thick leaves hang over its side, and the wood runs with fresh sap when damaged. The ship gains a +2 bonus to all Constitution checks or saving throws. As long as the ship has at least 1 hit point, it regains 10 hit points every minute."
My man the end of that video was some of the best dm advice I’ve ever received. It will forever have changed me and made the stories I share grander and more wonderful. As always thank you!
I doubt you'll see this, AJ, but I love all aspects of D&D. From the simple, exciting start of new campaigns to the real, viable feeling that given the roll of the die or by simple choice-whether it be willing sacrifice for your other party members or situations beyond control that Death can claim something you spent hours on.
my idea is the players are shanghied by a greedy but well meaning pirate captain who is short on crew and supplies and he drags them into his adventures! and promises of treasure adventure and glory!
This was a very cool video, I never looked at Spelljammer stuff, the ships you showed led me down a great rabbit hole & I really wanna do a story on the Matrix Illithid planet.
Honestly you’re on your way to become my favorite RUclipsr and in my personal opinion you are very underrated you’re one of the few that has ever responded to a comment that I have made and I appreciate it you’re awesome keep doing what you’re doing hope everything’s going well and have a great day
I wanted to add to your storytelling prompts at the end, from working on my own stories, I noticed that comics often create a thing, say a hero or a weapon of some type & then they create its opposite, which is an ancient idea if you go back to Gnostic & Kabbalistic lore, that there is the good side of stuff, like the Tree of Life, but there is a dark opposing force, a sort of underworld version. If you keep that general idea in mind, you can flesh out a lot of details of creation with just that.
Thanks AJ, you've saved me again. I'm running OotA and making a colony of mindflayers tuned to mindless vampires by Orcus. Making heavy use of 'the Illithiad' but had really been struggling with the number of thralls necessary to sustain a deep mindflayer colony. I'd been tossing up going the Matrix route - that it is already canon makes it easier. Especially since the colony already has psionic ray guns, power swords, and spelljammers.
@@AJPickett Its basically 'flurry of blows' at a distance. With illithids being able to use it constantly because they have 'at will' second level spells. While pretty much everyone else would have to spend spell slots. Psionic ray gun: pistol; rare (requires attunement by monk or psionicist). Range 40/120. Force damage. Damage is the wielder’s equivalent level on the monk martial arts table (1d8 for an illithid). The wielder can spend 1 ki point or 1 second level psionic spell to make two extra shots as a bonus action. Intelligence can replace dexterity for attack and damage rolls. Made of gleaming brass and clear nephilium inlaid with gold circuitry, these weapons make use of illithids ubiquitous psionic technology. Other creatures have great trouble mastering these weapons. Only those who use disciplines similar to those of the illithids manage it. Illithids developed these weapons to counter-balance their weakness against creatures immune to psionics. These weapons are mainly used by the illithids in boarding actions from their dreaded nautiloid spelljammers.
@@jacobvardy 3.5e " Psionic hand book," item creation feat: Imbue/ craft psionic item, .. like stander Craft Wondrous Item/ .. DMG " creating magic traps. " Once made never runs out of charges. Problem with 3rdE mindflayers with class levels is building them up to lichdoom which will put them up to near ECL: 30th-level characters. Fudging the Xp is one thing but dealing with over the top story telling is another. Then again my game shop drop them into Star Wars, ... which in the core hand book didn't cover force users creating magic Force items outside of lightsabers. So my game shop really bend and borrow rules from other game systems to pull it off. Buy a crystal wand set to look like a light pistol is cute, with six or eight gem stones to press for different psionic effects is cool. Then factor in 3.5e Psionics is base on the six ability scores so mindflayer society is base on six different psionic guilds, so any item could have multiple effects depending how often it has been past around. Then you have those arcane bleepers, that can cast Limited Wish .. and how far you as a player/ DM want to abuse that spell. Also any mindflayer item could have Bestow Curse place on it to effect all non mindflayer just for touching it, let alone picking it up to use in combat.
2 things. What do you think the odds are for working teleportation circles in Realmspace to exist? Who would be the representative of Toril in the Tower of Eight? Red wizard?
This is the video that got the like/sub combo from me. Well done, well said. Safe DnD? Nah... this campaign's gonna make Doctor Who look well grounded.
The distance between Selune and Toril is 183 thousand miles, which at full speed in a typical spelljamming vessel is 7 turns of travel. Getting out of the gravity well of Toril takes the ship 4 turns and it is a few turns to descend onto the moon's surface. When traveling in a direct line through wildspace, a ship can move at 100 million miles per day (all helm equipped ships travel at the same speed over long distances). Flying through the air on Toril, that same ship would move at a speed determined by the level of the spellcaster who is operating the ships helm and the type of helm installed (which together create the SR or Ship's Rating), the type of ship determines how well it can handle speeding up, slowing down and turning (its MC or Maneuverability Class), an SR of 10 would be about the fastest ship you would encounter and that would travel at a top speed of 170 miles per hour through an atmosphere, usually they are much slower than that (say, 68 mph).
@@AJPickett yeah i have LOTS of experience with sea faring vessels and some experience with space travel...but our Spelljammer is on a somewhat different rating system than your typical ship....this one is called the "Hook" and is massive at 860 ft in length. The main mast is close to 1000 ft in height and is a living red wood,thanks to our Hierophant of the Cabal with his grove being in the heart of the ship. (02 producer) each deck is interdimensional and is cap. of holding a total of 1000 crew. The device took 30 years to make and is capible of traveling to and from the outer planes via the astral. Our mvt is also based on how much spell power a caster is willing to put into it...wizard or cleric! There are very strict guidelines on who can actually operate the vessel minimum 19 intelligence 20 wisdom and 19 con and you have to have psionics with at least 160 PSPs. Its capible of intergalactic travel. Warp Speed Capt!!!! 😊
Go and pick up "Realmspace revisited" by Mr Dream on the DMs Guild www.dmsguild.com/m/product/279435
Your channel is incredible and I love all the information you have here so I just had to subscribe and thank you for your work. ;-)
I wish these were in neverwinter or a game like it. The game could be called wild space
There is a legend told by a deranged ancient tiefling gypsy space-witch. In a place far from the known worlds there is a large planet with a single hint closed eye. It is orbited by moons that are also closed eyes. She says that beholders now hunt her, for she has found the place where the "sleeping father" that dreamed them into existence dwells. She needs a crew. Maybe your cadre of adventurers are up to the challenge.
"The Dreaming Eye"
For characters level 10-16
Ha ha. My DM catchphrase is always "I will never tell you what you can or cannot do, just the consequences of your actions." It's nice to hear I'm not the only who has seen parties killed by this practice.
My two game shops over a ten year time frame had open campaign settings where it had player vs player group actions, and the winner lays claim to the other party's equipment.
Had a lair in Forgotten Realms/ Water Deep/ Skullport. AD&D2ndE
It was an unbalance dungeon with the one goal was to kill other player groups. It was design by a player to keep other player/PC parties from raiding. It was not design by a DM to hand out Xp snacks to murder hobos. End result, I had my front door broken in a few times, half my zombie dragons killed off and more than a few hobos sitting in deep 50ft pits waiting to be turned into Soul Stones.
3.5e system rules just made it deadlier.
Had one group of Paladins that raider my place cause the door wight was pizzing with them. They .. borrowed a few magic items and left a note on who they were, why they needed the items, where they were going, and their local Water Deep temple will cover the damages. If they fail in their mission, where I could recover my items. After my PC & his Baator butler had a talk with their local Water Deep temple , my PC & their high cleric and paladin had to go and recuse their backsides.
My first game shop was a 40 minute drive from the state's university campus town, so we had more than a few player group vs player group contests. Also it was a larp foam weapon fight club. Fun times.
@krispalermo8133 Man that sounds awesome
I want to use the "it was just a dream?" scenario to have the players play urban mercenary adventurers in Waterdeep, but have them go into a total party wipe when some horrible and unprecedented event occurs, such as the terrasque suddenly surfacing in the middle of the city. This would be a glitch in the simulation and several thralls would suddenly be forcibly ejected from pods, where the party learns they're not in Waterdeep or even Toril at all, and have them proceed into a quasi-futuristic science fantasy portion of the campaign, focused on the ilithids and getting to a home they never actually lived in.
That's sick. Do it. Taking a page from the Matrix you can have things get really weird in the simulation before their inevitable "death." Perhaps things start glitching out real bad spawning multiple demon lords, gods, etc. All into one area as doorways seem to connect to impossible areas and commoners start matrix dodging and wall running everywhere and so on and so forth. Could have some real fun with the first session before the adventure even begins.
This could take away from the surprise you were looking for and instead you can make these glitches far more subtle or glimpses from beyond the simulation in their dreams as hints of what's to come.
Great idea!
Either way
I've thought about a story like this but adding an Ender's Game twist. The players are ejected from the simulation but they were actually controlling real beings on the planet far from the simulation pods. Hell, let's even ape Assassin's Creed and through the magic, they retained the powers and abilities they had in the simulation.
Oh my god STOP GIVING ME IDEAS I CAN ONLY FIT SO MUCH IN ONE CAMPAIGN!!!!
A good way to think about how to play spelljammer is: In any town, on any planet the drudgery of the day-to-day is almost never interrupted, and even then usually by you looking for it. However sometimes forces outside this town happen to it. In spelljammer, your party *IS* that event.
I tend to keep my custom worlds outside of the phlogiston because I like propulsion ships. This video was really interesting. My current campaign takes place on a planet free floating through space trapped by the gravity of a huge eldritch horror with a fiery eye that the inhabitants think is a star. The surface of the planet experiences an extinction event every millennium with the subterranean sections being a wasteland of old technology and the insane remnants of a once technologically advanced race. The eldritch entity exudes a special substance that has saturated the planet that causes life to evolve at accelerated rates that allows for playable races to exist after only a few hundred years. This is the first campaign I'm running here and I'm planning on using it in the future. It's taking place at the end of the cycle with the campaign being normal for awhile and then slowly becoming a horror game before the players try to escape the planet.
My last shop 15years ago just drop psionic mindflayers into our Star Wars campaign.
D&D3.5e psionic + Star Wars force user class + mindflayer = cosmic terror
DAMN! How do I hear more?
@@raymundoveracustolaslambaw7098 I'd say hit me up on Discord, but my account got sacked. Lol.
@@krispalermo8133 aboleth= cosmic terror. Star wars alone has that potential...;)
This custom world sounds AMAZING! Well thought out, & I can only imagine the types of adventures/shenanigans your players are getting involved in! Cheers!
Wahoo, another spelljammer vid! You make me happy sir.
I am a legally blind father who DMs a bit of a sandbox type campaign for my four kids. They quite enjoy the spelljammer setting, lore, and mechanics. Unfortunately for me, because of my terrible eyesight, I cant go to the local TTRPG store and pick up any books/magazines and so I rely pretty heavily on YT lore vids such as what you do here to help me flesh out their universe. Thanks a ton man!
You are most welcome, and I will continue to make lore videos, as we say in my country "Until the cows come home".
That's awesome man! Hope to run games for my own children someday when they're old enough. It's got to be great for children's developing minds, critical thinking, both inside and outside the box, teamwork, empathy, good stuff. How did you lose your eyesight if you don't mind me asking?
@@17Scumdog I dont mind. I have Stargardt's Disease. It's a rare genetically inherited thing (domt worry, I can only pass one half to my kids, they would need the other half from my wife to actually get the disease too and she doesn't have the any of the bad gene,, we had her tested. So none of my kids have it) that basically made it so my eyes couldn't clean away dead cells and as such, my vision has been fading and getting worse with each passing day since I was born - altho didnt know I had it until I was 12.
@@MrTehPuppy dang, that's a raw deal sir! 😮 Glad to hear that you don't let that keep you down though, pretty inspiring honestly! Was thinking about, when your running games for your kids that, while in game you can see it all so clearly in your minds eye right? When you are the dm you're not blind, you're the over God Ao, and you know all, see all! Really makes a guy stop and appreciate something most of us take for granted. Thanks for sharing your story 😁
there are 2 types of nerds, space nerds and d&d nerds. We are both
"RUclips *needs* competition"
Hell yes, they do
Haven't even watched it at the time of writing, but I can say without doubt; after the day I just had, this is exactly what I needed. Will update after the kids get to sleep and I can crawl into my cacoon and just enjoy this.
RUclips needs competition pass it on
Star Bound Crusaders...?
*Stardust Crusaders theme plays.*
"Yare Yare Daze. I'mma squash you Neogi like the bugs you are and burn your ship out of existence."
*Nat 20 for Intimation.*
*Menacing....*
Always wanted to do a surprise spelljammer campaign, one that starts with no inkling of such things then gets suddenly catapulted into the stars😂 we had a post-campaign mini campaign where a bizarre blotch began spreading across the moon and we found a portal to travel up and find that a demonic incursion had begun up there. Basically the video game Doom but with our veteran team and my demonslayer dwarf ranger Kolgrim in his element, great fun 🎉
Starjammer press gang
This one was absolutely stellar! You knocked it out of the atmosphere this time. Aj never fails to rocket!
I already had a love for spelljammer now I have a massive boner for spelljammer!
Ur under arrest for 3 counts of criminally bad puns
Very informative video AJ. The biggest thing that lingers in my mind is a world of *EVIL* flumpfs. That's crazy. I'd have to sit for more than an hour to think of what those guys as evil beings would be like. I mean, they can escalate to being absolute nightmares quite quickly.
You are a never-ending font of knowledge. I bow before your awesome research skills and say humbly, "Thank you."
This is one of the best D&D channels on RUclips, has added so much to my knowledge of D&D that I can add to my characters or campaigns
This is some crazy shit. I'm currently running a Spelljammer game (though in a homebrew campaign setting) and what I've learned from this video is that I really need to step up my game on the Weird Factor.
I really loved your comment. It’s exciting to see others jumping into the total possibilities of the realms from beyond.
It’s totally daunting to enter this space (literally) without a jumping off point. AJ seems to outline a really good diving board too use for this jump.
Might I suggest taking notes from each of the planets 🌎 🪐 discusses and outline all the talking points that AJ spoke about. This way you have general picture of the prime material world (Toril, or whatever you call your world) and the celestial bodies that inhabit the Sun’s crystal sphere.
Once you have that, you have confidence in your mind that if players wished to leave Toril and travel the celestial worlds around the sun they can.
You can introduce this whole concept through the introduction of the academy of celestial bodies, where they are working on developing a Spell Jammer and need your players help in finding a few final pieces to get it “off the ground”.
Keep the new ship basic, by giving it a standard helm without any dimensional powers that can open the doors to other crystal spheres of influence (places of gods and the astral sea). You should however allow them, if they are brave enough, to travel beyond the crystal sphere and enter one of many openings where the flogyston flows to other realms (all awesome quest adventure possibilities).
I’d recommend that (your world) be powerful enough for the protection from other celestial bodies in the solar system, but could easily be the beginning plot twist to the seeking of the Academy of celestial bodies and the gathering of information that leads to the grander plot where one of the many planets have built up enough power to unleash it on Toril (your world).
I hope all the best things for your world and players!
Fuckin love the long videos
You do good work my man
I comment now and I shall comment at the end but I know I will love it begging to end.
Wotc should hire aj as a person to make a new campaign setting
Templar is clearly where the robot on Lost in Space came from! Lol Excellent video! I love big picture stuff so this one is a 4 course meal🤯
I see what you did with the random magical effect of the moon Loki. Press F for Agrajag.
Excellent video man. Very informative. Spelljammer is a criminally under used setting in D&D. We need more games in this setting.. they would be so amazing...
Too many people are just into dungeon crawls or map hopping in land base campaign settings. My last game shop 15 years ago had a hard time trying to run a campaign out of a single town for very long. They were not much into .. world building.
So world hopping spell jammer was out of the question, they would rather play Star Wars. But with 3.5e rule system we did have the Gith try to raid a Star Destroyer and battle it out with Darth Vader.
Love any and all Spelljammer lore, total newb here and seeing that space is in DnD is a game changer!!
I promise you, D&D has at least a little of everything. If you find something that isn't encompassed in the lore; congratulations. Your own stuff is the best stuff to play.
Toril also has many planar portals & several Torilians are famous planeswalkers. Spelljammer ships can land openly on the " oriental" continent
I did it I finished the video and as I thought I loved it and learned allot.
Excellent :)
Slades awesome! He knows a lot about Necromancers! Thanks A.J. appreciated!
So if the sun is heated by portals to the plane of fire, could these said portals be closed by some impossibly powerful dispel magic from an artifact or other power? Perhaps this is the plot of a cult of Atropus to plunge all world's into a never ending night as they all wither and die reinvigorating Atropus.
Really hope this is one of the settings we see rebooted for 5e as the possibilities are even more endless than regular ol' D&D. Could even be the nice bow on the other two classic D&D settings as well as ones already printed by connecting them all with greater detail of their surrounding wild spaces.
Edit: perhaps the way they try and dispel the portals is by somehow moving the anti magic zones surrounding the sun into it.
Watching a video like this makes me wonder how some DMs can say they're having trouble challenging their characters lol
Garden, by the description, could be used to Homebrew a Zerus-like world there. Fits well.
Weird - I'm assuming this came first, but on the mindflayers' planet, those baths they keep their humanoids in sounds a whole lot like what was show in the Matrix movie series. Where the humans are all in those pod things and have dreams of a sort believing they are living "real" lives. If indeed all these D&D details date to the early 90's, then I have to wonder if the maker's of the Matrix didn't get some inspiration from this stuff. It would be interesting to find out.
The term " the matrix" itself is from the shadowrun rpg
@@naughtseeingeye7767I think you're right. And then also, I think, though I'd have to check to be sure, Shadowrun got it from William Gibson, in his book Neuromancer (a really good book, and in fact good series, that any fan of sci-fi/fantasy/cyberpunk should check out). A lot of concepts used in Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 came from his books.
@@zorkwhouse8125 IO was going to reply just that, but I then reread your reply and you are 100% correct, "The Matrix" was, in fact, penned by William Gibson in Neuromancer, published 1984. It is also where we get the term cyberspace despite it predating the internet.
Off topic : in the stream before the last, someone asked about Ghost In The Shell - like games. Aside from Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun (which are mostly advanced tech, and many themes are there) there are three games that are heavy on the transhuman : Eclipse Phase (which has an unofficial GITS hack,) Transhuman Space and Mindjammer. They're also more sci-fi (w/r to the cyberpunk of the other two) and EP has lovecraftian elements too.
We used to play Shadowrun but used GURPS for the mechanics.
3.5e system for D&D/ Star Wars, even back in WEG west end games Star Wars d6 system made mention on slicing/ hacking, my pass two game shops since the early 2000's just borrowed Shadowrun hacking system over into Star Wars. In a few games we even had a fleet of Gith spelljammers assault a star destroyer and battle it out with Darth Vader.
Crossing D&D psionic class character + force user classes + mindflayer = cosmic horror.
I loved Spelljammer back when I was in High School
Just finished my spelljammer sourcebook collection! Now on to the novels!
Don't stop at Krynn unless you want kenderkin in every crevasse and crawlspace.
Well You have done the impossible AJ you made me love Spelljammer even more. Also I'm going to say that grandchild is the egg of an astral dragon.
Could very well be!
Viewer prime, sounds like something to look into. There's also Bitchute too and DLive for Livestreams. Yet I agree, RUclips needs competition.
Competition is good for improvement and growth. Even certain popular D&D shows could use some competition.
An amazing source inspiration and lore, ones imagination begins to whirl in nerdy fascination at the possibilities of exploring each of these mysterious location sketches, thank you for this wondrous sampling!
When you do this makes me want to play spell jammer so much. Thanks!
Go! Go! Space Beholder, go!
You really outdid yourself with this price of goodness
So weird that some of the creatures are exact opposite on different planets
Garden and its many moons is probably the coolest introductory campaign to Spelljammer I've ever heard of, but it's also so far away from Toril that any Spelljammer campaign will almost certainly not start there. Oof.
I like learning more about spell jammer. It's interesting to me because I never owned any content about it.
*PLANET'S CRAY-CRAY Y'ALL*
>had two total party kills last year
But, like, with how the whole outer realms system in DnD also constitutes afterlife, a party death could just be them suddenly being reincarnated in limbo and the adventure continuing there.
That's a dishearteningly cavalier attitude to have about having two total player kills. I think as DMs we serve our players better by learning the mechanics of how the game is balanced rather than explaining why the game isn't over after they all just died.
Templar seems like a reaaaaallly interesting place considering I've been planning a campaign where the villain is a helmed horror which became sentient and learned spellcrafting... 🤔🤔🤔🤔
Druid spell " Awaken Animal," then figure out variants such as Awaken Undead.
Then treat it as AD&D2ndE Similacrum spell which is enhance by the spell Reincarnation, which draws in a air/fire elemental.
Plot hook: a seed from the garden. One of the towns surrounding the city have had their 3rd year of bountiful harvest, but this was a drought year...
Backstory: somehow a crop plant from “Garden” is being grown in this town.
Twist: Does the crop leave the soil barren for decades after its second harvest. Does it spread like wildfire. Does it chock out all native vegetation. Is it addictive causing horrible withdrawal. Does it cause birth defects.
A selection of the above?
(Influenced be tiberium Re: C&C)
Who introduced it and why?
Is this the only infection?
Ah Command and Conquer, that brings back memories :)
AJ Pickett posted this a while back on one of your videos think you might like it...
Speculation on the once and future birth of the illithid race by AceGambit (Tony Oliver): many Millenia from now it will come to pass that a worth band of adventurers will slay an aboleth as it retreats to isolation to gestate. The broken body of the dead aboleth will sink to the briney depths. One of the unfertilised, unimprinted eggs will survive its parents demise but unfertilised, it will not mature as normal. The mucus of the aboleth corpse protects the parent from the oxygen and subsequent decay as well as scavenger that would eat the corpse. This unique circumstances lets the surviving embryo mature and feast on the preserved brain of its once parent. After a decade or so the gargantuan brain is devoured and the unimprinted/unfertilised embryo (tadpole) has reached a semi state of maturity. Burrowing out of its parents corpse it strikes out in search of cranial food. Finding a medium sized creature it borrows into the brain to feed. The intelligent creatures still living brain tissue and cerebral fluids act as fertilisation for the tadpole, creating an abomination of aboleth and humanoid. And so the first illithid ceromorphisis comes to pass... the rest as they say “is histo.... the future!”
Feel free to use this as you wish, all I request is to be accredited!
@@tonyoliver4920 T Oliver oh yeah I remember reading your original posting of this, absolutely love it! So would the proto- ilithid have all of the memories of it's ancestors the way aboleth do? If so maybe throw in a reference to the paradox of the mindflayers origins and downfall, have illithids or some such be the reason that the adventures go and find this aboleth on the first place, ensuring the proper chain of events occurs to spawn their race. Aj also has a video which details how you could portray time travel in a campaign by having the party inexplicably and suddenly attacked for a single round. Then later when they are actually fighting the thing, it uses it's actions to attack the adventurers in the past, maybe have some hazy portal showing the PC's earlier in the campaign being attacked for a single round by this creature.
Probably not explaining this too well, I'll try to find the video lol.
17Scumdog I’ve seen the video your referencing. I wrote it for the community, a jumping off point. I’d love people to use it and expand on it. Come to your own conclusions. Ideas are meant to be shared.
And always remember, Tharizdun will be free eventually. If not, how will we get 6 edition
A rare treat for me. i think we did a bit of planescape crossover with some sphere travel way way back. Exceptional job AJ.
25 years ago at my first game shop running AD&D2ndE before 3rdE rolled in, we had an on going Planescape campaign running the Blood War. Baator had its own spelljammer fleet.
When 3rdE rolled in we ran a battle where a Gith spelljammer fleet took on a Star Wars star destroyer and face off with Darth Vader. The only way Vader won was cause we treated Vader as being another Darth Psion. Lightning Bolt spell took out his life support which just enraged Vader even more.
The Netherese yet live? How long has Spellhamming been happening?
Spellhamming, verb, /spel•ham•ing/: to study arcane knowledge with as much effort as possible.
Because the only thing worse than a Cylon is a freaking magical Cylon magical nukes
5minutes in " .. No one knows why fire elements enjoy living on a sun/ star instead of their own native plane of existence .."
Simple, .. less native .. predators.
Also now they are the biggest fish in a small pond.
i could see a shadow or umbral dragon or such taking residence in the ship graveyard somehow just to loot the ships and a ready supply of undead to eat
very much yes.
40:00 mark of the spelljammer ship Destinee will make a h3ll of a cool Star Wars ship.
Took my players around realmspace after SKT campaign ended. They were escorting a Mind Flayer back to his home.
Strong matrix vibes coming from the Glyph lore! Great video!!
We all miss that Craft Spelljammer Helm feat, a Planeshifter specialty (makes their Craft Wondrous Items prereq. more useful).
You can modify ships in 5e now with the "living vessel" upgrade (thanks, Ghosts of Saltmarsh!)... the spacefaring elves in Realmspace feel infringed upon, for sure. Those haughty Eladrin stole their tech!
"This vessel's hull was crafted in the Feywild under the direction of master eladrin shipwrights. It is a living plant, drawing sustenance from water and sunlight. Vines covered in thick leaves hang over its side, and the wood runs with fresh sap when damaged. The ship gains a +2 bonus to all Constitution checks or saving throws. As long as the ship has at least 1 hit point, it regains 10 hit points every minute."
My players are still on Toril in a spelljammer yacht that the friendly npc (who is now a lich) owns. Things will get interesting pretty soon :)
Getting fancy with the window behind your character I see last time it was a dragon now it's a swirling vortex
You had me at INNN SPAAACE
My man the end of that video was some of the best dm advice I’ve ever received. It will forever have changed me and made the stories I share grander and more wonderful. As always thank you!
Glad I could help 🙂
I doubt you'll see this, AJ, but I love all aspects of D&D. From the simple, exciting start of new campaigns to the real, viable feeling that given the roll of the die or by simple choice-whether it be willing sacrifice for your other party members or situations beyond control that Death can claim something you spent hours on.
I see you.
my idea is the players are shanghied by a greedy but well meaning pirate captain who is short on crew and supplies and he drags them into his adventures! and promises of treasure adventure and glory!
ooooo an hour long vid don't mind if i do
Good afternoon. Yah Spelljamming! Thanks.
This was a very cool video, I never looked at Spelljammer stuff, the ships you showed led me down a great rabbit hole & I really wanna do a story on the Matrix Illithid planet.
I used to have this book. I had this and Krynspace
Love it...More Spelljammer please!
You know... Wizzard of the Coast should eventualy purchase the tech from Star Citizen and make not only Realmspace but entire DnD universe...
That's not a bad idea.
Nooo! Not evil flumphs. ;_;
I like the echo effect when in space was said
The Star Trek analogy works along with Doctor Who-esque madness🤪😜🤪
A moon-sized wondrous D20? Nice
Well done AJ, one of your best.Hope Krynn Space is next!!
The Starbound Crusaders sound fucking awesome.
Sounds like Stardust Crusaders
Dude your dnd knowledge is amazing I love ur channel
Thank you so much 😀
Honestly you’re on your way to become my favorite RUclipsr and in my personal opinion you are very underrated you’re one of the few that has ever responded to a comment that I have made and I appreciate it you’re awesome keep doing what you’re doing hope everything’s going well and have a great day
All is well in hobbit land, thanks for your support Andrew.
Yay!
Of course Loki would be the D20 moon.
I wanted to add to your storytelling prompts at the end, from working on my own stories, I noticed that comics often create a thing, say a hero or a weapon of some type & then they create its opposite, which is an ancient idea if you go back to Gnostic & Kabbalistic lore, that there is the good side of stuff, like the Tree of Life, but there is a dark opposing force, a sort of underworld version. If you keep that general idea in mind, you can flesh out a lot of details of creation with just that.
Nice!
Hey AJ what publications would you recommend if I wanted to run a 5e spelljammer to introduce the other people in my group. After lockdown ofcourse
These videos! 😎
please lore on the spelljammer Bioroid if you would be so kind
Bionoids are super cool. Guyver!
What does a battle between 2 beholder clans look like? Martial headbutts and gunpowder explosions in a mesh of antimagic cones?
I was imagining a Harry Potter battle at Hogwarts.
Hello RUclips algorithm, have a spacey day.
Ok AJ's room has become ascendant.
Love the new intro.
Thanks AJ, you've saved me again.
I'm running OotA and making a colony of mindflayers tuned to mindless vampires by Orcus. Making heavy use of 'the Illithiad' but had really been struggling with the number of thralls necessary to sustain a deep mindflayer colony. I'd been tossing up going the Matrix route - that it is already canon makes it easier. Especially since the colony already has psionic ray guns, power swords, and spelljammers.
How do you stat up the psionic ray guns? That sounds pretty cool
@@AJPickett Its basically 'flurry of blows' at a distance. With illithids being able to use it constantly because they have 'at will' second level spells. While pretty much everyone else would have to spend spell slots.
Psionic ray gun: pistol; rare (requires attunement by monk or psionicist). Range 40/120. Force damage. Damage is the wielder’s equivalent level on the monk martial arts table (1d8 for an illithid). The wielder can spend 1 ki point or 1 second level psionic spell to make two extra shots as a bonus action. Intelligence can replace dexterity for attack and damage rolls.
Made of gleaming brass and clear nephilium inlaid with gold circuitry, these weapons make use of illithids ubiquitous psionic technology. Other creatures have great trouble mastering these weapons. Only those who use disciplines similar to those of the illithids manage it. Illithids developed these weapons to counter-balance their weakness against creatures immune to psionics. These weapons are mainly used by the illithids in boarding actions from their dreaded nautiloid spelljammers.
@@jacobvardy 3.5e " Psionic hand book," item creation feat: Imbue/ craft psionic item, .. like stander Craft Wondrous Item/ .. DMG " creating magic traps. " Once made never runs out of charges. Problem with 3rdE mindflayers with class levels is building them up to lichdoom which will put them up to near ECL: 30th-level characters.
Fudging the Xp is one thing but dealing with over the top story telling is another.
Then again my game shop drop them into Star Wars, ... which in the core hand book didn't cover force users creating magic Force items outside of lightsabers. So my game shop really bend and borrow rules from other game systems to pull it off.
Buy a crystal wand set to look like a light pistol is cute, with six or eight gem stones to press for different psionic effects is cool.
Then factor in 3.5e Psionics is base on the six ability scores so mindflayer society is base on six different psionic guilds, so any item could have multiple effects depending how often it has been past around.
Then you have those arcane bleepers, that can cast Limited Wish .. and how far you as a player/ DM want to abuse that spell.
Also any mindflayer item could have Bestow Curse place on it to effect all non mindflayer just for touching it, let alone picking it up to use in combat.
I think this might be my favorite video that you've ever done!
Earth must be stuck in the dead center of one of those sargasso's
2 things.
What do you think the odds are for working teleportation circles in Realmspace to exist?
Who would be the representative of Toril in the Tower of Eight? Red wizard?
Pretty damn good, and how about a Green Slaad?
39:54 wtf my first thought this looks advance at least more so than the other spell jammer ships
You forgot Large Luigi on the Rock of Bral! He was born and enlightened on H'Catha.
My bad.
Are we adventurers exploring Toril, or are we slaves in the sensory baths?
This video on Realmspace is inspiring
Can we get a video on the Atropus war since it seems important. Never mind didn't finish the video before posting this
46:36 When AJ suddenly polymorphs into Kermit the Frog..... @_@ LOL!
So could the warforged actually be Templars??
This is the video that got the like/sub combo from me. Well done, well said. Safe DnD? Nah... this campaign's gonna make Doctor Who look well grounded.
How far is Selune from Toril? And how long would a typical trip from Toril be to its moon?
The distance between Selune and Toril is 183 thousand miles, which at full speed in a typical spelljamming vessel is 7 turns of travel. Getting out of the gravity well of Toril takes the ship 4 turns and it is a few turns to descend onto the moon's surface. When traveling in a direct line through wildspace, a ship can move at 100 million miles per day (all helm equipped ships travel at the same speed over long distances). Flying through the air on Toril, that same ship would move at a speed determined by the level of the spellcaster who is operating the ships helm and the type of helm installed (which together create the SR or Ship's Rating), the type of ship determines how well it can handle speeding up, slowing down and turning (its MC or Maneuverability Class), an SR of 10 would be about the fastest ship you would encounter and that would travel at a top speed of 170 miles per hour through an atmosphere, usually they are much slower than that (say, 68 mph).
@@AJPickett yeah i have LOTS of experience with sea faring vessels and some experience with space travel...but our Spelljammer is on a somewhat different rating system than your typical ship....this one is called the "Hook" and is massive at 860 ft in length. The main mast is close to 1000 ft in height and is a living red wood,thanks to our Hierophant of the Cabal with his grove being in the heart of the ship. (02 producer) each deck is interdimensional and is cap. of holding a total of 1000 crew. The device took 30 years to make and is capible of traveling to and from the outer planes via the astral. Our mvt is also based on how much spell power a caster is willing to put into it...wizard or cleric! There are very strict guidelines on who can actually operate the vessel minimum 19 intelligence 20 wisdom and 19 con and you have to have psionics with at least 160 PSPs. Its capible of intergalactic travel. Warp Speed Capt!!!! 😊
It's incredibly nourishing! It'll stop you from being hungry for a solid hour! 😅 ...Love ya, AJ.