Spelljammer - an introduction

Spelljammer was a fantasy universe created by TSR to provide ground for some "space fantasy" gaming. Basically, spelljamming ships are flying ships that travel through the stars, between different worlds. Each world (basically a solar system) is contained within a crystal sphere. By traveling between those spheres you could travel between different worlds.

TSR never really pushed Spelljammer. After a series of six novels, a few box sets and modules, they canned the whole thing. The rules had some very annoying issues which we had decided to rewrite during our campaign. For example, travels between spheres could last for months - not very practical if your group tends to travel a lot. We ended up reducing distances by a major factor, also reducing the need for calculating and stockpiling food, water and air supplies.

My adventures in Spelljammer

The Spelljammer campaigns were my first real RPG campaigns. Lasting over the course of approximatively 3 years, they were played in two separate periods. I was playing a red-robe mage from Krynn with a passion for artifact hunting, named Lantis Greyluck.

First Period (lasted around a year)

Lantis ended up "hired", along his friends, to serve as crew aboard a spelljamming ship. The mission was to retrieve something from some flying asteroid. During the expedition, the captain turned out to be a shape shifting beholder named Tabarth. Lantis and his friend took over the ship, cleaned the asteroid, and turned it over to the Imperial Elven Navy. The Imperial Elven Navy thanked them, giving them access to their facilities, and assigning Ltn. Behamiel Goldleaf to their ship.

From there, Lantis became the group's captain, and they travelled between the spheres, fulfilling various missions. Someday, the group got caught in a trap, from which only Lantis (and, as he learned later on, Olivan) managed to escape.

During this one-year period, a lot of players joined and left the "core" which was composed mostly of the GM, myself, Fred R. Daneel and Jean-Philippe.

Second Period - Let's Save The Universe!

After a one year break, a new campaign was started, with only the Gamemaster and myself from the original group. DeeDob joined us to play a short-lived thief, and then later on Fea'nor, sharp-shooting bowman. Sub joined as Razz Orr, becoming Lantis's first mate. The crew got hired for some mission, during which they discovered that some sphere-eating monster was on the rampage (think "solar system eating blob"). With help from the Imperial Elven Navy, Lantis and his crew set to retrieve twelve artifacts, which should eventually lead them to the famed Spelljammer, a legendary, immense flying ship/city. With all this they would be able to stop the world devourer before it caused too much damage.

Soon the group was joined by two other players who were part of the original group - one playing Olivan, the other playing a new character, the other was Daneel (who played 2 or 3 different characters over the years). The group remained fairly stable over the two years we played together, during which the crew visited various worlds on their hunt for the lost artifacts.

After two years, Fae'nor died from a dragon's breath. The only original members left were Lantis and Razz Orr (who had been brought back from the dead a few months ago). Getting fed up with this never ending quest for artifacts, the group gave up on it. This was the end of the campaign.

An attempt at restarting a new Spelljammer campaign around Lantis was made about a year later, but conflicts of opinion between the players and the GM aborted it in its infancy.

Looking back

I keep very fond memories from this campaign. I loved my character, which had grown a very rich background over the course of three years. Also, our GM was one of the best when it came to preparing an intricate, rich story. We were playing in a very dynamic universe, where various events were taking part in background, affecting the course of our travels. The first games, which served as an introduction for us to Spelljammer (and to AD&D as well for myself), he would even go as far as prepare some music, which he would play in the CD player on specific parts of the story, adding a lot to the atmosphere. During those early games, we used to gather around 7 PM at his mother's house (she was away for the week-end I believe), and play all night, until 5-7 am. When the summer ended, we started playing once a week, from around 7 PM until around midnight.

Sub and myself kept Ship Logs during most of the campaign's duration. Sadly, I only have Sub's logs from the second period left - no idea what happened to the first period's ship's log which I kept. Someday I might browse through what I have, and try to put together the story on this web site.

A few memorable events:

• Lantis having abused from one of the artifact's powers, saw his body slowly getting corrupted. A reincarnation spell turned the 47 years old human into a 47 years old elf. Yep, the ship's captain looked like a 12-15 years old kid :) Through magic he managed to age himself at least to elven adulthood (how else could he still please his elven girlfriend, who was around 120 years old? :)
• Razz Orr died after some goof. The player played a new character for a few months. After this, everyone missed Razz's humour and manners so much that the GM agreed to let him bring him back from the dead.
• A gem sits on top of a stone, on which is inscribed something like "Once is cupidity, twice is stupidity". Thief lifts the gem... Snakes appears from the walls to protect it. After barely escaping with their life, the group stared in horror as the thief said: "All right, should be safe now." and proceeds to lifting the gem a SECOND time. And then more snakes appeared... (This occurred during the last game of the "first period". This was one of the things that got the players group to split and drop the campaign back then)
• Razz falls in love with Freya, a female mage from the crew. Razz gets killed by a warrior on Tarnac after nearly killing an elven cleric from the Imperial Elven Navy who was with the group. That man later wed "his" Freya.
• Lantis succeeded in bluffing some undead dragon.
• DeeDob's thief drinking something during a feast given by some village whose tongue nobody could really understand. Staring at the odd flower on top of his drink, he asks his captain what to do with it. "Bah, just eat it" replied the captain, too busy to care about his thief. The thief took his captain to his word, and ate the flower. He instantly fell asleep on the floor.
• Fae'nor asks his captain some money so he can buy wood to prepare some arrows during the long spelljamming trips. Lantis gives him a coin. Rather than buying just what he needed and bringing back the change, Fae'nor spent it all on his wood, feathers and arrow tips. After two years of game play, he had only gone halfway through his purchased material... And trust me - at the rate he could shoot his arrows, he used a LOT of them.
• At the beginning of every game we spent about 10-15 mins, passing around a few pieces of paper. On these were various humorous sketches about our games drawn by Sub while he was feeling bored at work. I managed to recover all of them, which Daneel proceeded to scan. You can view them in my Gallery, under "Sub's Spelljamming Pencil".