In case you didn’t know about it already, AthasCon will be happening at the end of this month.
To celebrate this wonderful creation, and to mark the recent release of 5e Spelljammer (and its references to Doomspace), the folks at the Pristine Tower Development Group and myself are launching at the event a fully updated and illustrated version of Adam “Night Druid” Miller’s original Crimson Sphere Dark Sun/Spelljammer crossover supplement!
For those not familiar with the Crimson Sphere, this book describes what Athasian wildspace is really like. Within the book you will find:
How and why the Crimson Sphere has become so isolated from the rest of Spelljammer space
The full cosmology of Athaspace, including the differences between Athaspace and Doomspace (the terrible future fate that awaits the system).
The factions of wildspace (including the last of the spacefaring cousins of the Sorcerer Kings, the Void Wardens), and the ships they pilot
The last known humanoids left on Athas who are still capable of creating and piloting space-worthy craft.
The team have damned the torpedoes and have been pushing full speed ahead on this release for the past few months, and we’re excited to release it to the group.
Come join our launch party on Saturday 29 October at 9:00 PM GMT (4:00 PM EST) on the AthasCon Discord server in the Arena of Tyr, and be the first to receive the download link for the new release!
I loved the book!
It was actually very timely for me. Our campaign has just begun going into epic level play and we were talking about trying to get a psijammer working out of character. Seeing this pop up was wonderful and could really help the DM save a lot of time. The notions of the artifact in the book was amazing as well, and a great opportunity for those bold enough to try to seize it!
I even enjoyed the notion that leaving the sphere could cause issues with metal items. That way if a player was looking to go and bring back wealth for trade, it was an issue as well. The only way to bypass this bottleneck would be the Planar Gate which is a whole other problem! The idea of the invaders at the edge of space, being held back by these ancient guardians was great, especially with the concept of just how ahead thinking Rajaat really was.
The things I was curious about are some of the more intricacies of mechanics.
How does one pilot a jammer? How do bag of holdings from Athas act once they leave the Crimson Sphere as they are tied to the Gray? I understand the mechanics for the creation of such a vessel are tightly controlled, but I think the DM was going to make it a quest objective to cobble together our vessel from broken pieces. As such, how are these things made? Knowing how it is done can help us figure out how to repair it.
The book was absolutely fantastic and I read it a couple of times now.
I look forward to one day the party getting their own lesser pyramid. We already got a dry lich and a bunch of undead. The content is great, and I look forward to putting this to use.
Piloting a 'Jammer, building one out of scrap function as they usually do for your edition of DnD.
Other can and might discuss it here, but I’d suggest at least looking over the core 2e Spelljammer book: Adventures in Space Boxed Set, as the 5e SJ rules are very light and the 2e rules were - extensive.
But, TLDR, anything with a 'Jamming helm attached to it can function as a spelljamming ship, even a old houae or a hmgiant spoon. But the size/mass of the object dictates the size of its air envelope, which dictates how long your PC(s) will have breathable air.
Taking a Bag of Holding out of the Crimson Sphere, IMO, will be fine as the Gray replaces the Athasian Ethereal, so a BoH might just “hop” to being connected to the Ethereal everywhere else; but YMMV.
