[OSSR] Spelljammer: The Astromundi Cluster Boxed Set

[maglag]

I don't see any of those in any "top 10 richest companies" listings, while Alphabet/Amazon/Apple are the top dogs.

And sure the first letter is not the only factor for success, but for business you gotta grab every advantage you can get.

[OgreBattle]

Warhams had nice, consistent designs from Jes Goodwin, and some wild designs from John Blanche.

I feel if Warhams didn't have those artists to give a distinct warhams look, it wouldn't have stuck around and would be as popular as yet another 2000AD space dystopia setting with robots and aliens.

[Woot]

Hello again! I’m going to pick up with the first couple of chapters of Adventures in the Shattered Sphere here. Several of you have commented on the last post, in terms of included groups or demographic issues. I’m broadly in agreement with your points, but I wanted to cover this next section here before saying too much more about it. I’d just like to emphasize that stuff in the previous post was the conventional wisdom, man-on-the-street view of things, whereas the next sections are the “canon” perspectives on the factions, insomuch as anything can really be canon in the land of make believe & DM fiat.

Like the previous book, there’s black boxed text on the bottom of each page. In this book, we’re given short text vignettes about meeting a Varan, who takes us to his llithid boss, who proceeds to tell us Astromundi’s history from the illithid perspective. We’re then given a map that takes us to Antilian territory, and we’re given their historical perspective. A couple of points that stand out:

- According to the illithids and Antilans, the “mutants” that were driven underground in the waning days of the planet Astromundi were the first illithids.
- We’re told, by the illithid, after being told about his people settling in nicely and peacefully underground, “The humans came for us without warning. Our upper levels were the target of human predations. Our young were slain, our women stolen for purposes I dare not think. It was a nightmare time.” A bit later, “Our children began to die, weak and unable to survive.” More about this in a bit.
- The illithids claim their god enhanced their power and was the one to shatter Astromundi and banish the Unbidden tanar’ri
- We get some bragging about how big the Antilan’s dicks crystal citadels are once we travel to their space
- The Antilans claim the illithids are the product of magical experimentation, intended to be slaves, but they were never human
- The Antilans claim they defeated the Unbidden, and before they could recuperate, the illithids rose up and attacked. Weakened and impatient, the Antilans cast some great spell intended to destroy the remaining Unbidden and the illithids. The power of the spell “upset some sort of dimensional balance” and allowed the “beast-god” of the illithids to destroy the planet Astromundi.

Now, it’s worth pointing out that both of these are stories given to us are fairly obviously biased, but it’s interesting to me that we’re told about illithid “women and children,” a bit which has always made me wonder. It’s worth remembering that this product came out in ’93; the Illithiad wouldn’t be released for another 5 years. There are a couple of possibilities here:

1) Illithid reproduction via ceremophosis wasn’t canon yet, and illithids reproduce like other races, more or less.
2) Illithids do reproduce via ceremorphosis, and the illithid sage was merely speaking in a metaphorical way to elicit sympathy (or just flat out lying)
3) Astromundi illithids are different from other illithids, reproducing differently (and possibly having different nutritional needs!)
4) Sam Witt, author of this boxed set, didn’t know what he was talking about.

There’s another data point here: 1991’s Legend of Spelljammer boxed set tells us that about 70 illithids live onboard, and that to supplement their nutritional needs, they grow a “brain fungus” to make up for the lack of brains in their diet. The brain fungus (which, as it turns out, is sentient!) is described as eating tofu when you want steak, but it keeps them alive. It’s also implied in that boxed set that illithids can and do eat more normal food, but they specifically do need something from brains (or very brain-like substitutes.)

The actual 3-ring binder Monstrous Compendium is somewhat vague on the issue; it says that illithids eat brains but is unclear if they have to or at what rate. It’s also a little vague on their reproduction, though it does say that they are sexless, with each illithid capable of producing offspring.

Which could be just as well.

Every day we stray further from God’s light

One possible, charitable explanation is that illithids like to eat brains but don’t strictly need to. It could be that only the elite of the illithids eat brains with any regularity; the ordinary rank-and-file illithid might get to eat a goblin brain every few years if they can sneak one. This might reduce the carnage necessary for large illithid populations by a couple orders of magnitude. There’s an additional factor at play, however, that we’ll see in chapter 2.

As a completely useless tangent, I’ve never quite understood how illithid brain eating actually works. The general idea, based on the rules in the book, is that the illithid attaches it’s four tentacles to your head and “sucks out” your brain. Are the tentacles hollow? Is brain matter that squishy that it can be sucked out like jello? The illustrations in the book are of little help, and seem to suggest they bite their way through the skull, and the tentacles aren’t used:

Also worth noting that illithid physiognomy has changed over the years, and hasn’t ever fully agreed with itself; see the OSSR Illithiad review for more. But back to the review!

The Astromundi Campaign

Ah, the obligatory “How I mine for DM?” chapter. I know they aren’t popular here on the Den, but I’ll suggest this one isn’t bad for what it is. It spends a page on making the choice between outsider or Astromundi native PCs, 2 pages suggesting possible “home ports” for the players, and then about two pages on short term goals (Power, discovery, escape, independence, wealth, and truth) and a few examples (Exploring the ruins of the Dark Group asteroids for discovery, starting their own trading house for wealth, finding the technique the elves use to escape the sphere so as to supplant them for power, and escaping slavery for independence.) We then have a page and a half for campaign goals - founding a colony of their own, finding a homeward for the lizard men, discovering the Arcane’s agenda, or discovering the illithid’s agenda. Then we get about half a page talking about story arcs - tying short term goals to long term goals. We’re given a worked example of three short term goals: an NPC friend of the PCs has fallen sick; the party’s mage has a long-term feud with an evil NPC mage; and the party has recovered a mysterious statue from the illithids. To tie these together, the evil sorcerer from goal 2 is being the friendly NPC’s sickness from goal one, and when defeated, the evil sorcerer has another strange illithid statue among his possession. Finding out what to do with the statues and why they’re important can be useful in thwarting either the Arcane or the illithids’ long term plans, a campaign goal. If these suggestions seem old hat to you, at least take solace in the fact that it’s only about 8 pages long.

Astromundi Powers

Here’s the straight dope, the accept-no-substitutes real deal on each of the factions. They’re rated on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being “top dogs” and 5 being “literally, who?”

Antilans (Sun Mages)
Rank: 1
Major Plots: Conquering the sphere; using mirrors of shadowstone (a naturally occurring mineral which reflects more energy back than it receives) to increase the output of Firefall, the systems’ primary star, as doing so increases the potency of their Sun Magic (which was taught to them by the Arcane)
Minor Plots: Finding more sources of shadowstone
Government: Magocracy; commoners forbidden to use magic. Councils of nobles rule with a (normally) figurehead emperor. Current emperor is actually not incompetent; and has suspicions about the Arcane, to which end he’s sent a few trusted agents to sniff around.
Society: Mages rule, and only nobles can learn magic - little upward mobility. By and large decadent, every free citizen owns at least one slave; every free citizen wears masks almost constantly
Military: Their armada (with sun-magic enhanced crystal ships and crystal citadels) is pre-eminent. Almost every free Antilan tries to join the military, but few make it. (Seems at odds with being decadent, but OK…). The best and brightest can become warlocks, who are battlefield mages armed with shadowstone soul blades because giving swords to casters in 2e (or any edition really) is a perfectly normal, sensible thing to do. Citadels are FUCKHEUG and can carry 50 of those 325 hull point crystal ships; a common tactic is to simply block out the sun over an asteroid and let lack of light & heat wear down the defenders.
Allies: The Arcane, who hook them up with sun magic and other cool goodies. Also, theoretically, the dwarves, since they hire a lot of dwarven mercenaries. (Which strikes me as weird, since they’ve got so many people to start with, and so many who want to serve, and the book jerks itself to how grueling their training is… why the hell do you need to hire outside troops?)
Foes: Most people don’t like the arrogant, conquest-oriented pricks, for precisely the reasons you might assume. However, only the illithids have stood up to them directly. (Also, there’s a weird line, “The Antilans are treated with grudging respect throughout the galaxy…” Galaxy?!? WTF?)

Arcane
Rank: 1
Major Plots: Millenia ago, the Arcane struck a deal with the tanar’ri: the Astromundi cluster (which the tanar’ri have been forbidden to access regularly, since their little japes last time) in exchange for “trading concessions to be named later.” To do this, the Arcane need to release vast power to tear open a rift to the Abyss, and blowing up Firefall is how they plan to do it. The details of this plan are discussed in Chapter 5.
Minor Plots: Getting more shadowstone for their Antilan allies (which furthers their own goal of blowing up the sun.) Protecting themselves from assassins sent by the baatezu, who suspect something is up, and has sent dizantar, strange hunters who specialize in killing Arcane, after them.
Government: Once a year, they get together to discuss pricing, trade agreements, and how their sinister plan is going. (That seems awfully frequent to get everyone together!)
Society: In the Astromundi cluster, they’ve stepped back some from their usual role as traders to focus more on the tanar’ri project. This has allowed other groups (particularly the neogi) room to step in.
Military: Typically have personal bodyguards, but rely on the Antilans for serious muscle
Allies: They’ve “chosen” the Sun Mages, and have never given any other group anywhere as much as they’ve given the Sun Mages. Of course, the Sun Mages are as screwed as everyone else (if not moreso) when the Arcane finish their plan
Foes: No one crosses the Arcane, though a few groups are starting to get suspicious that the Arcane might be up to something. The dizantar mentioned above are also ruthlessly trying to hunt them.

Illithids
Rank: 1
Major Plots: The illithids, coldly rational and nonreligious to outsiders, are secretly being led by an avatar of their god, Lugribossk. The avatar is leading their plot to extinguish the two suns, Daeneb and Firefall. This has severely overextended the illithids’ manpower, to the point the illithids have been hiring mercenaries to aid them in collecting the items needed to build their sun-killing artifact. However, no one else knows this: they appear to be as strong as ever, and likewise, no outsider knows that they’re being led by an avatar. The illithids guard their secrets carefully. (This may explain why the illithids’ have a population of “3 billion” according to conventional wisdom, when in fact the actual number could be much lower by at least an order of magnitude. Just a wild ass guess, but if that’s true, *and* we assume a lower rate of brain consumption than 12 per illithid per year, as I suggest above, some large population of illithids begins to become a possibility.)
Minor Plots: To meet their needs for manpower and money, the illithids are trying to strike a deal with the baatezu, who apparently hate the Arcane. The baatezu, assuming they know it, haven’t clued the illithids in about the Arcane/tanar’ri deal. The baatezu are leary mostly because they’re spooked by the presence of Lugubrious’ avatar.
Government: Ruled by the priest-caste, who get texts from their avatar at least once a day.
Society: Their society is centered on religion and caste-based; individuals are born into their caste. Priests rule, followed by sorcerers, who have a lot of leeway. Next down the line are the instigator class, responsible for interactions with non-illithids. Further down there’s a servitor class - not slaves, but chamberlains, butlers, etc. Below that are the Varan, who act as the illithids proxies where they are unwelcome or would draw too much attention; they are definitely second-class citizens. Last are the slaves, members of every other race.
Military: Possess a considerable military; are masters of tactics and finding advantages. Smaller than the Antilan’s fleet, but has beaten them more than once. Also use Varan as spies and saboteurs.
Allies: Illithids try to be neutral in regards to other races; Varan are the closest the have to such a thing and the Varan are closer to indentured servants than peers.
Foes: The Antilan/Arcane alliance are their chief foe; the Calidian Hidden (an anti-slavery group) also strike at their slaving operations
Special Note Concerning Psioncs: Some notes here for people who have the Complete Psionics Handbook. We’re told than only 1 in 10,000 beings is psionic among other races, and only 1% of illithids are truly psionic; the rest having bog-standard racial powers. (Interestingly, the priest-caste is described as being completely composed of psionicly powered illithids, using the variant illithid from the CPH.)

Varan
Rank: 2
Major Plots: Watching the game, serving the illithids. One group of Varan, from the colony of Boyarny, are independent of the illithids and are trying to make a name for themselves as traders.
Minor Plots: The Boyarny Varan are always trying to find out more about the Illithids. That’s a minor plot, right?
Government: Centuries ago, the illithids tricked the Varan into thinking that they were gods. Over the years, Varan families have instilled loyal to the illithids into their children, even though the original reason has been forgotten. (What, no teenage Varan rebel? On the other hand, being forced to serve beings that can control your mind and eat your brain, if you get to uppity, might keep them in check.) The Boyarny Varan are ruled by a triumvirate.
Society: Regular Varan have no culture of their own; the Boyarny have one centered on trade and agriculture.
Military: Regular Varan are basically part of the illithid military. The Boyarny use the Thoric for muscle to help defend their home
Allies: No one likes these guys, though, paradoxically, the Boyarny Varan have been improving the reputation of the Varan. Of course, this gives illithid-employed Varan more opportunities to infiltrate other factions, which helps ruin the reputation again.
Foes: No one likes them, but few are willing to act against them for fear of pissing off the illithids. The Calidian Hidden call them “flayer friends” and engage in attacks against them.

Neogi
Rank: 2
Major Plots: They want to be the only traders in the sphere; they’ve been opposed by Calidian traders. They’re also trying to make a deal with one of the major beholder nations to improve their military standing. They’ve also been selling information to both sides of the Sun Mage/illithid conflict as a means of keeping tensions high, with the hope to someday spark a war that will cause both factions to ruin each other, leaving the neogi as the strongest faction left.
Minor Plots: In addition to selling “information” (that may or may not be true) about other factions, they hope to create a dependence in others on information that the Neogi sell. They’re looking for some idols that may be connected to the ancient neogi religion; they think a resurgence in the ancient neogi deities would aid their quest for dominance. They’d like to ally with the Thoric, primarily so they can get their claws on the Thoric tradesman ship, which would aid their trading position vis a vis the Calidians
Government: The neogi are ruled by a secret council called the Clutch. Their priests are planning on deposing the Clutch, who are aware of this and are plotting their own reprisal. Because neogi.
Society: Caste system; phosphorescent tattoos show caste and standing within caste. Lowest are priests, followed by merchants, with nobles at top. There’s also a fourth caste; untattooed neogi, who can nonetheless challenge an established neogi and if successful, gain the challenged’s rank. We’re then given some rules for how this works,
Military: Umber hulk slaves and hired mercenaries. Rely on their trade dominance to protect them from attack. If they were to attack, we’re told, they’d likely do lots of sneaky sabotage stuff first, instead of a frontal assault.
Allies: No one likes them, but everyone puts up with them because of the necessary trade they provide.
Foes: We’re told that if their plans were ever discovered there’d be an uprising against them, and that everyone (even the illithids, who think they know everything) has been successfully kept ignorant of the neon’s plans because of this. The Calidians would like to see them destroyed, especially, so they can take over the neogi’s role as chief traders in the sphere.

Thoric
Rank: 2
Major Plots: They’re the most mary sue honest and straightforward group in the sphere. Both the Calidians and the neogi would like to cement an alliance with them, but so far, the Thoric aren’t buying. Their high rank is due to their high level of technology and the presence of these two possible allies.
Minor Plots: They’d kind of like to see the neogi knocked down a peg or two; if they have to take sides, they’d choose the Calidians because at least they’re human. To that end, they’ve occasionally lent the Calidians mercenary forces and access to Thoric tradesmen ships.
Government: Ruled by a queen, but she rarely intervenes in day to day life, letting the leaders of settlements govern in her name.
Society: Supposedly naturally reclusive, but fairly good at hiding their discomfort around non-Thoric. This is one of the reasons they’ve settled out at the Fringe. This also gives them first access to trade with ships from outside the sphere which wander in, which is one of the reason they have a higher level of technology than anyone else, a fact which gets frequently mentioned, but really boils down to A) the Thoric tradesman ship, and B) gunpowder weapons, so far as I can tell.
Military: Don’t have a standing military, but the combination of being tough, spread out, and well equipped makes them not worth the hassle of conquering; they have no desire to conquer others.
Allies: They’re friendly with anyone who is friendly with them, which is most other people, since the Thoric are the only reliable source of water (in the form of ice asteroids) in many places.
Foes: Only the neogi, who are upset that the Thoric will loan their tradesmen ships to the Calidians and not them. The neogi do their best to hide this fact, however, but would stomp them flat (and get their tradesmen) if they could.

Calidians
Rank: 3
Major Plots: Currently trying to outcompete the neogi and become the pre-eminent traders. To aid in this quest, the Calidians are secretly conspiring with another race, the dowhar, who most other factions don’t even know exist.
Minor Plots: Calidians are torn between their desire to spread freedom and their desire to make money; this occasionally leads to them trying to help oppressed people, not not always or reliably.
Government: Each ruled by a family or trading house; leading houses meet regularly to discuss matters of importance
Society: Freewheeling and freedom loving. This comes partially from their race being a “prize” passed back and forth between the Antilans and the illithids. Once they gained their freedom, 300 years ago, they set up the scattered trading house system - which seems to just lead to them being gobbled up piecemeal.
Military: Little direct military might; the Hidden Houses specialize in assassination
Allies: None officially, though the Thoric are friendly and the elves see the Calidians as the lesser of two evils (compared to the neogi) and are considering giving the Calidians more access outside the sphere, which could give the Calidians a big edge against the neogi
Foes: The neogi, by mutual agreement. The illithids and Antilans also don’t think much of their former slave race

Dowhar
Rank: 3
Major Plots: Strange penguin-like creatures that have only recently arrived in small numbers. Recognizing they can’t compete directly with their rivals, the neogi, they’ve been advising the Calidians from the background - and they plan on ditching the Calidians as soon as they can
Minor Plots: They’re only known to the Calidian traders and a few elves; they’ve sent giff mercenaries (another race not native to the Astromundi sphere) into the Sargasso of Skulls with an eye towards moving their base of operations there.
Government: Currently led by a one-eyed merchant of great skill, Ropawona.
Society: Since they’re so rare here, status is determined by an individual’s profit margin, but all wealth earned is distributed equally among them all
Military: Have no military but don’t need one, since their presence is a secret. Like to employ giff as bodyguards.
Allies: The Calidians, who have no idea they’re being used as a stepping stone. Also the elves, since they’re taking messages outside the sphere for the dowhar (and keeping things confidential)
Foes: None, but if the neogi knew they were here, they’d have a lot of neogi-hired mercenaries after them

Dwarves
Rank: 4
Major Plots: Currently working on a grand plan to rise to power. Most other groups rely on them for for minerals, and many rely on dwarven mercenaries. The dwarves plan to encourage this reliance, and then suddenly take it away, at which point they believe other factions will be easy pickings. The illithids have figured this out, and are starting to source their metal elsewhere. The Sun Mages also suspect something as well, but struggle with their long dependence on dwarven mercenaries. Still, they’re planning to start phasing them out.
Minor Plots: Trying to subvert the Calidians’ mining operations on Calimar, which is a potential threat to the dwarven mineral monopoly.
Government: Ruled by 4 kings who occasionally meet and often communicate by courier
Society: Clan based, with each clan focusing on particular skills. Recently, some cross-training has begun to happen.
Military: While clans jealously guard their skills, the warrior clans long ago agreed to give all clans some basic training in warfare, so most dwarves can fight with some effectiveness. Dwarven mercenaries have become famous for their toughness and skill, but ultimately the dwarves are more effective as a defensive force than an offensive one.
Allies: Everyone would like to believe they’re on good terms with the dwarves, but the dwarves don’t see it that way. Still, the dwarves don’t have any long-standing feuds with anyone else, either.
Foes: The Calidians, for their mining operations that threaten their mineral monopoly. Potentially, the illithids, who are aware of the dwarves’ scheme, but are playing it close to their chests for now.

Lizard Men
Rank: 4
Major Plots: Two major lizard men colonies exist. One is isolationist and rapidly declining, but the other is desperately trying to find other lizard man populations and to that end is having it’s young people sign up as crew on any passing ship that might take them.
Minor Plots: None
Government: The isolationist lizard men are ruled by the voices of their ancestors, who speak from ancient burial mounds. These ancestors are rather short sighted, focused on maintaining the purity of their bloodlines, and their commands are slowly killing their descendants. The outgoing lizard men have an elected leader.
Society: Fatalistic for the isolationists, gregarious for the expansionists.
Military: Neither has any standing military, and the poverty of their worlds combined with the lizard men’s natural ferocity makes them not worth attacking
Allies: The outgoing lizard men try hard to be friendly to everyone; the isolationists occasionally trade with the neogi.
Foes: None

Beholders
Rank: 5
Major Plots: One major beholder faction is seeking to make a deal with the neogi for technology and magic, in exchange for serving as shock troops for the neogi - being beholders, they have no real intention of holding up their end of the deal. Another beholder faction is seeking some weapon of great power that they believe their ancestors used to cause the First Cataclysm (which smashed two planets together.) Whether such a weapon exists or not is unclear and up to Mister Cavern. Yet another faction has had several beholder families band together (a real rarity among them) to wage all-out war against the illithids; the why behind this is unknown. Naturally all of this happens against a backdrop of beholders warring among their own kind, and Mister Cavern is encouraged to include any other plots as desired.
Minor Plots: None, and you’re reminded they’re there to serve as a mysterious bogeyman
Government: Standard Spelljammer beholder “family ruled by a queen mother”
Society: Hate other beholders, which keeps them from presenting a unified threat to the rest of the factions
Military: Themselves and various beholder-kin
Allies: The neogi working a deal with one beholder faction is as close as they get to having allies
Foes: “Beholders are universally despised and will be attacked on sight. No one likes them, everyone hates them, and yes, they do eat worms. People too.”

Elves
Rank: 5
Major Plots: They’d like to return to being a force to be reckoned with, but their slow breeding makes that difficult. One colony, Giltiond, has begin rapidly sliding into barbarism and isolationism, communing with nature in an effort to avoid facing their problems, while another, Avarien, is their major seat of power and is seeking outside-the-cluster elves to help increase their population. Despite the fact that the sphere’s elven women are regarded as ludicrously attractive by others in the sphere, non-Astromundi elves “scarcely recognize them as belonging to the same race, making breeding next to impossible.” Really? McComb, we’re going to need your skills as a fluffer here
Minor Plots: They try to maintain a balance of power by controlling who has access to the outside; all Astromundi-native elves are immune to mind reading but have a complete lack of psionic potential. This apparently helps them keep their secrets.
Government: Blah blah blah, ensures individual freedoms
Society: Currently geared towards producing children; each woman has several husbands. Elven adventurers are often individuals trying to escape forced marriages
Military: Regarded as masters of space fighting, but less skillful on the ground. Geared towards defense. Some elves seek military careers to avoid being forced to marry. Also regarded as excellent at asteroid belt maneuvers.
Allies: No one will attack them because of elven control over who gets to leave the sphere. Everyone tends to be polite, but rarely likes or trusts them much
Foes: No one, other than the goblinoids, who hate the elves and have nothing much to lose in attacking them. The Antilans would, if they thought it’d advance their plans - they’re the major faction which cares the least about accessing other spheres.

Goblinoids
Rank: 5
Major Plots: Killing elves is always on the menu. Currently trying to cut a deal with the Varan, on behalf of the illithids, who want the elves’ secret means of leaving the sphere, in exchange for military assistance against the elves. There are rumors of witchlight marauders (massive, eat-everything monstrous biological weapon-worms) which would be a serious threat if they could get their hands on some
Minor Plots: Currently spending more time out on the Fringe to try and intercept goblinoids who stumble into the sphere before other groups, like the Thoric, do.
Government: Lead by a Scro general, whose position is in doubt - he needs to score some successes soon, or he’ll receive a Klingon demotion.
Society: Military unit culture
Military: Several hundred ships, scattered throughout the sphere. The only group better than the elves at hiding and maneuvering among the asteroids, largely out of necessity. Engages in piracy where they can.
Allies: None, though working with striking a deal with the Varan/illithids
Foes: Er’rryone hates them for their piracy.

Other Races

We’re told that just about any race could end up in the Astromundi sphere in small numbers, and we’re given a few examples:

Spacesea giants: Stone giants that travel around in stone spaceships and worship Ptah; potential information source due to their wide travels
Great dreamers: Gigantic space whales; again useful as sages and information sources
Outer planar beings: “The Astromundi Cluster lies at a nexus point for the many planes of existence. Here, the dimensional fabrics are thin and frayed, and creatures from other planes sometimes find their way through.” We’re told that these sorts of creature shouldn’t appear with any frequency unless the illithid or Arcane master plans are successful, however.
Plasmoids: Obscure Spelljamming goo monsters could bring their factional war here. Because we need more drama.
Reigar: LOLRaNdOm space artistes could arrive for any bizarre reason you might concoct. Since their ships are living creatures, they can come and go from the sphere as they please.
Xixchil: Our favorite crazy surgeons from the Complete Spacefarere’s Handbook[/b] are here. Their skills might be useful in furthering (or preventing) the Arcane and illithids plans.

Some commentary from Woot:

- One of the things we see in other spheres is that the sun is often inhabited; the “Big Three” in their sphere guidebooks all basically have something to the effect of, “The sun is too hot to visit, even with magical protection, but if you could visit, there’s efreet and fire elementals and oh, salamanders I guess chilling out there.” Nothing is ever mentioned about either Astromundi sun being inhabited. Given that both of the most powerful faction’s plans involve fucking with the suns, contacting the efreet or whomever live there about their plans might score the party some useful allies. On the other hand, efreet might also say, “Oh, they’re blowing up the sun? Well, we’ll start packing our bags. Thanks for the tip. Now, I was just thinking I could use some new slaves for my palace back in the City of Brass. I’m sure you’ll love it there, and if you don’t, I don’t care!” because efreet are dicks like that.

- Both the Thoric and the Elves have secrets that other people want. Now the elves are stated to be immune to mind reading, and I can imagine both the elves and Thoric have “death before dishonor” folks among them, but given the prevalence of Really Evil Pricks in the cluster, has no one thought of torture as a means of learning secrets?

- Do the Arcane have ability to come and go at will from the Sphere? Have the Antilans ever asked them about it? Even if the Antilans have no desire to conquer the world outside the crystal sphere, they still might be at least a little curious, given that they’re ruled by mages.

- Given the fact that other Spelljammer works tend to jam the Spelljammer-specific organizations (Pragmatic Order of Thought, Chainmen) and religions (Ptah, Path & the Way) in everywhere they can, the orgs get zero mention and only one faith (that of Ptah) is even mentioned, and that only in regards to the Spacesea giants. Even given the troubles leaving the sphere, there’s a lot of natural synergy between the Chainmen (who sell slaves) and most of the major factions (who practice slavery) and likewise between the POTs and the Calidian Hidden.

- Elven imperial fleet - where are they? Even if they write the Astromundi elves as ugly lost causes, aren’t they the least bit interested in fighting the goblinoids in Astromundi? Since they can leave at will, that seems like a huge advantage they’d have over the goblinoids.

- It’s probably a waste of time to quibble about the power rankings, but why the hell are the Lizardmen rank 4 and the Elves 5? They have similar populations, but the elves also have an important strategic resource. The lizard men have… some of their young people signing up to crew other races ships. I like the lizard men, don’t get me wrong, but their inclusion as a somehow-important faction smacks of the sort of executive meddling Harshax mentioned: since the lizard men are supposed to be “iconic” for Spelljammer, in that they were included in the main boxed set, they had to be included here, even though there’s nothing that they really do

- I’ve already mentioned some reasons why I don’t think the illithid population has to be absolutely tiny, but I do broadly agree that populations at the scale of billions seems kind of bananastown. I’ll grant that there’s clerical magic, and hand wave the idea that the Astromundi natives know about washing their hands and not shitting in their drinking water, but one of the points that gets made over and over again is how absolutely reliant on trade everyone is. Simply, most settlements aren’t self sufficient and rely on trade to meet their basic food and water needs. Any kind of regular warfare is going to be incredibly disruptive to that, which will quickly lead to mass death. Even if Astromundi civilization has developed a prepper/hoarder mentality, lots of people will always be one or two pirate raids away from doom.

Next time, we’ll go into the adventure ideas. Thanks for reading!

[Username17]

Just so we're clear: Ceramorphosis was not canon until the Ilithiad came out. Indeed, it wasn't a thing at all. In fact, the whole Ceramorphosis shit doesn't make any fucking sense at all because Mind Flayers have four fucking fingers and soft bodies. They specifically don't have the bodies that the ceramorphosis rant claims they would have.

The Illithiad was a terrible fucking book. And not the least of it was the fact that its rant about the Mind Flayer life cycle was completely fucking bonkers and totally contradicted earlier work. Which would be fine if the end result had been good or even defensible on its own merits, but it was not.

-Username17

[Woot]

A bit more concise (for me, anyway) this time, since I’ve been rather pressed for time recently.

Adventure Ideas

Next chapter consists of… wait for it… adventure ideas. Overall, I’m not terribly impressed. There’s definitely a few mistakes here which are probably just editing errors, but there’s deeper errors of reasoning as well. “Yes, Mister Neogi, we’re totally going to agree to recover a Thoric Tradesman for you in exchange for 3000 gold, or becoming your slaves if we fail, because this is definitely a sensible contractual arrangement.” A number of these quests are set up so that succeed or fail, you’ve pissed some major faction off, and that it’s expected the faction is going to care enough to send assassins or whatever after you. A lot of them are fairly thinly just set ups for one (or both) of the major plots: the Illithid’s Sunslayer and the Arcane’s Darkgate. There’s a couple that are just entirely generic: setting up a trade route, or escaping from the illithid slave pens. Those are certainly valid ideas, but they’re so obvious and generic that I can’t help but wonder why they’re here. At least the thin ideas wrapped around the Arcane/illithid plot hooks are designed with Astromundi in mind.

The Sundeath

Over 7 pages we have one of the two main plots of the sphere: the illithid plan to extinguish the suns, crippling the Antilans and restoring their deity, Linguinibocca, to full power. (This boxed set may be where later works got the idea that the illithids have a hard tentacle for putting out the sun.) Over a couple of pages we’re given the “true history” of the illithid, which by this point we’re largely familiar with, but with a few more details added. Apparently, the illithids had largely forgotten about their patron deity and were too busy kicking ass all over the sphere to go to church. When the Arcane showed up and started to twink out the Antilans, all that changed and the illithids started losing, at which point they found Jesus Ludicrisboss again, who was so grateful he sent them a rather sickly avatar. The avatar gave them a prophecy, the Mind Dark Prophecy, which I’ve always had a soft spot for:

In the time of burn­ing suns
Of masked ones dom­i­nant and
Vermin cloaked in the flesh of mer­chants
The Dark Mind returns, a bind­ing
Force of the Ten­ta­cled One.
Gather to you the pieces of
the Sun­slayer, font of
Lugribossk’s power.
Call to them; the Egg of Night
the Sword of Fecun­dity
the Crowns of Mid­night Sor­rows
the swollen Seeds of Forn­ever.
’Ware the Ones Who Wait In Ice,
the ancient race who rebelled.
Cull from the vortex the shades of
Phlogiston’s might and watch well
for the Con­stel­la­tions.
Do these things in my name,
and I will come.

Of course, then we’re given this nonsense:

The Prophe­cies are more numer­ous than those, but this is the most rel­e­vant sec­tion. The illithids have done much to make sure that the Prophe­cies do not fall into the hands of other races, and have been largely suc­cess­ful. The above text, how­ever, has found its way into the hands of schol­ars who are still trou­bled over its mean­ing. None have made the con­nec­tion to the illithids, how­ever. For now, the dark secrets of the illithids are safe.

So, it talks about “Tentacled One” and “Luigibonk” but scholars have no idea this has anything to do with the illithids? Those are some fucking stupid scholars right there! Moving on, we’re then told a little about various parts of the prophecy - essentially, the first part reveals that this prophecy takes place now. This is a logic fail; considering the avatar just showed up recently and gave this prophecy, it’s pretty obvious that this prophecy is intended for “right now.” The first 3 lines really only would make sense to include if this prophecy was issued hundreds or thousands of years ago, and not last Tuesday. Next up the illithids have a shopping list of artifacts to go find, and finally a warning about “Those Who Wait In Ice” who your players might have met in the previous chapter - the spirits of a group that rebelled against the illithids long ago and hid themselves out in the Fringe.

Next we’re given some ideas on how the players get involved and how they might throw monkey wrenches into the illithids plans, along with a rough timetable. The illithids only have a limited time to complete their plan, since creating the avatar has been a last gasp for their deity, and if they can’t restore the Sunslayer and hence, their god, the avatar will fade away, along with their god - this is a do-or-die for them. We’re told what happens if the plan isn’t stopped: the illithids go apeshit on everyone else. We’re also told what happens if the illithids are stopped: the Antilans go apeshit on the illithids, Potentially, the totally screwed illithids might cut a deal with the baatezu, if you don’t like giving your players a happy ending.


The Mystery of the Arcane

Over these 8 pages, we have the other major, blow-up-the-sun plot in Astromundi. For millennia, the tanar’ri have been salty about getting kicked out of Astromundi. So, when they captured a shipful of Arcane, the desperate Arcane came up with a deal to save their hides: they’d find a way to let the tanar’ri back into Astromundi, in exchange for “trading concessions to be named later.” The Arcane have spent a lot of time over the last 1000 years working on this plan, and they’ve figured out a device that will let them open up a portal to the Abyss: the Darkgate. Using the Antilans as useful idiots, they’ve been collecting the artifacts they need to build the device, as well as the shadowstone they need to make Firefall collapse, which will provide the necessary energy for the Darkgate to function. We’re told that the Arcane plan is nearly complete, which is good, because the tanar’ri are impatient for them to finish. And then we get one of the most bullshit paragraphs in all of Spelljammer:

The Arcane, as a whole, should not be con­sid­ered evil; they’re simply com­plet­ing a busi­ness deal. They are, after all, truly neu­tral beings. They will buy and sell any­thing to anyone, as long as their price is met. It is part of their cul­ture not to ques­tion the nature of the sale, or the effect a sale will have on other races. The Arcane aren’t igno­rant of the fact that the tanar’ri are going to wreak havoc through­out Clus­ter­space, but that’s not their con­cern. Once the sphere is paid for, the tanar’ri can do what­ever they want with their prop­erty.

Part of the Arcane’s shtick is that they’re supposed to be the ultimate Lawful Neutral traders: willing to make (and adhere to) a deal with anyone, save the neogi - and it’s not clear if Astromundi Arcane adhere to the “no deals with neogi” rule. Arguments about D&D alignments are old hat, of course, but I can see why one could sell ships and helms to people the Arcane know are pirates or slavers and still be LN. It’s much less clear to me how selling out an entire cluster, which isn’t really theirs to sell, to CE fiends, is not in fact an evil act. Yes, I suppose that technically, the Arcane are only selling access to the cluster, and blowing up the sun in the bargain, but I’m just not buying it. As an aside, it’s not clear to what extent the Arcane race as a whole, as opposed to just the Arcane in Astromundi, are involved in this plan.

Anyway, much like the illithids, the Arcane have a shopping list of items to acquire, and in fact one of them, the Egg of Night is also needed by the illithids for the Sunslayer. Naturally, one of the adventures in chapter 3 have the players stealing that very item from the neogi. The Egg can also be used to destroy the Darkgate, if it’s placed in the Darkgate by a cleric of a god violently opposed to the tanar’ri - which would be most of them, really. Destroying the Darkgate in this manner is a crippling blow to the Arcane’s plan: the Darkgate is the result of centuries of work, and they’d need centuries to rebuild it, if at all. The tanar’ri won’t be that patient, and will give up on working with the Arcane.

There’s another logic fail here: apparently blowing up the Darkgate will somehow make the shadowstone mirrors stop working. I have no idea why this is so, and likely neither do you. In any case, as the shadowstone stops working, Firefall will return to normal, which will cripple the Antilan’s ability to use Sun Magic, giving the illithids the advantage. Next we’re given a rough timeline of the Arcane’s plans, and then some ideas of ways the players might deal with an Arcane victory: cut a deal with the baatezu or some other powerful force, convince the tanar’ri to set up shop elsewhere, or kill all the Arcane, though that last seems like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped - killing all the Arcane before the tanar’ri invade might be viable, though difficult.

Monster Summary Table

Two pages round out the book, with very compressed information on various monsters that might be useful in the campaign setting, along with where to find the full monster entry. Most of the entries are rather unsurprisingly from the Monstrous Compendium volumes 7 and 9, the Spelljammer MC volumes, but 8 also gets a shout out for tanar’ri and baatezu. There’s also a few references to MC 1, and the monster entries from the original Spelljammer boxed set. I’m not convinced this section is the authors want to pretend it is; I didn’t have access to some of those Monstrous Compendiums until many years later, so having a single line labeled “Witchlight Marauder (tertiary) (MC9)” with an AC, hit dice, attacks, thac0, and “Alignment: NE” tells me jack shit useful about the creature.

And that’s the book. Next time we’ll delve into the 96-page final volume, The Celestial Almanac.

[Thaluikhain]

Part of the Arcane’s shtick is that they’re supposed to be the ultimate Lawful Neutral traders: willing to make (and adhere to) a deal with anyone, save the neogi - and it’s not clear if Astromundi Arcane adhere to the “no deals with neogi” rule.

In book 2 of the Cloakmaster Cycle (Into the Void by Nigel Findley), the series of 6 book set in the Spelljammer setting, it's explicitly stated that the Arcane won't ever trade with the neogi, but will trade with people who will resell to the neogi immediately afterward

Though, now that I think of it, being "neutral" in the sense of trading with both sides of a conflict sorta makes sense. Not so much when the sides are explicitly good and evil, though, and the bar isn't set very high on "neutral" making sense.

[deaddmwalking]

For millennia, the tanar’ri have been salty about getting kicked out of Astromundi. So, when they captured a shipful of Arcane, the desperate Arcane came up with a deal to save their hides: they’d find a way to let the tanar’ri back into Astromundi, in exchange for “trading concessions to be named later.”

Can you elaborate on this? They captured a small number of Arcane centuries ago, made a bargain under duress, and all the Arcane everywhere for all time have been living up to the terms of it?

Is there something about how all Arcane are bound to adhere to the deals that a single member makes?

[Woot]

The relevant text:

For cen­turies the tanar’ri fumed over their defeat, vowing to return to the Clus­ter and claim it as their own. But there was no simple way; the Clus­ter had been sealed from their pre­da­tions.

During this time, the tanar’ri stum­bled across the Arcane. Quick think­ing on the part of the unfor­tu­nate Arcane trade ship man­aged to save the crew from cer­tain death at the hands of the Abyssal fiends.

In an unprece­dented move, the Arcane man­aged to form a trade alliance with the tanar’ri. The tanar’ri found that the Arcane could enter the Astro­mundi Clus­ter at will, and move about there freely. The Arcane dis­cov­ered how much the tanar’ri cov­eted this sphere, and man­aged to con­struct a deal that would make every­one (except the inhab­i­tants of the Astro­mundi Clus­ter) happy.

The Arcane would find a way to deliver the crys­tal sphere to the tanar’ri, in exchange for ​“trad­ing con­ces­sions to be named later.” The tanar’ri snatched at the deal, not both­er­ing to haggle over the price or to wonder just what it was the Arcane wanted in return.

In order to hold up their end of their bar­gain, the Arcane set about find­ing a method by which the tanar’ri could enter the Clus­ter. Their searches took them far across the phlo­gis­ton, to crys­tal spheres that have likely never been vis­ited by another intel­li­gent race.

Their search took them to other planes as well, and it was on one of these planes that they dis­cov­ered the secret of the Dark­gate.

This device is incred­i­bly pow­er­ful, capa­ble of shat­ter­ing dimen­sional bound­aries at a stroke. But it had been dis­as­sem­bled and its pieces scat­tered so that it could never be used for evil.

Know­ing that they had found the key to their deal, the Arcane imme­di­ately began search­ing for pieces of the Dark­gate. Though it was unlikely they would find the orig­i­nal mate­ri­als used in the con­struc­tion of the Dark­gate, they could very well find rea­son­able sub­sti­tutes.

Because the Arcane needed pow­er­ful allies to pro­tect them from the other, more vio­lent races of the Astro­mundi Clus­ter, they ingra­ti­ated them­selves to the Anti­lans. By pro­vid­ing the secrets of spell­jam­ming to this race, they not only gained a last­ing part­ner but insured the supremacy of that part­ner in the Clus­ter. The Arcane have since used the Anti­lans’ vast resources to seek out the ruins of the First and Second Cat­a­clysms, in the hope that they will con­tain the nec­es­sary mag­i­cal items to create the Dark­gate.

Over the cen­turies, the Arcane have made them­selves invalu­able to other races in the Clus­ter as well, pri­mar­ily by sell­ing spell­jam­ming equip­ment to these races. The Arcane have done much to advance the state of tech­nol­ogy and spell­jam­ming in the Astro­mundi Clus­ter. It has also earned them a few choice bits of mag­i­cal knowl­edge that they need to oper­ate the Dark­gate.

The most impor­tant piece of infor­ma­tion con­cerns the enor­mous amounts of energy that the Dark­gate will require. The device is very pow­er­ful, but in order to oper­ate at full effec­tive­ness, it must receive mas­sive energy.

It took the Arcane a long time to come up with a way to gen­er­ate the power nec­es­sary for their plan to suc­ceed, but they have at last found the answer.

Shad­ow­stone is a rare ele­ment that exists only within the Astro­mundi Clus­ter. It pos­sesses the unique prop­erty of not only reflect­ing energy directed at it, but ampli­fy­ing that energy. The Arcane intend to use reflec­tors of shad­ow­stone to amplify the energy of the cen­tral sun, Fire­fall, to enor­mous pro­por­tions. As the reflected energy peaks, the sun will begin to col­lapse. When the process is com­plete, the energy pro­duced will be more than enough to power the Dark­gate. And then the tanar’ri will be free to return to the Astro­mundi Clus­ter.

It sounds like it. All Arcane being bound to a deal that any of them makes actually makes a certain amount of sense if they're truly as LN as they are purported to be. Given the possible upsides of vast numbers of tanar'ri owing you "trading concessions to be named later," it's perhaps understandable why this would seem to be a sufficiently compelling deal to convince large numbers of Arcane to spend hundreds of years on. Of course, CE beings are not exactly known for honoring their agreements, so a natural question to ask is what recourse the Arcane have if the tanar'ri refuse to honor their end of the deal. As far as I can see, the answer is "none."

More broadly, though, I think the Astromundi boxed set has a bad tendancy to "flatten" all the races, which seems ludicrous when we're talking populations in billions. Saying "The Antilans" or even worse,"The Calidians" is pretty ridiculous. The Antilans at least have a unified government which we can (lazily) refer to as "The Antilans." The Calidians are explicitly described as being a fractured culture spread out everywhere with loyalties to their houses and strongly valuing independence. There's no reason the Calidians couldn't have a hundred different internal divisions and factions, all with their own politics.

[deaddmwalking]

In reading back through the original posts, I guess the Arcane don't really live in the cluster? They have one city, but it is run by others?

I think I'm concerned there is a logic fail. What do the tanar'ri offer for trade that is better than what the current residents of the cluster have. Since the tanar'ri are not Lawful Neutral, what makes the Arcane think they'll agree to these trade concessions once offered? If you are a member of the Arcane, how does spending your ENTIRE LIFE working on this project help YOU when payment isn't made until the project is complete and your descendants receive payment?

I think I'm going to be perplexed for weeks as this slowly turns my brain to goo.

[Woot]

To the best of my knowledge, it is never precisely explained where the Arcane are from, only that they can be found almost anywhere Spelljamming civilization exists in the cluster. To they extent that they have a capital in Astromundi, it would be in a sealed-off section of the Highport trading base, called the Reserve - and worth noting, the Arcane let the neogi and Calidians do the day-to-day running of the base. Presumably, the Arcane also have offices near the Antilan seat of government and other important locations as well.

"Concessions to be named later" could mean almost anything that Mister Cavern desires. Another great mystery of the Arcane is where they source their equipment, and what they do with the money they make. I wonder if, given the Arcane's purported distaste for violence, they don't intend on trying to use the tanar'ri as their own private army for some obscure goal.

And while I can definitely see sufficently Lawful Neutral beings being born, growing up, and being told, "Hey, we're doing this project. It started before you were born, and it'll continue after you die, and we need you to play your part," and the newly-minted adult LN-being being basically OK with it, particularly if the rationale behind it is explained.

I do agree that expecting the tanar'ri to uphold their end of the bargain without some serious leverage seems foolhardy. Perhaps the Arcane have an idea of how to use the Darkgate against the tanar'ri - or maybe just the threat of handing it over to the baatezu would be sufficient.

[Username17]

One of the big problems with these stupidly large numbers is that there isn't really any room for the smaller factions to matter. A group that has a few hundred ships probably has around ten thousand troops. Which sounds like a lot, but is substantially less than like the police force of some rando province of an empire that is nearly three times the size of India by population.

Leaving aside the total batshit insanity that is an empire with more psychic slave owning braineating badasses than Asia has people, the comparatively plausible sun empire is still so big as to leave the minor parts of the setting absolutely meaningless by comparison. We have writeups for 13 different ranked factions, but logically speaking shouldn't the 13th largest administrative district of the Antilans be a bigger deal than the Lizardfolk or the Dwarves?

This is not just idle speculation. Jiangxi is the 13th largest of China's 23 Provinces (plus or minus Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong) and it has about 45 million people in it. The Antilan Empire is almost three times that size, and probably has over a hundred million people in their thirteenth largest administrative district. That means that if you pick some rando job like "waitresses" or "soldiers" that corresponds to less than 1% of the population, that's still actually more people - in the 13th largest administrative district - than there are Lizardfolk. It's stupid. There's so much more Antilan Empire than there is any need for there to be fucking anything in a D&D setting that it defies hyperbolic dismissal.

This gets back to the advantages and disadvantages of having whitespace in your game setting. Areas of white space allow for players to write their own stuff. Origin locations for their characters and organizations. Temples and fortresses for characters to build and buy. Organizations for characters to be friends with or angry at. And so on and so forth. But white space also necessarily comes with zero engagement or buy in from the players. It's fucking white space.

A little bit ago we mentioned Warhammer in the context of why "uncounted billions" of whitespace seemed to really work for Warhams and how the very same trick failed miserably in Spelljammer. And I would say that it's completely because Warhammer 40K was a wargame and Spelljammer tried to be an RPG. I would note that the various attempts to make 40K RPGs have all sputtered and failed. The needs of whitespace are met and would be met without uncounted thousands of worlds and the needs of having accessible setting objects that your characters could meaningfully interact with is plowed under. You can't do dick diddly that means shit to anyone because everything you interact with is written into or completely surrounded by tremendous amounts of whitespace. Who's the Imperial Governor on whatever fucking planet you're interacting with today? What political factions give a shit about that? I don't fucking know or care!

So imagine instead of being a D&D setting at all, that Astro Mundi was the backdrop for some war games. Now the fact that there are ten administrative districts of the Antilan Empire that are too small relative to the whole to be even named in the box set yet still large enough to field their own space navies in the as-yet-undefined regimental coloring of that district is a huge plus. It means that you can set up battlefields however you want and paint your minis however you want and have land or space battles even if both you and the other player brought Antilan Empire models. The very vast blankness of the canvass that makes this setting (and Warhammer) so incredibly shit as a roleplaying setting would really all be a net plus if you wanted to make a wargame out of it instead.

-Username17

[Thaluikhain]

The relevant text:

For cen­turies the tanar’ri fumed over their defeat, vowing to return to the Clus­ter and claim it as their own. But there was no simple way; the Clus­ter had been sealed from their pre­da­tions.

During this time, the tanar’ri stum­bled across the Arcane. Quick think­ing on the part of the unfor­tu­nate Arcane trade ship man­aged to save the crew from cer­tain death at the hands of the Abyssal fiends.

In an unprece­dented move, the Arcane man­aged to form a trade alliance with the tanar’ri. The tanar’ri found that the Arcane could enter the Astro­mundi Clus­ter at will, and move about there freely. The Arcane dis­cov­ered how much the tanar’ri cov­eted this sphere, and man­aged to con­struct a deal that would make every­one (except the inhab­i­tants of the Astro­mundi Clus­ter) happy.

The Arcane would find a way to deliver the crys­tal sphere to the tanar’ri, in exchange for ​“trad­ing con­ces­sions to be named later.” The tanar’ri snatched at the deal, not both­er­ing to haggle over the price or to wonder just what it was the Arcane wanted in return.

In order to hold up their end of their bar­gain, the Arcane set about find­ing a method by which the tanar’ri could enter the Clus­ter. Their searches took them far across the phlo­gis­ton, to crys­tal spheres that have likely never been vis­ited by another intel­li­gent race.

Their search took them to other planes as well, and it was on one of these planes that they dis­cov­ered the secret of the Dark­gate.

This device is incred­i­bly pow­er­ful, capa­ble of shat­ter­ing dimen­sional bound­aries at a stroke. But it had been dis­as­sem­bled and its pieces scat­tered so that it could never be used for evil.

Know­ing that they had found the key to their deal, the Arcane imme­di­ately began search­ing for pieces of the Dark­gate. Though it was unlikely they would find the orig­i­nal mate­ri­als used in the con­struc­tion of the Dark­gate, they could very well find rea­son­able sub­sti­tutes.

Because the Arcane needed pow­er­ful allies to pro­tect them from the other, more vio­lent races of the Astro­mundi Clus­ter, they ingra­ti­ated them­selves to the Anti­lans. By pro­vid­ing the secrets of spell­jam­ming to this race, they not only gained a last­ing part­ner but insured the supremacy of that part­ner in the Clus­ter. The Arcane have since used the Anti­lans’ vast resources to seek out the ruins of the First and Second Cat­a­clysms, in the hope that they will con­tain the nec­es­sary mag­i­cal items to create the Dark­gate.

Over the cen­turies, the Arcane have made them­selves invalu­able to other races in the Clus­ter as well, pri­mar­ily by sell­ing spell­jam­ming equip­ment to these races. The Arcane have done much to advance the state of tech­nol­ogy and spell­jam­ming in the Astro­mundi Clus­ter. It has also earned them a few choice bits of mag­i­cal knowl­edge that they need to oper­ate the Dark­gate.

The most impor­tant piece of infor­ma­tion con­cerns the enor­mous amounts of energy that the Dark­gate will require. The device is very pow­er­ful, but in order to oper­ate at full effec­tive­ness, it must receive mas­sive energy.

It took the Arcane a long time to come up with a way to gen­er­ate the power nec­es­sary for their plan to suc­ceed, but they have at last found the answer.

Shad­ow­stone is a rare ele­ment that exists only within the Astro­mundi Clus­ter. It pos­sesses the unique prop­erty of not only reflect­ing energy directed at it, but ampli­fy­ing that energy. The Arcane intend to use reflec­tors of shad­ow­stone to amplify the energy of the cen­tral sun, Fire­fall, to enor­mous pro­por­tions. As the reflected energy peaks, the sun will begin to col­lapse. When the process is com­plete, the energy pro­duced will be more than enough to power the Dark­gate. And then the tanar’ri will be free to return to the Astro­mundi Clus­ter.

[Woot]

Our third and final book in the boxed set is the biggest one, The Celestial Almanac. This chonker comes in at 96 pages. We get 8 pages about the sphere, it’s connection to the Outer planes, and some of the navigational hazards. Next there’s 4 pages about trade & piracy in the sphere, complete with details about the currency system, based on bars of metal (AD&D 2e loved to complicate accounting) along with an actually-helpful chart listing some common prices for trade goods - cotton, hardwood, salt, etc. Pages 18-84 comprise the meat of the book, the big listing of Places To Go and their details, including plot hooks and NPC stats. After that we get 5 pages that provide some details on Sun Magic and the Sun Mages’ equipment, along with their dreaded Crystal Citadels, a one-page parting thought section from Sam Witt, then an appendix with the Monstrous Compendium sheets for 3 kinds of Tanar’ri, and the very last page is an advertisement for other TSR Spelljamming products.

As with the other books, we have black boxes at the bottom of every page. In this book, we don’t get a narrative, but instead small factoids, short quotes, one or two line locations, along with rumors and rule-bits. They add a little depth and charm, and occasionally work together to tell a story. Here’s some examples:

- Druhga: A meal prepared by neon, over which business can be discussed. A thick stew, it’s main ingredients seem to be meats and red peppers.
- If you spend too much time in a magekiller sargasso, there is a chance that magical weapons will lose their bonus. The chance is 25% for 8 hours, increasing 2% every four hours after that. Subtract 5% from the chance for every +1 the weapon has. (Fuck you for having nice things, says 2e! Also, how often do you roll the check? Every hour? Every 4? Elsewhere in the text, magekiller sargasso are described in detail, and are said to drain a spell per hour from mages until the mage is out of spells, at which time, they drain 1d4 hit points every 8 hours. So… we don’t know.)
- Neogi are quite fond of new body rings. Presenting them with adornments for their piercings is a sure way to get in good with them.
- It is common practice for the neogi to pierce a body part upon the completion of an important deal.
- It is an insult not to pierce part of your body when finishing a deal with the neogi
- “You can lead a neogi to water, but you have to be strong and determined to drown it.” - Dwarven proverb
- “The only good Calidian is the one I just ate.” - Ssstaka Gul, Illithid Slaver
- “See how fast that illithid ate that slave I poisoned?” - Rika Nef, Hidden Assassin
- “Urrk.” <thud> - Ssstaka Gul, after eating a poisoned slave
- Aganar: A small asteroid in the Inner Ring. Known primarily for the quality of it’s steel.
- Fadikir: An Antilan slave market outside the Golden Girdle. Infamous for the savage treatment of the “merchandise.”
- Langos: An elven settlement near the edge of the sphere. These elves are identical to those found in other spheres, but have fallen into a meditative trance from which they cannot wake.
- X: A name whispered only in terror, X is the mysterious asteroid training base of the Antilan warlocks.

Honestly, I have neither the time, the energy nor the inclination to go full book report mode right now. I’ll just hit some highlights:

Chapter 1

We’re once again told that the Astromundi sphere has some very unusual properties, like only letting living ships egress. This is apparently due to the machinations of a group of wizshades who have bound themselves to the constellations, in a bid to keep tanar’ri trapped within the sphere. There are some other details you don’t care about (right outside the sphere, you can go ethereal just by willing it!) but the effect is that it is both somehow easier and harder to contact other planes, unless they are Outer Planes. There’s also some magic physics to the effect that if you leave the Prime Material within Astromundi and try to return to it outside of Astromundi, you instead just end up where you started, presumably as a fuck you to the tanar’ri to prevent them from doing plane shift shenanigans to escape.

We’re given some rules for computing planetary motion, if we wish, and then we’re told about some of the unique types of asteroids that can be found here. Some are piles of undead that have clumped together and attracted a rock & dirt shell, some are compressed “hulkships” which are broken ships smooshed together and full of tyranids GLITTERING TREASURE, and there are living asteroids - bands of powerful psionicists that have merged together so they can do whatever the hell it is they do in peace. Other navigational hazards include magic-dead zones, vines that entangle ships, time warps, wrinkles (aka wormholes), zones of wild magic, and whatever else Mister Cavern wants to liven up long space journeys with.

Chapter 2

Did you know that trade and piracy happen in Astromundi? We’re told about some prime trade routes, where piracy often happens and who those pirates are - goblinoids, humans, and really, anyone who thinks they can get away with it. Next we have a discussion under the heading “Economy” which mostly talks about currency and how it’s slightly different here: bars instead of coins. Whoopie. We’re told the scrip is also used, initially with the Calidians and popularized by the neogi. We’re then given a brief discussion of how currency flows through a community, which assures is that “with all the trade that goes on, there is little danger of poverty.” I’d make a NAFTA joke or something, if I could be arsed. Next we’ve got some discussions of commodities and an actually-useful table of common commodity prices, along with notes about finished goods and necessities. Finally, we’re pointed at the Dark Sun Dune Traders book if we want to learn more about merchant campaigns.

Chapter 3

Here we have the meat of the book. As usual with products of the time, long text passages are broken up with lists of costs, NPC stat blocks, and so on. The NPCs actually have enough formatting to stand out, but unless your eyes are good at catching numbers while you glance at text, there’s a lot of “crunch” that’s buried in the “fluff” here.

A few highlights:

Avarien: The major elven homeworld; come here if you want a ride out of Astromundi. Prices are given, and the defenses are discussed in detail. The elves have twice beaten off Antilan attacks, but also know that if the Antilans made a concentrated effort their skinny asses would be toast.

Calimar: A gas giant; it’s moons are the home of a fair number of Calidians, many of which have been enslaved to work in mines for the illithids. We’re given some details about a typical operation, with notes about guards, overseers, resistance fighters, and so forth.

The Dark Group: A cluster of asteroids largely controlled by the illithids, but an important source of shadowstone, which is mined by free Calidians - who remain free only because the illithids know that if they interfere with the shadowstone supply, the Antilans will contest their control here. What neither side knows is that the shadowstone is actually useless - a good-aligned archlich is hidden here and is worthing with the Calidians. We then have stats for an agent of the archlich, who is a 12th level wizard who makes a point of not dressing like a wizard.

Highport: Perhaps the most important trading location in the sphere, and the Arcane’s home away from home. We’re given several plot hooks here, and the section finishes with a long write-up, with stats, about a depressed dracon warrior who hangs out at the bars here.

Ironport: A giant metal pyramid in space; the neogi’s answer to Highport. Has a confusing internal layout, which is definitely not at all intended to get the occasional person lost so that they get hunted by the neogi. Definitely not. Still, the neogi have tried to “foster it’s image as a fun place for everyone to hang out.” There’s also a thriving black market in illicit goods that requires a one-time fee of 1000 bars to access.

Illiman: A watery world that the neogi own, after having bought it from it’s prior lizard men inhabitants, who most certainly weren’t offered transport off-world and then “unloaded” in deep space. The neogi perform bizarre, bloody rituals here to appease their gods, and it’s actually due to their god’s intervention that the Neogi Agreement (i.e. truce between the Antilans and illithids) was able to happen at all.

Isle of the Banshees: Lotsa undead, ruled over by a lich who is bound to a throne. Lots of creepy ruins here - and possibly parts useful for the Sunslayer and/or Darkgate.

Phalangilon: The largest and most powerful of the living psionic asteroids. We’re given a bit of history about how it came to be, how it almost went off the rails, and what it’s up to: hanging out in space, doing pisonics shit.

The Shakalman Group: The Antilan’s chief shipyard, with lots of details provided with an eye towards having the PCs infiltrate for espionage and sabotage.

Ushathandra & moons: Home of the illithids, who used their magic to ensure that the moons are always behind the planet, from the perspective of the suns. The illithids are not the only inhabitants; strange creatures and undead were inhabitants of these moons before the illithids arrive and continue to exist here, in a mostly-detente with the flayers. We’re also given details about the moons and the illithids colonies on them, with a definite eye towards PC’s causing trouble.

Chapter 4

Sunmagic! The PCs are explicitly forbidden from using Sunmagic, and fuck you for asking. Essentially it boils down to extra range/dice/duration (and extra extra dice for fire/light magic) while near the suns. There are a couple of 8th and 9th level spells (which no one will ever cast) and some magic items. The Mask of Memory lets the wearer store extra spells, which is pretty useful, but the Soulblade is just ridiculous. Here:

Soulblade
The soulblade is a dreadful weapon, more feared than any other hand-held weapon in the Astromundi Cluster. Carved from shadowstone, the soulblade is similar in size to a short sword, though each individ­ual blade has a unique design and decorative pom­mel. Sou/blades are +2 magical weapons and cause ld6+2/ld8+2 points of damage, whether the blade resembles a short sword or a small khopesh.
Created by special sunmagic rituals, these blades always flicker with cold white flames. The flames cause no additional damage to Sun Mages, but they will cause a loss of 1 d4 hit points to non-Sun Mages. The flames of a soulblade can also destroy cloth or nonmetallic armor with a successful hit; the flames engulf leather or padded armors ( and any normal cloth, ropes, etc.) and consume it within one round (magical clothing or armor gains a saving throw against this effect.).
If exposed to sunlight, the soulblade begins to glow, its flames slowly turning red and brightening to the intensity of a light spell. After three rounds in direct sunlight, the wielder may fire a 30' long beam of fiery energy that causes 1d10 points of magical fire damage. The mage must roll a melee attack as normal, but receives a +2 magical bonus to this roll. No natural or magical resistances to fire provide any defense against this attack. After this energy dis­charge, the sword returns to its normal, dark color with white flames. The soulblade can only release this stored energy five times a day; after the fifth use of this power in one day, the soulblade will not absorb any energy for 24 hours.

The soulblade is indeed a dreadful weapon, but only for the wielder. In addition to having feeble powers, it’s also welded by those veritable engines of destruction, AD&D 2nd Edition mages, who have jack for hit points and shit attack roles. Maybe the Antilans hand these out as an intelligence test to potential Sun Mages - anyone who actually tries to wield it in preference to just using magic is clearly not going to be casting high-level spells anyway.

We’re next told about Antilan Crystal Citadels, which are described as being from 1200-1700 feet tall and 300-600 feet around, and can apparently hold up to 50 Antilan Crystal Ships (which are 200 feet long and 170 feet wide, because Sunmagic gives the Antilans a +5 save on having to check their fucking math.) We’re told about how bastard hard the crews are, how they might be destroyed, etc.

And finally, a note from our author:

The Rest ...
The surface of the Astromundi Cluster has only been scratched by the contents of this box. There are many more mysteries and terrors with which to entrance or horrify your players. The simple fact of the matter is that the Cluster is just too big to do cover in detail in any number of boxed sets or sup­plementary material.
Billions of humans and humanoids live in the Astromundi Cluster, and there's nothing to say that the races listed herein are the only ones to live there. There could be virtually anything walking, crawling, flying or slithering out there, anything at all.
Take a 1ook at the starchart that came in the box. See all those little squares? Each one represents a distance of 400 million miles across. Which means that each one is over a trillion square miles, and 160,000,000,000,000,000 cubic miles. You can put anything in there that you want. Compared to the vastness of Clusterspace, this boxed set is barely a start. You could easily fill thousands of pages with the information in one square on the map alone.
So, what have I done here? I've given you the tools that you'll need to expand on what's in this box. I've handed you the keys to the empire, my friends, and can sit back and watch what you decide to do with them. Everything that you need to start is in this box: heroic races battling against oppression, savage elves with a secret everyone wants, evil mages bent on conquest, an unexpected enemy of all life every­where, and much more.
Want to put dowhar in charge of their own asteroid belt somewhere outside the Inner Ring? Go for it. A place where the illithids are hunted monsters? Why not, there's plenty of room for it!
Well, that's it for me. When Bruce Heard handed over the reins of the Astromundi Cluster, I must admit I was more than a little overwhelmed. This was a big, big project! But, with the helpful guidance of Anne Brown and Michele Carter, the daunting task became much more manageable and enjoyable. Now, I can't help but think of this place as my own; a dark little corner of the AD&D® SPELLJAMMER® Universe that I helped to create.
That's why I'm thrilled to finally see this project leave my computer and find its way into your hands. Because to me, it's not done until you, the players and DMs, get your hands on it and twist and turn it to your desires. Ultimately, I want you to have fun with it. And that's why I wrote it.
Sam Witt
March 5, 1993

A little googling reveals that this might have been Sam’s first major publishing gig, but he went on to produce works for several different gaming publishers well into the 2000s. I’m mostly not familiar with his other works, save for the Dark Sun module Black Sands which in retrospect has some of the same “neat ideas that don’t really work together well in context or mesh with game mechanics and/or common sense” fingerprints on it. I have no idea about his later works.

Then we’ve got an appendix with three pages with MC stats for three kinds of tanar’ri, and that’s the end of the third and final book.

Conclusions

This was one of my absolute favorite AD&D works to flip through as a teenager. As a much more jaded adult, it holds up less well. It’s flaws include sloppy thinking about mathematics and the scope that their sloppy math implies (populations, especially), some confused choices about what’s important (the lizardmen could have totally gone unmentioned and nothing much would have been lost), a fair bit of “creator’s pets get cool stuff, you don’t” in terms of Antilan equipment, and to a lesser extent, Thoric equipment - though that’s actually pretty common in early D&D/AD&D, so that’s more a cultural thing than Sam’s fault specifically. The usage of the Arcane seems out-of-character for the race, and has some weird implications about non-Astromundi Arcane that I don’t think were thought through. The pantheon seems very thin - though that’s still preferable to a pantheon that has 50 gods, 6 of which are the only ones anyone actually ever cares about. It also lacks meaningful connections to other Spelljammer products: where’s the faith of Ptah? Where’s the Pragmatic Order of Thought? Why are dragons, even space-borne radiant dragons, never mentioned? Finally, the nature of the sphere makes it hard to leave, which means that most campaigns taking place in Astromundi are going to stay in Astromundi - which is certainly big, but misses out on a significant draw of the setting: the ability to travel from sphere to sphere.

Still, it has it’s good points. It serves as an example of the kind of campaign settings that can be created free of existing lore, so it can be stranger than the “established” big three spheres can be. Not one, but two simultaneous plots to blow up the sun? That’s pretty cool, actually, and certainly distinctive. The neogi falling into the role of mostly-honest-and-only-occasionally-disreputable traders in the face of two superior military powers is believable, and actually gives them a little more depth than just “the slaver race that isn’t the illithids” which is what they fall into elsewhere. Overall, I’d say that it’s not absolutely essential if someone wanted to run a Spelljammer campaign, it’s not bad for what it is and is useful to stimulate ideas, if nothing else.

[Username17]

The fact that the pointless laser beams from the sun swords are magical fire damage that ignores fire resistance and is thus not actually fire damage is the kind of shit that was extremely common in 2nd edition. The 3rd edition conceit where keywords actually mattered and something called "fire" would be treated as fire by other things in the game that cared about fire was a breath of fresh air.

I mean, we already knew this sort of bullshit was bullshit in the 90s, but it wasn't until the 2000s that anyone made a major game that actually had terminological exactitude in any meaningful sense. Remember, even Magic the Gathering didn't get its act together until this century - the original printing of Elven Riders said "Summon Riders" and did not count as an Elf. You could honestly say that card games still haven't fully gotten their fucking act together because Goblin Gathering doesn't count as a Goblin spell while being cast or in the graveyard (the tokens it makes are Goblins, but Goblin Warchief doesn't make the spell cheaper and Bog Strider Ash won't trigger life gain because the spell isn't a Goblin).

Using terminology consistently is hard, and it requires a great deal of foresight and editorial control. 2nd Edition AD&D settings had neither of those things.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

It's also worth mentioning that there were at least 2-3 different versions of "sun magic" scattered throughout AD&D, none of which did the same thing.

[deaddmwalking]

Did you know that when the Earth moon is full, it is behind the earth relative to the sun? It's true!

I just watched a lunar eclipse a few weeks ago and it is extremely rare for the moon to be obscured by the Earth's shadow in that manner - not enough to shade the moons from sunlight in a meaningful way. I suppose it is possible that none of the Illithid's moons have an orbital plane that differs from the planet's...

If they're trying to avoid the sunlight, they should have just had a planet that was tidally locked with the sun, so the same side is always day and the other side is always night.

[Username17]

Spelljammer's attempts to do "real astronomy" have always been weird and terrible. And when combined with the essential gonzo Space 1889 vibe they had for much of the material, the few times they tried to polish off their slide rules and burnish their nerd cred by doing some astrophysics calculations it was always just "WTF?" Like, the math and physics were almost always wrong, but the underlying question of why we'd be doing any calculations at all was pretty much not addressed. If things are bouncing around crystal fucking spheres and using oared ships in fucking space, we're basically doing things like a heavy metal album cover and operating in complete dream logic anyway.

But the thing I keep coming back to is the general pointlessness of all the huge numbers. Even a single planet, even a single moon is more than enough space for all the D&D adventures you could ever want. And I don't just refer to the oft-used trope of having things in D&D worlds be ludicrously compressed with ancient Liches in the basement of the tavern down the street and lost civilizations within two day's hike to the west. I mean that planets are fucking huge, and even with a semi-realistic density of isolationist cannibals and treasure hoarding dragons you are never ever ever going to run out of vistas to conquer.

Which is not to say that there isn't a purpose to having space travel in your RPG. It's just that said purpose needs to be about things being far away or available in very small numbers. If the characters have traveled from another sun or even another planet you have a very good reason why the characters can't get reinforcements in the middle of the current problem and an even better reason why events in the last adventure don't have splashover effects into the current one. Travel through space also lets characters be unique in the lands they are adventuring in. It lets people have goods and cargo that is precious and effectively irreplaceable.

But all of these narrative tools are completely undermined if you have empires of billions of people being serviced by super ports that see continuous turnover of space cargo. If it's completely normal to find something from another planet on every planet, the different areas might as well be connected by rail. Why have them be different planets at all?

Spelljammer really needed someone to go through and discuss the purpose of any of these setting decisions. As it was, they are a bunch of pretty random choices, and many of them severely undermine the playability and accessibility of the setting.

-Username17

[deaddmwalking]

I think the one reason to have different planets (or different planes) is to have different threat levels cordoned off. If a Kaiju like Godzilla (or the Tarrasque) is going to destroy the entire world, it's nice to have places that he can't get to.

On Earth, we know we'll find different biomes and very few creatures can effectively move from one to another. With fantasy biology, there's no reason a Roc or a Dragon couldn't terrorize a 1st level town, and they posit those as real dangers; but a demon invasion is a whole different level of threat. Putting a million demons on the same world that you start makes it really hard to justify why the world isn't already a hellscape. Putting them on a completely different world with very limited connectivity allows you to have your Demonskars where the threat is contained. You can have your cake and eat it, too - you have threats that PCs get to deal with without destroying any internal logic about why the world hasn't been destroyed already.

[JigokuBosatsu]

a million demons

Why not six billion demons?

[Mord]

Thanks for the Spelljammer reviews. I've always had a soft spot for that particular brand of goofy space fantasy nonsense, so it's nice to be reminded of just how dumb and awesome it can be.