Changing my mind, yep.

Spelljammer is fun and all, but now that I think about it I do like Planescape more. Guess it was all the long-distance travel stuff I was reading. As interesting as the basic idea is I will admit that there isn’t a whole lot of variety in travel between crystal spheres in Spelljammer. Which is kind of hilarious since I doubt there would be much long distance travel in the game I will be running. Which is a argument to not run a Spelljammer game I suppose. Time to break out all my Planescape stuff to get inspired. That and put away all the sandbox and hex mapping stuff I was reading because it won’t actually be all that useful. Guess it just depends on what I think the actual game will cover and pick something that will fit that, instead of thinking one thing is cool and then having to fit the cool idea to the group/game.

 

Spelljammer travel

Game content continues. Today going to be typing up my basic idea for long-distance travel for Spelljammer ships. I haven’t read ponyfic in like a week. I hardly recognize the world I’m living in! Do plan to do more of that sometime soon. Just fighting against the depression is taking other paths at the moment. So now onto wooded ships shaped like fish traveling between the crystal spheres that contain solar systems!

 

Elves

Elves in my Spelljammer campaign setting:

Elves are master artisans and artificers. Being practically immortal and living for thousands of years, they spend centuries perfecting a single style of painting or specific type of golem construction. They even manage to stay mostly free of mutation while being so magical, mostly by using long ritual magics that channel magical energy safely, but also because the elves are the race that created the first magi-tech replacement parts. Golem-like limbs and parts that are melded to living creatures to let them handle greater magical power without risking mutations.

Tall and slender from the weaker gravity they prefer on their ships and outposts. Which results in elven warriors being graceful and fast. Anyone not used to elven gravity will be at a disadvantage on elven ships and outposts. Most elves live their entire lives on ships or far outposts and see very little sun, so they become pale-skinned. Elves are very similar physically, almost no difference in build or height between them because they see no point in having variation from what they consider the best body. Each family bloodline has their own color and style of dress, so it is easy for even outsiders to tell the difference between individuals of different bloodlines. Elves also like to use hair color and makeup, using them in place of deeper physical differences.

Relations with other races:

They do not have much respect for the ‘lesser’ races. Being immortal and obsessed with the perfection that hundreds of years of training allows makes them more then a little arrogant. Most aren’t evil, just uncaring about the struggles that come with more limited lifespans. Which is best demonstrated by the fact that artificers like to ‘hire’ people from the other races as experimental subjects to try new golem magi-tech parts on. Often taking apart the subject and mucking about with installing various artificer trinkets inside them as well. After doing this the subjects are paid and forgotten about, no real thought given to them after the experiment is over.

Draconians are considered somewhat worthwhile because they live long enough to become somewhat skillful. With a lifespan of several hundred years a draconian smith or sorcerer will have attained a level of skill close to the average elf master. Some elves even seek out the oldest to learn from them, bringing back that ‘exotic’ viewpoint back and using it to build their reputation.

Elven society:

Having lifetimes of thousands of years on average has given the elves a mix of static and creative culture. Static in that elves consider there are specific ways to do things correctly and only a crude savage would do things in any other fashion. On the other hand elves are very individual and often have tastes and pursuits that are very different from each other and therefore elves like to gossip about each other, but very rarely judge. They have no equivalent of what humans call a ‘scandal’, but elven society does enjoy a juicy piece of gossip simply because it is interesting. The most common ‘perversion’ among the elves is a taste for spending time with ‘lesser’ races, either simply sleeping with them or spending a few decades in a marriage. Those that enjoy human (or some other mortal race) partners have no problem finding people to spend time with. Even the average elf has literally more experience with lovemaking and relationships then a human’s natural lifespan.

Children:

Elves do not breed and have children like other races do. They are not entirely biological creatures and their method of reproduction only heightens this fact about them. Instead of kids coming from having sex with the opposite gender, elves can only have children using a magical ritual. It really is more like brewing a mystical potion then what most races consider being pregnant.

Takes a large (cauldron sized) glass container that is filled with a number of rare, exotic, and magical ingredients and mixed together. Both parents have to do a daily ritual/spell over the mixture and add some of their blood. A single parent can do this, or can continue by themselves if one of the two original parents is lost. Other races can even perform the ritual if they have the focus and dedication to follow a hour-long series of gestures and words perfectly once a day for months at a time, maybe even years.

 

Swords & Wizardry Houserules

This is the set of houserules I like, and rules as written (RAW), that I think are important, for Swords & Wizardry. I plan to use the below rules in any game I run in the foreseeable future and think they make a pretty good addition to any S&W game. This will be updated as I find new rules I really like. Or figure out bits of the RAW that are getting overlooked.

 

Death Frost Moon

A place of death and horror. Rumors are everywhere about it. All anyone knows for certain is that a death cult has been found there time and time again, coming back years, decades, or even centuries after the last time they were exterminated. The last great purge of it was during the  peak of the last human empire and nobody has gone to check it out since.

Seers and prophets have been getting visions and dreams of the place. They claim that dark forces are gathering there once more and that if not stopped the evil there will be unleashed once more. Pretty much everyone dismisses this as the ranting of crazy people. Nobody in their right mind would go anywhere near that moon. Even the insane Githyanki stay far away from the patch of thin phlogiston that surrounds that crystal sphere.