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A perfectly normal box, go ahead and reach right in!

Tomb of Horrors

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Queen Marlena's from Boise

so, you know, they oughta.

TMNT Crossovers

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Joy Ann Reid said recently that this whole thing is an effort to keep Kamala Harris from running in 2028.

How many people do you think wouldn't vote for bidens replacement but would vote Biden? Would be surprised if any. We know there are people who would vote for anybody but biden, so shouldn't we want Biden to drop out ASAP to get more voters? What am I missing here

There’s no guarantee and no indication that anyone who replaces Biden will see an increase in support or beneficial media coverage, and none of the proposed replacements come close to doing as well as he does against Trump, which is the one consistent thing with the polls.

It also opens the democrats up to a lot of challenges and risks by the republicans to fuck with ballots and candidacies, and would create a serious issue with campaign donations and funding.

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There's at least one fan made B/X Companion out there!

BX or BECMI?

This one's a bit tricky. I'd probably say B/X because it's the more coherent system, simple and clean. It'll take you from a starting adventurer to a big deal lord of the land just fine, though it was never finished as the planned Companion volume was released for BECMI instead.

That being said, there's something to just how nutty BECMI gets, especially once you start adding in supplementary materials like the Gazetteers. It's just too bad they couldn't really figure out thieves past level 14.

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t4t (teratomorph for teratomorph)

They're dropping the sequel to HRT which turns you into a beast or creature of some sort

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Gawd, every time the Rapture Revolutionaries come across my dashboard, I speedrun the whole Christian "faith versus works" argument.

People insisting they're going to tear up the entire foundations of the economy and politics at any moment in a glorious revolution when the most revolutionary thing they've done in their lives is stand under a slightly edgy banner that one time.

You know what? It ends up sounding a lot like excuses not to do anything at all - but I guess it helps them to feel superior whilst blaming everyone else for their particular brand of not delivering anything to help anyone.

The one thing Starmer and keyboard commies have in common? Neither will lift a finger to actually change the status quo no matter how much they bleat about change.

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Hammerhead by Brom

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Georgia Schmidt, Carole Shelyne, Serena Sande, Meg Wyllie, & Sandra Lee Gimpel

A tribute to some lesser-known women of Star Trek :)

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Dr. Manhattan isn't wearing a mask, but then he is hairless and several shades of blue. And he doesn't have another identity anymore.

The women aren't even wearing masks...typical.

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MIND BLAST!!!!

Illithids and Gith are from the most batshit wackypants setting in D&D and you want me to believe I should take them super seriously and be afraid? Y'all talk about Lae'zel being from a very super srs grimdark place but you have to remember something real important about the Astral Sea: It's a B-movie.

it's where the illithids and gith come from but we also have giant hamsters, hippo people that all sound like blustery English explorers and love explosions, vampirates, jawas in the shape of rainbow penguins, and fuckin SPACE CLOWNS.

I'm sorry I can't take the idea that the illithids and gith are 'zomg so scary srs bznss' seriously because of ::gestures:: all of that.

This isn't Space designed by Lovecraft and HR Giger.

This is Space designed by Weird Al and Jim Henson.

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Come over here within 60 ft of me and say that.

Illithids and Gith are from the most batshit wackypants setting in D&D and you want me to believe I should take them super seriously and be afraid? Y'all talk about Lae'zel being from a very super srs grimdark place but you have to remember something real important about the Astral Sea: It's a B-movie.

it's where the illithids and gith come from but we also have giant hamsters, hippo people that all sound like blustery English explorers and love explosions, vampirates, jawas in the shape of rainbow penguins, and fuckin SPACE CLOWNS.

I'm sorry I can't take the idea that the illithids and gith are 'zomg so scary srs bznss' seriously because of ::gestures:: all of that.

This isn't Space designed by Lovecraft and HR Giger.

This is Space designed by Weird Al and Jim Henson.

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Spelljammer Concepts

Because I’m eyeing the books about to come out in August, and because I love me some space fantasy so much. So. Some character concepts:

An aasimar aberrant mind sorcerer who was conceived/altered when their parent’s vessel passed too close to the dreaming corpse of a dead god in the Astral Sea and whose crew only realised what they must have drifted near when they were born

A ‘space walk’ marine/salvage/pirate crew consisting of people who don’t need to breathe (warforged, autognomes, dhampir, reborn) or can hold their breath for a really long time (air genasi, tortles, plasmoids, possibly lizardfolk but that’s cutting it very tight), so they specialise in airless boarding and salvage manoeuvres

A dubiously sane outlander/hermit character who’s been stuck on a barely-habitable asteroid/shipwreck for decades and is alarmingly eager to see civilisation again (fun options: barbarian, artificer, warlock)

A space druid from a serenely drifting biodome/series of biodomes that are all that remains of the ecosphere of a destroyed world (any subclass, but spores might be very interesting for the whole ‘recycling’ aspect, and wildfire might be frowned on in an oxygenated biodome floating in an airless void – could be a good reason why you’re no longer on the dome, though)(hands up who also watched Silent Running)

A warforged/autognome who escaped the hellish cathedral ship of a master who sought to make a mindless/soulless automaton vessel with which to sail into the Far Realms and back (hands up who’s seen The Black Hole and/or Event Horizon)

A sage/scholar of the Astral Archive, a legendary celestial library floating in the Astral Sea, hollowed from a vast asteroid and barred by great golden doors, in which the lost works of a thousand worlds are salvaged and stored (possibly they were lost on their respective worlds because you stole them for said library, but you know how these things go)

A changeling, a space flim-flammer and confidence artist, who is running from their clan who just happen to be the origin of at least some of those stories of creatures stowing away on vessels in order to slowly kill and replace the crew one by one (there is at least one vessel flying out there where the clan literally did this, one or two more coming aboard at each stop and port until the whole ship had been taken over and the previous crew, except for one or two rumoured survivors, all dead and in the hold). Naturally you don’t tell anyone any of this. It’s a good way to get yourself stranded on an asteroid out of paranoia

And, following on from some of those, some location and adventure concepts for things you might find floating in wildspace/the Astral Sea:

The Astral Archive, a mythical celestial library floating in the Astral Sea

The Forged Grove, a druid grove and biodome containing the salvaged remnants of a lost ecosystem

The Telleril Conclave, a once-a-century gathering where all the biodomes and druid circles of the lost world of Telleril come together

The Swansong, a vast and eerily silent spelljamming vessel that, upon boarding, appears to be inhabited solely by grim and disinterested constructs … until one reaches the helm and the captain’s quarters, and the maddened master that inhabit them

Livyatan, the gargantuan, city-sized corpse of a dead whale god, floating frozen and calcified in the Astral Sea, rimed in ice and the dust of dreams, in whose flooded and hollowed innards strange waters flow and even stranger creatures dream

One Tree Island, an absolutely miniscule asteroid platform on which a single tree maintains just enough of an air envelope to support a tiny shack and one extremely lonely and mildly insane hermit

The Stargasst Eddy, a vast conglomeration of wrecked spelljammers and astral vessels that, according to various rumours, is either the remnants of some massive long ago battle, or a cursed eddy in the Astral Sea where a nearby portal to the Far Realm causes strange psychic storms to periodically wreck vessels in the vicinity. Widely considered haunted and extremely cursed, but also so very ripe for salvage …

And one last one just for me:

Panopticon, a partially destroyed beholder cityship, a hollowed metallic asteroid ruled over by the maddened Council of Five, the sole survivors (and possible instigators) of whatever event saw the death of every other beholder in the city, who pilot their maddened vessel onwards in search of something, picking up unwilling passengers and stowaways as they go

Space fantasy is such a fun genre …

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Jorphdan previews the Spelljammer ship minis available for pre-order from Wizkids.

This (first?) wave includes:

Turtle Ship

Scorpion

Astral Dreadnought -- A monster first featured on the cover of the AD&D Manual of the Planes, and included in every edition since.  Earlier versions were known as the ethereal dreadnought.

Lamprey

Giant Gelatinous Cube -- This thing has got to be even easier to run away from in space, right?

Hammerhead

Esthetic -- The reason Jorphdan couldn’t find a ship card for the esthetic is because it’s technically a creature.  It’s included in the Monstrous Compendium Spelljammer Appendix I (MC7), and is created and flown by the reigar, who also have an entry in that book.

Three generic Asteroids -- Useful for set dressing.  Turn them around, let’s see if any of them have mouths!

Megapede -- Another monster on a ship scale.  The megapede was first published for Dark Sun, in Monstrous Compendium Dark Sun Appendix -- Terrors of the Desert (MC12).  I have lost count of the number of Dark Sun originated monsters that have been previewed for this upcoming Spelljammer set.  I think it’s five or six, now.

Wasp -- My post on the Wasp is here.  It’s a fairly sturdy ship, but in OG Spelljammer you had to salvage it or take it from the lizardfolk if you wanted one.

Living Ship -- I have no idea what this is.  It’s probably new.

Space Galleon

Bombard

Squid Ship

Ancient Gold Dragon

Shrike Ship

Star Moth (Elvish Man-O-War)

Ancient Solar Dragon

Ancient Lunar Dragon

Damselfly -- The damselfly is indeed a variation of the Dragonfly ship.  It’s an upgrade, to be honest, made of ceramic, fully enclosed, and with crew reduced to two.  It’s a gamble to try and board a random Damselfly, because you can’t tell what the crew is made of unless they come outside to fire their weapon(s) at you.

Adult Red Dragon

Swarm of Murder Comets

Tyrant Ship -- Tyrant ships are discussed here and beholders are discussed here.  I really, really want to see how they will handle beholders, seeing as a single beholder is already a CR 13 legendary creature, and really complicated to run.

Cosmic Horror -- Ia! Ia!

Flying Fish (Tradesman) -- Discussed here.  A step up from a beginner ship.

Nightspider (Neogi Deathspider) -- Neogi are discussed here.  A Deathspider is not for the weak of heart, or high of THAC0.  I expect that the Nightspider will be largely similar, although neogi no longer automatically come with umber hulk bodyguards.

Nautiloid

Also on offer are two battlemats, one for Wild Space and one for the Astral Sea.

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Okay kids, strap in. Uncle Spy has some worldbuilding to lay on ya.

So the new Spelljammer 5e was announced a few months back, releasing in August (it's just turned June as I write this). Since then my friend and I have been gushing about it and planning some stuff around it, but one of the things that always struck me as disappointing about original Spelljammer was how... boring the Forgotten Realms solar system (Realmspace, where Abeir-Toril lies) was. It's much smaller than our solar system: eight planets, and only one of those is explicitly a giant planet (Coliar, said to be a "gas giant" but really more like a small ice giant). Two of them (Garden and H'Catha) aren't actually planets either, just constructs the size of dwarf planets. Two other planets are just ocean worlds, one with a sargasso sea around its equator and the other full of rocky atolls. Only two planets have any moons at all, to boot. Simply put: there's not a lot to look at, really. I'm hoping the new Spelljammer canon will retcon this and give Toril a larger, more varied solar system with more giant worlds and moon systems.

HOWEVER, there's another factor at play here. I made a character who's a space bard, directly inspired by all the filk I've been listening to lately. The problem is... a good chunk of that filk either A) uses names (planets, programs, people, etc) specific to real life space exploration and/or B) is rocketpunk instead of sailpunk like Spelljammer is intended to be. That got me thinking... I'd had a vague idea for a rocketpunk alt-Toril in the back of my mind for a while –a universe where the magical beings of the Forgotten Realms had reached the stars not through magicked-up sailing ships with atmosphere bubbles, but through magicked-up classic rockets– and this seemed like the perfect excuse to deploy that idea and start hammering it into a more coherent shape.

All of this added up to... well, something! Behold, my attempt to have my cake and eat it too: Terraspace.

This map was made using the template/assets developed by DeviantArt user slimysomething.

Terraspace is a fantasy version of our solar system within the wider Spelljammer setting where elves and dwarves and beastfolk all sing the rocketpunk blues. The Apollo Program exists as part of their history, but Apollo 13 was fine because of hasty Purify Air enchantments and some innovative abjuration. Dragons funded the Space Race. That sorta bullshit. Also, spiced up the solar system with a little idealism, as you can see; part of that was also me leaning into old Golden Age pulpy SF concepts like Jungle Venus and Pyramids of Mars. I don't thhhhhhink this counts as a new worldbuilding project,,, yet? Stay tuned I guess.

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Spelljammers:  Gnomish Sidewheeler

The silliest aspects of an emanently silly version of Dungeons & Dragons start with the gnomes, who get a raw deal in the Lorebook of the Void.  The gnomish sidewheeler is built of scrap and salvaged starships, and has often been wrecked and rebuilt.  Because these ships don’t belong to just any gnomes.

Oh no, these belong to tinker gnomes.  Native to Dragonlance, tinker gnomes love to invent all kinds of things and have no concept of lab safety.  They are constantly rebuilding their starships, even while flying through space, and always have some potentially dangerous project in development which never seems to result in any lasting harm to them.

Sidewheelers are slow but reliable, except when it comes to landing.  The gnomes will have inevitably built the ship out beyond the length of its landing struts, or left a water hull full of holes, such that there is a 50% chance of a crash any time they attempt to land.  Some crews give up on landing altogether, and simply abandon ship when they reach their destination, flying down in smaller ships or lifeboats.  This causes the sidewheeler to crash anyway, but the gnomes gamely put it back together.

This ship is definitely powered by a spelljammer helm.  The gnomes would probably talk at length about the benefits of the side wheel, but it has no mechanical contribution to the stats of the ship.

The sidewheeler is a 30 tonner, meaning it can haul 15 tons of cargo and accommodate 30 Medium creatures.  The gnomes each count as half a person for the purposes of air consumption, so they can really pack in the crew.  The ship handles poorly but its speed is determined by its pilot. 

Sometimes gnome crews pack the ship to the rails with weapons.  It can haul 15 tons of weapons, all told, usually following some kind of theme, and can mount two rams, one fore and one aft.  Any weapons the gnomes can’t crew, they count as spares.  These juggernauts usually advertise with lots of light spells to draw attention to their weapons, but some of them are disguised and look unarmed until they close to range.

On the other end of the spectrum, some crews strip even the hull plating off their sidewheelers, raising its maneuverability but ditching any sort of cover.  They use nets to hold cargo in place and sleep in hammocks.  These speed clippers cannot make any sort of safe landing.

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Spelljammer Monsters:  Scavver

Scavvers are sharklike spaceborne life.  They drift through Wildspace in a dormant state until they encounter an air envelope, whereupon they revive and try to find something to eat.  They avoid large planets, because flying in their atmospheres takes too much effort.  They broadly fall into four categories.

Gray scavvers are the smallest, being around 6 feet long and primarily scavengers.  They are little threat to spacers, but they use up fresh air, so no one wants them around anyway.  Their meat lacks flavor, but at least you can eat ‘em.

Brown scavvers are pure scavengers, and will flee combat for a little while, only to drift back around.  These guys are poisonous.  They’re about ten feet long, big enough to count as Large, and can swallow a Medium or smaller creature whole.  Their gullets can hold one Medium creature or two Small creatures, and are full of poison.  Poison is one of the few sources of genuine Save Or Die in AD&D, and folks swallowed by a brown scavver have to save vs. poison or die in 3 rounds.  They can pass the time by trying to carve their way out.  Brown scavvers can also regurgitate a cloud of their poisonous bile once a day.  Anyone caught in the cloud must save at +3 or die in 3 rounds.  Anything that eats brown scavver meat must save or die in 3 rounds.  Only gray scavvers are dumb enough to eat brown scavver meat on their own.  Oh, and here’s a fugu joke, ha-ha, about the Shou eating carefully prepared brown scavver dishes.

Night scavvers are 15 feet long, black with white speckles along their backs, and are stubborn enough to cruise the open deck of a starship if there’s only a few people on deck, looking for food.  They can swallow people whole like the brown scavver, but they aren’t poisonous, and they are both omnivorous and not too bright, so their gullets are full of trash, like a shark’s stomach might be.  The contents of a night scavver’s stomach might include a few coins, or maybe a ring.  Night scavvers are delicious, and crews make every reasonable effort to catch them when they can, so these treasures stand a good chance of seeing the light of day again.

The void scavver is the stuff of nightmares and legends.  It is a man-eater, and ignores any sort of food that won’t scream.  They are 20 feet long and pitch black.  They attack every other kind of scavver in an effort to protect their food source, but they won’t eat the brown scavver.  Void scavvers are savvy enough to find a lair within a Wildspace vessel or asteroid base and venture forth to pick off prey, staying unnoticed for as long as possible.  They can swallow a human whole on an 18, 19 or 20, and their stomachs are full of scavver poison, but they can’t expel it like the brown scavver can.    Spacers scare each other with tales of giant void scavvers who tear whole starships apart and eat the crew.