In my quest to support the delusion that folks care what I think I've decided to start doing a series of quick and dirty reviews of all the Spelljammer products. I hope these will be useful to newcomers and those without all of the products.
Rating System:
| * | Mediocre, poorly written product with little usefulness. |
| ** | A bad product for several reasons with one or two useful aspects. |
| *** | An average product with some good and some bad points. |
| **** | An above average product with few bad points. |
| ***** | An excellent product with few if any bad points. An essential SJ product. |
These articles detail the illithid controlled world of Ssirik Akuar. Though conflicting in some details with later works on illithids, the article is very useful. "Sunset World" is really a short story detailing an exploratory trip to the world through planar means, the world could easily be set within a Crystal Sphere. "The Dragon's Bestiary" provides stats for some of the flora and fauna on the planet, an excellent resource for GMs with jaded players, since some of the creatures therein are found nowhere else. Great stuff, very atmospheric and very useful.
This 1st edition article details a shipping company on the astral plane, run by a 24th level mage with maximum psionic powers. It is extremely over powered, but with some adjustments the shipping company could easily be transformed into a spelljamming shipping company. Also, the voidjammer illustration would be excellent inspiration for spelljamming ship design. Finally, the "voidjammers" are powered by illithid brains, the ship engine could be modified into a type of spelljammer helm.
These articles deal extensively with space travel in the D&D universe. Nearly all of this material was reproduced and expanded in the Champions of Mystara boxed set. Spelljammer is discussed, as well as the way that Spelljammer and Mystara relate to each other. Excellent stuff, the rakasta are particularly interesting. And the picture of the Princess Ark sailing above the world is excellent. I wish they had published deckplans of the first version of that ship!
The article deals primarily with Ioun stones, and includes the origins of ioun stones in their original source (the writings of Jack Vance). Presents a nice adventure hook and idea for Arcane, gnomes, and Elmarin. Wildspace trade in Ioun stones would be an interesting addition to any sphere.
I love Moore's work, he footnotes! Great article on magical firearms across the AD&D and D&D settings. He covers Spelljammer, of course, but he also covers the other settings, which is also extremely useful for Spelljammer. Along with the lore, he provides information for magical guns, something badly needed in the Spelljammer universe!
This article has stats for Jasmine (Jas), the winged woman from the Spelljammer comics. She's described here as a fighter, though she originally seemed more thief-like. But the article is by her original creators, so it can be assumed to be authoritative.
"A town destroyed, young elves kidnapped. Will your continent be the next to fall to the superior firepower of Talangran?"
This excellent adventure actually would work better as a spelljamming adventure. Simply give the ship's of Talangran helms! Otherwise, it's excellent, with a well detailed, powerful ship that might, or might not, be used as a foe of the PCs.
"Someone or something still waits within the catacombs."
Basic dungeon crawl that contains an Arcane NPC, albeit in the magic broker role, rather than as helm merchants. There are a couple Arcane specific spells, though neither is particularly interesting.
"An undersea menace has the merchants of Scalabar up in arms."
A decent adventure with a gnomish device and some spelljamming connections. Scalabar makes a nice spelljamming port to place on an SJ-aware groundling world. There's lots of good ideas in this adventure that can be expanded on well.
