The Spelljammer campaign setting for official Forgotten Realms campaign setting for D&D, which acts as the location for many published adventures. Spelljammer is unique, in that it allows players to visit all of the D&D campaign worlds, as players have access to a spaceship, and they can sail to familiar lands and unfamiliar shores across the multiverse.
The adventures in Spelljammer are only possible due to spelljammer ships, which have the ability to travel through the vacuum of space while ensuring the survival of the crew. In order to do this, the spelljammer ship requires a magic item, called a Spelljamming Helm, which is a magical chair that is affixed to the vessel. If a spellcaster sits at the helm, then they can control the movement of the ship, guiding it through space. The players act as the crew of their spelljammer, as they use it to explore the universe and go on adventures in alien worlds.
Spelljammer is returning in the Spelljammer: Adventures in Space set, which contains three books with content and rules for the setting. It's unclear what the future holds for Spelljammer, but there's a chance that it could be expanded with more books in the future. If a new Spelljammer campaign is in the works, then Wizards of the Coast should reuse a concept introduced in one of the earlier D&D 5e settings, as it's an ideal fit for Spelljammer.
Spelljammer Takes D&D Campaigns To Outer Space
Spelljammer: Adventures in Space offers D&D groups the entire universe. All it takes is a single spelljammer ship to be able to visit every corner of the D&D multiverse. This isn't to say that the players will survive the trip, as the multiverse is home to many horrors that won't hesitate to devour their ship whole. Spelljammer is home to astral dreadnaughts, murder comets, and ships full of beholders, so players don't have as much freedom as they might believe.
This raises the question of how to make a homebrew Spelljammer campaign? In most D&D games, the players are given a quest and are sent out to accomplish a list of goals, with their potential approaches limited by their characters' powers, wealth, and transportation. In Spelljammer, the players have access to a spaceship and a druid with the powerful D&D goodberry spell can ensure that they'll never run out of food. This drastically shakes up the formula in campaigns where the players have access to their own ship. If they are serving as the crew aboard a spelljammer, then the plot will take them where they need to be, but sooner or later, they will want their own ship and the freedom to explore wildspace.
Tomb Of Annihilation's Blank Map Was A Genius Idea
In 2017, Wizards of the Coast released the Tomb of Annihilation campaign for D&D. The story involves the players arriving on the mysterious island of Chult, following rumors of the discovery of a lost city in the jungle. Finding this city is no easy task, as only the exterior of Chult has ever been mapped, with a single port city being relatively friendly to newcomers. The reason Chult has gone unmapped is due to how incredibly dangerous it island is. In the Tomb of Annihilation D&D campaign, the jungles of Chult are home to roving dinosaurs, under hordes, diseases that rob the senses, all manner of monster tribes, and dangerous monuments to forgotten gods.
There is no better D&D campaign centered around exploration than Tomb of Annihilation. The reason for this is that the book comes with a double-sided poster map that shows Chult. The side of the map that is shown to the player has a blank hexagon map in the center of Chult and the players need to explore this land for themselves, filling out the map as they go. Exploring the island of Chult and uncovering its landmarks is an incredible thrill and it gives players the feeling of being explorers in a harsh and untamed land, as they discover clues that led them closer to the lost city. Tomb of Annihilation also has rules for the map exploration, with players able to explore one hex a day and potentially travel through three while moving, so long as there is a river running through the hexes and they have enough boats for a trip. Some D&D groups use homebrew rules to simplify exploration, but exploring the island is still a lot of fun, and there's almost a sense of disappointment once the players reach the lost city and the campaign becomes more linear.
Spelljammer Should Have A Blank Map Exploration Campaign
The only Spelljammer product that has been announced so far is Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, which has its own adventure book, called Light of Xaryxis. The level range of Light of Xaryxis is 5-8, so it's probably not going to be a lengthy campaign. If Spelljammer is a hit with players, then there will likely be more Spelljammer books released in the future, and with an entire universe to fill out, there's going to be plenty of content for sourcebooks or campaigns. This brings things around to the original point of how to write a D&D Spelljammer homebrew campaign, as the universe is a big place with a lot of opportunities for diversions and for players to go off the rails.
The blank map concept from Tomb of Annihilation is the perfect fit for a Spelljammer campaign. All the players need for setup is to find a map to a previously unexplored part of space and rumors of a great treasure said to be hidden there to set them off onto their mission. The framework of needing to map an unexplored area gives the campaign momentum, as players search each hex for clues and encounter enemies along the way. The region once being home to a magical spacefaring race gives the DM the opportunity to create standard D&D dungeons for the party to explore and to create new D&D alien NPC races to be encountered along the way. As the players zone in on their prize, they start to attract the attention of more familiar threats, and everything from pirates, to mind flayers, to neogi start arriving, and it kicks off a race against time to secure the treasure, before its too late. The blank map concept creates a fantastic framework for exploration in a Spelljammer campaign, rather than offering the universe, but only offering a standard Dungeons & Dragons campaign.
