Welcome to Mystara: Mystaraspace | Dungeons and Dragons 

Spelljammer may have been a mess of a setting, but I loved it's sense of humor. I must have re-read the Complete Spacefarer's Guide Book a hundred times!

Well, I guess I'll ignore Spelljammer for my Mystara game!

Instead of Mystaraspace being in one system-sized crystal sphere, it's in a galaxy-sized one. Doesn't have to be a major galaxy, just a tiny cluster of a few hundred or a few thousand stars, in a ridiculously huge crystal sphere. Kind of like the visible universe-sized sphere that would contain us, only much smaller.

The federation that the Beagle is from, I linked to the happening of the Great Rain of Fire. When the Blackmoor tech blew up, so did the federation tech

Call me Old, but I remember that the Beagle entered Mystara space through a rip in two universes. One of science, essentially our own and one of magic. The ship crashed due to science not really working properly. The A.D&D module "city of the gods", set in Greyhawk gave more details about the fate of the crew. As far as Mystara space being hostile, I've handled that in my game for years. If your flying a locally made sky ship, space is a problem. If you have a spelljammer helm, space is not a problem. In spelljammer cannon there are many spheres that are hostile unless you use a helm. Artifurnaces, Dwarven forges, pool hems all have issues. What I like best about including Basic D&D worlds is how different the game mechanics are. As a DM, describing spheres as unique is aided by subtle changes in characters abilities. Same is true for every other edition. If your party enters Ebberon space, why shouldn't you be governed by 3d edition rules? It's a little used device that can really make space seem strange and dangerous, without to much trouble.

I always thought that the best way to play Spelljammer would be to just take the basic assumptions of what spelljammers and wildspace are, and then make your own multi-verse map, making worlds based on whatever gets the dungeon master's creative juices flowing so that you can write whatever kind of campaign you want and not really care about the official Spelljammer lore (because its kind of a mess anyway). Want to make each world and the societies on them a Star Trek-style philosophical thought experiment that the players can uncover? Want the party to go to Westeros? Want the Orcish Horde from Warcraft 1/2 to be opening portals and invading worlds with massive armies, making the orcs some kind of super-humanoid race that actually displaces other humanoid monsters as well as humans and demihumans because they combine goblinoid-esque numbers with brute strength AND demonic magic, and the spacers just cannot stop talking about the orcs potentially talking over the multiverse, even though the orcs have been kept in the dark about the existence of spelljammers and wildspace? The possibilities are endless...if you're willing to spend time thinking about them.

Mystara needs to be in an alternate material plane from Krynn, Torino, and Oerth.

Just read Martin's recent anthologies 'Old Mars' and 'Old Venus.' Recently written stories using sword & planet style Mars and Venus settings. Might be applicable here; there were several in there that were quite good for inspiration.

6:00 I think it actually got retconned in Wrath that the Beagle went through a Dimensional vortex before it ended up on Mystara which means we can dispense with the whole Galactic Federation thing!

I just decided to split the difference on Thanatos and say 1 hemisphere is the black/death half and the other is the blue/air half. The other best option (to me) is to say that the blue world exists within a pocket dimension that can be accessed via a secret entrance on Thanatos. Possibly created as a bolt hole by the original inhabitants to escape the death cultists that invaded long, long ago.

I'm not the most well versed in spelljammer lore, but, based on the lore from this channel and others, I'd retcon it to say the crystal spheres vary to a greater degree. Some holding one or more galaxies in self contained voids. Others, infact the majority, only have one solar system. And I'd say there's multiple ways to Travers it via portals and different magic and tech methods of ftl. Say that mystara exists in a solar system of a fairly large galactic sized sphere with the federation and other factons way on the other side. And say that ebberion and athus are quarantined by the over gods or something.

Of course Spelljammer & Blackmoor/Mystara aren't going to be compatible. They were written a decade apart and at the time of its conception, the Beagle was never a spelljamming craft, it was and always ahs been a proper sci-fi spaceship. But you can allow regular sci-fi spaceships into a D&D campaign that uses Spelljammer technology. It isn't spelljammer technology, its just... sci-fi technology.

I like your idea for the sphere-warping federation.

The beagles jump drive could take them through the astral plane and deposit them into another crystal sphere.

I kind of prefer 'Knownspace' for the name of Mystara's sphere to go along with the Known World of the setting.

This may have been said - and I know WotI is often “verboten” - however, in Wrath, the Beagle crashes through another dimension. What “Beagle space” may call a dimension may be a crystal in spelljammer. Ultimately though, I’m the DM, I’ll get retcon it myself ;)

This makes me think back to the good old days after spelljammer died but before the 4th edition "everything uses the same cosmology" BS. Sure, the Realms had similar planes to the base setting, but not exactly. Eberron was an interesting take. I even found the base 4e setting's cosmology interesting... until they tried to cram everything else in there, at which point I jumped over the Pathfinder and didn't look back until PF2e ruined what I liked about it so much that 5e's reversion to things I hated from 2e and earlier seemed the lesser evil. Easy way in my mind to handle it: Not every setting is connected sufficiently to allow spelljamming. Perhaps spelljamming has a degree of planar travel involved, with what some call the "prime material plane" is really a cluster of planes, but like an ink blot test, what things look like depend on where you are. So FR, Greyhawk, and Dragonlance might be close enough in a cosmological sense that you can bop in from Sigil or by spelljamming. Eberron and Mystara are largely cut off, so far off that the normal planar concepts don't line up (looking odd, in Eberrron's case, cut off in Mystara's). Dark Sun and Ravenloft are just completely off the grid. I can see Mystara and Dark Sun being switched depending on specifics of the settings.

So your telling me a john carter knock-off could be a legal character in Mystera?

Spelljammer sound fun d&d 1950s science fiction style! Neat! (I'm also a Welch high five! )

Oh hey thats the Zargon art from Cha'alt

Yeah, I, uh...no. Spelljammer was never my bag, and I mostly hated what it tried to do to the setting worlds. Krynn is krynn. Mystara is mystara.

I just put it outside of the crystal spheres in another universe all together. That is what I usually do. It is in my own universe which has no crystal spheres.

Aww yeah!

Would be interested in your take on the Dragon magazine rewrite of spelljammer during the 3rd edition.

Did anyone else giggle when he said Uranus?

So how should we codify Mystaraspace for 5th edition? Also thank you for the welsh

SPELLJAMMER IS BACK! Time for an update! How would Mr Welch make it work with the new version? Now is the time to remake it. And now you HAVE a complete re-write happening!

Wow...I see why you didn't want to do this one. It is a mess.

Ah... the poll is not up yet? Or am I just not seeing it yet? Either way, Thank You Mr. Welch!

You running the 5th edition conversion of the Lost City?

Welch, are you on any of the the OSR MeWe?

What was the image before baby Ron Pearlman from?