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Forums: Helping Hand > Spelljammer - Is it considered canonical?

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I've recently been reading through some old Spelljammer source books. I've noticed a few discrepancies with later Realms lore, but nothing major. Then I saw some topics here on the wiki listing entries with Spelljammer information as possibly non-canonical. What's the deal? Is there an official policy on this content?
TheBinder 07:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC) TheBinder
I don't believe so...I was under the belief that Spelljammer was a whole other universe unto itself, like Planescape. Wikipedia confirms that. The canonical stuff is pretty much Forgotten Realms books, video games, and the D&D books, which are set in the Forgotten Realms by default.
Zekkie 23:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The unofficial policy is that Spelljammer stuff is not suitable for the wiki because it can be considered a different 'world' much like how you might say you could reach the Greyhawk world by planar travel from the Forgotten Realms. There is no official policy on the matter, so if you would like to submit a proposal either way, please feel free to create a proposal, which will then be discussed further, or simply discuss further here.
Fw190a8 23:49, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm. Specifically, the accessory Spelljammer: Realmspace seems like it could almost be taken as canon, since it details the Crystal Sphere (solar system) of Toril. It doesn't seem like its a separate world, it just explains how to spelljam to other campaign settings like Grayhawk (Oerth) and Dragonlance (Krynn). Thoughts?

On a side note - is there a listed spell that can transport a character from one campaign setting's material plane to another campaign setting's material plane? The only possible candidate I can think of is the 2nd edition: Worldwalk spell. It can be found on page 67 of Forgotten Realms Adventures.

TheBinder 07:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC) TheBinder
Also, with the advent of 3rd edition Forgotten Realms planes / realmscape was totally revamped. And a lot of the small campaign settings (like spelljammer) were discontinued as a product line. Therefore I think it's hard to find any solid rules for how (if at all) the Realms are linked to the Spelljammer at present. I know a lot of source books have small quips like "this city/whatever is a favorite destination port for spelljammers" or something to that effect, but that's about it.

Heck, as far as I can understand there's a novel where a Kender (think Dragonlance) manages to get into the Realms, so yeah.. Confusing, and I think the writers at Wizards manage to confuse themselves too.

Zerak talk 15:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
According to the 2E supplement Elves of Evermeet, there are some spelljammer ships in Evermeet.
SkyeNiTessine 18:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
TSR spent ages tying together all different settings, but then WotC tried to create unique cosmologies. A lot of people think this breaks the connection between Spelljammer and Forgotten Realms (and Greyhawk and Dragonlance). I don't agree. The new cosmology might cause problems for relationships between Planescape and Forgotten Realms, but Spelljammer always had built in mechanisms to separate the different campaign settings.

The main rule of Spelljammer is that the influence of gods ends at the crystal sphere. So within Realmspace the gods of Forgotten Realms (including the gods of Maztica, Al-Qadim and Kara-Tur) are in control and in other crystal spheres they are not in control. If the planes change for Forgotten Realms 3e, they can change for all of Realmspace. Each crystal sphere can easily have its own cosmology. This isn't something that WotC have developed, they have pretty much ignored Spelljammer. But they have never said it no longer exists.

Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting actually supports the existance of Spelljammer (and Kara-Tur, Maztica and Al-Qadim). Read the section called The Sea of Night on pages 230-231.

There are some older Forgotten Realms products that also have specific Spelljammer references:

Forgotten Realms Accessory: Gold & Glory mentions Code Helm, Emerald Brotherhood, The Enforcers and The Gauntlet. Four mercenary groups found in Realmspace.

Dungeon Crawl: Undermountain--Stardock is an adventure that starts in the tunnels below Waterdeep and then takes the players through a portal to one of the Tears of Selune called Stardock.

Arcane Age Accessory: Cormanthyr - Empire of the Elves mentions opposition to the Netherese spelljammers by Cormanthyr and the Elven Imperial Navy and also the Elaorman ritual used to create elven crystal spelljamming ships.

Arcane Age Boxed Set: Netheril - Empire of Magic includes information about the Neteril spelljamming ships and spells to permantly seal crystal spheres and create ships that travel at double spelljamming speed.

I'm sure there are other FR products with hidden SJ references in. I suggest you check them all before you make a decision, as excluding Spelljammer would invalidate all the products that mention it.

Check out Beyond the Moons's products page for more information about Forgotten Realms products with SJ references in them.

I believe that the biggest problem beween Forgotten Realms canon and Spelljammer canon is that one of the Forgotten Realms products (I can't recall which at the moment) says that the Rock of Bral is one of the Tears of Selune and this conflicts with the Cloakmaster Cycle novels that put Bral in Spiralspace.

David Shepheard 17:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the very informative post, David. I checked out that Sea of Night reference you mentioned and you are correct. It really does make a sneaky reference to spelljammer in the FRCS, which I'm sure most would agree to be a canon abundant source.
TheBinder 07:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
All those references were just good to ignore, so I created the Spelljammer in the Realms article. It gives a quick rundown of the geography, history, and current spelljamming powers in Toril, with links to other existing Spelljammer article(s). I've got quite a few good page references to the sources mentioned so far, but there's still a lot to add, so please feel free to contribute!
SkyeNiTessine 04:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
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