Spelljammer Ideas?

[Malimar]

So I'm considering running a 3.5e Spelljammer 1-shot at an upcoming con.

So my concerns are:
1.) I only know the setting by reputation (D&D IN SPAAAAACE!), I've never actually played in it, so I don't know if I'm missing anything important, and
2.) I've only played a handful of 1-shots in my life, and never run one, so I don't know how to make them interesting.

I'm going to review the 3.5e update to Spelljammer (http://www.spelljammer.org/sj3e/) another few times, but I'm definitely not going to limit myself just to official Spelljammer stuff.

My very rough first draft idea draws heavily on the Mind Flayers of Thoon (MM5), which are like regular mind flayers (which I'm told are a spelljammer staple) but more Far Realmsy and also they have robots:

The PCs begin the game owning or crewing on a small spelljammer. Unbeknownst to them, a crew member (perhaps the navigator) is a Thoon Infiltrator, who leads them right into a Mind Flayer trap. The mind flayer nautilusoid cripples the PCs' ship, so they have to fight their way aboard it, kill some mind flayers (and the treacherous navigator) and their evil robot machines, and take control of the ship. If all goes well, the PCs end the session in control of a mind flayer nautilusoid, which I figure is pretty cool.

Is this idea interesting? Do you think all this can be done in a 3-or-so-hour session? Is it iconically spelljammery enough? Are there any interesting mechanics I can/should bring into this? Will people think 3.5e is a weird choice for a Spelljammer game? Does it need moar Giant Space Hamster?

General thoughts?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Malimar
Is this idea interesting? Do you think all this can be done in a 3-or-so-hour session? Is it iconically spelljammery enough?

I'd have fun playing it, and it certainly seems to qualify as 'jammer enough.

It might end up going much longer than three hours, though, depending on how everything develops. The last time I ran a one-shot, we got through about one-third of what I'd planned for the evening.

:smallfrown:

[Malimar]

Looking at ship battlemaps, I'm thinking to save time, I might use the smaller Illithid Lance, rather than a full-fledged Nautiloid. Or else I'll come up with my own mini-Nautiloid based on the two.


EDIT: The Wikipedia entry on the Giant Space Hamster fills me with so much joy that I can't not include one. Maybe in the illithids' slave/cargo hold.
Tinker gnomes have a strong connection with the giant space hamsters. Hamsters are domesticated, used as both pets and livestock, and are also used to power gnome sidewheelers, an inefficient form of space ship that is powered by a series of gigantic hamster wheels.
Characteristically, the tinker gnomes did not stop there, and continued to breed many forms of hamster, including the sabre-toothed giant space hamster, the carnivorous flying giant space hamster ("a regrettable if understandable line of inquiry"), the fire-breathing phase doppelganger giant space hamster, and the miniature giant space hamster (a dwarf variant, indistinguishable from ordinary hamsters).
The most infamous (and to gnomes, most feared) giant space hamster was "Wooly Rupert," the Tyrannohamstersaurus of Ill Omen.

[Captnq]

Horror.

traveling between the stars, suddenly, they get stuck in some sort of astral doldrum. Nothing is working. All they can do is wait as the ship starts to list to the side. The astral currents will push the ship back into open space eventually. Just need some time.

Then a hole appears in the bottom of the ship.

Something slithers in the darkness. It avoids the light, but the rotating asteroids over head pass shadows over the ship. It strikes from darkness.

Oh, did I mention the ship is being pushed into the shadow of a planet. Total eclipse in.... two days.

Have one of the players get grappled and survive the encounter. Later, something explodes out of his chest and murders everyone.

You know, go with the classics.

[Deathkeeper]

I had a Spelljammer game which alternated between "Game of the Wacky NPCs" and Horrifying Space plot.
Long story short, magic caused strange time loop of elf spirits and the ship reenacting their final battle and mindscrewing anyone who got near into seeing it that way, usually compelled to play the part of the attacking Scro. Which sounds like a pretty normal plot of any Sci-Fi series episode, until my PC broke out via death and resurrection by a plot coupon, and had to walk through the decimated ship as it truly was, stumbling over the bodies to the people who minutes before had been killing him, while still trying to hurry because they can somehow still kill the party (who do not have plot coupons) and eventually having a boss fight with the dark sorcerer captain.
Before and after that, there were Spelljammer helms shaped like Guitar Hero arcade cabinets and powered by high scores, mithril automail, eldritch abomination dogs, six thousand sentient ants controlling a human-sized mech, a lich who would give you advice if you used his jump-rope phylactery for 50 jumps, and half a schooner's worth of undead and evil extraplanars brainwashed into thinking like normal college-age cooking students instead of horrifying CE baddies.
Oh, and the Harrow Deck of Many Things. That was also a thing. So yeah, Spelljammer is really versatile. That was Pathfinder, and the game died only because GitP PbP games kinda suck and we kept having players vanish or leave for stupid reasons.

And if you see this Scowling Dragon, I still want to know what the heck those White Devils on the elf ship were, and what that whale belt did. And what the heck that Azlanti did to earn himself godhood and then immediately get locked in a pocket dimension.

[Malimar]

So, change of plans!

I've decided not to run the one-shot at the con, because running at a con is more pressure than I feel up to taking on right now.

However, a group I game with is close to wrapping up Rise of the Runelords, and they suggested, once we finish it, that I might DM the next game. And I was all, "Well, I have been thinking about Spelljammer a lot lately..."

So it looks like I'm probably going to be running a Spelljammer campaign in Pathfinder (because the group desires more Pathfinder) with 3.5 content available (because that's what I'm most familiar with) in a few months.

I'm going to start them out with a short-ish adventure, and then be all "So that's Spelljammer; would you like to keep playing, or switch to something else? I promise you won't make me feel bad if you want to switch to something else."

At first, I was thinking of using the above-described one-shot as the introduction, but then I decided, no, if it's to potentially be a long-running thing, I'll want it to start at a lower level, probably 3-5, which means no mind flayers. Which means I can, if I so desire, work mind flayers into the plot more gradually.

And, inspired by comments in this thread (also by some horror portions of the adventure paths I've been playing in, and in large part by the "Bushwhacked" episode of Firefly), I'm going to try to balance the preposterous silliness of Spelljammer with some horror.

I think the first thing I'll throw at them is a derelict spaceship of some sort. They dock with the derelict spaceship, head over to investigate, and Horrific Things start happening. (Perhaps at some point, they look out a porthole at where their spelljammer should be, and they discover it's gone!)

tl;dr: Any good Pathfinder encounters that would fit in a wacky/horror Spelljammer derelict-spacecraft adventure?

[Palanan]

The "Bushwhacked" episode of Firefly is exactly what came to mind. You really can't go wrong.

:smalltongue:

[Brookshw]

Well, giant space hamsters really make the setting :smalltongue:

Sounds like a fun idea and your proposition is pretty spelljammer. For a one shot sounds fine. Maybe have the pc's ship get damaged and they're raiding the derelict for parts.

You could do an alien rip off with the ship being infested with kytons, various undead, deactivated robots that once awakened return to their quest to finish whatever war they were created for. There's also neogi or other slaver races.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Brookshw
There's also neogi or other slaver races.

Neogi, definitely--inhabited and controlled by tsochari, for that extra helping of pure rubbery squick.

:smalleek: