Thanks Brian, that means a lot

Maybe Spelljammer is just fact?

@@HarbsNarbs Wouldn't that be interesting? Ever realm outside of our own is supposed to be the Forgotten Realms anyways right? 😉

You can actually get maps of our celestial sphere, in the form of a globe that shows the direction of the stars relative to the Earth. I've also seen flat versions of this, called a Planisphere, which are optimised to specific parts of the Northern or Southern part of the Earth's sky. Astronomers know that the celestial sphere is not a physical thing now, but it's a convenient model for working out the direction you need to point a telescope in. The old school Celestial Spheres Theory, dates back to the time of Plato, Eudoxus, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, and others. In that theory, the planets had their own transparent spheres, which moved within the outermost sphere (the one with the stars on the inside). So Jeff Grubb took real world theories that fit in closely to the time of legends of dragons...but actually simplified those theories a bit, to make Spelljammer's crystal spheres. The other thing that we have, which is a bit like a sphere around The Sun, is something called the Heliopause. The Heliosphere is the area of space, where plasma, from our Sun pushes outward and displaces the interstellar medium and the Heliopause is the very edge of the Sun's influence. Beyond the Heliopause probes like Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 float in interstellar space. (Having said that, it isn't a perfect sphere, like the ancient celestial sphere model of the universe. It's compressed at the front of the Sun and has a tail behind (like a comet). I'm very grateful that Jeff Grubb used this stuff as inspiration for spelljammer and didn't give us teardrop shaped planetary systems, where a GM would need to track the direction each crystal sphere was moving through the Phlogiston. :)

Jeff Grubb did so much for many different niche subcommunities of tabletop roleplaying.

Ironically, if you are going to read Beyond the Moons, Zeb Cook is the man there! Zeb Cook might have been shuffled off to Dragonlance, to write the Time of the Dragon boxed set, and flesh out Taladas, but he came back to write the first of six Spelljammer novels. I hope you enjoy the novel as much as I did.

Thanks, Suzanne!

Praise be!

It is a shame. I really like the crystal spheres and the Phlogiston, because both are based on real-world abandoned concepts. Chris Perkins previously did 5e lore videos, where he spoke about the crystal spheres and the Phlogiston, so I assumed he would be keeping them. But, I guess that, with the product cut down to three relatively small books, they needed to compress the rules, as much as possible. And I guess that, if they move some stuff over to the Astra Plane (or Astral Sea, as they call it now) they can then recycle that stuff for Planescape games later.

@@DavidShepheard I know their are concerns with some of these releases. Dragonlance..... Spelljammers.....Wizards is choosing to move forward with these without including the original creators at all. Not entirely sure what to make of choices like this, just seems like they are watering more content down and over simplifying stuff.

Depending on how the text in the new books is worded, it may be possible to have both the phlogiston and Astral Plane as exits out of wildspace. I'm prepping a possible gap bridge for my Realmspace project on DMsGuild.

I have to admit, that when I initially heard they were planning on replacing the Phlogiston with the Astral Sea... I wasn't too happy. It seemed that they were trying to take a great concept from the old setting and changing it for what seemed an arbitrary reason. Then I broke out my old copies of the Spelljammer setting. I honestly tried to find a good reason for me to keep this concept in my games should I pick up the 5e Spelljammer... and I honestly couldn't find a good reason. The Phlogiston in the original setting tended to be glossed over for the most part. Rarely did anything ever happen there, even though it could be a fair chunk of a journey. Then there was its flammable nature... something that many of my players (who were used to open flame as a light source) often forgot... with explosive results. Finally, it cut off priestly characters from the deities that granted them their spells... rendering an entire class practically useless for their time in the flow (and the setting wasn't exactly kind to priests as they lost the use of most of their spells when not in their Home Sphere). Then I got out my copy of "A Guide to the Astral Plane" from the Planescape setting to see what it offered as it was being presented as an alternative... and I have to admit that as a location for adventure... it is a lot. Not only is the Astral Plane filled with interesting locations to visit beyond just traveling from one system to another... there are dangers that can make the journey through it a lot more interesting than the Phlogiston had ever been. From Githyanki raiders and Astral Behemoths to the bodies of Dead Gods and so much more, the Astral Plane/Sea is surprisingly diverse. As for the Crystal Spheres themselves... again the concept is an interesting one, but ultimately it added little to nothing to the setting. At its worst it was a barrier that prevented players from making a journey (when they didn't have the right magics to get through it)... while at its best it was just a bit of flavor text that most players rarely noticed. More often than not, the presence of the Crystal Spheres was ultimately ignored as it had little to no mechanical effect on a game... and rarely anything positive for players to care about. Still, it is still possible to keep the visual effect if you wish... at least when viewing Wild Space from the Astral Sea as a growing darkness with twinkling lights (stars) that grows from a distant speck to an unfathomably huge spherical space as one approaches it until it is all one can see (and one passes out of the Astral Sea and into Wild Space). It still adds nothing mechanically, but the cool visual also doesn't add any problems either. Yes, this is a definite change from the old setting, but one that I can see as a potential improvement as it has the potential to deal with many problems the original setting had (and it was those problems that contributed to low sales compared to settings like Dragon Lance, Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk). There is a lot of potential in this change... all that remains to be seen is if the WotC makes good use of that potential.

@@galx5199 100% yes

Just not making theory videos anymore. All theoried out but looking forward to the release!

The ironic thing about crystal spheres, is that they are based on celestial sphere theory, which dates back to cosmological models developed by Plato, Eudoxus, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, and others. That stuff dates all the way back to the 6th century BC, so I think that's why the vibe of it fits in well with the vibe of legendary creatures. Phlogiston, which also comes from an abandoned scientific theory, only dates back to 1667. And there is no real reason to link that theory to the Material Plane outside of the D&D replacement for the celestial spheres, because phlogiston is supposed to be something that is everywhere, inside anything that burns. Phlogiston explosions make sense, but they should be happening on planets. Jeff Grubb has transplanted that out of the real-world and off beyond the edge of the known universe. You are certainly not the only person who has complained about this. Spelljammer included a lot of radical ideas and I often talk about the "I like Spelljammer but..." effect, because I've heard people tell me they like it and then complain about literally every individual element that Jeff Grubb created. :) I'll be interested to see if Chris Perkin's switch to using the Astral Plane (and the dropping of crystal sphere walls, as a control mechanism, reduces that "I like Spelljammer but..." effect. Part of me suspects I'll be seeing a bunch of people saying "I like 5e Spelljammer but..." and then complaining about the Astral Sea or some other thing. You can't please all of the D&D fans all of the time. But I'm looking forward to seeing what 5e can do for us all. You might need to house rule the giff out of any 5e Spelljammer games you run, as 5e has already canonised anthropomorphic hippo men.