Phlogiston rivers, portals and sphere isolation - Was: Whatever happened to the 3.5e conversions to the Spelljammer Spells?

This is a new subject branched off from the Locate Portal conversion
subject. I've repeated the last couple of lines for context:

[snip-snip-snip-new subject]
>> >> > Dreamer wrote:
> Spheres where the river doesn't deliver you near a portal, and
> there are only a few portals on the surface...

I don't think Spelljammer ever explained what made phlogiston rivers flow.
Perhaps an explanation could help gameplay:

One way to help rivers flow near portals (and make things convenient for
players and gamesmasters) would be to rule that portals themselves create
the currents in the phlogiston, with pairs of portals being responsible for
each river. If some sort of phenomenon within a sphere caused phlogiston to
be attracted towards it or repelled away from it then the portals themselves
would create all known rivers. Some phlogiston rivers flow one way and some
flow both ways, so we could suggest that there are three types of portals:

1) positive portals could repel phlogiston (and create/start rivers),
2) negative portals could attract phlogiston (and absorb/finish rivers),
3) neutral portals could both attract and repel phlogiston (acting as
waypoints along rivers).

In a simple one way river (like you get between two of the spheres in the
Radiant Triangle) you have a positive portal in one sphere causing 
phlogiston
to flow to the negative portal in the other sphere. (This works a bit like
an electrical current - although there is no return the rest of a spheres
rivers must balance things out.)

In a simple two way river (where ships can travel in both directions) both
portals can be connected to each other twice. The resulting river can be
oval shaped, with the phlogiston continually going around in a circle.

In multi-sphere long distance rivers (where ships can travel along and hop
off at the sphere of their choice) the river can start at a positive portal,
hop into a neutral portal and then go back into the flow. Unable to return
to its origin, the river can flow onto another neutral portal ,and another
and another, until finally it finds a negative portal and ends.

Various things like sphere distance (or new spells - "Disrupt Flow" perhaps)
could break the rivers and allow them to possibly reform in new directions.
Actually an explanation like this would also go on to justify why spheres
like the Crimson Sphere are hard to find.

If the Crimson Sphere has a low number of portals, then there are much less
places for phlogiston rivers to come into. Alternatively some phenomenon may
have caused some of its neutral portals to circle back on themselves (either
to the same portal or to portals in other parts of the sphere).

"Shorted out" portals would be a major navigation headache, as they would
make you waste time travelling through the flow before dumping you back
where you started ("Hotelcaliforniaspace" anyone? - LOL). They might even be
a better way to isolate spheres than the method TSR used for the Astromundi
Cluster. Imagine a sphere with 1000 portals, where only links to an incoming
river and only one links to an out going river. (You have a 1 in 1000 chance
of picking the right portal to escape the sphere. The only way to get away,
would be to compile an almanac of bad portals to avoid.)

Does anyone think this is a useful idea to pursue? How about you Adam? Does 
this sort of idea fit in with the rest of your Crimson Sphere ideas or does 
it clash? Can you think of any improvements?

David Shepheard
Watford
UK

PS: If this idea is workable, we could create a list of known phlogiston 
rivers (complete with starting portals, stop off portals and end portals). 
Well used rivers can be given names (as I think someone else has already 
suggested in the past). Well used portals can also be named too (perhaps 
after a nearby star  - "Paladine's ear" could be the name of a portal close 
to the head of the constallation Paladine in Krynnspace - I don't remember 
if Paladine's constallation has vanished now, if it has the portal could 
still be there, but harder to find).

Known permanent portals could then be listed on the BtM page for the sphere 
(perhaps as additional astronomical or perhaps as a new section). Portal 
names could link to a new page (in the so far non-existent phlogiston river 
section) that details where that particular river goes.

There are already some rivers documented in TSR material. We can flesh out 
these rivers, given portals names and also add new fan-created rivers.