Re: Bralspace and flow "map"

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Westermeyer" <westermeyer@????????.net>
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 2:29 AM


>>>For one of my resolutions: I resolve to finish both my 'official' 
>>>Spelljammer Phlogiston map and my .pdf Bralspace Sourcebook before July 
>>>4th, 2007.
>>
>>I don't make new years resolutions myself, but would be keen to see a 
>>pholgiston map.
>
> I never have either, really, but I'm using it as a tool this year to get 
> things back in hand.
>
>>If we started to make phlogiston river maps, then we could include a 
>>copies of them with individual crystal sphere webpages and PDFs. So your 
>>Bralspace PDF could have an appendix with all three of the rivers that 
>>flow past it. A DM looking at the maps would be able to see exactly what 
>>crystal spheres they could travel to and where to go to switch to 
>>alternate rivers.
>
> Well, I'm working on 2 different products.  One is my version of Bralspace 
> in .pdf format.

A printable Bralspace sourcebook will be very useful to DMs. You better warn 
Static that his bandwidth is going to take a hit when you give it to him. I 
suppose it is going to be neutral rather than 3e, as from what I recall you 
are still playing 2e.

> The other is the 'official' Spelljammer Flow map.  'Official' in the same 
> sense that my timeline was official, it will _only_ include information 
> from published sources, and will include page citations.  (I call it 'map' 
> but it will include a text description.)  Just like my 'official' timeline 
> the goal is to produce a standard Spelljammer baseline that GMs can then 
> modify as they wish to fit their campaign.

That is fantastic! It is *exactly* what the Spelljammer community needs.

Fans often jumble their own crystal spheres and house rules in with official 
material and we need to create a strictly official version of Spelljammer 
that people can use as a basis for a vanilla campaign or one with a bunch of 
house rules tacked on.

I see crystal spheres (and planets, moons, races and other background 
material) as falling into one of several categories:

Things I see as official
* Stuff in the original boxed set,
* Stuff in the other SJ products (not everyone will have them),
* Spelljammer stuff in other RPG campaign settings (not everyone will know 
about these),
* Stuff in the magazines (lots of people will not have these).

You can't argue with official material. Even the stuff that some people 
think is a big cheesy is part of the Spelljammer universe. This stuff is 
definately cannon. I'd like to see all of this stuff converted to 3.x 
edition.

Things I see as semi-official
* Stuff in the novels (you need to create the crunch to go with the fluff) 
and
* Stuff in the comics (you need to create the crunch to go with the fluff).

I call this semi-official because while it is official material, it takes 
someone like yourself to compile the information into a format that DMs can 
use. Obviously people could debate the accuracy of conversions and material 
used to fill in the blanks. However, the basic structure of this material is 
definately cannon.

Things I see as unofficial
* Material created by fans.

No matter how cool this stuff is it can never be part of Spelljammer cannon.

Its great to have any new content for the Spelljammer universe, but we need 
to be able to tell the difference between the official stuff, semi-official 
stuff and unofficial stuff. If we every have to infer rules from the 
Spelljammer background the only way to do it is to look at the official 
sources and use them to work out the spirit of the rules.

Your map sounds like a fantastic way to get a list of what is actually out 
there.

David "Big Mac" Shepheard
Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/links/d20_system_001071937434/Spelljammer_001071430476
http://www32.brinkster.com/virtualeclipse/