SJ Reviews: The Related Products

In my quest to support the delusion that folks care what I think I've 
produced a series of quick and dirty reviews of all the Spelljammer 
products. I hope these will be useful to newcomers and those without 
all of the products.

Rating System:
*= Mediocre, poorly written product with little usefulness.
**= A bad product for several reasons with one or two useful aspects.
***= An average product with some good and some bad points.
****= An above average product with few bad points.
*****= An excellent product with few if any bad points. An essential 
SJ product.

I've limited myself to products I think really influence Spelljammer, 
or are really useful.  I haven't tracked down ever stray product with 
just one mention.

The Related Products:

I, Tyrant
by Aaron Allston (c)1996
Rating:****

Great product that really fleshes out Beholder society.  Though 
Spelljammer-specific content is light, it works wonderfully for 
detailing beholder ships and squadrons, and is very compatible with 
the beholder background provided in Spelljammer products.  Provides a 
detailed beholder city that can be easily transferred to an asteroid 
as a ready-made beholder nation.

The Illithiad
by Bruce Cordell (c)1998
Rating:****

Much like I, Tyrant does for beholders this really fleshes out 
illithid  society.  Spelljammer-specific content is light but if you 
are designing an illithid ship or detailing an illithid world like 
Falx, you'll find a wealth of information here.

Masters of Eternal Night
by Bruce Cordell (c)1998
Rating:**

This is the second module in the companion trilogy to The Illithiad. 
It's basically a groundling Underdark adventure, but it ends with the 
discovery of a nautiloid.

Dawn of the Overmind
by Bruce Cordell (c)1998
Rating:***

Though it lacks the Spelljammer label, this is essentially a 
Spelljammer module.  It involves a trip through wildspace and the 
flow, aboard a captured, ancient nautaloid, to the home sphere of the 
Illithids.


PC1 Top Ballista
by Carl Sargent (c)1989
Rating:*****

This book fully describes Serraine, a flying city of gnomes, 
pegataurs, and other creatures.  It is a must have for any GM wishing 
to use gnomes in his campaign, as with very little tinkering it can 
easily become an asteroid city as interesting and vibrant as the Rock 
of Bral, yet extremely different in flavor and challenges.  Plus, it 
includes some very unique gnomish techno-magic aircraft!  Great stuff.

Champions of Mystara Boxed Set
by Ann Dupuis (c)1993
Rating:****

This set compiles the 'Voyages of the Princess Ark' dragon articles, 
and then expands them with wonderful details on Mystaraspace and 
flying ships.  It includes great deck plans for ships that can be 
easily converted to Spelljammers, or used as is if one considers the 
Mystaran flying ship methods as a spelljamming alternative.  It also 
includes a specific conversion method for Spelljammer and discusses 
how Mystara and Spelljammer interact.  This product is the required 
base for any fan work on Mystaraspace.  Lots of great NPCs and magic 
items as well.  Only complaint is that there are no deckplans for the 
Princess Ark before the sky dragon merges with her.  Highly, highly 
reccomended.

Dungeon Crawl Undermountain: Stardock
by Steven Schend (c)1996
Rating:**

The module's plot is a bit convoluted, but the asteroid Stardock is a 
nice addition to the Tears of Selune, and there is a bit of lore on 
the Tears as well.  Stardock could be easily cannalbalized and placed 
anywhere a GM needs an asteroid lair. 

The Fall of Myth Drannor
by Steven Schend (c)1998
Rating:**

This is an odd product.  It's not really an adventure, nor a 
geographic sourcebook.  Rather it's a chronological sourcebook, 
detailing the conquest of the famous city of Myth Drannor in the 
Forgotten Realms.  It's an elven city, and the description provides 
wonderful baseline details (ranks, ect) that can be extrapolated for 
the Elven Imperial Fleet.  The chronology itself includes a 
description of the IEN's interaction with Myth Drannor and its fall, 
as well as highlighting the vulnerability of spelljammers when used 
as ground support weapons in a high fantasy world.  As an FR product 
I rate this 5 stars, but for Spelljammer it's not quite as useful. 

How the Mighty Are Fallen
by Dale 'slade' Henson (c)1996
Rating:*

This is one of the worst Slade products, which is saying something. 
Even a flow chart (it has one included!) couldn't help this 
adventure.  It does detail 'Yeoman's Loft' Netheril's Spelljamming 
port back in the day.  The description is so poor, however, that I 
still can't tell if Yeoman's Loft is one of the Netherese floating 
cities, or merely a town on top of a mountain.  A major 
disappointment.

FOR5 Elves of Evermeet
by Anthony Pryor (c)1994
Rating:**

This Forgotten Realms product could have used better flavor text and 
tighter editing, but it has some great stuff.  They includes stats 
for Ruathimaer, or 'Starwings', essentially a 50 ton elven men-o-war 
which can land on water, plus the elven totem magic is very cool.  I 
do wish they had included a deckplan for the Ruathimaer.  If you like 
elves, or the Forgotten Realms, worth a buy.

FOR11 Cult of the Dragon
by Dale Donovan (c)1998
Rating:**

Lots of great information on Forgotten Realms dragons, plus some 
really cool dragon-specific spells and magic items.  For Spelljammer, 
it details a dracolich turning herslf into a Spelljammer by grafting 
on parts of a crashed elven man-o-war.  As an FR product alone it 
would have 4 stars.