I do not believe that WOTC would license anything out under the GSL in the same way they did the OGL, but since I am a long term fan of DL I would be willing to grasp at straws and suspend disbelief even if you just wanted to start a rumour that this is happening.

Long Live the Lance.

Having studied Spelljammer canon a fair amount (while working out what sort of structure I need to create for Spelljammer Wiki) I have worked out that there is a shortage of material for Spelljammer. As a concept, the Spelljammer universe consists of a large number crystal spheres bobbing in The Phlogiston (with the Cloakmaster Cycle novels actually hinting at the actual magnitude of the Spelljammer universe).

The setting that the AD&D Spelljammer products created is bigger than any other D&D campaign setting (with the possible exception of the Planescape Campaign Setting). But sadly, the size of the product line means that the amount of detail on each of those locations is far lower than most other D&D campaign settings (again with the possible exception of Planescape).

The Spelljammer universe has never been properly described in a single product, but I believe the concept of the SJ universe is a core of Known Spheres, where localised groups of humans have recently taken the lead over the Elven Navy, surrounded by a frontier, where spacefarers from the Known Spheres are less aware of what societies they will encounter when they visit one of the worlds. There are isolated spheres, like the Astromundi Cluster, that have been cut off from the rest of the universe for centuaries. And there are multi-sphere empires, like the Vodoni Empire, outside the trade routes of the Known Spheres.

I believe that the sheer size of the Spelljammer universe, in proportion to the quantity of existing Spelljammer canon, means that a 3rd edition Spelljammer Campaign Setting project, just can not afford to ignore *any* source of Spelljammer lore. The Spelljammer universe is everything you mentioned…and more. It has to include the locations from all of the 2e products, otherwise a GM will not be able to use the old adventures so easily. And it has to include the locations from Shadow of the Spider Moon, because that gives the GM a new sphere and some new options for the 3e era.

There are issues with certain Spelljammer products, both old and new, but ignoring sources of canon because of those issues is something that will just make it harder to get a fanon campaign setting to work. A 3e SJCS should add to what was there before, not take away from it.

I think that the history of the Spelljammer universe needs to be looked at, going back to the mythological origin myths of the Spelljammer itself, and then moving to a series of eras where certain races and spacefaring monsters had power over a large number of spheres. I don’t necessarily see one race controlling the universe and then another taking over the entire universe. Instead I see a universe where there are thousands of spheres and each race starting out from a single sphere and spreading its influence along the flow rivers from that sphere.

Running the entire Spelljammer universe in fast-forward, I see it like a big pond with stones being thrown in to create a number of ripples that spread outward from different areas. And at the very end of the timeline (just before the current day) I see three small stones landing in Realmspace, Krynnspace and Greyspace and forming a complex pattern of ripples that spread out from the Radiant Triangle. And, to me, I see the products that followed the original boxed set showing a series of crystal spheres as the waves of influence from the Radiant Triangle spread towards them.

So my question would not be: “Should the Shadows of the Spidermoon be combined with the existing Spelljammer universe?” My question would be: “Where can Pyrespace best fit into the extended Spelljammer universe?”
And I would be looking at the following questions:
* “How would the changes of the Living Greyhawk Gazeteer, and the core D&D product line, change Greyspace?”
* “How would the changes of the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, and its follow up product line, change Realmspace?”
* “How would the changes of the 3rd edition Dragonlance Campaign Setting, and the follow up MWP product line, change Krynnspace?” and
* “How would all of these changes combine to influence the rest of the Known Spheres?”

Existing crystal spheres could have new information added to them (so that Greatspace could be expanded into *the* Hellenic crystal sphere). And adventures could have follow up stories created to continue them (so that Under the Dark Fist could evolve into After the Dark Fist).

But one of the other universe changing events is the Second Unhuman War, with the Cloakmaster Cycle giving both sides an urge to cease an Ultimate Helm and take command of The Spelljammer. This urge, as well as the Cloakmaster’s Quest, led to the discovery of the “paramagnetic gradient” and took a large number of ships from the Known Spheres to the centre of the Spelljammer universe. So as well as the 3e era giving the GM access to the scro and many other variations of spacefaring orcs, I think that ordinary spacefarers would soon be learning how far out the Known Spheres were from the Cosmic Egg and there might be more incentive to explore beyond the Known Spheres, map the phlogiston rivers and discover new worlds.

That is how I see the setting moving on, but what of the SJ concept that you mention.

I think that the heart of the Spelljammmer concept – a thing that was always there but never developed is that you can use Spelljammer as a bridge to connect any two Dungeons and Dragons worlds. What I think that 3e Spelljammer needs to be, as well as a campaign setting, is a sourcebook that allows a GM to build a crystal sphere around their own favourite campaign world and populate it with worlds, moons and asteroids.

But after looking at Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Dragonlance Campaign Setting and Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, I’m not sure that can be achieved with a single book. So I think that a 3e Spelljammer Campaign Setting netbook would be just the start of the 3e SJ universe.

In order to fit in the essentials and improve the level of detail, I would be tempted to make the book both a description of the SJ universe and a Greyspace Gazeteer. My reasoning for picking Greyspace is that WotC picked Greyhawk as the “core world” and a person who just played with core rulebooks and the 3e SJCS would get a fully working crystal sphere.

A brief description of Realmspace, Krynnspace, Bralspace and the rest of the Known Spheres could be followed up with a Realmspace netbook (that builds from the concepts of the 3e FR sourcebooks), a Krynnspace netbook (that builds from MWP’s 3e DL sourcebooks), a Bralspace netbook (that builds on Paul Westermeyer’s research – as well as borrowing from his Jammers campaign) and a Known Spheres netbook (where the fans pull together the canon of the original product line and expand upon it).

That is a four netbook concept that would give you everything that 2e gave us, but would not go beyond the frontier into the unexplained spheres. So more netbooks would be needed to do that sort of thing.

But I think that finishing the three netbooks that Beyond the Moons has been working on is the first step towards creating a 3e SJCS.

Further reading:
Spelljammer for D&D 3rd edition: http://www.spelljammer.org/sj3e/
Spelljammer 3E Conversion Project: http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewforum.php?f=49
Spelljammer 3E Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Spelljammer-for-DD-3e/157653177614788

Before, I think it was mostly just a case of GMs house ruling anything they didn’t particularly like to fit their style of gaming.

http://wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/mirrorstone/242050000

Now, I’ve never read or seen Twilight and I know full well that the book I’m not even close to being the target audience for the book I linked to. That said, I really dislike how they portray vampires as these romantic and often misunderstood cute beings. Sure, you might say that it’s about redemption and/or tragedy or whatever else kind of theme you want to apply to a story about vampires, but to me vampires are monsters. Vampires are evil. Vampires are top of the food chain. Vampires are an affront to every living, breating being in the setting in which they’re featured.

And this is not just my personal opinion. In Real World folklore, vampires have appeared in countless different shapes in many different cultures, yet there is one universal truth that shines through in every version I’ve come across: Vampires are evil. They’re unholy beings who’ll suck you dry and rip you away from everything you love. And you ain’t coming back.

Does that mean that vampires are ravenous fiends? Of course not. At least not all of them. Vampires are just as varied in undeath as they were when they still breathed air. Some are indeed ravenous killers, others cunning masterminds, others still intelligent predators. And this is something that makes vampires very powerful as villains in a roleplaying game. In spite of their curse, the way that curse manifests differs from vampire to vampire, and that makes it very easy for GMs to create memorable villains with common traits, yet very different mindsets, personalities, and histories.

Unfortunately, pop culture has applied certain templates to vampires. Either it’s about sex and passion or it’s about vampires struggling against their curse to find a life in mortal society. I think that’s a damned shame and a waste of wonderful potential. Vampires make perfect monsters and villains simply because they’re extremely diverse yet universally monstrous, not because they represent one or two hot topics. At least that’s the case in my game.

I’ve mentioned this before when discussions of this nature have surfaced on various forums but the most fun I’ve had as a player was when I played a Knight of Takhisis named Gareth Ravenmantle in a Dragonlance campaign set during the Chaos War. The entire party consisted of Knights of Takhisis and they were, by nature, evil characters. As most fans of the Dragonlance setting know, the world of Krynn was threatened by Chaos and good and evil aligned to banish the entity and its minions from Krynn. Roleplaying the war against Chaos was immense fun and the notion of good and evil allying was what really made it such a powerful experience.

All that said, I don’t allow evil characters in my D&D games because of the reasons you mentioned. Evil characters are usually very disruptive. You mentioned evil characters fighting for an ideal (the Knights of Takhisis being one example). That is indeed a powerful storytelling tool, but one that I use for my villains when running a game, not when playing a game.

Now, that mostly applies to games that are fundamentally about heroic characters, such as D&D/Pathfinder RPG. In other games where the focus on Good vs. Evil isn’t as profound, this becomes less of an issue and I’m generally more inclined to allow characters of a more shadowy sort, simply because games such as Call of Cthulhu focus on different dynamics and storytelling than Good vs. Evil.