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My finally-gone-to-wildspace campaign included an extensive episode in Halruaa, where the PCs could see with their own eyes how live is in Faerun's most magical realm. At the moment the party is millions of miles away from Toril in the unknown depths of wildspace, where they try to avert the Ravager, a mythical beholder doomsday weapon (see SJA1 Wildspace) from reaching their homeworld.

One of the PC belongs to a magical academy and has limited means to send messages back and forth between him and his colleagues. Since this mission is important to the survival of the whole world (or so it seems to the PCs and thos NPC in the know), the academy tries their best to support the four with information. Because of the academy is a groundling institution and its members didn't have much to do with wildspace before, they cannot help very much (which is good, so the players have to do all the mindwork themself!).

Due to the aforementioned episode in Halruaa, the academy has new contacts in this realm, especially among the Lorekeepers of Mount Talath (Mystra's largest temple and the biggest library on Toril). Relations are a bit strained because the PC were caught smuggeling knowledge out of Halruaa (which is a very serious crime in this realm!), so the Halruaans haven't been too helpful in the past. All the same, the academy has asked Mt. Talath for research material, anything that might be helpful in the current situation.

It is important to remember that this is a situation of imminent global danger. Normally I would expect Halruaan Elders teleporting in on the party and helping them - essentially taking the adventure out of their hands. I explain this away by a) the vast distance (about 4 spelljamming days from Toril) and b) the unknown location of the PCs ("somewhere in wildspace" is hardly enough to teleport in savely...).


The largest library on Toril should have some books on wildspace. Some bookshelves, to be exact. We are talking after all about a library that fills a whole mountain, the largest depository of knowledge, maintained in the most powerful magocracy of the planet. Even if they don't have much to do with wildspace and spelljamming, they simply must have accumuated quite a bit of stuff over the centuries!

That the Halruaans told the PCs that they are somehow - unwittingly - tangled up in a halruaa-internal conspirancy that hasn't been rooted out (so the Halruaans don't know whom of their own to trust) does goes a long way of explaining that less help than expected is coming. But...


Long story short, this thread is about Halruaa - and why the most powerful magocracy on Toril is (officially) not at all involved in spelljamming.


Two aspects seem especially worth discussing:

1) Halruaan history
Halruaa is a descendant of Netheril, and the Netherese had a less-than-good reputation among the Known Spheres. After a few years (decades?) of discovery, they were so ill-famed that they were often attacked on sight. They gave up their spelljamming ambitions and turned towards the planes (iirc).

2) Halruaan Skyships
Halruaa seems to have no connection to wildspace at all, at least not in canon* lore. Whatever the books say (or say not, in this case!), I don't really buy that a nation with 400 Elders (the most powerful mages of the nation) who each own (at least) one Skyship are not interested in spelljamming ships who fly not only faster and are much more maneuvrable but can also travel to other continents of Toril in less than one day (not to mention other worlds!). Those guys should, in my mind, try everything to get spelljamming ships - yet in canon lore they cling to their slow and clumsy skyships.

* What I look for in this thread is not only canon lore. More than that, I want to explore what we could do ourselves.


Idea collection

Mistakes of the past
The bad netherese reputation can be "recycled". Howsabout this: The Halruaans had been interested in spelljamming magic for centuries. Individual Elders tried long ago to get their fingers on spelljammers. Several of them contacted the Arcane, but as it often is with powerful wizards, many of them underestimated the giant blue traders: More often than not, Halruaans used magic and tried to charm the Arcane - which mostly failed to accomplish anything besides creating a bad reputation for all Halruaans in the eyes of the Arcane (who spread the news wherever they went). The few Elders who successfully charmed an Arcane only achieved that the Arcane as a race began to realize that these groundlings were not only not trustworthy but also more dangerous than other groundlings they normally dealt with. Thus, they chose to exclude all natives from this realm from their trade relations and used their influence to spread wherever they went that Halruaans are not to be trusted. After a while the Halruaans decided that wildspace wasn't worth the trouble and turned their backs on everything related to spelljamming. The topic is frowned upon in the realm: wildspace has about the same reputation as the lower planes.

Leira (Selune) and Halruaa
There could also have been some conflict in the past between the natives of Toril's moon Selune (whom the natives still call Leira) and Halruaa. The Leirans might have won, resulting not only in Halruaa turning their back on spelljamming but also explaining why Leirans are so deeply paranoid about invasions from Toril's groundlings! :idea:


Opinions, other ideas?

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One thing I'd be tempted to do is make Halruua one of the foremost spelljamming nations on Toril (well, west Faerun anyway) - although their fabled skyships are not, officially, spelljammers, their very presence would allow the Elders to run a significant space fleet, in broad daylight, and most of the rest of the realms would just assume they were all skyships.

In fact, (were I to be running a campign involving Spelljammer & Toril), I'd have the reason for all the major Spelljamming ports on western Faerun being secretive (such as Watersdeep) is due to various treaties and 'arrangements' with Halruua. Effectively, Halruua rules the skies.

Oh, and those Quads of Thay - actually built by the Arcane - a high ranking red wizard or two (probably rivals) cut a deal - they got a high speed, stealthy ship...

...that is totally unarmed and cannot leave the sphere :lol: (we need a 'smug arcane' smiley)

...even so, they're more than enough to cause some trouble in Realmspace.

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