Spelljammer Helm
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The existence of the Dungeons & Dragons setting of Spelljammer naturally raises two questions. Firstly, what kind of "space ships" are there in this "D&D IN SPACE!" setting? Secondly, how do they actually fly around in space? Well, the first question is answered over on the Spelljammer Vessels page. As for the second question... let's talk about Spelljammer Helms, shall we?
Also known as Spelljamming Helms and simply Helms, this term collectively covers all of the various means of traveling through space without the use of natural anti-gravity abilities. Specifics vary, but most kinds of helms convert energy (usually magical) into propulsive force; the more magic available, the faster the helm can propel a ship. Of course, this leads to limits on just how much mass a given type of helm can actually move at once, which in term limits the available size-range for Spelljammer Vessels; sure, you can turn a moon into a battle-station, but sailing it away? You can just about forget about it!
There are also canoncially non-magical engines in Spelljammer, but they tend to be inferior to the powers of magic.
Helm Operation
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A spelljammer helm typically takes the form of a great chair with supports or recesses for the head, arms and feet of the person using it. The styles of helms range from simplistic and functional, to ornate and gothic. Whatever the form, the helm is designed to pull magical energy from the user and convert it into fully fledged spelljamming power to propel and maneuver a spaceborne vessel.
A helm can be operated by any person or creature capable of casting spells. Helmsmen are typically wizards or priests, but may include high level rangers and paladins, or creatures with a natural spell-casting ability. A spellcaster needs to be well rested to function at their best; if they have cast any spells before activating a spelljamming helm, the ship's rating will be negatively affected. Operating a helm even for a short period negates the operators ability to cast spells until they have rested long enough to recover their spells.
The helmsman operating a spelljamming helm finds their consciousness greatly expanded, and finds themselves operating at two levels of perception at once. First, the helmsman remains conscious of the normal sensations of their physical body, and is fully aware of what is occuring around them. Although they cannot move or cast spells without breaking contact with the helm, they are able to converse freely with those around them.
On the second level, the helmsman feels the ship as an extension of their own body. The ship, to the limits of its gravity plane, as well as the surrounding air envelope, all feel like a bubble under the helmsman's direct control. Many helmsmen have described the sensation of being merged with a ship, like that of personally flying among the stars.
Moving through wildspace or the phlogiston entails nothing more than mentally visualising the distance and direction the ship needs to move (usually determined by the navigator, based on their star charts) and willing the ship to move as needed. The feeling of movement has been compared to moving a limb that has fallen asleep - a pins-and-needles sensation, though much less painful than the term usually suggests. The expanded consciousness of the helmsman makes them aware of the actions of the crew as though they were standing on the aft deck (or the equivalent of the specific ship), but their actions do not register directly unless the helmsman is paying special attention to them.
The helmsman can maneuver the ship sluggishly, but any real maneuver - like a turn - decreases the ship speed to tactical speed. In combat, the helmsman is limited by the feel of the hull and its capabilities, and cannot maneuver the ship beyond this capacity without additional magical aid.. On most ships, true maneuverability requires the attentions of a full crew. During combat, the helmsman is aware of damage to the hull as bright flashes of pain, but these are usually not severe enough to cause the helmsman to lose control, except for those critical attacks that cause spelljammer shock and can incapacitate the helmsman.
Minor & Major Helms
As their lack of a precursor title suggests, Minor Helms and Major Helms are the standard model helms upon which all spelljamming is based. Both work the same way; converting arcane magic or divine magic into forward propulsion, with the crew using physical ship structures like sails or oars to maneuver through the space.
The difference in model is basically a notice of how effectively they can draw out and channel magic from the helmsman. A Minor Helm will cost 100,000 GP on average, gives you 1 Ship Rating per 3 levels in wizard or cleric, and can move up to 50 tons. In contrast, the Major Helm will set you back a cool 250,000 GP, gives 1 SR per 2 levels, and can move up to 100 tons. Both require a minimum tonnage of 1 ton to work.
Major and Minor Helms can be had from any spacefaring nation that's sufficiently advanced, but the premier source is, of course, the Mercane.
Beacon Helm
Beacon Helms are an updated version of Major Helms created by the Arcane to provide helmsmen with greater security. Each helm is paired with one or more rings fashioned from adamantite and fitted with a single large blue carbuncle; known as alarm beacons or beacon rings, they allow the bearer to known the distance and rough direction of the paired major helm when it's in use. Additionally, if the helmsman wears a beacon ring whilst operating a beacon helm, they are capable of drinking potions, reading spells from scrolls and activating magic items whilst still simultaneously piloting the ship.
A person can carry up to three beacon rings at a time and remain linked to all of the beacon helms attuned to those rings, but adding a fourth will cause all beacon rings to shut down until only three are being carried again.
A beacon helm costs an extra 50,000 GP for the first beacon ring added to the Major Helm, so that's 300,000 GP all-up. Buying extra beacon rings costs 60,000 GP per extra beacon ring.
Cloaking Helm
Another variant of the Major Helm invented by the Arcane. Cloaking Helms allow the helmsman to create an invisibility field around their ship, protecting it for up to 30 minutes per day. It was first commissioned by a group known as the Seekers, but it has proliferated ever since.
This variant of the helm was introduced in the Bazaar of the Bizarre artricle in Dragon Magazine #159.
Crystal Throne
Used by and only by the Thri-kreen, a huge, multifaceted crystal, about 8' high and 4' wide in the shape of a wide-armed throne that glows a pale light. Its workings are never explained, but we do know that the throne doesn't need to be feed spell slots and the Ship's Rating is determined by the quality of the Throne itself instead of the helmsmen.
Only the thri-kreen have the right faculties use the Throne, and its likely a helm designed to be powered by thri-kreen innate psionic powers instead of being of Arcane design.
Series Helm
The Series Helm is a variation of the standard helm invented by the Illithid to draw upon deeper wells of magical energy. In effect, to feed on the magic that grants creatures spell-like abilities rather than relying on the helmsman's ability to channel raw arcane or divine magic. Whilst the end result was kind of weak compared to a standard helm, it did have one unusual property: they could be linked together to create arcane circuits, allowing multiple creatures to pool power and achieve greater output.
As a result, Series Helms have become popular amongst races with spell-like abilities. Costing 75,000 GP per individual helm, a Series Helm can move from 5 tons up to 50 tons, with a Ship Rating of 1 per manned helm in the circuit - usually a ship relying on these helms wiill have 3-5 of them installed.
Pool Helm
Pool Helms are another illithid invention, and unlike the Series Helm, they don't share this one with other races! The Pool Helm draws upon "the natural life-pool of the mindflayers" to power their ship... what the fuck does that actually mean? Don't ask, we just report what the books say! It could be their collective telepathic energy, the nascent energy of a spawning pool, or something else entirely.
A Pool Helm grants a Ship Rating of 5, but its maximum tonnage is unknown - reputedly, up to 200 tons.
Orbus
An Orbus is a beholder mutant specially bred to act as a living helm. We know very little about their looks, beyond them having the appearance of a "stunted, albino" beholder. Like the Series Helms, orbii (as they are called in a collective) can pool their magical abilities to generate thrust, though for some reason the circuit can only handle 5 orbii at a time.
An Orbii pool grants 1 Ship Rating per orbus, and can move up to 60 tons (20 per orbus, capping at 60). It's unknown if orbii could work for other races, because the beholders would rather kill them than let them be used by other races.
You could way they are the Beholder equivalent of Navigators from Warhammer 40,000.
Dwarven Forge
Dwarven Forges are a unique spelljamming engine created and used exclusively by, well, dwarves. Since dwarves in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons were largely a nonmagical race (some settings aside), they created the Forges to channel the natural creativity and emotional energy of dwarves at work. Whilst there have been experiments in other races attempting to use Dwarven Forges themselves, since the dwarves aren't particularly jealous about spelljamming, they have all failed miserably.
Dwarven Forges resemble large foundries, where dwarves work around the clock in acts of crafting and forging. Through unspecified means, the Forge captures the emotional energy that its workers gives off and turns it into motive thrust. Granting Ship Rating 1 per 100 workers, a Dwarven Forge thereby can only be fitted in large ships; minimum of 100 tons to a maximum of 700 tons.
Ironically, this means dwarven spelljammers are always a case of planned obsolence; starting with an asteroid foundation, eventually, the dwarves will literally strip-mine their own ship to the point there is nothing left to build from; they can't mine any further without cannibalizing everything that's been built up. So the Forge stops working. And as the ship is too big for conventional helms, the dwarves have to pack up and leave, abandoning the site of generations for fertile new ground.
Gnomish Helm
Gnomish helms are the subject of scorn and mockery amongst every race that aren't Tinker Gnomes or Dohwar. Bizarre, Rubenesque contraptions overloaded with bells, whistles and moving parts, most gnome helms are really just regular minor helms that have been over-adorned with tinker gnome rubbish. They function as a standard minor helm (especially if you can somehow strip away all the junk), but are much cheaper to be had, costing only 50,000 gold pieces.
Bardic Helm
The Bardic Helm, as its name suggests, is a variant of the Major Helm created by the Arcane to somehow channel the underlying magical energies of music into motive force. Seriously, this is the only type of jammer helm where you technically don't need to be magical to operate it; so long as you can play the instrument incorpated into its structure, you can make the ship go, even if you're not a bard. Of course, most ships outfitted with a bardic helm use a strange, exotic instrument to minimalize the risk of theft.
A Bardic Helm costs 200,000 GP.
Grand Helm
Grand Helms are a special kind of helm created by the Red Wizards of Thay from the Forgotten Realms, and could be seen as midway point between a standard helm and a Series Helm. Grand Helms are designed to be operated by a team of four mages or priests, who pool their collective magical energy - this results in a Ship Rating equal to the collective caster levels of the four helmsmen divided by 4 (rounding up fractions).
What makes Grand Helms particularly unique is that, at spelljamming speed, they partially Plane Shift into the Ethereal Plane, which doubles their speeed and makes it harder for them to be slowed down by proximity to other vessels or stellar objects - it takes 200 tons to force a Grand Helm'd ship out of spelljamming speed.
This has a disadvantage, however; because the helm is designed to partially travel in the Ethereal Plane, it's actually physically incapable of moving through the Phlogiston. A ship with a Grand Helm can't enter a portal from a Crystal Sphere into Wildspace, and if plalced there somehow, is stuck like a fly in amber. The only way a Grand Helm'd ship could be moved between Crystal Spheres is if another ship (or an incredibly powerful teleport type spell) physically transports them. For this reason, you are almost never going to see a Grand Helm outside of Realmspace, and even there, only aboard the Quad of Thay ships that they were invented to propel.
Ki-Helm
Ki-Helms are another kind of "collectively powered" spelljammer helm. In this case, they were created by the nation of Wa in the Forgotten Realms to take advantage of their high access to ki manipulators and relative dearth of magic users, with the specific intent of powering their massive "Tsunami-class" capital ships. This was after their early experiments in spelljamming, the Rudders of Arcane Propulsion, proved to be rather substandard.
Designed to be manned by a team of up to eight ki manipulators, a Ki-helm consists of a large onyx circle featuring a yin-yang symbol, while at the center of the circle is an octagonal crystal which absorbs the ki energy from the various ki-empowered individuals. Around the central crystal are eight circles which are carved into the onyx which makes up the base of the helm. The ki-empowered individuals each sit within one of the eight circles, where they meditate and focus their inner strength. At the center of the circle, a ninth person will be seated upon the octagonal crystal, and they will focus the accumulated ki energy into motive force and maneuvering the ship. Without the focal helmsman, the accumulated ki energy is wasted and the vessel will remain idle.
A ki-helm depends on this large group of fuel-men to move, because they are the least efficient convertors; a ki-helm can't even move without 10 ki points of fuel, and gains +1 Ship Rating for every 20 full ki points available (so SR 2 at 20 Ki, SR 3 at 40 ki, etc).
A ki-empowered individual can serve at the ki-helm for 12 hours, or a number of hours equal to their ki strength. Anything beyond this limit leaves them exhausted and unable to serve for the rest of the day. Those who serves their full allotted time on a ki-helm must rest one full day before returning to the helm, or their contribution to the total ki is cut in half (rounded down) until they rest.
Radiant Helm
Radiant Helms were invented by the drow, and are similar in basic principle to Series Helms, in that they draw upon the inherent magical energy of the user rather than channeled arcane or divine magic. Built from certain unique radioactive ores native to the Underdark, a radiant helm resembles a crown constructed from the legs of a large poisonous spider, and radiates an aura that is visible to those with exceptional infravision (120').
A Radiant Helm is only compatible with ships specially designed to incorpoate it, whih includes using other Underdark-native ores. A helmsman loses all innate magical abilities until they have rested for a full eight hours.
Furnaces & Artifurnaces
Furnaces are an archaic form of helm that consumes magical energy taken from magical items instead of channeled by living helmsman. This "burns up" the item in question, similarly to feeding coal into a steam engine. Generally, a furnace functions for 1 week at Ship Rating 2 per 1,000 EXP the item fed to it is worth; feeding two items at once makes it function at SR 3, but has a 25% chance of making the Furnace explode in a 30ft 10d10 fireball.
Furnaces, obviously, cannot be operated in the Phlogiston; the eldritch fires that they produce as a side-effect of burning through magical items means that exposure to the Phlogiston causes them to explode.
Artifurnaces are a unique variant of Furnace constructed around a single Artifact-tier magical item. As artifacts are effectively indestructible, artifurnaces provide infinite energy. An artifurnace resembles a pot-bellied cast-iron stove with an iron mesh door and a gnomish handle near the stove pipe, which is clamped and hammered shut. To create an artifurnace, a cast-iron stove must be enchanted to capture the life essence of an intelligent being. The stove must then be lit with green hickory seedlings and the selected artifact placed within. The essence would then draw forth the required motive force to propel the spelljammer, providing the ship with almost unlimited power.
Once installed on a suitable ship, an artifurnace provides an SR of 5 whenever it is activated, and will run indefinitely, powered by the artifact placed within. The artifurnace is activated by lifting the gnomish handle located the stove pipe, and is deactivated by pushing down the same lever. The operator, usually the navigator, can also invoke any one of the powers possessed by the artifact located within the artifurnace.
Whenever the artifurnace is activated, it becomes so hot it deals 12d6 points of damage to anyone who touches any part other than the handle. It also has the side-effect of attracting the attention of any powerful being associated with the artifact used to power the artifurnace. Finally, the artifurnace shares any and all curses that are associated with the artifact used to power it.
Lifejammers & Deathjammers
Lifejammers and Deathjammers, collectively known as Death Helms, are the invention of the Neogi, and are only used by sick bastards. Both versions drain life force efrom their "helmsman", but the Deathjammer also has an insidious enchantment built into it that effectively Charms the helmsman so they become addicted to the sensation of being siphoned dry of life.
A Lifejammer drains 1d8 HP per day of operation. The Ship's Rating can be calculated by assuming that the creature within was a wizard using a minor helm, at that creature's current level. For example: a 6th level thief will operate as though he were a 6th level mage.
The Deathjammer functions identically, but can move spacecraft as if it were a major helm.
Pump Helm
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The Pump is a spelljamming helm that must be fed material in order to create SR. The type of material placed in The Pump will determine the SR that this spelljamming engine generates (see the following table). Simply stated, one pound of material ( 10 coins or gems) can move a spelljamming ship of up to 100 tons for one hour. After that, absolutely nothing is left of the material placed in the helm. (If the fuel used was flesh, there is nothing left to resurrect.)
The Pump cannot digest magical items at all. Spell books, enchanted swords, and artifacts that are placed in The Pump are never metabolized. They are ejected from the ship after being in the helm for over 24 hours.
A particularly gruesome contraption, The Pump is a creation of the unhumans; basically for the goblins and goblinkin races. Since the latest Unhuman Wars began, The Pump has increased in potency as well as popularity. Now, every captain in the goblin fleets wants one for his ship.
Crown of Stars
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A Crown of the Stars is a magical item that functions like a wearable minor helm that allows its user to power a vessel, as well as move around normally.
Despite its name, a crown of the stars can resemble any form of jewellery that is worn on the head (like a circlet), around the neck (like a necklace), on the arm (like a torc), or around the waist (like a girdle). All known crowns of the stars are significantly larger than a ring and all contain some silver in their construction.
A crown of the stars that is used to power a ship for longer than a week, is bonded to that particular vessel. It cannot be used to power a different ship unless it has been away from its bonded ship for over a week, severing the bond.
The crown of the stars is effective up to one mile (1.6 kilometers) from the ship it is bonded to, so a helmsman can operate the vessel even if they are not onboard.
A crown of the stars cannot override an active helm but can be used to power any appropriate vessel at spelljamming speed.
Spelljamming Helm (5e)
Like it or hate how much extra rules 5e cut back on, we now have only a single one-ship-size-fits-all Spelljamming helm. Much quality of life improvements have been made, rashinanizable by 3 cosmic reshuffles and about 200 years of innovation between 2 and 5e (and following the gradual simplification of Helm rules since 4e), The helm doesn't drain the helmsman of their all spellslots, just need to attune to it and consentrate.
Usability also expanded, as long a creature can cast a spell, whether it's a psionic user or magic initiate.
The trade off, or at least for higher-level spellcasters, is you can't poor more juice into the engine, as the flight speed is now equal to how fast the ship normally moves instead of based on your helmsman's highest spellslot level. Although the 5e Helm doesn't have a maximum weight limit You can't attach it to an asteroid and make it move.
Creating a 5e helm simply requires a wizard or artificer to cast the 5th level Create Spelljamming Helm spell and expend a crystal rod worth at least 5,000 gp (assuming the DM lets you learn it and a crystal rod that big even exists). With a market price of about 7,500 gp or 10,000+ gp if they are trying to wring you.