The Aether Sea: Spelljammer Meets Firefly

I read this setting and fell in love with it immediately. It’s tiny - written for the Fate system - but you can lift this and run it in literally any game you want.

What Is The Aether Sea?

The Aether Sea by Edward Turner is what happens when Spelljammer and Firefly have a baby. That’s the vibe I got reading through it. And as soon as I finished, I wanted to run it.

The setting gives you just enough to run with but doesn’t overload you with lore. Anyone who ran this would create something different at their table. That’s the sweet spot.

The Setup

Everyone was originally on Home World. It was awful - magical wars, fighting, food running out. Then a human named Altus Fletcher did what humans do best: he talked to people. He gathered some clever elves, a dwarf artisan, and together they invented the Aether Ship - a vessel that lets you escape into space.

Fletcher, being a savvy human, got all the patents in his name. Everyone fled Home World on Aether Ships and spread out across the sea.

Now Home World is wrecked. Every occupied planet is a descendant of that original exodus. They haven’t found anything new out there… but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to find.

The Royal Hegemony

The royal families from Earth took over the central planets. They run a loose government where the closer you are to the middle, the tighter the control. And the royals don’t pay taxes - which creates plenty of tension.

Further out? That’s the wilds. That’s where it feels most like Firefly to me. Same frontier energy, just with dwarves, elves, and trolls.

The Spellcasters Union

Every Spellcasters Union station has a statue of Altus Fletcher. They control magic severely - particularly the ability to fly in the Aether Sea. This gives them enormous power.

It’s the only way to legally practice magic in Royal space, though magic is technically available to everyone.

Bureaucracy Done Right

The setting nails bureaucratic oppression in a way that makes you want to rebel against it:

• Ships must be registered with the Royal Shipping Registry
• Names must comply with the Royal Naming Statute
• Cargo registered with the Royal Trade Commission
• Routes covered by the Board of Aether Travel

This is why it feels like Firefly. The further you get from the core worlds, the more freedom you have. That tension drives everything.

The Races Have Flavour

The races aren’t better at stuff - they’re just not as bad at certain things. I love that framing. You’re not super-powered; you just have fewer weaknesses in specific areas.

Goblins work for lots of people and blend into backgrounds. They have this Shadow Fleet that terrifies everyone because nobody knows where it is. And they have dirt on most people.

Dwarves are the only ones still on Home World, ruled by a genuinely insane Tyrant called the Stone King. They’re building an engine to turn the whole planet into a ship. People stay away.

Elves believed Home World was a mother goddess blessing them with magic. Now it’s destroyed, they’re having a crisis of faith. They travel searching for areas of wonder to recreate that awe.

Trolls were considered stupid on Earth, but only because they had oral traditions rather than written ones. Their bards were killed or enslaved, so their culture got fragmented. Now Trollish Lore Masters travel around trying to gather it back.

So much flavour baked into every race. So many hooks for players.

The Aether Ships

Your players create their own Aether Ship. It becomes home. And keeping that home in the air drives the whole campaign.

Running a ship costs resources. You need to take jobs to keep flying. The ship ticks down and you need to find work - which is such a clean way to generate adventures.

Even better: player aspects reflect in the ship. The ship takes on characteristics of the crew. It becomes theirs in a way that feels right.

The Adventure

The book finishes with an adventure that I’m planning to run. Throughout it, you get a clearer picture of how this setting works in practice.

Bottom Line

The Aether Sea gives you just enough to pick up and run. You’ll create your own version of this setting at the table, which is exactly what I want from a sourcebook.

I built a map using Hex Kit Space (which is amazing - might do a video on that). The Royal space in the middle, hexes for routes, the wilds at the edges. Can’t wait to run this.

Get it. The Aether Sea on DriveThruRPG