The Skyrealms are the game's main setting - floating "islands" levitated by mysterious crystals in the crust of an alien planet.

Following an unexpected and permanent severing of communication with Earth, misunderstandings between the "stranded" human colonists and the Shanthas resulted in a devastating war that eventually reduced all societies on the planet to an Iron-Age level.

(Players can also choose to be one of four additional races: the Blount, Crugar, Bronth, and Woffen, all bipedal, genetically engineered descendants of Earth animals — toads, cougars, bears, and wolves, respectively.)

However, as reviewer Edwin King noted, it has some features in common with Tekumel, the setting of Empire of the Petal Throne, notably the idea of humans colonizing a distant planet and subsequently losing contact with the rest of humanity (a dimensional rift in Tekumel's case, civil war in Jorune's) leading to the regression of the colonists' society and war against the planet's native inhabitants.

Conflict and interaction between the various alien species on Jorune drives some of the drama of individual adventures, as does the exploration of the planet's surface, which is littered with powerful prehistoric artifacts originating variously with the initial human settlement (typically blaster weapons and other "advanced technology") or Shanthas instruments designed to manipulate Isho.

Apart from a distinct need for its GM to have played other rpgs beforehand, and a lack of introductory adventure, it has few faults, and these are outweighed, to my mind, by the depth of detail on the truly fascinating background.

On the other hand, King liked the visual aspect of the game, commenting, "the art in Jorune is excellent and goes a long way towards creating the appropriate atmosphere.

He concluded by giving the game a rating of 3 out of 4, saying, "I think that more care could have been taken with elements of the rules, but the joy of Jorune is in the conception of its environment, rather than the elegance of its system.

Although Reid didn't like the lack of an index, he concluded, "SkyRealms Of Jorune offers a wealth of material for your money, and presents a setting which is both unusual and convincing in its imaginative richness.

Swan concluded by giving the game a solid rating of 3 out of 4, saying, "the setting is startlingly different from those typical of fantasy RPGs, making it well worth the purchase for anyone who's bored with endless variations of medieval Europe.

"[14] In his 2023 book Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground, RPG historian Stu Horvath called this game "one of the most relentlessly strange and difficult to pronounce RPGs ever made."

To its detriment, Horvath pointed out "The system is clunky and skill-based, full of inconsistencies, and peppered with reference charts that border on terrifying."