Crystal Spheres

This article is about the AD&D adventure. For the short story by David Brin, see The Crystal Spheres. For the cosmological model, see Celestial spheres.

Crystal Spheres

The cover of the Crystal Spheres module, with art by Brom. The artwork depicts the Hummingbird, swooping past a darkened sun.
Code	SJA3
Rules required	Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition
Character levels	5-7
Campaign setting	Spelljammer
Authors	J. Paul LaFountain
First published	1990

Crystal Spheres is an adventure module published in 1990 for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.

Plot summary

Crystal Spheres is a Spelljammer scenario in which the player characters encounter a unique ship, called the Hummingbird, and its captain asks them to help save his homesphere from a mysterious bard called T'Lann. It describes "four new crystal spheres":

• Herospace: a sphere "for heroic adventures only, with 9 planets divided by alignment"
• Faeriespace: a sphere that "is one gigantic community"
• Greatspace: "an elder sphere focused on nobility and honor"
• Darkspace: "a sunless, shadowy void"

Publication history

SJA3 Crystal Spheres was written by J. Paul LaFountain, with a cover by Brom, and was published by TSR in 1990. The 64-page booklet included a poster and an outer folder.

Reception

Shannon Appelcline commented that the module "does a great job of providing good reasons to adventure across Wildspace from one sphere to another", however, the Spelljammer campaign setting "never brought together its many spheres into a coherent setting" and the spheres introduced in this module "would never be heard from again". Appelcline highlighted that "Crystal Spheres lies on the line between the adventuring tropes of the '80s and '90s" and "also includes a beautiful chart comparing the sizes of the many spelljamming vessels revealed to date – including the Hummingbird from this very adventure".