"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."

The following is some basic information that every starsailor would know. Be advised, while based on AD&D Spelljammers, it currently bears only a casual relationship to that original game system or setting. Nonetheless these rules are definitive for the Croiduire Cluster, the galaxy that includes Haven, Erden, Tamaranth, etc.

Nine hundred ninety-eight Dominion years ago, in Arvandorsphere, on the fifth planet from the sun, the inhabitants took a giant step closer to the beckoning stars. On the day of the summer solstice, with the elements in perfect harmony, and all the omens and portents at their most benign, the arcane community, and through them the whole world, watched in awe as the first elven spellship took flight. It was just a small, single-masted cutter, but she skimmed out over the water, magically gaining speed, until at last she rose, higher and higher, the size of a bird, the size of a speck, until, at the limits of even the keenest elven sight, she suddenly grew bigger and brighter. A gasp of horrified dismay swept through the crowd of onlookers. They stared up, grim faced and white knuckled, frightened that the Gildulin (Starbird) was falling back to the ground. A moment later someone realized that was the nepheligenous sphere flaring into life, and the crowd, as well as the intrepid crew, could breathe again. The gathered mages waited, poised between radiant hope and blackest despair, as the diviners stared into their crystal balls monitoring that inaugural flight. They relayed the actions of the gallant first crew, and shared their almost giddy excitement at seeing the world, round, blue-white and fragile, against the panorama of velvet black strewn with a million points of pure, dazzling light.

They made just one orbit that day…but it changed history. Over the next few years they travelled to Arvandor's airless primary satellite, skimming low enough over the surface that they could see her cratered face and marvel at the absent effects of wind and water. By the next trip they had perfected the suspiriant aura apparatus that allowed an individual to carry his atmosphere with him, and the elf ever after known as Elvana (Starwalker) teleported to the surface and actually strode across the face of a new and exotic world, so different from the lush, wet, blue-and-white jewel that had birthed him. ("One small spell for a mage, a giant leap for Magicka…")

They next travelled to their sister planets within Arvandorsphere, and discovered that, although most of the bodies within the sphere were inimical to life, Arvandor had a twin, as sweet and welcoming as their own mother, in the same orbit but 180 degrees opposite. Arvandor Secundus (or Aendorn as the inhabitants called it) was home to a strong, doughty, industrious race, shorter than elves but more rugged, and not in the least magical. The spacefarers were first met with suspicion and hostility, that, once the initial shock wore off and understanding grew, gave way to wonder and a passionate desire to emulate them. The dwarves could not use the arcane powers of the elves, but they were the ones who discovered that faith could substitute, and that a priest could operate a helm as well as a mage.

With the passing years a strong partnership developed between the two planets, the dwarves of Aendorn turning out ships of unmatched craftsmanship and reliability while the elves of Arvandor enchanted the helms and other magick items that allowed them to operate. These two races in time formed the core of the Constitutional Dominion of Illuminated Spheres.

Improvements in technomancy allowed the spacefarers to go farther and faster, opening up new frontiers to exploration, but progress was not without its price. There were failures, occasionally spectacular, more often sad and deadly, as the first ships encountered forces and situations beyond their control, beyond their anticipation, beyond their ability to overcome. One such was the realisation--too late--that while the nepheligenous sphere contained the ship's atmosphere, it did not refresh it. But they learned from these bitter mistakes. The next deep space mission carried a cargo of green plants and a druid skilled in their care.

Finally, in the nether reaches of space, they arrived at the outermost limits of the Crystal Sphere, a boundary, previously believed to be no more than a useful metaphysical and philosophical concept without true physical existence. The first spellship to hit that wall of magical force discovered to their dismay that it was nearly as tangible and impenetrable as the rocky surface of the world they called home. They were unprepared for the impact, and had not battened down accordingly; the collision brought down two masts, and threatened a third, collapsed and caved in the hull's bow and cost many lives. It was a long hard trip home for the crippled vessel, with plenty of time to ponder and analyse its encounter. It took several more attempts before a solution was discovered: the ship had to find the slipstream and run nearly parallel to the barrier, sliding almost sideways through the matrix at an extremely shallow angle, a tricky proposition even with contemporary spatial divination, but a prodigious feat for those intrepid pioneers.

The concerted efforts, and the correlating equations needed, resulted in the birth of a brand new arcane science: that of celestial ballistics. But this study couldn't remain in its infancy for long, not if spellships were to have any success beyond the local Sphere, and it didn't! Only twenty-five short years after the Menutar (Pathfinder) painfully discovered the true nature of the barrier, and one hundred seventy since the Gildulin ventured past the sky, borne up by spell, sail and courage, Astalwa (Valiant) boldly and indelibly wrote her name in history as the first Arvandorian ship to actually pierce that formidable boundary and discover what lay beyond…