Saruspace Crystal Sphere

Overview

The Saruspace crystal sphere is huge, over 18 billion miles in diameter. It floats in the Phlogiston off the main currents, and so is very isolated from the normal spelljamming lanes.

 On occasion there is a flow river moving from Saruspace to Red Eyes but this flow river is unreliable, often disappearing for days or weeks at a time. When present the river is a pale emerald green. There is only an 80% chance the river will be present when sought, and a 1% chance per day traveling the river that it will vanish, leaving the ship in the open flow. This will  multiply remaining travel times by 5, always assuming the navigator can then find their way. There is a 5% (cumulative) chance per day of the river returning.

 Travel time is approximately 60 days to the sphere, depending on the strength of the current, and 45 days back. This may vary +/- by as much as a factor of 3 if the flow river remains, or 5 if the flow river vanishes. There are no other spheres between Saruspace and Red Eyes, and no other known currents leading toward or away from Saruspace.

 Spelljamming within the crystal sphere is common--even for groundlings. Most adventuring (and habitation) is on Aloth, the 4'th planet circling the yellow-white star Sarthilion.

 The rest of the sphere is remarkably leathal to humanoid life, the planets generally are either way too hot (fire elemental territory) or way too cold (-100 to -350 degrees below 0), not to mention having toxic atmospheres or no air at all.

 Many of the moons are mineral rich but have no air to speak of. This is extremely unusual for a crystal sphere, and may have something to do with the sphere's odd location in the phologiston.

Hazards

Most of the hazards of Saruspace come from the planets and moons of Saruspace, not wildspace itself.

Saruspace is noted for the scarcity of wildspace fauna, most life is located on Aloth, with some truly bizarre lifeforms on a few of the inner worlds. This doesn't mean wildspace is uninhabited, it simply means there are far fewer beasties roaming space than in other spheres.

Saruspace seems to have developed a unique wildspace species or two on its own, but for the most part fauna attacking wildspace travelers isn't really a problem.

History

The sphere's been settled for a long time, the Arcane have of course made their presence felt, as have many other species.

Because of Saruspace's unusual position in the Rainbow ocean, it has seen a slow and steady growth in species count, avoiding many of the invasions and interstellar wars other spheres are prone to. Saruspace is simply too difficult to get to for it to make much sense to invade, and has a negligible strategic value.

Saruspace is very isolated, and like most isolated and protected areas the history has been one of peaceful coexistence rather than conflict. There have been a few small wars but the nature of the population distribution makes warfare somewhat difficult.

Politics

There are a few mining colonies on Aloth's moons, a few more in the Belemir belt, but for the most part Aloth is home to most of the sphere's population--such as there is.

Aloth is sparsely populated, the cities widely scattered. Very widely scattered, generally spelljammers are used in the atmosphere as trade vessels because of their speed.

 There are some that hold the opinion that Aloth's population is widely scattered precisely because spelljamming is common.

 Sphere wide politics are unknown, most inter-settlement politics deal with trade agreements. As a rule the largest cities are considered monarchies although ruled by princes rather than kings. Smaller settlements are ruled by village councils. Few take politics very seriously, the small population has enough to do without concerning themselves with meddling in the concerns of others.

Population

The population of Saruspace is widely scattered in settlements largely consisting of single species, although because of the small population there are often tradesmen of all species to be found.

Major Products

Aloth produces much of the resources used in Saruspace, from food to wood to gems and other valuable minerals and metals. Because of the importance of spell jamming there are a number of shipyards, mainly producing a modified version of the Angelship for atmospheric trading, although a few yards specialize in true space vessels. There's even a yard in orbit to produce designs that can not land on a planet, although given the nature of the sphere such designs aren't as numerous as they would be in other spheres.

 However, important mining colonies do exist on Legomir and Narzog, and a number also exist in the Belemir belt.

 Legomir contains rich deposits of rhenium (used to create metal alloys that are strong at high temperatures). Rhenium is a valuable trading resource that the inner planets desire.

 Narzog has almost pure deposits of nickel, used in steel alloys for magical weapons, and scandium ores used in magical processes dealing with electricity. Because of the difficulty of manufacture scandium is quite expensive, and valuable to the right buyers.

 Other sentients that can exist on the inner planets (such as salamanders and efreeti) often trade with Aloth for both rhenium and nickel, since these metals are very scarce (but vital) on the inner planets.

 The Belemir Belt mines produce other materials, see the entry on the belt for details.

Armed Forces

Saruspace is a peaceful place, armaments do exist of course, but there are few armed forces as such. The majority of ships (Aloth atmospheric traders) are unarmed.

The Elven Imperial Navy is almost unknown in the sphere, having bigger fish to fry elsewhere. They maintain only a small outpost in the Belemir belt, with a couple of man-o-wars and their attendent flitters.

Armed ships are usually ones that either come in from outside the sphere, are owned by some of the larger city-states on Aloth, or spend most of their time in the Belemir Belt.

The only Saruspace ships that are armed as a matter of course are convoy ships that travel to and from the Belemir belt, supplying the mining colonies with food and carrying ore and refined metals back to Aloth.

Pirates aren't generally a problem because there are few trade routes in Saruspace, the mining colonies on Legomir and Narzog (Aloth's moons) are so close to Aloth that piracy is difficult, and the ships that travel to the Belemir belt do so in large convoys--and are armed against pirates, out-Sphere opportunists, and the rare wildspace predator. Convoys are also escorted by purpose built hammerships, making a convoy unattractive to would-be attackers.

Religions

Saruspace has few gods, some believe this is the reason much of the sphere is uninhabitable. As with everything else Aloth has the lion's share of gods and temples, the inner planets have their own dieties of course, since fire-dwellers and races inhabiting cooler areas have little contact (other than some trading).

Magic Use

Wide spread magic-use, even if only low level, is essential in a spell-jamming culture such as Saruspace.

Without the ability to man a spell-jamming helm Aloth's many widely scattered small settlements would be cut off from one another, and would eventually evolve into the kind of country-based political system found on other planets where spell-jamming is unknown.

Therefore a large portion of the population (compared to other worlds!) knows how to cast cantrips. There are a number of spells unique to Saruspace designed specifically for folk who otherwise can't cast magic. These spells allow anyone who can learn them (minimum intelligence 11) to man a petty helm, but not a minor or major helm.

The Arcane have developed a new type of helm they sell primarily in Saruspace. Called a PETTY HELM by the Arcane, and a "puddle jumper" helm by everyone else, the petty helm is limited to tactical speed, but allows an SR of 1 PER LEVEL of the user.

This is an important feature since most folks flying petty helms are very low level. This means most traders will be limited to no more than SR 3 at best, the majority are lucky to reach SR 2.

While this makes a petty helm useless for most spell-jamming work the cost of the helm is 1/10 that of a minor helm  In addition, a petty helm can lift a ship of up to 35 tons, making them suitable for installation in a trader hull. They can also be installed in small craft like elven flitters, making a deadly and swift fighter. Look for the Arcane to sell these helms outside Saruspace very soon.

Illegal Activities

Piracy isn't popular. On Aloth there will be the occasional bandits with a petty-helm equipped Angelship but for the most part real piracy is limited to the Belemir belt, other parts of the system are usually unlivable, making pirate bases untenable for the most part.

Smuggling, on the other hand, is a different matter. Both Legomir and Narzog are plagued by smugglers in their rare refined metals and the Belt is rife with smuggling of Precursor artifacts, drugs, and other offically frowned upon substances.

Of course in Saruspace finding something that REQUIRES smuggling is difficult, there are few laws, and law enforcement is something of a joke because of the distances involved, but where there are sentients there will be smugglers.

Points Of Interest

Stars: The stars in Saruspace mark portals to the Flow, they are transparent sections of the sphere wall approximately 1,000 miles across. Ships still need to open the portals, they are transparent but not open. Like many spheres, the stars of Saruspace form constellations and can thus be used for both wildspace navigation and Flow exit point calculation. The stars are fixed in Saruspace making navigation here somewhat easier than in other spheres with more exotic stars.

Baraduithin Beacon: A large elaborate beacon is maintained in orbit around Baraduithin to warn incoming ships about the dangers the world (and others within the system) pose to ships. This beacon is the first to show up on a planetary locator and has the ability to display common text on the locator, saying: Deadly World, AVOID! It also is about 3 times brighter than other beacons, making it stand out strongly in a planetary locatator.

Belemir Belt: The belt contains only a few class C asteroids, they are: Tolgrin, Losnuir, Arrophor, Athom, Mival, and Huvir, in order of size. Tolgrin and Losnuir are open ports and maintain beacons.

Cirvir: The Cirvir Orbital Platform (COP) is one of the largest human constructions in known space, at least 3,000 spatial tons. This military base is maintained by the Alothian city-states at huge expense to protect the Cirvir mithril and iron mines which produce metals with astounding magical properties.