Heartspace was originally presented in the novel "The Broken Sphere", book 5 of the Cloakmaster cycle. Here is my version of it, as I desperately wanted to use it in my own universe, with the write-up on crescent by Ahzad Jinsai, based upon the novel. I've tried to be original as possible in some areas, yet stay true to the sphere as presented in others, so bear with me as bits change here and there. Many thanks go to the spelljammer mailing list for their comments and suggestions.

Heartspace's enormous primary "beats" (giving the sphere its name), pulsing from dark to light slowly within the space of about ten minutes. It is a deep red star, otherwise as typical as any other. This sun is one of the largest of all the spheres.

A blood-red coloured ring nebulae, rich in iron deposits, it is a left-over of a long destroyed body of the sphere. Many pirates use it's red clouds as hideouts, while some dwarves mine the larger deposits of iron ore that give the nebulae its striking colour.

A long dead world, destroyed by an illithid artifact that released and much more powerful but similar radiation the the faeress that gives the drow their powers. A thousand years or so ago a group of drow learned of this place, and decided to colonize it, but have since been mutated severely. The females all now have blood-red eyes, and more of a dark purple than black skin, while the males are nearly mindless brutes, reaching 6 and a half feet in size, and have evolved to be 85% resistant to all magic. The matriachy lives only by the will of lloth, the priestess' protecting the females with faeress empowered items from birth. Not all of the women however are able to become priestess', the radiation infecting their bodies, and have instead mutated to have poisonous fangs and a constant spiderclimb ability. No one in the sphere knows of their existence, as the drow are mining the incredibly adamantium rich planet to build a large fleet of ships and destroy anyone landing on the totally rock planet.

The atmosphere is poisoned enough to cause disease (as the spell) in anyone breathing its air (other than the poison elves) for more than an hour. The only food on the planet is the mutated giant spiders brought with the drow, some of which are up to 200 feet long. They have spread across the surface, the larger feeding upon the smaller, while the small feed upon some of the fungus grown in the drow-created underdark. The fungus is exactly the same as the normal fungal types found near drow communities, with the exceptional of an incredible growth rate - actually related to the sheer lack of any other life, not from mutation.

Crescent is actually a cresent-shaped world. The two pointed ends of the planet seem fixed in space, as though attached to a single axis. and the world rotates around that axis, as though it were a spherical world.

The planet's entire population is concentrated on the inner surface of the arc. The outer surface of Crescent is a rugged, inhospitable place. The land surface was all mountains and craters, split with great cracks and fractures leagues wide. There aren't many clouds, but the few that are move incredibly fast across the surface, hinting at ship-killing winds.

The inner surface is downright inviting. A land of blurred greens and browns, reminding one of the terrain around Evermeet or Rauthaven on Toril in Realmspace. There are mountain ranges big enough to be seen from space, but they're old and weathered with smooth, rounded peaks and rolling shapes.

Visitors on Crescent must make landfall at the city of Compact, landing anywhere else is strictly forbidden, and any attempts to land elsewhere will be viewed as an attempt to smuggle.

Compact is Crescent's major city and is home to the Great Archive a massive libary, that is allegedly the greatest repository of knowledge in the universe. Within Compact the first thing you notice is that everything is noticably drab from the buildings, streets, and even clothing are in shades of gray, with no other color. Even the peoples skin tone has a gray tinge.

The people are a somber lot rarely looking up from the ground at their feet. They speak to each other in hushed tones, even the children have this manner, looking and acting like minature adults.

The people here follow the True Path, the religion of Crescent, the worship of the god Marrak, Master of All Knowledge. The faith itself is based around a reverence for knowledge and learning. The Church of the True Path, is the organized, bureaucratic religion that's grown up around the Marrakite faith has made some changes. According to the Church, knowledge is to be revered, and just about everything else repressed. Which has led to the Way of the Plain, which is to blame for the somber attitudes and lack of color. Visitors need to be careful when wearing colored clothing as some of the more fanatical followers of The Way may attempt to show you the errors of your ways.

The White Elf tavern is said to offer excellent service to travelers.

Named for a secondary sun that fell into it thousands of years before, a tiny size A fire body that had orbited crescent until the destruction. To look at starfall is a large crater in the middle of an island, which looks like it has been literally ripped from the surface of a planet (in truth, it was the other way around, due to the comets impact). The crater of Starfall is filled with beautiful, clean water, and is overlooked by the large city/castle.

Once every five years a large chain is pulled from the lake by spelljamming vessels, upon the end of which is a large metallic, open ended box. This box covers a gigantic Infinity Vine root, somewhat mutated by the remnants of the sun that created its crater home. The infinity vine is allowed to grow across the whole "island", which takes but a day, and then the box is lowered once more - enchanted to cut the vines from the main root. Within several weeks most of the vine has died off, unable to process the strange minerals deep in the lake that are poisonous, yet once it decomposes (taking about a month) it has rejuvenated the lands ecosystem. This is known as the ritual of InfiniteHarvest, and is a cause of celebration throughout the land.

The only adverse effect the water has upon anyone at the higher depths, which kicks in after about six months of drinking it, is that it changes the colour of the humans' eyes and hair to some very varied patterns. Bright green or blue hair is not uncommon, and occasionally sunfire yellow eyes. Pink hair is also a common occurence, but only amongst the females of the population. Other than that, there are no adverse effects from the water. The 'kreen living on Starfall eat the infinity vine and store up the buds that grow on its outer edges for food for the next five years, as the rest of the vegetation is not suited to their needs. A renowned inn, The Philosophers' Rest, can be found near the main city, a common stop off point for sages and other intellectuals, after they have collated their information from the archive on crescent and lirak's cube.

The famous research and academy locale of the tinker gnomes, Lirak's cube is also home to a small colony of kender (mostly those exiled from other ports), a handful of rogue modrons, some human sages and wizards with the patience to deal with the gnomes antics, and a very ancient stellar dragon. The dragon hibernates constantly, waking up once every 34 years to hold a course of four straight days (after all, he has slept long enough) on stellar bodies, cartography, and anomolies within space. While asleep he can answer some questions, as all dragons are still partially aware of their surroundings and he has perfected the art of sleep conversations, but he is only 15% likely to give an answer, and a committee of gnomes must allow questioners access first.

A highly fast spinning circle orbiting Lirak's cube, this gives the non-spinning world a day and night, orbiting in a strange axis. Every hour of the day the ring covers the planet for fifteen minutes, and it's central point of rotation covers the planet for 12 hours, then is absent for 12 hours. This provides brief darkness during the day, and a night function.

Named because the clouds intersect and weave like a thick rug, in parts dense enough for gravvawood cities to be built upon/anchored to. Air mephits constantly plague the mainly high elf population, while the dwarves and gnomes who inhabit the cities much deeper into the clouds are under threat by giantic terradactyls. The only resources apart from air on loom are the veins of mithril that run through some of the more dense clouds (those deep down where the dwarves and gnomes live), these clouds solid enough for buildings to be placed upon, and requiring proper mining to extract the ore from.

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