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The Deva Spark (2e)

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A bar room brawl? No big deal. Except when it starts on the Abyss—and the brawlers are a deva and a bebilith! The deva: A celestial champion who serves the cause of ultimate Good. The bebilith: A nightmarish monster whose every deed reeks of ultimate Evil. Two eternal enemies locked in a bizarre struggle for the ultimate prize.

What terrible secret connects these two beings? And what does it all have to do with the legendary deva spark? Only a group of brave cutters can get to the dark of this peel, and they'd better hurry... because time is running out!

"The Deva Spark" is a Planescape adventure for a party of four to six characters of 5th—9th levels. From the blasted pits of the Abyss to the peaceful forests of Elysium, the heroes track a barmy bebilith who holds the key to saving the life of a dying deva. Can your characters handle the fire of the deva spark?

Product History

"The Deva Spark" (1994), by Bill Slavicsek and J.M. Salsbury, is the third adventure for Planescape. It was published in December 1994.

Continuing the Planescape Series. "The Deva Spark" ended a busy first year for the Planescape line that had seen the publication of the original Campaign Setting (1994), the Planes of Chaos (1994) setting book, one Monstrous Compendium (1994), two previous standalone adventures, and an adventure anthology. Though the adventures were bunched toward the end of the year, they had clearly been the biggest focus of 1994 … which was probably important for such an innovative new setting.

Adventure Tropes. The previous two standalone adventures, "The Eternal Boundary" (1994) and "In the Abyss" (1994), had suggested a standard format for Planescape adventures: the PCs start out in Sigil and then are swept into the other planes. "The Deva Spark" is similar, but it pushes harder than ever on the idea that Sigil is the home base for Planescape players. The PCs start off in Sigil, are sent off to the Abyss, and then return to Sigil before heading off to Elysium.

However, the style of "The Deva Spark" is somewhat different from its predecessors. The previous standalone adventures each repeated very classic adventure tropes, including wilderness exploration and reskinned dungeon crawls. "The Deva Spark" is instead a much more story-oriented adventure, with plenty of set encounters. There are still some old-school elements like wilderness journeys and a series of tests, but as a whole "The Deva Spark" reads much more like a '90s adventure.

Though the plot elements of "The Deva Spark" are somewhat railroaded, its ending is much more open (and quite innovative). The players are faced with a tough moral dilemma, and may resolve it in any of a number of different ways.

Expanding Planescape. Although parts of "The Deva Spark" take place in Sigil and the Abyss, little detail is added to those planes. On the other hand, the information on Elysium is much more comprehensive, describing a an entire realm called Principality within Elysium. There's even a beautiful full-color map.

This was the first time that Elysium — originally the home of the Greek gods — had received much attention in D&D. It'd been around since Gygax introduced the planes in The Dragon #8 (July 1977), but it had only been slightly described in the various planar books over the years.

Monsters of Note. "The Deva Spark" also puts a nice focus on two classic planar D&D monsters that hadn't previously received much attention: the devas and the daemons.

A deva is, of course, at the center of the adventure. The was was first introduced by Gary Gygax in Dragon #63 (July 1982) as the "servants and deities" of good deties. They were angels in all but name, years before TSR became renaming "dangerous" monsters like demons and devils in AD&D 2e (1989). By second edition, devas were officially a type of "aasimon".

A daemon also has a major role in "The Deva Spark". The race was another Gygax creation, with some types first appearing in D3: "Vault of the Drow" (1978). They were reprinted in Fiend Folio (1981), then more daemons appeared in Monster Manual II (1989). With AD&D 2e (1989), the daemons became yugoloths — another victim of the morals panic at the time.

About the Creators. Slavicsek was just settling into his career at TSR after several years with West End Games. He'd previously done most of his work on the Dark Sun line, and this was his first Planescape publication; he'd return to the planes for a few more adventures in the next couple of years. Salsbury was a newcomer to D&D writing, who would contribute to just one other release: The Factol's Manifesto (1995), also for Planescape.

About the Product Historian

The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of Designers & Dragons - a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.

We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

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Product Information
Gold seller
Artist(s)
Rules Edition(s)
Pages
36
Edition
1.0
ISBN
1560769165
Publisher Stock #
TSR 2606
File Size:
14.29 MB
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File Last Updated:
March 31, 2014
This title was added to our catalog on April 01, 2014.