Logo for Crystania: Legend of the Drifters 1, the first novel in the series.
Crystania (クリスタニア, kurisutania) is a series of light novels created by Ryo Mizuno and set in the world of Crystania, an uncharted continent in the far south of Forcelia. The series began in 1993 with Crystania: Legend of the Drifters 1 and introduced a new land, Crystania, and a new set of main characters and gods. Three sequels followed in 1993, 1994 and 1996, focusing on the same characters. From 1995 to 1996 three prequel novels were written by Shogo Kawazoe and Hide Shirai, which introduced two Record of Lodoss War fan favourite characters—Ashram and Pirotess—to the series, arguably to get fans from the Record of Lodoss War novel series interested in the Crystania novel series.
Crystania was originally announced as an RPG replay, which was later adapted into a light novel by Ryo Mizuno. Later, it became a shared universe series, with multiple, usually up-and-coming authors such as the aforementioned Shogo Kawazoe and Hide Shirai, writing stories set within the universe. The RPG replays were all adapted into light novels, except for the final RPG replay, Crystania RPG Replay: Legend of the Uncharted, because of Mizuno's busy schedule. In 2012, Mizuno announced that he would not write another Crystania novel, citing a busy schedule but also because there was no guarantee it would sell. He did promise to one day publish his ideas, a synopsis and setting on his website.[1][2]
The Crystania novel series spans seventeen novels. Ryo Mizuno wrote the Legend of the Drifters series and parts of the preludes to the Legend of the Sealed and Legend of the Mercenaries respectively. Other known authors are Satoshi Kurihara (栗原 聡志), Hide Shirai (白井 英), and Shogo Kawazoe (河添 省吾). Illustrations for the novels are done by Jun Suemi (末弥 純), Satoshi Urushihara (うるし原 智志), Toshihiro Kawamoto (川元 利浩), and others. The majority of the novels each follow one of three recurring protagonists; Redon or Rails, both adventurers from the kingdom of Da’nan, or Luth, a Crystania native.
The series is often believed to be called "Legend of Crystania", probably due to the two animes released in the west that used that name. Each novel in the series is titled "Crystania", and the subtitle of each novel starts with "Legend of". The only exception to this consistency was the prequel novel—The First Adventurers: Legend of Crystania—which was also the basis for the two anime.
List of novels[]
(10 June 1993)
(10 December 1993)
(10 December 1994)
(10 February 1996)
(10 July 1995)
(27 December 1995)
(10 June 1996)
(10 November 1997)
(10 August 1998)
(10 April 1999)
(10 August 1995)
(10 April 1997)
(10 August 2000)
(10 December 2000)
(10 March 2001)
(10 June 2001)
(10 March 2002)
RPG replays[]
(July 1993)
(10 June 1995)
(20 November 1996)
(10 March 1997)
(10 March 1998)
(10 May 1998)
(10 June 1998)
(10 October 1998)
Reading order[]
Chronological reading order
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Recommended reading order
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