Beyond Countless Doorways is more Vancian than Moorcockian
A Planar Sourcebook by Monte Cook, Wolfgang Baur, Colin McComb, and Ray Vallese.
This is a 222 pages hardcover book (all in black and white) on planes, using a multiverse cosmology rather than the traditional D&D "great wheel". It retails at 35 dollars for the print version, and 13$ for the PDF version.
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APPEARANCE: In my opinion this is the best of the book. The top notch layout is the same style as that of Arcana Unearthed. The art is excellent (better than most of Arcana Unearthed in fact), and the maps visually look very nice. Also, note the quality of the paper, which is a kind of "semi glossy" extremely pleasant to the touch. Also, I didn't find anything wrong with the editing, but I don't especially search for typos… Overall the printing quality of this book is among the best of the market, and merits a 5. Of course, it would have been better in full color, but we can easily understand that unlike WotC, a third party publisher doesn't have the money for that.
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CONTENT: Beyond Countless Doorways is before all a collection of "planes". There is 20 chapters.
-- The first chapter explains the philosophy behind this book, which is about a cosmology largely inspired from Michael Moorcock's "multiverse". That is, imagine the universe (I mean: multiverse) as an endless sea of "soap-bubbles", some small, some big, some of them intricately intertwined. Each bubble is a universe in itself, or a specific campaign setting if you prefer. So the idea would be that if you have several campaign settings (say Greyhawk, Kalamar, Dawnforge, and Dragonlance), each of them would occupy one of the "bubbles". Then, if two of these bubbles were adjacent, it would be easy to go from one world to the next with appropriate magic (usually a Plane Shift spell) or convenient gates / planar rifts. This chapter also provides templates to create Planar Wardens and Purveyors of Dichotomy, sorts of powerful NPCs reminding me of Moorcock's Eternal Champions.
-- Each of the 18 following chapters describes an exotic "plane" (i.e.: campaign setting) where the PCs could travel and adventure. There is for examples the "Ten Courts of Hell" plane, then a plane that would make a fine Faerie setting, plus an underground demon world, etc. All of these chapters include a nice-looking map, some NPCs stats or new monsters, plus adventures hooks so the DM may easily design or improvise some adventures in the place.
-- The last chapter gives suggestions on how to create parallel worlds, which basically are a duplicate of the main campaign setting with variations (imagine two Middle Earth settings in the fourth age: one where Sauron was defeated, and one where he won and rules).
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OPINION: I am a great fan of Michael Moorcock's multiverse, and thus I did expect much from Beyond Countless Doorways. I believed it would describe something in that vein. However, I was much disappointed. There is many good ideas in this book, but they are for the most part poorly treated. As a result, you just get another supplement of bland vanilla D&D.
The following may appear more of a rant than a review, and you may not think that what I describe of being so poor looks that bad. But you will know if the book is good for you or not then. Nonetheless, the day I bought the book, I would begin to read a chapter and then… could not continue because it was just unable to grasp my attention. I would just feel totally indifferent to it, uninterested. I figured that maybe I wasn't in the good mood for RPGs? But no, that same day I had bought an old Warhammer module, and was extremely pleased with it. So what? I think the problem is, that I expected to find planes that would be grand, mysterious, alien and mythological. But then, in most cases interesting ideas seem to have been reduced down to mundane. There is above all one thing I really dislike with Beyond Countless Doorways: that its planes remind me of Star-Wars planets: the jungle planet, the city planet, the winter sports planet, etc. They are built exactly on the same principle! (Even if I understand that space constraints hardly authorize otherwise.)
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THOROUGH LOOK: Let's get a look at the various planes detailed in this book. With my rants added to some of them…
-- Avidarel, the Sundered Star. This begins with an interesting idea, that of a dead plane overwhelmed with cold and plunged into darkness. The text begins with: "a nearly dead universe once filled with planets and stars". So it clearly states a universe like our own. But then we learn that the inhabitants of a planet ceased to perform a ritual of magic that kept their sun burning (nothing less) and thus the sun ceased to burn, to eventually explode in millions of tiny fragments… Okay, I guess that it's just easy to change this explanation to just tell that it is a small strange plane where a magical fire circled the world, so this idea doesn't look anymore plain childish. But then, what about this tower inhabited by two human nobles who live there just to win a bet? And about one of them involved in "cross-planar illegal trade"? Sorry, but I just find silly the idea of "planar smugglers". It's a plane we are speaking about! Is planar travel as easy and mundane as traveling to the next land? But if it so, then lets change the whole concept of multiverse into one where each kingdom or country is inside a different plane, rather than a universe full of stars and planets.
-- Carrigmoor. Another plane that didn't need to get a so poor explanation. That is: sorcerers and technologists battled to the point where they tore their planet's crust apart, leaving thousands of asteroids orbiting its core. On one of them though, a city remained intact, with the right dome to protect from the outside, etc. Even in a world of magic this explanation is ridiculous and useless. After all it's a plane, it could be like this without need for a so childish explanation. And then, there is this stuff that I really cannot buy, of planar trade… In any case, all this plane is about a city that could be set in any normal campaign setting's desert. I really don't see what it brings to have put it in a plane.
-- Curnorost, Realm of Dead Angels. So, when celestials die, they go to that plane. It's something like the elephants' graveyards. The entire plain appears like a flat plain covered with weapons and armors, many of which are magical, and in the center of the plain a big fortress that in some way act as a great repository of knowledge. This is all, since PCs cannot reach the final resting place of the angels, in the northern mountains. Well, this plane looked okay to me, despite being not exciting at all, and only good for one or two adventures. Of course there is this silly thing that some nightcrawlers perpetually "haunts this land to find weapons to destroy, so that they can never be used against them or other creatures of evil" (**Rolleyes**).
-- The Crystal Roads of Deluer. An elemental plane of Earth made of rocky and crystalline formations floating in the sky and connected by extremely long crystal bridges / pathways. Along xorn kings, there is an angel-merchant smoking the cigar in this realm: [sarcasm] The kind of things I love… [/sarcasm] The fact is, everything in this plane revolves around mining or stealing of precious minerals. The idea is not so bad, but I am feeling something is lacking here too. Maybe the problem is that the setting is too simple, too succinct. An entire plane for only that?
-- Dendri (Expansion 11). An interesting idea that indeed merits a plane of its own. The interesting idea is that in this plane of misty jungles, Aranea have to fight invading Formians. Of course, elves and hobgoblins had to be added… In fact, their presence in this plane helps explain that PCs would not appear as total weird aliens in this place, and why araena would be able to polymorph into humanoids. Nonetheless, I would have liked to get a plane designed in such a way that there were no humanoid races in it. Otherwise, the hive-city of Hradec map is certainly very nice, but near useless to the DM who would want to run adventures in this place.
-- Faraenyl. This world could be used to portray Faery. It has four lands in which only one of the four seasons perpetually remains. So you go from the winter hills to the summer glade in a few hours of travel. Nothing wrong either with this plane, but after having read it, I still have this feeling that it's just so simple, so vanilla and bland, well…
-- Burning Shadows of Kin-Li'in. This is an underground realm, a maze of caverns, and a hell of ice and fire. It is essentially populated by fiends, plus introduces an interesting idea about shadows that attack those who cast them. Not bad, but still the same feeling of blandness… (probably the star-wars planet syndrome?)
-- The Lizard Kingdom. A world of dinosaurs and lizardfolk, plus many large insect species (like formians). Of all the book, this one belongs to my preferred. Still, I was wondering how to reshape it in throwing parts of Serpent Kingdom into it… In any case, I really don't see the need to have added humanoids (goblins, dwarves, and halfling-sized humans). Why not make a really exotic setting once and for all! Maybe to justify a nice map that nonetheless uses English names for the most part, and thus doesn't look very exotic…
-- The Maze. This one is about a city (hanging in the void) which exits lead into dungeons. So a PC goes out of town through a portal that leads into a specific plane where he has adventures, kill monsters, find treasure, gets XP, and comes back into the town (to get levels). Treated well, this one could have had a mythological aspect. However, as done it reminds me more of "open the door, bash the monster, and take his stuff". There is a secret to this city as well, but it doesn't change much the nature of that place.
-- Mountains of the Five Winds. Here is a world that seemed would be more to my liking. A plane that was devastated by Chaos, and its inhabitants horribly mutated. It seems much inspired from a Corum novel, where Corum travels to a plane entirely taken over by Chaos and thus constantly changes shape, while a last flying city dedicated to Law hovers in its sky. Well, this is at least one plane I have a use for, and doesn't need to be tweaked in some way.
-- Ouno, the Storm Realm. A world of levitating islands and flying boats, high over a sea of acid. Well, if you remove the flying aspect, what's so special about this setting with pirates and githzerai psions? Plus, why the hell flying vessels have to look like galleons? Why not like Da-Vinci flying machines? Just another plane I have no use for…
-- Palpatur. A relatively interesting plane. Devastated by wars between demons and devils, this plane is barren, without any vegetation. But then the plane itself is alive, with the soil being somewhat flesh-like. The plane's inhabitants (tieflings) live in hollow mounds appearing like screaming heads. If you don't run this setting carefully though, it will quickly falls into buffoonery.
-- Sleeping God's Soul. A maze of caverns full of mechanical devices. And then far below, a sleeping goddess. Well, this plane needs fleshing-out to become really interesting. As is, I merely consider it a dungeon, a place good for one or two adventures only. Not bad, but not what I call a plane, just a demi-plane at best. Also not what I did want to find in the book, but that's another story…
-- The Ten Courts of Hell. Visibly inspired from the Chinese concept of Hell, the Ten Court of Hell have nonetheless lost their mythological aspect. This is not really a problem though. However, having actually ten planes described in one chapter (plus a couple of new demons) makes for succinct descriptions.
-- Tevaeral, Magic's Last Stand. A world where magic is fading and where the last spellcasters (only arcane ones) are being hunted down by the local populations. If the last dragon dies, all magic will also die from this world (which is but a region it seems). If PCs could bring back dragons from somewhere else, magic would flourish again. Well, nothing wrong with this plane, yet lame, nothing extraordinary exciting either. Well, it could have been a Steampunk world, where technology is developing and rising, and where witch-hunters seek the last of magic-users who must go into hiding… in any case something with flavor and style. Not just a little plane of medieval fantasy where magic doesn't operate (and in fact it does still operate, it's just that the few remaining magic-users are concentrated in one single place).
-- Venomheart, Haven of the Sleep Pirates. The stat-blocks of a few planar pirates, the short description of their planar ship (with style) and base of operation. The pirate captain has a sword that can steal sleep. But then, if you wanted to use that to good end, you would need to draw the ship's deck-plans by yourself, and come up with much more ideas to get that Sleep stuff into something other than purely anecdotal.
-- The Violet. Really a demi-plane, this one is really original and weird. And it can serve useful purposes.
-- The Primal Garden of Yragon. In this plane we have the Grahlus apes who are planar slavers. I was really interested in this at first, because it so much reminded me of the Grahluk, a race of ape-demons created by Moorcock in one of his Elric novels. So, I hoped that a creature so obviously based on Moorcock, would expand on it, its perpetual wars against the Elenoin, etc. But no, the similarity stops there, and we just get apes who raid for slaves in other dimensions (I guess their own plane is probably too small…). I mean, here also why make a plane of this so simple idea, when it just can be a jungle in the normal campaign setting? Then, there is this Aliptur thing. So we get a boring history of the world saying that the Aliptur are virus-like things that contaminated the Grahlus and made them evolve into Intelligent apes. Frankly, an explanation that brings darn nothing of value to the race, except that if you cast Remove Disease on them, they lose 4 Int points… Well, that could make for a funny adventure, but it's not enough for a whole chapter dedicated to a plane description…
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CONCLUSION: I believed that Beyond Countless Doorways would have a Moorcock-ian flavor, but strangely enough I did find that it has a rather Vancian flair! If I were running a campaign inspired by Jack Vance's novels (especially The Dying Earth, Cugel, and Rialtho the Marvellous), I would see this book indeed perfect!! However, since I am leaning toward something much more "serious" (and Elric or Warhammer-like in spirit), it really doesn't fit. I also noticed in some places a flavor reminiscing me of Planescape. I hated Planescape (mythological planes turned into suburbs with slang speaking people; comical art; and adventures where mere 2nd level characters can go to Hell and back…), but if you liked it, well, you may probably like Beyond Countless Doorways as well.
In fact I would give 2 based on what I expected from that book and didn't get. However, if you are a fan of Planescape and do run Vancian types of adventures, it probably merits a 4. Hence I give it a 3 (and I intend to sell my copy of the book as soon as I find someone interested in it).
