Planescape Manual of the Planes for 5e on DMSGuild

New on the DMSGuild is the Manual of the Planes for 5th edition. The cover is stunning.

​

It's over 300 pages and the credits page includes folks from The Draconomicon, The Dragonlance Companion, Tasha's Crucible of Everything Else, Planescape: Metropolis, The Honkonomicon and Planewalker.com

​

I love the special thanks.

This project was made possible by Roll20. Thank you for unlocking new horizons for the latest generation of planewalkers, bashers, berks, and touts. We’d also like to thank the giants on whose shoulders we stand when writing this book: Justice Ramin Arman, Richard Baker, Wolfgang Baur, David “Zeb” Cook, Bruce R. Cordell, Jeff Grubb, David Noonan, F. Wesley Schneider, Rick Swan, and all others who helped create and cultivate Planescape and the planes.

I've just bought it and am reading it now.

Manual of the Planes (5e) - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

Manual of the Planes (5e) - Now available in print! Already own the PDF? Get a $30 discount off your print by buying it as part of the Prior Purc

www.dmsguild.com

Here is the table of contents.

 

[Incenjucar]

Tiny typo on page 62:
"which is now titled at an uncomfortable 45 degree angle"

Page 72:
"literal through-provoking creatures"

--

Gotta say the quotes are pretty fun and really feel right.

 

[afroakuma]

Tiny typo on page 62:
"which is now titled at an uncomfortable 45 degree angle"

Page 72:
"literal through-provoking creatures"

Ooh, good catches, will update.

--

Gotta say the quotes are pretty fun and really feel right.

I'm glad. I was hoping poor old Lord Sortlyn in particular wouldn't be so ubiquitous that he got to be grating.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Tiny typo on page 62:
"which is now titled at an uncomfortable 45 degree angle"

I'm now imagining a giant "Isle of Dread" sign, a la the Hollywood sign, plastered along the side of one of the mountains of Gehenna, but at a 45 degree angle sideways along the 45 degree angle of the plane. The local yugoloths are rightfully annoyed because it would definitely be uncomfortable to read, and because the sign is tacky and taking up a huge amount of real estate...

(The scenario in the book is that the Isle of Dread has temporarily appeared in Gehenna, and yugoloths are annoyed about it)

 

[afroakuma]

Are you actually bound to WotC's cosmological rules? Are there actually restrictions?

Externally imposed? No. A decision was made early on that this book should be compatible in chief with 5E canon material whenever a conflict might exist; within that framework, we were free to offer embellishments and we pushed the envelope with addition (fleshing out the Positive and Negative Energy Planes as visitable destinations in their own right) rather than subtraction (removing the Elemental Chaos). I also cheated in a few places; for example, Takhisis and Tiamat are listed as separate goddesses, just to keep torturing Jeff Grubb.

Reading some more and it’s clear they must have worked with WotC. Not sure how close but I’d bet they had info I’d think would have been covered by an NDA.

I have never gotten to work directly with WotC, sadly. I'd love to have that kind of influence on planar canon. Maybe one day I'll be so lucky, but hey - first published work for me in the gaming world, so that's some kind of start.

I’m rather impressed that y’all managed to get some of these things in and still be so useful with the WotC box set.

I'm curious what this refers to. What did we impress you with?

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

The 5E cosmos includes the elemental plans and the elemental chaos. I also thought the quasi planes resulted from the blending of the elemental planes and this blending eventually becomes the elemental chaos.

I even thought that was hinted at somewhere in 5e

Picked this up last night and started reading through it. Interesting how they sneakily re-introduced the old quasi-elemental planes as parts of the Elemental Chaos influenced by the Positive and Negative Planes...

I would've loved to do them standalone and give them all the attention they truly deserve, but we were bound to adhere to at least some of 5E's cosmological fixtures. I think the Feywild and the Shadowfell were comparatively easier to fold into the Great Wheel model; the Elemental Chaos has the issue that, you know. Limbo. Using it as a catchment for the paras and the quasis was not my idea but I think it works.

 

[Mistwell]

Once again dmsguild upstages WotC reminding everyone of the disgraceful state of the D&D dev team, or at least its leadership. I hope AL makes this product legal for AL, it'd be nice for Planescape to have meaning support for Planescape campaigns.

dmsguild should not be regularly producing better products for your settings then you with a tiny fraction of your resources, it's disgraceful.

Dude you can like things you like without making it about bashing things you dislike. All you do by reacting this way is make me want to dismiss your views because I know you have some anti-WOTC agenda behind your comments.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Dude you can like things you like without making it about bashing things you dislike. All you do by reacting this way is make me want to dismiss your views because I know you have some anti-WOTC agenda behind your comments.

So your opinions are invalid because you don't like WotC? Does it work the other way? Are @MonsterEnvy 's opinions (for example) invalid because they approve of everything WotC does?

 

[Mistwell]

So your opinions are invalid because you don't like WotC? Does it work the other way? Are @MonsterEnvy 's opinions (for example) invalid because they approve of everything WotC does?

By framing your like of something ABOUT disliking WOTC yeah, I am not interested in your view because I question if it's more about the anti-WOTC thing. And sure enough, the guy had not even read it or the WOTC product he was comparing it to. My instincts were right - it was wise to dismiss a review framed that way, because it turned out it wasn't even a real review it was more an instinctive "I hate WOTC and here is reason 4572 for it."

And yes of course it works the other way but no not if someone likes everything X does and that was not my point. It works the other way if someone frames their dislike of a third party product by constantly claiming it's deficient in not being as awesome as a WOTC product (for your example). It's about framing their dislike of Y because they like X. It's framing praise purely in a context of why you hate everything about some other company that makes me rightly suspicious of the review.

 

[darjr]

Externally imposed? No. A decision was made early on that this book should be compatible in chief with 5E canon material whenever a conflict might exist; within that framework, we were free to offer embellishments and we pushed the envelope with addition (fleshing out the Positive and Negative Energy Planes as visitable destinations in their own right) rather than subtraction (removing the Elemental Chaos). I also cheated in a few places; for example, Takhisis and Tiamat are listed as separate goddesses, just to keep torturing Jeff Grubb.

I have never gotten to work directly with WotC, sadly. I'd love to have that kind of influence on planar canon. Maybe one day I'll be so lucky, but hey - first published work for me in the gaming world, so that's some kind of start.

I'm curious what this refers to. What did we impress you with?

It’s generally how well it meshes with 5e cosmology and the box set Planescape. Y’all even have random monster tables that include monsters from the set.

 

[dave2008]

The quasi elemental or para elemental or both are hinted at in the DMG in the section on the Inner Planes:

"The Inner Planes surround and enfold the Material Plane and its echoes, providing the raw elemental substance from which all worlds were made. The four Elemental Planes — Air, Earth, Fire, and Water — form a ring around the Material Plane, suspended within a churning realm known as the Elemental Chaos. These planes are all connected, and the border regions between them are sometimes described as distinct planes in their own right."

Picked this up last night and started reading through it. Interesting how they sneakily re-introduced the old quasi-elemental planes as parts of the Elemental Chaos influenced by the Positive and Negative Planes...

I would've loved to do them standalone and give them all the attention they truly deserve, but we were bound to adhere to at least some of 5E's cosmological fixtures. I think the Feywild and the Shadowfell were comparatively easier to fold into the Great Wheel model; the Elemental Chaos has the issue that, you know. Limbo. Using it as a catchment for the paras and the quasis was not my idea but I think it works.

The 5E cosmos includes the elemental plans and the elemental chaos. I also thought the quasi planes resulted from the blending of the elemental planes and this blending eventually becomes the elemental chaos.

I even thought that was hinted at somewhere in 5e