A DM's Directory of Demiplanes

[Messageboard Golem]

This 75-page PDF, written by Philip Reed and Michael Hammes, provides the DM with 8 new demiplanes that can be dropped into any planar campaign. See the demo for one complete demiplane -- 9-pages -- from this release.

The demiplanes included in this PDF are:

The Ageless Chamber
The Astral Ship
The Blackguard's Tomb
The Bone Field
The Burning River
The Chiming Clock
The Clockwork-Driven Lighthouse
The Great Corpse

Also includes an appendix of 12 unusual planar gates.

Illustrated by Ted Wing and Paul Daly

Playtesting and Proofreading by Mark Gedak with Kent Little, Tanya Bergen, Patrick Kossman

 

[JoeGKushner]

A DM’s Directory of Demiplanes written by Philip Reed and Michael Hammes for sale by Ronin Arts. There are two types of artwork inside, color art by Ted Wing, and black and white by Paul Daly. The PDF weighs in at 75 pages, one of which is an advertisement for various Mongoose products, with a front and rear cover as well as the standard credits page, table of contents, and OGL license. Most of the material is pure text.

The color art varies. For example, the Ageless Chamber illustration is of a featureless box, or at least I imagine it as a box, in the Astral Plane. Most descriptions of the Astral feature it as a gray lifeless plane while the illustration here is a bright combination of black and red and is ugly. Other illustrions though, like a human standing in the Bone Field are done well, but have such heavy overtones to them, that details are hard to make out. The black and white artwork is easier on the eyes and reveals the details of the work more. I like the fact that it uses two types of illustrations, but because the book is art light, it could’ve removed one or the other and used those illustration space for other things.

Each planar description is short, ranging from the Astral Ship at four pages, to the Burning River at eight pages. Each plane starts with a brief snippet of fiction and then moves into the details of the location. Details include traits, such as gravity, alignment, magical effects, and elemental and energy traits, as well as links to the demi-plane, both to and from, features, inhabitants, and some game information.

Included are the following: The Ageless Chamber, The Astral Ship, The Blackguard’s Tomb, The Bone Field, The Burning River, The Chiming Clocks, The Clockwork-Driven Lighthouse, and the Great Corpse.

Due to the length of each chapter, the material gets into the details and moves out quickly. Some of the planes, like the Burning River, include new denizens, in this case, the lava children. The monster stats are done up in 3.5 terms and include standards like touch and flat-footed AC, as well as attack and full attack information. The bad news is that the new monsters aren’t illustrated. One of them, the Time Flayer, isn’t even described. No italicized descriptions are listed but most of them include some details. The Time Flayer, has none. None of the monsters have tactics either so the GM will have to read over each carefully and determine how best to use their abilities.

In terms of game stats, most of the material looks good, but a casual look reveals some common errors. For example, the Keepr, a tiny construct, has it’s Armor Class as 14, and then the bonuses, showing that it should be 16, which is reflected in it’s touch based AC. Some of the uses of the Keeper are also questionable. Giving it a hardness rating for example, instead of damage resistance, like a standard golem or most other constructs, seems odd design. The format is simple, but occasional slips are in like on page 48 where the second column, first paragraph, splits Material and Plane into two paragraphs or the “ly” orphaned on page 49 from effective from page 48.

When looking at all the planes, some questions come to mind. For example, the Chiming Clocks were used by the time flayers in an attempt to destroy worlds but were beaten by the celestials. The celestials left one guardian but that radiant dragon was slain. Now many forces guard the Chiming Clocks. Flip over to The Clockwork Driven Lighthouse, a weapon built by the forces of Lawful Good. It’s a weapon and it’s very lightly guarded. Now I understand that celestial doesn’t equal lawful good, but since no details are given to either faction, it’s difficult to imagine that one would be lightly guarded and the other heavily unless numerous different factions were involved, but since there are no details, it reads very vague.

The problem comes in the details. Too many times information is left blank for the GM to fill in. On one hand, this allows the GM to completely customize the area for his campaign. But for a counterpoint, let’s look at Seven Civilizations by Atlas. Silvergate is a demiplane reached from mirrors. It includes a typical Silvergate neighborhood map, some specific locations and details, some brief notes about the important characters, new magic items, feat, race, and spell, and adventure seeds.

It doesn’t provide complete details on the individuals but let’s compare that with say the Blackguard’s Tomb. This is a five-pages, two of them, art. The heading takes up about a third of the page. The rest is a bit of traits and some notes about the plane itself. No maps, no suggested stats, no adventure seeds. For a GM whose looking to add something to his campaign that he can completely customize, it’s great. For someone who might want a quick detour for his planar campaign, it would require so much work, that it’s essentially starting from the ground floor as outside of the invisible field surrounding the corpse, the gravity, and time are normal, and it’s a finite size, The plane does have negative dominance, but that’s not difficult to add to a plane in the middle of the negative energy plane and the enhancement to negative energy spells follow that line of thinking.

Let’s look at another one. The Ageless Chamber lies in the astral plane and prevents aging from taking someone. Now that agelessness also comes into effect with poisons and diseases, while they don’t go away, they do stop advancing. Because time has stopped, you also don’t get hungry or thirsty. Just don’t leave the room or it all catches up to you. There are links to it from any hospital that has an item that’s spent at least a year in the Ageless Chamber. I can quickly imagine some high fantasy hospitals that send adventurers to the Ageless chamber both to retrieve items and to leave items for next year. Inhabitants are noted to be 0 to 4 being there, but it’s left completely to the GM to determine and generate their statistics. Having a few pregenerated characters, even if I don’t use them right away, is the way to save the GM time and introduce plot hooks to other avenues. As far as I can tell, there are no direct tie ins to the other Ronin Arts book, Planar Factions here, which seems like a missed opportunity.

The appendix, A Dozen Unusual Gates, fits into the mode of other Dozen projects from Ronin Arts. We have different gates with features that make them unique and the GM can easily add them to any standard campaign that features planar travel. One campaign seed could be the Doors To Everywhere. The gods of planar travel made numerous planar gates in the shape of doors and scattered them through the planes and each is connected to another by the number of that other door. A great campaign seed that allows the GM to quickly set up links between different planes and send the characters off in search of ever more doors to number and catalog.

A nice touch is the link to Mongoose’s Book of the Planes. Unlike some tie-in products, the material here is often just a quick reference and doesn’t take up a lot of space and isn’t a required book to enjoy the material.

The concepts are good but detail lacking. If there were some maps for the smaller planes, some adventure seeds, and some NPCs, the utility of this book would skyrocket.

 

[Crothian]

DMs Guide to the Demi Planes

Over the past year there has been an unusual amount of books that cover the planes regions. At first there was only the Wizards’ book Manual of the Planes. While it was meet with compliments and enjoyed by many, there was a void for planar ideas that did not fit. At first I was going to do a more comprehensive review that detailed many of the planes books, but with the review section set up to list reviews under specific books I have chosen to just do them all individually. Or so I hope.

DM’s Guide to the Planes is PDF by Ronin Arts. Unlike any of the other planar books it actually builds off of one of them, the Book of Planes by Mongoose. The Book of Planes is not needed to use and enjoy this PDF though. The DM’s Guide to the Demi Planes presents eight different demi planes. Unlike most of the other planes that are written about many of these are very finite in size showing what interesting ideas and exploration can be done in such places of limited space.

The PDF is seventy five pages. The art and layout are both very well done. The book is well book marked and comes in a zip file a little under ten megs in size.

The book has a simple idea in it that none of the others does. It includes the DC for a character to have some knowledge about the plane and makes great use of the skill Knowledge Planes. Unlike other plane books though, this one does not specifically list adventure ideas for using the demi planes. While some people will have no problems coming up with ideas to use the planes, others feel more comfortable with adventure seeds that are already provided.

The first demi plane is called the ageless chamber. It is a small room sized plane that floats around the Astral Plane. Time has no effect on anything inside the chamber. It is a small and simple idea for a demi plane but shows some of the odd and even unique properties a demi plane can possess. There are suggestions for where the gates into the plane exist and some hazards that people might not expect.

The Astral Ship is one of the few demi planes that is mobile. It is currently occupied by a collection of demons but there could be a lot of interesting creatures and non player characters that could be used here. It is actually a form of a demi plane that seems a little complicated and one might wonder why make a plane that is a ship when a magical ship might be easier. But still the idea is different and creative making it a nice encounter to surprise the players with.

The Blackguard’s Tomb is a demi plane with a rich history and some long term campaign potential. Basically it is the final resting place of a very powerful Blackguard and currently even his deity can not bring him back to life. I think it can serve as an interesting backdrop for the players to discover and then worry about.

The Bone Field is a demi plane that exists just above the negative energy plane and consists entirely of bones. IT is a haven for undead and has a bone mausoleum. One thing that does annoy me though is when books introduce things like the mausoleum and give absolutely no hint or possibilities of what are inside or really anything about it. As it is the only feature on the plane of bones and at least they could have something about it.

The Burning River is a really interesting idea. It is a river of fire and lava that goes around in a basic circular like shape. There are rocks and mountains to each side but the river is the prominent feature. There are as can be expected a great deal of fire oriented creatures and hazards through out. This one really just struck me as something different that could be used with ease.

The Chiming Clocks is a plane in decline that is slowly being destroyed. However it houses a artifact like clock that can destroy worlds. Celestials guard it but frankly I think they need to guard such a powerful item a little better. I think because of what it is and the fact it is always guarded would make this a tough plane to use.

The Clockwork Driven Lighthouse is an extremely powerful artifact for good and thus has its won demi plane. It is another interesting idea of a weapon that can destroy evil with ease but its singular use makes it a little difficult to use and this one also seems like it would be better just as an artifact and not so much as a plane.

The Great Corpse is an idea I have read before. It is the long dead body of a once great deity that is now a plane of its own. This seems like a great lead in to Requiem for a God by Malhavok Press.

The planes are creative but with some it does seem like they were made into planes because that is what the book is about when they might have been better presented as other things. There is a lot of creativity in the book though.

 

[Man-thing]

The Mysteries of the Multiverse are before us...

Review of “A DM’s Dictionary of Demiplanes”
by Philip Reed and Michael Hammes
Color Artwork by Ted Wing
B&W Artwork by Paul Daly
Playtesting and Proofreading by Mark Gedak with Kent Little, Tanya Bergen, Patrick Kossmann.

Bias 1: I was a playtester on this product along with my gaming group who also did some proofreading.
Bias 2: I was given a playtest copy of this book in pdf format.
Addendum: Wait, that’s not completely fair. I enjoyed the product so much I also bought a copy in softcover from Lulu.com.

“A DM’s Dictionary of Demiplanes” is a 72 page d20 supplement that details eight demiplanes. It is available in pdf for $9.95 (from Rpgnow, e23, DTRPG) and in print and pdf for $19.95 (Rpgnow only, now)

An Overview:

This book is broken down into 11 sections. Eight of these sections detail each of the demiplanes presented. There is a 1-page section detailing information about Ronin Arts and this particular product. There is a 2-page section that suggests ways for incorporating demiplanes in your campaign and an appendix that provides us with a dozen planar gates.

Section 1: Introduction (1 page)

Like many of Ronin Arts’ larger projects this one is a joint effort from Philip Reed and Michael Hammes. Most of the text in this book is Open Game Content, except for some Product Identity from Mongoose Publishing that was used with permission. The authors also highly recommend Mongoose Publishing’s Classic Play: Book of the Planes and though not necessary for the enjoyment of this product some elements introduced in Book of the Planes have been referenced in this book. (Bias: I playtested Book of the Planes as well.)

I think it should be highlighted that Philip Reed and Michael Hammes wrote this book. Michael has written a ton of material and for some reason receives little recognition, which is too bad because a lot of it is great. More information on Michael’s work can be found at http://www.michaelhammes.com/.

Section 2: Learning about Demiplanes (2 page)

This section describes where players could locate information on demiplanes, provides a discussion the use of Knowledge (the planes) to access information on the demiplanes, and an example of what the check might reveal for the Crystal demiplane. Lastly this section provides a sort of designer diary on the definition of Demiplane that was used in this project. I thought it was a nice touch to include an actual example of the use of Knowledge (the planes) because it is more illustrative than the common, difficult, hard, very hard question format of the PHB. It is unclear if the Crystal demiplane was one of the original planes Philip and Michael intended to include or not. As originally conceived A DM’s Dictionary of Demiplanes was going to include 24 demiplanes, but as development continued some planes got slatted for potential later release.

Structure of the Demiplanes Sections:

All Demiplane sections include a quotation or flavour bit to start the section, a base DC to locate information on the demiplane, the demiplanes traits, links that the demiplane has to the greater multiverse, the main features of the demiplane, and any inhabitants of the plane.

Section 3: The Ageless Chamber (6 pages)

The Ageless Chamber is a small structure made from the Astral Plane that can hold up to 4 inhabitants. Within its walls magic and time have no providence. Basically it is a small demiplane that could be used by healers to store people suffering from the ravages of disease or by people trying to avoid death’s icy grip. This demiplane is useable at all levels of play. This demiplane merges with the Vault of Stars every 100 years for a limited time. There is one weird error in the text in the description of the Journal of Eldanar Losselin that has creation notes for a magical whip. This can easily be solve by draw a black line through it like This.

I see the Ageless chamber being used in the following ways in my campaign: a strange building suddenly appears before you (in the Vault of Stars), a location a BBEG flees to, a while in an old healing temple a person for times past emerges from nowhere through an archway, and a place to store a PC who has succumbed to a magical disease while the rest search for key ingredients for his cure.

Section 4: The Astral Ship (5 pages)

“Yar, they say there is a haunted ship crewed by foul demons that sail the planes.” Of course that’s not how the chapter opens, but to me it would have been perfect. The Astral Ship is a demiplane/object that is again composed of astral material. The ship can translocate from any point in the Astral to any other point in the Astral with a thought. The ship has two important features a navigator who controls the ship by thought and a room of souls for holding all of the “fuel”. Demon selection is up to the DM.

This is a great demiplane but my campaigns often have demons and often have pirates so a ship of demon pirates is just too perfect for my game. Like most people I don’t own one book, I own hundreds so when my players first encountered this ship they got of easy and they face a decent number of standard demons, but now with Infernum: Book of the Damned they suffering will be legendary even in Hell (Infernum is MGP, last is from Hellraiser of course).

Section 5 – The Blackguard’s Tomb (5 pages)

The Blackguards tomb is the final resting place of a vile evil. The forces of good have killed the Blackguard and imprisoned his soul somewhere else. The Blackguards patron is keeping his body protected in this demiplane that buried within the Negative energy plane. There is not much to see and do in this demiplane as it has only one dead occupant and a single room. Of course leaving the plane might drop you in the aforementioned Infernum.

I see the Blackguard’s tomb as a location to visit at the climax of a campaign dedicated to the prevention the Blackguard’s return. Beyond being a demiplane, this is an invitation to a grand campaign that can span several months or years as the PCs try to prevent the return of the Blackguard.

Section 6 – The Bone field (9 pages)

This is the ideal home base for an evil necromancer. Floating in the negative energy plane is an island of bones and skeletal horrors. Two such horrors taken from other OGC sources include the Necrophidius (ToH) and Black Skeletons (ToHII). Lost in this demmiplane is also a minor artifact of evil that is a powerful magical whip that provides the wielder with all of the benefits of undeath, inceased rebuking/commanding powers, and spell-like abilities.

Due to the Negative-Energy Dominance of this plane, I would recommend PCs avoid it until high levels unless extremely well prepared. Upon death of a PC it has amused me to reanimate them an attack their peers. If you do not have statistics for Black Skeletons yet, they are worth picking up the book on them alone. They are a great surprise villain if your PCs have become complacent with existing skeletal undead.

Section 7 – The Burning River (10 pages)

The Burning River is an elemental themed demiplane home to many fire and earth creatures. Red Dragons hold dominion in this plane for the time being and it is hostile to the softer species. Although the demiplane has a fixed size, it feels like there are endless possibilities for exploration because of the endless caves that make up its solid mass. Creatures included in this section are updated version of the lava weird and the lava children.

My players found the concept of a demiplane filled with treasure of demons, wizards, and dragon far too tempting of a target. Being elemental in natural it is reasonably easy for them to prepare for treasure hunting. We adventured in the Burning River during our middle levels 5-12.

Section 8 – The Chiming Clocks (9 pages)

A demiplane whose time is up is the best way to describe the The Chiming Clocks. This mechanical plane was constructed by the Time Flayers (included in this section, from ToH II I think), as means to destroy countless worlds. The Time Flayers were defeated and now the Elemental Plane of Air is slowly crushing the plane. This plane links up to the Halls of Order, the Prime, the Positive Energy Plane, and the Elemental Plane of Air.
Included in this section are new examples of planar equipment and watcher scarabs.

The Chiming Clocks always seemed like an idea place to use if you wanted to include aspects of time travel into you game. It could be used as a battleground between competing forces of Law. It might only be used as a conduit to the Plane of Air or the Halls of Order.

Section 9 – The Clockwork Driven Lighthouse (9 pages)

The Clockwork Driven Lighthouse is a demiplane that was built, as a beacon of hope that shines out in the night sky...At least that was the intent. Upon its arrival in my campaign, the Lighthouse was taken over by a powerful Arch Devil that used it light to disintegrate a prominent Rebel Leader as he was prepared to free the people from a corrupt ruler. With the Hero dead it fell to my players to try and make a difference in the world.

Included in this section is additional information on converting the lighthouse, entrance and egress is limited to the Prime, a new creation called a Keeper that maintains the Lighthouse regardless of the owner.

Section 10 – The Great Corpse (7 pages)

The Great Corpse is a demiplane composed of the body of a dead god, more of a Cthulhu dead then a Kennedy dead. Which god? It doesn’t really say that way it’s easy for you to kill off whatever god you want. It floats in the Positive Energy Plane on its way to the unknown. Magic is wild on the god’s body due to residual divine energy, pilgram’s populate the body hoping to speak with their god, and a small town has even been built on the body.

The Great Corpse brings into question the nature of the divine and the permanency of all things. It could be a stopover for cleric and paladins in need of guidance, or a place for PCs to escape the dangers of the Positive Energy Plane. Links from this plane include passing onto it from the Positive Energy Plane, places with temples to this god, and the Vault of Stars.

Section 11 – Appendix (6 pages)

Completing this book is a dozen unusual gates. This material is very typical of Ronin Arts’ Dozen lines of focused material on a specific topic. One thing of note about this section is that although it might at first seem that this information was added to pad the book, many of the portals directly relate to more of the planes from the Book of the Planes. This integrates it with the rest of the product, however none of the gates in this section actually open onto these 8 demiplanes themselves directly.

How’s the editing?

Anti-Bias: I did not proofread this. I think Tanya did and maybe Kent did. I can’t remember for sure.

It’s good; there were not any big errors that slipped by. Sure there will be some minor things like an “an” that should have been an “and” but there wasn’t anything that disrupted my reading as I went.

[Begin Rant not related to the product]
I’m not sure what the huge concern some people have with editing anyway. I generally happy if the flow is good and I understand what the rules mean. After all I’m sure we’ve all seen this before text before:

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pcleas. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by ilstef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
[End Rant]

What version is the book written for?

Wow, that’s neat. On my printed copy it does not actually say. Based on the monster statistics and from what I remember the product was designed for 3.5 and is compliant with those rules with the exception of a magical net that is not in standard format.

What about Open Game Content?

Everything except declared Product Identity, art, graphics, and creator’s names is designated open content.

So where do I stand?

Even with the bias that my group and I provided feedback and proofreading help to Philip and Michael, I was extremely pleased at how the product turned out. Many of the ideas in here have become a regular part of the campaign and there are several that I still intend to use. There were a lot of surprises for me as well. I saw several versions of this document but as with every time I’ve provided feedback I never see the final version until it was released.

I feel that this is a book of ideas. Every plane has enough information to use but not so much that it becomes a straightjacket. We get strong impressions of what the planes are and not rigid environments that would only work in Phil’s or Michael’s campaign. My only complaint with “A DM’s Dictionary of Demiplanes” is that part two and three (the remaining 16 plane that lie hidden in Phil and Michael’s notebooks) has not been released, yet. So far, we fans of the planes have had to content ourselves with A Dozen Planar Traits, Six Planar Gates, and Six Living Gates. Hopefully book two will become a reality soon.

Out of the demiplanes offered in this supplement, the only one that wouldn’t find a home in my own campaign is the Blackguard’s Tomb. In my games I find that quests more epic than rescue the princess tends to end badly, and god help you if my PCs sign on to be your bodyguards.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"I’m not sure what the huge concern some people have with editing anyway."

Yeah, it shows.

Seriously, though, good review.

 

[John Cooper]

"I’m not sure what the huge concern some people have with editing anyway."

Some people - myself included - feel that the proofreading and editing job makes the difference between a professional-looking product and that of an amateur publication. Poor quality editing can really detract from a product, and I've never bought the view that these are "just" gaming products. If they're going to be published (whether as hardcopy pages or electronic documents), they should conform to the standards of the publishing industry.

I agree with Whizbang Dustyboots, though: very good review.

 

[Psion]

A DM’s Directory of Demiplanes is a product describing a number of finite sized planes of existence that can be used as adventure sites in a d20 fantasy game. The book is published by Ronin Arts and written by Phillip Reed and Michael Hammes.

The book is currently available as a PDF document or print edition from RPGnow, as well as DriveThruRPG. This review is based on the PDF obtained from RPGnow.

A First Look
[imager]http://www.rpgnow.com/products/product_3558.jpg[/imager]
The PDF version of A DM’s Directory of Demiplanes is a 75 page PDF document, including two color cover pages and a 1 page ad. The PDF is available for $9.95 and the print version is available for $19.95. The product link is here

The covers are color. The interior features both color and black and white artwork. The color illustrations are by Ted Wind and black & white illustration. The color art has a somewhat abstract and blurry style to them (not my favorite style, by I imagine many Planescape fans of old will warm to it.) The black and white artwork is more concrete and conveys many concepts and fixtures in the book rather well, though are somewhat sketchy in style.

There are some minor grammatical formatting errors but no major rules problems that I noticed.

A Deeper Look

A DM’s Directory of Demiplanes describes 8 unique demiplanes, in addition to a brief up-front rules section and an appendix detailing a dozen planar gateways.

The up front rules section, Learning About the Planes provides a guideline for providing players whose characters have Knowledge skills with tidbits of knowledge about the planes. Planes have different “base” DCs based upon how obscure they are, and the sorts of knowledge conveyed by a roll is determined by the difference between the base and actual roll. This model is simple and flexible, and a variation of it is also used for knowledge about planar gates (both in the appendix of this book and in follow up products like Six Planar Gates and Six Living Planar Gates.)

Each of the eight demiplanes is explained in a similar basic format, describing the planar traits (in a similar format to the 3.5 DMG and Manual of Planes), links to other planes (often described in generic campaign portable forms such as “an evil material city”), features of the plane, and inhabitants. Sidebars provide additional campaign materials and ideas.

In summary, the eight demiplanes are as follows:

• The Ageless Chamber – This demiplane floats in the astral, and has simple but absolute properties: no magic operates therein, no time passes within, and only four creatures can ever be within at a time. This makes a convenient plot device for a variety of adventures.
• The Astral Ship – This ship-like demiplane can go anyplace in the astral with a thought. There are just two catches. One… it’s currently under the control of demons. Two… well, I’ll let you read the book.
• The Blackguard’s Tomb – This small demiplane is situated within the negative plane. It houses the crypt of a great blackguard who the powers of good denied the resurrection of. There’s pretty much only one use for this site, as it lacks many other details than the corpse and its protection.
• The Bone Field – This demiplane, also within the negative energy plane, has a bit more potential. One curious aspect of this plane is that, for those in the know, you can enter the plane via a fairly mundane method. It leads to a plane with an infinite supply of bones, and also a convenient site for lost necromantic artifacts.
• The Burning River – This ring shaped fire dominant plane features a river of lava and a number of appropriate rigors and sites of interest. Inhabitants include lava children (originally in the 1e Fiend Folio, and updated in the Tome of Horrors) and lave weirds (from Tome of Horrors II), replicated here for your use.
• The Chiming Clock – This bit is kicked off in an interesting fashion: a bit of flavor text alluding to the plane in a children’s rhyme, a potentially interesting way to introduce the idea of the plane into the campaign. The chiming clock is a huge tower full of clocks that correspond to the time in a great variety of planes. The demiplane is essentially an artifact that can be used to manipulate, or perhaps even destroy, worlds.
• The Clockwork Lighthouse – This is sort of a fantasy version of the James Bond style orbital laser satellite. It was forged by the forces of Law and Good, and serves as a beacon, or a weapon against evil on the material plane that it can be seen from. The catch – you knew there was a catch – the lighthouse can be converted to another alignment if it is held by forces of that alignment. As such, this is probably most appropriate to use as a challenge for good characters from the affected prime plane who wish to reclaim the Lighthouse from evil.
• The Great Corpse – The ideas of huge corpses of deities has been an edifice in planar gaming since planescape, and only renewed by Malhavoc’s Requiem for a God. This corpse hosts a planar town and floats in the positive material plane instead of the Astral. Would make for a nice spectator site, or potentially the focus of a campaign as it is said that the corpse is not entirely dead.

The appendix details 12 unusual gates. These vary in destination and flavor, providing a nice variety of methods for GMs to get their players involved in planar adventures.

The book makes good use of open game content. Several creatures were extracted from other OGC sources to provide thematically appropriate inhabitants for various planes. In some places, destinations of gates or links refer to planes described in Mongoose Publishing’s Book of the Planes. For those who use the core cosmology, many of these planes represent staple core rule concepts like the astral, ethereal, or elemental planes. Others are specifically named outer planes, but if you do not own or desire to use the Book of the Planes, they can merely serve as placeholders for similar planes from the core cosmology.

Conclusion

Generally, I find the book to be a strong addition to the arsenal of any GM who is running a planar campaign or who is running a standard campaign that might be interested in occasional forays into the planes. The demiplanes provide some interesting backdrops and a few plot drivers for GMs to make their own adventures.

There are a few points that could use improvement. I felt that the blackguard’s tomb was a little dull, and almost amounted to a single dungeon room and a plot hook. Some demiplanes could have benefited from a handful of adventure seeds for each one, much like many of the planes in the oft referred to Classic Play: Book of the Planes.

Overall Grade: A-

–Alan D. Kohler

 

[nothing to see here]

Hey Psion, as a prolific reviewer and a planar aficionado, I would love to hear (well, read) you compare the different planar resources out there side by side

 

[Krypter]

Ditto for the planar book comparison. I'd like to buy one but I can't get them straight in my head. Which one is truly the best among them? Which one comes closest to capturing the Planescape feel?

 

[Psion]

Hmmm... in what context would you like to see this comparison?

Just what aspect of planescape are you looking for? Planar Magic sort of assumes a planescape-like cosmology, but I don't know if that's enough to say it's Planescape feel.

It may be some time before I can do formal reviews (if ever), but I can offer this:

One of my favorite planar books currently is Portals & Planes, though it's not really planescape feel aside from that it provides for many unusual planes, and has some portal rules that would be so at home in planescape.

I like the approach to factions in Book of the Planes, though of course they aren't planescape factions. Planar Factions has some neat idea fodder, but the factions are more typical secret societies and villain groups than typical planescape factions. Still a lot of potential though.

Aasimar & Tieflings by Green Ronin (I have a review up) is probably one of the best planar books and best planescape feel books. Some classes aren't too well put together, but the race rules are really great for a planescape style game. Not only does it let you customize your planetouched, you can make whole new planetouched races to taste. Fans of the old Planewalker's Handbook should dig it.

Planar Handbook by WotC is one of my least favorite. That is in part because two of my favorite planescape factions were the Godsmen and the Signers, and rolling them together ruined them both IMO, but the minds eye is supported here. Also, I don't think that every planescape faction deserves a 10 level class -- planescape factions aren't isolated cabals; LOTS of cutters belong to them (which is why I like the Book of planes feat and 3 level class approach). And the Athar class here takes the Athar away from the more enlightented "the gods are just powerful mortals" things and twists it into the more mundane "project my atheist values into the game" PrC like a few third party publishers have put out. And I loath the races in it. That said, I REALLY like the substitution level rule. It helps make the core classes fit the Planescape setting (or any setting with experienced planar wanderers) without making a whole new selection of classes.