A listing of planar products?

[danbuter]

I got Beyond Countless Doorways yesterday and was disappointed. The book is excellent quality when it comes to layout, art, and the quality of the paper it is printed on, as well as binding. However, I found much of the content simply boring. Many of the ideas are mundane, if not lame. I think I am going to write a review on this book from which I expected so much... But basically, my point is: if you do write a planar handbook, please, make it something mythological that keeps a sense of wonder and mystery. Cause, it's not what I found in BCD unfortunately...

Wow, you read the entire book in one day. You must be one heck of a speed reader . Anyways, I'm half and half on the book. I love the lizardmen world. I wish it had it's own book.

 

[philreed]

Planescape 2nd edition, particularly Planes of Law, Planes of Conflict, Planes of Chaos, Inner Planes, Guide to the Ethereal Plane, Guide to the Astral Plane, and Player's Guide to the Outlands.

Done. I've got a decent Planescape collection -- I was primarily listing just 3e/3.5 stuff.

I've never read any Michael Moorcock. What would be one book for a Moorcock virgin?

 

[Tinner]

It's not D&D realted, but might be some good inspiration, White Wolf's Bok of Worlds for the Mage line. Lots of strange little demi-planes detailed in there.
Exalted has some excellent planar information as well.

 

[Turanil]

Contrairement à toi, je trouve ce livre excellent !!! La grande roue et les domaines des dieux commencent à me sortir par les yeux...!!!

Well, for those who don't read French, Vlad Le Démon says that (since he is French like me) he totally agrees with me and even more. That said, I am also tired of the Great Wheel, but I did find Beyond Countless Doorways even worse.

GURPS: Infinite Worlds just shipped to stores. I think that's as close as you're gonna find.

Hey! I gonna get a look at this! If I can sell back my copy of BCD, I maybe can buy this one?

I've never read any Michael Moorcock. What would be one book for a Moorcock virgin?

Where planar travel are heavily considered, all Corum books, then "The Warhound and the World's Pain" as well as "Dragon in a Sword".

Wow, you read the entire book in one day. You must be one heck of a speed reader . Anyways, I'm half and half on the book. I love the lizardmen world. I wish it had it's own book.

I wrote a review (spent my whole day reading and writing! ) so as soon as I can post it, I recommend to read it. For the lizard world, maybe (but MAYBE) Serpent Kingdom could be an alternative. Well, not so really, but fact is, you can easily create a map by yourself and populate with dinosaurs, lizardfolk, dire kobolds, giant insects, and thri-kreen. It's mainly what this lizardmen world is about.

 

[grodog]

I've never read any Michael Moorcock. What would be one book for a Moorcock virgin?

Hmmm, for the real planar stuff, I'd recommend you read the Elric saga omnibuses published by WW: Elric: Song of the Black Sword and Elric: The Stealer of Souls. They're the classic lineup of Elric stories with some of the newer ones interspersed as well.

The Greenwood article I referenced above is actually a literary evaluation of gates and planar travel in fantasy/sci-fi (including Moorcock's work, among many other authors), and would give you a taste of some of the aspects of planar stuff from MM's works, Phil. I could certainly point you to a whole passel of novels, if you like, but then you wouldn't get your book written before 2007 or so since Moorcock's written well-over 100 novels, many of which interrelate and interleave.

 

[Vlad Le Démon]

Well, for those who don't read French, Vlad Le Démon says that (since he is French like me) he totally agrees with me and even more. That said, I am also tired of the Great Wheel, but I did find Beyond Countless Doorways even worse.

I don't think I've exactly said that.

 

[philreed]

but then you wouldn't get your book written before 2007 or so

Well, we just can't have that.

When I was in the bookstore yesterday they had only one book by Moorcock. Looks like an online search is in order.

 

[Krypter]

Although it took me a while, I really warmed to Beyond Countless Doorways. It is a more open-ended multiverse, with very few gods (but a lot of angels and demons) running around, and this gives it a more Moorcockian feel. There are countless dimensions and no structure to them, unlike the Great Wheel. The latter sometimes feel too structured and stifling, if you become very familiar with it after many years, as I have. BCD is fresh and inspiring.

I also recommend the Book of Worlds for Mage the Ascension, although it is very specific to that game.

Oh, and Vlad actually said that contrary to Turanil he found BCD to be an excellent book.

 

[Psion]

Although it took me a while, I really warmed to Beyond Countless Doorways. It is a more open-ended multiverse, with very few gods (but a lot of angels and demons) running around, and this gives it a more Moorcockian feel. There are countless dimensions and no structure to them, unlike the Great Wheel. The latter sometimes feel too structured and stifling, if you become very familiar with it after many years, as I have. BCD is fresh and inspiring.

I use BCD, but I don't use their cosmology. Indeed, I really don't like the concept that there are no aligned planes. That sort of flies in the face of D&D's moral reality AFAIAC.

I use a variant of the great wheel with the river of worlds (from portals & planes, Which is itself very moorcockian) in the place of the "infinite primes". I just plug in BCD planes as worlds on the river.

 

[Psychotic Jim]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Green Ronin's Book of Fiends, a good treatise on devils/demons/daemons and, to a lesser degree, the lower planes, mostly a monster book but has some other intesting things like an alternate origin for the demons/tanar'ri as well as a corruptive/Seven Sins alternative to WotC's NE yugoloths.

If you interested in dreams, Dreamscapes http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=4113 discusses designing where a dream plane might go in a cosmology and has some fairly complex rules for adventuring in dreams, as well as a few sample dream planes.
Malhavoc Press' Hyperconscious deals with what might happen if the dream plane ran over into the real world as some nebulous psionic entity invades it. It has some interesting psionic stuff relating to the plane of dreams as well as the astral plane.