D&D 5E Check Out Planescape's Table of Contents & More!

Brandes Stoddard has received a copy of Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse (which come out in two weeks!) and is posting loads of photos over on Blue Sky. You can check out his feed for the whole treasure trove--here's a look at the table of contents.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

A "planar handbook" by a 3PP? There is one, "The Path of the Planebreaker" by Monte Cooks Games. This is one of the titles should appear as licence in D&DBeyond.

My vision about the 5e Ravenlof is Vecna wanted, and he wants, vengueance against the Dark Powers, and he used Azalin Rex and his wishes to escape as a puppet to cause the wrost possible troubles. The previous dark lord of Falkov was killed (a tyrant like them earns too many enemies). Maybe a rebellion by the soldiers because these didn't want an useless sacrifice, or because they feared being punished because they couldn't obey certain orders. The previous "Core" could still exist, but this time without dark lords (the demilords are a different thing). Some dark lords were terminated, and then the dark lords got "variants" from other places of the multiverse. The new Ravenloft has been redesigned to allow space for future new elements.

I see 3.5 eladrin now they are archon and all no-evil outsider is celestial monster type.

Bariaurs as PC species can't be only centaurs with horns... (and now I rebember Doric, the tielfling druid in the action-live move was wearing an armor for moments in the sequence of "wild shape"). And creatures with four legs and hooves can't climb in the same way than ordinary bipedal humanoids. This may be relevant if characters wanted to climb a tree, to use a climbing rope or a ladder. Maybe the goat-like hooves by bariaurs could work as opposible thumbs and they bariaurs can climb better, or faster, than centaurs. Can centaurs to take on and take off underwear without help? Should they wear horse sheets to cover "those zones"?

My theory is the planar handbook will be later the new setting after Planescape, and this will be a spiritual succesor of Dark Sun, the same crunch, and adding the 3.5 Expanded Psionic Handbook+The Complete Psionic but without the Athasian Tablelands, but a different zone, where the slavery is possible, but not mentioned.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

The fact that so many people rave about RPG art like it's some big reason to buy the product it's attached to is a constant source of low-grade annoyance to me. I've never felt even close to that way about any RPG product outside of the 2e Planescape line (where it might matter enough to affect my purchasing decisions at all).

People can like the art without making it the hill they die on when it comes to buying the product. Someone saying "I like the art in this new thing" should truly be orthogonal to your level of annoyance, because they are almost for sure not saying that it's the be all and end all of the product for them. No amount or quality of crunch or lore in future products is being lessened by someone making this statement. Assuming of course that this is your source of annoyance.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The in-person speech. There is a planescape term for it, but I don't know what it is called. I like more sourcebooks to have more technical writing.

I'd call it mockney myself!

But it clearly makes it harder to understand the further removed from the dialect you are. When Planescape first came out I lived in Manchester, and I found it hard work to decipher. Having lived near London for the last 20+ years, I now find it quite easy. I can see why London was used as the model for Sigil - it's like a supermassive black hole sucking everything in, and with a gravity that is impossible to escape. But dialect gets even harder to understand for readers with English as their second language, which is a significant market for WotC. And it's very difficult to translate - you have to try to pick an equivalent dialect in the target language. So dropping or downplaying it seems like a sound commercial decision.

"Everyone in fantasyland has a British accent" is one of my least favourite tropes anyway.

 

[Stormonu]

I loved Van Richten's Guide. But I've never been super invested in adherence to a prior canon, in any medium. Everything's always getting reboots or retcons, and from the number of conflicting versions of ancients myths we have that's nothing new. The real question is, "Is it good?" And I thought most of VRG was very good.

I ran a Falkovia one-shot shortly after getting the book, so it does have its good points. But I think it would have been a lot better if they had stuck to advancing things post Azalin rather than half reboot, half time advance. Things like both the changes to Lamordia and the art for Anktepot just made me shake my head.

However, it's really been quite a while since I kept up with Ravenloft as a campaign world - after the Great Conjuction I threw my hands up and pretty much stopped reading in-depth to the lore and just skimmed, and stopped collecting after the hardcover Domains of Dread came out. So I suspect my attachment to the lore of Ravenloft is not nearly as strong as say, @Micah Sweet.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

half time advance.

Yeah, this is what I never got. Ravenloft is supposed to be a nightmare prison. The idea that time "should advance" and that real world logic could be applied to the setting completely undermined the concept, as established in The House on Griffin Hill - before the boxed set with it's ridiculous core, multitude of repetitive domains, and hit list of dark lords, which completely undermined the original nightmarish concept.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If the Dark Powers want to torture the dark lords, they shouldn't abuse the torment. The sanity shouldn't be totally lost. How to explain it? Let's imagine a family from a far country whose gastronomy usually is too spicy. The litle children when they start to eat it..... it is not easy, but they are getting used step by step. In the end they can eat it. The dark powers worry to avoid the psychological shock if the dark lords suffer too much. And if the demiplane is a prison, maybe the best tric is a distraction. If the dark lords are too busy with their own troubles they will not think about a way to escape.

* Now I suspect after Vecna event the elemental planes will be almost totally rewritten, and allowing space for the cult of elemental elder eye to cause troubles. Vecna would dare to play with fire using the divine power of Thazridum.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

As for Planescape, I can't believe, in a setting so deeply influenced by philosophy, the wheel shape of Sigil was not intended to be symbolic. Fashions and factions may wax and wane, and there may be the occasional faction war to punctuate events, but overall, nothing really changes. The new book might be set a thousand years after the original boxed set, or a thousand years before, and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Sigil just keeps on turning. Forever.

 

[dave2008]

I was referring to a more generic (spiteful) "you".

However, I'm not going to surrender what I like for a corporation's bottom line. They can still create products that respect what made them famous in the first place and yet still draw in fans old an new. Curse of Strahd did that. Van Richten's did not.

Well that depends. I'm an old fan (been playing since the 80s) and I was not interested in a Curse of Strahd rehash, but I was interested in VRGtR. Van Richten's drew my in, Curse did not. Very few things are universal and we have to excpet our limited perspectives could be off base.

My only issue with that book (VRGtR), and many 5e books really, is that they don't provide enough interesting alternate/optional rules that help you get a feel for the setting / material.

 

[dave2008]

They have been changing history in all their settings (Ravenloft most terribly).

Again, changing things doesn't mean you have no sense of what your are changing or what you are keeping. It often means you have a very good sense of those things.

I see no sense of history that doesn't revolve around $$$.

I didn't expect you to see anything else. Perhaps that is you issue though? Not that $$$ shouldn't be considered, but it is likely not the only reason changes are made, if a reason at all. However, I will not try to, as I don't think I can, convince you otherwise

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Wow, that art is great and inspiring!