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.

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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

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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.

 

[dave2008]

1950's technicolor hollywood epic. The King of Rock & Roll wearing a sequined robe and sunglasses blesses a huge crowd from his throne smiling.

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Did you post this in the wrong thread?!

 

[RoughCoronet0]

Did you post this in the wrong thread?!

They sure did and it gave me whiplash like you wouldn't believe. I thought I had somehow jumped threads without pressing any buttons.

 

[kenmarable]

I am aware, that is why I said “unfortunately”

I know, I was pie-in-the-sky wishing

Apologies for presuming otherwise! But probably good to clarify anyway since many aren’t aware of the licensing peculiarities of DMs Guild vs DTRPG. shrug

 

[afroakuma]

Did you post this in the wrong thread?!

Feels like it might have been a subtle allusion to using AI art, which we did not want to do.

Personally, I'd love to completely redesign the look of modrons and slaadi, similar to how the rilmani have been recreated for 5E by the official book. Ah, some future day...

 

[dave2008]

Another restriction of DMs Guild, unfortunately. Maaaaaaaybe like you said as a separate art book, but that’s walking a veeery fine line getting art for, say, a multi-armed construct that is not a quinton but would just conveniently work well as art for a quinton makes it easy to cross the line into not-ok territory. And with sales numbers on DMs Guild taking a nosedive this year for waves hands all around “reasons”, it is harder to justify the cost now than it was even a year ago, unfortunately. A Manual of the Planes without art is less than ideal, but a Manual of the Planes without words isn’t feasible.

You could, relatively cheaply use AI art. IMO, there are ways to use it ethically, but not everyone feels the same. @Steampunkette used AI art for her Psionic supplement on a very low budget for a kickstarter then used stretch goals to replace that placeholder art with commissioned art. You could do something similar here with sales providing the fuel for replacing AI art with commissioned art.

With that off my chest I will drop the art subject. I would rather hear what people think of the product with what it has now.

 

[dave2008]

Feels like it might have been a subtle allusion to using AI art, which we did not want to do.

Personally, I'd love to completely redesign the look of modrons and slaadi, similar to how the rilmani have been recreated for 5E by the official book. Ah, some future day...

It might have been, but it very similar to their post in another thread about AI art.

 

[Parmandur]

Sorry, cross post

 

[dave2008]

Personally, I'd love to completely redesign the look of modrons and slaadi, similar to how the rilmani have been recreated for 5E by the official book. Ah, some future day...

Interesting. Are you saying you would like to redesign them, as the rilmani have been redesigned, or are you saying the style of the rilmani redesign? If the former, I agree with both. What are your thoughts on redesigning them?

 

[kenmarable]

You could, relatively cheaply use AI art. IMO, there are ways to use it ethically, but not everyone feels the same. @Steampunkette used AI art for her Psionic supplement on a very low budget for a kickstarter then used stretch goals to replace that placeholder art with commissioned art. You could do something similar here with sales providing the fuel for replacing AI art with commissioned art.

With that off my chest I will drop the art subject. I would rather hear what people think of the product with what it has now.

Yeah, our ethical views are one thing (personally I’m very strongly against, but I’m only one of several people on the team), but more practically, it is a highly risky business plan to use it with a very high chance of massive negative PR. Even my ethics aside, it’s not a business move I would see as enough of a benefit to be worth that risk.

That being said, yeah, what are people wondering about what’s in it?

 

[afroakuma]

Interesting. Are you saying you would like to redesign them, as the rilmani have been redesigned, or are you saying the style of the rilmani redesign? If the former, I agree with both. What are your thoughts on redesigning them?

The former most definitely. While I enjoy the whimsically clockwork version of modrons, my image of them has always been a more Sinister Geometry approach; organic and disturbing, luminous and perfect in a way that mortals cannot help but perceive as alien - just like it would be very disturbing to see an actual mouse that looks like Mickey Mouse, an actual pyramidal being with insectile limbs and a fleshy eye on each face would be tremendously unsettling, especially when it locks its gaze on you and nothing close to a human emotion can be discerned when you look back. Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls would be a particularly outre and chaotic evil cognate.

As far as slaadi, I'm as amused as anyone by "giant frog" but I think they should really look more like chaos - swirling, starry, shuddering voids of Somethingness that possess relatively consistent "limbs" and "claws" and a wide "mouth" and luminous "eyes," such that one could look at an image and conceivably say "wow, that thing with the eyes sticking out and the strange flesh that doesn't seem smooth or regular in appearance at any point and the wide mouth kind of sort of resembles a humanoid frog."

On the AI art point, I have ethical concerns with it as well.