Six Living Planar Gates

[Crothian]

Six Living Planar Gates, written by Philip Reed, presents the DM with a half-dozen unusual planar gates that drink deep from the well of weirdness. From the breath of a dying woman to the shadow of a man these gates are the strangest yet released by Ronin Arts.

The gates in this PDF may not suit everyone’s campaign. The DM will need to think long and hard about the nature of planar travel in his campaign before including any of these gates in his campaign world.

 

[Crothian]

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It seemed like an easy transition to go from Six Planar Gates to 6 Living Planar Gates. Between these two small PDFs one gets a large variety of creative gates that show just how odd these things can be. Of course on can easily go even more weird, these in the se books are normal enough to be used in most campaigns and not limited themselves by being too out there. The books work really well with the many planar books out there like Book of Countless Doorways, Planar Handbook, Portals and Planes, and the many other planar oriented books. Of course they are easily connected with the DM’s Directory to Demi Planes the fabulous PDF also by Ronin Arts.

The Pdf is small only being four pages long. Layout and art are good. The book is book marked and easy to use at the gaming table. Ronin Arts and Philip Reed who wrote and published the book did a nice job with such a short book.

The book at first has a section that allows characters to use Knowledge Planes to be able to know something about the unique gates listed in the book. Many of these have a high DC to reflect how few people truly know anything about them.

The first gate is actually not unique. It is the breath of a dieing old woman and at that moment if the person is thinking about they can be transported to a place of negative energy. Some have accidentally transported themselves there as well. The second gate is from the kiss of an old man named Adib Nassir. He is old and seems to be on his death bed but he is actually immortal. Another neat idea is through Grigori’s Shadow. By being in this persons shadow at the right time of day one can see a city in the shadow planes and choose to go to it. He is protected by a secret organization that really can be used to expand upon him and the role he and the organization play in a campaign world. Then there are Jury Bugs, silver ants from a plane of pure law. Consuming one will transport a person to that plane though the residents of that plane have strict laws against doing that. Princess Qadira is literally the gate herself. This mammoth woman can lead on to many planes though she has to be asleep and has no knowledge of her gifts. The last one in the book is an ooze that once inside a person will find themselves in another place. Of course the idea of being told to get consumed by an ooze to travel will probably take a lot of convincing for people to do.

Once again Philip Reed shows he can be very creative and come out with some unique ideas. The book is very easy to use and can really further player’s adventures as they slowly learn about the gate, need to seek them out, and finally figure out how to use them. Of course when used that leads to a whole lot more adventures.

 

[Ace]

6 Living Planar gates

Six Living Planar gates surprised me. It is interesting idea that I wouldn’t have considered, something I can laways appreciate. . This 4 page supplement is clever and unique and offers some novel ideas for any D20 game

The usual disclaimer applies, this was a compensated review

This supplement is 4 pages long. The first page is half introduction and the last is the OGL so there are about 2 and half pages of material. The layout is in the easy use and easy read style of Ronin Arts products and is not illustrated. I do not find this detracts from the work, especially in a space limited format

The meat of this supplement are the Six Living Planar Gates mentioned in the title. This session begins with a handy difficulty modification chart for knowledge the Planes skill rolls. This chart is simple and useful in any campaign. The needed skill base skill difficulties are given with each gate and could easily be adapted for your game needs for other gates

6 living gates are listed An Old Woman’s Dying Breath, Abid Nassar Ibrahims Kiss, Grigoris Shadow, Jury Bugs, The Inner Emptiness of The Princess Qadira, and The Ooze to Other Worlds. Each of these gates offers a flavorful method for planar travel which is easily grafted into your game. My only perplexation was the fact that two of them seem to have an Arabic flavor. This does not make them less interesting it just seems an unusual focus and may render them less appropriate for some games

I really have only one complaint with this supplement, its far too short. I would love to have seen some of these Living Gates expanded into campaign mini settings. Still this supplement is well worth the $1 US it costs

Rating

Style 4.5 Solid and clean layout. Easy to read or print

Substance 4.5 Unique and interesting. A little short in places but those are limits of the format

Overall 4.5