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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crothian" data-source="post: 5119842" data-attributes="member: 232">The Plane Below: Secrets of the Elemental Chaos is a 4e D&D product describing some of the different planes in the 4e Cosmology.  The book is a typical hard bound book that Wizards of the Coast has been producing for the product line.  It is a book aimed more at the Dungeon Master then the player and has much more on settings, locations, and adversaries then it does rules that are easily used by the PC.    Unlike many of the 4e Books this one is a little bit more limited in its use.  It will be a good book for people that want to explore the Elemental Chaos in their games.  But for people hoping to steal bits and pieces of it for a game that does not feature those themes and locals this book will not be as useful.  What I really enjoy about the book is they make it alien.  I feel that the fantastic has fallen out of Dungeons and Dragons in the past decade and this book has great fantasy elements and strange places that are not to be seen on the Prime Material Plane.  The features of the plane are nicely described with easy rules to make it not just look different but to act different.  It is a good combination of the rules supporting what the descriptions say.  I like to read through the campaign arcs that have been becoming parts of some books.  These are descriptions of ways to use the book directly in a campaign that spans all levels of play.  It is very bare bones and just enough to inspire the DM but still leaves plenty of work to be done.   The book also includes some artifacts in this first section and I am pleased to see Wave from White Plume Mountain fame.  In the Races of Chaos section the book talks about many races and what they are like in the Elemental Chaos.  This is description and information only; one will not find rules for using them as monsters or player character here.  The section has good and basic information.  These are the primary creatures that a party should be encountering here and so it is useful.  There are some interesting and creative sidebars in the section as its always neat  to read about the myths of races.  The Majority of the book and I wish it weren’t so is on adventures and monsters.  I would have liked to see more locations like some detailed city or greater detail on the movers and shakers of the planes.  The encounter and adventure areas are well done.  There are plenty to use and they offer good inspiration to a DM who prefers to come up with his own encounters.  There is a lot of information in this book and it might take a few good readings to notice everything.  I know it did with me.  One item of note is that at times the art in this book is simply stunning.  There are some great pictures that can help capture this alien place much more than most people could do with mere words.  The section on the Abyss is nice but something like that really should be its own book especially with how much information on the Abyss has existed in previous editions.  This is a book as a DM I might not use a lot but I like it on the shelf because I know at some point I will want to.</blockquote>

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