Robot Viking

MapQuest always screws up the directions to the Pillars of Creation.

Having trouble finding enough adventure in the mortal world? Does the Feywild feel tame? The Shadowfell not double-dark enough for you? Then I guess it’s time to go sailing through the Elemental Chaos, where any old random nonsense can happen.

Ok, look, if you’re a regular reader, you know how I feel about these wacky dimensi0nal travel RPG campaigns: yawn. I like my campaigns grounded in some semblance of verisimilitude, and once we start flying around in M.C. Escher paintings and visiting floating islands, I check out. So I started off with a strong bias against this book, made worse by the fact that it also includes the Abyss. I’m starting to hate the Abyss, too, because it’s really been overdone in D&D lately. It feels like every big threat ultimately leads back to some Abyssal overlord, and eventually some raving evil deity with a cosmic supervillain plan. How about the greedy Duke enslaved us with orc minions because he’s…a greedy Duke? What ever happened to abandoned wizards’ towers full of magic items and weird monsters? No, it’s all got to be a huge conspiracy, and the PCs are The Only Ones Who Can Stop It.

You’re probably thinking, with a rant like that, I’m really going to trash this book. Well, no. I actually like this book. The Plane Below: Secrets of the Elemental Chaos is a fine sourcebook even if you hate the overall concept as much as I do. And if you don’t share my hatred of planar gallivanting (a population I suspect includes a fairly large number of gamers), then you’re going to eat this volume up with a spoon.

Actually, don’t. It would taste terrible. Just wait until the NomNomNomicon comes out though.

There’s little sense in cataloging everything included in this book because it has the same basic elements all other fourth edition D&D sourcebooks have. This is by no means a bad thing — following the formula has given Wizards’ latest RPG offerings far more consistency than books from previous editions, which could be brilliant but were just often pointless blathering (like this review!). You get your new monsters, your high-level villains, some encounters and campaign arcs, new artifacts and so forth. It’s purely a DM’s book — you’ll find no new feats or paragon paths devoted to planehopping.

Where Plane Below differs from, say the Draconomicon, is that it is a location-based guide. Thus, a lot of attention is paid to environmental effects and hazards, and some of the more entertaining sections are devoted to specific locations (although “specific” is a bit misleading, since every place but the City of Brass tends to float randomly around the Elemental Chaos). There’s some great material here that could be parted out and fitted into campaigns in other places. The Brazen Bazaar, for instance, is a wonderful concept that could have come straight from Neil Gaiman, and has one of the best illustrations in the book.

Unfortunately, all these aspects are repeated in a separate section on the Abyss. Just reading it once was depressing. Seriously, does this sound like a fun night of gaming? “Hey guys, tonight we’ll be having encounters in the Cosmos’ sewer, where everything is gray and dead, almost dead, or wishes it were dead. After that, you can try to get through a horde of 50,000 demons.” So I propose RPG design rule 74b.

74b. The Abyss (aka Hell, the Underworld, etc.) is a Bad Place where Bad Things live. Occasionally these Things come to our world. We should stab and bludgeon them and send them home, but we should not ever visit the Bad Place, because it is not fun.

Abyss aside, perhaps the central theme of this book is the interaction of the races that live in the Elemental Chaos. Humans (and even elves, dwarves and other standard player races) are few and far between. Instead, you have a latent conflict between the ruling efreets and the deposed djinns, a seemingly inevitable but probably some time off demonic invasion, and the strange interactions and habits of githzerai and githyanki. There’s some good storytelling going on here, with all kinds of political intrigue, economic warfare, oppression and revolt and other good stuff.

So, despite my reservations, and despite the Abyssal stuff, which lives up to its name, I found a lot to like here. If you don’t plan on visiting the Elemental Chaos directly, there’s lots of material here that could be plundered to inject a healthy dose of weird into your campaign. The Plane Below doesn’t come out until next week, but you can pre-order it at TrollandToad.com.

Related posts:

1. Dungeon Master’s Guide 2: Advanced Class for DMs
2. Eberron Campaign Guide Rich with Intrigue and Wonder
3. Review: Eberron Player’s Guide
4. PHB2 Class Review: Sorcerers, Dragons and Chaos
5. Comparing Cosmologies – the 4E Manual of the Planes Explained