Opening Thoughts:
The Manual of the Planes is a D&D sourcebook with a storied history. First introduced in AD&D 1st edition, it created the original D&D cosmology, presenting lore for all the planes of the multiverse, and mechanics for traveling to and between them. Expanded in second edition into the entirety of the Planescape setting, the Manual was brought back in 3rd edition alongside a new PC content-focused splat, "The Planar Handbook". In 4th edition, Manual of the Planes was, I want to say, a relatively early publication, since this was our first real coverage of the new World Axis cosmology since we were first introduced to it in Wizards Presents: Worlds & Monsters.
I'm going to try a chapter-by-chapter breakdown for this book's reviews, but please let me know if this proves too unwieldy! In the book proper, there's a segment on Sigil, City of Doors, between the Planar Hazards and Far Realm subchapters, but we covered that in an earlier review. In comparison, the topic on Gatetowns is actually covered in 4e's Dungeon Master's Guide 2.
Our introductory chapter, aptly titled "Exploring the Planes", gives us a breakdown of the basic 4e Multiverse, attempting to mingle both lore and mechanics. It opens with the following lore bite, which I think is too awesome not to include to start us off.
Beyond the circles of the world await peril, power, and adventure unimagined. Fomorians brood in the purple gloom of caverns illuminated by dancing auras of wizard’s fire. Titanic stone sphinxes half buried in white sand guard the gates of a forgotten deity’s ruined heaven. Hooded sorrowsworn assassins glide silently through the streets of a city perpetually veiled in shadows. Demon princes brood on thrones of skulls in the terrible depths of the Abyss, plotting the destruction of the mortal realms and the ruin of all.
Welcome to the planes.
Great heroes face quests that require them to venture into the far corners of the cosmos in search of lore and treasure forgotten in the mortal realms. The boldest heroes are called to fight their battles across many different planes of existence, and venture into dimensions where few mortals have ever dared to go. Other heroes venture into the planes for nothing more than the desire to see wonders unimagined. To those who have studied their secrets, the planes offer infinite experiences and possibilities.
The Planes and Your Campaign:
The shortest of the subchapters, this single page devotes itself to examining what role the planes can actually serve for dungeon masters, breaking it down into four non-exclusive topics after a very brief explanation of what a plane is.
The first use for planes is The Origin of Monsters - the simplest of all uses, which is to simply make the multiverse's array of otherworlds the default origin for the more exotic monsters you can throw at your players.
The second is The Exotic Adventure. One of the simplest and most common models of planar campaigns, this style uses the planes as exotic locales for adventures, treating visiting them as a rare occurrence and sometimes even as merely incidental to the plot - raiding an archmage's ruined tower hidden in the Feywild or drifting through the Elemental Chaos as opposed to just sitting on the lonely hills outside of town, for example. And that's taken from the book. Such adventures are easily achievable by providing access to a useful portal, ritual scroll or magical item to provide conveyance, and the players should ideally "soak up the flavor" of their visit.
Third is The Planar Progression, which is arguably the most obvious method; as your players gain in power, their travels and adventures increasingly take them from the mortal world into the planes.
Finally, we have The Extraplanar Campaign, which is set entirely on other planes than the material world from the beginning. This segment is actually underwhelming, in my opinion; it touches on only the most obvious concepts, such as using Sigil or a spelljammer as your party's homebase. The potential for playing a campaign entirely around a specific array of extraplanar races isn't even touched upon.
Characteristics of Planes:
Here's where things start getting into more detail. Beginning with the observation that most planes share the same basic makeup as the natural world - the air is breathable, the climate endurable, and some amount of food and water is accessible - it then starts to elaborate on assorted planar characteristics.
Our first topic of discussion is Types of Planes, explaining that "typing" describes a plane's basic nature and place in the cosmos, since "plane" itself is a nebulous term. I'll quote its reasoning here:
Sigil, City of Doors, is a plane, even though it’s no more than a few dozen miles in extent. It drifts in the multiverse unconnected to any other physical reality. The Abyss is also a plane. It is many thousands of miles in extent, large enough to swallow planets, but it’s only a finite region of the Elemental Chaos. A traveler can walk (or more likely fall) into the Abyss from the surrounding Elemental Chaos, but a different set of physical and metaphysical laws apply in the Abyss than in the Elemental Chaos. In that sense, the Abyss is a plane separate from the surrounding Elemental Chaos.
The types of planes are given as such:
The World is what the Great Wheel called the Prime Material. The nameless world of 4e's core setting is given the titles "the mortal world", "the material world", "the natural world" and "the middle world" as better descriptions.
Fundamental Planes are the two infinite realms of the Astral Sea and the Elemental Chaos, which serve as the building blocks of the entire multiverse. They are described as levels of reality in which countless specific locales exist like finite islands adrift in the infinite - the various astral dominions and elemental realms. It also explains that these dominions and realms tend to be both grouped within a finite distance of each other and linked to a specific mortal world. It is possible to travel the endless infinite of the astral or the elemental and reach the dominions or realms of other worlds, and from there access that world - you could, basically, use the infinity of the astral sea to travel from the Nentir Vale world to the Forgotten Realms to Eberron. But it would take an incredible amount of time and effort to do so, and it would be far easier and quicker to create or locate a portal to reach those far-off shores.
Astral Dominions are planes within the Astral Sea, most commonly created by the deities, and which tend to function as heavens and hells - although it reiterates that most mortal spirits pass through the Shadowfell and then into the Eternal Beyond. Astral dominions can vary in size from a lone tower to a bustling city to a thriving world.
In artwork and in literature, they are often depicted as majestic islands or floating shards of landscape surrounded by a gossamer sea as flat and smooth as mirrored glass.
Elemental Realms are the Elemental Chaos' version of astral dominions - places where a powerful will has taken the writhing chaos and shaped it with will and purpose. The main difference is that, whilst many such realms are ruled over by elementals, almost as many were created by humans - powerful magic and even just sheer strength of will can shape the fluidity of the chaos into solid form here, and so the Elemental Chaos is littered with scores of archmage towers, assassin strongholds, and mighty monuments, many of which have been lying around for centuries or millennia.
In artwork and literature, elemental realms are often portrayed as crude stone bergs and mighty structures floating in a churning sea of elements.
Parallel Planes are those that form strange copies of the material world, and this book defaults to the World Axis canon of the Feywild and Shadowfell. They generally mimic the outline of their paired world, but put their own unique spins on locales - in particular, sentient creatures never seem to share the exact same spot across different planes. It mentions that a common descriptor of the Feywild is that of a pristine memory of what a place was like in the world's youth, whilst the Shadowfell is a vision of how that spot will look when it falls into ruin.
Demiplanes are artificial planes created outside of both the Astral Sea and the Elemental Chaos - "bubbles of existence beyond the normal bounds of the cosmos" is how the book describes them. As a consequence they tend to be small and secret; it takes immense power to create something from nothing, so it's much easier to shape the raw materials of the Elemental Chaos to build a hidden sanctuary than carve out a demiplane. Sigil is, of course, the biggest and most well-known demiplane.
Finally, this sub-subchapter closes with Anomalous Planes - those realms that are the weirdest of the weird, and exist beyond the normal cosmology. Examples of such planes are the Far Realm, the Plane of Dreams, the Plane of Mirrors, and even the other parallel mortal worlds. Most anomalous planes are more likely to serve as a source of monsters, since they tend to be genuinely inhospitable towards outsiders.
Our next sub-subchapter is Planar Structure and Laws; this segment will actually be familiar to you if you've read the 3e Manual of the Planes, because it addresses the four foundational elements of a plane that define its identity, using terminology that I'm certain originated in 3e.
The first of these sections is Layers. In the World Axis, a layer is a distinct, geographically separate region or domain within a larger astral dominion or elemental realm - a subplane, combining its own unique flora, fauna and features with the overall properties of its base plane. The Abyss is the best example of a "layered" plane in the World Axis. An interesting note; most rituals default to dropping travelers on a plane's outermost layer, and even portals and conduits to this locale tend to be far more common than those to other, deeper layers. Even when it is physically possible to move between layers, it's often more convenient to use internal portals or specialized rituals - for example, the Abyss's layers are island-continents adrift within a vast, storm-wracked gulf of energy, matter and air big enough to swallow planets, so whilst sailing between the layers is possible, it's arduous enough that even demons prefer to portal-hop.
Next is the Shape - Bounded or Recursive. Recursive planes loop back in on themselves, so you can't simply walk out of them - Sigil is an example of a recursive plane, but so is a mortal world shaped like a sphere. Bounded planes have a distinct edge that separates them from whatever lies beyond.
Then we have Gravity, which is broken up into normal, Elemental Buoyancy, and Subjective Gravity. Realms with elemental buoyancy are weird; objects and materials native to these planes aren't subject to the force of gravity... but creatures and nonnative objects are. For example, if you go to the Elemental Chaos, you can pick up a stone and release it in midair, but it won't fall... but if you walk off the edge of a floating island, you will fall, and probably go splat. Subject gravity is, as you might suspect, a place where gravity is whatever you decide it is - you can stand on it if you want, or you can fly about freely. This is accompanied by a sidebar on mechanics for subjective gravity.
Finally, we have Mutability. Normal mutability is your standard cause-and-effect. Divinely Mutable planes are under the form-willing governance of some powerful entity (usually a god, but a demiplane crafted by an archmage could similarly be bound to her will); this master figure(s) can reshape everything about it with a thought - if a divinely mutable plane is shared between masters, they only have such control over their specific realms. Unstable planes feature terrain and elements that change continuously and randomly, and although vast stretches are relatively calm for long periods of time, change is inevitable.
A great frozen sea might remain that way for centuries, only to shatter when an outburst of magma comes into being in its center and begins to grow into a range of volcanic mountains.
This segment is accompanied by a new Intelligence-based skill check(?), "Influence Unstable Plane", which is the mechanics for your PC attempting to shape the Elemental Chaos or a similarly fluid plane.
Our last sub-subchapter is Planar Traits, which briefly explains how certain planes have magical or metaphysical qualities that can affect the powers and abilities of creatures within them - some traits are universal, but, especially in the fundamental planes, it's just as likely to encounter specific regions with their own unique planar traits; an example given is a Feywild forest that grants +1 to attack rolls with Charm and Illusion keyworded powers.
Our subchapter concludes with a note on Psychic Signatures, which is a bit of roleplaying fluff about how mortal visitors to different planes "feel" whilst they are visiting them. This is quite interesting, actually; in addition to the topic of the Shadowfell's spirit-deadening malaise and the Feywild's emotional intensification, which pop up in subsequent sources but I don't recall if they were mentioned before now, we're also told that astral dominions are marked by a sort of emotional relativity in which the viewer's emotional state colors things that they see, hear and feel, whilst elemental realms have a signature of "mass" and "changeableness"... in fact, I might just quote this entry...
Planes other than the natural world possess a certain otherworldly quality. A mortal wandering the forests of Arvandor can sense that he or she is no longer in the natural world. Planar explorers can’t always tell exactly where in the cosmos they are, but they can sense when they’ve passed from one plane to another. This phenomenon is known as a plane’s psychic signature. Psychic signature has no other mechanical effect, although the impressions can be strong.
For example, a feeling of gloom permeates the Shadowfell. The Shadowfell’s atmosphere is oppressive, and it deadens the spirits of its inhabitants. A feeling of malaise slowly creeps over the visitor, deadening the spirit. On the other hand, the Feywild seems charged with some magical quality that sharpens the senses and intensifies the experience of being there. This intensification is enchanting in a pleasant place, but in the darker locales in the Feywild it magnifies the sense of danger and excitement as if such places were waiting in suspense for something wild and sinister to happen.
Astral dominions are marked by a sort of emotional relativity in which the viewer’s emotional state colors things he or she sees, hears, and feels. When the viewer is calm and familiar with what he or she is looking at, things seem supernaturally clear and obvious. When the viewer is fearful or angry, things take on a dark, confusing overtone. When the viewer is resolved, he or she sees things as he or she is determined to see them—so a devil’s insidious lies seem obvious to someone determined to resist them. However, when the viewer is wrongly resolved and stubbornly clings to a mistaken impression, the “truth” of his or her position seems just as obvious.
Elemental realms possess a psychic signature of mass and changeableness. Physical objects feel heavier and seem bigger, even though they aren’t really. At the same time, objects appear to move as the viewer expects them to move, as if the viewer’s will is what causes the flow of a river or the drifting of earthmotes in the sky. The sensation is nothing more than a strange sort of déjà vu, and it has no real effect other than bemusing those unfamiliar with the Elemental Chaos and its domains.
The World Axis Cosmology:
This brief subchapter talks about the new World Axis cosmology; it reiterates the "shape" of the cosmology, using the terminology from back in "Characteristics of the Planes" and adding a list of specific named astral dominions and elemental realms.
Then it moves onto its sub-subchapter; Custoising the Cosmology. This provides advice to DMs on how to make their own cosmology by playing around with the planes. It recommends leaving the parallel planes and fundamental planes in place, since so many spells, effects and monsters in 4e are tied to them, but admits that you can change them if you remember to plug the gaps - for example, if the Shadowfell is gone, what happens to the ritual "Shadow Walk"?
It then goes on to rank the three major "forms" of cosmological adjustment. In order, these are:
Substituting different deities.
Adding or deleting specific astral dominions and elemental realms.
Overhauling the basic planar structure.
Navigating the Planes:
Now we've established what the planes look like, and how they "work", it's time to move on to how to move between the planes. After an intro discussing the many examples of plane-linking between the mortal world and the rest of the Axis, we're told that the methods of planar travel fall into one of four broad types: Portals, Rituals, Vessels, and Phenomena.
This is expanded upon by a sidebar titled "Moving Around the Planes", which provides a sort of glossary-esque description of the terms used in this subchapter. It specifically breaks down Portals (magical doorways between this place and somewhere else), Crossings (regions that form natural portals to specific planes), Worldfall (a phenomena where parts of the Feywild shift to the mortal world and back again, taking travelers as it goes), Passage Rituals (simple plane-traveling rituals that only work at Crossings), Transfer Rituals (plane-traveling rituals that deposit their caster at a random spot in the Astral Sea or Elemental Chaos), Teleport Rituals (create temporary portals to specific locations on other planes) and Planar Vessels (enchanted vessels that, in conjuction with the ritual Plane Shift, can freely travel between planes).
Portals, our first topic, are described in exhaustive details. They are likened to the backdoors of the universe - most are only temporary, or at least open sporadically; permanent portals are frequently called "gates". Portal can link two points in the same plane, link two planes, or even lead to far-flung reaches of creation, such as alternative worlds and demiplanes. They are curiosities; whilst they can be constructed by mortals, it's incredibly difficult to make them last, and many theories abound as to the origins and purposes of the multiverse's independent permanent portals. Such theories include them being left-over flaws from when the Primordials made the world, or the remnants of the Dawn War - whether deliberate weapons used by both sides, or literally injuries in the fabric of creation caused by the titanic struggle or the sealing of the Primordials. And other theories exist beyond these - for example, the Doomguard believe that portals are either the cause or a byproduct of the multiverse's decay into oblivion.
This topic then expands to a number of portal-related topics, which are useful for helping DMs create and customise their own portals. These portal characteristics are named as Appearance, Transparency, Frequency, Access, and Precision.
Appearance divides Portals by their physical representation. Doors are two-dimensional rectangles of light - or sometimes literally doors that could look normal, save for perhaps hanging in the air or standing in the center of a room or the middle of nowhere. Gates are larger versions of doors, often circular or square. Objects look like ordinary objects, but when triggered (which usually requires just a touch, but could also or alternatively require a phrase, a specific action, or special conditions such as the time of year) will transport anyone touching them to the other side. Color Veils are portals linking spots in the Astral Sea to the various dominions. Portal Pools are literally bodies of water that can take a swimmer from the world, Shadowfell or Feywild to one other of those planes, if that individual dares to swim to the bottom of the pool.
Transparency speaks to how well a traveler can perceive what lies beyond a portal's threshold. This aspect is divided into Clear (obvious view of the other side), Misty (limited view of the other side), Opaque (light and shadow passes through, but nothing else), Solid (no view of what lies beyond) and Illusory (an illusion obscures the other side).
Frequency determines how often a given portal opens. The different versions here are Permanent (self-explanatory), Circle (activates for brief moments, usually triggered by a ritual), and Intermittent (opens and closes either at random or in accordance with a specific schedule).
Access determines who can use a given portal; this covers the obvious Open (anyone can use) and Closed/Restricted (you need the right key), but this aspect also covers Directional portals (aka, one-way portals, which in the World Axis are not the standard).
Finally, we have Precision, which determines how well a portal actually does its job of leading someplace. This is the largest aspect: Precise (it takes you exactly to where it shows you), Imprecise (you appear at a random spot 1d10 squares from the portal's entrance), Wildly Imprecise (takes you from its opening to a random location on the other plane), Malfunctioning (with a D20 table of results), Variable (can lead to any of two, three or more destinations) and Erratic (this isn't a portal anymore; it's a hazard!) - this section also includes a sidebar and d20 table for Random Portal Destinations, something useful if you fall afoul of a reality rip (see below) or roll a 2 on the Portal Malfunction table.
Next, we move on to Rituals, which to be both easier to access than portals, but more limited in scope. It also mentions the existence of rituals to affect portals in different ways. This relatively short segment covers two major topics; the Teleportation Circle, which is used to create an artificial temporary or permanent portal (think the town gates in Diablo), and the Interplanar Rituals, which directly allow shifting between planes. A sidebar titled "Beyond the Core Cosmology" also canonizes the existence of rituals to reach to anomalous planes, or the use of teleportation circles to travel between alternate D&D worlds, but declares such things to be "DM's perogrative".
The Vehicles segment discusses the three most common forms of planar vehicle; the Astral Skiff is a flying ship used exclusively within the Astral Sea for quickly traveling the plane. Planar Dromonds are sea vessels that bear enchanted runekeels that allow them to teleport to any body of water on any plane - they tend to be owned by interplanar merchants, such as those of the City of Brass and Gloomwrought. Finally, spelljammers are flying ships which can plane shift virutally at will.
Finally, we end this subchapter with a discussion on planar Phenomena beyond the existence of portals. Planar Bleed is the waxing and waning of connection between the world and either the Feywild or the Shadowfell, which not only empowers planar portals, crossing and rituals, but can also spontaneously transport people between the worlds - although undiscussed here, Worldfall is implied to be a related phenomena. Planar Breaches are violent ruptures between the planes, forcibly transplanting a part of one plane into another and also forming a temporary gateway between the two. Finally, Reality Rips are literally holes in the fabric of the cosmos, a gap of nothingness created when the most powerful magic goes awry. A reality rip may snuff itself out after a few spectacular moments, or cause the entire plane to implode. A suicidally brave individual might risk using a reality rip to travel, but they have no way of knowing where they'll end up.
Planar Terrain and Hazards:
As the title suggests, this provides a number of new forms of fantastic terrain and hazards for use in planar adventures or in areas that have been subjected to planar bleed or breaches. There's not a lot to talk about here.
Our Fantastic Terrain choices are Abyssal Wellspring, Angelic Lantern, Astral Flame, Divine Blood, Elemental Seepage, Erratic Portal, Hellfire, Phase Rock, Razorvine and Energy Crystals.
Planar Hazards consist of Burning Vapor, Vacuum Rift, Demonic Slime, Avernus Cinderstorm, Entropic Fissure and Time Wrinkle.
The Far Realm:
This single-page subchapter basically reiterates the lore we were presented with way back in Wizards Presents: Worlds & Monsters. The Far Realm is a terrible place of madness and unreality that exists "outside" of the World Axis, and is the root of all aberrations, whether they are migrants from that terrible plane or merely mutated by its baleful energies. A sidebar discusses Mak Thuum Ngatha, the Nine-Tongued Worm; an aberrant "god" that was introduced in, I believe, 3e's Lords of Madness - a splatbook on aberations.
The Plane of Dreams:
The Plane of Dreams is unique in the World Axis cosmology. This is where the minds of sleepers go to engage in a mimicry of the act of imaginative creation by which the gods shaped the mortal world. It is a vast repository for the dreams of millions of creative minds over the past ages of the world. The outer edges contain the newest dreams to form, with older dreams lying deeper towards the plane's center. Some claim that it's possible to influence the dreams of others if one can visit in person.
Dream's precise nature is unknown. Some claim it is a demiplane, similar in nature to Sigil. Others argue it's an abandoned astral dominion - and it can be reached from the Astral Sea. Regardless of its origins, visitors from the waking world seek it out for knowledge.
Servants of Vecna comb the plane for secrets, and spies from the information-brokers of Sigil sift through the most recent dreamscapes for information useful to their employers. Minions of Orcus search the ruins of ancient dreams for a hint of the Raven Queen’s long-forgotten name, and the githyanki particularly enjoy preying on visitors to the plane. Adventurers might seek a portal to Dream either to aid or to hinder such individuals.
Visiting the realm is difficult, as one must contend with both its own naturally chaotic nature and the ever-present risk of a tendril of nightmare corrupting the landscape around them.
That's basically everything that this subchapter discusses about this plane. Dream has actually shown up sporadically throughout D&D's history; it was one of the few named Dimensions in the BD&D cosmology (and in fact was the home of the Diaboli, one of my favorite races), and had a large article in one of the early 3.0-centric Dragon issues that presented three different interpretations of the plane before it was semi-canonized in 3e's Manual of the Planes.
Gate-Towns:
The term "Gate-Town" goes back to Planescape, where it refered to a specific kind of locale on the planes. I believe, specifically, it referred to locations in the Outlands (the Outer Plane of True Neutral) which were built around large, permanent portals to one of the other Outer Planes - as a result, each Gate-Town struggled to simultanteously preserve the alignment affinity it had for that plane, which caused the connection to form, but also to maintain a somewhat neutral attitude, lest it be drawn fully onto its linked plane and be removed from the Outlands forever. I'm not the best expert on Planescape lore, so I might have some details wrong here.
In the World Axis, the term "Gate-Town" was brought back in the 4e Dungeon Master's Guide 2. This is how they're described:
A gate-town is any settlement, in the natural world or on the planes, built around a known portal to someplace else. Such portals are not the usual permanent teleportation circles that you can find in most civilized towns and cities, but actual gateways that open onto another plane of existence. The area around a gate-town takes on aspects of the plane on the other end of its portal, giving visitors an idea of what they can expect when they cross over to the other side. The planar energy that leaks through the portal causes this; the effect it has on the area depends on where the portal leads.
The other aspect of a gate-town’s portal is convenience and reliability. It is always accessible (though it might have a cycle of times when it is open and times when it is closed), and you don’t usually need a gate key to cause it to function. Gate-town portals to Sigil abide by all the known restrictions, however, including the fact that gods and other extremely powerful beings cannot use them.
Spanning two pages, this subchapter actually presents us with a number of sample gate-towns from the World Axis:
Tradegate: A bustling mercantile community in the mortal world that is linked to Sigil, and serves as an outlet for the Planar Trade Consortium.
Slumber: A town in the Shadowfell linked to the Plane of Dreams, shifting between the "pleasant" face of Dreams and the "Nightmare" face of Dreams.
Excelsior: A paladin-ruled port-town in the Astral Sea linked to Celestia.
Bedlam: A crazy city in the Feywild linked to Pandemonium.
Plague-Mort: A ramshackle town in the Shadowfell linked to the Abyss.
Moonstair: A settlement in the Nentir Vale that is linked to the eladrin realm of Celduilon in the Feywild.
Farren: A cursed town with a one-way connection to what many presume is the Far Realm.
Gloomport: A coastal community that houses one of the stablest and safest paths to Gloomwrought in the Shadowfell.
Gleaming: A town in the Nentir Vale that links to the Astral Sea.
Closing Thoughts:
The first chapter of the Manual of the Planes has the hardest job; it's got to break down all the mucky rule-centric stuff that will apply to planar travel as a whole and the shape of the multiverse in its entirety. It can be a bit hard to digest. Still, I think the 4e version does an admirable job. I'd argue that, at least in this chapter, it leans more towards flavor than mechanics, and that's not a bad thing; I think it actually speaks quite positively of the solidness of 4e's core Rituals mechanics and its deliberate design ideology to make the planes much more accessible than previous editions. This is a LONG way from Planescape and its sprawling systems of plane-based spellcasting alterations and planar hazards and myriad other crunchy details you had to worry about, on top of plane-indigenous dangers.
Tune in next time for our trip into the first of the World Axis planes, with the Feywild!