Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse

[Erebus]

After Ravenloft and Spelljammer, it's now Planescape's turn to be updated for 5th Edition. "Planescape : Adventures in the Multiverse" should be released in the last quarter of this year. And DiTerlizzi's doing at least some of the art.

Why ? Well, WotC has apparently decided to jump on the bandwagon of multiverses :

Dungeons and Dragons is setting itself up to be a multiverse in a major way, with Wizards of the Coast really emphasising this aspect of its adventures and upcoming stories during the DnD livestream on Tuesday.

In this presentation, designers Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford said they set the foundations for the DnD multiverse back in 2014, and promised more world-hopping adventures to come.

In all likelihood, they'll focus on everything that allows the PCs to regularly move from one banal D&D world to the next, and will completely fail to capture the appeal of Planescape. The Outer Planes, the power of belief, having to use more that just spells and magic swords to solve problems ? We'll be lucky if those things get more than a brief mention.

Well, everything's possible, so I guess the book might turn out to be half-decent. But the fact that 2024 will see the release of a big adventure involving Vecna reminds me of the steaming piece of shit that was technically the last Planescape adventure ever released, and that's not an encouraging thought.

 

[Sacibengala]

It will be a complete piece of shit.

 

[luj1]

last good ed was 3/3.5


15-20 yrs ago

 

[Cross]

The downgraded art style will complement the downgraded quality of the setting and worldbuilding nicely.

 

[Sacibengala]

The downgraded art style will complement the downgraded quality of the setting and worldbuilding nicely.

Good Lord! What an absolute disgrace is that piece?

 

[agris]

Digital art for the digital trash

 

[Lagole Gon]

> Get Tony DiTerlizzi back on board to draw Planescape art again.
> Codex hates this "new shit".

 

[Gunnar]

Tony DiTerlizzi is a great artist, which is why when WOTC asked him to make the new Planescape art look as faggoty as possible for their audience of 5e larping furfags, he delivered.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

> Get Tony DiTerlizzi back on board to draw Planescape art again.
> Codex hates this "new shit".

Comparison to Tony DiTerlizzi's original Planescape art:
(1) Gith on left of new art versus gith representing the Xaositect faction
(2) Human to the left of Lady of Pain in new art versus human representing the Clueless (people from the prime material plane)
(3) The Lady of Pain
(4) Modrons

 

[Erebus]

Comparison to Tony DiTerlizzi's original Planescape art:

The Cat Lord (to the far left) :

Sly Nye (to the far right, despite the fact that he apparently got a sex change) :

 

[Akachi]

A lot of the dark lords in Ravenloft got sex changes too, but at least it made sense in a horror setting.

What I wonder is how the hell they plan on doing Planescape when they are eliminating alignment from D&D. Are they just going to axe the whole basis of the Outer Planes being literally made up from belief? Or if not, are we to believe that if the Outer Planes and powers are still made up from belief, that there is no classification of any of them by the powers as some being "good" and others "evil" and it's all somehow completely subjective? What is funny is alignment was originally a bit subjective in Planescape to begin with, I remember in Planes of Conflict it's made clear that yugoloths don't think of themselves as "evil", but obviously they are considered to be by the powers and in the Upper Planes.

Yet according to the 5e Player's Handbook, fiends are just the embodiment of the evil alignment and if they stop being evil, they cease to be fiends, so I guess famous Planescape characters that go against their usual expected alignment must all get race changes to fit the new rules, and if you see a yugoloth try to argue its beliefs aren't actually evil, you will know it's lying or it wouldn't be a yugoloth! They will have to simultaneously minimise alignment and remove all nuance from it while somehow making it have clear kiddie definitions of "good" and "evil" for the new audience, but not too much, since they don't want to be evil, but they don't believe in objective morality either.

 

[Sacibengala]

Imagine the directions they gave him to do this piece of shit.

 

[Silva]

About the alignment thing, they could leave the chaos x order axis as is and cut out good x evil. Then explain the heavens and hells as originating from mythologies around existence. Voila, no good x evil bullshit.

 

[Silva]

The downgraded art style will complement the downgraded quality of the setting and worldbuilding nicely.

Lady of Pain is crap, but the rest is not bad. I would rather they invite new artists though.

 

[Shadenuat]

Pirate modron is only good one
Rest iz updated for modern audience

reminds me of warhammer40k series for kiddos

 

[mastroego]

Sad.
Obviously it's still better than ordinary, current RPG art, but asking an artist to make a dumbed down vesion of his work is... I don't know, very current year I suppose.
Is this real?

 

[Sacibengala]

Sad.
Obviously it's still better than ordinary, current RPG art, but asking an artist to make a dumbed down vesion of his work is... I don't know, very current year I suppose.
Is this real?

yes, and the comments shilling it on twitter are real too.

This will probably be the DM screen. And I'll not be surprised if this is the only art he did for this mess.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

It feels wrong that they made the Lady hot. Plus not enough blades in her mask.

 

[Humbaba]

The downgraded art style will complement the downgraded quality of the setting and worldbuilding nicely.

Looks surprisingly European. Homeboy on the center right looks like he's straight off of Asterix. I actually think it looks pretty good, never was much of a fan of the OG Planescape art if I'm being honest with you. Don't like the desaturated look. Lady of Pain though looks too human and her head of blades isn't big enough.

Anyway, are we getting cool und one of a kind Tieflings back?

 

[Silva]

They should call the Torment videogame heads for the team, as their take on the setting was much more weird and fantastic than anything in the old boxed set. I want to see PCs as clerics of the number 23, avatars of the infinite and other abstract concepts, and bizarre planetouched like that guy that got screwed by the negative plane and became half translucid.

 

[Erebus]

Anyway, are we getting cool und one of a kind Tieflings back?

Well, the gal with the knife next to the modron is probably a tiefling, so at least it seems that they won't all have red/orange skin. Tieflings with more original characteristics than horns and a tail would be nice, but even if they're mentioned in the text, I rather doubt that they will appear in the art.

They should call the Torment videogame heads for the team, as their take on the setting was much more weird and fantastic than anything in the old boxed set. I want to see PCs as clerics of the number 23, avatars of the infinite and other abstract concepts, and bizarre planetouched like that guy that got screwed by the negative plane and became half translucid.

Originality is of course essential, but the truly weird stuff should remain uncommon, or it'll end up feeling overwhelming, confusing or even downright boring.

An entire game was released about six years ago for the sole purpose of showing what happens when you try to make everything weird.

 

[Silva]

By the way, from the WotC summit that happened yesterday..

- Is Planescape a book or boxed set?

It'll be a slipcase with a 96-page gazetteer, a 96-page adventure and a 64-page bestiary with a DM screen. There will be two different versions, the evergreen version and an alt cover version.

 

[Erebus]

96 pages doesn't seem like a lot to properly describe the setting, but I guess it could still be decent if they focus on the interesting stuff (a few lines of description would be enough for the Inner Planes, but the Outer Planes should be properly developed).

Not sure what'll be in the bestiary. I'm under the impression that many of the iconic Planescape monsters (especially the fiends and the celestials) already appear in other Monster Manuals.

 

[Silva]

Curiously, what really grabed me in the old PS visuals was the more abstract art and covers by Dana Knutson Robh Ruppel instead of Diterlizzi's:

Spoiler

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Curiously, what really grabed me in the old PS visuals was the more abstract art and covers by Dana Knutson instead of Diterlizzi's:

Robh Ruppel was the artist for those three box covers (the last one even bears his signature in the lower-right corner), and his best work was for the Planes of Law box set cover (it first appeared as the cover of Dragon Magazine #213):