Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse Takes Players on a D&D Journey Across Planes

Portal your way back to Planescape, as a classic Dungeons & Dragons setting gets updated for 5th edition!

Fans of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) who’ve been playing for a while are likely already familiar with Planescape. The ambitious D&D setting, first released in 1994 for the game’s 2nd edition, aimed to bring D&D lore together in one place, inviting adventurers to travel from plane to plane and experience — for the first time — D&D’s multiverse. Characters could journey to new worlds across the Prime Material Plane, the Inner Planes, and the Outer Planes thanks to Sigil, also known as “the city of doors,” which contained portals to the multiverse.

Now, Planescape is back for 5th edition and ready to introduce a new generation of players to the vast settings of D&D. Multiverse material has never been more popular, with Marvel and other media franchises inviting audiences to imagine worlds beyond their own. So there couldn’t be a better time to bring back one of the early multiverse settings. Thanks to a press briefing from Greg Tito, host of the official D&D podcast Dragon Talk, as well as Wes Schneider and Justice Arman, co-lead designers for the new Planescape books, we have the insider scoop on everything coming for this exciting return to the setting.

Much like the 5th edition Spelljammer release, Planescape will have three bundled books, with one covering the setting, an adventure book that players can use to run a campaign, and a full bestiary of new foes for dungeon masters (DM) to send at their players. The set also includes a beautifully illustrated DM screen and a detailed map poster featuring the city of Sigil on one side and the Outlands on the other. The books are also available with alt art covers, exclusively at game stores. The alternative art was drawn by one of the artists who worked with the original Planescape setting in the ’90s, so collectors won’t want to miss the chance to grab them!

Perhaps the most iconic part of Planescape is the Sigil itself, ruled by the Lady of Pain. The updated setting book, Sigil and the Outlands, takes us back to Sigil and its surrounding areas with new lore and new groups that the party will have to deal with. Sigil is known for its different factions, all vying for a variety of goals. While exploring the city, players may find themselves aligning with some groups and actively fighting others.

Beyond the spire of Sigil lies the Outlands with its 16 different Gate Towns, each connected to a separate plane. Each of the Gate Towns is heavily influenced by the planar portal it is built around, with magic eking through regularly. The town of Torch, connected to the plane of Gehenna, is belching fire and smoke all hours of the day, while Gate Town Excelsior, connected to Mount Celestia, features a tall tower that adventurers can summit to travel to the plane. The mechanics of each Gate Town will uniquely affect players as they travel between them and experience a taste of the planes they’re connected to.

Speaking of travel, the new adventure book will take players through a whole campaign within the Planescape setting. Turn of Fortune’s Wheel starts in a way that will be familiar to fans of the Planescape: Torment video game, with the characters finding themselves in the mortuary of Sigil. There they meet Morte, a talking skull. The adventure kicks off from there, with players visiting the Fortune’s Wheel casino, finding themselves a walking castle to traverse the Outlands, and trying to piece together why a bunch of Modroms are marching off-schedule.

The adventure book takes players from levels 3 to 10, then catapults them up to level 17 for an exciting finish. There is a unique mechanical twist included in the game: The player characters are being influenced by a planar glitch of sorts. When a character dies or certain dramatic happenings occur, they’ll find themselves back in action after a bit, though things will have changed. It is up to the dungeon masters and the players to determine to what degree characters are altered. A character could start a human and come back a dwarf, find themselves going from sorcerer to fighter, or simply end up with a small aesthetic change to how they look. Regardless, with the wild and weird world of plane-hopping and plane-glitching, this adventure will have players managing their character experiences in a new way.

If all this sounds a bit much for players who are new to the setting, the Mimirs have you covered! These magical devices appear as floating skulls and serve as a convenient mouthpiece for the dungeon master to explain lore about the area. A character can ask their Mimir what a plane is like and get an answer with quotes from explorers of the past.

Beyond the Mimirs, there’s a whole pile of new characters and creatures to meet in Planescape. The Morte’s Planar Parade book includes stat blocks for members of the various Sigil factions as well as new monsters. A section of the book is also devoted to planar influences, giving dungeon masters the chance to consider what a traditional monster might look like (and how it might change mechanically) when affected by the magic of nearby planar portals.

Planescape is an incredibly fun setting for players to explore. It allows almost anything under the sun, as every D&D setting — and even your own homebrew — can be part of the planes that adventurers can portal to. The full bundle of Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse books will be released this Oct. 17. Those who preorder through the D&D Beyond online platform can get access to materials a little early on Oct. 3.

Get to know one of D&D’s most iconic settings (and all of the settings within it) with the new 5th edition Planescape books!