Planescape review: A Devil's Dream
For the last three years, I've run a Planescape1 campaign through almost all of its modules. Now, after successfully finishing it, I want to look back and review these adventures, highlighting the pros and cons of each one.
Each module will be rated in three categories, up to 3 points in each:
- Presentation: how easy it is to understand and run the adventure.
- Openness: how open the adventure's scope is, regarding the freedom of choice.
- Quality: Overall quality of the adventure, including the originality and richness of its content, and players' enjoyment.
The full list of currently published reviews is available under the planescape tag.
A Devil's Dream
In which a Fiendish City of Chains on Baator holds clues to a Mystery that the heroes must solve as well as a Mystery Better left Alone.
- Designer: Monte Cook
- Source: Tales From the Infinite Staircase2, Tale 8
- Party: 4-6 characters of 5th-6th levels
- Play-time: 1 session
- Locations:
- Baator / Minauros (L3) / Jangling Hiter, the City of Chains
Overview
A thick curtain of iron chains at the end of a set of rusted iron steps leads to the third layer of Baator, where, in the fetid swamp of Minauros, the City of Jangling Hiter stands. Home to the chain devils, or kytons3 — as they call themselves, the city is made entirely from chain, including streets, buildings, and everything else. There are ten examples of random encounters within the city, but a proper random table to roll upon is missing:
| d10 | Number | Encounter |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1d6 | Kyton, Lesser |
| 2 | 1d4 | Kyton, Normal |
| 3 | 1d12 | Nupperibo |
| 4 | 1d10 | Lemure |
| 5 | 1d3 | Barbazu* |
| 6 | 2d2 | Kocrachon* |
| 7 | 1d6 | Tiefling |
| 8 | 1 | Hellcat |
| 9 | 2d4 | Hell Hound |
| 10 | 1d3 | Imp |
* Sometimes with least baatezu servants (nupperibos or lemures), sometimes not.
Even in this wretched place, the effects of the Iron Shadow can be seen, as it drains away the artistry of the chain-crafting, skill of torturing, and creativity behind plot-making of the baatezu. Most probably, at this point, the party had already encountered kytons or heard about them and their leader, Quimath, who attempts to spread the Shadow across the planes. By carefully asking around (and spending some coin), the characters can get the directions to Quimath's fortress of Panos Qytel. If they don't know about this yet, the DM can either use a hook from the "Using the Adventure Independently" section or make the game run its course, letting the characters poke around for some time before returning to the Staircase empty-handed.
There's also an additional side-quest available on the way to the fortress: a half-orc thief Kidkeki Tomi asks for assistance in retrieving the spider shield from the fortress — a task that she was assigned to do by a priest of Isis, before all of her companions were slain by a group of baatezu. Before this, however, they had managed to learn about a secret path leading to the fortress.
Just like the city, Panos Qytel consists of a myriad of intertwined chains. A dozen keyed rooms describe its interior in great detail. Main points of interest here are the Quimath's Chamber, the Stagnation Shrine, the Chamber of Ancient Horrors, and the Prison. Naturally, the fortress is filled with dangerous enemies, a good amount of hidden treasure, a couple of powerful prisoners, and an ancient baatorian secret thrown in for good measure.
Presentation
🖋️🖋️🖋️ superb
The standard setup, including the timeline of events, some advice on using this adventure independently, and Baator's effects on planar magic, and accompanied by a write-up on the nature of kytons and their city, is all that is needed to run the adventure without any additional sources.
The top-down 10-feet-grid map of the fortress is supplemented by its side-view — a rarely seen but welcome addition.
Openness
☀️☀️ semi-linear
Panos Qytel itself is good enough, albeit a bit small. The city, though, lacks in detail required for its free-form exploration, serving merely as a staging area before the fortress. The alternative hook is quite thorough — one of the better ones throughout the book — without any modification of the module itself required.
Quality
★★ good
Another solid module to finish up the anthology. It is not a masterpiece by any measure, but it fits well with the mini-campaign events, providing a good enemy base for the party to infiltrate. The fact that it can be used as an easy drop-in one-shot in any Planescape game also adds to its value.
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