Planescape review: In Disarray
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.
In Disarray
In which a Part of the Chaotic Plane of Limbo is overcome by an Orderly Malaise, and the Heroes must discover a Secret of the Slaad to prevail.
- Designer: Monte Cook
- Source: Tales From the Infinite Staircase2, Tale 4
- Party: 4-6 characters of 5th-6th levels
- Play-time: 1 session
- Locations:
- Limbo / The Spawning Stone
Overview
The metallic door of ever-changingly swirling colors leads to the ultimate chaos of Limbo, emerging in the ruined remains of the previous incarnation of the gate-town of Xaos, floating in the whirlwind of the chaotic matter. Just like in the Law in Chaos module, the characters need to shape chaos to travel through the plane. The detailed set of rules for this could be found in the Planes of Chaos3 boxed set, but the basics are provided in the module itself.
The first encounter, once the party leaves the relative safety of the abandoned structure, is with the Dream Diver — a metallic 30-foot-diameter sphere-shaped vehicle flying through the chaotic plane with impressive speed. Its current owner, a planewalking slaver Rav, a dao from the Plane of Earth, attempts to capture the characters in addition to his current catch of the blue slaad Chaax. The battle could conclude in different ways, ending with the capture of the characters in the worst case, or them overpowering Rav and gaining control over Dream Diver, possibly with some help from one of the dao's slaves rebelling against their cruel master. If freed, Chaax will inform the party about the malady that befell the Spawning Stone, a place holding great importance to slaadi. That, of course, is the influence of the Iron Shadow, and keen characters can easily recognize it as such.
After a short but dangerous encounter with a nameless Limbo Thing on the way, the party arrives at the Spawning Stone — a one by 3/4 mile wide rock covered by slaadic runes. Fallen to the Iron Shadow, it now stands surrounded by numerous dead tadpoles and their catatonic blue slaadi parents. Swarming around the corpses are carnivorous atomie sprites feasting upon the dead flesh of the young. Torpellin of the Golden Spires, a githzerai sorceress who lived among the slaadi for years, begs the characters for assistance, pointing them towards the Temple of Change, the abode of a monastic githzerai hermit, Cahm'Fel, in hopes that he can provide help in finding a cure.
The Temple of Change constitutes the main part of the module, being presented in a classic dungeon format. After traversing a surreal maze hidden in a carpet of woven space-time and dealing with the servants of the Maze Master, the party can explore the temple proper, which consists of half a dozen keyed types of chambers. Among the highlights of the temple is the Altar of Change, which possesses the ability to randomly alter the nature and appearance of any object or creature touching it. Being an ardent worshipper of the concept of change, Cahm'Fel uses this device regularly. The githzerai can indeed help the characters in their quest by trading them a vial of Navimas — hyper-concentrated chaos syrup, which can counteract the Iron Shadow effect.
If the characters arrive early enough in the campaign timeline, they can easily acquire this remedy for the price of a magic item of Cahm'Fel's choice (most probably the Dream Diver, if it belongs to the party at the moment). If they come here at the later stages, they must clash with a member of the kyton raiding party from Panos Qytel (Tale 8) instead. These chained devils had killed Cahm'Fel and stolen Navimas after Stage 5, complicating the characters' task even further.
Assuming the characters get hold of Navimas, they now must travel back to the Spawning Stone and follow Cahm'Fel's instructions of feeding a drop of the substance to "a true being of chaos". Torpellin can assist the party with interpreting this guidance, revealing one of the slaadi secrets to them in the process. Following the lead of a blue slaad Inmoun, the characters are taken to "the secret nursery", where hundreds of writhing and squirming figures chaotically different from one another are chained together — the primordial true slaadi. Once a drop of Navimas is forcefully fed to one of these creatures, it bursts from its bonds, performing a strange dance atop the Spawning Stone. Immediately upon its completion, the slaadi tear the creature apart, shedding the influence of the Iron Shadow for good, returning to their usual violent nature and mating season frenzy.
With the completion of the objective, the character may depart Limbo and start figuring out how to employ the chaos extract in the other places afflicted by the Iron Shadow. If they still have the Dream Diver, they must find some larger portal leading out from the chaotic plane able to accommodate the large dimensions of the magical craft.
Presentation
🖋️🖋️ useable
The expected stat blocks, adventure notes, and campaign event sequence are present, accompanied by the magic rules for Limbo, an excerpt on the slaadi mating rituals, and other useful additions. The map for the Temple of Change with a proper 10' square grid is a welcome addition as well. The only problem with the module is the layout — too much text combined with too little structure makes the module hard to navigate at times.
Openness
☀️ linear
Nothing to say here — just as Lord of the Worms is a pure sandbox, this one is a sturdy railroad of a staged event sequence. At the later stages, it is spiced well enough with independent agents arriving here to mess with the characters' goals, but the wireframe stays the same in either case.
Quality
★★ good
The adventures in Limbo are surprisingly rare, and this might cloud the judgment, but despite the module's linearity, we had fun exploring the Temple of Change and observing the strange slaadian lifestyle. Another solid bite-sized module in the series.
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