Planescape review: Message from Thanatos, The Bottom of the Multiverse
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.
Message from Thanatos, The Bottom of the Multiverse
- Designer: Monte Cook
- Source: Dead Gods:2 Out of the Darkness, Chapters IV-V
- Party: 4-6 characters of 6th-9th levels
- Play-time: 1-2 sessions
- Locations:
- Ysgard (L1) / Yggdrasil / Crux, the Tree-town
- Prime / Ranais, the Funeral World
- Negative Energy Plane / Tcian Sumere
Message from Thanatos
In which the Heroes return to the Tree-town by way of a dead and ruined World, find that Yggdrasil is not yet cleansed of Evil's stain, and learn the Chant by spying on a secret gathering of Fiends.
Some time has passed since the previous events on the World Ash, and rumors of dying gods are rife. A brief overview of factions' disposition towards these cryptic events is presented at the start of the module. Eventually, the characters receive a letter from Veridis Mov, requesting their return to Crux. The letter also includes instructions for a shortcut path to get there. Naturally, the shortcut in question is a portal somewhere in Sigil, though the characters might use one of the other ones they've discovered during their previous adventures. If they follow the advice, though, they will travel through the dead prime world of Ranais. The whole trip is about 15 miles, and along this way, the party will encounter the undead inhabitants of the Funeral World — the Lovelost wraiths, the ancestors of those people who fled the dying planet and eventually founded the town of Crux. Too bad that the party has no way to find this out.
When the characters meet Viridis, he offers them a new job offer (2,000 gp each) to help Crux once more, eliminating the remaining visages who still plague Yggdrasil despite the characters' previous efforts. About a full day's walk from Crux, there is a place called the Salience, a monument created and then abandoned by the giant eagles of Yggdrasil. At the time the characters arrive there, eight visages (the only ones left on the World Ash) are gathered there waiting for something. Soon, a messenger arrives — a mist mephit brings the news "from Thanatos" (one of the layers of the Abyss). The mephit speaks about a prisoner "held within Tcian Sumere, at the Bottom of the Multiverse," finally captured by the visages' mysterious master. Once the mephit finishes speaking, the visages viciously attack the messenger, tearing the mephit to shreds so that no one else might find out about the secret. Naturally, at some point, the characters will perform a similar act upon the visages, completing the contract. Now, they must find out where the above-mentioned Tcian Sumere is located (the module suggests three ways they can do this) and pass through the portal leading there from the temple of Orcus in Ranais, which the visages currently use as their lair.
The Bottom of the Multiverse
In which the Heroes journey to the Cold Land, explore a peculiar and hidden Fortress of things undead, and stumble across a dark Prisoner with much to share - if only he could Remember.
The fortress of Tcian Sumere is an old stronghold of Orcus located on the Negative Energy Plane. The magical three-dimensional labyrinth consists of 13 keyed areas filled with all sorts of the undead. The totality of rooms' contents is too much to describe in this short review, but naturally, most of the details are vestiges of the Tenebrous' past life as Orcus.
The prisoner about the existence of which the characters found out in the previous chapter is Kestod, a drow vampire and a former servant of the drow goddess Kiaransalee — one of the two of her servants who were tasked to hide the Wand of Orcus after their mistress deposed the master of Thanatos. When released, the vampire immediately commits suicide to keep the secrets of his goddess safe. Before dying, though, he informs the characters of the other servant who could be found in the Vault of the Drow on Oerth.3 Besides the prisoner, the party can also encounter a cursed balor spirit who inadvertently gives the characters a clue about another planar location worth investigating.
The party can also find and experiment with a life-shaping device from the world of Athas,4 get their hands on a couple of magical items that can be later used against Thanatos, and, of course, loot his treasure vault. If the characters survive and manage to escape the deadly place, they can choose which of the two leads to follow first. These are covered in the next two chapters of the adventure.
Presentation
🖋️🖋️ useable
Three maps are presented for the module. While the first two are quite mediocre, the map of Tcian Sumere is of much better presentation:
- Ranais: monochrome, top-down view, scale, no grid
- The Salience: monochrome, side view, scale, no grid
- Tcian Sumere: color, top-down and side views, grid
The physical and magical conditions inside Tcian Sumere are also given.
Openness
☀️☀️ semi-linear
Just like with the overall presentation, the fourth chapter severely lacks openness, especially if compared to the fifth one. Adding more locations to Yggdrasil and especially Ranais (a mere four locations, two of which are portals, seems like a joke) would easily elevate Chapter IV to the height of its successor.
Quality
★★ good
When rated together, as they were played, this part of the adventure is enjoyable thanks to the Tcian Sumere section, so if you don't plan on embellishing the Yggdrasil part, try not to linger on it if possible, moving promptly to the real star of the show.
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