Planescape review: Something Wild
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.
Something Wild
When Sigil falls prey to disturbing nightmares and outbreaks of violent fury, the heroes must follow bloody trails to the treacherous peaks of Carceri and the savage jungles of the Beastlands. An ancient terror threatens the planes anew, and only the player characters can stop it from feasting on the flesh of the multiverse.
- Designer: Ray Vallese
- Source: Something Wild2
- Party: 4-6 characters of 4th-7th levels
- Play-time: 3-5 sessions
- Locations:
- Sigil
- Carceri / Colothys (L4) / The Land of the Hunt
- Beastlands / Krigala (L1)
- Beastlands / Brux (L2) / The Cat Lord's Prowl
Overview
Chapter I: Rattling the Cage
When the characters return to Sigil from their last adventure and spend there a couple of days, they start noticing some strange occurrences on the streets, as well as disturbing nightmares that seem to haunt the entire population of the Cage. Strange encounters always involve aggressive animals and people closely connected to the Beastlands: Signers, rangers, druids, and hybrid creatures You can pick from the examples in the "Wild Animals" and "Other Reactions" sections (pp.11-12), or roll on the table below for a random one:
| d8 | Encounter |
|---|---|
| 1 | Cranium Rats |
| 2 | Ethyk |
| 2 | Ravens |
| 3 | Aoskian Hounds |
| 4 | Arcadian Ponies |
| 5 | Cipher |
| 6 | Indep |
| 7 | Thin man |
| 8 | Two bariaurs |
Do not forget to include the encounter with Aleron and Minda mentioned in the "Wild Animals" section in one of these encounters.
After this, two ways of involving the characters in the main plot are provided. The first one involves Shashell, a Wylder of the Verdant Guild who came to Sigil looking for the source of the corruption that currently plagues the Beastlands. The second method is centered around a Mercykiller paladin Blander Mul who is investigating the disappearances of criminals held in the Prison.
Both plots will set the party on the path of investigation throughout Sigil. Nine key locations are described in detail, and the aforementioned random encounters will spice up the traveling time between them. After some asking around, the characters will attain enough clues pointing to Carceri (Chapter II) and the Beastlands (Chapter III). The characters can choose to investigate the Beastlands first or follow a promising lead of Carceri and Mercykilles' involvement.
📝 NOTE: The book mentions the "Prison Break" adventure in "Planes of Conflict"3 boxed set as an additional source of information on the Vault — Mercykillers' super-prison on Carceri.
Chapter II: The Hills Are Alive
The second chapter takes place in Colothys, the fourth level of Carceri. Specifically, in the Land of the Hunt — the home of Malarites, followers of Malar, the evil god of the savage hunt. The most open and, arguably, the most fun part of the adventure, throws the characters between two warring Malarite groups. One is led by a Malar priest Guilder Starkad. Opposing them is a smaller one, led by Garond the Claw, the tiefling wizard. The party arrives in a mountain valley between their two dens.
While exploring the Land of the Hunt, the characters will experience a new kind of strange dreams. These are sent by Meuronna, a tabaxi dream hunter captured by Garond and currently held in captivity in the gehreleth lair nearby. Meuronna hopes these dreams will help the characters to find and rescue her.
In addition to the three caves, the chapter also describes nine locations/encounters the party can discover while traveling through the Stalking Grounds. These events can help to unveil the details of the vile Malarite plans as well as provide the characters with an array of possibilities to gain new allies and enemies.
The gehreleth lair is the highlight of this chapter, providing a good amount of labyrinthine cave exploration for the party after their wilderness travels. The cave is almost completely abandoned, but a couple of farastu gehreleths that inhabit it will still pose a serious threat to the careless characters.
Once the characters discover and release gehreleths' prisoners, Meuronna will beg the characters to help her get back to the Beastlands and undo the harm she was forced to bestow on the plane while she was under Garond's control. Now, combining tabaxi's story with the information they've got from Malarites and other NPCs, the players can figure out the details of Garond's plot to bring Malar to the Beastlands through entrapping the One, a powerful Signer githzerai, in its tainted dreamscape.
Chapter III: The Belly of the Beast
This chapter takes the party to the wilderness of the Beastlands. Just like each previous time the characters have visited this plane, they undergo primal changes. This time, however, due to the tainted dreamscape, instead of harmless cosmetic changes, the characters have a solid chance to gradually turn into animals, given enough time. This will pose several interesting challenges to the players while they try to adapt to this sudden metamorphosis.
📝 NOTE: To speed up the session, I recommend you think about what kind of animal suits each of the characters before running this chapter. Also, keep track of the quality of role-play for each of the characters once they turn into animals since the module grants a solid experience bonus for those characters who did it well.
This chapter provides descriptions of the key locations and a good set of 20 random encounters (in the Appendix). Here the characters will face another evil force aligned with Malarites — the Vile Huntsmen, as well as Wylders — members of the Verdant Guild who oppose them. There are also two realms of the minor powers located nearby: Skerrit's Glade, the realm of centaurs, and the Cat Lord's Prowl. If approached respectfully, both can provide valuable assistance to the party.
Sooner or later, the characters must infiltrate Dreamhearth, the Signers' base now occupied by the Garond and his Deliverers, guarding the One, who is sleeping in one of the rooms hidden by Garond's magic. Once the One is located, the characters must enter the dreamscape to return his trapped spirit back to the body. The option of killing the One is also given as a last resort, though such a cruel act would surely put Signers against the party.
Entered the dreamscape with Meuronna's help, the characters confront three nightmares haunting the One and must help him wake up. Special rules for the dreamscape adventuring are given. After successfully defending the One from the shadow cats, helping him to overcome his savage side, and finally defeating the dream incarnation of Malar himself, the characters can enter the nether portal and wake up, completing the main goal of the adventure.
The epilogue describes the possible aftermath depending on the characters' actions throughout the module, as well as the story awards based on the completed additional objectives and role-playing.
Presentation
🖋️🖋️🖋️ superb
The introduction covers the overview, backgrounds, motives, and plans of all forces involved in the adventure, the summary of the events, as well as faction involvement and positions.
The appendix provides the reference for the two major artifacts, all statistics for the NPCs and monsters that appear in the adventure broken down by each location, a quick list of magical conditions on Carceri and the Beastlands, and even a table of random encounters on the Beastlands.
All required maps are included as well, along with a couple of handout maps for the players. On top of this, each of the three chapters has a full-page color illustration representing the described events. Well done!
📝 NOTE: The book also references "In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil"4 and "The Factol's Manifesto"5 as an optional source of additional maps and information on Sigil. "Planes of Conflict"3 boxed set will provide additional information on gehreleth ecology as well as detailed descriptions of both Carceri and the Beastlands.
The only serious critique I can provide is the absence of scale on the maps, especially needed on the Stalking Grounds overland map. For my own game, I've edited this map to turn it into a hexcrawl, based on the single reference to the approximate 10-mile distance between the Malarite caves written on one of the handouts.
 |
 |
| DM's map | Players' map |
Openness
☀️☀️☀️ - open
The players are free to do their investigation as they please and mostly in any order. They can even make a temporary deal with one of the Malarite packs to achieve the goals. The possibility of failing the main objective is also very real, and a quick overview of the continuation of the unthwarted Malarite plot is provided.
Quality
★★★ - outstanding
One of the favorite Planescape adventures of my players and myself. The juxtaposition of two wild lands of opposing alignments is superb, and the investigative and diplomatic elements bind the adventure together in a very pleasing way. This is one of the "must-play" Planescape modules for sure!
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https://www.dmsguild.com/product/17267/Planescape-Campaign-Setting-2e?affiliate_id=850783↩
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/17279/Something-Wild-2e?affiliate_id=850783↩
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/17278/Planes-of-Conflict-2e?affiliate_id=850783↩
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/17274/In-the-Cage-A-Guide-to-Sigil-2e?affiliate_id=850783↩
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/17275/The-Factols-Manifesto-2e?affiliate_id=850783↩