After the initial Planescape box set, a trilogy of additional boxes came out, detailing the outer planes. The first was Planes of Chaos (1994), by Lester Smith and Wolfgang Bauer. As the title implies, it details the five planes dominated by the forces of chaos: The Abyss, home to everyone’s favorite demons; Arborea (previously Olympus), a forest realm; Limbo, which is ever-changing and home to the Githzerai and Slaadi; Pandemonium, a place of howling caverns; and Ysgard (previously Gladsheim) is primarily the home of the Norse pantheon.

All of these places are highly metaphysical in nature – the realms of gods, of departed souls and primal forces. Almost all of them have a certain amount of creative baggage, in terms of both folklore, literature and their previous iterations in D&D. The difficult job of this box is to portray these places in a way that players and DMs can comprehend, while encouraging visiting and exploration, while also subverting expectations. Planes of Chaos succeeds, shockingly well. There is so much cool stuff in this box. And, as usual when I am trying to discuss Planescape on Instagram, I just don’t have the space to get into detail.

DiTerlizzi on art duty again. I can’t stress enough how important his art in the early Planescape products is, especially in terms of subverting expectations. Would a Stephen Fabian (see Manual of the Planes) illustrated Planescape have worked? Sure. But I doubt it would have been quite so magical.

Also, big shout-out to the guy with the candle on his hat. I dig that look.