Planes of Conflict (1995) rounds out the trilogy of outer planes box sets, tackling the six neutral planes. This one sports a purple box, if like me, you think knowing that is important.

Within, we have: the Beastlands (formerly the Happy Hunting Grounds), a primal wilderness; Bytopia (previously the Twin Paradises), a place of meadows and mountains; Carceri (formerly Tartarus), the eternal prison; Elysium, a place so dreadfully pleasant you could forget to leave; Gehenna, home of the yugoloth; and the Gray Wastes (formerly Hades), the gloomy battlefield of the Blood War.

I find this box to be the weakest of the three, which is inevitable. The other two are about extremes, which are always interesting, especially in an RPG setting about conflicting philosophies, whereas Conflict, despite the name, winds up feeling, well, very middle of the road. The big villains, the yugoloths (previously the daemons) are cool, but a bit obscure and don’t have quite the punchy, easy to grok identity of the devils and demons.

DiTerlizzi guiding the pen again. I very much enjoy his Cerberus and hydra, but the real treat is his color plates in the Player’s booklet. All of a sudden, he goes from zero to Arthur Rackham and I frickin’ love it. I actually somehow forgot these were in here until I opened it again this week and I feel like my brain betrayed me. The texture and tone here is delicious. I think the yugoloths illustration is one of my favorites from the entire body of his Planescape work.