# Exposition Break > It can't be paused or skipped ## Posts - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 155: Rrakkma](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-155-rrakkma/): “Rrakkma,” by Chris Lindsay, is not necessarily the first Adventurer’s League module that goes into the planes—though I’m pretty sure that it is, I’ve had a legitimately difficult time discerning if there’s something earlier due to issues with access—but it is a far cry from what Adventurer’s League content is being made right now in 2025. As such, let’s begin with a little bit of context before we get to the adventure itself, and only partially because it’s hard to say much about such a short, lore-sparse dungeon crawl.  One of the few real successes of the Fourth Edition era […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 154: Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-154-mordenkainens-tome-of-foes/): A year and a half after Volo’s Guide to Monsters made its messy debut into the world, Wizards of the Coast released a follow-up in a similar vein. And yes, I know we’re skipping past the almost equally diverse Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, but that’s because its handful of planar-y bits of content had almost no lore attached—the horizon walker, for instance, is a cool concept, but what exactly that entails is pretty much up to each individual player. Mordenkainen’s Tome isn’t quite as much of a weird cornucopia of content as its predecessor in that it features no middle […] - [Cronos: The New Dawn](https://www.expositionbreak.com/cronos-the-new-dawn/): The release of Cronos: The New Dawn is a bit of a make-or-break moment for its developer, Bloober Team. Their 2024 Silent Hill 2 remake didn’t just defy expectations, it crushed them as it took its place among the rest of the survival horror pantheon. And while my intention isn’t to diminish their achievement, in the case of that game they had the advantage of standing on the shoulders of giants, working with arguably the greatest source material in the genre. With Cronos, Bloober needed to not only prove that Silent Hill 2 wasn’t just a fluke, but that they’d […] - [Heroes of the Borderlands: An Anecdotal Review](https://www.expositionbreak.com/heroes-of-the-borderlands-an-anecdotal-review/): When revealed, the philosophy behind Dungeon & Dragon‘s new starter set, Heroes of the Borderlands, was unsurprisingly divisive as detractors manufactured dire hypotheticals based on what had been announced. A board game? $50? Will it have levelling? Will it properly honor and preserve the legacy of the setting’s creator, the almighty Gygax? Now, a lot has already been said about this set. It’s out, and you can go to countless places on the internet to read, see, and/or hear detailed reviews and breakdowns of the set’s content. I don’t intend to add to that noise with this, rather to present […] - [Metroid II: Return of Samus](https://www.expositionbreak.com/metroid-ii-return-of-samus/): With the original Metroid drawing significant inspiration from Ridley Scott’s Alien, the franchise has always dabbled in horror while never fully embracing the genre. Well, almost never. Yes, within the eight mainline games—counting the Prime trilogy that will soon to be a quadrilogy with the release of Metroid Prime 4—there’s a plethora of scenes and sequences that would be worthy subjects of this humble blog series, but it’s only the oft-overlooked Metroid II: Return of Samus that truly aspires to be a horror game. Now, some may take issue with my “oft-overlooked” label, but the existence of not just one, […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 153: Volo's Guide to Monsters](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-153-volos-guide-to-monsters/): Following the release of Fifth Edition’s core books, Wizards of the Coast was in a weird place. The development staff had been gutted during the last few years—layoffs have been a perennial problem at the company almost regardless of the success of its products—and as a result most of what was soon published was primarily written elsewhere, with the two Tyranny of Dragons modules being designed by Kobold Press, Princes of the Apocalypse by Sasquatch Game Studio, Out of the Abyss by Green Ronin Publishing, and then Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide back to Kobold again. The result of all of […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 152: Core Fifth Edition](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-152/): It seems like only just yesterday (i.e. more than a goddamn year ago) we were covering the core Fourth Edition books in order to talk about its complete reconceptualization of D&D‘s cosmology. Sigil somehow managed to stick around in a only slightly bastardized form, but beyond that the previous edition’s multiverse barely resembled what came before—and for that matter, when it did, things were often worse, as the edition was way too into using the same words to mean completely different things. While it would’ve at least made some sense to try and fit things into the messy and inconsistent […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 7.75: Black Spine](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-7-75-black-spine/): Just when you probably thought we were finally, finally headed into Fifth Edition D&D, i.e. the material people are actually familiar with and want to read about, it’s time to take yet another journey into a missed release from the beforetimes. Reader of the site Nathan Blanton recently wrote in about a Second Edition release that should’ve been covered, one that I’d skipped past completely without realizing it because the module was part of the Dark Sun product line. Now, there are plenty of tangentially planar releases from this period of time, but that’s because it’s when Ravenloft was in […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 151: The Endings of Dungeon & Dragon Magazines](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-151-the-endings-of-dungeon-dragon-magazines/): Dungeons & Dragons‘ Fourth Edition ended not with a bang, but with a whimper, and a similar fate befell the twin magazines that shared its name. Not that Wizards of the Coast ever seemed to know what to do with them ever since taking their license back from Paizo, anyhow. For most of Dragon and Dungeon magazines’ runs, they felt like passion projects—not everything within them was polished, but rarely would you find something published that didn’t have some real heart to it. Sadly, in contrast with these previous incarnations, the digital editions of these magazines always felt like an […] - [A Walk Through the Planes: Court of Stars](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-court-of-stars/): Thought this column had been written into the dead book? Well you aren’t so lucky as all that—we’re back, and though A Walk Through the Planes won’t ever be quite as regular as it once was, I do plan on getting us all the way through to current day D&D. That’s right, eventually I’ll just be writing about new releases as they appear, which I’ve been looking forward to for ages now—though that’s still quite a ways off. We’re not quite finished with Fourth Edition, plus there’s all of Fifth Edition to trudge through before we arrive at the now-current […] - [A Walk Through the Planes: Lords of Chaos](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-lords-of-chaos/): Remember way back in March when I covered Mual-Tar, a lightning primordial with a striking resemblance to tapeworms? Probably not, as Fourth Edition’s content, particularly concerning the primordials, is almost fascinatingly forgettable. Nevertheless, I look back on that post from less than a year ago and judge my younger self for such naivete as thinking there would be a sane number of planar articles in Fourth Edition, or that anyone would wish me to document them so granularly. Aah, youth. Now, in our maturity, it’s time we turn to the rest of the Lords of Chaos series of articles, though […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 150: 2012 Magazine Wrap-up](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-150-2012-magazine-wrap-up/): During that awkward two year-period between the announcement of D&D‘s Fifth Edition and said edition’s actual release, both Dragon and Dungeon magazines continued puttering along. Christopher Perkins was in charge (of both? Of just Dungeon? This was never clear to me, and the actual organizational structure seemed to be changing wildly month-by-month during the entire Fourth Edition period), and the overall quality for the magazines improved. Which didn’t mean that either one felt particularly necessary unless you were still somehow a diehard Fourth Edition fan, but did mean that the content mill kept chugging along, and due to Fourth Edition’s […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 149: Heroes of the Elemental Chaos](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-149-heroes-of-the-elemental-chaos/): We’re finally here at the last planar book for Fourth Edition D&D. Sadly, this will not be the last actual article covering this edition in our series—far from it, in fact—but sometimes you’re thankful for small blessings, and at this point I’m so ready to move on from this grating and interminable cosmology that I’ll take what I can get. This is also the last Player’s Option book for this edition, with Player’s Option: Heroes of the Elemental Chaos filling out another portion of the multiverse with new options for PCs. Hilariously, there would never be a fourth book to […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 148: Heroes of the Feywild and More](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-148-heroes-of-the-feywild-and-more/): Following the success (maybe? Who the hell has any idea?) of Player’s Option: Heroes of Shadow, Wizards of the Coast soon released a follow-up counterpart with the oh-so-clever title Player’s Option: Heroes of the Feywild. As with a lot of the company’s paired works, though, these books are far from symmetrical in nature, and while Shadow had very little new lore for players to peruse, Feywild contains a fair amount. It’s hard to say whether this is because the plane had so little exploration otherwise, but the book spends a lot of time delving into the intricacies of the Feywild […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 147: Dark Legacy of Evard](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-147-dark-legacy-of-evard/): D&D‘s most ephemeral official releases have always been the ones made for organized play. It’s what made old Gencon modules priceless collector’s items, and the many RPGA releases from the 90s legendary and apocryphal. Whenever these have been relevant and available I’ve tried to cover them, but the fact of the matter is that they’re curious objects that largely exist outside the game’s canon despite their original publisher—in most cases, even the best organized play releases have never seen widespread publication. But by the time Fourth Edition was released, it wasn’t so hard for people to make copies of these […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 146: The Shadowfell - Gloomwrought and Beyond](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-146-the-shadowfell-gloomwrought-and-beyond/): It’s not the first time, and certainly won’t be the last, that I’m beginning one of these articles unsure what there really is to say about the release I’m covering. The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond is both quite good at what it does and absolutely an inessential piece of planar lore. It was one of the better releases in all of Fourth Edition, and also one that very few bought, read, or remember the existence of. It even introduced new mechanics to the game, which of course even fewer ever used in their games. More than anything else, I just […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 145: 2011 Dungeon Magazine Adventures](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-145-2011-dungeon-magazine-adventures/): I’m sure it’s become far too obvious that I’m exhausted by Fourth Edition and so, so ready to read some Fifth Edition D&D material. I’ve got a shelf of it just waiting, and while writing this article I find myself fantasizing about entire books of material that never mention the Dawn War or primordials once. Will all of the Fifth Edition be good? Dear god, no. But at least it won’t continue referring to one particular campaign setting as “the world,” and at this point even this small change would be enough. First, though, we have an absolute ton of […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 144: Creature Incarnations, Modrons](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-144-creature-incarnations-modrons/): Ok here’s an odd one that I wasn’t sure should be covered in this column but decided would nevertheless be of interest to Planescape fans. Published in the January 2011 issue of Dungeon (#186), here’s the co-author Greg Bilsland’s preamble for some context as to what this article entails: At Gen Con this year, I led a monster design seminar that included Bruce Cordell and Mike Mearls. At the seminar, we promised that one of several old school monsters that had not yet appeared in 4th Edition would be featured in an upcoming article. We let the seminar participants decide […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 143: Shades of Darkness](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-143-shades-of-darkness/): By the release of “Shades of Darkness” by Robert J. Schwalb in May 2010 (Dragon #387), it was already clear that D&D‘s magazines were following suit with the rest of the brand in their downturn. Editor-in-chief Chris Youngs was still in charge and doing his best, but he was on his way out shortly afterward and it was clear that the edition and its support were chugging along on fumes. Nearly every article used a prescribed template and with this seemed bereft of the wild creativity that had been Dragon‘s identity for most of its run. On the plus side, […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 142: The Plane Above - Secrets of the Astral Sea](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-142-the-plane-above-secrets-of-the-astral-sea/): No one was more surprised than me with how good The Plane Below: Secrets of Elemental Chaos turned out, but upon thinking more about that release a lot of this quality derived from Elemental Chaos being a surprisingly setting-agnostic plane. Much of it is easy to fit into the Great Wheel, whether in Limbo or the Inner Planes or the Abyss, and even aside from that cosmology many of its locations are easily integrated into all sorts of fantastical environments. There’s a sprinkling of the usual Dawn War and primordial nonsense that forms the Nentir Valley/Fourth Edition core cosmology, but […] - [A Walk Through the Planes: Scales of War](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-scales-of-war/): For those now catching up with this series, a few months ago back in Februrary  I covered “The Shadow Rift of Umbraforge” before reading a bit further into the Scales of War adventure path. This was a bad adventure, a poor introduction to both the Shadowfell and Scales, and it turns out that this did a serious disservice to one of those facets—the Shadowfell is still rather lame. Scales of War ended up being by far the most planar adventure path ever published for D&D, and what’s more it turns out to be good… fitfully and intermittently. Written by a […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 141: Red Shoals of Dkar](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-141-red-shoals-of-dkar/): After reclaiming the ownership and editorship of both Dragon and Dungeon magazines from Paizo, Wizards of the Coast decided to make more than a few changes to how the periodicals were run. One of the largest of these changes was to radically reapportion how content between them was organized. Since the founding of Dungeon, that magazine had always been focused almost entirely on adventure modules, whereas Dragon was a general purpose place for content about D&D (and originally other RPG’s, though this largely tapered off by the 90s). The new decree was that Dragon magazine would be for content to […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 140: The Plane Below - Secrets of Elemental Chaos](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-140-the-plane-below-secrets-of-elemental-chaos/): I’ve tried to be as fair as I can to Fourth Edition, despite my well-known distaste for both its game mechanics and world. After all, there were plenty of excellent game designers working for Wizards of the Coast, and there’s no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater—good ideas are edition agnostic and should be celebrated wherever they’re found. Still, there wasn’t a single release I wanted to unequivocally recommend… until now. With lead design by Ari Marmell, The Plane Below: Secrets of the Elemental Chaos is everything that the edition’s disappointing Manual of the Planes wasn’t. It’s […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 139: Draconomicon II: Metallic Dragons](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-139-draconomicon-ii-metallic-dragons/): Unlike with the Draconomicon I: Chromatic Dragons, Draconomicon II: Metallic Dragons doesn’t add a whole new swath of planar dragons to the game.1 I’m pretty damn happy about this decision, not just because I’m so very tired of new planar dragons, but also because there’s much less to cover this time around. Hell, if I’d skipped this work completely I don’t think anyone would particularly care. But as with the previous draconomicon and Open Grave: Secrets of the Undead, there’s a new group of planar lairs added to the game, thereby expanding our knowledge of this dumb cosmology. I’m not […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 138: Prince of Undeath](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-138-prince-of-undeath/): I was legitimately unsure at times if we’d make it, but we’re finally here, the end of Fourth Edition’s HPE adventure path. We’ve had dungeon crawls, more dungeon crawls, one surprisingly open and fun adventure, and then a few more linear dungeon crawls but sometimes in environments doing their best to pretend we’re not in a dungeon. It’s taken us all the way from level 1 to level 30, and we’ve moved from a couple adventures that were widely played on a massive scale to a series that online research suggests maybe half a dozen groups ever touched. We’ve even […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 137: Dungeon Master's Guide 2 & A Conspiracy of Doors](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-137-dungeon-masters-guide-2-a-conspiracy-of-doors/): The decision to make Sigil a part of Fourth Edition’s World Axis cosmology was always weird, but it’s not until the Dungeon Master’s Guide 2 that the contortions required to make it so are on full display. Sigil was such a peripheral part of Third Edition, where at least the Great Wheel still existed and as such Sigil didn’t need to be reconceptualized, that you would’ve assumed it would be dropped like so much else from the game’s past. But presumably due to the newfound emphasis on the planes (and de-emphasis on them being fun and interesting…), Wizards made Sigil […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 136: Revenge of the Giants](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-136-revenge-of-the-giants/): Reading through this series has led to plenty of surprises, but few of them have been as large for me as seeing former Planescape author Bill Slaviscek’s name listed as one of Revenge of the Giants‘ authors. Longtime readers of this series may remember my somewhat antagonistic view towards Slaviscek’s previous contributions. Two of the three worst adventures in the campaign setting were written by him, and his sole contribution that I did enjoy, Harbinger House, broke a ton of Sigil’s rules along the way (and relied, at times, a lot on the DM to make it work). He’d also […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 135: Kingdom of the Ghouls](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-135-kingdom-of-the-ghouls/): The decision to include Sigil as a “major” part of Fourth Edition D&D always struck me as odd, but now that I’ve delved deeper into its cosmology and mythology I see it as completely nuts. Planescape was cosmopolitan, with Sigil and its accompanying multiverse connecting all mythologies and all campaigns. It was crossover heaven, and you could conceivably end up anywhere, with genres and ideas colliding however you want. But Fourth Edition’s Sigil is just the opposite, in fact it is nowhere at all. There’s no Outlands to look up at it from, with an impossibly tall spire in its […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 134: Death's Reach](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-134-deaths-reach/): This series began because of my love for the Planescape setting, and I always meant to keep the focus as much on it and its antecedents/descendents as possible. Occasionally this has meant the appearance of other campaign settings, but it wasn’t until Fourth Edition that this became so completely unavoidable. Reading through these books and articles, it’s become increasingly clear to me that while lip service is made towards Eberron and the Forgotten Realms, Fourth Edition D&D really is Nentir Vale/Points of Light/whatever else you want to call it; as a result, everything involved with its conception of the planes […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Codex of Betrayal](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-codex-of-betrayal/): I knew that it would be a bumpy ride when we hit Fourth Edition, and not just because of the radically different cosmology. Wizards of the Coast had a newfound focus on planar material that coincided with this change, despite the multiverse’s new shape being unpopular and messy. This meant that in addition to the Demonomicon of Iggwilv series that we covered previously, three (and nearly four: see below) additional series were added to Dragon and Dungeon magazines using the same longform profile format that became so popular when Paizo was in charge. Apparently, the “needless symmetry” that the cosmology’s […] - [Dredge](https://www.expositionbreak.com/dredge/): Given its fishing/horror premise and the reductive headlines it has inspired, it’d be easy for someone who has never played Dredge before to dismiss it as nothing more than a gimmick. Yes, it’s a fishing game, and yes, it’s a horror game, but Dredge is so loosely connected to its peers in either genre that reducing it to those tags scarcely breaks the surface of its actual accomplishments.  Whether it’s in a fully devoted fishing game or relegated to a side activity in a bigger adventure, the video game version of fishing is often a poor approximation of its real-life […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 133: Brink of Madness](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-133-brink-of-madness/): In my final article for Third Edition D&D, I briefly touched upon the first part of Robert J. Schwalb’s Tear of Ioun/Madness Trilogy, “Touch of Madness.” While this initial installment was published before the edition switch, the concluding chapters wouldn’t arrive until 2009. The entire trilogy centers around an incursion of the Far Realm into the Prime Material Plane (or, since that plane no longer exists in Fourth Edition, the World—yes, that’s seriously what they call it, I’m sorry). But despite the intrusion of kaorti, it isn’t until the final part of this trilogy that things really get interplanar, and […] - [Anatomy](https://www.expositionbreak.com/anatomy/): Are you at home right now? If you are, look around at the walls that surround you. How often do you think about them? About their purpose? About what you’ve experienced within them? How about what others have experienced within them? Have they been treated well? Have they been appreciated? Kitty Horrorshow’s Anatomy asks its players to reflect on their homes, positing that they themselves might take their walls (their shelter) for granted. What if your home could feel the pain of loss? Loneliness? Disrespect? What if it could feel anger? While ultimately very different games, Anatomy operates in a […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 132: Open Grave Secrets of the Undead](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-132-open-grave-secrets-of-the-undead/): One of the more obnoxious things about Fourth Edition is that while it makes a few claims towards being setting agnostic, in reality it’s the most setting-focused edition of the game so far. However so much of that information is parsed out piecemeal rather than in one centralized location, such that getting a real grasp on what’s happening in the Points of Light world (or Nentir Valley, or whatever the fuck we want to call this stupidly unnamed setting) requires reading practically every splatbook Wizards of the Coast printed in this edition, plus each issue of Dragon and Dungeon magazines. […] - [The Callisto Protocol](https://www.expositionbreak.com/the-callisto-protocol-scream-calibration/): What counts as a horror game is often contentious, with purists imposing rigid definitions to the genre that ultimately exclude meaningful experiences. Perhaps I’ll change my mind as this series progresses, but games like The Callisto Protocol make me remiss to adhere to a strict classification because the game, while ostensibly horror, contributes less to the genre than excluded works like Hotline Miami; yet detractors will argue that though Hotline Miami contains horror elements, it is not itself a horror game. Perhaps this gulf in interpretation comes from a difference in utility for the classification, with the needs and interests […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 131: Hestavar: The Bright City](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-131-hestavar-the-bright-city/): Just because the overall conception of Fourth Edition’s cosmology is wonky and frustrating doesn’t mean that the actual locations within it can’t be excellent. Case in point: Hestavar, a paradisiacal city lying in the Astral Sea that’s set up as a possible hub world for epic level adventuring parties. Unlike so much else in this multiverse, it’s a strange world that doesn’t feel like anything on the Prime Material Plane, or anywhere else for that matter. It’s a realm of wonder with a structure impossible for any real city, and with that it’s also one of startlingly few new Fourth […] - [An Interview with Resident Evil Novelization Author, S.D. Perry](https://www.expositionbreak.com/an-interview-with-resident-evil-novelization-author-s-d-perry/): In 1996, Capcom’s Shinji Mikami released his genre defining survival horror game Resident Evil to the world. It quickly became a best seller and its success laid the groundwork for sequels, remakes, spinoffs, live-action films, animated films, Netflix series, comics, and novelizations. These days, gamers are used to their favorite games crossing over into other media, with cross media roadmaps being conceived, in some cases, before a franchise has even been announced. In the ’90s, however, it was far less common, making Capcom’s 1998 foray into Resident Evil novelizations with The Umbrella Conspiracy by S.D Perry much more noteworthy. Perry […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 130: Demon Queen's Enclave](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-130-demon-queens-enclave/): The combination of Fourth Edition’s mechanics and the “Delve” adventure format made it difficult for any module during this era to focus on aspects of D&D not related to combat, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t try. While yes, most adventures have featured rote skill challenges and even a handful of NPC’s worth chatting with, Demon Queen’s Enclave is the first (official) one in this edition that emphasizes the role playing part of the game. While players are going to end up in at least a few fights to finish this story, for the most part that means that other […] - [FAITH: The Unholy Trinity](https://www.expositionbreak.com/faith-the-unholy-trinity-scream-calibration/): Clearly inspired by The Exorcist and other films of the era, FAITH: The Unholy Trilogy’s story follows the life of a priest suffering a crisis of faith after participating in a tragically botched exorcism. It’s a story that is likely to resonate best with players who were raised in or around Catholicism, where participation may almost feel like a sin or could surprisingly go as far as causing you to reflect on, though not necessarily question, the strength of your own faith.   If you turn off the lights and let your imagination take over, FAITH may, in the best and […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 126.5: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-126-5-king-of-the-trollhaunt-warrens/): It’s been a while since we’ve returned to an old release I managed to miss, but in my defense Fourth Edition D&D is in no way my expertise, especially with regard to adventures (during this era my regular group only played homebrewed games—it took the rise of true adulthood and its accompanying time commitments to make us start published adventures them more frequently). While preparing for the next article on Demon Queen’s Enclave, I ran into references saying that the previous adventure, King of the Trollhaunt Warrens, actually journeyed to the Feywild. Oh phooey. And while this journey is nothing […] - [Hotline Miami](https://www.expositionbreak.com/hotline-miami-scream-calibration/): In a 2015 interview with Dave Portner for Interview Magazine, John Carpenter, esteemed director of film classics like Halloween, The Thing, They Live, and In the Mouth of Madness, said “Horror is a reaction; it’s not a genre.” Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that Hotline Miami eludes the horror classification in spite of its gruesome and horrific exploration of violence.  Dennaton Games, the developers behind Hotline Miami, performed some sleight of hand when they released their game in 2012; the horror of it was masked behind a propelling soundtrack, tight controls, and easy-to-pick-up but difficult-to-master gameplay. Yes, the violence is there […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 129: Ze Planes!](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-129-ze-planes/): Once Wizards of the Coast reclaimed Dragon magazine from Paizo, they no longer kept naming each issue, a change that I don’t think mattered in the slightest to anyone in the world except for me. But I need to name these columns, and when there are a couple planar articles in an issue it was nice to have something to go with, even if the title was bland. In the particular case of issue #370 from December 2008, I went with the title for the issue’s opening editorial, particularly because it’s a strange juxtaposition against the rest of Fourth Edition. […] - [Halo: Combat Evolved](https://www.expositionbreak.com/halo-combat-evolved-scream-calibration/): The 6th generation of consoles officially kicked off in 2000 with the release of the PlayStation 2, but it wasn’t until the following year that horror gamers would feel the generational leap in their favorite genre. Looking back, 2001 turned out to be a big year for scary games on the new generation of consoles as it saw the release of Onimusha: Warlords, Project Zero, Extermination, Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, Resident Evil – Code: Veronica X2Code […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 128: Manual of the Planes (4th Edition)](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-128-manual-of-the-planes-4th-edition/): I’ve found myself in a weird spot with Fourth Edition, in which my dislike for the game and the many changes with its cosmology and lore can’t help but cloud my judgment for the actual works in question. This really came to the fore with the newest Manual of the Planes, 160 pages focused largely around this primary aspect that I didn’t like, with little else to distract from its glaring issues. The problem is that when taken on its own terms, as a source for information about this new and confusing multiverse, it’s not a bad work, not at […] - [Tormented Souls](https://www.expositionbreak.com/tormented-souls-scream-calibration/): Tormented Souls is an admirable, if not derivative, throwback to survival horror classics like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. It may not be as seminal as Lone Survivor, but it has a firm understanding of the genre’s mechanics while still infusing them with its own spin on old tropes. Although the game is a bit of a mess in many regards—like plot holes, narrative issues, and a troubling lack of respect for its protagonist—Tormented Souls ends up being a positive sum of its parts and an impressive inaugural horror release from its Chilean independent developers, Dual Effect and Abstract Digital. […] - [Lone Survivor](https://www.expositionbreak.com/lone-survivor-scream-calibration/): Between its narrative, music, and general atmosphere, Lone Survivor wears its Silent Hill 2 inspiration on its sleeve. As you roam the game’s decaying streets and halls, you may come to consider, as I did, that its developer, Jasper Byrne, might understand the iconic horror classic better than anyone, even its own creators. But to say it is just a copycat or clone would be to do it a major disservice; while it stands on the shoulders of Silent Hill 2, it […] - [Resident Evil (The REmake)](https://www.expositionbreak.com/revisited-part-5-resident-evil-the-remake/): When I wrote about Code: Veronica I mentioned that it was my gateway into the series. While that is true, 2002’s remake of the original Resident Evil—we’ll call it REmake from here on out—pulled me in further and is largely responsible for where I am today with the franchise and the survival horror genre. But what if I told you that I almost bounced off of the game entirely? That if it weren’t for a glitch, we could have found ourselves in a different timeline where I’m here writing about the “Tales of…” games or something?  REmake had been out […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 127: Draconomicon I: Chromatic Dragons](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-127-draconomicon-i-chromatic-dragons/): No one is more tired of planar dragons than I am. Even when they were worthwhile and interesting, the constant barrage of them in Third Edition left me wishing for the Planescape era, where dragons were intentionally rare outside of the Prime in order to differentiate the multiverse. This differentiation is now largely gone, and one of the issues I’ve come across constantly since I began reading through D&D‘s Fourth Edition sources is that other planes of existence tend to feel little different from the Prime. Giving us yet more planar dragons only increases this issue by creating another point […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 126: The Shadow Rift of Umbraforge](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-126-the-shadow-rift-of-umbraforge/): When Wizards of the Coast took back their rights for Dragon and Dungeon magazines, they had a pretty good sense of what the most popular parts were. In the case of Dragon, this meant continuing the Demonomicon even if they no longer had access to the series’ original writer. For Dungeon, this meant kicking off a new adventure path, this time even longer than what came before due to the game’s new level cap of 30. However, what they didn’t think to do was to support this adventure path in the sister publication, or to even give a road map […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 125: Pyramid of Shadows](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-125-pyramid-of-shadows/): As much as I may pretend at being the most original and insightful thinker when it comes to D&D, that’s far, far from the case. Many others have written about these supplements and adventures before me, and I try to do my due diligence regarding what else has been written about them and is readily available. Then, after reading through this material, I can at least feel confident that my take is relatively new. Now that we’re at Fourth Edition, though, I find myself having a bit of difficulty in that regard. We’re a long way from Planescape at this […] - [A Walk Through the Planes – An Interview with Sean K. Reynolds](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-an-interview-with-sean-k-reynolds/): A couple months ago, we ran several articles about Monte Cook Games’ trilogy of new RPG books set in D&D‘s Great Wheel cosmology, Path of the Planebreaker. Sean K. Reynolds was one of the designers for this series, and he previously worked as a game designer for TSR, Wizards of the Coast, and Paizo before winding up with his current position. As such, he has a great deal of insight into roleplaying game design and development, both within his work as a contributor to work on D&D‘s other planes of existence, and for many other campaign settings and worlds. We […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 124: Mithrendain, Citadel of the Feywild](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-124-mithrendain-citadel-of-the-feywild/): After last week’s surprisingly good read, I found myself wondering whether I’d been wrong about Fourth Edition’s lore all along. I mean, sure, piecing it together often feels like a scavenger hunt, but maybe it wasn’t quite as different and, frankly, bad, as I remembered it to be. Maybe? But with this week’s pair of articles, we’re back into far more familiar territory. “Mithrendain, Citadel of the Feywild” by Rodney Thompson (Dragon #366, August 2008) and “Dark Heart of Mithrendain” by Greg Marks (Dungeon #137, August 2008) are both the type of dull, slog of fussy fantasy prose that I […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 123: Beleth, the Witch's Viscount](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-123-beleth-the-witchs-viscount/): One of the most frustrating things about how Fourth Edition treats its lore is that it assumes familiarity with the D&D mythology while at the same time it never tells you what’s actually canon anymore. For instance, “Codex of Betrayal: Beleth, the Witch’s Viscount” (Dragon #365, July 2008) assumes that everyone reading the article knows who individuals like Asmodeus, Levistus, Glasya, etc. are, that they are fully aware of the rankings of Hell’s dukes and how its layers/recent politics fit together… yet at the same time none of that has actually been addressed yet. In general, Fourth Edition assumes complete […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 122: Fourth Edition's Core](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-122-fourth-editions-core/): Ever since people caught onto the fact that I’m not so keen about D&D‘s Fourth Edition, I’ve been asked why I feel so strongly about it. After all, the game has had many editions before it, and is about to have a second one since, so what makes this particular edition so different from its many brethren. To this, I can respond by talking at great length about how much shit it poured on the game’s mechanics or about its nonsensical lore. And while the two of these are intertwined, they’re also a bit more separate than you might at […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 121: The Last Vestiges of Third Edition](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-121-the-last-vestiges-of-third-edition/): While Elder Evils would’ve been a strong, worthy way for Dungeons & Dragons‘ Third Edition to come to an end, that wasn’t what came to pass. During the weird period of time between the publication of that final book for Third Edition and the first books for Fourth Edition, Wizards of the Coast needed to keep interest in the game, plus they’d unceremoniously removed the licensing for Dragon and Dungeon from Paizo… without actually hiring a new set of editors, designers, etc. to make the magazines, despite having quite a lot of time to prepare. Eventually, both periodicals would be […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 120: Elder Evils](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-120-elder-evils/): The final book for Third Edition D&D, or to be more accurate edition 3.5, was Robert J. Schwalb’s Elder Evils, a companion of sorts to Exemplars of Evil from a few months earlier. While Second Edition AD&D concluded with a trio of apocalyptic adventures to end your party/campaign/world, this time out Exemplars is more of a guide for how to do this on your own. Following a relatively short introduction and first chapter detailing the book’s purpose and some ideas for signs of the apocalypse, the book quickly gets down to business: here’s nine big bads with the potential to […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 119: Infernal Aristocracy](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-119-infernal-aristocracy/): Once Wizards of the Coast snatched its magazine rights back from Paizo, Dragon in particular was in a weird place. Dungeon could stay an Edition 3.5-oriented rag, because Fourth Edition didn’t actually exist yet and as such its rules were still in a bit of flux. But Dragon, on the other hand, with its devotion as much to behind-the-scenes information and lore as it was actual mechanics, was split between content focused on both editions. This created a particularly strange situation in which one article, such as “Infernal Aristocracy: The Dukes of Hell” might be filled with the very last […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Turn of Fortune's Wheel](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-turn-of-fortunes-wheel/): While Planescape had some of the best supplements, i.e. splatbooks, in the history of roleplaying games, its track record for actual adventures wasn’t nearly so hot. A lot of the lure of the setting is just hanging out in a strange world and interacting with it, which made a lot of the more traditional Dungeons & Dragons plots feel off. Who wants to do a dungeon crawl when you can change the multiverse just as much by, say, circulating a convincing pamphlet? I’m quite fond of more than a few of the setting’s adventures, but in almost no cases were […] - [A Walk Through the Planes: Morte's Planar Parade](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-mortes-planar-paradea-walk-through-the-planes/): Morte’s Planar Parade is a strange release in that its precedents don’t really mesh well together. Second Edition’s Planescape had a lot of monsters, and what’s more, nearly all of them had a ton of lore written about them. Over the course of five years, there were three 128-page “Monstrous Compendium Appendix” volumes, in addition to four  32-page “Monstrous Supplement” booklets in the Campaign Setting and each of the Planes of… boxed sets, plus a smattering of monsters elsewhere in adventures and other supplements. And none of that even includes planar monsters from many other sources. Ultimately, a lot of […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Sigil and the Outlands](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-sigil-and-the-outlands/): I realize that I’m skipping ahead wildly in the chronology of this series, but I’ve had enough people asking me to finally offer my thoughts about the new(-ish) Fifth Edition Planescape set that I’ve acceded to popular demand. But rather than covering the set as a whole, I’m going to take a look at each book individually so as to give the works enough, i.e. too much, space. After all, this is the first new Planescape work for more than 20 years, and I’m skeptical that we’ll see another one in print—which is to say a physically printed book and […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 118: The Savage Tide](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-118-the-savage-tide/): The last of Paizo’s original run of adventure paths for Dungeon Magazine arrived just as D&D‘s third edition was coming to a close. While there was still one remaining book and a handful of magazine issues printed by Wizards of the Coast after the two companies parted ways for good, for the most part The Savage Tide was the demarcation point that closed off this portion of the game’s history. If nothing else, it served as the culmination for so much of the lore that Paizo and even Wizards itself had been sprinkling into releases over the previous few years. […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Sidestory: Planar Character Options](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-sidestory-planar-character-options/): Before reading through the book, I’d kinda assumed that Planar Character Options, the third and so far final part of Monte Cook Games’ quas-campaign setting Planebreaker, was going to be my least favorite of the three. If you’re a veteran of this now-insanely-long series about Dungeons & Dragons‘ other planes of existence, then you’re well aware that most of the time game mechanics bore me. They’re important, and they can tell stories in and of themselves when done well, but at the same time they’re also the part of roleplaying games where our imaginations go to die. I also knew, […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Sidestory: Planar Bestiary](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-sidestory-planar-bestiary/): I’m of two minds about the Planar Bestiary volume published by Monte Cook Games as a companion to their campaign setting Path of the Planebreaker. It’s filled with over 150 new monsters, most of them hailing from other planes of existence and a vast majority of them strange, wild, and creative compared with typical fifth edition D&D monsters, even the ones in other third party books. But at the same time, its formatting and lack of relevant indexing makes it a weirdly difficult book to use as part of an ongoing planar campaign. I like having my copy on the […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Sidestory: Path of the Planebreaker](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-sidestory-path-of-the-planebreaker/): Last time we checked in on what Monte Cook, former Planescape designer and co-author of D&D‘s third edition, he’d published Beyond Endless Doorways. That was with his first publishing endeavor, Malhavoc Press, which he founded in 2001 and informally ended around  2008-2009. The company’s dissolution coincided with both the rise of fourth edition D&D and the sale of Malhavoc’s publisher; given the amount of change and drama going on within the industry, I suspect that keeping Malhavoc going was simply more effort than it was worth. For the next few years, Cook focused on writing fiction, but in late 2011 […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 117: Exemplars of Evil](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-117-exemplars-of-evil/): With third edition D&D quickly winding down, Wizards of the Coast was in a small bind. It still needed to release new books in order to, you know, make money, but at the same time anything it put out with new mechanics was more or less worthless. Fans knew that a new edition was around the corner and had a hankering for what was next. I suspect that sales really plummeted around this period, and I must admit that due to both this factor and other lifestyle reasons (i.e. college), I was one of those who checked out at the […] - [Resident Evil - Code: Veronica](https://www.expositionbreak.com/revisited-part-4-resident-evil-code-veronica/): It’s been a minute since I’ve last worked on this project. It’s not that I haven’t been playing Resident Evil games; I just haven’t been writing about them. Since my last entry back in (checks the site) February, I’ve played through the Village DLC, Code: Veronica, the Resident Evil 1 Remake, Resident Evil Zero, Resident Evil 4, the Resident Evil 3 Remake, Resident Evil 5 co-op with Sean, and the Resident Evil 4 Remake along with its DLC. I’ve been doing my part in the fight against fictional bio-terror. More than that, even, if you count Dead Space, its remake, […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 116: Monster Manual V](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-116-monster-manual-v/): At this point, I suppose it would be disingenuous for me to feign surprise that I’m covering the last monster manual for third edition D&D, as writing these up feels like it’s become a bit of a tradition. None of them are truly great, can’t-miss releases (the central irony being that the best compilation of monsters from this decade was in a Fiend Folio instead), but they always feature a smattering of new planar creatures, some of which tend to be noteworthy enough that I’d feel weird skipping them entirely. It also feels a bit sad to be moving on […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 115: Return of the Modrons](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-115-return-of-the-modrons/): Remember modrons? Sure you do, since you’re reading this column, and they were a huge part of Planescape, not to mention an important species that defined Mechanus as much as the devils do Hell. Or, at least that was how things worked in D&D‘s first and second editions. In third edition they were largely erased, relegated to a measly web supplement few would ever read or learn about. But during its final push of D&D content, Paizo kept printing reams of new planar material, and much to everyone’s surprise this meant putting this now-obscure extraplanar race back into the spotlight. […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 114: Expedition to the Demonweb Pits](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-114-expedition-to-the-demonweb-pits/): At the very end of Dungeons & Dragons edition 3.5, Wizards of the Coast surprised the game’s fans with a series of large adventures that returned to old, favorite locations from the game’s history, though always with a twist. All four of these adventures, which I’ll be calling the “Expeditions” series for lack of any more official nomenclature, were written by different authors, but shared a common format (unfortunately) and length. I don’t think any of them ended up as huge sellers, but they’re fondly remembered by fans, especially since they’re one of the last real bursts of life in […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 113: Diplomacy](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-113-diplomacy/): While I’ve covered a fair number of planar adventures in Dungeon, the number that I’ve actually liked has been rather miniscule. The main cause for this, I suspect, is simply that most of what the magazine tended to publish was extremely combat heavy, which isn’t what I enjoy either reading or playing. Not that I hate combat, it’s a part of the game like so many others, but when it’s the focus of things I tend to get bored. Once you’ve played through enough combat encounters, both as a DM and as a PC, they get pretty same-y, whereas roleplaying […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 112: The Planes](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-112-the-planes/): For my purposes, it’s certainly handy that Paizo decided to title every issue of Dragon that they published, though sometimes those titles are a bit… uninspired. “The Planes” is issue #353 of the magazine (March 2007), and it primarily focuses on, you guessed it, the planes. That being said, the real highlights of this issue, while planar in nature, also happen to be entries in the long-running “Demonomicon of Iggwilv” and “Ecology of” series. The big star here is a feature on Paizo’s newly created Demon Queen of the Succubi, Malcanthet, which takes up 13 pages and is loaded with […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 111: Cormyr: Tearing of the Weave](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-111-cormyr-tearing-of-the-weave/): It’s not that adventuring in the Plane of Shadows is inherently dull, it’s just that as of the end of third edition no one has figured out how to make it interesting yet. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself whenever I wind up reading another adventure that uses this location. I’m sorry to all of you hoping for me to get to a more interesting topic, but third edition sure loved its Plane of Shadows and returned to this location repeatedly with little to show for it. In the particular case of Cormyr: The Tearing of the Weave, […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 110: Beyond the World Serpent Inn](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-110-beyond-the-world-serpent-inn/): Like a lot of people, I was thrilled when Paizo decided that its campaign classics issue would be an annual tradition… though unfortunately, the company would only manage to print three of these total before losing its license. The final of its campaign classics issues was published in January of 2007 (issue #351) and was themed after the World Serpent Inn, a location that originated with the somewhat cursed Tales of the Outer Planes, only to completely disappear from the game’s second edition before returning in a web supplement for third edition’s Manual of the Planes. When covering its previous […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part ???: Monster Ecologies](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-monster-ecologies/): Starting with the second edition of AD&D, I’ve been pretty thorough in covering practically every planar-related article that’s graced the pages of Dragon, Dungeon, and even Polyhedron magazines. Yes, there were a few peripheral pieces I either chose to skip or never noticed, and admittedly my coverage of articles in the 70s and 80s remains far more… spotty (it was a different era, and frankly pre-Planescape planar material tends to be its own weird and wild mess), but there’s only been one particularly massive hole in this coverage: the “Ecology of” series. That being said, it wasn’t until the end […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 109: Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-109-fiendish-codex-ii-tyrants-of-the-nine-hells/): I’m always entertained when multiple volumes of nominally the same series use massively different structures, and this pattern has long been a weird part of D&D. Planes of Law, Planes of Chaos, and Planes of Conflict may all focus on these respective planes, but what content they contain is weirdly variable. Likewise, Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss  and Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of Hell were published less than a yeas apart, but their approaches towards devils, demons, and their homelands, while similar enough from a distance, are not exactly a matched pair. Fortunately, both volumes are good and […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 108: Dragon Magazine Goes "Elemental"](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-108-dragon-magazine-goes-elemental/): The last series of articles in our catchily titled “cavalcade of mediocre planar content from Paizo’s magazines at the end of 2006” comes from the “Elementals” issue of Dragon (#347, September 2006). This is a bit of a weird one in that by all rights it seems like it should’ve featured some worthwhile content. The issue features six (6!) planar articles dealing with the elementals and the Inner Planes, and as such you’d think there’d be something worthwhile here. And to a certain extent there is, it’s just that the amount of words and space surrounding the meaningful content is […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 107: Dungeons & Dullness](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-107-dungeons-dullness/): Perhaps due to Paizo’s surprising interest in the planes, at the end of its run with Dragon and Dungeon magazines the company printed a crazy amount of planar, or at least planar-adjacent, material. While much of the prose produced by the magazine’s own editors was frequently excellent, unfortunately, much of the random contributions from elsewhere were a bit more… forgettable. At best. This was particularly true of a few Dungeon adventures from 2006, when the magazine’s top writers and editors were focused on its adventure paths, which resulted in filling the rest of its pages with, well, perhaps not its […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 106: Monster Manual IV & More Planar Dragons](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-106-monster-manual-iv-more-planar-dragons/): For whatever random reason, the end of third edition D&D featured an awful lot of planar content. At the same time, much of this content wasn’t terribly good or memorable. As a result of this confluence, I’m going to be smashing a few of these things together at a time, largely because none of the pieces covered in the next few columns deserve their own write-up. Some of the absolute best, most interesting bits of planar writing in the history of D&D came from 2006-2008, right before the game’s entire cosmology was flushed down the toilet, but before we can […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 105: Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-105-fiendish-codex-i-hordes-of-the-abyss/): Despite my many complaints about what came of D&D‘s cosmology since Planescape’s unceremonious end, there have been a handful of quite good planar releases in D&D‘s third edition. Bastion of Broken Souls remains a favorite of mine, and the blowout coverage for the “Lich-Queen’s Beloved” was something really special. More recently, Paizo’s Demonomicon of Iggwilv series has been enlightening, as has their version of the long running “Ecology of” series for Dragon. We’ve even had a surprising amount of faction content in the Planar Handbook and several Dragon articles, which helped by at least keeping a little breath left in […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 104: Tome of Magic (Third Edition)](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-104-tome-of-magic-third-edition/): By 2006, D&D‘s third edition had been out for more than half a decade, and as such Wizards of the Coast was experimenting with ways of pushing the boundaries of their system. Really, the question was what could still make people buy books, as pretty much everything you could need for D20 roleplaying had already been made, either by Wizards or a multitude of third party publishers (and it’s weird to remember that during this period, Paizo was still a second party closely linked with the market leader). The results of these experiments varied wildly in quality, but one thing […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part ?: Demonomicon of Iggwilv](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-the-demonomicon-of-iggwilv/): This is going to be a weird write-up because it’s not focused on a single, short work of writing, but rather a whole series of articles published in Dragon, Dungeon, and even the pseudo-publication Dragon+ that rose from their ashes only to die off ignominiously not long ago. The “Demonomicon of Iggwilv” consists of an absolute shit-ton of writing, and during its span from 2005-2015 went through a series of changes, most of them for the worse. Were I a slightly more thorough chronicler for this series, I might devote an article to each of the 18 columns that make […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 103: Dead Factions](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-103-dead-factions/): When I wrote about Matthew Sernett’s planar-focused editorial from Dragon issue #321, I was disappointed by his hatred for the game’s established cosmology and saw it as a sign of things to come with D&D‘s disastrous fourth edition. I can’t help but contrast that with Erik Mona’s editorial at the beginning of issue #339, which tells us about how much he’d once read into a throwaway line from On Hallowed Ground. This was a prescient article about how old settings never really die, though unfortunately Mona himself wouldn’t be allowed to play with them for much longer. Here’s a man […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 94.5: The Iron Satyr](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-94-5-the-iron-satyr/): It’s come to my attention that I missed covering a planar adventure from just a little ways back, even though I’ve tried to be more careful about these things in third edition. “The Iron Satyr” was published in the March 2004 issue of Dungeon (#108), and I’d erroneously filed it away in my head as part of the Shackled City adventure path because of when it was published. In fact it’s a standalone adventure by Scott Stearns, a freelancer not involved with Wizards or Paizo, and I believe this is his sole contribution to the game. Unfortunately, that he wasn’t […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 102: The Shackled City](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-102-the-shackled-city/): After Paizo took over the publication of Dragon, Dungeon, and Polyhedron magazines from Wizards of the Coast, all three periodicals went through substantial changes. Soon, Polyhedron would be gone for good, but oddly this wasn’t the change that had the biggest effect, not just on D&D but the entire RPG medium. Instead, the real game changer (pun extremely intended) was to be the decision from Dungeon‘s editors to begin releasing large-scale, serialized modules, which, following somewhat in the format of the Sunless Citadel series from third edition, were dubbed an adventure path. Paizo was only able to publish three of […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 101: Quicksilver Hourglass](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-101-quicksilver-hourglass/): One of the best things about Planescape was its decision to base planar adventuring around low- and medium-leveled characters. You didn’t need to be a level 100 monstrosity from The Throne of Bloodstone to visit the Beastlands, or even level five. The setting established that most people in other planes of existence are commoners just like anywhere else, and wizards with godlike powers are the minority there as well. This contrasted with most previous depictions of the planes, where they seemed like locations fit only for superpowered characters. Once Planescape was killed off, though, it wasn’t too long before the […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 100: Lords of Madness & Enter the Far Realm](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-100-lords-of-madness-enter-the-far-realm/): As of 2005, Wizards of the Coast still didn’t seem to know what to do with the Far Realm. More than anywhere else, it both was and wasn’t part of the game’s core cosmology, dating all the way back to 1996 but still rarely explored. You get the sense that the designers liked it, players liked it, but moving it to an official location would require revising the Manual of the Planes. Instead, it continued pushing its way slowly into the game, and the simultaneous publication in April 2005 of the Lord of Madness splatbook focused on aberrations and the […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 99: Diaboli](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-99-diaboli/): While third edition’s Dragon and Dungeon magazines featured planar content more frequently than they did earlier in the publications’ histories, it remained a relatively rare event. Even rarer, though, was the decision for these issues to include non-canonical planar ideas1. Mike McArtor’s article “Diaboli” does just that, though, and feels like a stealth return of the second edition AD&D cosmology. Logically, nothing in this article is canon, as it includes references to both the Far Realm and the Region of Dreams in order to make sense of this obscure planar race; as much as it seems like they’re both properly […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Side Story: Beyond Countless Doorways](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-side-story-beyond-countless-doorways/): After Monte Cook left Wizards of the Coast, he soon founded Malhavoc Studios, which was an independent RPG design studio that nonetheless published works through the D20 imprint of White Wolf (the World of Darkness folks), Sword & Sorcery Studios. Malhavoc became immediately successful, at least by the industry’s standards. Which wasn’t a huge surprise, given that most of its early works were written by Cook himself, who had risen to more widespread fame in the hobby due to his work co-creating third edition D&D, in addition to some other excellent releases and regular columns focusing on the art of […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 98: Monster Manual III](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-98-monster-manual-iii/): I know, I know, new planar monster listings aren’t terribly interesting. The reason why Planescape’s world—and any other worthwhile interplanar setting, for that matter—is fun to adventure in has to do with the way it screws with typical fantasy conceptions and clichés. If traditional fantasy cribs repeatedly from Tolkien and Moorcock, planar fantasy at its best should feel like China Miéville and Neil Gaiman. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that most monsters in traditional D&D are simply statblocks of obstacles for players to bash their way through, and this was even more the case in third edition due […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 97: Darkness](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-97-darkness/): One of the larger changes third edition made to D&D‘s cosmology was transforming the Plane of Shadows from a demiplane into a transitive plane coterminous with the Prime. And while this would make you think that perhaps Wizards had plans for doing something interesting with this change, that wasn’t really the case. Up until the “Darkness” issue of Dragon (#322, August 2004), it had gone pretty much unmentioned short of the Manual of the Planes and a couple obscure entries in the Fiend Folio. For the most part, our knowledge of this newly expanded plane was vague and, well, kind […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 96: Planar Adventure](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-96-planar-adventure/): I knew something was up with the “Planar Adventure” issue of Dragon (#321, July 2004) from its first page of actual content. Editor-in-chief Matthew Sernett’s editorial “Pass the Ketchup” focuses on his love-hate relationship with the planes, and ultimately decides “the cosmology needs to be wholly redesigned. Sure, we should keep the sacred cows, but the rest should find their way to the chopping block. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry for hamburger.” This demolition of the cosmology would happen just a few years later with the game’s fourth edition, and we all know how well that went […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 95: Planar Handbook](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-95-planar-handbook/): In third edition proper, I could count the number of truly worthwhile planar D&D releases on one hand. Sadly, this did not include the Manual of the Planes, a book that despite its attractive artwork and a few nifty ideas simply tried to do too much. As a result, it didn’t have enough room to do anything interesting with the game’s cosmology as it stood, and the book instead focused on rehashing what was already known. If you skipped it entirely, instead using the core books for information on what had changed and combined this with knowledge from previous editions, […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 94: The Exiled Factions](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-94-the-exiled-factions/): While we’ve had quite a bit of planar material since the end of Planescape and AD&D‘s second edition, “The Exiled Factions” is only the second release that I’d consider a conscious continuation of that line. The first was 2001’s weirdly disappointing “Fractious Factions,” which offered prestige classes for six of Sigil’s factions and, well, absolutely nothing else. It might be helpful if you want to play a third edition Planescape campaign, but then again, probably not. “The Exiled Factions” keeps the focus on faction lore and Sigil, but not only does David Noonan’s article feature the first instance of official […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 93: The Draconomicon](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-93-the-draconomicon/): If there’s one thing I’m almost as tired of as new planetouched races, it’s planar dragons. There’s a reason why these were so rare during the Planescape era of D&D, and when they did crop up they tended to be weird and unique like the Astral dragon. Since then we’ve had multiple attempts at adding planar dragons to the game, with wildly varying levels of success. Unfortunately, it’s the most recent of these articles, “Hellish Fangs on Abyssal Wings,” that the Draconomicon was largely built from. The author of that piece, James Wyatt, was also one of three authors credited […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Side Story: The Unity of Rings](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-side-story-the-unity-of-rings/): From the very beginning of this series, I never intended on covering TSR/WotC’s planar fiction. There’s a heaping pile of reasons for this, ranging from these books not really being my type of literature, to the way this effort would quickly devolve into reading and/or skimming the entirety of all the shared worlds Wizards owns, to the fact that time is finite and I’d rather spend my life doing something else. That being said… I may at some point dive into a few of these things, particularly the actual Planescape books, mostly out of morbid curiosity. And for now, I’m […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 92: Ghost Elves of the Ethereal](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-92-ghost-elves-of-the-ethereal/): One thing D&D has always been far, far too interested in is adding new types of elves to the game. Admittedly, there is a ton of variation within mythological elves, but still, that’s nothing compared to what we see in the game. I went and checked the Forgotten Realms wiki page for elf and found nine subraces there, and just a quick glance at the Greyhawk wiki tells me that this doesn’t include many found in that Prime plane instead. There’s five more in Krynn and others in Athas and Mystara and probably every other setting the game’s created, all […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 91: Miniatures Handbook](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-91-miniatures-handbook/): Of all the random books and articles to end up as part of this series, I never expected to include the Miniatures Handbook, a work I’d never so much as glanced through previously. I’m totally fine with miniatures, and tend to use them when playing nowadays, but at the time this book was released that simply wasn’t how my friends played the game. Miniatures are expensive, painting them well is difficult (and something I am notoriously terrible at), and to a large extent they’re kind of their own hobby distinct from D&D. Plus, as with my feelings with D&D battle […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 90: The Ebon Maw](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-90-the-ebon-maw/): As usual, Dragon featured a tie-in article for the Book of Exalted Deeds. However, “Holier Than Thou: Celestial Monster Classes, Part I” by Christopher Perkins doesn’t actually feature any lore. Rather, it’s just statistics and information for playing as some of the celestial “monsters” in that book, including asuras, bariaurs, hollyphants, leskylors (yay!), moon dogs, quesars, and—to everyone’s astonishment—rheks. As such, it’s one of those supplemental pieces that really feels like it should’ve been part of the original work. I have a tad bit of resentment for these things, as if you spent the money on the full book you […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 89: Book of Exalted Deeds](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-89-book-of-exalted-deeds/): 2003’s Book of Exalted Deeds is an answer to a question that no one asked. While playing a villainous D&D party remains rare, heroics and general acts of goodliness are for the most part what the whole thing is about. That isn’t to say that every PC is a saint, but on the whole adventuring parties tend towards solving problems and helping folks out. But apparently the Book of Vile Darkness did well enough to warrant interest in a follow-up, which meant we were given a book focused on its opposite, and as is typical for this type of splatbook […] - [A Walk Through the Planes - Part 88: Astral Encounters](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-part-88-astral-encounters/): For whatever reason, once Wizards of the Coast got ahold of Dungeons & Dragons they kept going back to the Astral Plane. That doesn’t mean that they really understood what the hell they were doing with it, though, which is best evidenced by Darrin Drader’s “Astral Encounters” series for Wizards.com, a set of seven articles focused on a single, not terribly interesting location within the plane. Perhaps inspired by all the githyanki business going on with Paizo, he decided to add a new location to the Astral, though at the same time it feels more like a way of slamming […] ## Pages - [Opt-out preferences](https://www.expositionbreak.com/opt-out-preferences/) - [A Walk Through the Planes Index](https://www.expositionbreak.com/a-walk-through-the-planes-index/): When I first began this series, I had no idea how long it would run until I ran out of interest. Turns out that it’s a nice distraction during my day job, and at this point it’s been more than six months of more-or-less steady essays, with no end in sight. That being said, given the sheer number of these pieces and that I occasionally find myself stumbling upon older works I inadvertently (or, on occasion, intentionally) skipped means that keeping track of what’s been published has become a little bit of a mess. Well, no longer. 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