Here is a list of some of the resources I’m using to build up a potential Planescape game. It’s by no means everything, but some useful stuff that I’ve thrown together to get my creative energy going for the setting.
A good chunk of this is going to be a personal shopping list for me as well as reference, but I wanted to store it all somewhere so may as well be together.
Obviously, we’re already including all of the official Planescape material produced for AD&D in the 1990s as a given, as well as anything they produced with ‘Planes’ in the title, or ‘Abyss’ or ‘Demon’ etc.
Other products from TSR and Wizards of the Coast that I’d dip into are:
Lankhmar – Cutthroats and ne’er-do-wells in an urban setting? Yup, checks a good few boxes. I’ve not read enough Fafhrd and the Grey Mauser to really get it yet though, I’m sure. (A link to a Dungeon Crawl Classics version I found on DrivethruRPG. I’ll try and find the old boxed sett soon too.)
The Complete Book of Humanoids – Twenty races from 2e as a great bit of extra material on weird people to encounter in the planes. Also, this is pre-reptilian Kobolds, so they’re still Goblins with torches for eyes.
Cityscape – some rules for playing Urban adventures in D&D 3.5 (see also Dungeonscape for Undersigil inspiration, and Sandstorm, Frostburn and Stormwrack for Inner Planes / Outlands / various Outer Planes inspiration.
Sharn, City of Towers – another urban sourcebook, this time for Eberron. The pulp-y noir tone works for mystery themes, and the various social strata exist in many places in Sigil.
Roleplaying material from other publishers
Beyond Countless Doorways – coming from such notables as Monte Cook, Wolfgang Baur and Colin McComb, a foreword by Zeb Cook, and even a mention of Planescape in the book (since this is a reunion of sorts), this book details various planes of existence and ideas to play on them. Good for demiplanes, or strange Primes.
Ptolus – A 3e setting that includes a large city and a lot of adventuring therein, in dungeons and climbing up a central spire to higher ruins. This is from Monte Cook, and a really great setting that I refer back to in lots of my own games, and there’s a 5e/Cypher version just kickstarted too.
Concordance of Rivals (Pathfinder/Paizo) – With another publishing house building adventures for a D&D-like system, there were bound to be Planar shenanigans eventually.
Concordance of Rivals is a book about Neutral planars, much like the Rilmani in Planescape, though there’s also stuff in there about the neutral Powers and an equivalent of angels (I think? They’ve always struck me as looking a bit Cthulhoid).
I love the art.
Shadow Planes & Pocket Worlds (Pathfinder/Kobold Press) – a supplement to a supplement (see below), both of which are fantastic, I’m highlighting this first on the list purely because it has a hazard called Non-Euclidean Angles.
Dark Roads & Golden Hells has an approximation of several of the Outer Planes, and even of Sigil, so it’s useful too.
Codex of the Infinite Planes series from “Weird Dave” Coulson – (Link to part 1) These are some 5e looks at the various Planes of Exitence, starting with the Inner Planes and looking at some of the Outer Planes too (incomplete at time of writing).
Heroes of the Planes and Races of the Planes from David Adams – Race and Class options for Planar games, so going to be one to read. They seem to overlap a bit based on the descriptions.
Backgrounds of Faerun: Children of the Planes from Bryan Holmes – Planar Races, Backgrounds, alternate Subraces, all the fun of the fair. Homebrew but available on DMsGuild so worth a read.
Edge of Infinity from Onyx Path Publishing – another publisher’s take on Heavens and Hells that I’ve got saved ready to take a look into.
Sig: Manual of the Planes from Genesis of Legend publishing – OK, I think we can see what they’ve done here. Yes, this is taking cues from Planescape, but it’s a different system, different city (it’s a moebius strip not a ring) and different location (some kind of planar soup instead of the Outlands).
The big takeaway here is that Sig becomes locked to three differing planes at any one time, which flavour how the city feels and the inhabitants behave – one plane each from the Elemental Planes, Planes of Law and Planes of Chaos (though they are only fifteen total given in the book).
Cool, and probably worth stealing stuff from.
Free roleplaying material found online
Old Gus – homebrew 5e Planescape rules that look very swish and I’ll be looking into.
Websites
Planewalker – once the de facto Planescape website, currently rebuilding. I’ve taken the free 3e setting and I’m using it as reference material for various bits and pieces – currently Factions.
Planescape.it – An Italian website with a lot of content and links to content. And it’s easily translated into English, for the most part. Definitely one to take a look at.
Mimir.net – Remember what Geocities used to look like? OK, this website has been around forever, but there’s a great dictionary of Planar Cant, information on the Outlands, and a huge trove of files (remember Netbooks?).
This is an incredible resource.
Rilmani.org – a wiki covering a lot of setting information for the Planes. There’s a lot of stuff here, although the front page index only goes up to K for some reason.
Powerscore – particularly the Planescape stuff, but there’s lots there to look at. The page on Planescape Factions is how I found it since I’m also working on a draft to make them play in 5e. A Guide to Sigil is also super useful.
Daily Planescape tumblr – because it’s filled with various ideas for Planescape, including a huge assortment of monsters (why do they mostly start with A?) although a lot of the posts are a few years old now.
Beyond the Cage – because obviously other people have done 5e Planescape already, may as well crib from them from time to time.
The Planar DM – not updated since 2019, but I’m currently working my way through some articles. Some good stuff and linked to from across various other Planescape/Planar adventures websites.
Planar Legends – (Also a Wiki here) Just discovered this one. It’s a Neverwinter Nights online server that takes place in Planescape so I’ll be investigating over the next couple of day.
Here be Dragons – More 5e Planescape goodness, though I haven;t gotten too far in looking into it yet.
Novels
Perdido Street Station by China Meiville
jot jot ïota 