Review: Kefitzah Haderech - Incunabulum of the Uncanny Gates and Portals

tl;dr: a neat DMs toolbox for using portals in your game, full of useful generators and pithy guidance.

Originally I found Kefitzah Haderech - Incunabulum of the Uncanny Gates and Portals on a list of 'best OSR things to get off Lulu' and decided to get it sight unseen. I think I did a quick reality check to see what ratings were but otherwise I had no idea what to expect when this turned up.

Done by Lost Pages back in 2013. The back matter puts it very well - "Not traveling but cancelling distance instead. A supplement on portals and dimensional gates for any role-playing game system."

Strangely I liked the spare design on this - usually I am an advocate for 'art, art, art' but the aesthetic of this book lands almost like an academic text or a user manual for portals. The discussion part in the opening about what portals are and how they should function in your gameworld is very useful. Not very long but it talks through why have portals at all, their function in the campaign and some brief pros and cons. It is not so often that I have seen a proper discussion of the 'meta' of portals and this is very helpful for making sure they will be a positive contribution and not break your game. In the following sections there are discussions of the form of portals, the keys to trigger them and the methods for building them each accompanied by a random table.

Next there is the PORTATRON portal generator which generates details and perks for portals and then a d666 Quick Portal Destination table. The focus of the PORTATRON is on providing interesting keys and also has a mechanic for rolling whether or not a portal is safe, and if not, how hazardous. These two tables are great both for rapid dungeon dressing if you just want to throw something in or as adventure seed stock. I like the potential for making interesting sites by randomly generating a portal and its far side then working backwards to say how the site would have been affected by being connected to (for example) the Trans-Dimensional Palace of 66 Unholy spirits.

Lastly the book closes with the authors list of portal sources and inspirations. With 2-3 paragraphs each on many different portal-focused games, books and TV shows this serves as a useful discussion of good uses of portals and inspiration for how to fit them into campaigns. A nice book-end to complement the opening 'what are portals for' piece, this closes with 'how they have been used well elsewhere'.

Overall there is a lot of useful stuff packed into a slim tome, light on player-facing lore and flavour and focused on tools and inspiration for the DM. If you are thinking of getting into a plane-hopping campaign or want to drop in some strange locations this is a good one to have on your shelf.

For further reviews see Reviews from Ryleh or Gothridge Manor.