Review: The Infinite Staircase

tl:dr; if you like the planes, buy this for page 15. You get 96 beautiful bonus pages to make a beast of a book that will turbo-charge planar campaigns.

I saw the image below, went to DriveThru and saw all the gorgeous layout - I have not clicked 'buy' on anything so quickly recently. Inside I found the purest distillation of a planar handbook I have encountered in quite some time. I will probably make myself a *colour* hardcopy of this, it is that good.

Launch graphic from DeathbyBadger

The graphic design work throughout is magnificent, vivid and exciting in a way I have not seen since... *thinks* *searches shelves* ... maybe Planes of Conflict? Maybe Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix II? Certainly it looks like a lot of the best of the post-Pathfinder era has been combined with an OSR 'show me the gameable content' attitude to give something thats like an atrophine injector of pure planar energy. I have always had a soft spot for the Infinite Staircase, it has long been one of my favourite planar pathways and this is a monument to the best it can be.

So what have we got in here?
2 pages of contents & how to use the book
8 pages introducing the infinite staircase and how to navigate it
3 pages of denizens of the staircase
2 page on telling stories in the planes + map
21 pages addressing the inner planes
50 pages addressing the outer planes
8 pages on some specific locales

Contents and Intro kicks off with a 'splinter in your mind' style driver that could launch characters to the planes. This expands in the 'using this book' section to say characters "should be prepared to reflect on what makes them who they are, and why their choices matter." It hints at the fact that journeys across the planes can change the travellers in more ways than gathering experience and treasure. Where in Planescape the framing of the planes was that they are maleable to the strong willed, and that changing the outlook of the dwellers can shift a place hither and yon about the Great Wheel, here we turn that back and look at how characters themselves can become changed. This is the vein of gold running through this book, more on this later.

In the section on navigating the Infinite Staircase we find a take that seems wholly coherent with the version in the 3e Manual of the Planes - extending to all places, accessed through hidden or forgotten doorways, potentially leading to your hearts desire. This is a nice refresh and also expands what was a paragraph to include landings, the transition points between planes and the staircase, add tables for style and theme of each plane, and some neat mechanics on how the staircase works. A good example of these is that no rest counts while on the staircase - you need to keep moving. The themes per plane on the pp10 table are great summaries of what each plane ought to feel like.

Denizens of the Staircase is a nice round up of groups and NPCs, not statted, just giving the who and why of the people or groups. Some of these are divine messengers, some are the illithids, some are angels - all in all a nice primer for the rare occassion when an encounter happens within the staircase itself.

Telling Stories on the Planes - if the design was not already enough, this is the section that elevates this book to another level. I have seen many, many books and sites discussing the nature of various planes. The under-pinning of Planescape was always on the clash of philosophies, the fact that mindsets can change the surroundings. This single page (a table) takes that to the logical conclusion of asking what question does each plane pose to the characters. This has been a problem I have had nag in the back of my mind for a long time but I was not quite able to dredge it to the surface. I felt the upper planes were just energy sinks - once you got there, why ever leave? Declare victory - you have reached heaven - down your arms and armour and end the campaign. Now, with each plane reframed as a question it poses to your character, suddenly we have a rush of kinetic energy into each of these planes - there is a why to be there, not just a destination for a glorified fetch quest.

The map shows the many links across the planes with some nice threading between outer and inner planes that makes sense thematically - crossing from the Nine Hells to the Plane of Fire reflects ties between the devils and efreeti that have been present in the setting for ages without an real connector between those places. A printed copy of this would be a very fun handout for players to try and work out a least-hassle traverse of the planes.

The section on the Inner Planes and the Outer Planes follow a common format - a paragraph on what the plane is, triggers for a 'effects table' reflecting each plane and descriptors and guardians for the door to the staircase. This is all the interface to the planes and gives a great flavour. If the party is only coming to that plane for a raid then a second roll on the gate and guardian table can give you a ready to go planar site. Otherwise, once you are on each plane you can feed any other sites, sourcebooks or adventures into the mix. Throughout all of this the design is great - we get evocative planar headers and illustrated creatures as well as beautiful battle-maps by Cze & Peku and every now and then a full page art piece with another kicker of a question that this plane poses. Most of the planes will be very familiar to any reader of a previous planar handbook except for Bytopia which gets another shot of energy. Here we see an evolution from a place of staid industriousness to a roaring fusion of opulence and wilderness, with a boom-time atmosphere and an encounter table with a solid contingent of people on the make.

The planar locations are a set of demiplanes ranging from the classic Mists of Ravenloft through to Overwhelming Life, the Crystalline Resonance and the authors own Gay Agenda. I like the Crystalline Resonance - the 'obvious now you think about it' connection between all underdarks. Of course a place of twists and turns and unseen passage ways would thread the planes, it must. Ravenloft it what it is, no comment needed. Overwhelming Life is an interesting place of uncontrolled energy - a great place to break out all your often unused plant monsters. The Gay Agenda is "a breach in reality through which literal rainbows are leaking into the world" and I won't spoil the surprise of the rest of it beyond noting the trigger condition of 'a lesbian picks up a sword' amused the hell out of me.

Summing up - this is a fantastic planar handbook because of the focus on the 'whys' of anyone being there. There are not so many sites in this book, making it a complement to all the other planar handbooks out there - with Infinite Staircase now you know the why, now you have an over-arcing thread to why this plane is different to the last plane in comparison to 'all the same, different architects, different fashion' that could sometimes happen otherwise.

Actually, I think there is more to say. I think this might be the most innovative planar supplement to come out in ages because it gives that next twist to the setting. In 2e with Planescape we got the big pitch of 'you shape the planes with your philosophy, join a faction berk!' which gave us the maleability point, the fact that things get new contexts. I like my planes a bit harder edged - that someone would need to really make a big push to actually shift the hearts and minds, to make enough of a difference that it was perceptible. Maybe that is my old world take, maybe 'everything can be shaped to my will' makes more sense over the pond, but I felt this 'the planes are malleable' statement as a bit of a theoretical statement, not an actionable option. However! I think this version, as presented in the Infinite Staircase, makes a lot more sense. I have stood on strange places across this earth, sometimes not far from where I was born, sometimes very, very far away, and I have felt the way that places change you, offer you mirrors and lenses to see inside, perceive what maybe you had no understood before. Places can be the anvils on which your new self is hammered out, and I think this supplement expresses that well.

I think my view of how many personal variables are adjustable might be different to the authors and up to your table to decide what aspects of characters to explore but I completely agree with the sentiment that the planes in their grandeur and majesty should be the kind of mind-blowing experience that leaves no-one the same once they have seen them.

Here I see what the next iteration of the planes should be. This is it. It was always there, in the old settings, in the old books but now that I have this lens, I can see it clearly. We always knew that the wonder of the planes was something special but here we have the key to unlocking it fully. Before it was wandering through a great house converted to a museum. You could see all the items, you could see all the decorations, you could imagine how it must have been. But through turning it into questions, the great house comes alive, a ball to attend or a potential home. Making each plane not just an environmental challenge, or a group of the residents to be dealt with, but framing it along the theme of 'what will each character have to discover about their own limits' this is gold for planar DMs. This I could have used years ago.

So enough, I have raved too long here - go get the Infinite Staircase if you want a super-charger for your planar campaigns. You might need something else to provide a long-haul frame - some sites, adventures, or so on - but this book is the big block beast of an engine that will propel it all into one hell of a ride.