18 January 2021

Review: Ulraunts Guide to Acheron

tl:dr; a beefy planar tome focusing on just the Plane of War; tons of options, nice layout and artwork, just the ticket if you want to set a campaign there.


(photo of own copy, cover art by Raluca Marinescu)



Strictly speaking, the name is "Ulraunts Guide to the Planes: Acheron" but I think this block-buster tome needs no extra beefing up as part of a larger work. It stands tall on its own. As someone who came up through Planescape, the sheer size of this tome is jaw-dropping. Acheron in the Planes of Law was a booklet; jammed full of ideas, but even for Planescape it was a 32 page booklet plus 6 pages in the players guide of Planes of Law. Acheron got 4 pages in the 3.5e Manual of the Planes. In short, this is an order of magnitude more Acheron than we have had before.


(edge on photo, dice for scale)



This does highlight a point that slips through the cracks somewhat - there are oceans of ink spilled on the Nine Hells and the Abyss but once you come off those cardinal planes guides get pretty scant on the ground. I ran a whole campaign in Gehenna back in the day, and at the time it was more or less one among 16 equals. Now I would be stuck looking for information associated with the current edition and so it is great to see this Ulraunts guide bridging that gap.

So what have we got in here? Short answer - tons of classes, tons of monsters, interspersed with location breakdowns and some really great artwork. By sections we have:
~ 12 pages of intro and foreword
~ 52 pages of gazetteer of the layers of Acheron
~ 64 pages discussing the powers of Acheron including resident dieties
~ 36 pages of character options
~ 115 page Bestiary
~ 25 pages of Appendices including monsters by terrain, plane and CR

Intro and foreword includes a guide to epic level play - both for heroes and how to treat gods. Useful and coherent within the concept - Acheron is home terrain for quite a few evil gods, odds of coming into conflict with one are greatly heightened.

Guide to Acheron opens each layer with a double page of short fiction, the tale of the author Ulraunts descent into Acheron on a mission. Over the whole book we get ~14 pages worth of this story and it serves as a good vehicle for conveying the atmosphere and hazards of the plane. I particularly like the heist-style approach; any time on Acheron is a bad idea, get in, get what you want and get out before the hordes of nasty things that live there can get you. The section on navigation gives a good bit on using the Styx to get around the lower planes but Acheron is the focus, of course. There is a great feeling of old pulp fantasy adventures in the relatively low-level Cube Hop spell which allows group teleportation to a point in sight - that cube up there in the sky! As a good complement to this there are a set of random cube generation tables also in this section.

Throughout the guide section we see a round up of old favourite sites that have been mentioned on Acheron over various previous supplements and new ones that we read about for the first time. This includes divine realms previously not discussed but also a lot of extra detail on sites that got a lighter treatment before. Cubes of interest now have full maps with sub-sites detailed. Each location has a description then breaks down into what you are likely to encounter there either tables of atmospheric effects or a roster of the denizens you may meet. For marginally less hostile locations such as the newly introduced Lake Lacuna there are descriptions of the resident factions, their drives and potential quests they could give which is a nice touch. Lots in here to inspire, either as locations encountered in a hex- or point-crawl format or as single sites for adventurers to find on the other side of a portal.

The Powers of Acheron give us a lot for the resident deities - from Epic level stat blocs in case a party wants to go punch Bane (probably not going to see use at my table) to lists of their servitors, minions, goals and attitudes which I would probably use more. I liked the role-play sections for each god, both for the instance where a party ends up in contact with a god but also because their attitudes and drives will shape their followers. This provides a sense for what the focus of their minions efforts will be. The rage-driven Gruumsh must be an awful task-master to report to - so their servants and minions are going to be highly tenacious and aggressive in pursuit of their goals so as not to have to return and report failure.

In Character Options we are introduced to the bladeling and spriggan as playable options. Bladelings are an old staple of Acheron and it is good to see them back for 5e. Every class gets a sub-class with an Acheron flavour - tied to storms, war or metal - such as the warshaper druid or the barbarian path of metallurgy that provides a route to turn into a big metal version of yourself. Each of these are fully playable through to epic levels (20-30). Rounding this section out is 12 pages of spells tailored to Acheron such as Cube Hop mentioned above.

The Bestiary section compiles and updates a lot of old friends from Planescape era, adds new monsters and provides lots of group variants e.g. Orcs get Bloodragers, Brood Sisters, Darkwalkers, Drummers, Legionnaires, Rot-Guards, Stormhammers, Orog Reapers and Orog Warshapers. These are handy to keep the major factions that will be encountered again and again interesting. There are also a variety of war mounts including the cube-crawler that looks like an escapee from Half Life that I liked a lot. The War Machines section brings a ton of inspiration - channeling the best of Warhammer style Dwarf and Chaos Dwarf madness where aerodynamics are a filthy word and solid steel gyrocopters are the way. The goblin Warmower possibly sprang from the same font of fevered genius as the Skaven Doomwheel - all great fun things to bring to bear in a plane of eternal war. Lastly there is a unique monster section which I think could have been better titled NPCs. These are all notable heroes for various factions operating on Acheron. They could be used as slightly beefier enemies but given they all come with goals, motivations and role-play notes it would be a sad waste to just chuck them into battle without the players getting a chance to talk to them.

Lastly there are a number of Appendices starting with 'Other Monsters' which compiles monsters originally from Mordenkainens Tome of Foes or Volos Guide to Monsters. I am a big fan of these easy reference archetype sections, this is a nice addition to now have everything Acheronian in one place. We close out with tables of monsters by CR, Type, Layer of Acheron and Special Characteristic (demigods, deities, monsters with legendary actions) and an ever-useful set of random NPC name generation tables. Can never go wrong with those.

Overall from a DM's point of view this is useful both for going to Acheron and navigating the environment there, but also if you feature any of the main players from Acheron in your home game. Any of the goblinoid races could draw on these Archeron options for leaders or heroes. The Church of Bane has a broad footprint throughout prime material realm and could provide a channel to bring some of these things into play. The book as a whole is a fully ready setting book which compiles existing lore, expands on it and adds new and interesting sites. There is more than enough here to sustain a whole campaign if un-ending warfare and a palate of blood, rust and shadow is one that appeals to your table. The back of the book itself says "Keep in mind that the Infinite Battlefield is an alien and war-torn place where armies clash and fiends congregate from across the lower planes. If you still wish to adventure on the plane of atrophy and conflict, prepare for war".

I have to also respect the sheer size of this book. At 306 pages this is a beast of a work and I think this will stand a long time as the definitive work on Acheron. I was hesitant initially to drop the book price as Quill and Cauldron were unknown to me but the rave reviews pushed me to it and I will probably go for whatever their next works are. I would love to see a treatment such as this for one of the other interesting but more neglected planes - perhaps the under-served Ysgard which seems like it could offer a lot of similar fun hopping around sky-bergs? Or take on the challenge of making unappealing places somewhere one might want to travel to or even hold a campaign. For instance how could Arcadia or Pandemonium be fun?

For another view, a review on Rogue Watson.

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