Ulraunt's Guide to the Planes

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Ulraunt's Guide to the Planes are a series of 3rd party splatbooks for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition released on the Dungeon Master's Guild. As their name suggests, they are an unofficial attempt to be a Planescape analogue for 5th edition, with each sourcebook examining one of the planes of the 5e Great Wheel in greater detail, offering in general advanced details and maps on the location, details on native creatures, new monsters, new playable races, and new subclasses. Currently, only two sourcebooks have been released for this series; one for the Shadowfell, and one for Acheron.

One thing that fa/tg/uys should keep in mind before reading these books; due to the restrictions on DM's Guild content, these splats not only use 5e lore as their base, but explicitly use the Forgotten Realms as the "default setting" of 5e, so they will incorporate a lot of Realms-specific lore into their planar overview, such as explicitly connoting the Shadowfell with the Fugue Plane of Kelemvor or featuring lore and stats for Obould Many-Arrows as a demigod servitor of Gruumsh.

Guide to the Shadowfell[edit]

The first chapter is all about the Shadowfell as a whole, and expands upon the material from the Dungeon Master's Guide.

The second chapter deals with locations of note. It examines Gloomwrought (the unofficial Shadowfell capital in the World Axis), Evernight (the Shadowfell reflection of Neverwinter from 4th edition), and Thultanthar (the capital of the Shadovar shade empire, introduced in the 3e Forgotten Realms).

Chapter 3 examines Domains of Dread, looking at the Shadowfell's association with the Demiplane of Dread by updating four of these shadowy mini-hells. This chapter contains five domains; three of them "classic" domains from the original Ravenloft setting (the Burning Peaks, Har'Akir, and Markovia) and two carried from the World Axis; Monadhan (realm of traitors) and Sunderheart. Surprisingly, in contrast to the locales from the 2nd chapter, none of these have any connection to the Forgotten Realms.

Part 2 is The Fugue Plane, which covers chapters 4 and 5; this is an extended examination of the realm of Kelemvor and how the dead are sorted for dispensation into the rest of the multiverse in the Forgotten Realms cosmology.

Part 3, spanning chapters 6 through 12, is Deities and Other Powers, which is self-explanatory. Here, you'll find Dendar the Night Serpent; Jergal, Kelemvor, Kezef, Mask, Shar and Vecna, all fleshed out in greater details.

Part 4 is Character Options. Spanning chapters 13 through to 17, it provides four new races (Dhampir, Hagspawn, Krinth and Shadar-Kai), new subclasses for all of the PHB classes, the Vistana background, new spells, and new mythic options (the authors for this series having also written the current definitive book on epic-level play for 5e).

Finally, part 5 is the Bestiary, divided into two parts; chapter 18 is vanilla monsters, and chapter 19 is unique monsters.

Subclasses[edit]

Guide to Acheron[edit]

Because there's a large body of Planescape lore to draw upon, and even the 3e Manual of the Planes, this book is relatively simple compared to its predecessors.

Part 1 covers Acheron itself in greater detail, with extended exposes on each of the four layers; Avalas, Thuldanin, Tintibulus, and Ocanthus.

Part 2 is the obligatory Dieties and Other Powers section. It expands upon Bane, the whole Orcish pantheon (Gruumsh, Bahgtru, Ilneval, Luthic, Shargaas, Yurtrus), the Goblinoid pantheon (Maglubiyet, Bargrivyek, Grankhul, Hruggek, Khurgorbaeyag, Nomog-Geaya) and the Duergar "pantheon" (Laduguer and Deep Duerra) before finishing off with Urdlen, the only evil member of the gnome pantheon.

Part 3 is the Character Options; playable bladelings and spriggans (here a gnome subrace), subclasses for all of the PHB classes plus the artificer and Blood Hunter, spells, mythic options, and special materials.

Finally, Part 4 is the Bestiary, with common monsters, unique monsters, war mounts and war machines.

Subclasses[edit]