Beyond Countless Doorways
Beyond Countless Doorways is a splatbook for White Wolf under its Malhavoc / Sword and Sorcery Studios d20 imprint, so Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition compatible. Two co-authors were Monte Cook and Colin McComb, with Ray Vallese as editor and r k post drawing the cover. Wolfgang Baur also contributed. Bruce Cordell chipped in with some playtesting, among others you've likely heard of, like Eric Mona.
BCD is deeply indebted to Planescape and, indeed, the authors all billed it as "a Planescape reunion". It is, further, a followup to Monte Cook's Eldritch Might series, especially the third one concerning the Nexus. This led to some skub when the blurb touted "dozens of new monsters, NPCs, feats, and magic items", and readers counted only one new feat which was restricted to one plane, at that. But really, we're here for the fluff not for the crunch.
As in BEM3, the planes are on the Moorcock Multiverse model, not (say) on a Great Wheel of "alignment".
Contents
Because /tv/ loves you and wants you to be happy, we're going to list every chapter here with due fair-use summarising.
Chapter 1: The Countless Worlds.
The Introduction. Also details several of the in-between worlds: the Celestial River which is sort-of Styx/MilkyWay, the Nexus carried over from EM3, the Ethereal Sea which combines Astral and Aethereal planes, and the Underland which is the dungeon-to-combine-all-dungeons. We'll be reading about other nexi as we go along, like the Round Road and arguably Carrigmoor too once that gets fixed.
Chapter 2: Avidarel, The Sundered Star.
Dead sun, Nightshades roaming its corpse, and a magical mafia staking out an abandoned tower. Not without hope for rebirth, though.
Chapter 3: Carrigmoor.
Another RECKT world. This has a whole city on it, gating out to other planes. The world can't be patched back together but maybe the city's commerce and soul can.
Chapter 4: Curnorost, Realm of Dead Angels.
Angel sheol. If you're any sort of believer in Divine Justice, you'll consider that angels deserve better than this - assuming they have free will at all.
Chapter 5: The Crystal Roads of Deluer.
It's a network of nexi spanning thin air. But it's considered an Elemental Earth plane: because the nexi are asteroids just stuffed with gems and minerals. But a fat greedy xorn got here first so you're not easily going to steal much of it.
Chapter 6: Dendri (Expansion 11).
Battle of the Bugs, as an aranea planet gets invaded by formians.
Chapter 7: Faraenyl.
Fey realms, sort of an Elvish Ireland. At least, on the surface. Dig deeper, though...
Chapter 8: The Burning Shadows of Kin-Li’in.
An abyssal plane of fire and ice, probably tapered at the bottom where the last demon prince's palace was. Was, we say: the late prince ate a paladin's holy sword in recent memory, so it's all (even) more chaotic than usual. There's a semisentient golem here which could take on that prince's life-essence... or an angel's.
Chapter 9: The Lizard Kingdoms.
It's Dino World!! from an author who hadn't read much of ANYTHING about dino physiology, given that even in the early 2000s we knew they were birdlike. Large insects here, too. So what's the oxygen content here? Who cares; just enjoy the experience of scurrying around large sentient lizard feet and trying not to get et.
Chapter 10: The Maze.
It's adventurer carnival. Ladies! Gentlemen! Step right up and try your luck in any of these planewalking tunnels, you might win a treasure. Turns out that it's all run by demons.
Chapter 11: Mountains of the Five Winds.
Law versus chaos at its most METAL. Some moron Piped open The Gates Of Dawn, and it's all gone early Pink Floyd down in here. Except in the mountains where they called in help from ultra-Mechanus.
Chapter 12 Ouno, the Storm Realm.
Adventures on the high seas and we mean high ABOVE the seas, between airbourne islands of "floatstone". Oh, and the sea is acid. And sentient, possibly divine.
Chapter 13: Palpatur.
Cronenberg Gaia became a battleground in the Blood War - Malmargus v. Hell-Well - and is now picking up the pieces. Strangely it was already peopled by tieflings hinting that this wasn't the first rodeo.
Chapter 14: Sleeping God’s Soul.
... to its friends. Everyone else calls it the Quietitude. As with Faraenyl, scratch the surface and see the clockwork.
Chapter 15: The Ten Courts of Hell.
The Hindu-Buddhist hells of Yama.
Chapter 16: Tevaeral, Magic’s Last Stand.
Perhaps inspired by Averoigne at the end of X2: Castle Amber. Magic is possible, but illegal. Magic is also moribund because there's only one dragon left there. A Manichaean cult is rooting out the last vestiges.
Chapter 17: Venomheart, Haven of the Sleep Pirates.
There's not much here; in fact, very little animal life that wasn't imported. There is, however, a big coastal fortress where - now - the pirate ship Neverest is docked. The pirates steal sleep and sell it to bad men in other planes, several of which are detailed here.
Chapter 18: The Violet.
The weirdest and maybe most original plane; this has no gravity, limited magic and is on Wonky Time. You get from place to place by the jungly vines growing every which-a'-way. It's a great place to store powerful magic that you don't want loose.
Chapter 19: The Primal Gardens of Yragon.
Planet of the Apes, if the apes (grahlus) were infected by some intelligence-enhancing spore. The grahlus go out to other planes and raid 'em.
Chapter 20: Through the Looking Glass.
Parallel worlds. Not so different a chapter as Jeff Grubb already got us in the first edition Manual of the Planes but hey.