Vortex of Madness & Other Planar Perils (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Accessory) [Paperback]

Wizards Team (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast (January 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786913266
• ISBN-13: 978-0786913268
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,356,311 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Chris Pramas is an award-winning game designer, writer, and publisher. He is best known as the designer of the Dragon Age RPG, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (second edition), and Freeport: The City of Adventure. He is also the founder and president of Green Ronin Publishing, a leading light in the world of pen and paper RPGs. Pramas got his start as a freelancer, writing books for such games as Over the Edge, Feng Shui, and Underground. He later spent four years as a staff designer at Wizards of the Coast, ending his tenure there as a creative director. More recently he's lent his talents to computer games, serving as creative director on the Pirates of the Burning Sea MMO RPG at Flying Lab Software and as lead writer on Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online at Vigil Games. Pramas continues to lead Green Ronin, and the company's successes include such games as DC Adventures, A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, and Mutants & Masterminds.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Complex & absorbing, March 26, 2000

By 

Mr. R. E. Langford "Brakkart" (Taunton, Somerset, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vortex of Madness & Other Planar Perils (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Accessory) (Paperback)

This is a very good book, detailing several sites in the D&D Outer Planes, all linked together (sort of) by an encounter with an ancient artifact, and its famous creator (Baron Lum the Mad no less!). In here you will find a wonderful mechanical demiplane, which had me actually feeling sorry for Tinker gnomes, and a very tragic golem-like creation who is doomed to live there. There is also another richly detailed planar city (somewhere other than Sigil to base campaigns from), set on the Elemental Plane of Water.

While not a Planescape campaign line book, this can be easily used with that campaign. This book is an example of the new way that D&D will be looking at the planes, as part of the core setting, rather than a setting in its own right. Providing they can keep this level of writing, I look forward to many more like this.

As for why it gets 4 stars, well there were a few major editing flaws in my copy, but after contacting WotC, I got sent a replacement for free, in which these had been corrected. Still a few typo's & grammar mistakes that could have been easily spotted & fixed though, but perhaps I am just picky! ;-P

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but could have been better., May 22, 2000

By 

F. T. Barrett "tasselhoff" (Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vortex of Madness & Other Planar Perils (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Accessory) (Paperback)

This module is actually an excellent module...if you can find some way to fit it into your campaign(which I found quite dificult). It has a good story line but it is difficult to piece together how everything works. If you are planning to start some Planar travel with your PCs then this is a good module to get. If this book was a little more understandable then it would have been five stars.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Okay book, but too short., August 8, 2000

By 

septnai "septnai" (U.S.A) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vortex of Madness & Other Planar Perils (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Accessory) (Paperback)

Vortex of Madness is interesting, but weak. It has a bunch of unrelated settings that are tied together with the machine of Lum the Mad. Unfortunately, this seems like a cheap excuse to put a bunch of settings together and publish a book. The settings themselves are interesting, but not really detailed enough. If you like this idea get Well of Worlds instead. Actually, you'd be better of getting The Great Modron March and Dead Gods too, before getting this book.