Manual of the Planes

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The Manual of the Planes (abbreviated MoP^[1]) is a manual for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. This text addresses the planar cosmology of the game universe.

The original book (for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition) was published in 1987 by

The original Manual of the Planes was written by Jeff Grubb, with a cover by Jeff Easley and interior illustrations by Stephen Fabian with Easley, and was published by TSR in 1987 as a 128-page hardcover.^[3] Easley's cover featured an illustration of a creature named in the book as an "ethereal dreadnought", although the book had no description or game statistics for the creature.^[4] This creature was later identified in 2nd edition as an astral dreadnought.

The book describes various planes of existence, and what creatures characters might encounter there, covering the astral and ethereal planes, the elemental planes, and the outer planes.

In 1999, a paperback reprint of the first edition was released.^[5]

Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition

The third edition Manual of the Planes was designed by

The book also gives game statistics for monsters of the planes, such as the ephemera of the Plane of Shadow.[6]

Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition

This book was designed by

• 1. The Mortal World
• 2. The Parallel Planes – two planes that are linked to the Mortal World
  • Feywild (Plane of Faerie)
  • Shadowfell (Plane of Shadow)
• 3. Fundamental Planes – two planes that surround the Mortal World
  • The Astral Sea – the plane above; consists of Astral Dominions
  • The Elemental Chaos – the plane below; consists of Elemental Realms
• 4. Demiplanes – unique bubbles of existence such as Sigil
• 5. Anomalous Planes – planes of an obscure nature
  • The Far Realm – uncharted plane that exists beyond the known cosmology
  • The Plane of Dreams – composed of all the dreams that have ever been dreamt

Reception

The 3rd edition Manual of the Planes won the 2002

Scott Taylor of Black Gate listed the Manual of the Planes as #4 on the list of "Top 10 'Orange Spine' AD&D Hardcovers By Jeff Easley, saying "Ethereal Dreadnaught... enough said. Well perhaps not truly 'enough', but you get the idea."^[9]

Viktor Coble listed Manual of the Planes as #7 on CBR's 2021 "D&D: 10 Best Supplemental Handbooks" list, stating that "it expands the Dungeons and Dragons base-world, making an entire universe complete with in-game lore, methods of traversing these elements, and brand new mechanics to account for them."^[10]

Reviews

• Casus Belli #40 (Oct 1987)^[11]

Legacy

The monster on the cover art for the original Manual of the Planes, the astral dreadnought, was the inspiration for the Cacodemon in the DOOM video game series.^{[citation needed]}

References