D&D’s Planescape adventure might begin in the same morgue as 1999 computer game
Morte isn’t interested in a group of fleshy dice rollers.
Dungeons & Dragons is sending players back to Planescape via three new sourcebooks for the popular tabletop RPG, and one of them might open in the same time and location as the beloved computer game Planescape: Torment.
D&D players first encountered Planescape back in 1994, discovering a weird and labyrinthine setting that literally connects every world, plane and instance of reality to the same massive, torus-shaped city - Sigil. It was also the setting of a computer RPG published in 1999 by Black Isle Studios that told the story of The Nameless One as he traveled through Sigil and attempted to reclaim all of his lost memories.
As explained by Wizards of the Coast at a recent press event, upcoming adventure book Turn of Fortune’s Wheel will follow a eerily similar narrative - the players are effectively “glitched” and cannot truly die, only shift from one version of themselves to another. They will spend 17 levels unraveling the source of this misfortune, and an early step on that journey involves unlocking the memories of a missing person by filling their skull-shaped Mimir with information about Sigil and the surrounding Outlands.
The parallels don’t end there, as the very first moments of Turn of Fortune’s Wheel drops the players in a location that will be immediately familiar to anyone who has played Planescape: Torment. The group wakes up in a mortuary somewhere in Sigil and are approached by a floating, sardonic skull named Morte. According to lead designers Wes Schneider & Justice Arman, Morte will ask the players some questions before deciding that they “aren’t the one he’s looking for.”
Greg Tito, senior communications manager at WotC and host of the press stream, asked at this point if this means the players are canonically in the same morgue as The Nameless One when he awakens at the beginning of Planescape Torment. Schneider and Arman offered cagey and coy replies, saying that “it’s up to the GM” if they want to explore that particular connection.
Whether or not a table connects their adventures in Sigil to the trevails of Planescape: Torment’s protagonist, the three upcoming sourcebooks pay due respect to the 1990s setting and its video game adaptation. How deep the connections go remains to be seen - Planescape: Torment earned critical acclaim for its darker-than-normal take on D&D’s brand of fantasy and philosophical explorations - but Turn of Fortune’s Wheel sounds closer to the contemporary tabletop romps we’ve come to expect from the 5th Edition design team.
Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse, Turn of Fortune’s Wheel and Morte’s Planar Parade are all available at local game stores and mass retail on October 17th.