hellbound: the blood war by monte cook & colin mccomb.i finished reading this "deluxe module" on the heels of wizards of the coast's announcement that they're doing away with the great wheel cosmology. now, i can understand the benefits of getting away from the current planar layout- like, for instance, turning ideologies & alignments into abstracts. of course, i'm awfully fond of planescape's solution to the problem of just not making anyone care about your alignment. but really, as a dungeon master i immediately did away with the great wheel; flip side being, as a player, i've really enjoyed tromping up & down every plane from ysgard to carceri. this set of books is great for just that reason. first, if you havn't read a planescape book, you are missing out. the entire game line keeps to its own internal logic- the text is written in the anachronistic victorian guttersnipe slang popular in sigil, the adventures keep to the "rule of threes", the whole nine yards. & hellbound belongs to a gaming ethic of another day & age. the boxed set comes with a comic book (with art by tony diterlizzi, in other words, swoon), a booklet of images to show your players when they get to that part of the story, a booklet detailing the common perceptions of the blood war (the eternal war between demons & devils, or as they would say, tanar'ri & baatezu), another book of the truth behind the blood war for dm's eyes only (those two books called "the chant of the war" & "the dark of the war" respectively; not kidding about the slang). last but not least is the adventure module itself, which makes the players movers & shakers in the aforementioned war. how did i feel about the plot? it had its very strong points & its kind of weak points, but i think overall it sounds like a good time. i'd maybe switch or alter the macguffin, is all, but just to suit my tastes better.
