As Above, So Below (9/3/2026)

GM: Sam Tillis
Players: Adrienne Mueller, James Lawton, Howard Buzick, Hunter Leigh, and Sean Nittner
System: Dungeons & Dragons 5E
Setting: Planescape

You are the heroes of your worlds. You have won the wars, defeated the dragons, thrown down the sorcerer-kings; you have completed your Quest. But just as there is no rest for the wicked, there is no retirement for the mighty. Your world suffers a new threat, existential; a puzzle that has stumped even the Wise. Nature is in agony, undead stalk the land, and the gods themselves have gone silent. Your world is dying, as are the worlds of every Material Plane across the Great Wheel of the Multiverse. If you are willing to answer the call, willing to risk life, limb, and soundness of mind to defend the people of your world (again), then step through the portal to the City of Sigil, that great metropolis of doors at the center of all things, and see what your next (and hopefully not last) adventure awaits…

I signed up for this game for a few reasons. I hadn’t played D&D in over a decade and it sounded like fun to try it again. I wanted to see if I could build an effective 11th level character that was also playable, and more than anything I wanted to see Sam in his element. As a professional GM, he runs D&D sometimes multiple times a day, multiple times a week. Though I’ve had a blast playing Call of Cthulhu and Fate and Pendragon with him, I wanted to see him in his element. And let me say, the game shined!

Introduction

Long have been your journeys to reach this point, each of you, alone, the hero of your world. Wonders you have seen, but they have done little to soothe your troubled minds, for indeed, your worlds are dying: nature in agony, undead stalking the land, even the gods themselves silent. But at last, you have arrived in the place where answers may be found—the City of Sigil, City of Doors—and at last, you are no longer alone.

Behold! A kaleidoscope of architectural styles: slums & spires & geodesic domes, flying buttresses bedecked in blades, stairways & alley- ways & treehouses grown in the middle of the road. People of every sort walk the streets or whiz past in sedan chairs hauled by golems & ogres & hulking beasts. But more wondrous still, the city arcs upwards ahead and behind you, as if transcribed on the inside of a massive ring. There is no sun, just a thickening fog or smog that cuts off the highest peaks of the tallest towers, through which a grim light filters.

You have found your way to the ivory-wrought Civic Festhall, normally a place of gaiety but now in somber aspect as a meeting occurs to determine the fate of the material planes. The being running the meeting is a mantis-man, a thri-kreen, one of his legs and two of his four arms replaced by whirring machinery powered by magic, and he’s in the midst of inviting those present to report their name, their deeds, and the state of the present crisis on their world.

Our introductions:

• Rowan, and elven ranger dressed in autumnal colors, protector of the fey wild reported that rot has come to his world.
• Guz, a stocky dwarven rune knight, adorned with black armor, the lord of an empty kingdom with nothing to lose and nothing to gain, would also stand by our side.
• Vesper Ravenclaw, a shadar-kai sent by the Raven Queen herself, reported that all of this was terribly boring and she sought something to end the dreariness.
• Kiln, the hot-rock warlock reported that the elemental plane of earth, the material plane, and shadowfell had all begun to bleed into each other. He was just a rock guy, but he wanted to help.
• Jochim, a tall human bard with skin that looked grafted onto his person, said he came from a far away land to serve the emperor and we must purge what ever it is that is causing this disturbance.
• The Mind Breaker, a shorn rabbit person wizard shared that on his great world of Harengon a giant dragon attacked, which he defeated, and then the dragon was raised from the dead and attacked again, which he defeated again, but these acts were unprecedented, and he was here to find out why.

Our host thanked us and the many others assembled for offering our aid. He told us something was awry with the flow of positive and negative energy in the material plane. There should not be dragons (undead or otherwise) in Herngon, should not be rot in the Fey Wild, should not be seepage between the Prime Material Plane and Sadowfell.

He offered us three possible places where we might determine the source of the this disturbance:

• Mechanus, an Outer Plane in the Great Wheel cosmology representing the alignment of lawful neutral. Somewhere on that plane was an Orrery of the Multiverse, a model of all the planes that might reveal the cause.
• Beastlands, also known as the Happy Hunting Grounds, contained the Library of all Knowledge, which might give us insight to the harm.
• Gehenna, an Outer Plane in the Great Wheel cosmology representing the alignment of lawful evil and neutral evil. There we could find the Tower of Arcanloth where contracts were signed in blood.

We contributed our own knowledge of these places as well.

• The Mind Breaker shared that on Gehenna we would likely find Fiends of Yugaloth, spell casters and knowledge seekers.
• Kiln offered that Mechanus was controlled by Modrons, thinking machines. At the center of Mechanus was Regulus, and at the center of Regulus was the great Cathedral, and at the center of the Cathedral, we would find the Orrery.
• Rowan shared that the Beastlands has day, night, and corpuscular realms, featuring animal-like angels resistant to radiant damage and charm.

Though Rowan hated the idea of going to a realm defined by rigid law and machines, we decided that Mechanus was the place where our collective skills and abilities would serve us the best. Vesper knew that there was a clock in Sigil, that when sent to 3:33:33 would open a portal to Mechanus.

To Adventure!

Jochim prepared a heroes feast of violet snails baked with garlic, parsley, and plenty of butter, Braised sea slug dishes often simmered with pork belly, ginger, scallions, and salt. Scalded and breaded land slugs cooked in hot oil. Oh, that was just what Kiln ate, I’m sure there was other less mollusca food for the others. Every eight minutes during the meal Jochim interrupted our rejoicing with a prayer to the Emperor. By the end of the meal, we all knew it well!

As we stepped through the portal into Mechanus our stomachs dropped, we felt a shift in gravity, and the winds of the multiverse at our back. We witnessed a sea of interlocking gears, many realms all with a portal in the center that lead to Regulus.

When we first arrived everything seemed to be in perfect order, each field perfectly square, each carrot growing, the same shade of orange in a perfectly triangular shape.

But that was not all, the land of had a horrible scar in it, a swath of destruction that lead towards Haven, the great city at the center of the realm. The city with a portal to Regulas in the center.

As we followed the torn up earth, we encountered mushroom-folk pulling a wagon that contained both humans and massive ant creatures. One of the fungal people blew a cloud of spores into Rowan and after the surprise passed he realized he could communicate with them telepathically.

“Are you food?” The first and only question the myconid seemed concerned with.

“No.” Rowan thought empahtically.

The myconid tilted it’s mushroom top head appraising him and then replied “Not yet.”

The myconid made to move on but Rowan thought out to them “One second my friend.”

“Friend? Not friend?” The myconid rebuffed, but Rowan won them over. He told them we would help and cast Plant Growth to nourish them all.

Now fed the the myconid were friendly, at least for now. The smoke ahead they warned us was a bad place. “The Modrons are malfunctioning. They are no longer protecting the realm, and in their absence the Formians, giant ant-people, have infested the town of Haven, turning it into a new hive for their queen.” In parting he shared his thanks for the nourishment “Mycellia is open to your friend.”

Perhaps inspired by the telepathic communication of the myconids, The Mind Breaker cast Rary’s Telepathic Bond so that all of us could communicate to each other’s minds. Had Kiln known he was going to do it, he might have recommended that Dead Loch, his Rock Hawk familiar not be included, but it was too late. So the start of our telepathic communication was filled with a constant cry of “Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. I want food. I want prey. Hungry!” from his always voracious familiar.

Despite the cries, that was the normal state for Dead Loch, and he was quite content to fly over the walls of Haven to see what could be found. Kilns eyes turned to stone as he looked through the sharp eyes of his familiar. Above the wall he saw that almost half of the city had been dissasembled and turned into great mounds by the Formians. The city was teaming with workers, taskmasters, and warriors. At the center the was a great hill covering what we expected to be the portal. The hill was surrounded by soldiers, but there was a pathway through the city that seemed to contain mostly worker drones.

Rowan cast Path Without Trace and we began to creep through the city, but we could not escape the thousand thousand eyes of the worker ants, who identified us and alerted the warriors and taskmasters. Soon we were swarmed by dozens of Formians. Jochim called to his companions. “They are coming for us. Rip them apart in the name of the Emperor!”

We pressed forward, using might and magic to defeat them in troves, and eventually made our way into the hive where we found the queen, guarding a defunct portal. We did great battle and eventually defeated the queen, but the great Guz fell to her psychic blasts and the onsloaught of the warriors she summoned.

When the Mind Breaker finally restored the portal with his magic, Kiln fired off a final bolt of eldritch blasts, landing the killing blow on the queen, and Jochim carried the corpse of Guz as we all leapt through the portal.

A whole lot of ants (the outside hexes were 30′ across and every white gem represented six Formian Warriors!)

Regulus

We arrived in regulus to meet rejoicing Modrons. With the use of Comprehend Languages Vesper and Kiln were able to understand them. With some pantomiming and emotes, they also gained a rough understanding of us as well. They thanked us for the repairing the glitch in Haven but said we could not go to the Prime Citadel.

Kiln inquired for their designation and 110110101010010101 was delighted to be recognized. With some more kind gestures, we won them over enough to take us onto the monorail that zoomed through the city of Regulus, where we could see more damage had been done.

We arrived at the cathedral, and saw signs in 37 languages saying it was closed to visitors. Guz, revived from the dead by Jochim’s magic and the Emperor’s grace, pried the double doors open with his herculean strength and we all slipped through and onto a elevator.

As soon as the doors were closed the lights went on and the elevator began rising as incredible speed. A intruder alert was sounded and two Modron sentries dropped down onto the open elevator. The gears of the walls began to churn, and above we saw a grid of laser beams! The elevator shot up with such force that half of us were knocked to the ground and had to struggle to stand.

We used the environment against them however. Kilns blasts sent them into the griding gears, and Guz grappled them to be cut by the lasers as we passed by them, only winking the a moment before they would have cut the lift itself. More sentries were deployed, and they blasted us with terrible electrical charges, but the Mind Breaker used ensorceling magic to bind them in pace, Rowan encased them in a wall of Thorns, and even Joachim, not accustomed to doing battle himself, impaled them with his blade, strengthened by the Emperor’s wrath.

The Orrery

At the top of the elevator we found the Orrery of the Multiverse. An incredible four-dimensional machine modeling all of the planes of existence, moving in real-time. Though at first enchanted by the glittering gears and magnitude of this great edifice, we soon saw what was wrong.

The positive and negative energy flow—two opposing forces that came from the upper and lower planes and collected into each other in the material planes—were not longer keeping each other in equilibrium.

The flow of positive energy was diverted to the lower planes, while the negative energy still flowed into the material plane, rotting it at the core.

We all knew our next destination, to find the out why the positive energy flow had been diverted, to descend into hell!

Thoughts on the game

There were two more sessions to follow this game so the ending was very satisfying for me. We figured out where the problem was and I’m sure the next game would go to it.

I was delighted in getting not only to do my one trick (Quickened Spike Growth + Eldritch Blast + Repelling Blast + Dao Genie Bludgeoning Damage + Crusher Feat forced moment + Grasp of Hadar) to grind our foes through a 2d4/5′ of movement cheese grater. With other folks casting fear and the fact that the spikes were hidden, and Guz grappling folks into it, the spikes did an unholy amount of damage.

In the second fight, I didn’t lay down spikes but I was able to smash the modrons into the grinding walls or set them up for being cut by lasers so that was also a complete blast.

My take away from playing this game plus the last three sessions of Draw Steel (1, 2, 3) is that in a heroic fantasy game a 4-hour session contains two combats with a bit of roleplaying sprinkled around them. I don’t know that I’d be up for that on a weekly basis in a long term campaign, but for single-session or mini-campaigns this was a ton of fun. I’d gravitate towards Draw Steel because the tactics are more baked in from the core, but this game showed we could still do some fun tactical elements in 5E that went beyond flanking. In fact, I don’t think we ever used flanking in this game!

I very much hope the the next two forays were as fun as this game. The music, the map of the planes, the over the top characters, and Sam’s delightful exposition and epic conflicts were blast!