Will 'Dungeons & Dragons' Return to Planescape Soon?

One of Dungeons & Dragons' lead designers shared a map that could be a tease about a return to a classic setting.

Chris Perkins is the principal story designer of Dungeons & Dragons, and is one of the main people responsible for determining the direction of the game's annual adventures. Yesterday, Perkins shared an interesting pair of maps on Twitter, one of which could be a hint at a return to a classic D&D setting:

Here are a couple map sketches I did for what might or might not be an upcoming D&D project. #wotcstaff pic.twitter.com/G9IySVLXSL

— Christopher Perkins (@ChrisPerkinsDnD) January 27, 2019

The second map is of the Tower of Storms, which could be a reference to a location in the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Lightning. The Plane of Lightning is one of several planes featured in the "Planescape" campaign setting, which focused on exploring many of the different planes of the D&D world. In addition to introducing the classic D&D city of Sigil, Planescape also expanded upon many of the elemental planes and the bizarre creatures that made their homes in the endless oceans of the Elemental Plane of Water or the fiery inferno of the Elemental Plane of Fire.

Quasi-elemental planes were places where one of the elemental planes touched either the positive or negative energy plane. The Plane of Lightning, for instance was where the Elemental Plane of Air touched the Positive Energy Plane, creating a world infused with lightning and energy.

The 1998 publication The Inner Planes described the Tower of Storms as a structure of mysterious origin and purpose that marks the border of the Plane of Lightning. The glistening blue structure has no actual entrance, although the inhabitants of the Plane of the Lightning believe that something does live inside.

While the map shared by Perkins does share a name with the Planescape landmark, we will note that it seems entirely different from the Tower of Storms' description in The Inner Planes. Perkins' Tower of Storms seems to be some sort of citadel with a lightning rod that sits on a storm-ravaged coast, complete with the ruins of ships nearby. The presence of a beach and an ocean doesn't really sound much like the Plane of Lightning, at least not as it originally was described.

Of course, Dungeons & Dragons' description of the Elemental Planes have changed greatly over the last 20 years - the 5th Edition Dungeon Masters Guide included a model of the planes that only mentioned the four main elemental planes of Air, Water, Earth, and Fire as part of the "elemental chaos" that separated the ethereal planes from the astral planes. The most recent map of the planes seem to indicate that neither the positive nor negative plane touch the elemental planes, so it's possible that the Plane of Lightning no longer exists in its traditional form. If that's the case, it's always possible that the Tower of Storms somehow shunted over to another location.

With the re-introduction of Eberron last year, more and more players are clamoring for Dungeons & Dragons to return to older campaign settings. Will we see Planescape return sometime soon? We'll have to wait and see.

Let us know your favorite memories of Planescape in the comment section below, or find me on Twitter at @CHofferCbus to talk all things D&D!