Uncaged: Faces of Sigil: Planescape Accessory
Ray Vallese
OK, I think this is the last in my Planescape reading binge (for a while?), but it was another good one! The book has a very unusual format for an RPG setting book. Simply put, it’s an alphabetical listing of a few dozen NPCs, each of which has one to three pages written about them. The styles of the writeups are extremely diverse, ranging from interviews to “Wanted” posters to mini-short-stories, while a consistent set of game-relevant information is provided in a stat block for each. The balance of RP-relevant to combat-relevant information reflects what I strive for in games I DM.
The NPCs range from 0-level commoners to extremely powerful extraplanar bosses. The overall effect of the book is to give a strong feeling of a lived-in world. The NPCs often have connections with one another, which the book calls out in the individual sections as well as in some relationship maps at the end. But even for those who don’t have any clear connection, it feels like it would be easy to postulate scenarios where they would cross paths, and think through how they might respond to one another.
The book also has excellent Tony DiTerlizzi art. I wish there were more RPG setting books in this mold!