The Planar Codex (5e) - Pre-Order Store

Well, it happened again. Y’all have driven The Planar Codex to smash through yet another stretch goal! Reaching this second stretch goal unlocks 6 new planar-themed feats to help add flavor and useful abilities to your characters. Feats are one of 5e’s best ways to make interesting, customized characters, so we’re extremely excited to have the chance to add more of them to the book.

We can’t thank everyone enough for all of the support thus far, but we can certainly try.

THANK YOU!
...how was that?

Ok, that was lame, but we can do better. How about a sneak preview of the new feats, plus one in full that you can use at your table right away?

Corporal Optimization: The rigorous energies of the Immutable City of Cogs resist invasive forces that would interfere with your body’s normal function.

Defiant Spirit: The Bright Wylds’ rebellious nature burns deep in your soul, allowing you to shrug off effects that would curtail your freedom.

Fleeting Presence: Your identity is awash with the memory-eroding nature of the Shadowscape, causing memories of you to bleed away from those who meet you.

Riotous Combatant: Master the art of moving quickly through the chaos of the Discordant Wastes while harassing your foes.

Thunderous Decree: Make your foes cower before the overwhelming power of the High Heavens’ inviolable truth.

Maddening Tongue
Prerequisite: The ability to cast a spell of 1st level or higher with verbal components
You can infuse your spoken spellcasting with maddening power siphoned from The Pit. When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher with verbal components, you can force each creature that can hear you within 30 feet of you (excluding yourself) to make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. You can choose any number of creatures you can see to make the saving throw with advantage. Each creature that fails the saving throw takes psychic damage equal to the spell’s level.
A creature that suffers psychic damage in this way must also roll 1d12 at the start of its next turn to determine how madness grips the creature.

1d12 - Effect
1 - The creature can’t move or take actions this turn.
2 - The creature can’t move this turn but can otherwise act normally.
3 - The creature can speak only gibberish this turn, making it impossible to cast spells with verbal components or be understood in any way.
4 - The creature can’t take bonus actions this turn but can otherwise act normally. 
5 - The creature loses concentration if it was maintaining its concentration, and it can’t use spells or effects that require concentration this turn. 
6 - The creature becomes frightened of you until the end of its turn.
7 - The creature becomes charmed by you until the end of its turn.
8 - The creature howls in agony, taking 1d4 psychic damage.
9 - The creature becomes deaf until the end of its turn.
10 - The creature falls prone, and its movement becomes 0 until the end of its turn.
11 - The creature becomes blind until the end of its turn.
12 - Ability checks and attack rolls the creature makes this turn are made with disadvantage. 

Don’t mind the Wasteling. He’s like Clippy, just from The Pit... and actually somewhat useful. 

So, thanks again, but we’re just getting started! We’re 208% funded as of now, and it’s not stopping there. As soon as we knock out Stretch Goal 3, you’ll unlock ANOTHER nine spells beyond the ones from Stretch Goal 1. Who doesn’t like new spells? Nobody, that’s who. 

The team is stunned at this response. At the time of us writing this, we are 175% funded and still have a few hours left in Day One. That’s out of this world. In the days leading up to launch we felt that we would fund (probably... eventually) but had no idea it would be this quick.   

The Planar Codex would never exist without your trust. Thank you. You can come chat with the team on our Discord. 

Ok, so what did we just unlock? New spells! We wanted to give you a sneak peek into some of our spell designs, and even leave you with a fully designed one, the storm of grinding iron. This punishing spell is summoned forth by the infernal spellcasters of The Iron Hells. 

When we approach spell designs our first thought is to create something that is immediately recognizable to the fifth edition core rules. We want these spells to fit in right next to fireball. But there’s still room for us to exercise our creative muscles. The storm of grinding iron, for example, plays on the idea of modular spell radius. Spell radius is immediately recognizable to fifth edition players, but we have never been given the opportunity to change it and have spell effects change due to it. 

Narrative themes are important to us when designing spells, or anything else. The storm of grinding iron, at first glance, is a bit on the nose — it is a damaging spell that uses metal from a place called The Iron Hells. But it also perfectly represents the metaphysical themes of The Iron Hells. It slowly grinds down groups, and as the weak are crushed on its outer edges, it focuses in on those who think they are strong, eventually tearing them apart under the oppressive, unending onslaught of the hells. 

Alright, enough dev talk for this update! Let’s get to some reveals. Some of these spells aren’t much more than the ideas below right now, while others are just waiting for their final tests and copy edits: 

The Scintillating Fey Courts: Violent Obsession – an enchantment that drives a creature to fixate on another creature with violent intensity.

The Shadowscape: Bleak Omen – a cantrip that distorts a creature’s thoughts, causing it to look upon an object with abject terror for a moment.

The Liminal Plane of Spirits: Lingering Sigh – a divination spell that allows you to communicate with lingering spirits with unfinished business.

The High Heavens: Righteous Fire – a powerful offensive spell that scours enemies with blinding, radiant flames.

The Bright Wylds: Fan the Flames – a support spell that amplifies a spark of success into an inferno of passionate ardor.

The Pit: Entropic Strike – a melee weapon-based cantrip that whittles your foe’s life away with each attack.

The Immutable City of Cogs: Ward of Convergence – an abjuring spell that redirects and controls where teleporting creatures appear.

The Discordant Expanse: Primordial Arsenal – a support spell that causes your allies’ weapons to deal extra damage of various types to exploit your foes’ weaknesses.

 

And here is the storm of grinding iron, ready for play at your table now! 

Storm of Grinding Iron
4th-level conjuration
Casting Time: 1 action  
Range: 90 feet
Components: V, S, M (a handful of metal shards)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Spell List: sorcerer, warlock, wizard  

You create a storm of howling winds laden with hissing motes of jagged shrapnel. The storm occupies a sphere centered on a point you choose upon casting, where it remains for the duration. You must choose to make the sphere’s radius 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25 feet when you cast the spell.  

The area within the sphere is difficult terrain and lightly obscured, and creatures are deafened while within the area. When a creature enters the area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, it must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failure, it suffers an amount of necrotic damage and slashing damage, or half as much damage on a success. The amount of necrotic and slashing damage is determined by the storm’s radius.  

Storm Radius – Damage
5 feet – 5d4 necrotic and 5d4 slashing
10 feet – 4d4 necrotic and 4d4 slashing
15 feet – 3d4 necrotic and 3d4 slashing
20 feet – 2d4 necrotic and 2d4 slashing
25 feet – 1d4 necrotic and 1d4 slashing  

As a bonus action, you can reduce the storm’s radius by 5 feet (to a minimum of 5 feet) or increase it by 5 feet (to a maximum of 25 feet).  

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 5th level or higher, the necrotic and slashing damage increase by 1d4 each for each spell slot level above 4th.

Hail, denizens of the planes! 

We are thrilled to announce that The Planar Codex is now FULLY FUNDED! It’s officially happening! Soon, you’ll all get to see our wild ideas come to life at YOUR tables in YOUR games. We’re very excited to hear how your stories unfold across the planes! 

Thank you all for your incredible support. We are truly humbled by it. Quite literally, we couldn’t do this without you. 

You funded The Planar Codex in 4 hours and 23 minutes.  We figured people like yourselves wanted planar-themed player options for their 5e games, but had no idea just how many of you there would be. It’s staggering, and we couldn’t be happier or more grateful to have you with us on this journey. 

So, what comes next? The first stretch goal unlocks 9 Additional Spells — 1 from each of the nine planes featured in the book. It seems only fair we give you some hints about what that means.  

Perhaps you plan to play a wizard schooled in the infernal magic of the Iron Hells. There’s no finer demonstration of that plane’s carefully modulated brutality than the Storm of Grinding Iron. On the other end of the spectrum, casters steeped in the philosophies of the Bright Wylds now have access to Fan the Flames, a support spell that amplifies a spark of success into an inferno of passionate ardor. 

These and their seven counterparts become possible to implement once we hit the $15,000 funding level. Every pledge gets us one step closer to expanding all our spellbooks, so spread the word!  

If you haven’t already, jump in the comments and let us know what you’re looking forward to most from The Planar Codex. Please also feel free to join the P.B. Publishing Discord to continue exploring the planes even after the campaign ends.  We want to hear all about your adventures and how we can help you tell awesome stories, so come tell us what’s got you most excited! 

We can’t wait to show you how vast your world really is. 

Onward! 

And just like that, we jumped into some glowing rift and started our journey across the planes. (Or clicked the big Go Live button, but that isn’t as interesting.) 

We’ve been working on this project for over a year now and are so happy to be where we are today. The project’s pre-launch following has done better than anyone on the team ever predicted, and we have some great pieces of art and game design coming together that we can’t wait to share. 

Stay tuned for more updates as we unlock stretch goals and have more to share. Feel free to jump into the comments — we’ll be lurking there like something out of the Shadowscape — or join us on Discord. 

Thank you for joining us on this plane-skipping journey! We can’t wait to see where we end up.