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Planescape Survival Guide
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You could probably panic a little bit and still be okay.
That's Planescape Survival Guide , written and drawn by Travers "Swiftbow" Jordan, in a nutshell.
The "they" in the above quote is actually referring to two separate groups - one an unfortunate band of Faerunian adventurers with a tendency to leap before they look, the other a newly-partnered team of planar travelers swept off their feet into Multiversal politics... and deeper plots. Along the way there's a bunch of evil dark dwarves and a cult of black-robed madmen trying to bring about The End Of The Multiverse As We Know It and a team of followers of the God of Murder in it for the killin' tagging along for the ride. Oh yeah, and there's a owl narrator, a halfling who can't stop talking long enough to register reality, and a blue beholder with a secret he doesn't even know somewhere along the way.
The art isn't the greatest out there, and the update schedule makes "erratic" look like an understatement, but (most of the time) the story makes up for it.
For related media, see Planescape, and also, The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy.
Tropes in Planescape Survival Guide
- Alternate Character Interpretation: BIG TIME with Aoskar and The Lady of Pain as The Eldest and The Elder. Also with Jergal, Faerunian Demigod of Fate and seneschal of the God of Death, being changed from a loyal scribe to grasping for his ancient abandoned power as a Greater Deity.
- An Axe To Grind: Railah weilds a double-ended axe one-handed, with a longsword in the other. Yeah.
- Art Evolution: The art may not be the best in the world, but the latest strips are an extreme improvement from the first few chapters. ESPECIALLY the Talking Heads strips. It's visibly obvious that Swift has improved over the duration.
- Artifact Of Doom: The three sacred items of Aoskar. They can survive being pulled into the Nothing, which can unmake planes.
- Ax Crazy: Vec Trasden.
- Badass: If we haven't made it clear enough yet, Railah.
- Black Magician Girl: Elera.
- Blood Knight: The Cyricists, especially Vec. Also Sarn and Railah.
- Breaking The Fourth Wall: A few of the early strips - confined to the first few chapters - have panels showing a bunch of people around a table, obviously playing the story as a D&D campaign.
- Chosen One: Tchick. He doesn't quite know for what... And apparently acquiring one of the Artifacts Of Doom and wearing it for a while qualifies Milny for the title as well. Gods save us all.
- Clothing Damage: Tends to happen to Elera.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Milny.
- Cool Gate: The teleportation pentagram in Chapter One. On the other hand, it goes to Hell...
- Cool Shades: Jerak.
- Cross Player: There are three people in the original Sigil party - Torin, Elera, and Talanard. In the Breaking The Fourth Wall strips that show the players behind the story, there are four male characters around the table, one obviously being the DM. Whoever is playing Elera dings the trope meter, take a shot.
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: One for most of the main characters.
- Cute Witch: Not at first, but pretty accurate once the Paper Thin Disguise is broken.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu: It's becoming increasingly more obvious that to stop The Nothing, the heroes are going to have to defeat, obstruct, or otherwise stop Jergal-Possessed Railah AND The Elder/The Lady of Pain herself. They might have The Eldest and The Youngest along to help... maybe. Maybe not.
- Dirty Old Man: Guess.
- Doomed Hometown: Probably played to garner some sympathy for Milny. Doesn't really work.
- Dual Wielding: Vec Trasden dual-wields twin rapiers in true dervish style, but that pales horribly in comparison to Railah's death-dancing with a longsword in one fist and a double-ended axe in the other.
- Demonic Possession: Railah, a former battle priestess of Cyric, is possessed by the dark god of Fate Jergal as his pawn and puppet in his scheme to unmake the Multiverse.
- Earth That Was: The Firstworld is quite obviously our Earth, with the alternate trope that it has been abandoned by magic and the Gods rather than reduced to uninhabitability. It's VERY difficult to reach, but Jerak has managed... and fell in love immediately with sunglasses and automatic weapons.
- Eldritch Abomination: One appears when a portal to The Far Plane is opened in Dolrak the Arcanoloth's castle.
- Evil Laugh: Glowy red rocks don't have to breathe.
- Evil Sorcerer: Merrel and the Black Robes are an entire cult of them. Also Delia and the Duergar mage whose name I cannot recall.
- Eyepatch Of Power: Sarn Kellfrock.
- Fluffy The Terrible: Fred the Dragon.
- Forgotten Realms: Half the main characters on both sides are from Faerun's Dalelands region, specifically the area around Shadowdale. It doesn't take long to get the whole team planeswalking, though.
- Fruit Cart: Parodied - finding Tchick's conjured apples littering the road, Elera and Torin assume they came from a spilled cart.
- Fun With Acronyms: More people know Eldon as "DOM" - Dirty Old Man - than by his actual name. (Troper included, had to look up the real name on the cast page...)
- Gargle Blaster: Balor Ale! Poor Talanard...
- Good Angel Bad Angel: DOM has them. Unfortunately, they're not very different... Good Angel is just better spoken.
- Half Human Hybrids: Elera is a Fire Genasi (half-Fire Elemental, her father's an Efreet), Torin is an Aasimar (part Celestial), and of course Talanard and Twag are Half-Elves.
- Have You Seen My God: Aoskar AKA The Eldest, with good reason - he's been dead, killed by The Lady of Pain, for some time. Though it looks like he might be getting better. Also, according to the Mysterious Informant in the Prologue, Cyric - the patron God of all the Psychos For Hire - is apparently also dead, and their powers are being provided by another source probably Jergal.
- Heel Face Turn: Talanard was a Black Robe at some point in the past. (Maybe it would be Mook Face Turn as well, given the one-shot life expectancy of Black Robes...)
- Horny Devils: The Succubi in Jerak's caravan are pretty standard, save Winnie. And Milny, even in her pseudo-Succubus shapechange, is too busy being Milny to even try being seductive.
- Indy Ploy: Starts with Telv and Tommy 5, and spreads like the plague from there.
DOM: So we need a strategy.
Telv: BORING! Want to do something stupid with me?
Tommy 5: You know it!
- Instrument Of Murder: Telv's steel-plated banjo. DULCET TONES!
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: Milny gets turned into a semi-Succubus when she puts on an ancient artifact.
- Kill It With Fire: Elera.
- Knight Templar: The Harmonium Guard and the Mercykillers are the traditional Planescape examples, amusingly parodied when a NON-Knight Templar Harmonium - Larry the Tiefling Paladin - is arrested and hung upside-down from the wall for suggesting that Tchick might not be responsible for the destruction of the city block where he was found unconscious.
- Laser Guided Amnesia: Talanard.
- Leeroy Jenkins: The first of many gets Tommy 5 killed.
- Magic Knight: Delia.
- Magnificent Bastard: Merrel has the potential, if he could only pull off a Xanatos Gambit or two. Railah, on the other hand, takes the title and spikes it in the endzone with the power of sheer and unadulterated awesomeness. It helps that she's possessed by Jergal, a former Greater Deity who put the whole scheme into motion.
- Meaningful Name: Archimedes.
- Mooks: Pretty much every Black Robe except Merrel dies in one hit.
- More Dakka: One of the best things Jerak picked up from his time on the Firstworld.
- Mysterious Informant: "The Info Imp" and the nameless Black Robe from the prologue.
- Nice Job Breaking It Hero: Where to start!??
- Noble Demon: Jerak, Grull, and Winnie don't convince much of anyone that they're merchandising for the Forces of Darkness.
- No Such Thing As Wizard Jesus: Averted hard. Aoskar/the Eldest predicted his future destruction and hid a portion of his essence on the Firstworld two thousand years prior, and despite killing that Aspect out of fear and being without deities since the people of the Firstworld still revere him... making Aoskar equivalent to God and Jesus his Avatar.
- Nurse Jenny: The Tommys. Same look, same mentality, same Full Plate And Long Sword... same tendency to be the first and only to die. Though that may not be their real names, just the one that Gerand and Telv label them as soon as they meet.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Fred is an Orange Dragon - not the kind you'd find in an expansion book or 3rd party package, but rather the crossbreed of a male Red and a female Gold.
- Our Dwarves Are All The Same: Appears to be Subverted at first - the Duergar (Dark Dwarves) worship Jergal, ex-God of Death and Fate and master of The Nothing, rather than their normal Faerun racial deities. Once you get past that, though, there's not much different about them: they still guzzle alcohol like water and live for a good scuffle (even the mage).
- I should point out, though, that Sarn isn't Scottish. (Thanks to his eyepatch, he's forced to talk more like a pirate.)
- Our Elves Are Better: Mostly averted - the elves and half-elves are pretty typical to D&D standards - but played straight with Meleras, the Affably Evil Drow Ranger who still worships Lloth but is also willing to work with other races. The fate of the Multiverse at the mouth of The Nothing is that bad.
- Painting The Fourth Wall: Archimedes's narration bubbles, for one.
- Pals With Jesus: The main characters are pretty friendly with The Witch/The Youngest, and one even ends up getting one-on-one sparring training with Thor himself. Not a bad deal.
- Paper Thin Disguise: The Crazy Witch is The Youngest with a hairstyle tweak, a funny hat, and a very slightly longer nose. The Lady of Pain isn't fooled.
- Person Of Mass Destruction: Elera - when she's pissed - and Delia - all the time. Oh and Merrel too, for being the guy who takes out city blocks in a fit of rage.
- Polly Wants A Microphone: Archimedes. Likely the most intelligent character in the cast...
- Psycho For Hire: The Cyricists again. And the Duergar. Also a couple of the heroes have moments...
- Punctuation Shaker: Frd'gl'fn'd'pq'zter. He goes by "Fred" for a reason.
Findellinia: It's in the traditional tongue of our ancient race!
Goronkodar: It's unpronounceable.
- Rebellious Princess: Elera.
- Red Shirt: The Tommys.
- Religion Of Evil: Varlan and Vec (and supposedly Delia) worship Cyric, God of Lies and Murder, and the Duergar worship Jergal, former God of Fate, Death, and Oblivion who is looking to reclaim his Greater Deity status then unmake the Multiverse via The Nothing.
- Rule Of Three: It's Planescape, what did you expect?
- Runaway Bride: Elera again. The two go hand in hand, expectedly.
- Schedule Slip: The most common comment in the chatbox on the front page: "It's been (random time amount, usually two weeks to a month)... Where's the next comic?"
- Taken For Granite: Silly Black Robes. Tee hee!
- Talkative Loon: MILNY.
- Talking Heads: Some of the early, black and white strips are nothing but this. Thankfully it stops around Chapter Two.
- Talking The Monster To Death: Milny by a country mile.
- The Call Knows Where You Live: We figure Destiny must be either drunk or high.
- The Cavalry: The paladins showing up in the prologue to chase off the Cyricists. Their troops never show up again, as the story quickly leaves Faerun and moves on to the Planescape.
- The Multiverse: It's Planescape. It's everywhere. And it's about to be eaten by...
- The Nothing After Death: It could very well be lifted straight from the pages of the Neverending Story, it is so close. Obviously inspired or suggested by it, at the very least... and that fact is lampshaded in the first chapter.
- The Scrappy: Milny when she's first introduced. Later chapters she becomes slightly less annoying, and her recent upgrade to Chosen One seems to be intended to Rescue Her From The Scrappy Heap.
- To Hell And Back: Thanks to Talanard jumping on an active pentacle.
- Token Evil Teammate: Telv is actually more of a sociopathic Chaotic Neutral, but he fits.
DOM, Gerand, Twag: It was EVIL!
Telv: Pretty nifty! Er, I mean, EVIL!
- Why Did It Have To Be Snakes: Talanard is terrified of the Blood River. Thanks to Laser Guided Amnesia, he doesn't know why, but he is.
- Xanatos Roulette: Jergal gave his Phenomenal Cosmic Powers up to Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul years ago, apparently with the plan to steal them all back in the future and fuel his scheme to Unmake the Multiverse. He gets away with this nigh-impossibility because he's the God of Fate and The End Of The World As We Know It.
- Your Mileage May Vary: A lot of Planescape fans might not be very fond of the story's penchant for extreme Alternate Character Interpretation.
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