Beyond Countless Doorways is a planar sourcebook under the "d20" roleplaying system, edited and published by Monte Cook under the Malhavoc Press imprint.
Most initial reviews were favourable. However, in early 2005 a certain Turanil posted a middling rating to ENWorld.org. As with Night Below, I figure that we could add value to this supplement if we paid attention to the objections, and found ways to mitigate them. Fortunately these means generally do not involve the structural changes which Night Below had demanded.
Turanil's overall critique was as follows:
I am a great fan of Michael Moorcock's multiverse, and thus I did expect much from Beyond Countless Doorways. I believed it would describe something in that vein. However, I was much disappointed. There is many good ideas in this book, but they are for the most part poorly treated. As a result, you just get another supplement of bland vanilla D&D.
Turanil tempered this by admitting that BCD was published by a third-party outfit and so could not afford all the bells and whistles which Hasbro can offer. Specifically, he gave Malhavoc a pass on colour; and he allowed for space constraints which would have hindered certain settings from the treatment they deserved.
Turanil's critique drew a few critiques of its own in the comments; that he had used loaded terms like "childish" and had not explained why. Turanil defended his review by pointing out that his review is more comprehensive than the favourable reviews found elsewhere. Turanil also pointed out, where he liked an entry (he used the Violet as his example but the same applies to the Mountains of the Five Winds, the Ten Courts of Hell, and Palpatur), that there wasn't much point in writing about it. When I re-read Turanil, I agree that most of his comments are fair; but I have found his treatments of Faraenyl and Ouno to be misguided, and those of Kin-Li'in and Tevaeral to be insufficient.
What follows is a collation of suggestions
Turanil felt that Avidarel and Carrigmoor did not need to be separate planes. They act as magically-induced pockets of outer space in the Prime plane. They are even able to conduct (shady) trade with other "planes", of which at least Toorantis is also "planar". While we remain on this topic: Dendri, the Lizard Kingdoms, Tevaeral, Venomheart, Yragon, and several of the "summary linked planes" are also arguably more like planets than demiplanes. I've posted here, that when other campaign worlds have been separated from the other planes it was often because of a proprietary theology, like those of Krynn and Scarn. Pace Turanil, Avidarel is a plane of divine hope and Carrigmoor is not.
In light of that, Avidarel and Colaris could be brought together in the great epic of rebirth. Venomheart's backstory should involve its heaven. Also, the Lizard Kingdom should get conjunctive links to the outer planes which house its gods.
Deluer needs to be expanded, or else it too is not going to make for much excitement. However I do dissent from Turanil in that this place does, in fact, require a plane to itself.
Turanil thought that Curnorost was "only good for one or two adventures
", which is true, even if supplemented with the ideas I suggested in the third Apocryphon of "Eldritch Apocrypha". My main problem with Curnorost is metaphysical; the plane is incompatible with a just Divine Providence.
Turanil objected to the humanoid presence in Dendri and the Lizard Kingdom. I'd allow sentient mammals, but only with the understanding that they were not native. The reason is because of oxygen. Arthropods generally thrive in oxygen levels much higher than our 20%; and the only likely "lizards" - that is, dinosaurs - in our world seem to have taken over during the Triassic oxygen minimum. Again, I've posted on it at Malhavoc; but this is explained in much more detail in Out of Thin Air by Peter Ward.
Turanil thought that the Maze was a dungeon crawl whose secret did not affect play in the plane. Turanil thought that Sleeping God's Soul was a demiplane which needed "fleshing out". Both planes are basically unfinished, and require work on their backstories. Again, I have tried to improve on the former with the third apocryphon of "Eldritch Apocrypha".
Turanil thought that the Dendri map, of Hradec, was insufficient; and that Venomheart needed a map. I have said the same of the Maze "map" illustration; and I have posted a diagram of Kin-Li'in.
Turanil's critique of Tevaeral was his least helpful, and it's probably the one which got his commenters riled up. Turanil complained that Tevaeral was not Steampunk. Well, Averoigne isn't Steampunk either and it's got a similar magic-is-for-pagans vibe to it. You are probably tired of my plugs for "Eldritch Apocrypha" but here, Apocryphon Two might help (and it does offer some minor Steampunk-ish features, like radiation). You can also squeeze in the Vale of Stars from The Book of Eldritch Might III: The Nexus. And don't forget its strategic position between Norpath and Praemal...
Lastly, Turanil thought that the aliptur didn't add enough to Yragon, and that what was left was uninteresting. I have suggested to borrow from DS9. When one treats the Nexus as Yragon's Wormhole, and the aliptur as its Founders, then one is free to make the aliptur and not the grahlus as the villains of the piece. One would then push the alipturs' home to another world in this universe, or to the Parallel Plane; and to write up other monsters (Vorta?) which the aliptur lifted to their current state.
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zimriel@sbcglobal.netThanks to Monte Cook for publishing Beyond Countless Doorways and to its contributors, Wolfgang Baur, Colin McComb, and Ray Vallese.
On 11 March 2007 I compiled this from the comments I and others have made at Monte's site.