In the Outer Planes, a holy sword can be a fiend's best friend, especially when the owner wants it back?



Sneaking into the second layer of foul Bagtor ain't easy, but with a little help from the right high-up men, it can be done. 'Course, exactly who the right high-up men are can give a basher pause, so it's often best not to ask. But there's a sword to be found, and bloods needed to find it. Truth is, those who don't end up lost are sure to find out that no good deed goes unpunished!



Fires of Dis is a Planescape adventure for four to six characters of 5th to 9th levels.

From Sigil, the City of Doors, the heroes plunge head-first into a dangerous journey across the Outer Planes. Their quest for a stolen sword leads them to the hostile gate-town or Ribcage, the treacherous plane of Baator, and the disciplined burg of Fortitiude - a gate-town teetering between two planes, just waiting for something to tip the scales.

Your player characters need wits as keen as their steel to brave the fires of Dis and survive!

Product History

"Fires of Dis" (1995), by Steve Perrin with additional design by Ray Vallese, is the fourth adventure for Planescape. It was published in March 1995.

Continuing the Planescape Series. "Fires of Dis" was yet another adventure for the Planescape line. It was a publishing category that had been very popular in Planescape's first year, resulting in the release of three standalone adventures and one adventure anthology. Each of the previous standalone adventures had a very specific format: they were 32 pages long and included a DM's screen unique to the adventure. That began to change with "Fires of Dis". Its page count was instead 64 pages, and it was the next-to-last Planescape adventure that included a DM screen.

Origins. Freelancer Steve Perrin was contracted to write an introductory adventure for Planescape that involved a trip to the Nine Hells. When he asked whether he should reprint info on the Nine Hells from the Planescape Campaign Setting, he was told to do so. However, by the time the adventure arrived at TSR, the powers-that-be had changed their mind; editor Ray Vallese cut out much of the repetitive material and replaced it with new material of his own, resulting in rather unusual credits for "Fires of Dis": Steve Perrin is listed as "original design" while Ray Vallese is listed as "additional design".

Adventure Tropes. As with most of the Planescape adventures, "Fires of Dis" starts in Sigil, then sends players out into the planes. However, it places more emphasis on the Outlands and its gate-towns than most previous adventures — offering a way-station before players descend into Hell.

The actual adventure is a fairly typical MacGuffin quest. Though it involves town adventuring, wilderness adventuring, and a dungeon crawl through the Iron Tower of Dispater, it's all heavily plotted and focused on set encounters, making it fairly typical for an adventure of the '90s.

Expanding Planescape. The early parts of "Fires of Dis" focus on the gate-towns of the Outlands; of the previous Planescape adventures, only "Recruiters" from Well of Worlds (1994) had given them much attention. Two gate-towns get lots of new details, including maps: Fortitude (the gate-town for Arcadia) and Ribcage (the gate-town for Baator). The idea that gate-towns can slide into their linked planes is also reiterated, following up on the same plot point from "Recruiters".

Baator (2e's name for the Nine Hells) also gets a strong focus as the setting of the latter parts of the adventure. This was particularly exciting because no official adventure had previously ventured into the Nine Hells. Avernus (layer 1) and the City of Dis (layer 2) are both detailed through maps and encounters, with chapter V of the adventure taking place in Dis' central location, the Iron Tower of Dispater.

Monsters of Note. Players get to encounter two shockingly powerful monsters, the dragon queen, Tiamat, and the lord of the second layer, Dispater. However, the encounters are carefully managed, because an outright conflict with either force would be sure to kill the PCs.

Future History. Baator would be an important part of many future Planescape supplements due to its part in the Blood War. However, the next adventure focused on the Nine Hells was a post-Planescape product, the hack-and-slash "A Paladin in Hell" (1998).

About the Creators. Perrin was a freelancer who'd been writing for TSR since his 1987 authorship of "N5: Under Illefarn" (1987) and "CM9: Legacy of Blood" (1987). This was his last publication for the company.

About the Product Historian

The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of Designers & Dragons - a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.

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