D&D (2024) 2024 Astral Plane

[Maxperson]

Divine Dominions are part of the World Axis Cosmology from 4E, not the Great Wheel Cosmology of earlier editions. So what do Divine Dominions mean now in the 5E version of the Great Wheel Cosmology? They weren't in the 2014 DMG. Spelljammer introduces them to 5E saying that some gods have Divine Dominions in the Astral Plane. That wasn't a thing in the old Great Wheel Cosmology. God's realms were solely in the Outer Planes that matched their alignment (that is how my Home Campaign works).

Does Pelor still have a divine realm in Elysium called Hestavar? Or a Divine Dominion in the Astral Plane called Hestavar?

There is overlap in design here, and it is not clear to me what they intend. I did a search and found other people thinking the exact way I was.


I hope that Planescape clarifies things.

Ahh. I see. Divine Dominions have been a thing in the Great Wheel since 2e. Gods have had dominions on various planes, including the prime, astral and outlands for decades. Divine Dominions are not planes. They are just the portion of a plane that a god controls as his dominion. I think 4e just confused things by using the same term, but 5e has gone back to the way 2e and 3e used it, which was just, "Hey, a god lives here and things could get weird/deadly."

 

[Yaarel]

I am unfamiliar, does 3e Book of Exalted Deeds mention Hestavar? What are its 3e details, if any?

I cant find the 4e document that mentions Hestavar. Without citation, the wikipedia article "Planes (Dungeons & Dragons)" lists it for 4e, and both Pelor and Ioun there. Does someone know the 4e source?

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I am unfamiliar, does 3e Book of Exalted Deeds mention Hestavar? What are its 3e details, if any?

I cant find the 4e document that mentions Hestavar. Without citation, the wikipedia article "Planes (Dungeons & Dragons)" lists it for 4e, and both Pelor and Ioun there. Does someone know the 4e source?

It was in the digital Dragon magazine, I don’t remember which issue.

Edit: @Yaarel Dragon #371

 

[Yaarel]

It was in the digital Dragon magazine, I don’t remember which issue.

Edit: Dragon #371

Yeah, I found it, and am citing it, while you posted.



I found Hestavar in Dragon Magazine 371 from 2009. This is probably the 4e source, since in 4e Dragon articles are official.

Hestavar is a dominion in the Astral Sea, that Pelor, Ioun, and Erathis worked together to build as their home. Its concept is an ideal civilization (especially in the classical, renaissance, and enlightenment sense). This cosmopolitan urban paradise integrates harmoniously with nature. Other creatures of Good populate it, including Angels and Devas, and most of the sentient species have citizens there. Hestavar is perhaps the most illustrious city in the multiverse. It is smaller than City of Brass in the Elemental Chaos, but more of the citizenry participate in its opulence.

In 4e, Pelor is Good, but Ioun and Erathis are Unaligned. In 4e, their respective archetypes are the organizing principle for the Astral concept of an ideal civilization.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Can you clarify? Are you sure it is true that the "Outer Planes play by their own individual rules?"

According to the 5e DMs Guide (59), the "peculiar characteristics" of each Outer Plane are "Optional Rules".

The official default is, all Outer Planes follow the same rules as the Astral Sea does generally.

In any case, all Outer Planes are "ageless", like the Astral Sea is.

Because specific trumps general, any domain might have rules that operate unlike the rest of the Astral Sea. For example, a particular domain might have time speed up or slow down, or have its own gravity. Such a domain would still be part of the Astral Sea.

There is no rule in 5e that the Outer Planes follow the rules of the Astral Plane at all, where in say BG: DiA does it say that you don't age in Hell for example?

 

[Yaarel]

There is no rule in 5e that the Outer Planes follow the rules of the Astral Plane at all, where in say BG: DiA does it say that you don't age in Hell for example?

If I remember correctly, the souls in D&D remain in the afterlife until they fade away. What happens afterward remains uncertain. This seems an indefinite amount of time. The souls wouldnt die of old age. Perhaps it might be thousands or tens of thousands years later.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

If I remember correctly, the souls in D&D remain in the afterlife until they fade away. What happens afterward remains uncertain. This seems an indefinite amount of time. The souls wouldnt die of old age. Perhaps it might be thousands or tens of thousands years later.

Where in 5e does it say this?

 

[Yaarel]

Where in 5e does it say this?

Good question. It is one of those things I read "somewhere" probably from an earlier edition or a specific setting.

When combing thru the 5e DMs Guide, I found two different versions of Hades, one the default (64) and one for a nondefault Greek-esque campaign setting (44).


"In the Greek cosmology, ... in Hades, named for its ruler, mortal souls linger as insubstantial shades until they fade into nothing."

(This "Hades" is more like Shadowfell. These Greek afterlifes are still "in the Material Plane", including in the Elysian Fields, Hades, Tartarus, and a literal Mount Olympus.)


In the default afterlife, souls sort themselves by deity or if without a deity then by alignment. Any Evil souls that are unclaimed by a Fiend, "become larvae and spend eternity in this place" of "despair".

(Oppositely, Elysium is "a heaven of well earned rest" and "joy".)



My impression is, the default 5e afterlife is all souls remain somewhere in the Astral Plane, including one of the Outer Planes within it, for "eternity". Except irregular events can happen such as Resurrection or so on.

These eternal souls dont age. Likewise, the disembodied souls that travel the Astral Plane, including the Outer Planes, are also eternal.

(Afterlife souls generally dont go on adventures, but probably could, whether by choice or exceptional circumstance.)

 

[Marandahir]

WotC have been very clear in 5e that the Planar Wheel is JUST A MODEL by mortal sages trying to make sense of the planes.

A Higher Plane of Existence is not physically part of the same space as our world. Trying to say that Celestia is physically INSIDE the Astral Sea as opposed to connected to it is like trying to force a tesseract-shaped peg through a torus shaped hole but only being able to see in 2 dimensions.

In YOUR game you can make the Astral Sea or Astral Plane a physical space surrounding both the mortal plane(t) and other plane(t)s but that's not the defined 5e cosmology assumed by the core books.

In MY game, for example, the Astral Sea is a physical space related to Wildspace and Star Wars Hyperspace and IRL Outer Space; a space so big that distances and timelines become impossibly large and our tiny lives and world becomes essentially a blip in the fabric of existence, while the Elemental Chaos is like the Quantum Realm from Marvel - a hidden "inner space" so tiny that time becomes meaningless and the building blocks of creation drift between states of matter and energy. Meanwhile, the Outlands in my game are literally beyond the raw edges of the universe, the space between all things and at the outer limits of our understanding -- and where the Ruby Gate and its Shardmind guardians hold back the incursions of the Far Realm.

I see these as fundamentally related ideas to the 5e cosmology, but clearly the way I'm interpreting them and retrofitting 4e concepts and MtG concepts and building in my own ideas makes it different.

Planescape uses the Great Wheel Cosmology as a default, but remember that it's ONLY A MODEL. WotC don't have a financial incentive to define it further than that, especially given that the Forgotten Realms are their home-base setting. FR has a history of understanding cosmology in multiple ways, of plane lists changing, and that history wasn't wiped when the Spellplague ended and Abeir and Toril passed out of alignment with each other again at the turning of 5e a decade ago. The Forgotten Realms are a living setting, even if the exact details of scale have changed from edition to edition (seriously, the 3e and 4e maps of the Realms are SO MUCH SMALLER than 5e's version). And that means that the nature of Cosmology needs some flexibility to allow past interpretations to remain as a viable option for the sages to discuss.

So they're probably not going to define the space between the planes further with Planescape; instead, they'd focus on the factions of Planescape and the campaign adventures of Planescape and the options of Planescape characters and what it means to play a game without a Material Plane as the central starting zone and place to protect from planar incursion. I'd expect close details on Sigil and character options, a starter adventure in Sigil, a larger campaign taking inspiration from PS:Torment, and a Manual of the Planes gazetteer that explores the creatures and factions and some key locations in each of the Outer Planes. I actually expect them to ignore the Inner Planes, the Parallel Planes, and the Transitive Planes when it comes to details, but to speak to them very briefly as also there. If you're playing Planescape, you care really about the 16 Outer Planes and the Outlands, less about the Astral Sea.

 

[Maxperson]

My impression is, the default 5e afterlife is all souls remain somewhere in the Astral Plane, including one of the Outer Planes within it, for "eternity". Except irregular events can happen such as Resurrection or so on.

These eternal souls dont age. Likewise, the disembodied souls that travel the Astral Plane, including the Outer Planes, are also eternal.

(Afterlife souls generally dont go on adventures, but probably could, whether by choice or exceptional circumstance.)

The flaw in that logic is that PCs do not age on the Astral Plane, but they do age on the outer planes. Souls are not alive, and so don't age. It's not an astral plane thing with them.