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paradox42's crazy cosmology
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<blockquote data-quote="paradox42" data-source="post: 5078148" data-attributes="member: 29746"><p><strong>On Cosmology</strong></p><p></p><p>First things first: the multiverse I use is a sort of extended 1st-Edition setup, with hints from Planescape thrown in, and lots of embellishments I made myself starting back when 2nd Edition was just being hinted at in Dragon.</p><p></p><p>I used all the Paraelemental (Smoke, Magma, Ooze, and Ice/Cold) and Quasielemental (Positive: Mineral, Radiance, Lightning, Steam; Negative: Dust, Ash, Vacuum, Salt) planes, as well as the "standard six" that the 3E <em>Manual of the Planes</em> listed. I also threw in the Elemental Plane of Wood as a sort of "connector" that conceptually sits at the center of a sphere formed by the other Elemental Planes plus the Positive and Negative Energies; the sphere was also "completed" by new planes of my own imagining that act sort of like "Para-Quasi-Elemental" planes but which are all demiplanes rather than full planes in their own right (collectively, these 8 are called the "Demielemental Planes."). The Demielemental Planes are Radioactivity (combining Earth, Fire, and Positive), Plasma (Fire, Air, and Positive), Superconductivity (Air, Water, and Positive), Vapors (Water, Earth, and Positive), Explosives (Earth, Fire, and Negative), Embers/Stardust (Fire, Air, and Negative), Refrigerants (Air, Water, and Negative), and Powder/Evaporation (Water, Earth, and Negative). Finally, there is a secret plane that <strong>also</strong> sits at the heart of the sphere, but dimensionally in the opposite direction from Wood; this plane is secret because it has <em>no connection to the Astral Plane</em> (unlike every other plane of existence in 3.X) and can therefore only be reached from portals which exist in the four prime Elemental Planes and the two Energy Planes. This other central plane is simply titled the Elemental Plane of Matter, and is in most respects like an odd, lifeless (or perhaps nightmarishly, totally alive) copy of the Material Plane. Collectively, these are all named the Inner Planes.</p><p></p><p>This "Inner Sphere" exists conceptually in a sort of "soup" of the Ethereal Plane, which in my multiverse had the old concept of the Deep Ethereal for travel between planes; the Ethereal functionally connects the Inner Sphere to the Material Planes. And yes, that's plural; I posited that every D&D game world was its own Material Plane (unless two settings explicitly stated that they existed in the same world, like Maztica on the Forgotten Realms), and ignored any differences the official versions of the settings claimed for their cosmologies- where such differences existed, I would attribute them (if they ever came up in game) to mistakes made by explorers or disinformation campaigns by gods, demons, or other planar entities trying to stop mortals (for whatever reason) from learning what's "really out there." In effect, I posited no limit to the number of Material Planes in existence, though in practice no game could ever realistically concern itself with more than one or two unless you played something like a <em>Stargate: D&D!</em> using Wells of Many Worlds or the like. Every last Material Plane was assumed to be a universe in its own right, using more or less the standard laws of physics (given that this is a fantasy reality that is; more on my "standard physics" in a future post), so that each and every Material Plane was assumed to contain stars, planets, galaxies, and so on, unless otherwise specified. I did posit that the Spelljammer universe (filled with Phlogiston and endless Crystal Spheres containing star systems and other more exotic environments) existed somewhere in a Material Plane of its own, but I've never actually run a game in that Material Plane so I've never done much with the concept. Material Planes in my multiverse are all connected by the Plane of Shadow, which (as mentioned in the quote in my last post) was actually once a demiplane that got expanded by a ritual into a "Bridge Plane." The Plane of Shadow also eventually intersects the Far Realm, but more on that later. There is one new plane worth mentioning here, because it was the original opposite number for the Plane of Shadow: a demiplane called the Plane of Illumination.</p><p></p><p>The next layer out is the Astral Plane, which (though it is a Transitive Plane and therefore has very little to recommend an extended visit) actually does have a few demiplanes and oddballs that can't be reached from any other place. Examples of the latter include the Temporal Energy Plane, the Observatorium, Union (yes, I used both Union and Sigil in my multiverse- it actually worked rather well), and some more mysterious places that are usually distant from the "standard" planes and thus difficult to get to. Most of these are tiny demiplanes essentially existing only to house "planar edifices," which are mysterious constructs (most with unknown purpose) left behind by "whoever created the multiverse" ([sarcasm]gee, I'll bet all you IH users are <em>wondering</em> who that might be[/sarcasm]). More on planar edifices in a later post- though I will mention here that they played a <strong>major</strong> role in my campaigns within this multiverse.</p><p></p><p>Beyond this, in a fourth conceptual layer of this multiverse, lurk the Outer Planes, in my multiverse an extension of the traditional Great Wheel cosmology. The same structure of the basic Great Wheel exists, but as a young teen the fact that the Wheel was "unbalanced" never sat right with me. So I balanced it. This meant that whereas the basic Great Wheel, for example, calls for only <strong>two</strong> Twin Paradises (renamed Bytopia in Planescape- a name I always thought was stupid), my Great Wheel featured six of them- to balance out the fact that Tarterus (exactly opposite it- and renamed Carceri during the "politically correct renaming phase" of Planescape) had six layers. So, extending this to the rest of the Great Wheel, it's easy to determine that the new numbers of layers for each full plane look like this:</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Arcadia:</strong> 4 layers.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Seven Heavens</strong> (Celestia)<strong>:</strong> 666 layers. Yes, that's not a typo.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Twin Paradises</strong> (Bytopia)<strong>:</strong> 6 layers.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Elysium:</strong> 4 layers (as standard).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Beastlands</strong> (Happy Hunting Grounds)<strong>:</strong> 4 layers.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Olympus</strong> (Arborea)<strong>:</strong> 9 layers.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Ysgard/Asgard:</strong> 4 layers.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Limbo:</strong> 1E had 5 layers, 2E reduced it to 1 (or more precisely said "how can you tell?"). For 3.X I kept it as 1 layer.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Pandemonium:</strong> 4 layers (standard).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Abyss:</strong> 666 layers (2E and official 3E both claimed it was actually infinite, but I stuck to the finite number given in 1st Edition).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Tarterus</strong> (Carceri)<strong>:</strong> 6 layers (standard).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Hades:</strong> 4 layers.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Gehenna:</strong> 4 layers (standard).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Nine Hells:</strong> 9 layers (standard).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Acheron:</strong> 4 layers (standard).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Mechanus</strong> (Nirvana)<strong>:</strong> 1E had 5 layers- I actually did make up four more layers to this place back then- but when 2E removed the need for them, and 3E kept it, I essentially discarded those other four layers for my 3.X Great Wheel. So, 1 layer.</li> </ul><p>And now comes an even more interesting thing, because I always figured that there should be <strong>two</strong> versions of True Neutral- the "passive" version that's best represented in the standard, official Outlands (Concordant Opposition to us 1E vets), and an "active" version which would seek to <strong>force</strong> Balance on anything that got near it. So, I created a "flip side" to the Outlands, which in the 3.X version of this multiverse has the <strong>Strongly True Neutral Aligned</strong> planar property. The Flip Side is centered not on an infinitely tall Spire, but rather on an infinitely deep Pit, and in a nod to Moorcock I placed a city at the edge of the Pit (a sort of "retirees' Sigil") named Tanelorn. Also, since Sigil (introduced in 2nd Edition's Planescape, of course) was supposed to be a ring floating "at the top of the Spire," I made changes to that idea to reconcile it with my multiverse. Since the Spire is infinitely tall, it has no top; therefore Sigil is not at the top of it but is instead "strung" along the Spire some thousand miles above the ground. This gave me an interesting opening which I gladly took for later expansion: the notion that if one Ring exists "strung" on the Spire, other such Rings might also exist. And so they do: it is assumed that an infinite number of Rings exist, strung out so far from each other that even if you could somehow get to the outside of one to look for the others, you wouldn't be able to spot them. The second Spire Ring (i.e. the next one you find if you go up from Sigil) is called the Crystal Library, and is home to Annam, one of the few known Elder Gods in my multiverse (more on Elder Deities in a future post).</p><p></p><p>Beyond even the Outer Planes exists a somewhat unformed region wherein time and space are no longer quite so structured, where sleeping minds come to play out their imaginings. This is the Region of Dreams, and it saw a lot of use in my games. It exists essentially as described in the 3E Manual of the Planes, except that it has several more or less static demiplanes suspended within the chaotic Dreamheart. For example, I include the Dreamlands (from H.P. Lovecraft's stories, most often associated in modern roleplaying circles with Call of Cthulhu) as one such demiplane- and in fact one of my PC parties traveled there during their low-Epic stage.</p><p></p><p>And beyond even the Region of Dreams... is a Realm of Nightmares. Of course, I used the Far Realm in my game. But the <strong>way</strong> I used it is decidedly nonstandard- and requires that I explain what I meant in my previous post by "cosmologies" (plural). That's the next post.</p><p></p><p></p><p>...And BTW Belzamus, "ultra-sci-fi" does not correctly describe my campaign setting- as I trust you're now beginning to see. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="paradox42, post: 5078148, member: 29746"] [b]On Cosmology[/b] First things first: the multiverse I use is a sort of extended 1st-Edition setup, with hints from Planescape thrown in, and lots of embellishments I made myself starting back when 2nd Edition was just being hinted at in Dragon. I used all the Paraelemental (Smoke, Magma, Ooze, and Ice/Cold) and Quasielemental (Positive: Mineral, Radiance, Lightning, Steam; Negative: Dust, Ash, Vacuum, Salt) planes, as well as the "standard six" that the 3E [I]Manual of the Planes[/I] listed. I also threw in the Elemental Plane of Wood as a sort of "connector" that conceptually sits at the center of a sphere formed by the other Elemental Planes plus the Positive and Negative Energies; the sphere was also "completed" by new planes of my own imagining that act sort of like "Para-Quasi-Elemental" planes but which are all demiplanes rather than full planes in their own right (collectively, these 8 are called the "Demielemental Planes."). The Demielemental Planes are Radioactivity (combining Earth, Fire, and Positive), Plasma (Fire, Air, and Positive), Superconductivity (Air, Water, and Positive), Vapors (Water, Earth, and Positive), Explosives (Earth, Fire, and Negative), Embers/Stardust (Fire, Air, and Negative), Refrigerants (Air, Water, and Negative), and Powder/Evaporation (Water, Earth, and Negative). Finally, there is a secret plane that [B]also[/B] sits at the heart of the sphere, but dimensionally in the opposite direction from Wood; this plane is secret because it has [I]no connection to the Astral Plane[/I] (unlike every other plane of existence in 3.X) and can therefore only be reached from portals which exist in the four prime Elemental Planes and the two Energy Planes. This other central plane is simply titled the Elemental Plane of Matter, and is in most respects like an odd, lifeless (or perhaps nightmarishly, totally alive) copy of the Material Plane. Collectively, these are all named the Inner Planes. This "Inner Sphere" exists conceptually in a sort of "soup" of the Ethereal Plane, which in my multiverse had the old concept of the Deep Ethereal for travel between planes; the Ethereal functionally connects the Inner Sphere to the Material Planes. And yes, that's plural; I posited that every D&D game world was its own Material Plane (unless two settings explicitly stated that they existed in the same world, like Maztica on the Forgotten Realms), and ignored any differences the official versions of the settings claimed for their cosmologies- where such differences existed, I would attribute them (if they ever came up in game) to mistakes made by explorers or disinformation campaigns by gods, demons, or other planar entities trying to stop mortals (for whatever reason) from learning what's "really out there." In effect, I posited no limit to the number of Material Planes in existence, though in practice no game could ever realistically concern itself with more than one or two unless you played something like a [I]Stargate: D&D![/I] using Wells of Many Worlds or the like. Every last Material Plane was assumed to be a universe in its own right, using more or less the standard laws of physics (given that this is a fantasy reality that is; more on my "standard physics" in a future post), so that each and every Material Plane was assumed to contain stars, planets, galaxies, and so on, unless otherwise specified. I did posit that the Spelljammer universe (filled with Phlogiston and endless Crystal Spheres containing star systems and other more exotic environments) existed somewhere in a Material Plane of its own, but I've never actually run a game in that Material Plane so I've never done much with the concept. Material Planes in my multiverse are all connected by the Plane of Shadow, which (as mentioned in the quote in my last post) was actually once a demiplane that got expanded by a ritual into a "Bridge Plane." The Plane of Shadow also eventually intersects the Far Realm, but more on that later. There is one new plane worth mentioning here, because it was the original opposite number for the Plane of Shadow: a demiplane called the Plane of Illumination. The next layer out is the Astral Plane, which (though it is a Transitive Plane and therefore has very little to recommend an extended visit) actually does have a few demiplanes and oddballs that can't be reached from any other place. Examples of the latter include the Temporal Energy Plane, the Observatorium, Union (yes, I used both Union and Sigil in my multiverse- it actually worked rather well), and some more mysterious places that are usually distant from the "standard" planes and thus difficult to get to. Most of these are tiny demiplanes essentially existing only to house "planar edifices," which are mysterious constructs (most with unknown purpose) left behind by "whoever created the multiverse" ([sarcasm]gee, I'll bet all you IH users are [I]wondering[/I] who that might be[/sarcasm]). More on planar edifices in a later post- though I will mention here that they played a [B]major[/B] role in my campaigns within this multiverse. Beyond this, in a fourth conceptual layer of this multiverse, lurk the Outer Planes, in my multiverse an extension of the traditional Great Wheel cosmology. The same structure of the basic Great Wheel exists, but as a young teen the fact that the Wheel was "unbalanced" never sat right with me. So I balanced it. This meant that whereas the basic Great Wheel, for example, calls for only [B]two[/B] Twin Paradises (renamed Bytopia in Planescape- a name I always thought was stupid), my Great Wheel featured six of them- to balance out the fact that Tarterus (exactly opposite it- and renamed Carceri during the "politically correct renaming phase" of Planescape) had six layers. So, extending this to the rest of the Great Wheel, it's easy to determine that the new numbers of layers for each full plane look like this: [LIST] [*][B]Arcadia:[/B] 4 layers. [*][B]Seven Heavens[/B] (Celestia)[B]:[/B] 666 layers. Yes, that's not a typo. [*][B]Twin Paradises[/B] (Bytopia)[B]:[/B] 6 layers. [*][B]Elysium:[/B] 4 layers (as standard). [*][B]Beastlands[/B] (Happy Hunting Grounds)[B]:[/B] 4 layers. [*][B]Olympus[/B] (Arborea)[B]:[/B] 9 layers. [*][B]Ysgard/Asgard:[/B] 4 layers. [*][B]Limbo:[/B] 1E had 5 layers, 2E reduced it to 1 (or more precisely said "how can you tell?"). For 3.X I kept it as 1 layer. [*][B]Pandemonium:[/B] 4 layers (standard). [*][B]Abyss:[/B] 666 layers (2E and official 3E both claimed it was actually infinite, but I stuck to the finite number given in 1st Edition). [*][B]Tarterus[/B] (Carceri)[B]:[/B] 6 layers (standard). [*][B]Hades:[/B] 4 layers. [*][B]Gehenna:[/B] 4 layers (standard). [*][B]Nine Hells:[/B] 9 layers (standard). [*][B]Acheron:[/B] 4 layers (standard). [*][B]Mechanus[/B] (Nirvana)[B]:[/B] 1E had 5 layers- I actually did make up four more layers to this place back then- but when 2E removed the need for them, and 3E kept it, I essentially discarded those other four layers for my 3.X Great Wheel. So, 1 layer. [/LIST] And now comes an even more interesting thing, because I always figured that there should be [B]two[/B] versions of True Neutral- the "passive" version that's best represented in the standard, official Outlands (Concordant Opposition to us 1E vets), and an "active" version which would seek to [B]force[/B] Balance on anything that got near it. So, I created a "flip side" to the Outlands, which in the 3.X version of this multiverse has the [B]Strongly True Neutral Aligned[/B] planar property. The Flip Side is centered not on an infinitely tall Spire, but rather on an infinitely deep Pit, and in a nod to Moorcock I placed a city at the edge of the Pit (a sort of "retirees' Sigil") named Tanelorn. Also, since Sigil (introduced in 2nd Edition's Planescape, of course) was supposed to be a ring floating "at the top of the Spire," I made changes to that idea to reconcile it with my multiverse. Since the Spire is infinitely tall, it has no top; therefore Sigil is not at the top of it but is instead "strung" along the Spire some thousand miles above the ground. This gave me an interesting opening which I gladly took for later expansion: the notion that if one Ring exists "strung" on the Spire, other such Rings might also exist. And so they do: it is assumed that an infinite number of Rings exist, strung out so far from each other that even if you could somehow get to the outside of one to look for the others, you wouldn't be able to spot them. The second Spire Ring (i.e. the next one you find if you go up from Sigil) is called the Crystal Library, and is home to Annam, one of the few known Elder Gods in my multiverse (more on Elder Deities in a future post). Beyond even the Outer Planes exists a somewhat unformed region wherein time and space are no longer quite so structured, where sleeping minds come to play out their imaginings. This is the Region of Dreams, and it saw a lot of use in my games. It exists essentially as described in the 3E Manual of the Planes, except that it has several more or less static demiplanes suspended within the chaotic Dreamheart. For example, I include the Dreamlands (from H.P. Lovecraft's stories, most often associated in modern roleplaying circles with Call of Cthulhu) as one such demiplane- and in fact one of my PC parties traveled there during their low-Epic stage. And beyond even the Region of Dreams... is a Realm of Nightmares. Of course, I used the Far Realm in my game. But the [B]way[/B] I used it is decidedly nonstandard- and requires that I explain what I meant in my previous post by "cosmologies" (plural). That's the next post. ...And BTW Belzamus, "ultra-sci-fi" does not correctly describe my campaign setting- as I trust you're now beginning to see. ;) [/QUOTE]
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