Sage Advice: Plane and world hopping (includes how Eberron and Ravnica fit in D&D cosmology)

[SkidAce]

Same, as far as I'm concerned, crystal spheres don't exist.

My "Crystal Spheres" (I like the term) are actually a sparkly curtain that delineates the edge of the "Solar System" for the purposes of how magic/physics works on different worlds.

They also happen to be the edge of the gravity well, and the line where Astral ships have to cross to go astral/hyperspace.

 

[SkidAce]

It is disrespectful to reallife players to tell them their favorite setting is officially false and stupid.

Good thing nobody has done that then.

All I suspect Crawford was doing was alluding to the way some planescape people would think.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

"The Old Alphatia Dimension
The Nightmare Dimension
The Vortex Dimension
The Dimension of Myth - contains Laterre. The source of "real world" mythologies."

I'd guess these would be part of the far realms in 5e.

Well, despite being conceived of as lying "beyond" the Multiverse, each of these Dimensions is unique, and would map to different aspects of the 5E cosmology:

The Old Alphatia Dimension is just the homeworld of the Alphatians. It's nothing special - just some planets and extra-starry, glittery outer space. It really could just be a crystal sphere in 5E cosmology. Whether it's called a "dimension" or not is immaterial.

I'd say that the "Dimension of Myth" is an in-game name for the Universe of Earth, from the perspective of the D&D Multiverse. I'd say that Laterre (Magical Medieval Earth) is just one continuity/timeline within that dimension. All the other TSR/WotC Earth-based campaign settings would also exist as alternate timelines within this Dimension: Urban Arcana, Historical Reference Earth, Gothic Earth, Boot Hill, Dark.Matter, Gangbusters, Shadow Chasers, Gamma World, Midgard (Norse Earth), etc.

The Nightmare Dimension could be an aspect of the 5E Far Realm. There was a whole DRAGON mag article which explained how the Far Realm and Nightmare Dimension (and Demiplane of Nightmares) were related in 3E. Cool thing about the Nightmare Dimension is that the "humans" of that realm are Chaotic Good devils. They look like Nightcrawler from X-Men. They think we humans look frightening.

The Vortex Dimension is special. It's where the Old Ones come from. They are the Overgods of the Classic D&D Multiverse, equivalent to Lord Ao of FR and the High God of Krynn. Little known fact: if your character advances all the way to 36th Level, and then becomes an Immortal, and then advances to 36th-Level Immortal...and then renounces Immortality and begins again as a 1st-level mortal character, and advances all the way back again, they become an Old One.

It'd be amazing if WotC mapped all this out for 5E Mystara. But Mearls hasn't asked me serve as consultant. (yet!)

 

[Chaosmancer]

Why should they? The dominant mystical paradigm is that there are X number of worlds/planes in the universe and they have never had a githyanki armada pop up from somewhere else to make them question the paradigm. If you study the nature of paradigms, you will discover that people with alternative worldviews get ignored or oppressed, so any Eberron guy who made it to Sigil probably got locked up in an Eberron institution when he got back. And who else is going to tell them? The demons? The devils? The Gods?

Right, ignorant. They have no concept of the true threats outside of their little island of a world.

Now tell me, if we were to make a list of all the times in literature the people ignorant of the "true paradigm", which list is bigger. The list of those people being portrayed in a positive light or the list of those portrayed in a negative light?


I've got no horse in this race, but this is the essential problem when you begin setting up an "over-setting" which is the "true shape of the multiverse". This is the part which gets people's hackles up.

In fact, it is also the reason why there are some people who when seeing Ravnica being announced, and knowing that Ravnica or Dominara or what have you has previously been portrayed as "The Center of the Multiverse" or a concourse of multi-dimensional portals, have immediately been saying "well those people in their corner of reality think they are the center, but everyone knows that the true center is Sigil and these people are just now being discovered and being shown the true wider world"

Whether or not Eberron people who talk about Spelljammers or a Ring City get thrown in the loony bin is incidental, though a symptom, of this perception that "you don't know the 'real truth' of reality and what it looks like" which isn't a positive state for people.

Good thing nobody has done that then.

All I suspect Crawford was doing was alluding to the way some planescape people would think.

But it is very easy to see it as being implied, since the people of planescape see a far bigger picture than the people of the individual settings.

 

[Yaarel]

Good thing nobody has done that then.

All I suspect Crawford was doing was alluding to the way some planescape people would think.

The impression that I got was, Crawford is a Planescape fan, and wants this way of thinking to be the official rules-as-written 5e setting.

Many D&D players are less enthusiastic about Planescape.



If the official core rules in the Players Handbook had been more agnostic about religions, in the first place, it would be friendlier to integrate other settings like Eberron, Ravnica, and Dark Sun into a supersetting.

 

[Yaarel]

@Polyhedral Columbia

I was thinking about your suggestion to make Spelljammer phlogiston its own plane (in addition to ethereal, etcetera).

It can work. Essentially, the Phlogistonic Plane has to be moreorless the same thing as ‘hyperspace’. It has to be, because the ships must be traveling faster-than-light to reach the farflung worlds. In this phlogistonic hyperspace small distances within this plane equate to vast distances in the material plane.

Looking into ‘hyperspace’, I was disappointed that there is almost no reallife science behind it. It is mostly a technobabble plot device to get characters from one solar system to an other that is lightyears away. I was surprised there is virtually no science, because ‘hard’ science fiction writers invented hyperspace and utilize it in their stories. I was also surprised because there are comparable reallife science, such as wormholes and so on, to travel lightyears away.

Anyway, as a plot device a common trope is, strong *gravity* disrupts the hyperspace. So if a vessel gets too close to the gravity of a sun, the gravity yanks them out of hyperspace and into our space-time.



So for the purposes of D&D ...

From the perspective of being inside the plane of phlogiston, these solar gravity spheres look like ‘shells’ and direct contact with them immediately exits the phlogistonic plane and enters the material plane.

As such, these ‘crystal spheres’ are made out of the force of gravity.



Solar systems that are ‘sealed off’, like Dark Sun and Eberron, might do it by reversing the gravity that exists within the phlogistonic plane. So that while gravity works normally for a solar system within the material plane, the gravity pushes instead of pulls within the phlogistonic plane. This makes it difficult or impossible for phlogistonic ships to approach these ‘sealed’ spheres of gravity.

 

[SkidAce]

But it is very easy to see it as being implied, since the people of planescape see a far bigger picture than the people of the individual settings.

The impression that I got was, Crawford is a Planescape fan, and wants this way of thinking to be the official rules-as-written 5e setting.

Fair enough...

 

[DEFCON 1]

I've got no horse in this race, but this is the essential problem when you begin setting up an "over-setting" which is the "true shape of the multiverse". This is the part which gets people's hackles up.

But why should it? If you are completely ignorant of any supposed "truth", then there's no reason to be upset.

I mean, let me ask you this: Right now are you, Chaosmancer, feeling at all put out or ignorant about living on Earth right now? Are you perpetually po'd? Because there's a pretty good chance that there's an actual multiverse out there, and thus your objective "truth" right now on Earth is false. Someone else out there in the multiversal cosmos is laughing at you for not knowing what's "really going on". Does that bother you? I mean, by the way you and a few others are talking about the D&D multiverse thing, you should be bothered. Even though you have nothing to base your anger on.

However, I'm willing to guess that you probably aren't. For a couple reasons. 1) You have no idea if in fact there *is* a multiverse or if there *are* people out there laughing at you. For all we know, it's a bunch of BS. And 2) Even if there is, you're never going to experience it or see those people involved, so from our perspective whether or not it exists is completely inconsequential. One of our quantum physicists can claim "Oh yeah, it's all true!" all they want... but if we're NEVER going to experience it... it doesn't matter.

And the same holds true for anyone playing Eberron. Eberron is a closed system. Even if there *is* a "greater truth" out there... as far as the people of Eberron are concerned... it's existence is probably total BS, and even if by some whackadoo philosopher's beliefs it *is* true... no one in Eberron is ever to know it for themselves anyway. So the "truth" doesn't matter. And that's exactly why what Crawford and Company say ALSO doesn't matter.

If we live in the Matrix, but we never know that we live in the Matrix... then do we?

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Right, ignorant. They have no concept of the true threats outside of their little island of a world.

Now tell me, if we were to make a list of all the times in literature the people ignorant of the "true paradigm", which list is bigger. The list of those people being portrayed in a positive light or the list of those portrayed in a negative light?


I've got no horse in this race, but this is the essential problem when you begin setting up an "over-setting" which is the "true shape of the multiverse". This is the part which gets people's hackles up.

In fact, it is also the reason why there are some people who when seeing Ravnica being announced, and knowing that Ravnica or Dominara or what have you has previously been portrayed as "The Center of the Multiverse" or a concourse of multi-dimensional portals, have immediately been saying "well those people in their corner of reality think they are the center, but everyone knows that the true center is Sigil and these people are just now being discovered and being shown the true wider world"

Whether or not Eberron people who talk about Spelljammers or a Ring City get thrown in the loony bin is incidental, though a symptom, of this perception that "you don't know the 'real truth' of reality and what it looks like" which isn't a positive state for people.





But it is very easy to see it as being implied, since the people of planescape see a far bigger picture than the people of the individual settings.

Given that romanticism of the primitive has been a pretty common theme in the 20th and 21st centuries and informs such pop culture entities like Avatar, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Conan, and Tarzan, I am going to say that the list is actually pretty skewed towards ignorance as a positive. All we are missing is David Attenborough telling us about the fundamental insights into our humanity we gain by looking at the quaint beliefs of the Eberron people.

 

[Aldarc]

But why should it? If you are completely ignorant of any supposed "truth", then there's no reason to be upset.

I mean, let me ask you this: Right now are you, Chaosmancer, feeling at all put out or ignorant about living on Earth right now? Are you perpetually po'd? Because there's a pretty good chance that there's an actual multiverse out there, and thus your objective "truth" right now on Earth is false. Someone else out there in the multiversal cosmos is laughing at you for not knowing what's "really going on". Does that bother you? I mean, by the way you and a few others are talking about the D&D multiverse thing, you should be bothered. Even though you have nothing to base your anger on.

However, I'm willing to guess that you probably aren't. For a couple reasons. 1) You have no idea if in fact there *is* a multiverse or if there *are* people out there laughing at you. For all we know, it's a bunch of BS. And 2) Even if there is, you're never going to experience it or see those people involved, so from our perspective whether or not it exists is completely inconsequential. One of our quantum physicists can claim "Oh yeah, it's all true!" all they want... but if we're NEVER going to experience it... it doesn't matter.

And the same holds true for anyone playing Eberron. Eberron is a closed system. Even if there *is* a "greater truth" out there... as far as the people of Eberron are concerned... it's existence is probably total BS, and even if by some whackadoo philosopher's beliefs it *is* true... no one in Eberron is ever to know it for themselves anyway. So the "truth" doesn't matter. And that's exactly why what Crawford and Company say ALSO doesn't matter.

If we live in the Matrix, but we never know that we live in the Matrix... then do we?

I would say that it's more akin to being told as a parent that your children are morons. Your children may be ignorant to this "greater truth," but that doesn't mean that you won't be offended as a parent by having your children being presented as dumb, ignorant clods.