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Polyhedral Columbia
Ahm Ravenloft is not a planet as such it is a demiplane to my best knowledge, I doubt there is Ravenspace and Portals to Ravenloft are usually 1 way only and that is in.
True. Looking back at my post, I see that the wording was off...the Demiplane of Dread (or at least the geographically connected "Core") could be described as a "world", but not a "planet". I was just being lazy by not saying "compete planetary, demiplanar, toroidal, or asteroidal map" of the D&D worlds, the Domains of Ravenloft, Sigil, and the Rock of Bral.
Since I like maps, though you guys probably already know, I'll post a couple good Ravenloft world maps:
http://fraternityofshadows.com/PortraitHall/JesterMaps/New-Core---Jester-revised---red-borders.png
http://wiki.nodnod.net/images/a/a9/Ravenloft-core.png
A complete map would also have inset maps along the margin showing all the (published) disconnected domains which float in the Mists alone.
Eight main realities? Did not know about that one, what is that about?
Hardly anyone knows about this, but D&D Brand Manager Bruce Heard wrote an article explaining how each of the game editions (OD&D, AD&D2e, etc) is a distinct Reality. And that PCs can actually travel from one Reality to another via a "reality shift", which is a spell which only Greater Deities (or the greater Immortals of the Mystara cosmology) can cast.
When shifting to a different Reality, the character is morphed in various subtle (or major) ways which (from an out-of-game perspective) reflect the conversion to a different rules system. Only deity-level beings can remain fully conscious of their conversion via "reality shift".
Nearly everyone who hears this jeers and says: "That's silly - I don't want "game editions" to actually exist in the D&D Multiverse! It should just be handwaved."
But there's a big in-world difference, for example, between Classic D&D Mystara and AD&D 2E Mystara. Several of the NPCs who are Fighters in the Classic Reality are Barbarians, Rangers, and Paladins in the Second Reality (since those classes don't exist in Classic D&D). Similarly, if Mystara had be released for 4E, some of the CD&D Fighters would have been discovered to be Warlords. And also big cosmological differences.
There are eight main Realities:
- Original D&D
- Classic (BECMI) D&D
- AD&D 1E
- AD&D 2E
- Saga System (used for Krynn for a time; but also there was a DRAGON magazine article which converted other settings to Saga)
- D&D 3E/d20 Modern
- D&D 4E
- D&D 5E
There are other, minor realities too (e.g. Alternity).
The Reality concept is an important tool for untangling the various depictions of the D&D Multiverse in various rules editions: because if the TSR/WotC designers (besides Bruce Heard) had really grasped the concept, then the Time of Troubles (which coincided with the Fate of Istus in Oerth and the Chaos War in Krynn), Die Vecna Die!, the Spellplague, the Second Sundering, and similar catastrophic edition-shifts would not have been necessary, as the story would've just been explained by a harmless Reality Shift. One moment, we're seeing the Fourth Reality of Forgotten Realms, and in the next book, we're seeing in the Fifth Reality, which has always existed in parallel to the other Realities. Which is how the shift from CD&D to AD&D2E happened for Mystara.
(Of course, there could be catastrophic stories told for their own sake, but not to justify rules changes.)
Now some would say: "Yeah, but the catastrophic edition shifts did happen, so that's canon too." But the Reality concept (which is also "canonical") doesn't contradict that fact: the Reality concept is still valid and useful, since there are many subtle shifts in detail (such as how fast a character advances on the XP chart) which aren't explained by the in-story events. And also, clearly the "old" Realities still continue to exist, and the "new" Realities have *always* existed off screen. All eight Realities extend forever into the past and future. It's just that TSR/WotC shifts its publishing lens from one Reality to another. (Presumably the 6th Edition D&D Multiverse and 7th Edition D&D Multiverse already exist backstage as well, and have always existed.)
That older Realities continue to exist, is proved by how WotC has continued to republished classic D&D material, such as the Keep on the Borderlands special edition, or the reprints of the AD&D 1E rulebooks, or the hundreds of D&D Classics PDFs. And also by the fact that the already-purchased stack of books from older editions doesn't just disintegrate when a new edition is released.
That newer Realties have actually always existed is proved by how the Arcane Age books which were produced for Torils ancient past: they used Second Edition rules! Not First Edition rules as would be expected for pre-Time of Troubles. Which proves that the Second Edition Reality always existed "off-screen", and extends forever into the past (and future). However, to their credit, designers actually took note of this, and included a little section about how to either use First Edition to play in the Arcane Age, or to model First Edition rules (spells and "lost" classes, such as the Assassin) using Second Edition!
Here's the reprint of the DRAGON magazine article about Reality Shifts:
http://pandius.com/upaway.html
And here are my articles:
https://sites.google.com/site/dndphilmont/d-d-realities
https://sites.google.com/site/dndphilmont/realities-and-worlds-chart
https://sites.google.com/site/dndphilmont/continuities
