D&D 5E Where does negative energy fit into the D&D chrono-cosmology?

[MonsterEnvy]

Here is the map of the elemental planes.

Once you go beyond the borders in any direction you get to the part where it is just pure that element, and if you get past that you end up in the Elemental Chaos where it all randomly mixes together.

 

[Leatherhead]

Now I have a question:

Do you all think that because nobody can agree on the orientation of the Inner Planes, that means they must swirl around a lot?

 

[Shemeska]

The situation is muddied a bit by 4e content using its own cosmology with no continuity to Planescape, and then by 5e incorporating elements of 4e piecemeal while also attempting to harken back to the Great Wheel cosmology of pre-4e D&D (with a mixed end result I suppose, but more successes than failures I think).

5e's handling of Positive and Negative's positioning wrt the other planes unfortunately doesn't go back to the quasielemental planes as metaphysical border regions with the energy planes, but on the upside 5e seems to take a page of inspiration from Pathfinder when it alludes to the Feywild and Shadowfell as being influenced by metaphysical proximity to Positive and Negative respectively (as Pathfinder does more overtly with the First World and Plane of Shadow). Whether it's an overt influence or convergent design the end result is the same for the game play.

As far as timeline goes, the answer would be a lot easier if Planescape was still being retained as a primary source of planar continuity and history (which as of MToF seems to be suspect) rather than a very much pick and choose approach, likely as different authors are or aren't familiar with the original source material. The Planescape timeline would have had the Outer Planes developing first, prior to the appearance of mortal life, and the gods appearing later on after mortal belief began to change the landscape of the Outer Planes and worship caused the formation of the gods. The earliest outsiders would have appeared with those primordial Outer Planes (baernaloths/yugoloths, primordial pre-Spawning Stone slaadi, the pre-rilmani kamarel in the Outlands, and presumably entities of Law and Good never overtly named).

Planescape's planar timeline was heavily biased towards a focus on the Outer Planes and much of it had some in-character source bias in the telling, but the general scheme of things was there, studded with plot hooks like the chocolate chips in a giant cookie fresh from the oven.

The Far Realm has had a lot of contradictory takes over the years, but my favorite that I think meshes best with the original material is that it can be best considered as an entirely different cosmology only tangently interacting with the planes of the Great Wheel. It isn't antithetical so much as they're both hideously toxic to one another by virtue of possessing concepts that do not and cannot truly exist within the other. Think of them like adjacent soap bubbles of reality drifting atop the endless sea of possibility represented by the Deep Ethereal (a similar take seen by the Great Beyond cosmology's Maelstrom and the Abyss in Pathfinder as two competing realities grounded upon one another).

The precise timeline for the Inner/Energy Planes appearing is sometime -after- the early "pure" Outer Planes but prior to the creation of the Material Plane, as the Positive Energy plane is the source of those mortal souls that would ultimately produce belief and faith that would in turn mold the nature of the Outer Planes. I suspect some of the first outsiders might be seen as prokaryotes looking on in horror as early photosynthetic organisms / mortals produced oxygen / belief, leading to a metaphysical version of the so-called Great Oxygen Crises that forever altered the world.

 

[Yaarel]

Positivity and negativity are principles of being and nothingness, respectively, that preexist the ethereal and the astral.

Ethereal (physical) and astral (mental) are partial glimpses of being within nothingness.

The stuff of ether differentiates into earth, wind, fire, and water, and other elemental energies. The stuff of aster differentiates into the diverse collective consciousnesses of various cultures.

The material weaves all of these aspects into living creatures, both physical and mental.

The fey is the lifeforce energies of these fateful living beings moving into to the future.

The shadow is the imprint of these lifeforce energies echoing from the past.

Both the celestial astral and the fey ethereal attune moreso with positivity.

Both the fiendish astral and the shadow ethereal attune moreso with negativity.

 

[jgsugden]

In my homebrew world the positive and negative energy planes are living planes, the first things created by the single all powerful entity that came before them. They are worshipped as Gods, but outside of granting spells play little heed to mortals. This gives the planes some significance that is not tied to a current function in the universe... they've an ancient mystery from which everything else eventually spawned. It works.

 

[PrandletheBold]

Question from a D&D newbie: Are these positive and negative planes necessary in a D&D campaign? Or can the magic system of D&D be run without them, with perhaps a different "cosmology" behind it? Can undead by run as opponents in D&D without a negative energy plane being in the DM's multiverse?

 

[Azzy]

Question from a D&D newbie: Are these positive and negative planes necessary in a D&D campaign? Or can the magic system of D&D be run without them, with perhaps a different "cosmology" behind it? Can undead by run as opponents in D&D without a negative energy plane being in the DM's multiverse?

Sure, there's not much (if anything) in the default cosmology that is necessary to play.

 

[Tonguez]

Now I have a question:

Do you all think that because nobody can agree on the orientation of the Inner Planes, that means they must swirl around a lot?

yes absolutely

I actually really like the inconsistencies, its makes them more dynamic and ’real’ when Theorist in the world trying to understand the Grand Scheme of the universe each comes up with their own little quirks and differences.

The Planes are a thing of Magic, Faith and Phantasm there should be no True structure to it

 

[MechaTarrasque]

So do Quasi-elemental planes no longer exist? If they do exist how do they relate with to positive and negative energy planes? Do those planes simply permeate the rest of the multiverse or are they on the far edges of the outer-planes as the diagram would imply?

I think the elemental chaos is supposed to cover the quasi planes, since you can have two or more elements mixed together there.

Edit: this is my head cannon, but I think it helps. I picture the planes of air, earth, fire, and water as floating on the elemental chaos like continents floating on a sea of magma. Just like trying to get to magma in our world, you usually have to go through a continent unless you come across a place where the continent is thin and the lava leaks through. This might explain the origin the quasi planes, as planar explorers came across weak spots and thought they found new planes.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Sure, there's not much (if anything) in the default cosmology that is necessary to play.

Definitely for these planes - both of them are generally instantly lethal to anyone or anything trying to go there, so them not being places wouldn't even have ripple effects.

Getting rid of, say, the ethereal plane would make certain spells weird at best.