D&D 5E The cosmology of the Wheel and the Aether

[dave2008]

I really dont have outer planes. They are actual star systems (granted heavily modified by deities/powers)
So the Astral works great for the majority of world to world travel.

The ethereal is used to get to "shadows of reality" next to worlds, such as the shadow realm, fey wild etc. Deep ethereal leads to Limbo, from whence all things came.

I might have a pic that lays it out....

Cool idea. I've thought of doing something like this before. Why do you need the astral plane if they are just star systems in space. Why can't you just travel through space?

However, what I am trying to do is reconcile the existing cosmological cannons of D&D and MtG, so your approach wouldn't work. Cool idea though.

 

[SkidAce]

Cool idea. I've thought of doing something like this before. Why do you need the astral plane if they are just star systems in space. Why can't you just travel through space?

Well, because Einstein. /grin

So "hyperspace". Which becomes astral. And so I can have astral storms etc etc.

There is some in solar travel before you can "astral out". Also asstral allows me to have conduits (wormholes?) that help connect some areas more prominently/easily.

Good talk

/tangent

 

[dave2008]

In practical terms, the main purpose of the crystal spheres is to delineate the areas of influence of the various pantheons of deities. One could abstract that into metaphysical spheres, rather than physical barriers.

OK, I see that as a metaphysical barrier. Thanks for the information.

Another thought I had was was that one might measure "distance" between the planes by shared points of contact. The worlds of the Radiant Triangle share the same planar connections, so are effectively coterminous. Athas has no connection to the Outer Planes (making it one step removed), Eberron has no connection to the Inner or Outer planes (making it two steps removed), and-so-forth.

Yes, that is basically what I am trying to say. Eberron is further out in the border reality / blind eternity and therefore has less contact / shared points. However, because it share many of the same races and some gods and such I still see as relatively close to GW reality, when compared to the AEther realities at least.

 

[dave2008]

Well, because Einstein. /grin

So "hyperspace". Which becomes astral. And so I can have astral storms etc etc.

There is some in solar travel before you can "astral out". Also asstral allows me to have conduits (wormholes?) that help connect some areas more prominently/easily.

Good talk

/tangent

I thought it would be something like that, I just thought with "magic" it can be side stepped anyway. In theory one can teleport anywhere in the prime (at least it used to be that way, can't recall 5e teleport at the moment).

 

[ccs]

I've never ascribed any single model to how the planes/multi-verse is set up. So, depending upon wich Sage/wizard/priest etc you consult, you might find wildly differing drawings of how they each conceive it.
As to what's correct? (shrugs)

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Cool idea. I've thought of doing something like this before. Why do you need the astral plane if they are just star systems in space. Why can't you just travel through space?

However, what I am trying to do is reconcile the existing cosmological cannons of D&D and MtG, so your approach wouldn't work. Cool idea though.

Funny enough, this is how Marvel treats its gods (Asgard is a giant asteroid in space). Their realms are literally just planets one can travel to through space, although there are magical ways of moving from planet to planet.

I'm not really a fan of this as it kind of makes gods as just really powerful mortals to me, but I understand that people like thinking of the gods that way so I get the appeal.

 

[dave2008]

I've never ascribed any single model to how the planes/multi-verse is set up. So, depending upon wich Sage/wizard/priest etc you consult, you might find wildly differing drawings of how they each conceive it.
As to what's correct? (shrugs)

Yes, that is basically how I handle things as well. That is why, IMG, you can have the world-tree, world-axis, and great wheel all existing it the same reality. They are just different views / perspectives on how things are organized. However, I was trying to create an overall structure to understand how different realities relate.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I've come up with a somewhat interesting idea...

Eberron's hidden status in the Great Wheel is able to work largely because it is one world; one world out of many within the Material Plane should not be too difficult to hide, and escape the notice of several preoccupied deities.

But the Planes of Magic, or what @dave2008 calls the Aether Realities, are many. There are something like 80 known planes. And lore says that although the number of planes is probably finite, there are so many it is impossible to count them all.

With such a high number of worlds, hiding all of these in one area would simply be impossible, and the "null space" of impenetrable area would be common knowledge, even if not understood, by the gods of the wheel.

So how does one hide countless worlds? By placing them everywhere.

Right now, Spelljammer lore has each D&D world in the Material Plane within its own Crsytal Sphere, that can be reached via Spelljammer. My suggestion is that each plane is also within its own Crystal Sphere; the difference, is that the Blind Eternities cloaks them all, spread out across the Material Plane like a web.

So there are the "known" worlds, easily accessed by Spelljammers and connected by Phlogiston routes. Then there the the "cloaked" worlds, or Aether realities, that are also spread out, but cloaked in the Blind Eternities. The cloaked worlds connect to each other through tendrils of the Blind Eternities, a web that connects the planes like nodes, a web that Planeswalkers access to travel between worlds. Planeswalkers also can't access worlds beyond the web.

This way, there is no big "null space" that the gods will easily see. Instead, there are much smaller cloaked worlds all across the Material Plane, each one going unnoticed.

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

I've given this a bit of thought when converting the beginning of Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus to take place in Ravnica. In Magic since only planeswalkers can travel between the planes most angels, devils and demons are native inhabitants of the planes they are from. They even have different styles, angels on Dominaria are a bit different from angels on Ravnica and Amonkhet's angels seem to be doing their own thing altogether. This clashes with D&D's angels which are outsiders to the material worlds.

You could say that the outsiders in D&D come from the philosophically charged outer planes, while in Magic they are manifestations of mana but I wanted to keep a common origin for them. So I had the angels and demons that currently live on Ravnica be various runaways or colonists or curious travellers that arrived and were smitten by the charm of the little backwater world that is relatively isolated from the rest of the cosmos.

This fit in perfectly since Zariel now has an interim stage where before she falls she runs off to Ravnica out of protest of the lack of action from the rest of the heavenly host. On Ravnica the angels take direct action in battle which suits her. It's when the Blood War that she hated so much spills into her new home that she realizes that nowhere is truly safe from that struggle and something must be done about it.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I think you could make it so that the Magic worlds were cut off from the Wheel at some point, thus any D&D race, angel, demon (including a very lucky or very unlucky demon lord in Ravinca), and what not are there because they or their ancestors were on the Magic world when it got cut off. Like with animals on isolated islands that get bigger or smaller than the ones of the mainland, they are a little different than the ones from the Wheel.

As long as the Outer Planes are eventually getting the souls and all the Outer Planes are working under the same limitations, they don't care if they can't directly impact things. The most conspiracy-minded types in Sigil whisper it was a cross-alignment association of Powers that sealed off those worlds for some kind of experiment....