D&D General What is your favorite D&D cosmology?

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Don’t miss the Ethereal plane in the least.

 

[SkidAce]

Don’t miss the Ethereal plane in the least.

My penchant for it to be slightly ethereal, ghostly, and dreamscape, might be influencing my questions to others.

 

[Vaalingrade]

World Axis.

While the Eberron cosmology is best for Eberron and Eberron is the only official setting I care about, it's not really a good general one.

So the World Axis with it's organic structure and blessed lack of aligned planes get the win.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

My penchant for it to be slightly ethereal, ghostly, and dreamscape, might be influencing my questions to others.

My feeling settled on it can all just be a … condition … that exists on every plane. It doesn’t need to be a cosmological place. Planar travel can happen through plane shift and portals just as easily without it functioning as a planar transitway.

 

[SkidAce]

When I wrote up the planes section for Level Up, I took inspiration from 4e's version as to what planes are known, but used the metaphor of a book to describe travel.

A plane is like the text on the page, and the ethereal is like the page it's written on, while the book itself is the astral plane.

Which book is the planes section in?

 

[Fifinjir]

I’ll go with the 5e version of Great Wheel.

For one, especially with Fizbang’s, it emphasizes that “material plane” does not mean “mundane plane”. The Prime Material is an intensely magical place as befitting where the forces of the multiverse come together.

It keeps the Fewild and Shadowfell, probably the best parts of world axis.

It emphasizes that the wheel is just a model and the the planes likely work in a looser way then theorized, allowing room for plenty of anomalies like how Eberron fits in.

Shows how the outsiders are active in the Prime Material and can be encountered right from first level. For instance, the Blood War is said to frequently spill into the Material and demons (and presumably devils) have conquered several worlds.

Speaking of the Blood War, I think it does a decent job conveying the mindsets of those involved. The devils don’t just fight the demons because they want the world to still be around to rule over, but also because it’s effective propaganda for their ideology.

 

[Yaarel]

Normally, I would say Eberron has the best cosmology. Actually, it has many cosmologies.

It treats religion relativistically. Each culture has its own cosmology. There are competing worldviews. Each is valid. Religion is a subjective cultural identity. Each perspective can manifest miracles.

The Eberron approach is insightful. It seems to be the only way, that a game design can be open to, and respectful of, reallife cultural perspectives.



Unfortunately, the 5e Eberron has recently canonized the Forgotten Realms polytheistic gods as the only "true religion", in a misguided attempt at corporate identity consolidation. I hate that WotC did this.

D&D religions need to become more "kitchen sink" − especially within the core rules.

It is a high priority that each reallife player − from whatever cultural sensibility − can be comfortable while playing D&D.

 

[Dausuul]

Since I am always tinkering with cosmology and planes/worlds etc, I came upon this thread again.

A question to those who are fans of the 4E World Axis. How do you feel/deal with no Ethereal Plane, border or otherwise?

After some thought, I think it makes the most sense to fold it into the Feywild and the Shadowfell, which fill a similar role of "parallel planes." For instance, using oil of etherealness would take you to either Feywild or Shadowfell, your choice. Something that let you see ethereal creatures would let you see both planes. Etc.

The alternative would be to add an Ethereal "wrapper" around the three material planes (Material, Feywild, Shadowfell), but that feels like unnecessary clutter for the sake of a handful of spells and items.

 

[RangerWickett]

Which book is the planes section in?

It's around page 32 in Trials and Treasures.

 

[Oofta]

I voted other, for my own cosmology. It's loosely based on Norse mythology with a few tweaks. Instead we have 9 distinct worlds, each accessible via the great yew tree Yggdrasil. I've rearranged things a bit but here's a picture:

The first level:

• Asgard, world of the Aesir (gods of humans)
• Alfheim, land of the Sidhe (feywild)
• Dwarfheim, Land of the dwarven deities
• Vanaheim, land of the Vanir (Elven Deities)

The second level:

• Midgard, Mortal Realm (middle world/garden, prime material)

The third level:

• Jotunheim, Land of the giants (Jotuns) and fiends (devils/demons)
• Svartalfheim, Land of the drow, the underdark
• Helheim, Realm of the dead;
• Niflheim (shadowfell), World of the dead, shadow and dreams.

Some of the planes can be crossed into fairly easily, even accidentally, particularly the Alfheim/feywild and Nifleheim/shadowfell. The underdark is really Svartleheim and can be accessed from deep underground. Other worlds must be accessed by travelling the world tree, if they can be accessed at all by mortals. Asgard is surrounded by a massive wall and of course Heimdall guards the bifrost bridge.

Admittedly Jotunheim is a bit of a mess because it contains not only the land of fire giants Muspleheim and frost giants, Udgard, it also encompasses Avernus and the Abyss. Because I put the land of fire and frost together, I added a new land Neistrym which is my own creation.

So now I have a place for the Sidhe/Archfey with Alfheim, Nifleheim is where ghosts and undead originate, along with worlds for gods (good and evil) along with giants and fiends. Makes more sense to me than things like planes of fire or water, those always seemed kind of silly to me.

There is also room for a multiverse because Yggdrasil is not the only tree. Whether I ever really do anything with that remains to be seen, it's been mentioned here and there but I have yet to do anything with it. Maybe someday I'll do my own riff on planescape.