D&D General DnD cosmology - Which Edition do you prefer?
Sorcerers Apprentice
Hero
I like the 4E "World Tree" model, because it's more flexible and feels less mechanical than the "Great Wheel" model. It just feels wrong that even the most chaotic planes fit neatly into an ordered alignment of planes.
3e Manual of the Planes on cosmology design is good, yup.
I like the 4e World Axis and tend to use it as a default for higher fantasy settings. For more modernist swords & sorcery I like the alternate-dimensions approach of Primeval Thule and Wilderlands of High Fantasy.
I like them all? They all have different pluses and minuses and I like to draw from all of them to build my own.
From BECMI I like the idea of infinite Outer Planes rather than a great wheel, but from Planescape I love the idea of the war between Law and Chaos taking place on the Great Wheel and being interfered with by mortals mucking about with philosophy to impose their own vision on it all. From 3e I love the addition of the Feywild and Shadow as separate planes that overlap the Prime like the Ethereal, and from 4e I prefer the Elemental Chaos to the traditional Elemental Planes and I like 4e's view of the Astral and the Outer Planes as well.
It's all great,and picking and choosing the best bits and mixing them with my own ideas is the most fun part.
From BECMI I like the idea of infinite Outer Planes rather than a great wheel, but from Planescape I love the idea of the war between Law and Chaos taking place on the Great Wheel and being interfered with by mortals mucking about with philosophy to impose their own vision on it all. From 3e I love the addition of the Feywild and Shadow as separate planes that overlap the Prime like the Ethereal, and from 4e I prefer the Elemental Chaos to the traditional Elemental Planes and I like 4e's view of the Astral and the Outer Planes as well.
It's all great,and picking and choosing the best bits and mixing them with my own ideas is the most fun part.
RoughCoronet0
Dragon Lover
I prefer 4e’s World Axis cosmology to anything else, though I do use the great wheel’s interpretation of several of the outer planes as they have more collective lore for said planes. I also miss the primal spirits and how they were an in universe reason why the gods couldn’t directly interact with the material plane.
Yaarel
He Mage
I am happy enough with the 5e cosmology.
5e keeps the 4e spirit worlds of Fey and Shadow, which is awesome, but also brings back the 1e elemental spirit world of Ethereal.
The "shallow ethereal" is the ethereal physical forces that are part of the material plane. There the spirits of both Fey and Shadow can manifest.
It is notable that the elemental planes of earth, water, air, and fire are immaterial and not part of the material plane. I understand these as the "form" of matter, but not actually matter itself. Essentially, they are the building blocks that form and shape the elements of the material plane.
I am less a fan of the alignment Wheel. I find its grid-filling symmetry problematic, as well as how it distorts reallife cultural heritages. Plus, I find the Wheel is highly disruptive to gameplay, because of how its baked-in religions interfere with with the unique settings that exist in the multiverse. Even so, it is easy enough to treat the astral plane as a virtual reality where each culture generates its own astral domain of cultural concepts, ideals, and taboos. So, these fluid domains that comprise paradigms that come and go while cultures evolve, are more like the 4e astral sea.
The 5e astral plane is a dreamlike realm of pure thought. Things are "near" each other when they remind one of each other.
One can navigate the astral plane by jumping from paradigm to paradigm that somehow relate to each other. So a symbol of archetypal Good in one culture might link a party to the symbol of archetypal Good in an other culture. So there can be defacto alignment Wheel in the sense of using alignment affinity to navigate the realms of thought. But it is more important that each astral domain is authentic to the cultural constructs of a particular culture in a particular setting, while relativistically declaring the astral domains of other cultures irrelevant or even fundamentally nonexistent, from the perspective of a particular culture. The myths of cultures can contradict each other. Because of the nature of reality and how language constructs it, each cultural belief system can be fundamentally "true" from its own perspective. Even so, cultures evolve and therefore astral domains evolve with them in parallel.
For me a "culture" can be as large as a nation of hudreds of millions of citizens, to as small as ten persons who share a comprehensive way of life.
Astral domains that emerge from populous cultures tend to also include "demi domains" sotospeak of the subcultures within it. An immigrant subculture can construct a demidomain that relativistically "borders" two different populous astral domains.
5e keeps the 4e spirit worlds of Fey and Shadow, which is awesome, but also brings back the 1e elemental spirit world of Ethereal.
The "shallow ethereal" is the ethereal physical forces that are part of the material plane. There the spirits of both Fey and Shadow can manifest.
It is notable that the elemental planes of earth, water, air, and fire are immaterial and not part of the material plane. I understand these as the "form" of matter, but not actually matter itself. Essentially, they are the building blocks that form and shape the elements of the material plane.
I am less a fan of the alignment Wheel. I find its grid-filling symmetry problematic, as well as how it distorts reallife cultural heritages. Plus, I find the Wheel is highly disruptive to gameplay, because of how its baked-in religions interfere with with the unique settings that exist in the multiverse. Even so, it is easy enough to treat the astral plane as a virtual reality where each culture generates its own astral domain of cultural concepts, ideals, and taboos. So, these fluid domains that comprise paradigms that come and go while cultures evolve, are more like the 4e astral sea.
The 5e astral plane is a dreamlike realm of pure thought. Things are "near" each other when they remind one of each other.
One can navigate the astral plane by jumping from paradigm to paradigm that somehow relate to each other. So a symbol of archetypal Good in one culture might link a party to the symbol of archetypal Good in an other culture. So there can be defacto alignment Wheel in the sense of using alignment affinity to navigate the realms of thought. But it is more important that each astral domain is authentic to the cultural constructs of a particular culture in a particular setting, while relativistically declaring the astral domains of other cultures irrelevant or even fundamentally nonexistent, from the perspective of a particular culture. The myths of cultures can contradict each other. Because of the nature of reality and how language constructs it, each cultural belief system can be fundamentally "true" from its own perspective. Even so, cultures evolve and therefore astral domains evolve with them in parallel.
For me a "culture" can be as large as a nation of hudreds of millions of citizens, to as small as ten persons who share a comprehensive way of life.
Astral domains that emerge from populous cultures tend to also include "demi domains" sotospeak of the subcultures within it. An immigrant subculture can construct a demidomain that relativistically "borders" two different populous astral domains.
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EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
4e, hands down, absolutely no question. The World Axis is a delight to read about (maybe someday Bahamut's DIVINE ASTEROID ARK-SHIPS will stop being ridonkulously cool...but that will be a very sad day), favors a very "true to the myths" cosmology of worlds like enough to our own to visit but unlike enough to be alien, and strikes an excellent balance between simplicity on the one hand (five main planes with a sixth kinda-plane in the Far Realm, twenty living deities total) and depth on the other hand (the Dawn War and Winter War lore, the various divine domains and inter-deity politics, the partially-articulated histories of Arkhosia and Bael Turath etc., the explanations for the origins of the various races e.g. Elf vs Eladrin).
It is a masterful demonstration of what you can do when you really focus on creating a setting that reflects the cosmology of Antiquity rather than the Enlightenment period, and on detailing those parts of it that are actually reachable by people.
It is a masterful demonstration of what you can do when you really focus on creating a setting that reflects the cosmology of Antiquity rather than the Enlightenment period, and on detailing those parts of it that are actually reachable by people.
overgeeked
B/X Known World
I have two long-time favorites and one budding favorite.
The cosmology from the Basic line, infinite planes and dimensions, time and space travel…with mortals ascending to godhood.
Or the World Axis cosmology from 4E. Everything is immediately playable and usable and doesn’t simply exist for the sake of symmetry.
Though I am growing fond of the Otherworld variant from the 5E DMG. Far more immediate and usable than even the World Axis. Basically, instead of the planes all being “out there” they all explicitly touch the here and now. The swamp is part of / a portal to the Shadowfell. The forest is part of / a portal to the Feywild. The volcano is part of / a portal to the Elemental Chaos. It gives things more of a mythical or fairy tale feel.
The cosmology from the Basic line, infinite planes and dimensions, time and space travel…with mortals ascending to godhood.
Or the World Axis cosmology from 4E. Everything is immediately playable and usable and doesn’t simply exist for the sake of symmetry.
Though I am growing fond of the Otherworld variant from the 5E DMG. Far more immediate and usable than even the World Axis. Basically, instead of the planes all being “out there” they all explicitly touch the here and now. The swamp is part of / a portal to the Shadowfell. The forest is part of / a portal to the Feywild. The volcano is part of / a portal to the Elemental Chaos. It gives things more of a mythical or fairy tale feel.
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Yaarel
He Mage
I treat the shallow ethereal as the DMG "otherworld". Spirits of any kind can be found there whether the "spirits" are elemental influences, fey, or shadow.
Meanwhile the "deep ethereal" comprises the thematically immersive domains of these spirits, including fey and shadow.
Technically, angels are intellects (thought constructs), not spirits (force constructs). However, when the angels roam the material plane, they do so ethereally forming a virtual body made out of force. The astral can clothe itself in ethereal spirit. In this way celestials and fiends can also be found within the otherworld of the shallow ethereal.
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