D&D 5E 4E Cosmology

[dave2008]

Contrariwise, in the World Axis, souls have an afterlife domain they're supposed to go to, based on whichever god they worshipped or were most similar to in their behavior, but the shattering of the Lattice of Heaven broke this connection, ensuring that some souls simply don't have an afterlife to go to, a problem most deities (regardless of alignment!) are content to completely ignore because they think they have bigger fish to fry. (One of my favorite things about 4e Bahamut is that he is the only deity who cares enough about the homeless petitioners of the Astral Plane, regardless of their alignment, to try to build for them a safe and comfortable home.)

I wanted to respond to this comment in a bit more detail as I feel it might be getting to the heart of the matter in some our different perspectives. What you are describing in the above I would call setting lore, not cosmology. Though they can be related, they are not the same thing IMO.

For example, I use a modified version of the 5e great wheel. However, I really like the 4e lore and adopted, among other things, the breaking of the Lattice of Heaven. That lore works perfectly well in the great wheel setting and functions pretty much the same in 5e as it did in 4e. That is lore, not cosmology IMO.

PS - I do love that about Bahamut as well. 4e really had some of the best lore IMO.

 

[dave2008]

They did? Where are the verifiable (i.e. non-mythical) accounts of people visiting The Elysian Fields, Hades, Asgard, or Hel?

In mythology mortals went to these locations (though rarely) and returned. So within the mythology it was verifiable. D&D, is not RL, it is a mythology. So, in my mind, it functions the same way.

No

 

[dave2008]

Point of order: They did not. They held as a matter of belief that there were afterlives. No one who went to one of them could return from them IRL.

Within Greek and Norse mythology, mortals traveled to other planes, realms, etc. and interacted with gods. monsters, and spirits. Within the mythology it was verifiable to mortals that deities and otherworldly realms existed. D&D is a mythology, not RL, and functions much the same way.

I don't believe there is any reason to discuss how RL peoples viewed their religion. That isn't relevant IMO.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Within Greek and Norse mythology, mortals traveled to other planes, realms, etc. and interacted with gods. monsters, and spirits. Within the mythology it was verifiable to mortals that deities and otherworldly realms existed. D&D is a mythology, not RL, and functions much the same way.

I don't believe there is any reason to discuss how RL peoples viewed their religion. That isn't relevant IMO.

...because in the actual world of D&D it is verifable. In the actual world where Norse and Greek etc. mythologies existed, meaning our world, it is not verifiable. You're comparing apples to oranges. On the one hand, for a character inside the world of D&D, it is in fact a physically verifiable place, not merely a story people tell one another which may or may not correspond to reality and which none of them have any evidence about besides those stories. On the other, for a human inside the world of Earth, these things are not physically verifiable places, and are merely stories people tell one another which may or may not correspond to reality and which no IRL human has any evidence about besides those stories.

To a character actually IN the cosmology, this is a verifiable, empirical fact; there is no need to take them on faith. To a human actually IN the cosmology of Earth, these things are not verifiable, empirical facts; they must be taken on faith.

Nothing like what an IRL human on IRL Earth experiences occurs in the cosmology of D&D editions. Nothing like what a character in the cosmology of a D&D edition experiences occurs--in any testable fashion--on IRL Earth. That is precisely what makes the comparison inapt.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Part of the issue is that alignment in itself is a bad thing, and anything that enforces it on the cosmological structure is equally bad. Plus, it is a matter of box-checking. The lower planes likely originate in Gygax taking out a thesaurus and looking up synonyms for "hell", with Jeff Grubb then adding some actual content to those planes.

They did? Where are the verifiable (i.e. non-mythical) accounts of people visiting The Elysian Fields, Hades, Asgard, or Hel?

Or more likely Gygax had actually read Paradise Lost. Especially the part where Satan runs into Orcus and Demogorgon OUTSIDE of Hell:
and by them stood
Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name
Of Demogorgon;....
T' whom Satan, turning boldly, thus:—"Ye Powers
And Spirits of this nethermost Abyss...

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Maybe a dumb question, but why does the cosmology matter? How does it impact your game at the table, at least at the beginning - and even later? As noted in the quote from the DMG24 above, the way to get to various planes is through gates or floating on the Astral Sea. The "spatial" relationship on a 2D map is just for human comprehension.

I do agree and like the idea though of Chaos trying to break down Order; but then again, I always was a fan of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. (Irony alert! It's the 2nd LAW, the LAW OF ENTROPY . It's got all the Chaos folx really pissed off tbh)

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Maybe a dumb question, but why does the cosmology matter? How does it impact your game at the table, at least at the beginning - and even later? As noted in the quote from the DMG24 above, the way to get to various planes is through gates or floating on the Astral Sea. The "spatial" relationship on a 2D map is just for human comprehension.

I think it's really important for the DM to decide which type of cosmology they are using and then to stick with that approach to keep verisimilitude, but as a player I don't really care as long as things stay internally consistent.

Between cosmology, pantheons, and the general world map, every campaign I've ever seen uses different homebrew approaches tailored to that DM's preferences, which have always worked out fine as long as the DM has a consistent world.

 

[Staffan]

In mythology mortals went to these locations (though rarely) and returned. So within the mythology it was verifiable. D&D, is not RL, it is a mythology. So, in my mind, it functions the same way.

That's just as verifiable as heaven and hell in Christianity, i.e. not.

 

[cbwjm]

Maybe it's just because I find most old Planescape books insufferable but I honestly do find the presentation of the planes in 4E much more friendly to adventure. Even when I like the design of a plane better in the Great Wheel material, like Carceri's nested planets vs the bog of 4E, the actual lore about Carceri and the reasons it exists are so much more interesting in 4E.

It can still be a plane full of the souls of traitorous mortals, but 'a Prison of the Gods built to contain the 24/7 Abomination Factory they built and then couldn't turn off during the Dawn War' is so much more interesting than 'we needed a step between True Chaotic Evil and Evil Chaotic Neutral.

I doubt alignment had much to do with the creation Carceri, it's always been a prison plane where the gods have put the unwanted, that's where you find the titans, for instance. Wanting to keep Tartarus for the imprisoned titans is probably why it exists since early dnd.

 

[Charlaquin]

Maybe a dumb question, but why does the cosmology matter? How does it impact your game at the table, at least at the beginning - and even later? As noted in the quote from the DMG24 above, the way to get to various planes is through gates or floating on the Astral Sea. The "spatial" relationship on a 2D map is just for human comprehension.

I do agree and like the idea though of Chaos trying to break down Order; but then again, I always was a fan of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. (Irony alert! It's the 2nd LAW, the LAW OF ENTROPY . It's got all the Chaos folx really pissed off tbh)

The cosmological “maps” are always abstractions. The way they’re spatially laid out is aesthetically pleasing, but basically irrelevant. The important part is, what are the planes, what are they like, and how do you reach them. The thing that most Workd Axis fans like about it is that every plane is highly focused on being a gameable play space. The Shadowfell and the Feywild are mirrors of the material plane, so while you may face different obstacles there than you would on the material plane, their spaces are essentially just as navigable as the material plane. Instead of the elemental planes (which are typically depicted as composed primarily of their respective elements, making them almost completely impossible to navigate, not to mention pretty devoid of interesting interactable features), you have the elemental chaos. As originally conceived, the elemental chaos is a constantly changing place where all of the elements interact, combine, annihilate, and recombine. Adventures within the elemental chaos take place in short-lived pockets of relative stability, where the elements are locally and temporarily in a stable enough balance as to be essentially as navigable as the material plane. Instead of the outer planes, you have the astral sea, which can be “sailed” kind of spelljammer style, to reach “islands” that, once again, can be navigated and explored. Since these astral domains are not beholden to exemplifying particular alignments, there is no limit to their number, or to what adventures might be had there; they can be dynamic places where interesting conflicts happen, instead of static places of perfect goodness, order, evil, or disorder.