D&D 5E 4E Cosmology

[Neonchameleon]

Because it means there isn't anything!

You have annihilated existence itself!

How much plainer do I have to make it?

Person A looks at location X and says, "That place is blue."

Person B looks at location X and says, "That place is not blue."

Both of these people are correct, and thus there cannot BE facts.

That is not acceptable worldbuilding to me. Either there are facts about the structure of reality, or there are not.

Local domains where statement P is true in one domain and false in another? That's probably fine. Spaces defined by cultural beliefs? Sure, you can have those. But the two places those cultures speak about, the places they say mutually incompatible things about, cannot be one and exactly the same place.

It is possible for the World Axis and the Great Wheel to both be correct only if they are talking about two totally different "regions" with little to no overlap. It is not possible for two people to both look at exactly the same place, with the same knowledge, at the same time, in the same manner, etc., etc., as nauseam, and yet (1) actually observe mutually contradictory things, and (2) both be completely, 100% correct.

Either at least one of them is mistaken for each aspect they disagree on, or both of them are mistaken, or facts don't exist whatsoever. You can prove ANY statement from a contradiction.

Ahhh, Modernists. Person A looks at location X and says "Its name is Everest.", Person B says "Its name is Chomolungma", and Person C says its name is "Sagarmatha." All three of them are right. An American says "We should drive on the right" and a Brit says "We drive on the left". Both are correct.

A navigator says "The Mercator Projection is the best map projection to use and use Hobo-Dyer and you'll get lost" while a political geographer says "Hobo-Dyer is the best map projection to use and use Mercator and you'll completely have sizes wrong" and both are correct.

A person says "Light is a particle" and another says "Light is a wave". Both are correct.

The key issue here is that almost nothing we say is "completely 100% correct". Reality is bigger not just than we understand but than we can understand.

And it is entirely possible for The World Axis and Modern Great Wheel to both be correct. The Great Wheel I regard more as a "tourist map" picking out spots on a grand tour. And yes I consider it a distorted map - but there are reasons the London Underground Map doesn't match up to physical geography.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Considering the sheer size of the planes, I wouldn't be surprised if the world axis and the great wheel are just theories of their structure, it doesn't matter which is true or if neither is true, just pick one for your world beliefs. I mean, how many people can even look at all of creation to give a definitive "Yes, that's the way it is".

Okay. Let me use a physics example. This applies to you too, @Neonchameleon

One person, Alice, says that light is 100% purely a wave and it never ever has any particle-like properties, it can move at varying speeds even in totally empty vacuum, and its energy determines its wavelength. Another person, Beth, says that light is 100% purely a particle and it never ever has any wave-like properties, it has a fixed speed in pure vacuum and moves more slowly through all other materials, and it has no wavelength because it's a particle.

To the best of our scientific knowledge, which is quite extensive on this topic: Alice and Beth are equally incorrect about their first claims (light has both types of properties, something that can only be observed at incredibly tiny scale.) Alice is completely wrong about the second claim and Beth is completely right. Finally, Beth is completely wrong about the third claim (as a result of being wrong about the first), while Alice is completely right.

On each topic, there is some fact of the matter. Either one is right, or both are wrong. It cannot be the case that Beth correctly perceives that fact X is true, and also at the same time, in the same manner, of the same thing that Alice correctly perceives that fact X is false. That is a contradiction about reality itself.

The Great Wheel, the World Axis, and the World Tree make explicitly contradictory claims about the nature of reality. As an example, in the World Axis, divine domains are located exclusively within the Astral Sea, and this includes the Nine Hells, the divine domain usurped by Asmodeus. In the Great Wheel, the Nine Hells are explicitly and specifically an Outer Plane with no meaningful connection to the Astral Sea whatsoever, and Asmodeus has no inherent claim over it, he won control over it by conquest and could easily lose control over it if someone else dethroned him. The World Tree explicitly explains that only the outermost layer of the Nine Hells is accessible from the Astral Plane, and in particular, you cannot travel from plane A to plane B without passing through the Material Plane first.

Perhaps these contrasting theories can be valid in totally separate "regions" of the Astral. Perhaps they could be true sequentially, where one was true for a time, and then reality was rearranged. Perhaps they could be partially true, e.g. the World Tree is wrong to claim that all plane-to-plane travel must pass through the Prime Material, but that travel using the Tree must do so, while other methods exist.

But it cannot be the case that the World Tree and the World Axis and the Great Wheel are each completely true of exactly the same places, in exactly the same senses, at exactly the same time. That's a contradiction. Yet I was explicitly told, by multiple people in this thread, that at least two (and sometimes all possible theories!!) are both completely true, that person A can correctly perceive the Great Wheel while another person B, at exactly the same time, of exactly the same place, in exactly the same sense, can correctly perceive the World Axis.

 

[Yaarel]

As an example, in the World Axis, divine domains are located exclusively within the Astral Sea, and this includes the Nine Hells, the divine domain usurped by Asmodeus. In the Great Wheel, the Nine Hells are explicitly and specifically an Outer Plane with no meaningful connection to the Astral Sea whatsoever, and Asmodeus has no inherent claim over it, he won control over it by conquest and could easily lose control over it if someone else dethroned him.

As I understand the 5e cosmology, one can and does get to and from the Astral Sea and any alignment plane. Whirlpools can portal people back and forth.

As I interpret the descriptions so far, various dominions are in each alignment plane, such as Arvandor where Corellon resides, within Chaotic Good Arborea. Many of these dominions have access to the Astral Sea. Within the Sea, these access points appear as floating islands. Debarking onto such an island actually enters the dominion. However, not all island dominions in the Sea are related to a specific alignment. Many floating dominions are their own alignment-neutral concepts. For example, Hestavar is the concept, the ideal, of a magnificent city, and includes inhabitants from various alignments that pertain to what a magnificent city would entail.

Perhaps these contrasting theories can be valid in totally separate "regions" of the Astral. Perhaps they could be true sequentially, where one was true for a time, and then reality was rearranged. Perhaps they could be partially true, e.g. the World Tree is wrong to claim that all plane-to-plane travel must pass through the Prime Material, but that travel using the Tree must do so, while other methods exist.

I treat the domains and planes as separate regions. They exist as units, defined, informed, and organized by specific concepts.

The Axis, Tree, and Wheel, are all equally true. It is like having database. Each dominion is an entry in the information database. I can sort the data alphabetically, by date, be region, etcetera. It is all the same "information". It is me who is choosing how to navigate the information.

There is no actual up or down in the Astral Plane, there is no objectively existing space. It is all the way a dream experiences "space". One moment, a person is in the woods, turns around, and is now in a bedroom. This is "portal". So when using the Wheel to navigate the Astral Plane, the direction "upward" connotes "heaven" and "goodness", so that association symbolically organizes where to find the Good ethical semantics.

A can correctly perceive the Great Wheel while another person B, at exactly the same time, of exactly the same place, in exactly the same sense, can correctly perceive the World Axis.

Ah. Yeah, I agree. People together in a group, in a particular Astral dominion, are experiencing it in the same way.

But how one navigates to a different dominion somewhere else is a different consideration.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Okay. Let me use a physics example. This applies to you too, @Neonchameleon

On each topic, there is some fact of the matter. Either one is right, or both are wrong. It cannot be the case that Beth correctly perceives that fact X is true, and also at the same time, in the same manner, of the same thing that Alice correctly perceives that fact X is false. That is a contradiction about reality itself.

But. When A says light is a particle and B says it is a wave both are right. When either says they are 100% correct they are wrong. Because reality is too big for either of them. Of course you can cherry pick cases where people are wrong - but there are times when they can both be right. And it is impossible (see the Uncertainty Principle) for either to have knowledge that is complete.

The Great Wheel, the World Axis, and the World Tree make explicitly contradictory claims about the nature of reality. As an example, in the World Axis, divine domains are located exclusively within the Astral Sea, and this includes the Nine Hells, the divine domain usurped by Asmodeus. In the Great Wheel, the Nine Hells are explicitly and specifically an Outer Plane with no meaningful connection to the Astral Sea whatsoever,

I don't believe that this is true in 5e cosmology; as I understand it the Outer Planes are all connected to the Astral Plane/Astral Sea. Like I've said in the past the modern Great Wheel is (with the possible exception of the etherial plane) largely a different projection of 4e cosmology.

Perhaps these contrasting theories can be valid in totally separate "regions" of the Astral.

Or even with different meanings of "the Astral". Just as "America" has multiple related meanings.

Perhaps they could be true sequentially, where one was true for a time, and then reality was rearranged. Perhaps they could be partially true, e.g. the World Tree is wrong to claim that all plane-to-plane travel must pass through the Prime Material, but that travel using the Tree must do so, while other methods exist.

I'm going to ask for a citation on this being true in D&D 5e's version of the World Tree. Because I'm pretty sure Plane Shift has no restriction that way.

But it cannot be the case that the World Tree and the World Axis and the Great Wheel are each completely true

And what I'm saying is that none of them is completely true - but all of them are probably true enough to be useful.

of exactly the same places, in exactly the same senses, at exactly the same time. That's a contradiction. Yet I was explicitly told, by multiple people in this thread, that at least two (and sometimes all possible theories!!) are both completely true, that person A can correctly perceive the Great Wheel while another person B, at exactly the same time, of exactly the same place, in exactly the same sense, can correctly perceive the World Axis.

And using my map projection this makes as much sense as "Person A can correctly perceive the Mercator Projection while another person B at exactly the same ... can correctly perceive the Wasserman Butterfly". The reality isn't a flat map but an oblate spheroid. The Great Wheel and World Axis are just 2d maps of an at least 4d space.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Jotunheim allows for the classic Giant homes and big treasure. Giants, giant animals, dinosaurs, and big magic.

Dragonspire is more a controlled elemental plane with tons of classic strongholds with hoards.

Jotunheim is part of Ysgard I think normally

 

[pemerton]

It is not possible for two people to both look at exactly the same place, with the same knowledge, at the same time, in the same manner, etc., etc., as nauseam, and yet (1) actually observe mutually contradictory things, and (2) both be completely, 100% correct.

You haven't specified and in the same place, and moving at the same velocity. Without those additional stipulations, what you say is false in the real world - the observations can be mutually contradictory, and the constant element - the space-time interval - is not directly observable by human beings.

This feature of relativity was one of the reasons that there was a tendency, between the wars, to adopt neo-Kantian interpretations of the nature of physical reality and its relationship to human perception (eg Reichenbach).

As well as neo-Kantianism, of course, there is just plain old Kantianism and other forms of idealism, perspectivalism, etc, all of which have had serious adherents.

In the context of a FRPG, where the constraints on what people imagine are far looser than the constraints that even idealist philosophers labour under, your assertions about what is or isn't compatible with a fantastic "reality" are pretty dogmatic, and not that persuasive.

Yes....which means facts don't exist. As I said.

No. Relativistic semantics, theory of inference, etc does not entail - in any straightforward fashion, at least - that there are no facts. That is just dogmatic assertion.

 

[pemerton]

Okay. Let me use a physics example. This applies to you too, @Neonchameleon

One person, Alice, says that light is 100% purely a wave and it never ever has any particle-like properties, it can move at varying speeds even in totally empty vacuum, and its energy determines its wavelength. Another person, Beth, says that light is 100% purely a particle and it never ever has any wave-like properties, it has a fixed speed in pure vacuum and moves more slowly through all other materials, and it has no wavelength because it's a particle.

To the best of our scientific knowledge, which is quite extensive on this topic: Alice and Beth are equally incorrect about their first claims (light has both types of properties, something that can only be observed at incredibly tiny scale.) Alice is completely wrong about the second claim and Beth is completely right. Finally, Beth is completely wrong about the third claim (as a result of being wrong about the first), while Alice is completely right.

On each topic, there is some fact of the matter. Either one is right, or both are wrong. It cannot be the case that Beth correctly perceives that fact X is true, and also at the same time, in the same manner, of the same thing that Alice correctly perceives that fact X is false. That is a contradiction about reality itself.

The Great Wheel, the World Axis, and the World Tree make explicitly contradictory claims about the nature of reality. As an example, in the World Axis, divine domains are located exclusively within the Astral Sea, and this includes the Nine Hells, the divine domain usurped by Asmodeus. In the Great Wheel, the Nine Hells are explicitly and specifically an Outer Plane with no meaningful connection to the Astral Sea whatsoever, and Asmodeus has no inherent claim over it, he won control over it by conquest and could easily lose control over it if someone else dethroned him. The World Tree explicitly explains that only the outermost layer of the Nine Hells is accessible from the Astral Plane, and in particular, you cannot travel from plane A to plane B without passing through the Material Plane first.

Perhaps these contrasting theories can be valid in totally separate "regions" of the Astral. Perhaps they could be true sequentially, where one was true for a time, and then reality was rearranged. Perhaps they could be partially true, e.g. the World Tree is wrong to claim that all plane-to-plane travel must pass through the Prime Material, but that travel using the Tree must do so, while other methods exist.

But it cannot be the case that the World Tree and the World Axis and the Great Wheel are each completely true of exactly the same places, in exactly the same senses, at exactly the same time. That's a contradiction. Yet I was explicitly told, by multiple people in this thread, that at least two (and sometimes all possible theories!!) are both completely true, that person A can correctly perceive the Great Wheel while another person B, at exactly the same time, of exactly the same place, in exactly the same sense, can correctly perceive the World Axis.

Consider the sentence I am Australian. EzekielRaiden asserts it - and it is false. pemerton asserts it - and it is true! That doesn't mean there is no underlying reality.

That's a simple example - more complex ones can be given, but because they belong mostly to the domain of evaluative utterance, I won't go into them on these boards in any detail. The literature is easy enough to find if you're interested in it.

And that's before we get into more radically perspectival or idealist approaches to metaphysics and semantics, of the sort that I flagged in my post just upthread.

You are making dogmatic claims here that rest on premises - about the relationship between "the external world" and cognition and inference and semantics - which are contested by idealists and perspectivalists and relativists. It may be that realism is, in fact, the best philosophical account - but no one is going to be able to provide a tenable argument to that conclusion in the context of an ENW thread.

 

[pemerton]

the past the modern Great Wheel is (with the possible exception of the etherial plane) largely a different projection of 4e cosmology.

I'm not fully familiar with the modern Great Wheel. But as I posted upthread, I think the Great Wheel has an "ordering" that the 4e cosmology does not: because each outer plane is associated with an alignment, the planes can be ordered to create a structure that is the same as the alignment graph. This is not true of the 4e astral domains.

In the original MotP, and I think in Planescape, this structure is reinforced by the existence of portals linking "adjacent" outer planes, so that (eg) travel from the Abyss to Pandemonium is "straightforward" in a way that travel from the Abyss to Elysium is not.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the modern Great Wheel has got rid of (or, at least, ignores) the portal stuff. But the structure based on alignment is still there.

 

[cbwjm]

For something as abstract as the planes, I think it's fine to include multiple interpretations, that no one is necessarily correct though some may think that they're correct and as they move through the planes, from what little they can see they may very well have evidence that they are correct, but others with different views might gain the same insight. The planes are big, planeswalkers make diagrams and maps to help them make sense of things, but that doesn't necessarily mean that anyone is actually correct... or incorrect.

Basically, I don't think that anyone in any of the dnd fantasy worlds have ever really figured it out, not even the gods are all knowing. Everyone just makes sense of things as they can but for most, the actual layout of the planes doesn't matter. Some people even think there's a staircase that connects everything, how crazy is that?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

But. When A says light is a particle and B says it is a wave both are right. When either says they are 100% correct they are wrong. Because reality is too big for either of them. Of course you can cherry pick cases where people are wrong - but there are times when they can both be right. And it is impossible (see the Uncertainty Principle) for either to have knowledge that is complete.

It is impossible for certain specific kinds of knowledge to be totally complete. Other kinds of knowledge can be complete. Anything that operates by a Lagrangian (for non-math folks: anything where calculus works smoothly, no weird jumps or gaps) and possesses a symmetry (e.g. "physics is the same whether you're spinning CW or CCW") is mathematically proven to have a conservation law, for example. That's complete knowledge on that specific area. Paired variables--such as time/energy, or position/momentum--are subject to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle--but even then, we can set boundaries on what something can or can't be.

I don't believe that this is true in 5e cosmology; as I understand it the Outer Planes are all connected to the Astral Plane/Astral Sea. Like I've said in the past the modern Great Wheel is (with the possible exception of the etherial plane) largely a different projection of 4e cosmology.

"Connected to", but not located within. Which was the specific point I was making. Again, these are very simple, basic "how does planar travel work?" claims, that cannot all be simultaneously true. You have:

1. Great Wheel: The Astral Plane is akin to a backdrop or substructure, which touches all planes, inner and outer alike. You can travel from any plane to any other plane as you like via the Astral Plane, without needing to go along any specific path (though some are easier than others).
2. World Tree: The Astral Plane is a "channeled" transitive plane, meaning it exists as connections between points, not as a space in which other things are located. It's literally tree-shaped. You must, always, return to a Prime Material plane before traveling to another Inner or Outer plane via the Astral.
3. World Axis: The Astral Sea contains within it specific divine domains. You can easily traverse between any of those domains and the Sea overall, which surrounds each of them. It's much more difficult to go from the Astral Sea to any other planes, especially the Elemental Chaos.

I don't see any way that it is possible for all three of these statements to be completely true--which, again, is what I was told before, that two people can uphold any two of these models and both be completely correct. The World Tree's planar travel explicitly excludes things that the other two explicitly permit. It cannot be simultaneously and in the same sense the case that you absolutely must return to the Prime via the Astral before you can then go to some other Inner or Outer plane, and also be the case that you can just travel via the Astral Plane between any two non-Prime planes as you like.

Or even with different meanings of "the Astral". Just as "America" has multiple related meanings.

Yes...but that has no bearing on the trilemma. The law of non-contradiction recognizes differences of time, sense, and (for lack of a better term) "target". That is, A and Not-A can be true sequentially (one is true at one time, and another is true at a different time); or they can be true in different senses (e.g. A is true for arcane magic, while Not-A is true for divine magic); or they can be true of different things (e.g. A is true of the cosmological space surrounding Toril, while Not-A is true for the cosmological space surrounding Eberron). You've just given another spin on "in different senses."

I'm going to ask for a citation on this being true in D&D 5e's version of the World Tree. Because I'm pretty sure Plane Shift has no restriction that way.

Travel via the Astral. Other methods, obviously, exist. But in the World Tree, you cannot travel directly from Plane A to Plane B via the Astral.

AFAIK, no 5e book has ever said anything about the World Tree cosmology other than to recognize that it's a model some people have used, so there is no citation for what you want, neither for nor against. Hence, we must rely on the authority of previous works--and those previous works, even as late as 3e, explicitly say that Astral travel from one plane directly to another is not possible.

And what I'm saying is that none of them is completely true - but all of them are probably true enough to be useful.

And what I keep telling you is that someone else in this thread explicitly said that they were ACTUALLY true. That each person's perceptions were, in fact, true, in the same sense, of the same thing, at the same time. That is what I'm negatively reacting to.

If you assert that the books have these reams and reams of information about the Great Wheel and that they're just really wrong...well, I guess I find that really weird because that feels like a LOT of space wasted on "facts" that aren't true and can be confirmed as untrue. Why do they harp so hard on a bazillion tiny details of a theory that is riddled with falsehoods and only true enough to be useful some of the time (since, by implication, other theories must be useful at other times).

And using my map projection this makes as much sense as "Person A can correctly perceive the Mercator Projection while another person B at exactly the same ... can correctly perceive the Wasserman Butterfly". The reality isn't a flat map but an oblate spheroid. The Great Wheel and World Axis are just 2d maps of an at least 4d space.

The map is not and never has been the problem. It's the specific, testable, cosmological claims that each cosmology makes which explicitly contradict one another.

Well, that and the problem others have highlighted, which is "Oh, sure, you can try this other thing. You'll just have to completely reinvent 3/4ths of the Monster Manual and deal with having zero support for your cosmology, all while casting aside mountains of highly detailed worldbuilding. But sure, you can do that! If you really, really want to." That is, the books give, what, a page? If that? of lip-service to the idea that other cosmologies might be valid, and then spend some fifty pages going into exhaustive detail about just one specific theory and all the cool things present in it.

It's not hard to see which of these things is billed as Quite Clearly Correct, and which are billed as "well...I guess...if you have to".