Do You Care About Cosmology?

Reading these replies there seems to be a conflation of Cosmology and Mythology. The fundamental idea seems to be a spherical, Earth-like planet (ish) orbiting a sun. That's fine and most of those answering that it doesn't impact their game seem to assume that it's all a normal Big Bang style Universe, no creator mythology is really needed, although the inhabitants have probably made some up anyway. Fair enough.
But for me the Cosmology can be changed. Why not? Terry Pratchett did it with Disc World, although even that seemed to exist is something resembling our Universe on a visual level at least...
We went a step further and enclosed our world in a finite universe with lots of different creation myths, with and without supporting evidence. It's a hoot!... Www.dunrominuniversitypress.co.uk

Simon Miles said:

Reading these replies there seems to be a conflation of Cosmology and Mythology.

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I think it's inevitable. While they are technically different there's a huge amount of overlap, especially when it comes to the way that players interact with them. If you were to create a game world with clerics worshiping Helios for his job literally carrying the sun across the sky and create a detailed back story for the god, can you really draw a clear line of where the cosmology ends and the mythology begins?

There is also some conflating of cosmology and alignment, but I think that's expected as well (particularly when planes of Good and Evil get involved).

Simon Miles said:

Reading these replies there seems to be a conflation of Cosmology and Mythology.

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Not really. In RPG terms, "cosmology" is "how the universe is ordered."

So, in D&D, that includes what a world is like, what all the various other planes are like, how they inter-relate, their interconections, and so on. It often includes some elements of how magic works, how gods operate, etc.

The entire "Great Wheel" of D&D is a cosmology, for example.

Simon Miles said:

Reading these replies there seems to be a conflation of Cosmology and Mythology. The fundamental idea seems to be a spherical, Earth-like planet (ish) orbiting a sun. That's fine and most of those answering that it doesn't impact their game seem to assume that it's all a normal Big Bang style Universe, no creator mythology is really needed, although the inhabitants have probably made some up anyway. Fair enough.
But for me the Cosmology can be changed. Why not? Terry Pratchett did it with Disc World, although even that seemed to exist is something resembling our Universe on a visual level at least...
We went a step further and enclosed our world in a finite universe with lots of different creation myths, with and without supporting evidence. It's a hoot!... Www.dunrominuniversitypress.co.uk

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In my own game, our universe is one of Nine Realms, and is the only one that functions like ours does. One is Void and home only to things that don’t exist yet still are and wish only for existence to cease so they can stop being. Another is made entirely of Will, and no physical thing can exist there for long, and is where the gods usually live, but also where The Infinite Hells all exist (all the places of torment and demons and fallen gods and such).
Another is Otherworld, which is like Faerie/Feywild/Shadowfel/etc and often looks like our world but then functions on Wonderland physics in many ways and space is like a Jules Verne meets fairies and djinn sort of place where you can have a river that flows through many planets that all share the same “sky” and massive flying whales glide from world to world and time and distance aren’t always linear and geometry isn’t always rational. Another is The World Tree and its roots and the forest around it which grows from its roots and is infinite, and around that spins a miles and miles wide ring with two poles, one of fire and one of ice, and inbetween giants and megafauna and trolls and fir bolgs live, and under the forest of Yggdrasil is another forest called Nidavellir that is so great and deep that it is always dark and the caves beneath go on forever and the forest and caves are home to the Duragr who helped build the worlds, and Vanaheimr is a world of spirits and places like The River and The Tower, which are places of great peril and power.

So the cosmology and mythology matter deeply to things like “how did this troll character grow up? What is different about their basic assumptions from a standard human?” And even, “What is a Duragr or a Vidalfar?” Because both Ancestries are descended from spirits of one type or another.

The fact that gods and land spirits and ghosts and mortal souls are all actually the same thing lead to making it so that a mortal can become a deity or vise versa, and spirits can become mortals sometimes. Etc. it also informs the way that magic works and what limits it,

My primary homebrew sits within a bowl of sorts, and the various planes can be reached from physically fixed points on the Prime Material (based on old tales of like real-world Olympus being where the Greek gods could be found, certain volcanic fields in Norway led directly to Niflheim and such). Also, the sun revolves parallel around the continent at a distance around a central mountain, and night occurs in the various lands when the sun goes "behind the mountain" in a given area.

For the most part, when I'm designing fantasy worlds, I like to avoid using spherical, standard planets. This is a fantasy game and to me it creates a more interesting world with edges you can fall off, torus worlds and other non-standard worlds.

Stormonu said:

My primary homebrew sits within a bowl of sorts, and the various planes can be reached from physically fixed points on the Prime Material (based on old tales of like real-world Olympus being where the Greek gods could be found, certain volcanic fields in Norway led directly to Niflheim and such). Also, the sun revolves parallel around the continent at a distance around a central mountain, and night occurs in the various lands when the sun goes "behind the mountain" in a given area.

For the most part, when I'm designing fantasy worlds, I like to avoid using spherical, standard planets. This is a fantasy game and to me it creates a more interesting world with edges you can fall off, torus worlds and other non-standard worlds.

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I love that.

It hasn’t ever come up, but one of my worlds is a disc with two sides, spinning in space like a coin. The sun and stars are literally the domains of the gods and other Powers, with the sun being the home of the Goddess of Life and Hope, and the Moon being the home of the Huntress, with its silver leafed forests and glimmering lakes and rivers.

My biggest cosmology includes the real world universe, but also has the World Tree, with an infinite forest around it growing amongst its roots, and a halo ring with ice and fire poles orbiting it, and a planet and 9 moons orbiting between the two.

Space Fantasy has space but it isn’t scientific and is full of Aether, which can be breathed, and there are ancient dragons that slumber as they fly, covered in extensive societies of kobolds, at least one “Sun” that is actually a Seraphim, a dualistic galactic Core that is The Tower and The River, which are to much to explain quickly, a region of space where there are no planets and instead as you approach you find yourself in the sky above a verdant world that seems infinite, until you fly back up past the lower atmosphere and into space, but even there you will see treetops of trees whose base are the size of small mountains and mountains the size of worlds, and great flying whale-like creatures with coral growths on their backs that they can use to destroy ships and fight other “Aetheradons”, and many other oddities besides.

If you’re gonna have a fantasy cosmology, it might as well be weird as hell.

Here is an Asian take on the Inner Planes a friend of mine introduced to me twelve years ago:

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• A quick glance at Wikipedia reveals to me that there are two different interaction systems: one "generating", in which one element creates another, and one "overcoming," in which one element lessens another. Instead of having quasi- and para-elemental planes, then, perhaps you could have more dynamic Generating and Overcoming planes, combining aspects of the quasi- and para- divisions.
  
  Picture, then, the five elements arranged in a ring: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water. On the pole above them is Yang (positive energy) and on the pole below them is Yin (Negative Energy). Truth to tell, of course, there's no such direction in the ethereal: every elemental plane in this arrangement shares a border with every other elemental plane, even Wood with Earth and with Metal. You could arrange the ring Wood, Earth, Water, Fire, Metal, and in so doing more clearly show the arrangement of Overcoming planes, which normally have to be shown on a separate map for two-dimensional mapmakers, or hung between the planes in the shape of a pentacle for three-dimensional orreries.
  
  So we'd have the following ten, oh, let's call them hemiplanes:
  
  Generating Hemiplanes:
  
  Wood generating Fire: Hemiplane of Air. Winds rustle through reeds and shake branches as you pass toward the plane of Fire; gradually, the winds become faster, the grasses dry out, the branches rub harder... and then they burst into flame all around you. (There seems to be a large inhabited portion of this plane far away from any wood at all. How very strange, think the wu jen.)
  
  Fire generating Earth: Hemiplane of Coals. Follow the cinders as they collect, from specks into rivers of red-hot boulders, cooling and solidifying into a wall in front of you. Rich ash fertilizes the soil that surrounds you, volcanic obsidian glimmers. (Negative energy? When ash is so good for plants and volcanos create whole islands? What strange notions foreigners have of the elements. This plane is touched by Yang, not Yin.)
  
  Earth generating Metal: Hemiplane of Ore. Gems are pretty, yes, we see why you call this the Plane of Mineral, but really, ask any dwarf and he'll tell you it's the veins of metal he's after here.
  
  Metal generating Water: Hemiplane of Rain. Down it pours from pure Yang, gentled into droplets by the elemental nature of Water, to be collected here by Metal and poured into its native plane.
  
  Water generating Wood: Hemiplane of Muck. Yang enriches water with nutrients, which thicken until you slow from swimming to a crawl through mud and lush soil oozing with vitality, to emerge in the great forest of the Plane of Wood.
  
  Overcoming Hemiplanes:
  
  Water overcomes Fire: Hemiplane of fumes. You can get from Water to Fire, if you're willing to pass close to Yin, and go through a choking hemiplane of gradually dirtier steam and smoke to get straight to your destination.
  
  Fire overcomes Metal: Hemiplane of Magma. Metal in this plane has fallen under the relentless assault of fire. It may be a necessary step in the process of purification, but the wu jen can be uncomfortable so near a manifestation of Yin. (Even if you don't think the plane is near Negative Energy at all.)
  
  Metal overcomes Wood: Hemiplane of Vacuum. To travel from Metal directly to Wood, you must pass in the track where the blade has struck, through this plane the wu jen call the Wound. Launch yourself from the point of the metal's wedge; if you know the way, you will land in a notch of wood on the other side.
  
  Wood overcomes Earth: Hemiplane of Dust. Travel to where the forest thins, where Wood has taken the nutrients it needed from Earth, and in this border region you see the dry, lifeless dust that is left behind. To dig down here is the fastest route from Wood to Earth, but don't hope for a pleasant trip.
  
  Earth overcomes Water: Hemiplane of Salt. If you must cross the abyss between Earth and Water without passing through Metal, you will pass through the realm where the Earth has sucked up the water that reached it.
  
  

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Staffan said:

I was about to mention Eberron as a good example of cosmology that matters. @Aldarc mentioned Dollurh's effect on various religions, but you also have manifest zones where planar influence creates regions that are basically a form of natural resource – for example, Sharn's towers rely on the planar influence of Syrania, and Karrnath makes use of Mabaran manifest zones to enable them to create their special undead types. Of course, you could just say that these are "leyline confluences" or whatever, but linking them to planes gives them some more depth.

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It’s interesting how different things appeal to different people. I was not even aware of the Mabaran Karrnath thing but that is a good leveraging of both. I was aware of the Sharn connection, but as you say flying cities exist in other settings like Golarion and the Forgotten Realms from ancient magically powerful empires.

Manifest zones and planar conjunctions are good opportunities to explain specific themed phenomena and sorcerers and such.

I couldn’t list more than a few of Eberron’s (13?) planes though and their associations without looking them up. Death, madness, dream, air? The Eberron planes just did not hook my interest.

For me the really engaging part of the Eberron cosmology is the 3e clerics of any alignment for any religion and the reality of the gods being theoretical is the cool part. It matches my own 3e and on campaigns’ divine casters are a spell casting tradition that taps divine power directly and not granted by gods.

This cosmology is very Conan, spell casting priests and intense present religions but the gods may or may not exist.

It allows many types of religion such as the Blood of Vol or elven ancestor worship or traditional D&D polytheism or even Buffy the Vampire Slayer Watcher style non religious secret societies with a spell casting tradition.

It allows many types of druids as nature worshippers or nature god followers or Shub-Niggurath mythos cultists or Merlin style magicians or Ars Magica Bjornaer mages.

It allows medieval church themes and story plot lines such as heresies and schisms, and corrupt priests or inquisitions in a good church.

It allows religions of false gods to be plausible in the D&D setting and allow cults to develop around powerful beings like fiends or angels or giants and dragons.

It allows different styles of real gods. Was Zeus a mortal king who was euhemerized, a storm giant, an embodied Olympian who exists with 1e style stats, a remote conceptual being greater god like in 2e who can project an avatar, or an entirely made up myth?

I really like the Silver Flame and Blood of Vol and different factions of druids and varied Khyber cultists.