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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 9575629" data-attributes="member: 82106">Good! I just wanted to point out that there's actually quite a bit of history to the GW predating the 1e PHB. It had been explicated at least once in a TD or SR article. There also exists, or did exist at one time, some information online about the genesis of the GW, its antecedents, and early form. This is also, of course, related to the discussions, articles, and development of the two-axis alignment system.I'm going from memory here, but the 'ur cosmology' was basically the 7 heavens and the 9 hells. These were apparently (this being Gygax's own game) depicted as abstract non-physical spiritual realms which can only be visited by Astral Projection. They primarily existed to provide some explication of the Contact Other Plane spell, which is an early type of divination. Basically the higher/lower you went, the more authoritative the answers you could get, but the more likely the terrifying alienness of the interlocutor would be to drive you mad.While AD&D made the planes more 'real' in some sense, the original design is still kind of hanging around at the edges. COP still exists, along with astral projection, but they are made largely irrelevant. By the time of MotP you can teleport, gate, or find a portal to, pretty much anywhere.</blockquote>