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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ripzerai" data-source="post: 3801175" data-attributes="member: 38324">You lose something without having objective anchors defining the forces of the multiverse. If Fire is just a bubble in a sea of chaos held together by the will of powerful beings, then it isn't real in the sense that it is in a cosmology with a Plane of Fire holding it up as one of the building blocks of the cosmos. This is even more true with positive and negative energy, or Good and Evil, or even things like the Quasielemental Plane of Vacuum (Elemental nothingness! How cool is that? I've loved the idea since I saw The Neverending Story).When the cosmology is ruled over by great poles that define it, everything is realer and more important. It takes on a vaster, more crucial scale if the Balance is a real force in its own right, defined by its own plane, as are the various forces it balances - Earth and Sky, Water and Fire, Good and Evil.I like that Evil isn't just a collection of evil deities' realms, but a Force, a Thing, that deities and fiends are only aspects of. I love that this is true of Law, and positive energy, and Good. I love that the Beastlands are the home of the archetypes of all animals, not just a place where a bunch of powerful animal lords happen to dwell. The only thing that's really objective in this cosmology is Chaos. Which is nice, but I want more.In Rich Baker's vision, everything is much more subjective and muddy. There's no great cosmic pole of Evil - there's a thousand little pocket domains that may or may not be in the same place. That's a huge, huge difference in feel. It's more different in the Elemental Chaos than it is in the Astral Sea, of course, but it's different everywhere. And I think it's important.</blockquote>

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