D&D 5E 5e/Next Cosmology

[Keldryn]

I don't have any particular love for the "Great Wheel" cosmology. I started D&D with BECMI, and it had its own cosmology: the prime material plane, the four elemental planes, the ethereal plane, the astral plane, an infinite number of outer planes, the dimension of nightmares... So it's definitely not a necessary part of D&D, nor is it something that has always been part of D&D.

I first encountered the "Great Wheel" in Best of Dragon Vol. 1, I think, which is pretty similar to how it appears in the AD&D Player's Handbook.

The positive and negative energy planes never really made a lot of sense to me, and the various para- and quasi-elemental planes that were added later in 1e strike me as rather silly. The alignment-based outer planes feel very rigid and all of the real-world pantheons living side-by-side doesn't appeal to me.

I very much prefer the idea of each campaign setting having its own cosmology. Eberron has a cool setup that fits the world much better than would the Great Wheel. Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous presents a cosmology that is very reminiscent of the Great Wheel, but modified and stripped-down to fit the religions contained in the book.

While I'm not a big fan of the system, I really like 4e's "World Axis" cosmology. I think it is better suited for providing interesting adventuring locations than does the Great Wheel. It also feels more inspired by real-world myths and less by gaming constructs.

 

[pemerton]

Here's the thing though. Like its use or not, the thing is, you remember it. It's one of the quirks that makes Sigil a memorable location, and it's still here with us more than a decade, nearing two decades after it came out.

I happen to adore Sigilian cant

I also remember Lara Bingle saying "Where the bloody hell are you?", but that doesn't make it a good thing.

I know that cant trades on the fact that (as best I can tell) this English slang is not part of American English vernacular (or Canadian English?). But, like someone said upthread, it would be strange for American players (wouldn't it?) to have an RPG produce set in a down-and-out urban area where everyone speaks like they're from the Bronx.

That's how I feel about cant.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Here's the thing though. Like its use or not, the thing is, you remember it. It's one of the quirks that makes Sigil a memorable location, and it's still here with us more than a decade, nearing two decades after it came out.

I happen to adore Sigilian cant, though in-game I only use it for characters from Sigil itself rather than anyone else out on the planes except for a bit for those from the Gatetowns linked to the City of Doors.

As for Sigil itself, thankfully as I recall it, Michelle Carter really pushed hard for its inclusion in the 4e MotP, otherwise we might not have gotten it in 4e. Likewise, a number of writers went out of their way to bring as many bits of the Great Wheel cosmology in terms of NPCs and locations alike into the 4e cosmology. The concepts varied in how they translated from the Wheel to the very different at times 4e cosmology, but they were well liked originally and it wasn't surprising to see those things come back in one form or another over time even if they were initially absent.

Tentatively it looks like we'll be seeing much more of a return of those classic PS / Great Wheel elements, and hopefully in their original cosmological context. This is a very -very- good sign in my opinion.

I'm on the same page as you, Shemeska, as usual.

Oh, and I want Anthraxus back.

 

[jrowland]

I also remember Lara Bingle saying "Where the bloody hell are you?", but that doesn't make it a good thing.

I know that cant trades on the fact that (as best I can tell) this English slang is not part of American English vernacular (or Canadian English?). But, like someone said upthread, it would be strange for American players (wouldn't it?) to have an RPG produce set in a down-and-out urban area where everyone speaks like they're from the Bronx.

That's how I feel about cant.

I grew up in Southern California...LARGE hispanic population. One day, my gaming friends and I made fun of the dwarf accent = scottish accent that seems prevelant among gamers. One thing led to another and before you know it we were doing:
Orcs with Mexican accents, mexican slang, etc.
Elves with "queens english"
Goblins with Filipino accents (spanish + tagalog)
Halflings with Ving Rhames accents (with lots of Shaft-esque entendre)
Dwarves remained scottish/english/australian (we're bad at accents)
Draconic was chinese (I can't speak a lick of it, but our friend was fluent and would put on the accent thick for his "translations"...hilarious)

In any event, it started out as just a gag, but it stuck. As we got older we realized it was a simpler shorrthand. Sure, nobody speaks arabic in the forgotten realms, but if a Sha'ir from Zakhara speaks arabic, does it really break versimilitude?

With regard to the Sigil Cant...it evokes images of the seedy side of victorian London, of a city at the center of the world...much like Sigil. Using real world dialect is easier than using Klingon.

 

[Steely_Dan]

I grew up in Southern California...LARGE hispanic population. One day, my gaming friends and I made fun of the dwarf accent = scottish accent that seems prevelant among gamers. One thing led to another and before you know it we were doing:
Orcs with Mexican accents, mexican slang, etc.
Elves with "queens english"
Goblins with Filipino accents (spanish + tagalog)
Halflings with Ving Rhames accents (with lots of Shaft-esque entendre)
Dwarves remained scottish/english/australian (we're bad at accents)
Draconic was chinese (I can't speak a lick of it, but our friend was fluent and would put on the accent thick for his "translations"...hilarious)

Ha, same here (LA), but for Elves it was French!

 

[Stormonu]

I grew up in Southern California...LARGE hispanic population. One day, my gaming friends and I made fun of the dwarf accent = scottish accent that seems prevelant among gamers. One thing led to another and before you know it we were doing:
Orcs with Mexican accents, mexican slang, etc.
Elves with "queens english"
Goblins with Filipino accents (spanish + tagalog)
Halflings with Ving Rhames accents (with lots of Shaft-esque entendre)
Dwarves remained scottish/english/australian (we're bad at accents)
Draconic was chinese (I can't speak a lick of it, but our friend was fluent and would put on the accent thick for his "translations"...hilarious)

Great, now I'm imagining a big, green orc in a sombero and cigar belting out "Badges?!? We don't need no stinkin' badges!"

And Steely_Dan, poncy elves telling everyone, "go away or I will taunt you a second time."

 

[Steely_Dan]

And Steely_Dan, poncy elves telling everyone, "go away or I will taunt you a second time."

Of course, it had to be Cleese's outrageous accent.

Oh, I wanted to mention to you about the Ethereal Plane, I like the take that it touches every plane, not an Astral-like plane that houses the Inner Planes.

 

[Stormonu]

Sitting back from this and looking considering, I actually believe I DON'T want the Great Wheel in the core. But before you go wild, here me out.

I do think that the core rules should touch on the idea of other planes. At a basic level, some transitive plane, one or more elemental planes and some outer plane - paradise/afterlife, purgatory/hell. Just a bare-bones framework to get the idea across.

One of the problems of adopting the Greta Wheel is that it is somewhat limiting - it tells you what planes does and does not exist. For example, I can't decide I only want to go with having only the 7 heavens and the 9 hells and drop the likes of asgard and hades - if the Great Wheel is default, I'm possibly stuck with a plane I don't want or need. I think a toolbox would be better, and then specific campaign world cosmologies can be presented as options. (As a real example, I've always bemoaned that with the Great Wheel, there isn't a true and seperate Plane of Dreams/Nightmares or Plane of Faerie).

A 5E Planescape setting then could be released that utilizes the Great Wheel, where the planes can be fleshed out in much more detail.

 

[Steely_Dan]

As a real example, I've always bemoaned that with the Great Wheel, there isn't a true and seperate Plane of Dreams/Nightmares or Plane of Faerie.

These is in my Planescape campaign, they even mention The Plane of Faerie in the 3rd Ed Manual of the Planes, and the Realm of Dreams goes back to 2nd Ed, there was a great Dragon article on Iram, The City of Lofty Pillars in The Realm of Dreams (think Al-Qadim meets HP Lovecraft's Dreamlands).

Oh, and for faerie, you also have the Seelie Court demi-plane that wonders through the Upper Planes.

 

[Stormonu]

These is in my Planescape campaign, they even mention The Plane of Faerie in the 3rd Ed Manual of the Planes, and the Realm of Dreams goes back to 2nd Ed, there was a great Dragon article on Iram, The City of Lofty Pillars in The Realm of Dreams (think Al-Qadim meets HP Lovecraft's Dreamlands).

Oh, and for faerie, you also have the Seelie Court demi-plane that wonders through the Upper Planes.

That's the thing, I don't want a demiplane - that was one of 4E's cosmology changes with the Feywild that I liked (and the Shadowfell over Plane of Shadows for that matter, but I'll keep the elemental planes over the elemental chaos)

The two you mentioned - were they officially made into the Great Wheel, or in the case of the 3E MoP an option? I think I remember the Dragon article, but I don't remember a full-fledged dream plane being in the official Great Wheel (if I recall correctly, officially dreams are a subsection of the Ethereal).

 

[Steely_Dan]

1) That's the thing, I don't want a demiplane - that was one of 4E's cosmology changes with the Feywild that I loked.

2) The two you mentioned - were they officially made into the Great Wheel, or in the case of the 3E MoP an option?

1) The Feywild and Shadowfell are similar demi-planes in a way, reflections and all.

2) An option (and the Plane of Mirrors), there was also Temporal Prime as an option in 2nd Ed.

And Mystara has the Dimension of Nightmares, which I always thought was cool.

 

[Tovec]

I've been thinking about this for the past few days and I'm still not sure I'm where I want to be when it comes to the planes.

My problem is that I have NPCs that are OLD. Gandalf in LotR old. The problem with this is that they generally don't live on the outer planes. They live on the material plane but for them to function it relies on the world usually being the only one in the sky. That isn't to say that they won't know about the outer planes, but it is to say that other planets by in large don't exist or aren't considered the main one.

All this becomes a problem for me when thinking about the planes. I love the variety and intricacy of the outer planes, chiefly interesting to me is mechanis and arcadia, but I can't reconcile material plane with outer planes.

I mean how old are the established cosmologies/worlds of most settings? I'm not an expert but most are within 10k years or so at max. That is a relatively short time when I think about creatures that have existed FAR beyond that. I'm thinking Asmodeus as a celestial/lawful at the beginning of the first wars ancient. That is far older but for me it never worked to go from the age of foundation of concepts like good, chaos, or even death, to almost immediately entering a time of mortals. And where those mortal souls go after death.

It works for some settings, namely ones based off real earth counter parts, but it really starts to fall apart for others. That is something I can't figure out but I think it explains what bothers me most about the 4e cosmology just tossing out so many lesser aspects of the planes and history of the planes.

Can anyone help me here? How do I describe multiple worlds, instead of just ages of one world, and without making it seem like the current world is just a random one that happens to be populated by the party/game/setting? THAT is all stuff I need a 5e toolkit to help me answer.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Sample cosmologies for D&D NEXT

I'd like the NEXT Manual of the Planes to feature sample cosmologies:

• Nerath's cosmology, with the 4e cosmology translated into NEXT rules.
• Toril's tree cosmology
• Greyhawk's Great Rectangle cosmology
• Sigil's Great Wheel cosmology
• Eberron's orrery cosmology
• Krynn's unique cosmology
• Mystara's Five Spheres cosmology: a synthesis of the most singular features of the (somewhat contradictory) Gold Box cosmology and Wrath of the Immortals cosmology, plus the few planar tidbits which were added in 2e Mystara.
• Spelljammer offered as a "bolt-on" Crystal Spheres cosmology
• Pelinore's flat cosmology

As the default, the best planar features and planar rules from various editions might be conflated and streamlined for D&D NEXT. This default planar toolbox could then be used to build all these different cosmlogies.

 

[Shemeska]

I've been thinking about this for the past few days and I'm still not sure I'm where I want to be when it comes to the planes.

My problem is that I have NPCs that are OLD. Gandalf in LotR old. The problem with this is that they generally don't live on the outer planes. They live on the material plane but for them to function it relies on the world usually being the only one in the sky. That isn't to say that they won't know about the outer planes, but it is to say that other planets by in large don't exist or aren't considered the main one.

All this becomes a problem for me when thinking about the planes. I love the variety and intricacy of the outer planes, chiefly interesting to me is mechanis and arcadia, but I can't reconcile material plane with outer planes.

I mean how old are the established cosmologies/worlds of most settings? I'm not an expert but most are within 10k years or so at max. That is a relatively short time when I think about creatures that have existed FAR beyond that.

A timeline of outer planar history within the context of the Blood War and the lower planes was presented in 2e's Hellbound: The Blood War. All of the oldest events are presented as relative to one another and without distinct dates in years mentioned (presumably because of the unfathomably ancient epochs it's talking about).

Other products that built upon that make it obvious that the timeline on which mortal life and even the gods themselves have existed is only a drop in the bucket compared to the older creatures out there. I like the notion of truly deep history present in the Great Wheel and some other settings, because it aids in making the universe seem profoundly deep and mysterious.

 

[Tovec]

A timeline of outer planar history within the context of the Blood War and the lower planes was presented in 2e's Hellbound: The Blood War. All of the oldest events are presented as relative to one another and without distinct dates in years mentioned (presumably because of the unfathomably ancient epochs it's talking about).

Other products that built upon that make it obvious that the timeline on which mortal life and even the gods themselves have existed is only a drop in the bucket compared to the older creatures out there. I like the notion of truly deep history present in the Great Wheel and some other settings, because it aids in making the universe seem profoundly deep and mysterious.

I understand and agree with what you are saying. My problem is I have a 11306 year old elf in my game but I'm having a hard time explaining where he came from.

Either my game world is young and just the most recent of worlds, and probably one of MANY out there in the galaxy/universe/material plane or its ancient and I mean hugely ancient with gods once walking the world and coming from there. I don't find either very appealing.

For the first it makes the world seem very small, very insignificant. I have a hard time coming up with a reason for an 11000 year old to exist on the world in any form or to care about its goings on.

For the second it makes the world seem too important in the grand scheme. Especially when I have other worlds in my game and indeed other planets.

The only compromise I can set is that the campaign world I use is the only uniquely medieval one, but that still just strikes me as inexact.

It would be like watching Doctor Who and ONLY being allowed to travel in space OR time throughout the course of the show. It doesn't invalidate a good portion of the show but it also isn't conducive to having several galaxies worth of other races, creatures and worlds.
The star trek analogy is being confined to TOS level technology only throughout history, or being stuck in the Sol system only.

I mean how can elves be both mortal, and (relatively) fleeting on a cosmic sense, but then exist on every planet in the material world? I would like more guidelines on this.

For this reason I agree that a lot of campaign settings benefit from having the planes baked in. So they can all be unique and special in their own universe. On the other hand, if I did that and only had one heaven and one hell then I get rid of so much rich history and knowledge that I just don't want to lose and in fact have spent years developing for my games which is unique from the published material.

Oh, and if you're wondering why I quoted you - that history that I'm talking about.. I was mostly thinking about it in terms of a combined context like presented HERE:

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