D&D 5E Astral Sea and Wildspace in the 5e Cosmology

[Hussar]

You.could...mix them up?

Yeah... that wouldn't work. Totally different settings. My The Village setting is set on a living goddess world where the only "people" in the world live and serve on the back of a massive, turtle like avatar that wanders the body of the living goddess, devouring the cancers that are slowly killing her. The PC's are sent in when the cancer dungeons grow too large and must be pacified before the avatar Village can consume the cancer. All of the inhabitants of the Village were once born inside one of these dungeon cancers and gained freedom after the avatar destroyed that particular dungeon.

Not really compatible with wandering the cosmos, swashbuckling adventure.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

Was a 5e 'jammer fanboy, but have embraced my grognardness. So my astral plane is the same as the version we love since a bunch of decades. The phlogiston and crystal spheres are still there, and I keep on spelljamming with my home-brewed version of the old system.

Edit: Was going to get the monsters separately on Beyond. But had one of those heyitsjustatennerortwomore moments while on the site and preordered the book. Despite that it means I tell WotC that the format and content is good and I flush my consumer power down the toilet. How I hate thee, hobby related consumerism, foulest of evils.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

ASTRAL ELVES

Why are you cutting the references? Because it mentions their gods?

 

[Einlanzer0]

I'm just really not convinced by this yet.

Wildspace has just always been just been well space in the Material Plane. Once you go far enough from the planet you are in Wildspace. Once you reach the edge of Wildspace the Crystal Sphere you can exit in to the Phlogiston. That's how it was in 2e. Currently all that seems to have changed is that rather then the exit being into the Phlogiston it's to the Astral Plane instead.

Yes, that's all that changed, but the implication is that it is a simple change when it actually isn't. It creates a ton of questions around how planar cosmology is supposed to work. The astral plane was never before part of "the universe" - it was an abstract realm of thought and dream that directly "touched" whatever world you were in and could be visited both spiritually and physically via direct travel. Meanwhile, the phlogiston was just a fantasy version of the interstellar medium from real outerspace that spelljammers were needed to traverse.

Transforming the astral plane into a different fantasy version of the interstellar medium while retaining all of its normal uses & trappings is ... really kinda wonky, and produces more questions than it answers.

I'll wait and see how it all plays out, but I'm not sure I'm a fan. With that being said, I did at least enjoy reading through the content that's been exposed from the book, and it does look like they put forward some diligence in loreworking this in the right way. So I am still excited about the release.