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

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I read this sentence,

"Home of the stars and gateway to the heavens, the Astral Plane teems with excitement and possibility,"

to mean:

The 5e astral plane is itself the home of all of the stars in the universe of the material plane.

This is why it is called the "astral" plane.

Even so, the actual stars are in the aspect of the astral plane, called "wildspace". It is a way to handwaive the reallife distances between stars.

Meanwhile, the astral sea the astral plane proper, the one that the Players Handbook describes. But this astral sea is a realm of though and dream and lacks spacial distances.

Thus:
• "home of the stars" describes the wildspace.
• "gateway to the heavens" describes the astral sea bordering the celestial planes.

They have shown the inside of the DM Screen that shows a chart of the Astral Plane showing spheres and rocks and “Astral Sea” written between everything.

A reasonable assumption is that the named spheres are the planetary systems for D&D worlds, with stars and wildspace inside the spheres.

I’ve shared this screengrab before.

 

[Yaarel]

They have shown the inside of the DM Screen that shows a chart of the Astral Plane showing spheres and rocks and “Astral Sea” written between everything.

A reasonable assumption is that the named spheres are the planetary systems for D&D worlds, with stars and wildspace inside the spheres.

Per the chart, the circles are presumbably the "wildspace", parts of it where each forms a "sphere", being imbedded within the "astral sea".

But all, both the wildspace and the astral sea, are aspects of the "astral plane", as labeled on the top-left corner of the chart.

In this way, one navigates the astral wildspace, virtually, normally. But one navigates the astral sea, conceptually, symbolically, in a more dreamlike way.

I assume, a person within a wildspace can visibly see the stars that are in the other spheres. However, the stars are overwhelmingly vast distances away. So, the astral sea is the only practicable method to reach them. Meanwhile the "spheres" themselves only exist in the astral sea. They dont exist in the material world.

 

[Yaarel]

The material plane has planets, stars, and outer space.

Thus the feywild and shadowfell echoes, likewise, have the fey and shadow aspects of outer space.

Because the wildspace is an astral phenomenon, there can be such thing as feyspace, shadowspace, and etherspace, since these places can exist as concepts within the astral plane.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

View attachment 155886

were did you guys get your tv show level of 'zoom and enhance'

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

were did you guys get your tv show level of 'zoom and enhance'

Assumptions based on strong guesses from the letter forms.

 

[SkidAce]

So do you think the inhabitants of the Rock of Bral will be in the astral and subject to the no aging thing?

 

[Umbran]

That 2e model suggests wildspace is a radius around one sun or at most a galaxy or so.

Um... in the real world, a galaxy is maybe 50,000 times larger than a solar system (depending on the galaxy and solar system, of course). So I'm gonna guess wildspace doesn't encompass entire galaxies.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Um... in the real world, a galaxy is maybe 50,000 times larger than a solar system (depending on the galaxy and solar system, of course). So I'm gonna guess wildspace doesn't encompass entire galaxies.

I am half asleep and my old books are in crawl spaces, but if I remember it was bigger then a system but WAY smaller then a galaxy. I remember 'space' being able to have multi systems though... lets see if anyone remembers darksun alien halflings with a moon spaceship/deathstar...

 

[Umbran]

But all, both the wildspace and the astral sea, are aspects of the "astral plane", as labeled on the top-left corner of the chart.

That's like looking at a map labelled "The Pacific Ocean" and saying that the Philippines are "an aspect of the ocean".

In this way, one navigates the astral wildspace, virtually, normally. But one navigates the astral sea, conceptually, symbolically, in a more dreamlike way.

I don't know if we want to jump to that conclusion. I would be unsurprised if we find that travel via a Spelljammer is rather unlike travel through the Astral without a vessel - that the ship shields the people in it from all the mumbo-jumbo, reducing navigation and travel to being more like, well, travelling in a ship.

Fall overboard, though, and maybe you have a problem.

 

[Staffan]

I am half asleep and my old books are in crawl spaces, but if I remember it was bigger then a system but WAY smaller then a galaxy. I remember 'space' being able to have multi systems though... lets see if anyone remembers darksun alien halflings with a moon spaceship/deathstar...

In OG Spelljammer, the default was that a crystal sphere was a single system (although such a system could have multiple suns fire bodies), and its radius was double that of the outermost occupied orbit. So the outermost occupied orbit of Realmspace has the planet of H'Catha, at a distance of 1600 million miles from the Sun, and going from the Sun to that orbit takes 16 days (14 days if you start at Al-Toril's orbit). That puts the crystal sphere another 1600 million miles out, for a total travel time of 32 days (30 from Al-Toril).

As for the Dark Sun space halflings, that was never established in canon because the line was canceled before then. But as I understand it, the idea was that the Messenger, a comet normally showing up every 45 years, would turn out to be a biotech halfling spaceship, and that the increased activity in the Kreen empire west of the Tablelands would be related to it crashing there in Free Year 7 instead of streaking across the heavens.