D&D (2024) Check Out The New Map Of D&D's Planes!

Snapped from the Barbarian video.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

What is the difference between floating red orbs, floating volcanoes, and floating black platonic solids?

Sounds like the beginning of a Dad joke

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sounds like the beginning of a Dad joke

Given I love dad jokes, your instincts are not unwarranted, but I fear I've no punchline.

 

[DarkCrisis]

The Olympian Glades of Arborea (i.e. the pure CG plane).

Home of the Ancient Greek pantheon (as one might expect) and the Elven pantheon, among others, as well as the old celestial version of the eladrin, back before the Feywild gobbled them up in 4e.

Ancient Greek Gods as CG? Yeah okay….

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Ancient Greek Gods as CG? Yeah okay….

I mean, I didn't make that call, and it's not that much different than basically all of the Norse gods hanging out one plane "chaos-ward" in Ysgard.

End of the day, I look at it this way: the gods don't live where alignment says it's "appropriate" for them to live, they live where they choose to live. The Greek gods mainly live in Arborea, but that is because that's where they chose to make their home, not by mandate of alignment.

But then I'm of the opinion that gods generally shouldn't have alignment at all, so... shrugs

 

[Azzy]

Ancient Greek Gods as CG? Yeah okay….

Same as it ever was.

 

[Demetrios1453]

How does the Abyss assault the Nine Hells (as they do in Avernus) if they are a few planes to the right?

Clearly this "map" is an oversimplification, right?

It's like some folding a piece of paper and sticking a pencil through it to explain time travel.

1. The River Styx.

2. It's an obviously oversimplified version, probably to help those with the World Tree barbarian. It's in the barbarian section, so there will almost certainly be another, full-fledged map.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

How does the Abyss assault the Nine Hells (as they do in Avernus) if they are a few planes to the right?

Clearly this "map" is an oversimplification, right?

It's like some folding a piece of paper and sticking a pencil through it to explain time travel.

Portals, the River Styx, detours through the Outlands/Astral Sea/Material Plane, etc.

Also, as Micah Sweet noted, the Blood War is traditionally fought all across the lower planes, not just in Avernus.

 

[Milieu]

My issue with the not-so-Great Wheel is twofold. One is that it's based on alignment, and alignment is bad. The other is that it's too systematic. The structure was decided before the contents. Someone (Gygax) decided you needed one plane per alignment as well as intermediate planes where those met, as well as one plane per primary element plus an assortment of para- and quasi-elemental planes between those, and then that structure had to be filled in and someone had to figure out what the difference between Bytopia, Elysium, and the Beastlands are.

A better way to design a cosmology would be to come up with a set of themed planes and just have them be out there in the Astral somewhere, without necessarily having any structure to them. I mean, Acheron is kinda cool as the plane of Eternal War, but I don't see why it has to be Lawful and Neutral/Evil.

As much as I agree with you about the wonkiness of the Great Wheel and the fact that some of the planes feel like they're just there to check boxes without being differentiated enough, I think having no structure at all would be far worse.

 

[Staffan]

As much as I agree with you about the wonkiness of the Great Wheel and the fact that some of the planes feel like they're just there to check boxes without being differentiated enough, I think having no structure at all would be far worse.

My ideal cosmology wouldn't have any overarching structure (other than having the Feywild and Shadowfell as parallel worlds to the Material plane), but that doesn't preclude local structures. For example, you could have something like the Nine Worlds of Yggdrasil as a set of interconnected planes, without them having anything to do with The Celestial Engine over there or the Eternal Library over here.

I can also see the point in having something like the Elemental Chaos or individual elemental planes as its own thing, separate from the more conceptual planes. But at the same time, the Nine Worlds needs to have room for Muspelheim, so "a world of fire" should totally be something a plane could be. Just like there could be a world without shrimp.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I mean, I didn't make that call, and it's not that much different than basically all of the Norse gods hanging out one plane "chaos-ward" in Ysgard.

End of the day, I look at it this way: the gods don't live where alignment says it's "appropriate" for them to live, they live where they choose to live. The Greek gods mainly live in Arborea, but that is because that's where they chose to make their home, not by mandate of alignment.

But then I'm of the opinion that gods generally shouldn't have alignment at all, so... shrugs

In the lore they live in Arborea because that is where Mount Olympus is, and that is one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in all the planes, they took it from the Titans. It connects to multiple other planes and countless material plane worlds among other assets.