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

Snapped from the Barbarian video.

 

[TheSword]

I think a structure is great but it has to be useful. Problem is 75% of the Great Wheel isn't useful for most fans.

It's like the DM wasting time on worldbuilding that wont affect play.
Instead of a Great Wheel with 18 spokes, there could have just been 4. One for each Pure alignment (G, E, L, C) or one for each quadrant (LG, CG, LE,CE).
Because why do we use them for? To go fight big bads when you get plane hopping magic.

4 Echo Planes for low-mid levels.
4 Elemental Planes for mid-high levels
4 Outer Planes for high-epic levels.

Extra books give monsters and adventures for high level Feywild and Shadowfell play or low level City of Brass play etc.

This. Of course why bother having multiple domains in Ravenloft. Come to think of it surely we should play in the Forgotten Realm - let’s just keep everything in the city state of Waterdeep. Surely Greyhawk could be condensed down to one kingdom. In fact why do we need more than one campaign setting - let’s just pick one and bin off the rest. Every adventure can just be set in Barovia.

The Great Wheel is what it is because of the Planescape Setting. An officially supported setting with a three book campaign release. That’s why it is the way it is in 5e. It boggles my mind how salty folks get about the fact that it exists. You might as well say that any campaign guide is wasted world building. For DMs that want to play there its full of reference and inspiration.

You’re free to ignore what you like for your homebrew games. Even if you want to be ‘official’, The Great Wheel does absolutely fine when you chose to skip over parts of it. The material plane you play in simply only connects to a few of the planes of the great wheel and the folks that live there have never heard of Carceri or Bytopia. Every cosmology I’ve seen suggested heat can fit within the Great Wheel paradigm. The planes are infinite plenty of space for one version of Olympus and the FR realm of Arvandor. Viva Planescape!

 

[TheSword]

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.

I’m pretty sure some of the other Greek gods live in other places that Olympus touches too.

Hades for instance lives on… Hades.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I’m pretty sure some of the other Greek gods live in other places that Olympus touches too.

Hades for instance lives on… Hades.

Of course, that was before. I'm pretty sure the gods of the Public Domain Pantheons no longer exist in official D&D, unfortunately.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The Great Wheel is OK for me, but the outer planes seem places to be visited or explored by PCs with a high level. They aren't the right zones for heroes who have just started the campaign.

Sometimes we want to add our personal touch, for example the mythology of the backrooms to be reimagined and added to the transitive plane "the infinite staircase".

In a future I think to recycle the lore of the Duskmourn, that comingsoon plane for Magic: the Gathering to be added to my homemade cosmology, or using the plane of the mirrors for a story like the 2008 movie "the broken".

Do you know any creepypaste story as source of inspiration for a Planescape adventure?

* What if Vecna created new demiplanes? For example a twisted and postapocalipticversion of Sigil without the Lady of the Pain and where the faction war is a true hell.

* What about the Formians? I don't remember any new about them in 5ed.

* Next to the Feywild and the Shadowfell I would like a third echo plane style "spirit realm" more focused into elemental forces than feys.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Of course, that was before. I'm pretty sure the gods of the Public Domain Pantheons no longer exist in official D&D, unfortunately.

I think it's more of a situation where they don't want to touch on IRL mythology unless/until they can dedicate the page space to properly do it justice. Much as I love Deities & Demigods, On Hallowed Ground, etc., the versions of the IRL pantheons they covered were never particularly deep or nuanced, and almost certainly wouldn't fly under current cultural sensitivity standards.

They're definitely still implied to exist, though, I think. There's an empyrean in the Planescape adventure that is all but explicitly stated to be a daughter of Zeus, they've hardly shied away from incorporating elements of Norse mythology like Yggdrasil the World Ash or the giant gods Thrym and Surtur, and many planar locations still bear names drawn from one mythos or another.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think it's more of a situation where they don't want to touch on IRL mythology unless/until they can dedicate the page space to properly do it justice. Much as I love Deities & Demigods, On Hallowed Ground, etc., the versions of the IRL pantheons they covered were never particularly deep or nuanced, and almost certainly wouldn't fly under current cultural sensitivity standards.

They're definitely still implied to exist, though, I think. There's an empyrean in the Planescape adventure that is all but explicitly stated to be a daughter of Zeus, they've hardly shied away from incorporating elements of Norse mythology like Yggdrasil the World Ash or the giant gods Thrym and Surtur, and many planar locations still bear names drawn from one mythos or another.

They incorporated elements, but refused to use the names. That's not an issue with page count. It's just fear, and it leads directly to less content.

 

[Minigiant]

This. Of course why bother having multiple domains in Ravenloft. Come to think of it surely we should play in the Forgotten Realm - let’s just keep everything in the city state of Waterdeep. Surely Greyhawk could be condensed down to one kingdom. In fact why do we need more than one campaign setting - let’s just pick one and bin off the rest. Every adventure can just be set in Barovia.

The Great Wheel is what it is because of the Planescape Setting. An officially supported setting with a three book campaign release. That’s why it is the way it is in 5e. It boggles my mind how salty folks get about the fact that it exists. You might as well say that any campaign guide is wasted world building. For DMs that want to play there its full of reference and inspiration.

You’re free to ignore what you like for your homebrew games. Even if you want to be ‘official’, The Great Wheel does absolutely fine when you chose to skip over parts of it. The material plane you play in simply only connects to a few of the planes of the great wheel and the folks that live there have never heard of Carceri or Bytopia. Every cosmology I’ve seen suggested heat can fit within the Great Wheel paradigm. The planes are infinite plenty of space for one version of Olympus and the FR realm of Arvandor. Viva Planescape!

But that's my point.

Is Planescape a top 3 advertised Setting for D&D?
Were there heavily advertised high level adventures for each Evil and Chaotic plane?

Then why is the Great Wheel.so heavily promoted and highlighted and referenced over other cosmological systems?

Why create this bland picture of something the designers, writers, world builders, and dungeon masters do not focus on?

It seems that the Great Wheel just keeps getting pushed because it's been there. However it's pushed with no meat so everyone sees it but it goes mostly unused.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Of course, that was before. I'm pretty sure the gods of the Public Domain Pantheons no longer exist in official D&D, unfortunately.

Given that bunch of planes are named after them and their sacred spaces, and the fact that they are so firmly entrenched in the lore good luck on making that make sense.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Why should WotC worry about pantheons from pagan mythologies? I don't remember any controversy because Kratos was kicking-ass deities of Olympus or Asgard in the videogames. Hinduim is oficially a religion but I don't remember when Hindus could feel ofended by D&D. I don't know if Japanese pantheon has got true worshippers currently in the real life.

* What if Vecna in the next event create new demiplanes?

* Do you use elements from cosmologies by other franchises in your games?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Why should WotC worry about pantheons from pagan mythologies? I don't remember any controversy because Kratos was kicking-ass deities of Olympus or Asgard in the videogames. Hinduim is oficially a religion but I don't remember when Hindus could feel ofended by D&D. I don't know if Japanese pantheon has got true worshippers currently in the real life.

* What if Vecna in the next event create new demiplanes?

* Do you use elements from cosmologies by other franchises in your games?

The inclusion of Hindu Gods, Shinto (the name of Japan's Historical Polytheistic Religion that is still very more a thing), Greco-Roman Gods (Gods still very much worshipped by Reconstructionists and Eclectic Pagans a like), but there has never been a backlash from any of them. Christian and Islam also appear in the D&D multiverse in Ravenloft, Gothic Earth spinoff and a 4e Domain that is a stolen chunk of the Cruasades.