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

Snapped from the Barbarian video.

 

[SkidAce]

Ahh, I thought YOU were presupposing a world without shrimp, which as we all know would be sadness, madness, and despair filled.

 

[Staffan]

Ahh, I thought YOU were presupposing a world without shrimp, which as we all know would be sadness, madness, and despair filled.

Well, there's one with nothing but shrimp as well.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

I'm very sorry you consider worldbuilding a waste of time. Please remember that there are those who feel very, very differently, and might take issue with that opinion.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Have all you Great Wheel haters considered just using a different cosmology you like better, and maybe stop yucking the yum of others?

 

[Epic Meepo]

I'd love to get a breakdown on how the OG great wheel was designed. Like I get the basic alignment planes, Good Elysium, Evil Hades, Lawful Mechanus, Chaos Limbo and even doing planes for all alignments CG Arborea, LG Mount Celestia, LE Hell, CE Abyss, and even TN Oulands, but who did they choose the weird alignment imbalanced planes Chaotic Good Neutral Plane Ysgard, the NGC Beastlands, LGN Arcadia, NGL Bypotia, NEC Carcari, CEN Pandomonium, ENL Gehanna and LNE Archeron, its not even grid filling, that's already filled, what purpoae did that serve? Love those planes, just want the story behind out and why they were designed?

You got your cardinal alignment planes, your mixed type alignments planes, all to give an afterlifes each alignment its own after, but there is no 3 point aligments.

I'm guessing the Outer Planes were designed the same way as the Inner Planes: one "pure" plane for each alignment/element, plus one "mixed" plane on each border between "pure" planes. The mixed-alignment Outer Planes are the alignment equivalent of the para-elemental Inner Planes.

 

[MNblockhead]

Seriously the Great Wheel bores me.

It's a lot of space. WOTC does little with it to allow DMs and 3PPs to flesh it out.

But they never do.

The 4E World Axis was more focused and easier for designers and DMs to explore and enhance. I lack the nostalgic love for an 18 unused planes.

I would rather that in its cosmology section the DMG provides several concepts for cosmology. "For millennia sages have argued over the nature of the other planes..." and then provides a 2-3 pieces of art with some text giving examples of different interpretations. It would limit how much depth they could go into, but I prefer that to be handled in setting or adventure books.

 

[MNblockhead]

My point is that the Great Wheel cosmology is bad, because it was created out of a desire to make planes based on alignments, and then trying to fill them in without adequate inspiration (which is why so many of the planes are similar). There are many better ways of making a cosmology, such as the 4e World Axis or the Eberron orrery.

I like the Great Wheel and alignment, but I don't want to derail this thread with yet another alignment debate. I also like the orrery concept from Eberron, though the 5e Eberron book, but am not familiar with the World Axis. I would have preferred if the DMG did a very brief write up of all three. I think the DMG serves DMs best when it provides examples and inspiration, not canon.

 

[MNblockhead]

For me, this will always be the perfect representation for DnD ecology and mythos:

View attachment 368546

Hmmm...I see that and hear AO screaming "IT'S ALIVE!!!"

 

[MNblockhead]

Wut?

I know, incomprehensible right? That has to be some outer-realm level of abominable insanity. Even the in the hells they enjoy shrimp on the barbie.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

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.

More or less what I meant.

Underlying point being that gods operate under a different paradigm than creatures like archons, devil, demons, etc. who are more direct manifestations of alignment and of the plane that birthed them. The Greek gods aren't in Arborea because they're Chaotic Good in alignment, necessarily - indeed, canonically, many of them are not.

Rather, they're in Arborea because Mount Olympus is important to them for numerous reasons and that is where located.