Combined Cosmology

[Gaiden]

I am attempting to make a grand adventure encompassing all worlds, all dimensions, all planes, etc. (Darksun, Ravenloft, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Final Fantasy settings, Shanarra, Rokugan, etc.). I will use d20 to do so but am having trouble meshing the different cosmologies. For example between greyhawk and forgotten realms there is a lot of overlap between cosmologies. However, at the same time, there are clear differences. I can't do something as simple as just make a bunch of outer planes added to the great wheel from the MotP because it won't make sense that the presence of those gods would be completely missed on certain worlds. Using FR again, if all of those gods were present in the outer planes of Greyhawk's Great Wheel, there would have to be some presence of those gods on Greyhawk as well.

MotP hints that the shadow plane could be a cosmology connector. And I could just make the plane coterminous with all other material planes such that it acts almost like the astral plane but for all different multi-plane dimensions. However, Shar would then become the most powerful God in existence simply because of the number of worshippers she could garner.

Has anyone worked out a complete cosmology? It is looking like quite a complex task.

 

[Kyramus]

I use the atom analogy.
The nucleus prime plane. The electron prime planes, and since they pretty much can extend into a lot of rings. you can have literally all the worlds you want.

 

[Piratecat]

For alternate prime material worlds, simply make them all parallel primes that are connected by the plane of shadow. If you want to walk from Greyhawk to Rokugan, you'd walk into deep shadow... and if you ever walked out again, perhaps you'd be in the right world.

Ravenloft is its own ethereal demiplane.

 

[Carnifex]

Did you ever check out Planescape? That brought together all the worlds and cosmologies into the Great Wheel. There is no reason that a particular god has to be present in all the worlds just because he is on the Great Wheel - it all depends where his worshippers are and why they worship him. I don't quite follow why you feel you couldn't put them all on the Wheel?

 

[Tonguez]

Personally I've worked on the concept that all the gods are in everyworld but they go by different names and may even have different attributes and domains depending on the view and needs of their worshipers (in the pure polytheism of DnD a god who doesn't meet his worshipers needs doesn't stay worshiped for long)

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

If you really want a Grant Unified Metaphyiscal Theory of Everything (GUMTE), buy the Nobilis rpg. It's cosmology is vast enough to put everything any other cosmology into it without hiccups.

Just to give you an idea of the scale, each "standard" PC is basically a god in charge of a specific aspect of reality - shadows, innocence, stocks and so on - and their adventures are similarity cosmic. Just the right thing to throw at your epic-level D&D PCs...

 

[Alcareru]

There is a a generic pantheon of gods on the Dragonstar Campaign setting. Although this was a sci-fi fantasy setting similar (but different from) Spelljammer and not really dealing with planes like normal DnD, the gods at least are Universal.

The conceit there was that all worlds had the similar races-dwarf, elf , etc.. and worshipped similar gods-in most cases aspects of the same gods. So the Universal Church boiled down the deities to certain aspects- The Warrior, the Mother, the Reaper, etc..I think there are just 13 such gods in this cosmology.

Use could tinker with this to place these pan-deity gods in a "generic" Great Wheel to fit in all settings.

But then again you could simply use Planescape- theyve done most of the work for you.

 

[Olive]

For alternate prime material worlds, simply make them all parallel primes that are connected by the plane of shadow. If you want to walk from Greyhawk to Rokugan, you'd walk into deep shadow... and if you ever walked out again, perhaps you'd be in the right world.

Ravenloft is its own ethereal demiplane.

This is exactly how I would do it.

 

[Gaiden]

Did you ever check out Planescape? That brought together all the worlds and cosmologies into the Great Wheel. There is no reason that a particular god has to be present in all the worlds just because he is on the Great Wheel - it all depends where his worshippers are and why they worship him. I don't quite follow why you feel you couldn't put them all on the Wheel?

I am trying to deviate as little from published material as possible. If you follow the different sources, gods belong to different realms with some gods even sharing the same plane (just having subsections of that plane of their own). I like to use Shar because she really embodies why one could not just throw all the stuff together in one cosmology (at least not simply anyway). Shar resides on the Shadowplane. If I threw all primes into D&D (Greyhawk's) Astral (made them coterminous) and made them coterminous with the ethereal (I use the deep ethereal) and shadow planes that would grant Shar access to every prime material plane in existence. Even if she was unknown on Athas or Krynn, it would not stop her epic followers from transporting to those worlds gather new followers. In certain cases, this is not a problem because there is significant overlap between cosmologies: Pelor/Lathander, Correlan Lartheon, Grumsh, Moradin, Shar/Shadow (Rokugan), etc. However, what about relative power levels. Shar could easily defeat Selune with such a much broader power base - and Mystra wouldn't stand a chance.

Another good example would be Shar on Rokugan. Let's say for a moment that there was just one Shadow plane. Shar now has access to all of Rokugan. Would there not be a substantial cutlural change with the introduction of a forgotten realms god into the asian cutlure of great clans?

My main issue is consistency. Throwing everything together would logically change alot about the worlds. Part of this adventure I am designing will be to figure out aspects of the cosmology. It has to make sense.

 

[Kilamar]

...it would not stop her epic followers from transporting to those worlds gather new followers.

I still do not understand your problem. Followers travelling to other worlds do not automatically gather huge amounts of new recruits. They might find some, but normaly the local gods take poaching on their territory very seriously.

Apart from that, if you use the Great Wheel every god could do this theoretically, therefore that is not a special strength of Shar, especially if you consider that the Racial Pantheons have huge amounts of followers on different worlds.

Our group plays Planescape and we included most of the known campaign settings and never had any trouble.

Kilamar