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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5334350" data-attributes="member: 59082">This thread has two parts, feel free to discuss one or both:I - A Question of CanonD&D has a default, canonical back-story--mentions of the Dawn War, the split between elves, eladrin, and drow, the sundering of the Gith, etc. Is it scattered all over the place or am I missing something? Is the back-story outlined in one place? If not, what are the main places to look? And has anyone collated everything into a website?(I am talking specifically about 4E, thus the forum; it could apply to any edition, but I am primarily interested in 4E canon).II - A Question of CosmologyMy anal-retentive need for verisimilitude has me irked at one small problem, even paradox, in the D&D cosmology. You have infinite possible campaign worlds, right? All connected to one Astral Sea. There is only one Arvandor, one Asmodeus, one Bahamut, and also one Tu'narath, right? If that is the case, how could, for instance, the githyanki be a threat at all to any world because of their relatively limited numbers? In other words, how does D&D canon deal with the "One Planar Structure, Many Worlds Paradox"?I mean, it is easy for me to accept that Bahamut is worshipped in many worlds and can appear as an aspect or avatar in each of them, while retaining his true existence in the planes. One could even describe an ontology whereby the worship of an extra-planar being creates the necessary energy to manifest an incarnated avatar; the greater the worship, the more powerful the avatar (although not necessarily correlating with the power of the "true being" that exists in the planes). But what about the githyanki and other non-divinities of the Astral Sea? Off the top of my head, I can think of a few ways out of this: <ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">One Worldism: Your own campaign setting is the only world, or one of a few. This has a certain amount of sense to it but creates a sense of removal of your own setting with all D&D worlds; there is something nice about the idea that we're all playing in the same D&D mega-verse, that my group's characters could theoretically enter your campaign world.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Infinite Avatars: Any beings of the Astral Sea can "split off" incarnations once they enter a specific world; even githyanki in a given campaign world would only be the physical version, an avatar if you will, rather than the real thing. This view begs an explanation for what happens to the "real" githyanki (or whatever). The gods are easier to rationalize, but the non-divine beings are a bit tricker (as I mentioned above).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Astral Multitudes: A final option would be that the residents of the Astral Sea and its planes are enormously vast in number; the problem, of course, is that it would either require a limit to the number of campaign worlds--even if a very large number--and/or immense numbers of Astral denizens, or at least a solid ratio between the two.</li> </ol></blockquote>

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