D&D 5E Default 5e Cosmology in DMG

[gyor]

I really like the cosmology of 5e, its a blend of other cosmologies, with a few really cool twists of its own. They kept the Shadowfell and Feywild as echos of the material plane, these two planes were one of the bests parts of the Axis cosmology, so keeping them was really cool.

Interestingly they sort of created elemental echo planes as well with the boarder regions of the elemental planes. Speaking of the elemental planes, the inner planes were one of the greatest innovations in the cosmology. Basically the further away from the material plane you get within the elemental planes the greater the enthropy. Starting with the boarder regions, which are more materal plane which is ordered like the material plane, but infused with the main element, which gives really exotic locations to adventure in, but in an ordered and stable way.

Then you enter the more tradional planescape part of the planes, which sets up an area that is great for more traditional planescape inner ring adventures as well as the chance to explore a more hostile enviroment, a more alien enviroment, well as an exploration of the elements in thier purest forms. The Elemental Princes provide a hook for exploring this more extreme enviroment within these planes.

Then finally the elemental engeries break down entirely and mix, but not in an orderly way, and we get the elemental
chaos. The elemental chaos could have used more details, the only hooks given were the planes basic nature and hybrid elementals. I also like how they included paraelemental planes in this system.

One unfortune thing is that the energy planes have been seperated from the other elemental planes, they're further

out then even the Outer Planes. That they're at the outer edge of the multiverse and that they're energies infuse all

the planes, inner, outer, transitive material and echos is all they have to say about the energy planes. The new location of the energy planes does hint that they effectively work with the outer planes in a simular way that the inner

planes provide the building blocks for the material plane and echoes. But that's my impression. This also means no QuasiElemental planes sadly. They should given some discription of the energy planes in case someone decides to visit one. Having the Ethreal plane connect to the material plane, its echo plane, and the elemental planes, including the elemental chaos and then having the deep ethreal makes the ethreal plane more interesting. It also makes it a great way to travel between settings using the deel ethreal.

I will say the way they did the Inner Planes and its transitive plane, almost makes the inner planes worthy of being
Mits own setting, in a way never before seen. Yes innter planes have been covered before, but never like this.
Moving onto the Astral Plane, its clearly more traditional Astral Plane and not the Astral Sea. Very Planescape. And the way they deal with the outer planes it makes more sense this way. Here is the other major innovation, this is the first time they found a way to square how a plane can in infinite and yet seem finite, and gives the outer planes a far more spiritual feel then they've every had before. The physical manifested parts of the planes are finite, although thier dimesions can be changed, the pure spiritual parts of the plane are what's infinite. It hints that thier is so much of the plane beyond physical experience and possibly and likely entities that exist thier that are undocumented.

They also explain the Far Realms, which is basically a seperate alien multiverse of its own that touches the D&D
verse. The far realms obviously have the Lovecraftian thing going on, but its open ended enough that you could have other stuff in it as well, anything strange that doesn't fit within the normal multiverse. Example, you could have Lovecrafian regions, another could contain the Synad homeworld which some how got sucked into the Far Realms.

One interesting thing I just realized is technique the Elemental Planes Boarder on the echo planes as well, making for
unique areas of the Elemental planes potentially, areas with something in common with the Feywild and the Shadowfell. I also like how the Outer Planes have optional rules to given them depth.

I wonder if in novels this be treated as the default cosmology in FR, with hints that its only one possible cosmology
concidered by scholars, but not saying one is full truth about others.

Even though its in another section having Aasmir back is really cool, as is Eldrin, which is good for adding to the planes inhabitants. Some of the other possible cosmologies given were interesting too.

 

[Mephista]

Interestingly they sort of created elemental echo planes as well with the boarder regions of the elemental planes. Speaking of the elemental planes, the inner planes were one of the greatest innovations in the cosmology. Basically the further away from the material plane you get within the elemental planes the greater the enthropy. Starting with the boarder regions, which are more materal plane which is ordered like the material plane, but infused with the main element, which gives really exotic locations to adventure in, but in an ordered and stable way.

Umm... the boarder planes and 'echoes' aren't really innovations, are they? I mean, I seem to recall everything in the DMG about the elemental planes being in previous editions. The para-elemental planes are now the borders between the major elements. The elemental chaos came from 4e, but the 5e incarnation is pretty negligible, for reasons dictated below.

The inner elemental planes always sounded cool when written down on paper, but they suffered from a single issue that I'm still questioning - why would anyone go here? You seemed pretty pumped about it. So, can I ask you what kind of campaigns would you send adventurers on here? What would you do with the elemental planes in story?

4e merged the elemental planes into the singular elemental chaos in order to make it more accessible to play campaigns in. They kept the whole 'more like the material world' in large parts, so that's good for playing in - the pre-4e versions were just horrible to run in. And, truthfully, the new "like material plane" completely and utterly removes the whole point of having an Elemental Chaos. Probably why it is all but a footnote now.

Then you enter the more tradional planescape part of the planes, which sets up an area that is great for more traditional planescape inner ring adventures as well as the chance to explore a more hostile environment, a more alien enviroment, well as an exploration of the elements in thier purest forms. The Elemental Princes provide a hook for exploring this more extreme enviroment within these planes.

With all due respect, the "traditional" elemental planes were pretty much unplayable, and rarely used. They were just difficult to play in, and now, with how things work with being more mixed in key areas, its even far more unlikely that anyone will venture into these "pure elemental expression" areas. There are major cities in each plane where you can meet up with any Elemental Prince - why the cities? Because near the cities is where most battles between elements are happening, and more likely to have conflict (a major drive of D&D games).

I really feel like the "pure expression" areas were included just because they existed before, and the whole "inclusion" thing meant that they, along with the Elemental Chaos region, were put in for the simple sake of nostalgia.

I will say the way they did the Inner Planes and its transitive plane, almost makes the inner planes worthy of being Mits own setting, in a way never before seen. Yes innter planes have been covered before, but never like this.

Never seen before 4e. Like I said before, the Elemental Chaos was the first attempt at creating a more player friendly elemental planes. For 5e, they took all the playable parts of the Chaos, and moved it into the four elemental planes of the Great Wheel. I'm not starting an edition war here, but credit should be given where due. The current model is better than the previous ones, though, taking the best of all of them and merging them together.

In a lot of ways, the heavily playable parts of the elemental planes resemble the elemental chaos - we have earth elementals in the Plane of Air, fighting! The whole elemental conflict is a go in the elemental planes, which is a good thing. However, because of it? I really suspect that the previous incarnations of chaos and pure expressions are going to become defunct, very quickly. All the good stuff, the City of Brass, the Furnaces, the jewels, all of that is near the material plane, and not further out.

I wonder if in novels this be treated as the default cosmology in FR, with hints that its only one possible cosmology concidered by scholars, but not saying one is full truth about others.

The last of the Sundering series, the Elminster one, seems to push the Great Wheel as the dominant theory in the stories. Seemed to be almost a snub of the nose to the Great Tree and World Axis models, more than anything, but there you go. The creator of the Forgotten Realms is using the Great Wheel as the default in his books.

 

[gyor]

Actually in that book I thought it was pretty clear that within the realms there was completing theories with no one having a definitive answer.

As for the Border Elemental Planes, they're simular to the Elemental Chaos in that they are survivable without magic, but they are far more stable and ordered then the Elemental Choas, Choas is a big part of the Elemental Chaos which is not present in the same way in the Border Elemental Plane.

While thier are a mix of elements in the border regions, its predominately one element over the others, and elements don't transmute from one to the other like in the Elemental Chaos. A cinder desert in the Plane of Fire one day is going to be a Cinder Desert the next day, in the Elemental Chaos that desert could turn to a Solid Gold that some how rains upwards, and when that rain hits a certain point it explodes into fire. The day after it could turn into pure smoke with a hurricane at the Centre.

The Elemental Chaos is the love child of Limbo/Abyss and the Elemental Planes where as the Border Elemental Regions are the love child of the Feywild and Shadowfell with the Elemental Planes, and the Deep Elemental Planes are the original Elemental Planes.

Also you won't find Earth Elementals in the Border Plane of Air, almost never unless summoned by magic, you'd rarely find them in the border region of the Plane of Earth, although occasionally, thier main habitat is in the Deep Reaches of the Plane of Earth, and to a lesser extent the Elemental Chaos, although Hybrid Elementals are more common then pure elementals in the Elemental Chaos.

As for Story hooks, the conflicts between Genies races and other more human like elemental races as well as the riches of the elemental planes are a good start. For the Deeper Elemental Region, you have the politics of Pure Elementals and other more alien Elemental creatures as well as the Elemental Princes, and the search for the Purest forms of an Element, and in the Elemental Chaos, you have hybrid Elementals, Primdorials, Interelemental conflicts and wars between pure elementals, and possibly colonies from Limbo based races like the Githzerai and the Slaads who find the Elemental Chaos compatible with thier experiences of Limbo, if more physical then spiritual.

On a side note I also liked the Domains of Dread remaining in the Shadowfell, but I would have liked a feywild eqivilant, but not a prison so much as a manifestation of an archfeys nature in thier home, Fey Denses basically. Perhaps that can be added in a future Manual of the Planes.

PS I'm really looking forward to a manual of the Planes and to see how FR and Ebberon handle the planes.

 

[gyor]

Before I forget, how would a Planescape Sigil based Character refer to people from the Feywild and the Shadowfell, I mean if I remember correctly they call people from the Material Plane as Primes, would they call people from Echo planes as Echos, maybe Bright Ecoes for people from the Feywild and Dark Echoes for people from the Shadowfell?

 

[Mephista]

Also you won't find Earth Elementals in the Border Plane of Air

Read the blurb about the plane of air in the book - there are gargoyles and other earth-aligned elementals massing for attack.

 

[gyor]

I meant pure Elementals, Gargoyles are made from Earth, but they fly. And I concider them more human like Elementals. Still there could be some exceptions, but my point is is Pure Elementals native regions are further away from the Material Plane.

On another note, I think Celestial and Fiendish Familiars and Paladin Mounts likely come from the immaterial parts of the outer planes and are given a physical form and part of thier personality by the find familiar and find steed spells. Fey Spirits are probably just semiaware fregments of fey magic or Telthors in FR, that end up taking the form of fey races or possessing certain animals.