Design and Development: Cosmology

[Cadfan]

I like the Feywild and the Shadowfell.

I like planes which are alternate versions of the real world. I don't like using a ton of planes in my campaign- at most, I want one other plane easily accessible to players. It keeps things from getting overly complex. Jaunting back and forth between reality and pseudo reality can be good for a plot.

I used to use the Plane of Shadow for this, but the Feywild and the Shadowfell seem alright too.

 

[FreeXenon]

The lack of ethereal makes me wonder whether they might bite the bullet and merge ethereal and incorporeal together - the subtle differences are often confusing to people and I don't know how much we would lose if they became one.

I am of the same mind, as well.

Perhaps they will merge the Plane of Shadow with the ShadowFell as well?
.. or maybe the Astral Sea just killed the Plane of Shadows and assumed the place as the only transient plane?

 

[Sammael]

Are they really any hokier than "The Happy Hunting Grounds" or "The Paraelemental Plane of Ooze"?

Actually, IMO, yes. Not that I ever used "the Happy Hunting Grounds" (having been introduced to D&D during the glorious golden age of Planescape).

BTW, one plane notably missing from the new cosmology is the Outlands (which, arguably, had the least planar flavor of its own, and was nearly completely dominated by the Gate Towns and the Spire).

 

[Novander]

So it sounds like the Keep on the Shadowfell introductory adventure will introduce the new cosmology as well as the new rules.

Personally, I quite like it. I'm not too keen on the name "Feywild", but I think "Shadowfell" is a nice fit.

 

[Cadfan]

Also, I suspect that the Feywild and the Shadowfell will impact heavily the design of the Druid and the Dread Necromancer.

 

[Imaro]

Wow. Its the oWoD cosmology!

Astral Sea = High Umbra (Mage)
Feywild = Middle Umbra (Werewolf)
Shadowfell = Low Umbra (Wraith)

Better yet...again from Exalted

Shadowfell=Shadowlands
Elemental Chaos=Wyld lands
FeyWild=Borders of Creation
Astral Sea=Yu-shan( actually this one is a stretch, but everything else is spot on)

This with the demon and devil tid bits has got me kinda dissapointed. I've played this game before.

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

It looks like the Ethereal is gone. I don't mind most of the changes, as they will still provide rules for elementals, elemental environments, etc., but I'll miss having rules for the Ethereal plane (or course that just makes it a more mysterious place, I guess).

astral, feywild and shadowfell killed ehtereal and took its stuff

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I wonder if "plane shift" won't be divided between various spells.... So that you can access feywild sooner than the astral sea.

That would be nice.

I like this, although as has been noted, this sort of cosmology is not exactly unknown in other games. (Heck, this new setup all but screams out for using Beyond Countless Doorways as the planar corebook for 4E.)

I see a lot to like here, including evil dryads and fey-flavored formorians.

Oh, and these planes are all other dimensions. You don't normally walk there. Not-coexistent means that there's no spot corresponding to Lake Geneva in the Elemental Tempest, not that it's not located just as far away/close as Feywild (where there is a corresponding lake where Lake Geneva exists).

 

[fuindordm]

Well, I like the names.

The elemental chaos is a very, very old idea. How many ancient gods and goddesses built the world out of chaos, or slew a beast representing chaos and constructed the world from its body? Tons. Someone's been reading.

The Feywild seems to be an amalgam of animistic spirit realms, faerie, and (OK, that last is pure extrapolation on my part)--the source of life force, or perhaps just the first pit stop of life force on its way to the material.

The Shadowfell makes the afterlife interesting. Bob is dead, but wait a minute--there's something waiting for him on the other side. Run, Bob, run! What's that--your buddy didn't have raise dead prepared? Well, keep running.

It's like we've got two spirit realms, one positively "charged" and one negatively charged.

Cool stuff again.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

We also now know a lot more about Keep on the Shadowfell, just because we know what the Shadowfell is. A cleric of Orcus attempting to reopen a portal to the land of the dead is a suitably mythic introductory module, IMO. Looking forward to April all the more now!

(And yes, I hope that Shadowfell kills the Plane of Shadow and takes its stuff. The Plane of Shadow was the only transitive plane with any pizazz, IMO, other than the Plane of Mirrors, which I will houserule back into existence -- or buy a PDF of, if someone manages to stretch that out to a full, even if small, product.)