D&D General DnD cosmology - Which Edition do you prefer?

[Voadam]

I think that's right. I also think it's inescapable, though, so I don't even bother to look for consistency in this stuff. They could have made it consistent right from the start by keeping the afterlife in the afterlife, but that would've precluded using the gods and planes in adventures, which I imagine was the whole point. My hunch is that inconsistency was the price for building out all this adventure-ready game-space.

It would've been a lot more logically coherent and consistent to keep the afterlife in the afterlife, but where's the fun and adventure in that? Orpheus isn't famous on account of a spelunking expedition, so they fudged the line between the afterlife and the mortal world.

You could still have the Great Wheel planes even if you scrapped the mortal souls going to them as an afterlife. It would be planar dimensions you could go to with gods and outsiders and weird planar alignment concepts and high fantasy setting concepts.

4e kept the afterlife in the unknown afterlife instead of in the adventuring planes. It still has lots of fun god and planar stuff in my opinion. The original 4e set of 1-30 modules culminates in planar adventures with Orcus trying to take over the Raven Queen's death portfolio and turn all of the afterlife into unending Undeath for everyone. Also the 4e planar books such as the 4e Manual of the Planes, the Planes Above and the Planes Below, and the Demonomicon are all generally highly regarded fun D&D sourcebooks.

 

[beancounter]

I've only played 1E and 5E extensively, with brief dips into 2, and 3.5.

Of the two, I prefer 5E overall.

 

[Staffan]

No, it's you can have as many as you want ON TOP OF a cosmology that already supports a number of interesting principles, in particular the two most fundamental ones that are part of the genre (knowing that a lot can actually be linked to Law vs. Chaos, actually).

The problem I have with Law vs Chaos is that it is too vague. Are we talking primordial entropy vs stasis? Civilization vs wilderness? State (or other large-scale organization) vs individual? Rules vs whims? Those are all interesting conflicts (well, maybe not entropy vs stasis), but Law vs Chaos is not.

The way I see it, the only D&D setting that's ever done anything useful with the law/chaos axis was Jakandor.

 

[Lyxen]

The problem I have with Law vs Chaos is that it is too vague. Are we talking primordial entropy vs stasis? Civilization vs wilderness? State (or other large-scale organization) vs individual? Rules vs whims?

Any and all of them, I think that I've explored most of them actually, D&D is large enough.

Those are all interesting conflicts (well, maybe not entropy vs stasis), but Law vs Chaos is not.

Entropy vs. Stasis is what Moorcock is about, ultimately. The end result is not that interesting, but realising that is what the conflict is about, actually is.

The way I see it, the only D&D setting that's ever done anything useful with the law/chaos axis was Jakandor.

The Blood War is exactly about that.

 

[Fifinjir]

Tastes vary, but there is likely a lot of confirmation bias in that assessment that also likely reflects a more modern (and likely Christian) sense of "what concerns a peasant in such a world?" But would these concerns or answers necessarily reflect the polytheistic framework of other ancient/classical societies? Probably not.

Fair point I suppose, I don’t know what mindset and actual person in D&D universe would bring to that issue. But I could say that same thing about how they’d approach other parts of life. I guess it’s a s you say, tastes vary.

Thanks for some of the background information on 4e by the way.

I'm sorry, but I don't find "the abyss, but very noisy and possible to live in" a good idea for a plane of existence. The Abyss already has literal hundreds of layers. There could literally just be a single level or two that is inhabitable for mortal creatures and very, very windy. Pandemonium doesn't deserve to be its own plane of existence any more than any of the layers of the Abyss, IMO.

Maybe? At the very least it have to be one of the shallower layers, maybe even the first, or else there’d need to be some explanation why it’s only a little worse than normal-bad rather that the worst of everything turned up to eleven

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Even if it is a "simple" as you are painting it (the only Brandon Sanderson I have read is his volumes of Wheel of Time, sadly, so I don't know whose characterisation is more accurate), you still have the complexity of explaining how the hell a 0-dimension plane works (or even exists).

It's just the in-universe explanation for the origin of magic. All magic (aka "Investiture") comes from this plane. You can't physically go there, because it's 0D. The only way to interact with it is either by pulling magic from it, or by looking into it (seeing the future or past, because the realm is timeless).

So, yeah, it really is that simple. The only two "planes of existence" that really matter in his world are the Physical and Mental Realm. The Spiritual barely ever comes up, because there's not much going on with it. His cosmology literally only has 3 planes of existence. Sure, it has dozens of different planets and solar systems, but the base cosmology (i.e. different planes of existence) is much simpler than any cosmology in D&D.

 

[Lyxen]

It's just the in-universe explanation for the origin of magic. All magic (aka "Investiture") comes from this plane. You can't physically go there, because it's 0D. The only way to interact with it is either by pulling magic from it, or by looking into it (seeing the future or past, because the realm is timeless).

So, yeah, it really is that simple. The only two "planes of existence" that really matter in his world are the Physical and Mental Realm. The Spiritual barely ever comes up, because there's not much going on with it. His cosmology literally only has 3 planes of existence. Sure, it has dozens of different planets and solar systems, but the base cosmology (i.e. different planes of existence) is much simpler than any cosmology in D&D.

The simple proof that this is not true is in the fact that the cognitive realm is completely different on the various planets, as different as a different planes are. As for the spiritual, the fact that it does not have a physical dimension does not mean that it's not extraordinarily complex with a number of properties that are not really understood anyway. The Coppemind pages on the Realms are already fairly long even though they are clearly still incomplete, and I'm pretty sure that you can already create a readable manual of the planes based on that.

It's also complicated by the fact that things exist simultaneously in all three realms. So no, it's far from simple.

 

[Staffan]

The Blood War is exactly about that.

Case in point. The Blood War is boring.

Jakandor, on the other hand, featured two different human nations on an island about the size of Great Britain. In the first book, the Knorrmen were described as a nation of barbarians, living in small clans scattered across the island. The Knorrmen primarily worship the War Mother but also various household gods, and often join totemic lodges. Think vikings + native Americans. The second book describes the Charonti, a nation prioritizing service to the state above all else. They are heavily invested in the use of magic, with most arcane magic being secret techniques guarded by their guilds (corresponding to the schools of magic). They use necromancy heavily, to the point where the special ability of their fighter kit is to be able to command undead forces rather than some variant of personal excellence, and where their dead are routinely reanimated to continue serving the state and their families.

That's a much more interesting way of showing Law vs Chaos. Neither side is particularly interested in cosmological entropy or stasis, but the overall alignment of the Knorrmen is definitely Chaotic in D&D terms, and that of the Charonti is definitely Lawful. That doesn't prevent Knorrmen from having very strong senses of honor and respect for their own laws and customs, or Charonti from having individual ambitions, but those are their overall alignments.

 

[Voadam]

Big cosmic opposed forces are rarely evident in D&D. You do not normally see examples of the forces of Cosmic Good against Evil the way Demons and Angels might be opposed in In Nomine or similar Heaven and Hell war cosmologies/stories. Similarly you do not expect to see stuff like the Moorcockian Courts of Chaos marching out to face the Lords of Law.

In core D&D we have the Blood War for some Chaos versus Law and a bit about the Lawful Vaati Wind Dukes versus the Chaostic Obyriths as Rod of Seven Parts lore. In Dragonlance there are the Good, Neutral, and Evil collections of gods in balance that clash as a central storyline while they are in the picture. Eberron has the Rakshasa Lords of Dust versus Coatls history war and to a lesser extent the three dragons alignment split and the Sovereign Host and Dark Six who are a bit opposed but not at cosmic war that I can tell, though I have not seen a lot of lore on their history and current machinations.

For Planescape we have the Blood War again. For the Great Wheel settings of Greyhawk and FR (for a lot of FR history) there is no big alignment cosmic clash among the gods.

4e had big cosmic clashes but they were mostly not along alignment poles. The Dawn War Elemental Primordials versus Astral Gods is pretty cosmic but not Good versus Evil. 4e has a big cosmic Evil with Tharizdun and the Shard of Evil and Demons and Asmodeus but it is not Good versus Evil cosmically, it is the gods of every alignment chaining Tharizdun and sending Asmodeus and the devils to fight the threat of the corrupted evil of the demons. So Blood War again but much less directly a clash of Chaos and Law.

 

[Lyxen]

Case in point. The Blood War is boring.

Well, it's not at all the point of view of my players, who are warlords on the front, shifting alliances, commanding Devil and Daemon armies (plus a few even more unsavory allies), betraying and being betrayed, all the time trying to increase their power, avoid traps, conduct sieges, run away through lava tubes trying to save their troops, trying to find Avernus nodes to conduct rituals while hiding that from everybody else, etc.

Jakandor, on the other hand, featured two different human nations on an island about the size of Great Britain. In the first book, the Knorrmen were described as a nation of barbarians, living in small clans scattered across the island. The Knorrmen primarily worship the War Mother but also various household gods, and often join totemic lodges. Think vikings + native Americans. The second book describes the Charonti, a nation prioritizing service to the state above all else. They are heavily invested in the use of magic, with most arcane magic being secret techniques guarded by their guilds (corresponding to the schools of magic). They use necromancy heavily, to the point where the special ability of their fighter kit is to be able to command undead forces rather than some variant of personal excellence, and where their dead are routinely reanimated to continue serving the state and their families.

Sounds quite a bit a copycat of Sartarites vs. Lunar, with lunar Chaos Magic being replaced by Necromancy, or actually Sartarites vs. Delecti's empire of necromancy.

That's a much more interesting way of showing Law vs Chaos. Neither side is particularly interested in cosmological entropy or stasis, but the overall alignment of the Knorrmen is definitely Chaotic in D&D terms, and that of the Charonti is definitely Lawful. That doesn't prevent Knorrmen from having very strong senses of honor and respect for their own laws and customs, or Charonti from having individual ambitions, but those are their overall alignments.

Good for you if you like it, we happen to like Planescape, the Blood War, and having an active participation in there, in particular leading armies.