Balesir
Adventurer
I love the Planescape lore and wouldn't want to see it die, but it does bemuse me somewhat that folks tie it to the Great Wheel cosmology - my overall view is that PS could be done as well, if not better, with the World Axis setup as with the Wheel.
PS often made a thing about how the "clueless" didn't understand the meaning of the word "infinite"; I would add that they seem to have had trouble with the concept of a "plane of existence", too. For a start, the planes don't have a physical layout. That is a concept that just doesn't work with the idea of a "plane". The planes coexist in the same space - that's what a plane is. The idea that one plane can be "above" another just doesn't compute.
It's a bit like White Wolf's excellent Mage concept of the "Correspondance Point"; there really is no such thing as physical space - your location in it is actually meaningless. Space and three dimensions is just a belief system formed by your mind to organise things such that you can understand and relate to them. The planes are similar. To say that you "journey" to Celestia doesn't make sense - you are already there, along with every other plane of existence. It's just that you can't perceive it, even though it's all around you. And it can't perceive you. Shift your focus of physical being and your perceptions, and you're there - there is no "journey".
So, the planes are defined by the "portals" and the "pathways" that allow that perception and focus of physical being to be shifted from one to another. Add appropriate portals to the World Axis - and, since several of the old "planes" are actually on the same "plane" that is now actually easier and things like "jumping from one plane to another" make much more sense - and you have the "Great Wheel" as a perfectly plausible belief system in the 4E cosmology. Ask the question "what determines the "layout" of a cosmology and you'll see that it's far more about belief than any really identifiable "facts" in any case.
The only chasme in the ointment is the Ethereal plane. That really is the only thing that was taken out with 4E that makes the slightest real difference - and that because it's a "parallel plane" (as if they all aren't!) that is (in translation) easy to coexist in - i.e. easy to keep your perception and locus of physical presence split between it and the prime material plane. Stretch the Elemental Chaos into a misty "border region" - or add an "Ethereal layer/demiplane" that is "parallel" to both the material plane and the Elemental Chaos - and you should have everything you need.
So, for me, there doesn't need to be a "core cosmology". Just explain that actually you can just list the planes, then define which ones are "parallel" to each other and decide which ones have the most portals between them. The rest of the "layout of the planes" stuff is just down to belief and dogma. There is no real "physical layout", because the relations are not physical. Deal.
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