D&D 5E (2024) For a setting that emphasizes the five power sources

[Yaarel]

Another thought is cosmology. In at least one game, they did some fun stuff with souls. Souls where something you could interact with, and they had basically magical energy in them. The various power sources could intertact with this soul-energy differently.

I view the soul as comprising different levels, ranging from infinite transcendent to a particular animalistic body.

The infinite aspects are cosmic and selfless, beyond a sense of an individual self.

But there is a kind of higher self, an ideal best version of oneself, who is inherently altruistic and ethical, and can engage and adapt any situation. This relates to the eternal identity, being beyond spacetime but still cognitively conceivable. Mystical experiences of various sacred traditions involve it.

Between the higher self and the animal body is the level of personal identities. This is the psychological sense of self that can learn learn grow, explore, and evolve. It can tale on more responsibilities, in a sense becoming larger. Sometimes it is called the spirit of a person. It has influence and relates to the soul of an artist. Sometimes this psychological selfidentity identifies moreso as the altruistic higher self, sometimes moreso the selfpreservation animal body.

For D&D, the "soul" of a Humanoid comprises different parts to being a microcosm of the macrocosmic multiverse. There are roughly three levels of the soul: the Material aura of the animal body, the Ethereal influence of the spirit of a person, and an Astral ideal self at the threshold of spacetime. Each of these levels involve different aspects. It is as if a Humanoid has a different soul existing in each multiversal plane, and the person is a unity of all of them.


The bodily aura is the animal soul of the Material Plane. This Material soul is the ki, the lifeforce of a body. It is the foundation for an individual sense of self, a unique person of desires and selfpreservation, who is distinct from the rest of existence. This aura includes aspects of Shadow, Fey, and Elemental. The Shadow soul is clear relating to necromancy, the Fey soul relates to nature and the fates and related to druidry, and the Elemental soul to the magic of the Elemental Sorcerer.

One can talk about a "Shadow soul", an aspect of the bodily aura that relates to dying and death, but lingers on with the corpse after death, and hopefully rests in peace in the Shadowfell. Necromancy manipulates this Shadow soul while the other souls of the same person continue to do their activities elsewhere across other planes. A Celestial soul is aware if a Necromancer disturbs its Shadow soul, but the Celestial soul itself remains unharmed.

The Fey soul also relates to the underworld but is a more positive state, involving the healthy and healing aspects of the body, communion with all living lifeforms, as well as the magical capacity of shapeshifing. The Fey aspect tends to be thoughtless but ultimately fair. There is a sense of karma at work, the "fates", sometimes in a frightening way.

The Elemental soul is alchemically "scientific" but includes magical affinities with the matter and the personalities of the four elements.


The Astral soul is "angelic" and engages the realms of archetypes, symbols, cultural ideals, values, ethics, alignments. These conceptual structures allow the person to make decisions beyond the immediacy of reactions to the bodily senses. There is a timeless quality involving synchronicity. The reason a person can engage in this level of the soul is because of the capacity of speech.

The Astral level includes the Celestial soul of altruistism that achieves great ambition by ways that also benfit others. It makes sense to say every Humanoid also has a Fiend soul, being the consequences of dark side decisions and actions. This is the aspect that "passes thru fire" to enter the Celestial Planes whole. The main difference between Celestial and Fiend relates to the Material soul. This bodily aura has infinite desire: when one desire gains fulfillment, the aura desires something more. The Celestial soul uses the infinite desires of others as opportunities to do Good. When someone is hungry, one becomes able to offer food, teach how to prepare food, and encourage others to do Good feeding yet others. By contrast, the Fiend soul only fulfills ones own infinite desires, at the expense of others.


The Ethereal soul is the spirit of a person. It bridges the Astral soul and the Material bodily aura. A person is whatever the Ethereal soul pays attention to. It is the identity and actions of a person.

These Ethereal selfidentities can learn, adapt, and evolve. Ideally the person selfidentitifies with the Celestial soul while remaining in touch with the individualistic desires of the bodily soul. Loving ones bodily self is Good, while also loving the bodily selves of others. The Fey aspect is this benign animalistic self.

The Ethereal soul exerts influence, relating to the presence of works of art and the magical telepathic magic of the Bard and other shamanic figures.

The phrase mind over matter relates to the Ethereal soul of an individual person. This level is made out of ether, the fifth element also called quintessence. The ether is force, being physical but immaterial. Gravity is also a form of ether. The Border Ethereal is all of these Ethereal forces that are part of and inseparable from the Material Plane.

This soul ether exerts physical force, as a telekinetic field of influence. When alchemical formulas require the fifth element as an ingredient, one can supply it by paying attention to the alchemicsl process. One makes the phases of the alchemical reactions symbols of ones own selfidentity, thus entangling the process with ones own Ethereal soul. The magic of the Arcane power source often involved the physics of the five Elements: ether, fire, air, water, and earth. But it especially involves the properties of ether as an immaterial substance, for telekinetic manipulation and real manifestations of illusory visualizations.


In sum, the Humanoid soul entangles every plane of existence. It is as if a separate soul exists in each plane, and a Humanoid is the unity of all of them. The Material soul includes aspects of Elemental, Fey, and Shadow. The Astral soul includes aspects of Celestial and Fiend. The Ethereal soul tries to pay attention and make sense of all the aspects of an integrated person. Being whole is powerful to influence every level of the multiverse.

 

[Yaarel]

Fuel vs Method? Like, maybe Fey/Shadow/Elemental are fuel?

My understanding is, the "fuel" is either ones own personal soul (psionic and primal), or the impersonal planar weave (arcane and divine). Albeit, this fuel doesnt get exhausted.

Then each power source is a "method". Each source is a different "Theory of Magic".

Psionic would harness, strengthen, consume and focus your own soul energy. How do we distinguish this from Martial? I guess the big difference is if you project your soul energy outside your body? Or maybe it is if you learn how to move your soul energy around. A Martial "simply" strengthens their soul-body connection to make themselves superhuman; a Psionic learns how to manipulate their own soul energy through direct practice focusing on it. Like, Psionic disciplines involve projecting your soul into the Ethereal, forming the will, then imposing it on reality; Martial techniques keep the soul and body moving as one.

Ultimately what defines the martial power source is reallife. If it can happen in reallife, then martial can do it in an impossibly exaggerated way. The thematic pair is the exaggeration of Body and Tools. The various superheroes whether athletic or technological can inspire character concepts. This magic of martial utilizes the Material soul, namely the ki lifeforce bodily aura, and the weave of Material Plane.

An example of an effect that is on the threshold and might be martial: a sword can be polished so its blade is mirrorlike and gleams; so martial can polish it so well it literally shines in the dark ss a lightsource. This effect relates to the Tool theme and tech flavor.

There is overlap between martial and the primal themes of Fey body shape shifting and Elemental alchemical technology. What distinguishes martial is reallife phenomena anchors it even if there is an impossible exaggeration.

Primal would interact with free spirits and make bargains with them. These spirits are everywhere.

Yes, for primal magic, the features of nature are persons. Each river has unique personality and dramatic psychological presence. Some of the rivers are skilled at magic. While a river is native to the Material Plane, it is a watery Elemental soul. This soul is aware. It can taste the things that are in its riverwaters. If this soul knows how to do magic, it can exert Ethereal influence -- especially telepathic -- by projecting a remote presence via the Border Ethereal that can manifest magical effects beyond the river. Importantly, the river soul is nonhuman, and might typically manifest as weird watery events. But some rivers know shapeshift magic and can take the form of a human or other animal. If it takes the form of a human, it also adopts a human mind, thoughts and emotions, albeit this humanlike overlay feels alien to the nonhuman river itself. A river is the Elemental soul of the Elemental creature type. However the form that this Elemental chooses to take is the river itself. It rarely animates, and the Water Elemental monster statblock almost never applies. More typically the soul of the river is encountered in ghostlike paranormal activities, including dreams, apparitions, and weird watery occurrences. The same is analogous for earthy mountains, and so on with any feature of the landscapes, plantscapes, seascapes, and skyscapes.

Primal magic is about forming a social community, where Humanoids and these natural Elementals exist civilly and constructively, with mutual respect. A role of a shamanic is to identify any conflicts between any members of this community and to negotiate reconciliations - whether human-versus-human, human-versus-elemental, or elemental-versus-elemental. In this animism, it is the neighborliness that is the sacred.

 

[Yaarel]

Here is a setting for 5e 2024.

Human-founded cultures rival Dwarf-founded cultures. Other populous species -- Elf, Tiefling, Goliath, and Dragonborn -- get caught up variously in the conflict.

With regard to its design, the setting emerges from the following considerations.


The main themes that comprise all of D&D are:
Spacetime (teleport, remote presence, prescience, time alteration, fate, luck)
Mind (telepathy, charm, suggestion, subjective phantasm, Ethereal soul)
Fear (fright, hold, domination, Ethereal soul)
Illusion (objective apparition, lifelike force construct, Ethereal force)
Force (telekinesis, flight, simple force construct, Ethereal force)
Elemental (fire-radiant, air-lightning-thunder, water-cold, earth-plant-fabrication, Elemental, Giant)
Fey (lifeforms, shapeshift, Beast, Fey)
Shadow (death, disease, poison, Undead)
Healing (health, resurrection)
Astral (symbol, language, Celestial, Fiend, Aberration)

The power sources in addition to Martial (that exaggerates reallife body and technology) are: Psionic (Spacetime, Mind), Arcane (Illusion, Force), Primal (Elemental, Fey), Divine (Healing, Astral), and Necromancy (Fear, Shadow).

The most played player species of DnDBeyond are in order: Elf and Human, then Tiefling, Goliath, Dwarf, and Dragonborn, then Halfling, Orc, Gnome, and Awsimar.

Settlement patterns. Urban is fully multispecies, but some might subtly privilege one or two founding species. Rural has a majority species with significant minority species. Indigenous preserves early sacred traditions of a particular species, but other species become family members, especially spouses and adoptees. Each species has examples of all three patterns.

The storytelling tropes of the fivesome band: Jock (lead singer, wellrounded) and Rebel (lead guitarist, critique), Smart (keyboard, intellectual), Heart (harmony, idealistic), and Big (drummer, guardian). A sixth member is often an Asset, a helpful contact from a rival organization.

The characteristics of a species might suggest the tropes of a fivesome band member. Nevertheless, it is a culture itself that is operative, and normally other species are also members of a given culture.

The most-played classes of DnDBeyond are in order: Fighter, Rogue, Barbarian, Wizard, Paladin, then Warlock, Cleric, Ranger, Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, and Monk. Plus Artificer. Hopefully there will be a Psion soon, and maybe eventually a Warlord.

There are two governmental superpowers: a Human-prevailing Urban culture rivals a Dwarf-prevailing Urban culture. Both are multispecies cosmopolitan.


Human Martial Wellrounded Jock (the Human-centric Urban culture defines the main themes of the entire setting: this culture features Rogue, namely the politicians and business opportunists, who exploit or integrate the members of any other classes -- plus hopefully there will be a Warlord class for this culture to also feature prominently.)

Dragonborn Divine Rebel (cultural counterpoints emphasize and critique against the themes of the setting: cultures feature Paladin plus Cleric). There is an influential Dragonborn subculture functioning organically within the Human-founded Urban culture.

Dwarf Martial Asset (these dwarven Assets are helpful antiheroes, or at least useful contacts: cultures feature Fighter plus Monk).

Tiefling Arcane Smart (academic, protoscientific, geeky, and-or shrewd): cultures feature Wizard plus Warlock and Artificer). Tiefling Urban cultural values teach rationality as a reliable method toward good, and neutrality among conflicts. But individuals do as they will, and often are mercenary for either side of the Human/Dwarf rivalry.

Goliath Primal Big (each individual is an army of one, who can overwhelm physically and magically to defend others: cultures feature Barbarian plus Druid and Ranger). One of the Goliath cultures is Urban Primal with elemental advanced magitech and technotopian values. Goliaths tend to be preoccupied with their own internal elementalist conflicts while ignoring the affairs of the Human/Dwarf rivalry.

Elf Heart Psionic (these elven cultures revere seers that foresee, troubleshoot, and steer the futures of individuals and groups, ultimately toward a future of universal good for all of the setting, but occasionally with painful sacrifices or selfish gains along the way: elven cultures feature Bard plus Sorcerer and Psion). With many exceptions: Drow cultures orbit Urban Dwarves, Wood cultures Rural Humans, and High cultures Urban Goliaths. But the Courts of all of these elven cultures meet annually at the Reverie, to coordinate for a shared good future.

The High culture is Urban yet Indigenous, inhabiting cities that float high above the clouds in the Border Ethereal Plane, with pilgrimage sites for any species seeking prescient advice. These cities develop around Ethereal-Fey Crossings.

Traditional Wood culture includes both Elves and Humans, and now often other species as well. It emphasizes civic responsibility. Inhabiting industrious opulent inter-bridging treehouses, each Wood town forms its own army of mages, building a mutual alliance within an economic league that includes certain communities of neighboring cultures. There is also a nomadic Grugach culture comprising families of Indigenous Orcs and Wood Elves that joined them in ancient times. Today some Grugach families are remote wilderness isolationists, and others are Urban wealthy merchants traveling the trade routes seasonally.

Indigenous Dwarves inhabit mountains, whence the Rural Duergar towns of the Underdark, and the Urban cities under wetlands that then forged a vast multispecies empire across the Surface. The royal families of the Surface Empire are Dwarf by law, but beyond the royalty, citizens of any species rule at every level of the imperial government.

Drow cultures are Indigenous to the Underdark, thus often involve Duergar, whence many Drow families, "houses", emigrated to become citizens of the Dwarf Surface Empire. Most Drow houses maintain close ties with the Astral Plane, especially to honor Celestial Corellon their ancestor (or subversively the Fiend Lolth). Primordial Elves are shapechangers without a true form. Among Drow, the ancient Corellon prefers to take the form of a Drow of any gender.

 

[Yaarel]

The presence of the many ancestries of both Dragonborn and Goliath causes elemental themes occupy much of the conceptual space of the setting. The following table helps organize the elementalism.

The elements are substances and energies. The Giant ancestries of the Goliath are the souls of the elemental substances (Ether, Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and Plant). The Dragon ancestries of the Dragonborn are the souls of the elemental energies (psychic, force, radiant, fire, lightning, thunder, cold, acid, poison, and necrotic).

The six elemental substances are: Ether being the immaterial force that all matter is made out of. It encompasses and pervades all matter. Then the four states of matter are plasmic Fire (such as the sun), gaseous Air, liquid Water, and solid Earth. Then, Plant functions as a living elemental substance that is composed of the four states of matter.

The ten elemental energies are the same thing as the damage types, and associate with the plane of the Elemental Chaos. The energies function like paraelementals, between the elemental substances. For example, both Ether and Fire can shine radiant energy. Both Water and Earth are cold, and involve salt solutions for acids. The mind is the aspect of a soul made out of Ether, and exerts Ethereal mindforce to connect telepathically with the minds, whence psychic energy, and extends telekinetic force energy. The element Plant includes the aspect of fungus that causes rot, whence necrotic energy.

The ancestries of the Goliath and Dragonborn correspond the elemental substances and their energies.

Goliath Ancestry	(Elemental) SUBSTANCE energy	Dragonborn Ancestry
	psychic force	Emerald,Crystal Amethyst
Cloud ?	ETHER
	radiant	Moonstone
Fire	FIRE
	fire	Gold,Brass,Red
Storm	AIR
	lightning thunder	Bonze,Blue Sapphire
Frost	WATER
	cold acid	Silver,White Copper,Black
Stone	EARTH
	poison	Green
Hill ?	PLANT
	necrotic	Topaz

 

[Yaarel]

The Dark Sun setting explores Elementalism, and the following insights apply here too. Dark Sun is example of how elements go wrong. But it took a long time for planet Athas to reach that point.


Arcane defiling should explicitly destroy the element of Water. This dessication causes the necrotic damage to all lifeforms in the vicinity, that also contain Water.

Defiling is the magical equivalent of nuclear fission, destroying matter to release energy.

This destruction of elemental Water is to a degree that eventually threw all of the elements out of harmony. So now Ether, Fire, Air, and Water are all behaving wrong. In this context, Plant is also an element, a living element composed of the other five elements. And Plant is behaving wrong. The laws of alchemical physics no longer work properly.

With the elements out of whack, to use the Arcane power source in any way simply destroys more Water.

However the technique for gaining a magical benefit from this destruction of Water is a closely guarded secret that only the Sorcerer Monarchs and certain chosen followers know. (To know this defiling technique is a background feat in service of a Sorcerer Monarch.) The technique requires the presence of living Plant to harness the fission of elemental Water. But it is still the desiccation that destroys the nearby plants and creatures. The destruction then further damages the elemental environment.

Fixing the ecological disaster means creating new elemental Water to bring all six elements back into harmony. The six elements are the four states of matter - plasmic Fire (such as the sun), gaseous Air, solid Earth, and liquid Water - plus the immaterial force of Ether, and the living recombinant Plant.

When the elements are in harmony, matter becomes the Positive Material Plane, which is the same thing as a Fey Crossing. When the elements are in dissonance, matter becomes the Negative Material Plane, which is the same thing as a Shadow Crossing.

The elemental plane of Water is more like interconnecting local demiplanes. As the Water gets destroyed, these local demiplanes of Water likewise get destroyed, one by one. When Water is abundant, these local demiplanes of Water might feel infinite as they interlink the Waters of many worlds. But even this planar space of Water is a limited resource that can be lost when the Material Water that anchors the demiplane is lost.

The same demiplanar principle applies to the other three elemental states of matter.