Help with an alternate cosmology?

[Archade]

Hi all!

Out of nostalgia, I dusted off my home brew campaign setting from my AD&D days, and looked at giving it a facelift for 3e. I'm looking at doing a reboot of it, as I think I can give it a better overhaul now than I could 20 years ago.

I'm looking at setting up an alternate cosmology, and could use some advice. I've decided thus far that:

a) I want to get more use out of little used outer planes

b) I want to create an old AD&D feel for reaching the outer outer planes. Thus, you cannot just jump to the 9th layer of Baator, you have to make your way through the subsequent layers. So there will be inner and outer planes with meaning.

Stealing from Eberron, I could have the conjunctive planes stretch and contract, allowing fleeting contact with those outer planes. Good thing too, because some staple planes, such as Baator or the Elemental Plane of Fire will be not adjacent to the material plane, making fire elementals and devils unlikely candidates for summoning, etc.

I'm looking for advice on rounding out my planes. Here's what I've decided so far:

THE MATERIAL PLANE

--> Land of the Dead - this will be the Ethereal Plane, with a twist - all the dead people come here. It explains ghosts, and makes the Ethereal useful and creepy all at the same time. The Ethereal just got really crowded.

--> --> Baator (The Nine Hells) - only reachable through the Land of the Dead.

--> Avalor - this is the Plane of Shadow, but is the home to the Fey Court. Instead of a dark creepy nightmare Shadow plane, it'll be a fractured shadowy reflection of the material plane, with fey cavorting about, and the great Fey Lords. So instead of fiendish or celestial creatures, wizards and clerics would likely summon umbral creatures.

--> --> The Deep Shadow - some sort of nightmare plane, where Fey are replaced with aberrations and horrible things too dark to describe. Very Cthulesque.

--> Aaqa - sort of a 'half-air' plane. The Wind Dukes of Aaqa just sound so evocative. I wish I had some equivalencies for the other planes.

--> --> Elemental Plane of Air.

--> Bak'set - a 'half-fire' plane. Maybe set the City of Brass here?

--> --> Elemental Plane of Fire

--> The Immaterium - the Astral Plane, more or less. Except it's not adjacent to everything, just part of a chain.

--> --> Celestia - a 'heaven' plane. Only reachable through the immaterium. Kind of makes githyanki some sort of prototypical human race, eh? Need to come up with a more evocative name than Celestia.

So, with this in mind, how do people think I should set up planes of Law or Chaos? If I follow my pattern, I need moderate planes, and then the roiling elemental planes on the outside of my bicycle spoke wheel.

Any suggestions to round this out would be much appreciated!

 

[Quickleaf]

I did the same thing with the Ethereal plane - a crossroads of souls on their way to judgment.

I like what you've done with Shadow, merging it with Faerie.

I just don't *grok* the half-air or half-fire planes. Could you elaborate?

What is the world setting like? I ask because I've always pictured the "outer planes" as spiritual realms reflecting the beliefs of humanity (or whatever your setting's races are). Thus, in asking what outer planes exist and how they are organized (cosmogony), you also need to ask what do these people believe in?

And in the case of competing beliefs, what sort of cosmogony can take them all into account and reconcile them? Or, if you decide one faith is right and the rest are wrong, how do disbelievers get along in the afterlife?

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Here's the cosmology I intend to use in my homebrew:

There are Three cosmoses: The material cosmos, the elemental cosmos, and the divine cosmos. Each cosmos has one or more planes, which are usually infinite, but blend into each other (something that shouldn't be possible by all means of logic, but the universe was created before anyone invented logic)

The deific or divine cosmos provides the ephemeral building blocks - the ideals, alignments, and the like. Throughout the cosmos, you can imagine a cross. One of the two axes of this cross is good/evil, the other is order/chaos. A plane's location in relation to the cross determines its alignment (a plane that is strongly evil aligned, is far out down (if down means evil), one that is mildly evil and mildly chaotic would be somewhere in the lower right corner (down for evil and right for chaos - but not all the way for either). This could accomodate more or less unlimited "outer planes", some more evil/good/chaotic/lawful, some less so, some mildly neutral (in the vicinity of the middle point), with the outlands (or their equivalent) smack in the middle.

The elemental cosmos has planes for each element. Please note that I intended to use Elements of Magic here, so there will be quite a few elements. There's several axes here: Fire/Water, Earth/Air, Death/Live, and the planes are aligned just like elements are aligned in EoM (so somewhere between fire and earth, you find magma, between death and stone, you find metal)

The material cosmos has several planes that make up a planet each. I was thinking of 4 main planets where mortals usually live (each one tied to one of the primary elements - with the fire planet having more desert, water planet less land, and so on). The planets share one orbit, and are connected with countless portals - some of the bigger cities even exist on several planets in several places, being connected by colossal portals.

The other planets are - to take inspiration from our own solar system - named after deities. Greater deities get their own planet, and lesser ones get a moon around the planet of the god they serve. Example: Let's assume FR deities. There would be a planet Mystra, with a Moon Azuth, one named Savras, and the dark Moon Velsharoon.

Travel to those planets isn't possible. While the deities have abodes in the divine cosmos, they also have palaces and other homes here, and it is here where people go after they die.

 

[Kafkonia]

Any suggestions to round this out would be much appreciated!

Here are some thoughts:

The Tarterian Depths of Carceri is, I'd say, midway between law and evil in terms of alignment power. Being a prison plane obviously makes it law-aligned, but the contents could be construed as chaotic; likewise, it has evil denizens but an arguably good purpose.

Mechanus is, obviously, the powerfully law-aligned plane, but I'd suggest hinting that there may be an even more law-aligned plane: one that is so ordered that change is impossible, and anyone who visits is subsumed into the order of the plane, losing all identity and will.

I don't think Acheron makes sense as a law-aligned plane, because it's full of nothing but battle and fighting -- they even go so far as to say that there are lots of armies, but no generals. Sure, armies require regimented structure -- but it looks to me that it is at the very least an even split between law and chaos.

I'd suggest picking up the Classic Play Book of the Planes -- it has some great alternative planes, and insight on designing your own.