D&D General History of Planar Development in AD&D: 1977-1980

[grodog]

My new blog post looks at the history of planar design development in AD&D: A Brief History on the Development and Design of the Planar Cosmology in AD&D

More to come, too!

Allan.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

The release of Deities & Demigods in August 1980 at GenCon XIII adds the Para-Elemental Planes and the Plane of Shadow to the planar cosmology, and redraws the Outer Planes as The Great Wheel for the first time:

This also marked the introduction of the plane of Concordant Opposition, which later became the Outlands.

 

[the Jester]

This also marked the introduction of the plane of Concordant Opposition, which later became the Outlands.

Also note that the Para-Elemental Planes envisioned in DDG were not the ones that later became the standard version- you had Heat, Vapor, Dust and Ice, vs. the later Magma, Ooze, Ice, and Smoke.

 

[haakon1]

For me, the Planes fit the design in the original PHB, but I would add others unknown to the author of that schematic. To wit:

• the TOEE nodes
• the Plane of Shadow
• the Faerie Realm, Feywild, or whatever you want to call it
• the Far Realm
• possibly the Upside Down

Within the Prime Material Plane there are many worlds. Play is on Oerth, in the subcontinent of the Flanaess (Greyhawk), but in the Nodes, the players encountered a giant from Faerun (Forgotten Realms). Middle Earth, 1970’s Lake Geneva, the world of “The Name of the Rose”, Nentir Vale, and Karameikos are out there to be discovered.

On Oerth itself, they’ve heard veiled references to Izmir (the struggling low magic City-State as shown in the straight to video movie “D&D: Wraith of the Dragon God”, not the high-magic version in the earlier movie) and met an explorer from Daikini-speaking lands (“Willow” setting), and plenty more settings can fit.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

There must note those seemingly parallel Primes.
-Rhopan, plane (planet?) of the Rhennee
-Isle of the Ape (or is it a pocket demiplane?)
-Fading Lands (introduced in the Sargent era?)
-World linked by the Vortex of Leuk-O?