Long post... ok, deep breath before the plunge:
It always did bother me a little about why the different planes existed, and why they were all filled with creatures all possessing a particular philosophic outlook. Also, if these planes are infinite and innumerable, why was the Prime Material, limited and mortal, so important to them; why should they care?
So here's my proposition as to why the planes exist as they do, and why the Prime Material is important to extraplanars, and why extraplanars don't engage in a total war for dominion of the Prime.
Take Jung's idea of collective subconscious: there is a real and powerful creative force existing between all of the sentient creatures on the Prime. Before this force existed, there were no planes, no gods, demons, angels; as sentient creautes achieved self-awareness, the collective subconscious grew in power. Think of that force as the Astral Plane. It exists as endless potential for the creative energies of the collective subconscious (CS).
So the Astral was created, and from that plane, all other planes of existance grew.
The ethereal, what but a representation of the dreams of mortals? It represents the world we live in, but muted, somehow blurry but recognizeable. There we find ourselves able to pass through walls, fly, go where we will. It is the home of ghosts, those whose sleep of death still permits them to dream of themselves as near-living, and allows them to force their consciousness into the world of the living.
Shadow, that place our nighmares created. Like the world but filled with horror and decay. Lifeless and malignant, it is the anitpode of the ethereal. What is good also has its bad, and in shadow the fears of the CS are realized.
The elemental planes: our theories and dreams that matter was made up of the four elements, that the primary building blocks of existance were fire, earth, water and air, gave birth to the planes in which they are dominant and endless.
And we come to the interesting part: the extraplanar beings. They were given a semblance of life from the soup of the Astral plane while the CS dreamed. We ascribed awesome powers to the "God of Lightning", and the "God of Darkness", not knowing that our fear and reverance of them was creating them.
And then the extraplanars themselves achieved self-awareness. No longer were they mere shells to be worshipped by mortals, but they found they could exercize the powers the CS had ascribed to them. They were Gods, and angels and demons, and they knew that their unlimited power was granted them not by an uncaring over-god, but rather by unwitting, weak, and mortal Primes. Who would they answer to now, if not only themselves? How would they treat this Prime, now that they knew they had the power to destroy it.
Like people newly introduced, the just-sentient extraplanars had no disagreements between them until they realized that a decision had to be made regarding the treatment of the Prime, and this is where the divide took place, why the planes are divided according to the philosophy of the inhabitants. For how should you treat your creators? Especially when you are more powerful than them? And what if their destruction meant that you had never been?
That is the question that drove some extraplanars to Evil and some to Good: what would happen if the CS were destroyed? Would the self-awareness of the extraplanars allow them to survive, or is their survival yet dependent upon the existance of a CS? And another question: what would happen if mortals were to stop believeing in them? Would the CS remove them from existance? And another sobering though: if the CS had already made an extraplanar not exist, how would the rest of them even know?
The split between good and evil was a split of love and fear. The good loved the mortals for having created them, and with their powers want to protect and shelter them. Through that protection, they would ensure their own furthered existance because mortals would believe in them, and the CS would not erase them.
The evil also thought that belief was important; they preferred an alternative way to make mortals aware of their existance: fear. They did not care if mortals loved or feared them, as long as they believed in them.
The lawful desired a maintainence of the status quo; things were just fine, and change was not a good thing. Not only would that cause problems for the protracted existance of the extraplanars, but it could lead to problems for the protracted existance of the mortals; they are want to kill each other.
The chaotic believed that their existance grew from chance, and that life should continue to be ruled by such. Change was a good thing to be embraced, for who knew what the next step would be, and the next step should be gloried in.
---
I think that takes care of most of it. That would explain why fiends don't swarm the Prime, because as much as they want mortals to fear them, they themselves are eaten away by the fear that they might not exist if such abject destruction were to be wreaked upon the Prime. Similarly, the angels don't intrude because their love for mortals prevents them from taking away all semblance of free will.
It's also an interesting thought that while the mortal collective subconscious created the planes, what would an extraplanar collective subconscious create? The Far Realm? An Overgod?
---
Whad'ya think?
It always did bother me a little about why the different planes existed, and why they were all filled with creatures all possessing a particular philosophic outlook. Also, if these planes are infinite and innumerable, why was the Prime Material, limited and mortal, so important to them; why should they care?
So here's my proposition as to why the planes exist as they do, and why the Prime Material is important to extraplanars, and why extraplanars don't engage in a total war for dominion of the Prime.
Take Jung's idea of collective subconscious: there is a real and powerful creative force existing between all of the sentient creatures on the Prime. Before this force existed, there were no planes, no gods, demons, angels; as sentient creautes achieved self-awareness, the collective subconscious grew in power. Think of that force as the Astral Plane. It exists as endless potential for the creative energies of the collective subconscious (CS).
So the Astral was created, and from that plane, all other planes of existance grew.
The ethereal, what but a representation of the dreams of mortals? It represents the world we live in, but muted, somehow blurry but recognizeable. There we find ourselves able to pass through walls, fly, go where we will. It is the home of ghosts, those whose sleep of death still permits them to dream of themselves as near-living, and allows them to force their consciousness into the world of the living.
Shadow, that place our nighmares created. Like the world but filled with horror and decay. Lifeless and malignant, it is the anitpode of the ethereal. What is good also has its bad, and in shadow the fears of the CS are realized.
The elemental planes: our theories and dreams that matter was made up of the four elements, that the primary building blocks of existance were fire, earth, water and air, gave birth to the planes in which they are dominant and endless.
And we come to the interesting part: the extraplanar beings. They were given a semblance of life from the soup of the Astral plane while the CS dreamed. We ascribed awesome powers to the "God of Lightning", and the "God of Darkness", not knowing that our fear and reverance of them was creating them.
And then the extraplanars themselves achieved self-awareness. No longer were they mere shells to be worshipped by mortals, but they found they could exercize the powers the CS had ascribed to them. They were Gods, and angels and demons, and they knew that their unlimited power was granted them not by an uncaring over-god, but rather by unwitting, weak, and mortal Primes. Who would they answer to now, if not only themselves? How would they treat this Prime, now that they knew they had the power to destroy it.
Like people newly introduced, the just-sentient extraplanars had no disagreements between them until they realized that a decision had to be made regarding the treatment of the Prime, and this is where the divide took place, why the planes are divided according to the philosophy of the inhabitants. For how should you treat your creators? Especially when you are more powerful than them? And what if their destruction meant that you had never been?
That is the question that drove some extraplanars to Evil and some to Good: what would happen if the CS were destroyed? Would the self-awareness of the extraplanars allow them to survive, or is their survival yet dependent upon the existance of a CS? And another question: what would happen if mortals were to stop believeing in them? Would the CS remove them from existance? And another sobering though: if the CS had already made an extraplanar not exist, how would the rest of them even know?
The split between good and evil was a split of love and fear. The good loved the mortals for having created them, and with their powers want to protect and shelter them. Through that protection, they would ensure their own furthered existance because mortals would believe in them, and the CS would not erase them.
The evil also thought that belief was important; they preferred an alternative way to make mortals aware of their existance: fear. They did not care if mortals loved or feared them, as long as they believed in them.
The lawful desired a maintainence of the status quo; things were just fine, and change was not a good thing. Not only would that cause problems for the protracted existance of the extraplanars, but it could lead to problems for the protracted existance of the mortals; they are want to kill each other.
The chaotic believed that their existance grew from chance, and that life should continue to be ruled by such. Change was a good thing to be embraced, for who knew what the next step would be, and the next step should be gloried in.
---
I think that takes care of most of it. That would explain why fiends don't swarm the Prime, because as much as they want mortals to fear them, they themselves are eaten away by the fear that they might not exist if such abject destruction were to be wreaked upon the Prime. Similarly, the angels don't intrude because their love for mortals prevents them from taking away all semblance of free will.
It's also an interesting thought that while the mortal collective subconscious created the planes, what would an extraplanar collective subconscious create? The Far Realm? An Overgod?
---
Whad'ya think?
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