Planar Structure for Campaign

[Greatwyrm]

I'm just about to the point with my homebrew world to start the campaign. The last thing giving me fits is the planes.

It's a little ways off, but one of the things the group said they wanted to do was some plane hopping. I'd like to do something a little different and allow for numerous, unique planes, even if some are quite small.

My problem is, I'd rather not use the "great wheel" design. I'm not sure exactly what I want, but I'd like something a little different. Does anyone have an alternate planar structure you use in your campaign or an idea for one you've had lying around in your brain, gathering dust?

 

[Piratecat]

Flip through the back of the Manual of the Planes, where I believe they present alternatives. One thing that might be fun is to use an Amber-esque parallel universe approach, and connect all worlds and planes through the plane of shadow or the ethereal. Then make the Astral the "behind the scenes" plane that lets you jump quickly from one to another if you know where you're going.

 

[Psion]

Well, I don't have a whole lot of advice for designing a cosmology from the Ground up beyond what the MotP has. You might check out Book of the Righteous for a sort of stripped down variant with lots of background behind it.

That said, if you are just looking for a different model to go plane hopping with, I heartily recommend you snag a copy of Planes & Portals by FFG. It has a couple of different venues for plane travel. I discuss one of them here.

 

[Kweezil]

I'm still working on the planar cosmology for my own world, but I'll tell you what I have and it might spark something for you. It's a little derivative (bits borrowed from WW, bits borrowed from the Great Wheel, bits borrowed from Eberron) but I'm happy with the way it all fits together, and that it fits my world's creation myths and world rules (no alignment etc) much better.

At the centre of it all is the material world. Unlike some other worlds, it isn't a sphere orbiting a star. The world is more like a stretched sheet, pinned at the 4 cardinal points by the essential planes (elemental planes of fire, earth, air and water). The closer you go to one of the directions the more elemental it becomes until you slip into the elemental plane.

Co-terminus with the material world is the spirit realm, world of the spirits and souls of the world, and where the dead if they resist going to their final judgement (ghost etc). As it mirrors the material, it too seeps into the elemental planes at the cardinal points.

Above the world lies the heavens and the sphere of the zodiac, where the stars are placed, and the sun and moons which orbit there, and below is lies the underworld, the utter depths beneath the world where many strange aberrations and things better unnamed reside. The material world can seep into these realms too, hence I can have a nice endless underdark if I want

Beyond all this is the void, the unformed nothingness that remains after the elder triad crated the world. The void is anathema to existance, though powerful forces can shape it for a time. At the highest point above the world lies the Light, the Positive Energy plane, which feeds life and light into the world along strands of energy known as the Spire, while at the deepest depth lies the Dark, the Negative energy plane, which has its own dark Spire. Incomrehensible entities such as Xeg-Yi and Xag-ya live among the energy streams of the Spires where raw energy touches the void, and where the Spires meet, magic is born.

Lastly, orbitting the world are the conceptual planes of War, Nature, Law, Chaos, Passion, etc. Cutting their way through the void, eternally battling with it, they leave minor demiplanes in their wake that are swiftly consumed by the void.

Whew. Now to get this all sorted and onto my website. I hope its of some help to you.

 

[Nifft]

Here's mine:

http://klimt.cns.nyu.edu/~fishman/DnD/DHE/planes.shtml


Notable features:

- No Astral -- the roiling chaos of Limbo surrounds the prime, outer & inner planes instead. Limbo is a buffer between the Prime and the Far Realms.

- [Teleportation] magic involves the Shadow plane.

- Astral Projection crafts a fresh body for you from the raw chaos of Limbo.

- The Prime is bordered on one side by the Ethereal ("the past"), on the opposite side by the Shadow plane ("the future"), and on the other ten sides by Limbo ("turbulance"). There's a picture.

- Between Ysgard and Pandemonium lies the Plane of Faerie (since IMHO Fey are more Chaotic than Slaad, who are more CE). Slaad are moved to Pandemonium.

- The planes aren't connected in a wheel. They are (mostly) connected by a river. The great river (here called "Oceanus") begins on the first plane of Mount Celestia and its blessed water flows through Elysium, Arboria, Ysgard and Faerie before falling through the wind and water scarred caverns of Pandemonium, where Oceanus is a lifeline for those who would avoid the darker and nastier parts. From Pandemonium the river flows into the 88th layer of the Abyss -- Abysm, keep of the Ancient, home of Demogorgon. After passing through his twisted towers, the water is no longer blessed -- it is unholy brine. From the 88th layer, the river (now called "Styx") flows both up and down the Abyss, and from the first Abyssal layer it bubbles up and flows into Carceri, from there Hades, then Gehenna, and finally into the first layer of Hell. The river Styx flows down all nine layers, and does not emerge from Nessus, the Pit of the Adversary, the home of Asmodeus.

- Nirvana ("Mechanus") does not have a river. It does not have wind, either. Flowing water does not exhibit turbulance.

- There are Portals (permanent Gates), but they're often secret or guarded. You can't just "walk" from one Plane to another, though you can walk from one layer to another. To traverse Planes, you have to take a Portal, sail the Great River, make a Gate, or Plane Shift.

- The Elemental Planes *are* connected. They're a big sphere, eternally growing, decaying and burning. There are more than 4 elements, though they "big 4" are strongly represented. There's a picture.

- Cynosure is a city formed from parts of cities on other Planes. Each "block" has its own laws of physics (magic, science, both, neither, etc.). To quote a bounty hunter of Cynosure: "Guns work on one side of the street, spells work on the other. Swords work everywhere." Other more philosophical people have likened Cynosure to "market day for the Laws of Nature". If you can find your way there, it's possible to find your way nearly anywhere.

Hope this helps, -- N

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

And here is mine:

http://juergen.the-huberts.net/dnd/urbis/cosmology.html

Basically, there are 10 cosmic forces or "cardinal points" in this setup: Earth, Fire, Water, Air, Law, Chaos, Good, Evil, Positive Energy and Negative Energies.

These are not planes in their own right. Rather, these are points in metaphysical space around which planes accumulate. Most points in metaphysical space are unstable - any planes that form there will be rather small and soon sucked up by the next cardinal point.

However, there are stable points as well - and these exist in the middle between to non-opposed cardinal points. In other words, you could have a plane of Fiery Earth, but not one of Fiery Water (since Fire and Water are opposed, but not Fire and Earth).

This allows for a quite large number of planes. Some of them will look quite familiar (the plane of Evil and Chaos will be quite similar to the Abyss), but others will be stranger - what might the plane of Evil Life (Evil and Positive Energy) look like?

 

[Hjorimir]

Attached you will find a brief overview of the cosmology I use. It has some interesting connotations and, once you think about it, you will see why the Prime Material is of such importance.

 

[jerichothebard]

Here is the intro my players got to our cosmology:

From the Librera, First Book, chapter II

"...And so the God said, 'Let there be five elements, Fire, Earth, Air, Water, and Spirit, each in its own domain, and of these five elements shall the world be composed.' And it was.

And the God said, 'let there be, running through this world, two threads of power, the Arcane and the Divine, like night and day, like dark and light, like female and male.' And there is.

And the God said 'Through each of these elements let there be creatures, great and small, and in the joining of these elements let the greatest of beings reside, that of elf and man, dwarf, halfling and gnome.' And there are..."

So, basically, you have the big four elemental planes - Fire, Earth, Water, Air, which have their same general properties that you are probably used to.

A fifth one, Spirit, is conceptually a combination of the Astral, Ethereal, Shadow, + & - Energy, and afterlife planes.

Like all the planes, Spirit has many different aspects, which is why there are so many ways of tapping into it (thus, ethereal jaunt and shadow walk are not compatible, though they both take place in the spirit realm.)

The Prime is built at the joining of the elements.


Running through this are the threads of Arcane and Divine power, which mortals (incorrectly) attribute to Chaos and Law, respectively.

It's pretty simple - we won't be doing plane-hopping too awful much IMC.

jtb

 

[Basin?]

Hey! I found myself in the exact same situation when I was creating my game setting. I think what your looking for is an overall structure that allows for exploring new worlds that can all be unique in their own way, am I right? The way I did mine was that the universe is essentially like a large room without walls. The "ceiling" is called Lunia, and it's a paradise inhabited by celestial creatures and their civilizations. The "floor" is called Negus and is a brutal landscape filled with warring factions of fiends and undead. The space in between is the astral, where astral solids harboring githyanki float around. Floating in the Astral like a thousand little soap bubbles are the inner planes, including your main material plane. Some of these are large, some are quite small. You can only plane shift to another plane if you have some general information about it, so a great many planes are effectively lost to the rest of the multiverse because people have forgotten about them or simply never knew they were there, of course, ancient temples might have a hidden working portal....

 

[ForceUser]

My campaign world cosmology is intentionally ill-defined. There is no absolute cosmology; instead it is open to interpretation. This suits me for a few reasons: first, I have room to do whatever I want with regard to other realities without feeling boxed in by a particular set of cosmological rules. Second, the resultant confusion regarding cosmology among the player group lends to an air of mystery regarding the truth of the universe - since there is no absolute way the universe is built there is no absolute Truth, but rather many Truths, any of which could be right or wrong depending on one's perspective. This cosmological build suits my own Existentialist beliefs, as each being has to decide his personal take on the nature of the universe. The gods, of course, espouse their own Truths, which believers consider objective. From a game mechanics perspective this cosmology has no bearing on how travel spells work.