Sage Advice: Plane and world hopping (includes how Eberron and Ravnica fit in D&D cosmology)

[MechaTarrasque]

So, Eberron, Khyber, and Siberys were basically really, really big primordials that didn't want to get involved in the Dawn War?

That's cool.



Not gonna lie, I've always felt that most of eberron's outer planes (Not necessarily all of them) would have worked better if they aren't really different planes of existence, but actually the moons of Eberron.



Ooh, I like this idea!

Is it too early to predict that one of 2019's AP's will focus on FR-based PC's visiting Eberron: pick an evil FR organization is getting cheap magic items from Eberron in exchange for 1 artifact going to pick an evil Eberron organization.....?

 

[Bitbrain]

Is it too early to predict that one of 2019's AP's will focus on FR-based PC's visiting Eberron: pick an evil FR organization is getting cheap magic items from Eberron in exchange for 1 artifact going to pick an evil Eberron organization.....?

My old DM already used something similar to that idea, although there was no Eberron faction involved.

In his game, a bunch of derro in the Underdark combined their magic together and created a portal to Eberron, through which they started smuggling abandoned technology. Said derro eventually overthrew the duergar, defeated the drow (causing most of the dark elves to flee back to the surface, where most of them adopted the worship of Eilistrae. Those few still loyal to lolth remained underground, using guerilla tactics against the derro), and tried to invade the surface.

My group managed to repel the "mad gnomes" (as we called them), kill the savants who had created the portal, and then permanently deactivate the portal with a natural 20 dispel magic Charisma check (by yours truly).

Although we were triumphant, the derro had still acquired enough technology to maintain their dominance in the Underdark, and the Church of Tiamat decided to use the ensuing political chaos as an excuse to try and summon the Dragon Queen to Faerun.

EDIT
It was at this point in the campaign that things kicked into high gear. It was awesome.

 

[guachi]

I never ever found the need to connect all the D&D worlds together. The fact I keep hearing D&D employees talking about it makes me think they are spending valuable time on an unnecessary topic.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I never ever found the need to connect all the D&D worlds together. The fact I keep hearing D&D employees talking about it makes me think they are spending valuable time on an unnecessary topic.

As opposed to spending their valuable time on someone else's unnecessary topic that you actually like?

 

[Chaosmancer]

I fall into the camp of not caring if and how they are connected.

And honestly, them being connected only matters if you need a reliable way to get from one setting to another, which is a pretty rare occurrence to worry about. Seriously, I have trouble getting players to involve themselves in the themes, cultures and politics of one world, why would I take them to another world?

And, if you absolutely need something you've got the Shadowfell, Feywild, Astral Sea and places like Mechanos to fiddle around with.

You want to do it, go right ahead, but it adds nothing to my DnD experience

 

[gyor]

So they're attempting to unify the D&D multiverse, including Spelljammer's crystal spheres, with the Eberron cosmology and the cosmology of Magic: The Gathering? That's gonna get... interesting.

Now I see why they've been reviving Spelljammer, which was not all that popular in 2E days (overshadowed by the wildly successful Planescape) and has languished for 20 years. Spelljammer's crystal spheres map quite well onto the small, self-contained planes of Magic, and the phlogiston corresponds nicely to the Blind Eternities. I'm less convinced that Eberron fits neatly into this scheme, but no doubt with a little shoehorning they can make it work.

Not as hard as you thing, just make the blind eternities a dangerous region of the Phlogeneon.

 

[gyor]

So, Eberron, Khyber, and Siberys were basically really, really big primordials that didn't want to get involved in the Dawn War?

That's cool.



Not gonna lie, I've always felt that most of eberron's outer planes (Not necessarily all of them) would have worked better if they aren't really different planes of existence, but actually the moons of Eberron.



Ooh, I like this idea!

Yeah it's a great plot hook.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I never ever found the need to connect all the D&D worlds together. The fact I keep hearing D&D employees talking about it makes me think they are spending valuable time on an unnecessary topic.

I fall into the camp of not caring if and how they are connected.

And honestly, them being connected only matters if you need a reliable way to get from one setting to another, which is a pretty rare occurrence to worry about. Seriously, I have trouble getting players to involve themselves in the themes, cultures and politics of one world, why would I take them to another world?

And, if you absolutely need something you've got the Shadowfell, Feywild, Astral Sea and places like Mechanos to fiddle around with.

You want to do it, go right ahead, but it adds nothing to my DnD experience

Thanks guachi and Chaosmancer for sharing about your campaign worlds. Yep, your version of the D&D Multiverse consists of just one world, along with those few extraplanar places you mentioned.

In contrast, the published D&D Multiverse has always consisted of a number of different D&D Worlds, and there have always been cross-overs between *all* of them, even back in the 1970s and 1980s. Oerth existed alongside its parallel Earths: Yarth, Aerth, and Uerth. Murlynd visited Earth, where he got his six-shooters. The original Greyhawk campaign also visited Lewis Carrol's Wonderland and Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom (Mars). The Mystara Gazetteers included appendices which detailed gates between Mystara, Oerth, and Toril. The Book of Marvellous Magic had Alternate World Gates which brought characters to and from Mystara, Oerth, Boot Hill, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Dawn Patrol, and Gangbusters. Ed Greenwood had "real world" Egyptians and Mesopotamians journey from Earth to Toril. One of Mystara's most (in)famous NPC families (the Ambrevilles) came from Earth (aka Laterre). The 1e Dragonlance hardcover had rules for bringing characters from other D&D worlds. The Wizards Three (Elminster, Dalamar, and Mordenkainen) from three different D&D worlds, visited each other in Wisconsin. As you surely know, there were hundreds of Planescape, Ravenloft, and Spelljammer products (along with Chronomancer) which featured all sorts of storied connections between D&D Worlds. There were whole novels written about characters who adventured from one world to the next. Even in 3E, which differentiated each world with a distinct planar cosmology--all the worlds were still connected via the Plane of Shadow, which also connected with the d20 Modern settings such as Urban Arcana. 4E explicitly made events, such as the Dawn War, occur in all the published worlds. The 5E PHB and DMG are the first to explicitly list all of the classic D&D worlds. WotC reps have repeatedly said that all the D&D worlds still exist in 5E, and that all the worlds reside in the same Multiverse (as they have in every edition), and that they'll "all" be re-visited in 5E, eventually.

These connections already exist. Every edition of D&D has portrayed the D&D Multiverse as consisting of multiple campaign worlds which can be visited at the DM's discretion. It's not like Crawford is sitting down inventing connections out of the blue. He's just restating that 44-year-long interconnectedness in 5E terms.

Furthermore, Magic: The Gathering, like D&D, is also based on a Multiverse of multiple worlds...and Magic fans don't complain...they're not overwhelmed by the connections. And now we're finding out that the M:TG worlds exist in the D&D Multiverse, as a sort of greater "WotC Multiverse." That is a new connection, but it's still only an expansion of the existing multiplicity of the D&D Multiverse.

Guachi and Chaosmancer, I respect that you're both DMs whose discretion is to stick to one world, and that's that. Cool. Yet I'd prefer you refrain from so grumpily misrepresenting what the published D&D Multiverse has been all along: interconnected.

 

[ccs]

I fall into the camp of not caring if and how they are connected.

And honestly, them being connected only matters if you need a reliable way to get from one setting to another, which is a pretty rare occurrence to worry about. Seriously, I have trouble getting players to involve themselves in the themes, cultures and politics of one world, why would I take them to another world?

And, if you absolutely need something you've got the Shadowfell, Feywild, Astral Sea and places like Mechanos to fiddle around with.

You want to do it, go right ahead, but it adds nothing to my DnD experience

We always found the spell Planeshift to be sufficient.

 

[MarkB]

I never ever found the need to connect all the D&D worlds together. The fact I keep hearing D&D employees talking about it makes me think they are spending valuable time on an unnecessary topic.

Yeah, I never saw the appeal. In particular, I really like Eberron's unique planar cosmology, and don't see the need to homogenise it into a generic multiverse.