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

[gyor]

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.

The way they did it, it's unique place in the cosmos is maintained, but they open the door to characters from other settings visiting Eberron, and add an interesting possible plot hook.

 

[gyor]

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.

Many people like me disagree, I find it interesting and adds to immersion in the setting.

 

[Negflar2099]

Personally, I like thinking about how the worlds might fit together and I don't think it distracts from what makes those world's interesting, unless the DM decides it does. In other words, if no one ever uses this technique to actually visit your version of Eberron then it remains Eberron, but if another DM wants to explore merging FR and Eberron (for instance) this provides a framework.

Maybe I only feel this way because I love Spelljammer and Planescape so much. A lot of the themes of Eberron fit so well into Spelljammer (warforged as robots, lots and lots of minor magic items equaling technology). I always wanted a way to bring Eberron into Spelljammer but I felt I couldn't because the cosmology was so different. It doesn't help that Eberron's cosmology marks it as being very Eberron focused (Eberron is clearly meant to be "the world" the one and only planet in existence, sort of like Tamriel in the Elder Scrolls Series, which doesn't mesh at all with Spelljammer). I am supper happy to have any framework for how Eberron might fit into a "larger" cosmology.

I can't help but draw connections to the MCU. Earth in the MCU is a very special place, one of only a handful of planets connected by the Convergence and the World Tree, each of which is treated as its own separate realm, but is still only one world among countless millions. Under this framework Eberron is like Earth in the MCU, connected to other realms by magic, but still only one planet among many. So my Spelljamming Guardians of the Galaxy crew can drop by Eberron/Earth and have adventures without messing things up for my other Avengers style vanilla Eberron campaign group. I love it!

 

[QuietBrowser]

Having not played Planescape or Spelljammer as they were, is this elegant form of combining the Prime Material Plane and Phlogiston/Crystal Spheres original here or based off older editions? I’m used to the classic “alternate Prime Material Planes” of 1st Edition, and Planescape and Spelljammer have always struck me as trying to travel the same paths through different paths (per the concepts of perception in PS) in the past. I like how the PMP is done here, even if Eberron (and my beloved Dragonlance) takes a bit of ‘splainin to do.

To the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, the Phlogiston and the Prime Material have been more or less the same thing since the Spelljammer meta-setting was introduced in AD&D 2nd edition.

In a nutshell, the Prime Material Plane refers as a whole to the "mundane" universe within the D&D multiverse. But, unlike our universe, which is made of planets and stars within a vacuum, the Prime Material Plane is made of an aether-like substance - the Phlogiston - which coalesces into mighty crystal spheres, which float within it like bubbles in an ocean. Inside of these spheres, elemental matter & energies slip through from the elemental planes, where they weave together (usually through the meddling of gods or archmages) to form suns and planets, which are your standard fantasy worlds. Toril is in one crystal sphere, Krynn is in another, Oerth in yet another, Mystara in a third, and so on, and so forth.

A spelljammer can both cruise between the celestial bodies of a given sphere, or breach the crystal sphere itself to enter the Phlogiston, which it can then travel through in order to reach another crystal sphere - in essence, the Phlogiston is both physical space and hyper-space at the same time.

 

[gyor]

As I've mentioned before the Phlogiston and the blind eternities sound a lot alike, both are made of ab aether substance, both separate crystal spheres/planes from each other.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Yeah - I don't get the urge to connect everything up. I guess there's a decent number of people who like to plane hop as it were, but for me I want my adventuring worlds to have a particular thematic feel.

Yeah, my Greyhawk game isn't tied to a multiverse, I haven't I thought about how planes are really setup since the game hasn't gone there and there has been no reason for me to mess around with that kind of stuff. Hell and the Abyss are probably two names for he same place I'm thinking.

 

[Aldarc]

Eberron will never be tied to any notion of a D&D Multiverse in my campaign, so this changes nothing practical at my table.

 

[SkidAce]

I think I will keep separate worlds/planets (or solar systems like Eberron) as distinct planes for now.

This causes teleport not to work to travel between "worlds".

Using Plane Shift will be the norm. (see spell description)

But I will consider the ramifications as time goes by.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If your Eberron campaign has spells like Tenser's Floating Disk and Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound in it... you're already attached to the D&D multiverse whether you want to be or not.

 

[Jer]

If your Eberron campaign has spells like Tenser's Floating Disk and Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound in it... you're already attached to the D&D multiverse whether you want to be or not.

Except at my table when we're not playing in Greyhawk we always call it "Floating Disk" in deference to the Basic D&D spell we all grew up with.

(I've always done that with the "named" spells - either dropped the name off, given them a different wizard name that was campaign appropriate, or appropriated the wizard in question to be some famous wizard in our campaign world - the fact that every world has a different wizard named Melf who stumbles onto the method of conjuring acid arrows never stops being funny to me...)