The Cosmology of Eberron

[Plane Sailing]

I like it. It is the best cosmology that I've seen in any setting. I particularly like the implementation of the "orerry" style cosmology (I think it was one of the suggested models in the manual of the planes). I like the way it tends to locate particular outsiders rather nicely.

One thing I wonder, is whether Eberron has an influence on those planes... when they are coterminous, does the fiery plane burn less hotly, is the cold plane more warm? I doubt it, but it is an interesting idea.

I also find it interesting and rather refreshing that here there is a reason to want to avoid death, since all the dead go to a nasty place no matter what their alignment is (apparently).

 

[Hand of Evil]

What I find interesting is that the planes are not connected, that means the material plane could get a lot plane traffic, creatures moving from one to another. Can we say planescapeism.

It looks as if a 'zodiac' will be in place for characters, pluses and minus for those Coterminous and Remote times. I wonder how hard it would be to build an anlog clock to keep track of it for a game calendar. :\

 

[Gez]

It's a good cosmology, but for such a thing, I would have liked a bit less "core" planes (plane of chaos, plane of water, etc.) and a bit more weirdness.

I also think it's a mistake to have the "Far Realms Plane" be a part of the cosmology. I prefer when it's there without being supposed to be there.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Hey, what a co-incidence! Hand of Evil and I have exactly the same number of posts!

(oops, spoiled it now )

 

[Snoweel]

(We can only perceive 4 dimensions but there are 11!)

If we can only perceive 4, how do we know there's 11? Postulation?

Berätta för mig, Svenne.

I'm intrigued.

 

[Frostmarrow]

If we can only perceive 4, how do we know there's 11? Postulation?

Berätta för mig, Svenne.

I'm intrigued.

Well, I'm no physicist. I just happened to catch a rather intriguing documentary on the telly. But basically scientists now believe that the particles that makes up quarks aren't dots as atoms and protons and such often are made out to be. Instead the quarks are made up of strings and loops.

If they are made up of strings and loops then that would explain a lot of stuff the scientists can't really explain. (Don't ask me what, though). The problem with the string theory is the only way for it to work is if those loops has access to more dimensions. (Of course the four dimensions we can experience is the three spatial dimensions plus time.)

After a lot of calculations the scientists came to the conclusion that the strings need 11 dimensions to work. And why we can't experience the rest of them is simply something that we'll have to live with.

Still, and this stuff gets more interesting all the time, if you think of slices in a loaf of bread we can only experience what happens in our slice even though the neighboring slice is just nearby, almost upon us. But if there are more dimensions it matters little if there can't be an exchange between the slices. But there is exchange!

They have come to the conclusion that gravity might be a force that transcends dimensions whereas nothing else does. They were at first baffled by the fact gravity is such a weak force. You can hold an apple into the air easily and without fear of the conflict between your muscle force and gravity harming you. Something that can't be said about electromagnetism for example. The reason that gravity is safe is that when you manipulate it it withdraws into other dimensions instead of fighting right here right now.

The string-theory is further extended by the M-theory which says that everything is made up of strings and membranes. For example our universe might be a wafer thin membrane (although "wafer thin" in 11 dimensions). Our membrane, or brane, is hanging in hyperspace like a bedsheet out to dry. Next to it are other branes. If they occassionaly touch each other big bangs are created! A scary notion.

 

[Whisper72]

Hmmm.. I definately like the idea of the planes of existence being 'coterminus', waxing or waning.... the idea of a zodiaque (by Hand of Evil) is intrigueing. Maybe the PC's have specific tendencies/personality traits/feats depending upon the exact constellation they were born under.... It is also a perfect hook for prophesies and sudden 'inexplicable events' and a wealth of adventures...

Imagine a warlord who can only be defeated if the plane of war (or whatever it was called) is descendant...

Mundo interessanto...

 

[Frostmarrow]

Oh a cool thing about gravity, if gravity extends into other dimensions, is that theoretically you could build a telephone with which you could communicate with dudes in another brane. You manipulate gravity here and they pick up on their gravity.

 

[Li Shenron]

I have mixed feelings about the Eberron cosmology but overall it looks definitely nice.

The good thing is how the planes interact with each other, through the waxing/coterminous/waning/remote cycle. Obviously it gives some immediate campaign ideas with no effort, and also it leads to interesting things for the DM to plan about: first of all - to my taste - what to use as shifting natural borders between planes when coterminous, and then which effects the "closing" planes have on magic, creatures and other stuff.
Another interesting thing is to separate deities and outer planes: not that it is that bad in the core cosmology, but I am curious to read later how religion works in Eberron.

The no-so good thing is probably that the planes themselves are very standard, there is none of them which is original; I guess this was done on purpose to let the DM simply take equivalent planes out of MotP and use them. Also I am quite tired of cosmologies which regularly treat the material plane as the only centre of the universe, only to make its creatures the weakest by far on the average, and basically the whole world useless except as an occasional battleground. But let's see what's next...

 

[Henry]

I like it...

Eberron's going to surprise a LOT of people. Maybe even me.