The Cosmology of Eberron

[LazerPointer]

Sure. That makes interesting world-building choices.....now you have Chaos and Evil entwined.......say, make that also the plane of Water, and suddenly your world's seas are filled with demons, and the oceans are dark and dangerous places.

Suddenly, that's something interesting. Having the three divided up makes them 'pure,' but it's not like it takes Eberron to say "Plane of Water should have fishies!" The planes are pretty no-brainers, really. Anyone with the DMG and half an imagination could think of them.....now the Chaotic Evil Plane of Water........suddenly, you've got something intriguing and reflective on the psychology and evolution of the world........

Ah, Kamikaze. I thought this thread would give me a good idea or two for my cosmology, and you delivered.

 

[DMScott]

People keep saying this, but there's almost no way to get rid of elemental and alignment planes without seriously effecting the way magic etc. works in game.

Hmm, don't think so. I have neither elemental planes nor many strongly aligned planes in one of my homebrew cosmologies, and I didn't need to change any of the game rules for spells as a result. The arcanobabble for various magical effects is different to give the flavour I want, but the actual rules mechanics are unchanged. Planes are infinite after all, filling them with just one theme endlessly repeated is one way to fill that space but certainly not the only way.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I was going to point the same thing. If all life can give is eternal despair and consuming apathy, then we can understand better the incentive to achieve lichdom.

Otherwise, it makes for a very depressing universe. Why would a good-aligned person decide to have children, if creating a new mortal life means damning one new soul to eternal apathy and consuming despair?

There must be a way out. I'm sure a dead druid would prefer to go to Lamannia, even if reincarnated as a beaver.

I agree and feel something is being left out, their has to be a afterlife other than Dolurrh, this may be the place those without faith end up, those that do not get last rights, or just being bad.

 

[Snoweel]

Hmm, don't think so. I have neither elemental planes nor many strongly aligned planes in one of my homebrew cosmologies, and I didn't need to change any of the game rules for spells as a result. The arcanobabble for various magical effects is different to give the flavour I want, but the actual rules mechanics are unchanged.

W3rd.

The only reason for the connection between elemental/alignment/energy/transitional planes, and spells that don't directly deal with planar travel/communication is fluff. Pure and simple.

With apologies to Mouseferatu for my insensitive use of the highly offensive term 'fluff'.

I could use any spell I wanted to in my homebrew (with the exception of such plane-specific spells as Astral Travel et al.) and wouldn't need to change anything about my (comparatively small and non-homogenous) cosmology.

Planes are infinite after all, filling them with just one theme endlessly repeated is one way to fill that space but certainly not the only way.

W3rd again.

See my previous comment about D&D canon infinite-yet-homogenous planes.

 

[Stone Dog]

I agree and feel something is being left out, their has to be a afterlife other than Dolurrh, this may be the place those without faith end up, those that do not get last rights, or just being bad.

Something probably is being left out. Greek Hades was pretty much gloom and doom for the most part, but there were places that weren't all that bad. The Elysium Fields were in the realm of Hades after all as well as the punishments of Sisiphus and Tantalus. The one line description is probably just MOST of the world. Then again the actual dead may be fairly content with their lot. It would just be the living that get depressed.

The church of the Silver Flame believes that those who purify their spirits in this life will join the Silver Flame after death, making it stronger against the evil it fights against. If that is true than there may be different fates for certain types of souls, but we just don't have enough details for that kind of assumtion.

 

[Hamburger Mary]

Ditto the Plane of Fire, Far Realm, et al. Don't change the names and alter a few denizens and say that this is a totally different plane.

People keep saying that Xoriat is "the Far Realms by any other name". What's the basis for this? The Far Realms is:
* Outside the wheel.
* Inhabited by fundamentally unimaginable creatures (beings that "defy classification").

By contrast, I see Xoriat as more of an elemental plane of madness. It's *supposed* to be part of the wheel of this world. In addition, it has at least some creatures that can be understood -- specifically, mind flayers are supposed to come from Xoriat, and then there are the mysterious Daelkyr.

What if the point of Xoriat is not to be an absolute mystery, but to provide an explanation for aberrations? Aberrations are generally dismissed as just being "weird creatures". What if, instead of being inchoate masses of writhing tentacles, the inhabitants of Xoriat are aberrations - which are after all creatures that don't obey the laws of nature? Or if those aberrations that don't actually come from Xoriat are creatures that have been touched by Xoriat?

Also, some folks are saying "Oh, it's got the plane of water and the plane of fire... boring!" So, um, where IS the plane of Water? Or Earth? Or Air? The Lammania description says that plane is inhabited by Earth, Air, and Water elementals and mephits, along with genies, guardinals, hellcats (devils), and bebiliths (demons). So is this the plane of Earth, Air, Water, and Baator all at once? Or is it a sort of panelemental plane where nature exists in all forms -- pure element along with celestial and fiendish taints (as both celestial and fiendish animals are listed as inhabitants)?

I certainly like the idea that celestials and fiends are not confines to their own planes -- "all demons come from Baator" -- but rather are part of the natural ecology of a variety of different planes.

Or so it seems to me...

 

[Gez]

About the "made-up quality" of the names... Some are totally made-up, other not so. "Dolurrh", for example, is obviously a deformation of "dolor" (pain). "Fernia", sounds like "inferno" (hell), a place associated with eternal flames. "Irian" begins like iridescent.

 

[buzz]

All I have to say is, every time WotC releases more preview material for Eberron, I come up with 57 more ideas for a campaign in the setting.

This book cannot come out soon enough for me.

 

[Hamburger Mary]

In Eberron, Hell, aparently, is "Eternal Battle with Other Cosmic Forces."... Hell is a fort. That's not exactly as inspiring as either metal-hell or D&D hell. It's just kinda "Oh, this is where Devils come from." Devils in Eberron...er....hate....celestials........yeah.........surprise?

Actually, I don't see this at all. First off, it's not "where devils come from", since we know that there are at least some devils in Lammannia -- the "nature" plane -- and we know nothing about the other planes (I wouldn't be at all surprised if ice devils are actually found in Risia). Second, it's not saying "Devils hate celestials". It's saying "The inhabitants of Shavarath are manifestations of war." Try this on for size:

Shavarath is the elemental plane of War. The inhabitants of Shavarath are manifestations of this principle. They don't come from other planes to fight here. They are born and reborn here, and their existence is defined by the battle. This is why they are such dangerous creatures to begin with: they are primal manifestations of war. It has nothing to do with Heaven, and it has nothing to do with Hell. The plane itself has no alignment. Mortal souls do not come here. It is about WAR, the conflict that is at some level an underlying part of existence. The devils, demons, and celestials don't just stop and work things out because they can't; they lack the full free will of mortals, and are defined by the nature of their plane. This also reflects why one side can never actually win. They are physical manifestations of a philosophical idea -- not just creatures living on an alien world.

 

[Mac Callum]

At one time Elysium & Arcadia were arbitrary names too. People got used to them. Now they're "standard" and the new names are arbitrary. Hmmm ... there may be a mental process at work here ...

I like the orbital nature of the Planes. For those who want to do Calendar by DM fiat, that's fine. For those who want more structure I'm sure that it will be easy to put together an "astrolabe" on Excel that predicts where Planes are at the moment. Enter the day, and know the placements - all good.

Do Planes become coterminus with each other? What happens when Fernia and Irian get too close?

I like that Lamania has all animals & elementals - including Celestial & Demonic ones. A nice change. I'm surprised it doesn't have giants, expecially the "elemental" ones such as Fire, Stone and Storm.

The Whirling Blades of Shavarath sound pretty nasty. Essentially a Blade Barrier that comes looking for you. When Shavarath is coterminous they cross into the Prime Material. Talk about your battle plans going horribly awry.

It doesn't mention when Thelanis (the Faerie Court) becomes Coterminus. If I had my druthers it would always be coterminous, and to cross over you would need to create a Faerie Circle of standing stones or mushrooms, circle it three times at sunrise and speak in Sylvan. The catch is that you have no ability to tell time in Thelanis and you could return a week or a hundred years after you left.

Hamburger Mary - excellent ideas, both of them! *yoink!*