D&D 5E The state of 5e Cosmology and the Upcoming Planescape Slipcase

[Henadic Theologian]

Okay Spelljammer thru a spanner into the works of the 5e cosmology and changed a lot of things.

1. It broke the Astral Plane into Wildspace & the Astral Sea.

2. It broke the Material Plane into pieces, each Wildpace is it's own usually small universe, and each of these are broken into Wildspace and individual worlds (including atmospheres) that aren't overlapping the Astral Plane.

3. The reintroduction of Astral Dominions, which are first I wasn't sure if it was a new to 5e thing or the same thing as Outer Planes, but after rereading it and reading comments on the net, I most conclude are seperate things, more Akin to Domains of Dread and Delight in the Shadowfell and Feywild respectively, but they are ruled by Gods (and possibly other Divine Beings) instead of Dark Lords or Archfey, and likely don't have mists usually.

4. Astral Domains mostly follow the rules for the Astral Sea, but most likely are Divinely Morphic like simular After lives in previous editions.

5. Gods whose lore is heavily tied to the Planes, like The Norse, Greek, and Elven Pantheons are likely still primarily reside on Outer Planes, although they might have Outer Plane versions of Astral Dominions.

6. Some Gods might have both.

7. Most, but all 4e Astral Dominions would likely stay ADs, like the Towers of Night, but with exceptions like Hell, but some 3.5e Planes like Heiropolis, Zigguraxus, House of Knowledge, and Brightwater from FRs World Tree cosmology fit well as Astral Dominions.

8. Astral Domions, Wildspace, and Astral Sea seem like one of the last key pieces to merging the Great Wheel and World Axis cosmologies for 5e/One D&D, it remains to be seen if they add in or connect the Blind Eternities as well,but that seems likely.

So I think it's no accident that they are releasing Planescape next year. I think Planescape's job is two fold 1) Explore Sigil, 2) update and restructure the 5e Cosmology to account for Spelljammers changes in relation to the broader cosmology as well as possible merging of 5e's cosmology with the Blind Eternities in the March of the Machine MtG set (which in turn I believe is possibly setting the stage for One D&D's Cosmology, which in turn sets the stage for the D&D/MtG cinematic universe long term).

This of course makes the 5e/One D&D cosmology the biggest (some might suggest the most bloated, but I prefer expensive and flexible).

Also I suspect that the structure of Planescape will be simular to Spelljammer, with Sigil taking the place of the Rock of Bral, but perhaps with more details, and maybe Factions taking some of the space that in Spelljammer went to Spelljammers. And one of the books an adventure, but perhaps higher level. And a Beastiary of course, hopefully with more celestials like Guardinals, Archons, and replacements of Celestial Eldarin.But hopefully with more content as content was sparce for Spelljammer.

Thoughts?

Does anyone think I'm off base or wrong about anything?

 

[Scribe]

8. Astral Domions, Wildspace, and Astral Sea seem like one of the last key pieces to merging the Great Wheel and World Axis cosmologies for 5e/One D&D, it remains to be seen if they add in or connect the Blind Eternities as well,but that seems likely.

You had me to this point. I dont have Spelljammer, but I pray to any God, I'll pick Erythnul today, that Wizard's wont force a combination of D&D with the Blind Eternities. Just....no please.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

You had me to this point. I dont have Spelljammer, but I pray to any God, I'll pick Erythnul today, that Wizard's wont force a combination of D&D with the Blind Eternities. Just....no please.

Don't kill the messenger, but they've been building towards this moment for years now, from mements of Theros being in the material plane, to mentions of MtG planes in Fizban's, to the Forgotten Realms crossover adventure with Ravnica released for free with AFR, to the very fact that they said they were keeping the door open to merging them if they thought they could get away with it and had a great way to do so (March of the Machine fits that bill, it's a major cosmological restructuring of the Blind Eternities and it's planes).

Link the multiverses in a major MtG event for MtG's 30th anniversary, setting things up for a minor edition change the next year for D&D's 50th anniversary, so this time it includes MtG settings from the beginning.

This all goes towards a movie/TV empire like the MCU. MtG needs to merge with D&D because the MtG settings have so little cultural penetration outside of the Vorthos community, that WotC can't milk them for TV and movies. Even most attempts at MtG video games fail, FR has at least 2 MMOs, MtG could get even 1 to be popular enough to survive it's Beta. I mean only 25% of MtG players know what a Planeswalker even is, that'd be like if only 25% of D&D players knowing what a Dragon or Beholder or Mindflayer is, which would be crazy.

So D&D serves as a bridge to the broader culture for TV & Movies.

 

[dave2008]

You had me to this point. I dont have Spelljammer, but I pray to any God, I'll pick Erythnul today, that Wizard's wont force a combination of D&D with the Blind Eternities. Just....no please.

I already link the Blind Eternities in my home cosmos. In my cosmos Blind Eternities = Far Realm.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I already link the Blind Eternities in my home cosmos. In my cosmos Blind Eternities = Far Realm.

That would be simple, easy way to handle it

 

[dave2008]

Does anyone think I'm off base or wrong about anything?

Most likely you are, but I have not read the recent spelljammer books in detail to be able to intelligently reply. Maybe I can take some time this holiday to read up and respond properly.

 

[jgsugden]

For 40 years I've had a much simpler system and it works exceedingly well. My Known Universe has evolved with the introduction of some new concepts over the years, but it began with: There is a Prime Material Plane, an Astral Plane, a Positive Energy Plane, a Negative Energy Plane, one Elemental Plane, one Heaven, and one Hell. The Astral Plane was the conduit of travel between the planes for those without Plane Shift or similar magics.

Everything they introduced beyond those in the books, should I have decided to use them, became a region or pocket dimension accessible from one of the above. Most of them are pocket dimensions that you can access easily from the Astral Plane.

As the years advanced I introduced into the mythology that the Far Realms collided with these planes long ago. When it did, it fractured the planes so that transitive planes developed between the Positive and Prime (Feywild), Negative and Prime (Shadowfell) and Far Realms and Prime (Ethereal). By that time I had added hundreds of pocket dimensions and specific regions, including establishing the '9 Planes of Hell' of the Devils existed at the center of Hell and were surrounded by the unlimited regions of the chaotic Abyss. Demons are Devils that were corrupted when the planes collided, and the Blood War is their effort to fight their way to the center of Hell where they can rip open the portal to the Far Realms and see it consume all of the Known Universe.

Spelljammers are used to navigate between planets on the prime, through the skies of the main prime world (or through the Dyson Sphere like interior Underdark), and (most importantly) through the vast Astral Sea. My equivalent of Sigil is found within the Astral Plane and consists of countless portals that were pulled together and lead to various places across the realms, allowing beings to do trade - somewhat safely - across the universes (something highly prized by the dwarven legions that mine the Elemental Planes for resources).

It is far simpler than the exceedingly detailed Greet Wheel or MtG settings. It makes so many storylines easier (the Blood War makes a heck of a lot more sense in my setting), and I have never, for one second, found it to have been problematic in any fashion.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Before I suspected Vecna caused a lot of troubles when that time in Sigil, but now I am wondering if the D&D multiverse suffered a reboot and this even is link with Gord the rogue, a character created by Gary Gygax and than in the last novel....

And not eve the WotC can be really safe about the canon because later in the future Hasbro could ask some changes to allow some...."collabs and crossovers". It would be really funny to find the crashed fortnite bus as a piece of artrezzo in the VTT in April's Fool.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

The cosmological maps of the DnD multiverse have canonically been conceptual models based on scholarly theories, not actual physical maps like one would use for a continent on a planet.

It's also worth noting though that WotC's stance on different editions is that each is its own canon.

I have been trying to unify the lore across the editions for a cohesive planar lore in the deity lore pamphlets on my DMsGuild channel. The 4e take on the Nine Hells in particular was a real pain in the [REDACTED] to work with and bridge with the lore of other editions, due to a more "planet-like" approach to Baator. I think I managed a reasonable mesh for the Afterlife section of the Asmodeus pamphlet I released earlier this year, reconciling the lore with the usage of "surface vs. subterranean", upping the scale so that it can be interpreted that the departures in lore are the result of some travelers only seeing parts of the Nine Hells and taking guesses as to what the rest of the layers look like.

If WotC wants to change up the lore again for Planescape, or for the era of 6e/OneDnD, I can say from experience that it IS possible to consolidate the lore of past editions for a "One DnD lore to rule them all".

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Let's rebember when Planescape was unlocked in DMGuild we could find lots of awesome new ideas, and someones added later to the official cosmology.

 

[Scribe]

I would anticipate that Planescapes release will necessitate a bit of a rework, but we will see.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I came here hoping there was an announcement

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I already link the Blind Eternities in my home cosmos. In my cosmos Blind Eternities = Far Realm.

I do something similar in my version of the D&D Multiverse. The Blind Eternities are a stable "layer" of the Far Realm where most of the M:tG sets reside. That's why the Eldrazi and Planeswalkers can travel to all of the M:tG worlds, but not the D&D worlds.

The Far Realm is the only plane of existence that has the ability to connect to every other plane/world in the Multiverse and gets to ignore ordinary restrictions.

Eberron's Xoriat is a small pocket of the Far Realm that got bound to Eberron, and can be used as a "portal" to venture to other settings, but it's basically impossible to survive traveling through it.

So theoretically, you could travel through the Far Realm to any of the M:tG settings, to Eberron, to Athas, and any of the D&D worlds that the Far Realm has taken interest in, but the fact that going to the Far Realm will instantly drive you insane and probably attract the attention of powerful aberrations, this hasn't been discovered in most worlds.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I highly doubt they are going to insert a Magic term into the core.

 

[Scribe]

I highly doubt they are going to insert a Magic term into the core.

Yeah, I dont know that it would be the best move.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

While it would not bother if it was, it just does not seem like something they would do, they seem to want to keep the lines separate other than the deliberate crossovers.

 

[Micah Sweet]

For 40 years I've had a much simpler system and it works exceedingly well. My Known Universe has evolved with the introduction of some new concepts over the years, but it began with: There is a Prime Material Plane, an Astral Plane, a Positive Energy Plane, a Negative Energy Plane, one Elemental Plane, one Heaven, and one Hell. The Astral Plane was the conduit of travel between the planes for those without Plane Shift or similar magics.

Everything they introduced beyond those in the books, should I have decided to use them, became a region or pocket dimension accessible from one of the above. Most of them are pocket dimensions that you can access easily from the Astral Plane.

As the years advanced I introduced into the mythology that the Far Realms collided with these planes long ago. When it did, it fractured the planes so that transitive planes developed between the Positive and Prime (Feywild), Negative and Prime (Shadowfell) and Far Realms and Prime (Ethereal). By that time I had added hundreds of pocket dimensions and specific regions, including establishing the '9 Planes of Hell' of the Devils existed at the center of Hell and were surrounded by the unlimited regions of the chaotic Abyss. Demons are Devils that were corrupted when the planes collided, and the Blood War is their effort to fight their way to the center of Hell where they can rip open the portal to the Far Realms and see it consume all of the Known Universe.

Spelljammers are used to navigate between planets on the prime, through the skies of the main prime world (or through the Dyson Sphere like interior Underdark), and (most importantly) through the vast Astral Sea. My equivalent of Sigil is found within the Astral Plane and consists of countless portals that were pulled together and lead to various places across the realms, allowing beings to do trade - somewhat safely - across the universes (something highly prized by the dwarven legions that mine the Elemental Planes for resources).

It is far simpler than the exceedingly detailed Greet Wheel or MtG settings. It makes so many storylines easier (the Blood War makes a heck of a lot more sense in my setting), and I have never, for one second, found it to have been problematic in any fashion.

I just use the Great Wheel as it was in 2e, with the addition of the Feywild and Shadowfell. The Astral Sea can be accessed from the Prime by contacting the surface of a crystal sphere at Spelljamming speeds (i still have crystal spheres), otherwise you have to open the sphere with magic or wait for a naturally occurring opening and end up in the Phlogiston.

 

[dave2008]

I do something similar in my version of the D&D Multiverse. The Blind Eternities are a stable "layer" of the Far Realm where most of the M:tG sets reside. That's why the Eldrazi and Planeswalkers can travel to all of the M:tG worlds, but not the D&D worlds.

The Far Realm is the only plane of existence that has the ability to connect to every other plane/world in the Multiverse and gets to ignore ordinary restrictions.

Eberron's Xoriat is a small pocket of the Far Realm that got bound to Eberron, and can be used as a "portal" to venture to other settings, but it's basically impossible to survive traveling through it.

So theoretically, you could travel through the Far Realm to any of the M:tG settings, to Eberron, to Athas, and any of the D&D worlds that the Far Realm has taken interest in, but the fact that going to the Far Realm will instantly drive you insane and probably attract the attention of powerful aberrations, this hasn't been discovered in most worlds.

That is similar to how I do it. The Far Realm/BE is actively poisonous to creature of the Aether Realm (the typical D&D cosmos) and vice versa in my cosmology. The more aether a creature has, the more poisonous it is. So gods, composed of massive amounts of aether, find it extremely difficult to pass through the BE (not to mention the potentially dangerous inhabitants there). So though they could use the Far Realm to access Eberron, MtG worlds, etc. (if they know of them) it would be difficult and dangerous and the further the metaphysical distant one would have to travel through the BE, the greater the danger. Additionally, they can't properly perceive the reality of the Far Realm, their normal senses don't function properly and the are essentially blind (thus the "Blind Eternities). This prevents them from easily know what lies on the other side of vast metaphysical distances of the Far Realm.

Planeswalkers have a special ability that partially insulates them from the BE that allows them to travel short metaphysical distances through the Far Realm. Therefore they can only normally access the MtG worlds as they close to each other, but distant from most of the standard D&D cosmos.

There is more nuance than that, but that is the general explanation of why D&D gods don't invade MtG worlds and why planeswalkers are not popping up in D&D worlds all the time.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Between Planescape and March of the Machine in 2023, I suspect we will have the answer to if the merge will happen.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The only thing I disagree with is the idea that anything that is written for any of the D&D books are due to them needing to be ready for some television or movie thing.

That's been a clarion call for years now. "Oh, WotC's doing A, B, & C because Hasbro's expanding out the D&D media empire and they need X, Y & Z set up to make things work!" And that has not once ever actually been the case. We have an actual D&D movie coming out in March and there was not a single thing in any of the books of Dungeons & Dragons that were adjusted or changed by or for the movie. Any potential things for any tv or film media can and will use bits and pieces of things from what has already been created over the last 50 years... but nothing is going to be changed in D&D in order to "help" make things work in some mythical media project that might occur somewhere down the line.

So long story short... the designers of the D&D RPG are under no requirements to do anything in preparation for any sort of TV or film media need, and they will not waste their time trying to jerry-rig things in the game to make them more "media usable". Because the long tail of creating tv and film media assures us that you can't plan in the short term around the long term of tv and film. Things change too often and take too many years to come to fruition. All WotC can do is decide after the release of some media thing to perhaps incorporate something from it into the game at a later date and in a later product.

Marvel Comics did nothing whatsoever in their books to help "plan" for any of the films in the MCU. However, they did take a few things from the MCU after the fact and incorporate them into their books going forward (like Agent Colson for example.) And D&D is and will be the exact same way.