D&D 4E Turning 4e Cosmology into the Great Wheel
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
The "weekend in Hell" theme for Ravenloft is a classic, but most fans of the setting tend to agree that it reaches its fullest potential as a campaign setting when it was treated as, well, a campaign setting (that is, one which had long-term campaign potential). It's why 2E's Domains of Dread and the 3.X Ravenloft Gazetteers were so popular, because they treated the Demiplane of Dread as its own place.
Making the Plane of Shadow a "place of subtle horrors" doesn't equate it to Ravenloft. For one thing, the Shadow Plane is already a place of insidiousness, and has been for virtually its entire history in D&D, being the home of shadowy and sinister creatures and civilizations.
Ravenloft, by contrast, is a realm of [gothic horror. The majority of the Core domains present a facade of normalcy behind which the true terrors lurk. The monsters there are full characters in their own right, and the terrors they inflict are often deeply personal. Your choices matter in Ravenloft, and if you make the wrong ones you can start down the slippery slope to becoming one of the monsters. And you can never just plane shift away.
Ravenloft and the Plane of Shadow may have some superficial similarities, but they are not and should not be the same place.
Klaus
First Post
I prefer Ravenloft as a full-on campaign setting, but I don't care where it's set. Could be floating in the Etheral, the Astral or in the Shadowfell. It is self-contained, so it works wherever.
In fact, back in late 2e, there were "mistways" that connected several locations, such as from the Core to the Amber Wastes or whatnot. I took those as a guide and created a "world map" for Ravenloft, as a native would see imagine it.
Remathilis
Legend
Really, all 4e did was blenderize the four elemental planes and limbo, move the Abyss from Astral to elemental, remove the ethereal, and add the feywild. It also said there were as many dominions as you need.
All things considered, while the cosmology isn't exactly the same, they planes (as adventuring sites) are. Nearly every place in the Great Wheel could potentially be in 4e's cosmology. Some simple conversion is all that's needed.
Really, I'd like to see a bit of a blend between the two, as Klaus said. Elemental Chaos is the borderlands between pure element, shadowfell the borderland between positive and negative energy, The Abyss links the elemental and astral, most of the planes are aligned wheelike around in the sea, but beyond the known planes others can exist. Add a fey realm and your all set.
All things considered, while the cosmology isn't exactly the same, they planes (as adventuring sites) are. Nearly every place in the Great Wheel could potentially be in 4e's cosmology. Some simple conversion is all that's needed.
Really, I'd like to see a bit of a blend between the two, as Klaus said. Elemental Chaos is the borderlands between pure element, shadowfell the borderland between positive and negative energy, The Abyss links the elemental and astral, most of the planes are aligned wheelike around in the sea, but beyond the known planes others can exist. Add a fey realm and your all set.
TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
I really enjoyed 4E's envisioning of the Astral Plane as a great sea. I hope they keep that.
Incenjucar
Legend
The Ethereal isn't even gone in 4E, it's just mentioned in vague terms. MME mentions it specifically. Which is actually pretty awesome to me, though largely because the older editions have given me the ability to catch the hints.
Jeff Carlsen
Adventurer
As I mentioned in my first post, I expect that serious Ravenloft fans will feel the way you do. I can't hold that against you.
I simply have to deep attachment to the setting, but like many of the concepts and think applying them to the Shadowfell is appealing.
* * *
Another concept. What if all of the inner planes had a stronger connection to the material plane, wherein the Feywild and Shadowfell are what exist between the material plane and the positive and negative energy planes respectively. The concept could be expanded so that the four elemental planes also created these border-planes. Thus, there would be the true Elemental Plane of Fire, which you can't really visit, but then the Fire Realm, which is a mimic of the material plane that is heavily fire themed.
TwinBahamut
First Post
I don't know what to say about the Inner Plane stuff, since I've never liked them, but I do like the idea of weakening the idea of planar boundaries. To be honest, one of the things I've always liked the least of D&D cosmology stuff is the very idea of planes themselves. The concept is actually a rather strange one that has more relation to modern scientific theory of alternate dimensions than to anything from the fantasy and myth that I'm familiar with. Overall, I prefer to actually take all the different places, such as the world, the afterlife, the world of the faeries, the home of the gods, and the primordial chaos, and stuff them all into the same space so you could travel between all of them without magical portals or the like.
In such a world, faeries and gods would live in the same world that humans do. The dead and the more secretive faeries would dwell in the depth of the ground, beneath the underdark. All of the world would exist as merely an island of order within the vast elemental chaos, with the idea that many other worlds like it were out there, waiting to be found.
Rune
Once A Fool
Perhaps this "Positive Plane" is really the Far Realm--which would explain all of those radiant powers that Star-Pact Warlocks get.
harlokin
First Post
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