D&D General What is your favorite D&D cosmology?

[Micah Sweet]

I love the Great Wheel because, to me, it feels like mythology as interpreted by mortal scholars. Someone with a basic understanding of the planes could have come up with this.

My problem with the World Axis is what I think is probably its biggest selling point to 4e fans: its deliberately designed with adventurers in mind. To me, that makes it feel very artificial.

 

[SkidAce]

All those votes for World Axis, and only a couple of replies about the lack of the Ethereal.

Must be my age, I thought it figured more heavily.

 

[Voadam]

All those votes for World Axis, and only a couple of replies about the lack of the Ethereal.

Must be my age, I thought it figured more heavily.

B/X worked just fine without mentioning other planes besides the briefest of references in some monster and spell descriptions.

 

[Staffan]

Unfortunately, the 5e Eberron has recently canonized the Forgotten Realms polytheistic gods as the only "true religion", in a misguided attempt at corporate identity consolidation. I hate that WotC did this.

It does no such thing. It mentions that Eberron is part of the greater multiverse, but exists in its own pocket that's more or less inaccessible from the rest of the multiverse, unless the DM specifically decrees otherwise.

As for my preferred cosmology, I chose Eberron but the World Axis is a close second. I do not particularly like the Great Wheel in either form – it, like many concepts dating back to 1e and 2e, smacks of needless box-checking. The World Axis is more "Weird & Wonderful", and leaves more room for the kind of shenanigans you'd find in old Marvel comics, where different planes/dimensions just are, without needing to fit into a particular place.

 

[Yaarel]

It does no such thing. It mentions that Eberron is part of the greater multiverse, but exists in its own pocket that's more or less inaccessible from the rest of the multiverse, unless the DM specifically decrees otherwise.

As for my preferred cosmology, I chose Eberron but the World Axis is a close second. I do not particularly like the Great Wheel in either form – it, like many concepts dating back to 1e and 2e, smacks of needless box-checking. The World Axis is more "Weird & Wonderful", and leaves more room for the kind of shenanigans you'd find in old Marvel comics, where different planes/dimensions just are, without needing to fit into a particular place.

The problem is.

The Eberron religions are subjective and uncertain, being culturally relative.

But by contrast, now according to the Eberron setting, the Forgotten Realms religion is objectively, factually true.

The Eberron relativistic cosmology was destroyed by corporate branding and consolidation.

 

[SkidAce]

If this thread is going to veer off into this tangent again forgive me.

All I wanted to do was discuss the impact of having or not having an Ethereal in cosmology.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It does no such thing. It mentions that Eberron is part of the greater multiverse, but exists in its own pocket that's more or less inaccessible from the rest of the multiverse, unless the DM specifically decrees otherwise.

As for my preferred cosmology, I chose Eberron but the World Axis is a close second. I do not particularly like the Great Wheel in either form – it, like many concepts dating back to 1e and 2e, smacks of needless box-checking. The World Axis is more "Weird & Wonderful", and leaves more room for the kind of shenanigans you'd find in old Marvel comics, where different planes/dimensions just are, without needing to fit into a particular place.

What exactly about the World Axis is "weird & wonderful"? Every plane is custom-designed for adventurers to play in. There's no ambiguity or sense of wonder at all to me. It is deeply gamist in my opinion.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Since I am always tinkering with cosmology and planes/worlds etc, I came upon this thread again.

A question to those who are fans of the 4E World Axis. How do you feel/deal with no Ethereal Plane, border or otherwise?

Didn't miss it at all. The ethereal plane was never an interesting place to be, just an odd mechanic for a set-piece battle. The incorporeal condition does that job well enough.

 

[cbwjm]

If this thread is going to veer off into this tangent again forgive me.

All I wanted to do was discuss the impact of having or not having an Ethereal in cosmology.

I'm not sure there is a huge impact, I'd actually forgotten that the ethereal plane existed until I read up on phase spiders (which I changed to phasing between the prime and the feywild in certain soft areas between planes). I guess I figured that the shadowfell was working as a place for ghosts and things to interact with the prime. I haven't got an ethereal plane in my current homebrew and it seems to work fine. If any spells or creatures come up that state they interact with it, I can change it to something else or say that being ethereal is a state rather transitioning to another plane.

 

[SkidAce]

I am leaning towards removing it. But I might keep it also.

Trying to simplify and build a "Unified Field Theory" as it were. Needed, no. Fun tinkering, kinda?

In our games since the first manual of the planes, we had places where the ethereal bleed onto reality. You could walk into the mists, go ghostly, look around unseen, etc. If you wandered deeper, you get get lost, and end up in the Shadow Plane, or the "Bright" (the Faerie Realm).

Now if I remove the ethereal, there's no "wandering". You are either in the material, or in the shadow plane. Poof. So the BORDER ethereal is what we used the most. I can indeed do without the deep per se, although if you wander around lost in fog until you accidently step into faerie, or shadow, or Ravenloft, what else would you call the area you traversed?