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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8873059" data-attributes="member: 58172">Cosmology MapThis map visualizes various D&D cosmological traditions.[ATTACH=full]270798[/ATTACH]In concentric circles, the silvery Ethereal Plane overlaps the smaller Material Plane. The bigger Astral Plane overlaps both.Astral-Ethereal BorderIn 1e, 2e, and 3e maps, the Astral Plane directlyborders the Ethereal Plane. Astral thought and Ethereal physicality interact.5e continues traditions where an Astral thought changes into an Ethereal spirit. For example, the Succubus or Incubus is an Astral Fiend made of thought stuff. Typically, it physicalizes into an Ethereal spirit to visit incorporeally a victim sleeping in the Material Plane. The Fiend sexually manipulates the dreams. Later it shifts from a body of ether into a Material creature of flesh and blood. Using sex as a hook, it instigates the victim to do Evil against others. The Fiend can materialize and dematerialize, back and forth between the Ethereal and Material. Likewise the spirit can return home reverting to the thought stuff of the Astral Plane.The consciousness of a creature shifts into different forms at each planar level of existence.The continuum between thought, spiritual force, and a body of matter is a frequent trope in D&D. The Cosmology Map depicts the borders.Ether and Deep EtherThe Ethereal Plane overlaps the Material Plane. The ether that overlaps the Material Plane is inside the Material Plane. For example, the force of gravity is made of ether and is a feature of the Ethereal Plane that ordinarily pervades the matter of the Material Plane. Likewise, spirits have a virtual body made out of Ethereal force, and roam the Material Plane immaterially. Those that exhibit Incorporeal Movement can pass thru objects of matter.However Deep Ether disassociates from the Material Plane. These are otherworldly spirit realms. To move deeper into the ether is a gradual planeshift. One can stand still while watching the features of the Material Plane distorting, more an more, until unrecognizable and vanishing. Many spirits inhabit the Deep Ether but near enough for some perception of the Material features.Deeper ether coheres less with the objects of the Material Plane and more with the thoughts of the Astral Plane. A strong mind can manifest an entire physical reality within the Deep Ether, that other creatures can inhabit.Positive Fey and Negative ShadowThe Feywild is the part of the Ethereal Plane under the influence of Positive Energy. It radiates abundant life and vibrancy. The Shadowfell is elsewhere in the Ethereal Plane but fraying into the Negative Void in deathliness and gloom.Fey Plane = Positive Ethereal PlaneFeywild = Positive Ether overlapping the Material PlaneDeep Fey = Positive Deep EtherShadow Plane = Negative Ethereal PlaneShadowfell = Negative Ether overlapping the Material PlaneDeep Shadow = Negative Deep EtherThe Domains of Delight and the Domains of Dread are the personal manifestations of powerful minds within the Deep Fey and the Deep Shadow, respectively.Elemental Planes and Elemental Creature TypeElemental Planes are extradimensional demiplanes inside the Material Plane. Elemental creatures are made out of matter and have mass. They are part of the Material Plane.Elemental Planes vary. It can be the size of a house with one passageway in and out, or vast for myriad Elementals, linking many passageways across many realms.The Elemental states of matter are solid, liquid, gas, and plasma: namely Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, respectively. The sun and other stars are plasmic Fire, sometimes called the heavenly fire. Their heat ignites other flames as well. But plasmic Fire can also be cool and invisible, sometimes called dark fire.Elemental creatures are persons with conscious minds. A strong mind can learn the magic to animate its own mass and wield other magical effects. The animation is by means of Ethereal force, telekinetically, mind-over-matter.Animate Elementals mostly start as nondescript stuff, like remote dirt or a random rain puddle, with small awareness, but mature sapience as members of a protective animate Elemental community. Some are prominent formations in nature who choose to get up and walk for personal reasons.Fire wants to blaze and burn, Water wants to flow and pool. Normally, the desire of an Elemental is to persist elementally. Humanoids encounter Elementals every day, simply doing what an element does in nature. Rarely, an Elemental grows curious about Humanoids.Element of Khaos"Khaos" is the Elemental Chaos. D&D employs the terms Chaotic and Chaos for the ethical Alignment that relates to individualism and freedom of choice. Here the spelling Khaos distinguishes the Ancient Greek concept of a primordial khaos. This kind of Khaos feels ethically Unaligned, perhaps Good. It describes an infinite dark meaningless emptiness that can potentially become any kind matter. In reallife science, it can describe empty space at the moment before the Big Bang. In the D&D Cosmology Map, Khaos is vacuum in the Material Plane rupturing with violent Ethereal forces that flash moments of matter. Khaos is like an element, with its own properties and behavior, and forming its own Elemental Planes. But rather it is the roiling potential of any and all elements, blasting variegated elemental energies randomly in a mercurial primordial storm. Spells like Chaos Bolt and Prismatic Spray exploit Khaos. Khaos is what transforms the body of a Wild Sorcerer.Positivity, Negativity, and CreativityThe Positive Energy Plane and the Negative Void Plane are transcendental planes. It is impossible to enter them. To enter Negativity would mean to become nothingness − to cease to exist. Similarly, to enter Positivity would mean to become infinite without limit or boundary: in other words, to cease to exist. The multiverse experiences their influences.Negativity is the absence of Positive Energy. The nothing is a something new. It makes Creativity possible. In the border between Positivity and Negativity, packets of Energy trickle in to whirl in the Void. The building blocks of all that exists form. Consciousness, thought, force, matter are all made of Positivity within Negativity. This zone of interaction is a Creative influence. Where the Positivity is not, limits and boundaries make it possible for things to exist. Many things.In the Cosmology Map, the upper influence is Positivity and the lower influence is Negativity. Between them is the wide swath of Creativity. Its mood is existence and self-preservation. The building blocks that originate in the Creativity are neutral, and either Positivity or Negativity can utilize them toward its own ends.</blockquote>

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