D&D 5E What references are there to the First World?

Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
The First World has been referenced several times in recent products. What references have you spotted?

The new Radiant Citadel preview has a reference.

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According to James Wyatt, one creation myth says that Bahamut and Tiamat made the First World.

Lots more info here:
 
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Eltab

Lord of the Hidden Layer
I'm only aware of the material in Fizban.

But I expect to find "easter eggs" in the other material under development at that same time.
 

Parmandur

Book-Friend
Tasha's has a reference (p. 106), in a sidebar to the Spell "Dream of the Blue Veil" as such

Traveling to Other Worlds

The Material Plane holds an Infinite number of worlds. Some - like Oerth, Toril, Krynn, and Eberron - are well documented, but there are countless others. You and your friends may even have created some homemade D&D worlds yourselves!

It was not always so. Various scars speak of a primordial state, a single reality they call the First World, which preceded the multiverse as we know it. Many of the people's and monsters that inhabit the worlds in the Material Plane originated there. After rhe First World was shattered by a great cataclysm - giving birth to the world's that came in its wake - the progeny of the first elves, dwarves, beholders, and other iconic creatures took root on world after world, like seeds scattered by a cosmic wind. If the musings of these great sages are true, every world is a reflection - and in some cases, a distortion - of the First World.

Transit between these worlds is rare but not impossible and can be accomplished in various ways. One such method is called the Great Journey, an epic voyage fraught with peril and littered with obstacles to be overcome. This journey most often occurs aboard a vessel powered by magic.

Another method is the Dream of Other Worlds; travelers fall into a deep slumber amd dream the.sves into a new realm. The spell dream of the blue veil employs this method of transit.

The most direct method is the Leap to Another Realm: a spellcaster casts teleportation circle or  teleport, aiming to appear in a known teleportation circle or some other location in another world.

Whatever method you use to reach a world, the dM determines whether you succeed a d where exactly you appear if you do arrive in that realm.
 


OakenHart

Adventurer
So slight spoilers for FF14, so avoid if you care about that, but

This sounds similar to how that game handles its "worlds", which are really reflections of the Source/original world which was split. There's this entire plot on trying to recombine those reflections back into the original world and bringing the original people back to existence via ritualistic calamities, but would result in wiping out all the people of the reflections in order to do so.
 

Parmandur

Book-Friend
Holding out just a sliver of hope that the First World is eventually going to turn out to be a 5e take on the Dawn War setting…
Sort of: it's a way for WotC to provide the cosmic mythos of the Dawn War while still allowing for individual worlds to have their own history. So Fizban's theologies about how the First World myth corresponds to the very different histories of Dragonlance, Eberron, Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms without replacing existing mythologies and histories.
 

Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Sort of: it's a way for WotC to provide the cosmic mythos of the Dawn War while still allowing for individual worlds to have their own history. So Fizban's theologies about how the First World myth corresponds to the very different histories of Dragonlance, Eberron, Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms without replacing existing mythologies and histories.
Yeah that’s kinda what I meant
 


So it's not in a D&D product, but I found a reference to the First World. Last night I was reading Magical Beasts from the Time-Life Books The Enchanted World series. It were talking about the pegasi and griffins of the early Greco-Roman legends and referred to it as "The First World."

Not sure if that sheds any light, or is just a coincidence. It would be weird to bring another world like that to life when Theros is already a thing.
 


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