What's your multiverse like?

[Dykstrav]

I've given my homebrew's cosmology some thought, but it rarely comes up. I mostly play lower-level games and the planes are distant and mysterious to most of the characters.

There's an astral plane that exists "above" the material plane. Most spells that reach the astral plane must be cast in high places such as mountains, most astral creatures (such as angels and various other spiritual beings) manifest on or near mountains. The astral plane is often associated with the sky because of that and it's appearance. It's a vast, silvery void where the various portals appear as motes of light in the distance.

The Seven Heavens are one of the best-known planes in the astral because mortals seek it. Angels travel the astral constantly, both on patrols and to battle evil spirits spread throughout the universe. Only a few mortal souls are selected to journey to the Seven Heavens in life or in death. Although it's a magnificent place, it's a place of labor and purpose--mortal souls there have a good reason to be brought among the angels. There's also a peaceful, restful place for those mortal souls that weren't taken to the Seven Heavens, known as Elysium. The vast majority of good-aligned mortal spirits reside there and calmly await the chance to join the angels in the Seven Heavens. There are said to be other planes of existence scattered throughout the astral, but these tales are speculation to most mortals.

The very top level of the Seven Heavens is a magnificent walled garden inhabited by dozens of powerful angels associated with light and fire. They guard a gate to the place where the entire universe's Creator dwells, but mortals are not allowed to pass through there. Angels guard the gate with swords of fire and have repelled every attempt to attack the garden itself. There are no accounts of any mortal or immortal spirits ever passing through the gate. The major "good" religion of my homebrew holds a prophecy that the Creator will eventually open the gate and allow his followers to spend eternity with him, but that time has not yet come to pass. Even the angels don't know when that will be. This deity issued prophecies and edicts to mortals and then withdrew from the universe, the angels guard the gate and have patiently awaited the Creator's return for millenia.

There's an ethereal plane, where ghosts and various incorporeal spirits dwell. People usually describe it as "misty," but that's not always the case. The senses are strange here: sounds are slightly muted and things in the distance are a bit blurred and indistinct.

Below the ethereal plane is the Underworld. That's a nasty place full of ghosts, shadows, specters, and similar critters. It resembles a bleak, barren version of the material world under perpetual twilight. The only notable features are mountains and multiple rivers. Mortal souls that appear in this place do so at Mount Erebus, the "closest" place to the material plane. When people die, they seem to fall asleep and "wake up" in the caverns of Erebus. Most of the Underworld is dominated by a single huge kingdom of ghosts called Hades, ruled by the ghosts of three ancient kings. They dispatch ferrymen to collect the souls of the dead and escort them to Hades. That's because various devils, demons, and other evil spirits try to capture and exploit the souls of the dead. Angels make occasional forays into the Underworld, but maintain no established outpost there.

It's possible (although rare) for a strong mortal soul to elude capture at Erebus and find a way to escape by navigating the caverns and eluding the ferrymen. Such spirits find their way to the ethereal plane where they manifest as ghosts.

Below the Underworld is a place called Tartarus, where primeval creatures from previous epochs are imprisoned (most notably, the titans and several powerful demonic entities). Few living creatures have even heard of Tartarus, much less been there and come back from it. In game terms, it most closely resembles the shadow plane and "funnels" into the negative energy plane as you reach the nadir of the universe.

The Abyss and the Nine Hells seem to exist both somewhere in the Underworld and the Astral Plane--devils and demons roam both planes and gates to their realms are found in both. Cosmologists aren't satisfied with their locations and it's a subject of debate. Most of their major battles take place in the Astral Plane because it's vast and empty, with no territories to despoil and no mortal souls to imperil. In the ancient past, the devils actually won the Blood War and subjugated the Abyss. Although the devils have technically won and receive tribute, it's really more of a stalemate. Demons outnumber devils by about a four-to-one margin and they could absolutely win the conflict if they'd ever unite under a single banner. Demons are exploitable because they're chaotic. Devils won all their major engagements with the demons only because they are better organized and disciplined. Although the devils managed to decimate the first level of the Abyss and kill several powerful demon lords, these victories are far too costly in terms of resources and devils slain to give any real hope of "conquering" the Abyss.

 

[Drowbane]

For what it's worth, I could never get used to the idea of having an outer plane of chaos ie Limbo, while also having a place "outside"the wheel that was supposed to be "super chaos" or chaos+insanity or whatever, in D&D 3.x. I guess it goes back to the dual views of chaotic alignment of personal freedom vs. mental irrationality/schizophrenia type of thing. But then again, there are two kinds of neutrality too (unconcern/apathy vs. balance/temperence) ... no alignment system's perfect.

For the most part I am in agreement. However, I nolonger view the Far Realm as "just a Plane of Chaos". The Far Realm lies outside space and time (its own galaxy? or perhaps just has a hard-border with the material?) and is only Chaotic because the Laws of Creation do not apply there. If that makes any damn sense. heh.

If I was not a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos I probably wouldn't use the Far Realms at all... since I am, it features predominately in my metaplots.

"Ph'nglui Mglw' nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"

 

[Evenglare]

Currently , I am creating an alternate history of our world. But ancient. Very very ancient. Each race comes from a progenitor race. These races adapted into the "fantasy" races we see today.

Elves? They were from the eldar (original race), who went into the forest. The forest is dark, and so their eyes grew accustomed to low light vision. They began hunting, and their ears grew sharp .

Dwarves? They are the group of eldar who began to make their homes in the mountains. These mountains have small tunnels, and slowly , their height began to dwindle to move about these tunnels quickly. Of course the tunnels produce strong winds from outside and inside the earth. So they began growing facial hair, beards. The dwarves with the longest beards are revered , for the have delved the deepest, and are the most honored.

Humans have been roaming the open lands , being closest to the progenitor race. They are the most adaptable.

Most of my world geography comes from laurasia. My world is to gain clarity into where many old things come from. Things like the fountain of youth , garden of eden, 7 cities of cibola, where the 9 hells came from, where the 7 heavens come from. My campaign world, has 2 distinct times, one being ancient, and the other being futuristic, at the end of the universe trying to survive. The ancient world has very direct influence of my futuristic world.

My futuristic world is at the end of the universe, from "heat death". There are no more galaxies. The sky is a homogeneous soft red glow with few blue suns. Most of my races such as the Metan, resemble dwarves. They can control magnetic fields due to their blood being a sort of ferrous metalic mix. They make home upon asteroids. I have the Elden race , which see and "hear" almost all regions of the EM spectrum. There are of course the Dark Elden, which are of the elden twisted by "Dark matter". There are the lumina which create fantastic fields of energy which mold light due to their controll of the higgs boson.

Weapons include things such as photon sabers , and guns (light sabers and blaster stuff). The lumina are the ones who create these by their innate ability to manipulate higgs boson. I employ the use of a velocity dependant shielding (non-newtonian shielding), which effectively makes ranged weapons and hand to hand weapons the same in battle. (The faster an incoming object hits the shield , the harder the dampening effect) Thus "bullets" are incoming much faster than a melee weapon which is dampened to the effect of a melee weapon.

I have cosmic dragons which are born of nebula, due to vortexes and specific requirements of molecules which give sentience.. These resemble chinese dragons , being very long and drawn out. Of course these can be very large, devouring suns and other esoteric objects.

The cosmology includes something I call the Dominion string, which is in essence the fabric of space time. This fabric ripples, and super position of waves create what we know as magic. Most of my cosmology includes a very much an Abrahamic religious core. I love the idea of angels and demons. I love fallen angels, and everything like that. The dominion is a very complex heirarchy of the church. The "God" is called the infinity angel, in which all is created . In reality it is a constellation. A living constellation. The zodiac are living zodiac as well.

There's so much more, but this is just my brain painted on a canvas right now. I have been developing this very intently for a year plus now. Recently I came across some fantastic religious references about angels and demons, so I plan to begin incorporate that stuff heavily.

Anyway, that was the tip of the iceberg....

(addendum: the sad part is that I actually have the physics worked out , myself being an astrophysicist)

 

[Tovec]

For what it's worth, I could never get used to the idea of having an outer plane of chaos ie Limbo, while also having a place "outside"the wheel that was supposed to be "super chaos" or chaos+insanity or whatever, in D&D 3.x. I guess it goes back to the dual views of chaotic alignment of personal freedom vs. mental irrationality/schizophrenia type of thing. But then again, there are two kinds of neutrality too (unconcern/apathy vs. balance/temperence) ... no alignment system's perfect.

For the most part I am in agreement. However, I nolonger view the Far Realm as "just a Plane of Chaos". The Far Realm lies outside space and time (its own galaxy? or perhaps just has a hard-border with the material?) and is only Chaotic because the Laws of Creation do not apply there. If that makes any damn sense. heh.

If I was not a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos I probably wouldn't use the Far Realms at all... since I am, it features predominately in my metaplots.

"Ph'nglui Mglw' nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"

I always hated the Far Realm for just these reasons. I hate the idea of a plane existing OUTSIDE of the MULTIVERSE. By definition things can't exist outside a multiverse, considering a multiverse is multiple universes. It could theoretically exist between them but even that is fairly well explained in a great wheel or an astral sea (4th ed) cosmology.

@Matthias I freaking LOVE your cosmology, very detailed and rich. I am absolutely going to steal aspects as they are just too good to pass up.

I went back and reread my first post, I really was under the influence of lack of sleep so I'm going to try and make up for it now. My cosmology vaguely resembles the 3.5 great wheel, for a reason. However greater inspection changes how much it resembles the classic layout - which my players have discovered.

In my games the good planes are squished together and the evil planes are too, as I said. How I've done this is clumsily complex. It is a matter of shifting landscapes. Just as in the real world you could travel from mountains to rivers and oceans then desert then grasslands then arctic, etc. I have done something similar with the planes.

The planes are not infinite. They are just REALLY REALLY BIG. Mind boggling big. However, those who know what they are doing can easily navigate between the planes, just like following secret paths to different lands in the real world.

Starting from anywhere you want on the great wheel you can traverse from that location to any other plane on the wheel. You can take short cuts, without leaving the outer planes, that bypass the planes in the middle. You can, for example, go from the abyss to the nine hells without having to hit all the planes in the middle. What is more, all but the most major planes are merged into the larger ones or act as fringe or edge planes to the others.

Elysium acts as the lowest part of mount celestia and (for the nicest of the nice) what is inside the golden gates at the top. Across the ocean Oceanus you can reach the beastlands, which are merged with the elven lands, bits of ysgard and even bytopia. The same works for the evil planes. Going from the nine hells to the abyss you cross hades, which has elements of gehenna for good measure. Elements of carceri are mixed between all the evil planes.

The lawful planes are more or less where they were, with mechanus separating archeron and arcadia, each of which in turn leads the hells and mount celestia, as before.

The chaotic planes are heavily modified as to where they are without modifying much about them. Ysgard has been merged into the Battlefield, or rather the "eternal struggle" aspect of it has and with a less cheery outlook on the ordeal. The battlefield is a massive field with installations from various camps. The forces of the alignments use it as the ultimate causeway to get from one plane to another without having to walk around the entire wheel. However, due to this it is VERY dangerous and isn't to be undertaken lightly regardless of the speed.

Pandemonium is also changed, being added (or extended) to my underlands (underdark for you). For me it goes like this: the land above (aka the world), the land below (aka the underlands) and then pandemonium. So keep heading further and further down and eventually you just arrive on an outer plane.

Limbo is one of those places I try not to think about. Again for a reason. It is that place of chaos and insanity. No one stays in limbo and the energy types run rampant. If I defined it more I would probably combine it with my inner planes to make it a true elemental chaos.

Beyond that, as I've already said; Archons are LN by default in my game instead of being Good. They are still a celestial though. There are three forms of celestials and three forms of fiends. Celestials are archons (LN), angels (LG-usually), guardianals (NG). Eladrin have been redefined as fey with an outsider type. Fiends are of course as they were; devils, demons and yugoloths. Yes the 'loths have stuck around in my wacky form

Oh and before I forget, what all prompted me to do this, creatures in books that are from the far realm are used primarily as DEMONS. These big terrible, insane monstrosities (especially the 4th ed ones) have ALWAYS struck me as demons. The ones that don't fit are usually then given over to denizens of limbo, the slaad kinda sucked IMHO. And the ethereal (marauders/reapers/etc) are limbo-ites too. I like my ethereal to be JUST undead thank you.

And I honestly have not put any thought into the inner planes. I just don't like using them. When I come up with a good idea for the stuff that is located there I'll modify my setting and let you know but for now I'm just stuck.

Um.. and as I said I've modified the archfiends of hell. I made Nessus ice cold instead of fiery. Actually about a third of the hells are cold now that I think of it. This is primarily based on Dante's account as well as a few other minor sources which triggered my imagination.

I think that's about it at least for now.

EDIT: WE should all get together and make up a combined setting, including cosmology. There was something like what I'm suggesting back on the old WotC server. I'll see if I can find a link but we should totally do it - so many great ideas and much creativity.

 

[Shemeska]

I always hated the Far Realm for just these reasons. I hate the idea of a plane existing OUTSIDE of the MULTIVERSE. By definition things can't exist outside a multiverse, considering a multiverse is multiple universes. It could theoretically exist between them but even that is fairly well explained in a great wheel or an astral sea (4th ed) cosmology.

Well the D&D usage of "multiverse" generally meant the planes of the Great Wheel cosmology (inner/outer/material/transitive), so things could exist "outside" of it. In 2e this was explained within the context of the Deep Ethereal, in which all of the Great Wheel cosmology existed as one reality amid innumerable others all drifting like cosmic soap bubbles or sea foam on the infinite depths of the Ethereal.

I rather liked the idea myself, and I invoked it in a 3e Dragon article when talking about the (also "outside") reality that the Keepers first came from. There were several such "outside" or distinctly-not-part-of-the-Great-Wheel realities in 2e and 3e; it wasn't just the Far Realm.

That notion got tweaked a bit and used in Pathfinder's CN Maelstrom, with the idea that Golarion's planes are just possibly one shallow tide pool of stability on the shore of an unfathomably vast and truly infinite Cerulean Depths.

 

[Shemeska]

It depends really.

When I ran a true Planescape campaign (two of them, each around 3 years long), I used a blending of the classic 2e Great Wheel with some of the 3e alterations (Shadow as a full transitive plane, dropped the 2e Astral only touches the top layer of each outer plane and spell/power keys, but retained the 2e role of the Ethereal and Deep Ethereal).

For the planar Pathfinder game I've been slowly planning for the past six months or so, I'll be using the PF/Golarion cosmos largely by the book. I'd say that I'd be putting my own spin on it, but they kinda let me write most of it. I'll mostly be putting a bit more emphasis on some favorite planes of mine, and a few that haven't (yet?) gotten as much air-time in print. It's not entirely homebrew, since some of the basics like the onion layers arrangement and some other basics were things the Paizo guys already had in mind before they let me have at it, but it's a cosmology that I got to play with without having to adhere to Planescape's well developed (albeit awesome) preconceptions.

A bit more 'loth will leak into my home game though than the published version.

 

[Matthias]

Pertaining to a community-made Cosmology, I would say it already exists...

Let's start with the assumption that more than one cosmology can exist at a time. Every GM who's ever run a game has at least one and there can be many duplicates; for example, Bob's Forgotten Realms is unique and separate from Mike's Forgotten Realms even if they draw from identical published source material. (Thus the Elminster in Bob's game can act independently from the one in Mike's game and have different experiences, even when both campaigns are being run at the same time.)

Let's also define a term: The Omniverse, which consists of all cosmologies anyone has ever made; Bob's, Mike's, Matthias', everyone's. Any gamer, EGG or anyone. All the cosmologies that person has ever developed exist in this Omniverse.

Bob and Mike could have different campaigns going at once, and even have separate games going on in different cosmologies. Bob and Mike can each maintain multiple cosmologies, each using different house rules and even different gaming systems, within their respective GM'ing careers. And any cosmology run by Bob will have Bob's personality and imagination, and Mike's cosmologies will also share some similarities. So it may be said Bob's cosmologies comprise one distinct "region" of the Omniverse, which we will call a Paraverse. A Paraverse could have more than one GM, most of which are owned collectively by several persons or by a corporate entity such as WOTC. Living Greyhawk and Pathfinder Society Organized Play exist in Paraverses such as these.


To recap:

The Omniverse consists of thousands or millions of Paraverses (one per GM or organizational structure) and each Paraverse is made up of at least one Multiverse (each a single cosmology) which in turn will have one or more Universes (or individual planes of existence).

Travel between Universes is the well-established process of plane shifting; travel between Multiverses within the same Paraverse is not well-defined but could occur as "crossover" campaigns. Travel between Paraverses is not normally possible unless the Paraverse's GM allows that character to be brought in from another GM's campaign world--and even then, it may be not so much a transfer but a duplication or a conversion.