D&D General Yggdrasil World Ash Tree and the Great Wheel Cosmology

[TheFantasyHistorianYT]

Hey all! I have a question about role of Yggdrasil, World Ash Tree within the Great Wheel Cosmology. Currently trying to work my way through the Great Wheel Cosmology, but ran into this and got confused. First, I'll layout what I was reading and then my specific questions. Any help would be appreciated!

The 1e Manual of the Planes pg 95 states:
"Entry to Gladsheim (Ysgard in 3e-5e) is accomplished in the standard fashion, with two important additions. Portals from the planes of Olympus, Limbo, and Concordant Opposition are found in the topmost layer of Asgard as wells...Gladsheim is also the topmost point of Yggdrasil, the World Ash. The roots of this mighty tree lie in the second layer of Hades, and its branches touch every alternate Prime Material plane where the Norse pantheon has been or is being worshiped. It is conceivable for a traveler to physically move from the Prime Material through the Astral and either to Niftheim or Asgard, though this journey should take at least 100 days and has never been successfully attempted."

The Planeswalker's Handbook (Planescape Accessory) pg 12 states:
"Though plenty of gates allow bloods to travel between the Outer Planes (if they know where to look), most planewalkers know a few other ways to get around. In particular, four major planar connections link several planes and allow a more convenient (if somewhat more dangerous) means of travel. The magical River Oceanus...The River Styx...Mount Olympus...Similar paths can be found on Yggdrasil, the World Ash - a gigantic plane-spanning tree. Its source lies in the first layer of Ysgard, but the branches and roots spread throughout many planes, layers, and realms - so many that no blood has ever been able to trace them all. The roots and branches are big enough to walk on or climb, and some branches even stretch to prime-material worlds."

3e Manual of the Planes under the heading Getting From Plane to Plane pg21:
No mention of the Yggdrasil World Ash Tree or Mount Olympus under the section Planar Paths. The rivers Styx and Oceanus are mentioned however.
-I first thought that perhaps this was because of the World Tree Cosmology model, but that is specific to the Forgotten Realms Campaign setting. Pg16 of the 3e Manual of the Planes "As a continuing example, we present the Great Wheel, the D&D cosmology..."

3.5e Campaign Adventure: Expedition to the Demonweb Pits pgs 38-40 state:
"Entering and exiting the paths of Yggdrasil is easier than using other portals. Each of its portals is at the end of a branch, but the branches themselves are always at least 5 feet wide at the point where they connect to Sigil, a forest on the Material Plane, or the halls of Ysgard. The planes it connects tightly are the Material Plane, the Plane of Shadow(Shadowfell), Hades, Ysgard, Arborea, Sigil, the Beastlands, and the Abyss, but it has a few connections to every major Outer Plane." It also shares a picture of this which I attached.
-Is this technically a Planescape Campaign Setting without officially being Planescape in 3e+?

The 5e Dungeon Master's Guide (2014) under the heading Putting The Planes Together on pgs 43-44:
Makes no mention of the World Ash within it's little explanation of the Great Wheel, BUT does add it as an alternate cosmological view option titled: The World Tree

The 5e Dungeon Master's Guide (2014) under the heading Travelling The Outer Planes on pg 58:
Mentions the River Styx and the Infinite Staircase, but no mention of the World Ash or the magical River Oceanus and Mount Olympus for that matter.


My questions are:
1. Am I correct in understanding that Yggdrasil, the World Ash Tree was within the Great Wheel Cosmology and acted as another way to travel amongst the planes and I am not confusing it with the Forgotten Realms World Tree cosmology?

2. I can't find it in the 3e Manual of the Planes that says it uses the Great Wheel Cosmology for the book, so does that mean that 3e is the point where both the Yggdrasil and Mount Olympus ideas as other planar routes end, but at the same time, also lives on in the 3.5e Demonweb Pits Adventure?

I know I can change it to whatever I wish, but I am trying to figure out how the Great Wheel Cosmology fits together as presented in the books across the editions, using 5e as the core (since it is familiar to newer players) and flushing it out with the other editions because they have soo much more information on the planes. (Skipping 4e for the most part). I am hoping to create some kind of familiar yet enhanced "streamlined complete" Great Wheel cosmology. Thank you for the help!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

1) I believe that in 3E, Yggdrassil worked like a transitive plane (see the 3E Manual of the Planes for more on them).

2) 3E uses the Great Wheel. The Manual of the Planes has a specific section at the end for alternative planes and structures that aren't part of the Great Wheel, underscoring that everything else in the book (which describes the Great Wheel in detail) is the default.

3) WotC has said that each of their editions have their own canons, and what's true for 3E isn't necessarily true for 5E -- and definitely isn't true for 4E -- or the TSR editions, etc., so don't get too wrapped up in reconciling them. I would just start with the 5E material and add stuff from previous editions only when it enhances, and not when it conflicts.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I'm sure the 2024 DMG mentions Yggdrassil, there is after all a Barbarian subclass that is about Yggdrassil in the PHB

 

[Storyteller Hero]

Canonically, the "Cosmology" maps are conceptual structures made by scholars in the DnD multiverse to facilitate their understanding of the relationships and connections between planes.

The World Tree and Great Wheel are essentially different academic approaches to understanding the same structure of the multiverse.

The multiverse is not literally a tree and not literally a wheel, canonically speaking.

Yggdrasil is a big interdimensional plant and not likely integral to the multiverse's structure. Some might hypothesize that it could be a holdover from the primordials' attempt to bridge the planes after the gods separated the planes during the Dawn War; the multiverse's structure being a Dawn War era creation would explain why the gods can freely planeshift and primordials can not, which in turn means that the logistics of the Dawn War became lopsidedly in favor of the gods (and that's how they won the war).

A 4e reference to the Lattice of Heaven as a failed first attempt to form the multiverse and the 2e Guide to Hell multiversal creation myth of Ahriman and Jazirian, IF used together, could form the story that Asmodeus and Jazirian helped plan the creation of the veils between planes, which the gods may have combined their powers and knowledge to build.

 

[Baron Opal II]

1) Yes. The World Tree was a means to travel to several, but not all, of the outer planes and the Prime Material. It was similar to the Oceanus River, which connected many of the Upper Planes, and the River Styx which connected all of the Lower Planes. A major advantage was that it connected some varied planes that allowed for greater range of adventures, and a quicker path around the wheel.

2) Not sure.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Now that I'm back home and looking at the 2024 DMG, Yggdrasil is described on page 178 and there's a picture of a branch with a portal on the next page.

It's a planar pathway like it was in 2e Planescape, along with River Styx, River Oceanus and the Infinite Staircase. Though the lore on Yggdrasil is now tied to a myth about Corellon and the First World that's now the big thing in 5e lore.

 

[TheFantasyHistorianYT]

Thank you all for the comments, definitely helped clear a few things up!

 

[tetrasodium]

I've been wondering if the OP is looking for details about how ygg works specifically printed in old d&d targeted soucebooks where it interacted with The Great Wheel or does details on world tree form/function in non-d&d works of fiction that involve characters using it for plane/world/later of creation hopping also apply as useful?

 

[Sword of Spirit]

If you want the most complete and precise way of doing it, you'll want to use the 2e Planescape sources. 2e cosmology (ie, Planescape) basically assumes anything from a 1e source is true except where 2e sources contradict it. There are a lot of 2e cosmology sources so that ends up contradicting a lot of it. To cover all the Outer Planes well, you'll need not only the original 2e Planescape campaign setting, but also 3 other boxed sets (Planes of Law, Planes of Chaos, and Planes if Conflict), and the Planewalker's Handbook wouldn't hurt.

Since you will most likely be acquiring these from DrivethruRPG / DMsGuild (there is usually a big D&D sale at least once a year) you can search the pdfs for "Yggdrasil" to find all the info on where it connects. It doesn't attach to every plane in 2e, but it has connections to quite a lot of places.

3e took the 2e Planescape cosmology (itself a revision / extension of 1e's), called it the Great Wheel cosmology, and selectively changed some significant elements (like the Astral Plane and the quasi and para elemental planes).

4e did something completely different, and there are things you can take from it or import into it, but it's trickier than with other editions.

5e's cosmology is IMO, closest to 2e's, but stripped down, importing some content from every other edition (including 4e), and then adding its own innovations.

Unless you plan to run a game solely using a single edition's lore, you will have to make some judgment calls to resolve contradictions. My recommendation is to choose the lore of whichever edition you prefer as your baseline (this need not be the same as the rules edition you play, so if your players are familiar with 5e rules, but not completely drenched in its cosmology, it should be easy to choose any other edition's cosmology as your baseline) and then selectively import everything you like from other editions, which will mean replacing some of that baseline.

Since I feel like 2e Planescape is the richest and most comprehensive body of planar lore, I use it as the baseline for my 2014 5e D&D. I use most the additional material from 5e that adds to it, but rarely import things that contradict it, although the way I handle most 5e planar lore I don't like is with a "some people believe that" unreliable narrative angle. So most Prime Material Plane planar sages believe the multiverse looks like it does in the picture in the 5e PHB, while sufficiently educated but not expert Primes think it looks more like a simplified 1e Manual if the Planes, and only the inhabitants of the other Planes are likely to know that it really looks more like 2e Planescape.

And of course if you want to include Spelljammer in all of this (since it is integrated into the cosmologies of its editions) you have your work cut out for you, since it is very different in 5e than in 2e. I took the opportunity to to sort of merge the diverging views together into something more expensive, and ended up fixing some of the various elements if Spelljammer that always bugged me (though I like it in general).

I enjoy this sort of thing, and feel free to ask any more questions you might have about it.