It sort of defeats the mystery that was present in the past, what inspired me to start that old "Beyond the Multiverse" thread. Keepers and other mysteryious creatures are no longer so mysteryious.
I would say no - the Planescape cosmology is the only cosmology, and the Forgotten Realms cosmology (to name one example) doesn't exist at all. But I'm biased.
There isn't any "official" wording, since the Planescape multiverse hasn't been formally updated to 3e (in a way it has, via the Great Wheel, but the two cosmologies are somewhat different). You could assume it is, based on the standard explanation of the Shadow Plane in the MotP.
I would say no - the Planescape cosmology is the only cosmology, and the Forgotten Realms cosmology (to name one example) doesn't exist at all. But I'm biased.
Agreed.....ah, and the Plane of Shadows sucks!!
From someone looking out from Sigil, there's a Great Wheel. Outer Planes in a nice ring, collected Primes inside of them, use the Ethereal to get from one to the other. A native of the Realms may see the outer planes as a Great Tree, traveled between via trunk and branch. A Mystaran may see the Astral as the Ocean of the Spheres, in which hundreds or thousands of separate Outer Planes drift, each with its own unique characteristics. And like the blindfolded wise men who examined the elephant, they're all equally right.
It's all the same multiverse, once you get down to it. It's just that it's so big, and so awesome, and so weird, that no single view can encompass all of it. Finding a way to stretch your sense of what it is to catch all the options - taking advantage of the opportunities granted to Sigilians, and Realmsfolk, and Greyhawkers, and Athasians alike - learning that where you think you are and how the universe acts is dependent on what you're able to see and understand - that's Planescape.
(Besides, insisting that "we're right, cope" is a pretty petty attitude, when's all said and done. If nothing else, the Realmsies outnumber us. ;) )
Y'know, Planescape has always been about perception, and belief, and the possibilities of the infinite. Why does there need to be One True Cosmology about how the multiverse works?
There doesn't, and in fact there shouldn't be. I agree with you that the planes are subjective and can be seen in many different equally valid configurations.
What I meant was, it's all the same multiverse. The Tree isn't hooked on to the Wheel by the Plane of Shadow - the Tree is the Wheel.
(Besides, insisting that "we're right, cope" is a pretty petty attitude, when's all said and done. If nothing else, the Realmsies outnumber us. ;) )
Yes, but a very large number, if not the majority, of "Realmsies" don't like the new Realms cosmology. ;) That's why it keeps changing with each new FR product ;)
Okay, I'm a bit confused. How does the cosmology of the realms conflict with the great wheel? I thought Toril was just some prime world somewhere. What? Do those prime bashers not know ringward from spireward? Figures. Berks.
It conflicts because the new FR cosmology says that there is only the Tree. In 3e, it was decided that all campaign settings had there own specific planes (which explains the Shadow's change into a transitive plane between multiverses). The only problem is, in 2e, it was accepted that all prime worlds shared the same multiverse, The Great Ring. Because of this, a lot of the planes in the FR cosmology seem shoe-horned into place (IIRC, I think they made Lolth's layer of the Abyss its own plane now).
Personally, and I think this belief is shared by most Planescape fans, I believe that FR's Tree cosmology is simply the way that Torilians perceive the multiverse.
So Zakhara has its own multiverse, and Kara-Tur has its own multiverse, and Faerun has its own multiverse, and the only way to get from one to the other is to walk or sail to the appropriate continent. When you're in Kara-Tur, Kara-Tur's planes are accessible but Faerun's aren't.
Strange stuff.
Besides, separating the multiverse takes away much of the interesting stuff. Dealing with stuff like what Zeus, Osiris, Mystra and Paladine think of each other is one of the very interesting aspects of Planescape.
I don't know much about the 3e multiverses but it seems to me like just a way of not having to make sure material from one setting is consistent with material from others…
Stranger still, each campaign setting within Toril is said to have its own exclusive set of planes.
So Zakhara has its own multiverse, and Kara-Tur has its own multiverse, and Faerun has its own multiverse, and the only way to get from one to the other is to walk or sail to the appropriate continent. When you're in Kara-Tur, Kara-Tur's planes are accessible but Faerun's aren't.
Strange stuff.
That's just ridiculous. I'd really like to hear a good reason why this was accepted over having a unified cosmology.
One designer decided FR should have its own cosmology, and convinced the other designers to go along with it. Since then its been changed at least once, and I'd lay odds that it'll be changed again in whatever new FR product mentions the planes again.
Regardless, the "Great Tree" never struck me as appearing as a 'tree', but more one bloated, hundred-legged spider. Case in point, no plane actually functions as a "trunk" (or trunks, since there are supposed to be two primary trunks). Its always looked to me to be an ugly, inelegant way of dealing with the planes and was done mostly for the sake of saying "FR is different". And I'm one who doesn't mind separate cosmologies!
I can, in a way, understand why each campaign setting in Toril has its own cosmology. [ducks the first knife]
To understand, I just have to take a look at my players. They are totally not interested in "some great unifying wheel that encompasses the whole multiverse" at all. They just don't care. But they do care about that when they play in Kara-Tur the planes should look different (asian style) than in Zakhara (arabian style). Sure, it is really strange and makes no sense whatsoever, but my players just would not think about the logic in such things.
I think the whole issue could have been circumvented by stating something á la "the planes take a different look when you are in Kara-Tur", instead of actually saying it is a whole different comology.
Planescape has, in my opinion, the inherent problem that it is per se affected by each change in a (prime-)campaign world and that it per se wants to contain all campaign worlds. Frankly, I do not understand why everytime a (ongoing, continuing) campaign setting states something contradictory to (2nd Edition) Planescape a lot of fans get so upset. I just ignore such changes for my Planescape Campaign and on the other hand am happy that I do not have to carry on old baggage in my, say, Toril campaigns. I even have to admit that, being a huge Dark Sun fan, I very much dislike almost each and every single comment Planescape has made on Dark Sun. Probably another inherent problem of Planescape, the authors wanted to include everything but of course could not get intimately into each campaign setting.
In my Dark Sun campaign, there is definitely no Great Wheel. [barely dodges another knife]
Why do you make such a fuss about the campaign settings WotC chose to continue? Do such a great number of your planar adventures touch these prime worlds? And if they do, why just not ignore the new, contradictory information?
Sometimes I get the impression that Planescape fans especially cannot accept that not everyone agrees with their take on the multiverse. The "clueless just don't understand"-attidute, if meant seriously, seems pretty haughty and makes me tired. [falls under a barrage of thrown two-handed swords]
Sorry if I might seem ignorant and inreasonable. Just take my post as something to discuss.I also like Planescape's multiverse and how it links to everywhere else in existence, including Toril and Oerth. But even in 2E I did not like its link to Athas, and would certainly not like in 3E a link to Eberron.
So basically, Planescape's multiverse is great as long as it does not try to include all D&D settings (since some of those are closed cosmologies), and intentionaly overlooks the contradictions around Toril and Krynn (Lloth, the abyss, and co.).
If one looks at 2E Planescape material, it indeed made what could be dubbed minimum forays into the prime worlds of the other settings, and as such inconsistencies were kept to a minimum. It seems reasonable to keep the same minimum forays in 3E Planescape.
intentionaly overlooks the contradictions around Toril and Krynn (Lloth, the abyss, and co.).
I don't think I'm familiar with a contradiction involving Lolth. Could you explain?
I read the details years ago, so it escapes me. I do remember a contradiction though. The same one exists in Dragonlance about the might and importance of Tiamat vs the Tiamat of the standard cosmology.
Others are more knowledgeable on this than me, but I think its about Lloth being more powerful in FR's universe than in the standard cosmology. Her domain may also be larger.
I read the details years ago, so it escapes me. I do remember a contradiction though. The same one exists in Dragonlance about the might and importance of Tiamat vs the Tiamat of the standard cosmology.
I don't think there was any difference in the way Lolth was treated in Forgotten Realms and elsewhere prior to 3rd edition. She ruled an entire infinite layer of the Abyss (or two, according to the 1st edition Manual of the Planes), so it couldn't really have been any bigger. She was considered an intermediate goddess in both the Forgotten Realms and Planescape.
It's true that she was only considered to be a lesser goddess in 1st edition. Maybe that's what you're thinking of? Her "promotion" occured in all settings, though, not just FR.
You might also be thinking of the 3rd edition state of affairs, where the Lolth of the Realms rules a plane which is pretty much the same as her 2nd edition realm, with a few other drow gods now having autonomous realms of their own within it. If anything, that makes her 3rd edition realm smaller, although she's apparently risen to greater deity status after the last novel.
Tiamat and Takhisis are normally thought of as entirely seperate goddesses. They have two seperate realms in Avernus. Bahamut and Paladine don't even live on the same layer of Mount Celestia. The distinction wasn't perfectly clear, but it wasn't a clear-cut case of the same goddess having different levels of influence.
There was, however, the notion that a god could have different levels of power on different worlds. Tyr was a greater god on Toril and an intermediate god elsewhere. Loviatar was a lesser deity on Toril and a demigoddess elsewhere. I don't really see that as a contradiction, just an acknowledgement that a god's influence over different worlds could vary. Maybe there's a world somewhere where Zeus is barely known, so he can only influence that world as a demigod would.
I don't see the Abyss thing as a contradiction either, or even an indication of cluelessness. The sages of Krynn simply saw the Abyss as a plane with eight different parts (the seven lower planes and the Astral Plane). This isn't wrong, just a different name for the same thing.
Why do you make such a fuss about the campaign settings WotC chose to continue? Do such a great number of your planar adventures touch these prime worlds? And if they do, why just not ignore the new, contradictory information?
Sometimes I get the impression that Planescape fans especially cannot accept that not everyone agrees with their take on the multiverse. The "clueless just don't understand"-attidute, if meant seriously, seems pretty haughty and makes me tired. [falls under a barrage of thrown two-handed swords]
I guess collecting all those prime worlds in second edition was basically an impossible task, which the designers had to solve by saying that someone was wrong. The beginning of Cluelessness if you like.
I won't speak for anyone else, but I liked the idea of an all-encompassing philosphical structure that Planescape represented. The crazy potpurri of all those different cultures made Chaosmen out of everyone on forums and homepages everywhere. I like the mental exercise of integrating new ideas and settings under the Planescape umbrella, but that doesn't make anyone elses impression wrong or anything. Or maybe a little. To keep on doing this futile mind exercise would be crazytalk otherwise.
It could have been just for the asthetic appeal of the "super-setting," but I definitely think that the design team of Planescape made a very specific decision to make the setting encompass all the others, which were at the time totally focused on the Prime Material Plane. That way, it would more easily attract new players to adopt it, as a DM can just reroute his current campaign into a "lost in the planes, decide to stay there" campaign.
What is the point of having a separate set of alternate planes when all of those separate sets could be just layers or alternate names for existing planes, or new planes in the same multiverse. It doesn't make any sense for them to separate things, when its certainly possible for Eberron for example, to be a Prime World with multiple demiplanes around it, sort of like the world of Birthright.
This is one of those situations where 2nd edition is superior to 3rd.
What is the point of having a separate set of alternate planes when all of those separate sets could be just layers or alternate names for existing planes, or new planes in the same multiverse. It doesn't make any sense for them to separate things, when its certainly possible for Eberron for example, to be a Prime World with multiple demiplanes around it, sort of like the world of Birthright.
I don't know Eberron and I don't know Birthright much so it may be a little foolhearted of me to comment on this, but I understand if people don't want to deal with the entire cosmology of Dungeons & Dragons in their smaller campaigns. Its to much material to bother getting into for a night of having fun with your friends. They don't fully grasp the extent of what they're loosing, however... ;)
I think that having different cosmologies hurts D&D as a whole, all products with Dungeons and Dragons on them should have the same rule set, including the planes.
Different cosmologies made Planescape, didn't it? What I'm getting at is that Planescape as an idea is strong enough to integrate all the new settings. I even think that Planescape is versatile enough to integrate any role-playing setting even outside of D&D, but that is a little out of topic...
Granted even if there are so much planes to go to, and you would probably never see them all(you wouldn't), that doesn't have to mean they don't exist.
The planescape cosmology is a wonderful thing. It's broad enough to allow a great diversity, and great unity to the various campaign settings. Tampering with it pointlessly is dumb. The great tree was a change on existing realms lore, and truly added no positive aspect to the realms.
But to demand that everything D&D be core is a bad idea. When I set out to make a campaign setting based on native american mythology, first thing I did was throw out the core cosmology. A cosmolgy that fits the tone of a setting is a large advantage in getting the tone right. If I wanted, I could create a "if you are using planescape" conversion sidebar, but that should be an afterthought, not "Ok, so what layers of preexisting planes will I use"
Limiting a setting to the core cosmology limits the creativity of the setting too. Some of the most unique aspects of the Eberron campaign setting would have been clunky and awkward in the context of the core cosmology, such as the quori.
Plus, it's an interesting mental experiment to unify eberron with the rest of the outer planes. It could be a multilayered outer plane in and of itself.
The planescape cosmology is a wonderful thing. It's broad enough to allow a great diversity, and great unity to the various campaign settings. Tampering with it pointlessly is dumb. The great tree was a change on existing realms lore, and truly added no positive aspect to the realms.
But to demand that everything D&D be core is a bad idea. When I set out to make a campaign setting based on native american mythology, first thing I did was throw out the core cosmology. A cosmolgy that fits the tone of a setting is a large advantage in getting the tone right. ... Limiting a setting to the core cosmology limits the creativity of the setting too.
What he said.
Wyvern
Besides, having a realm within a layer, and not mentioning the plane of layer it is on is what makes the Planescape cosmology such a great system. To the ancient Greeks, the Grey Waste doesn't exist, the only planes they know about are the Elasian Fields, the Underworld, Tarterus and of coarse, Olympus, but since they are clueless primes, they don't release that those places are small sections of much larger planes, but for the purpose of an ancient greek campaign setting, that doesn't matter, the players don't have to know, and what they don't know can't hurt them... what they don't know can't hurt them...
You obviously haven't met any yugoloths.
You obviously haven't met any yugoloths.
Bah, those fiends are far too overrated, stuff from the Far Realm is scarier than them. ;)
PunkRockBard *hearts* Yugoloths.
I would love to have WOTC release more planes manuals. A lot of those "appendix" planes "faerie, dream, etc.) were great but only touched upon.
Y'know, Planescape has always been about perception, and belief, and the possibilities of the infinite. Why does there need to be One True Cosmology about how the multiverse works?
Congratulations! When I stumbled across this thread, I was reminded of a similar - if not identical - discussion that took place surrounding the release of the FRCS, and the answer I gave to the same question then is pretty well exactly the same as the answer you have given here.
The Planes, when seen from the Planes, look one way. When you go to Toril (or Oerth or Krynn or Athas or Earth or the Core or wherever) and look back toward the Planes, you see them through the narrow little spyglass you passed through to get there in the first place.
Thanks for representing what I feel is the more open-minded and enlightened view (but, of course, I am ALSO biased).
Congratulations! When I stumbled across this thread, I was reminded of a similar - if not identical - discussion that took place surrounding the release of the FRCS, and the answer I gave to the same question then is pretty well exactly the same as the answer you have given here.
The Planes, when seen from the Planes, look one way. When you go to Toril (or Oerth or Krynn or Athas or Earth or the Core or wherever) and look back toward the Planes, you see them through the narrow little spyglass you passed through to get there in the first place.
Thanks for representing what I feel is the more open-minded and enlightened view (but, of course, I am ALSO biased).
Well said, for a clueless Prime.... :D (said in good fun btw)
Thanks for representing what I feel is the more open-minded and enlightened view (but, of course, I am ALSO biased).
Of course it is important being non-biased. But I feel that open-mindedness itself is the premise of how this thread operates. I haven't heard anyone shouting on anyone else, but I'm just saying that saying everyone is right all the time sort of gets boring in the long run. No arguments means no new ideas and then you end up everyone feeling the same thing about everything again.
Of course their will be different versions of the multiverse depending on where you're at. Someone wants it to be a turtle where others want it to be a pink balloon. We're all different. What Planescape represents is the Sigillian view of the universe, rings and all that, and that is what we're debating. Of all the different multiversologists, Sigillians probably have one of the best terms for gathering enough scientific facts, and thus its more interesting to debate the fabric of the cosmos from their point of view.
I want all the different theories to still be out there, but the Sigillian theory has taken a beating lately, adding the Shadow Plane, and splitting up into different multiverses. What needs to be done is mending and gentle care through shameless arguments. :D
If your a berk from Krynn for example, and you think all the outer planes are the Abyss, you aren't "looking at the multiverse from your point of view" your a clueless prime who doesn't know the next continent over let only his own plane, nevermind the entire multiverse.
(Stomps his huge foot over the open minded clueless berks) :P
First example: You explore the planes with the planeshift spell. You notice that you can shift to the ethereal or the astral from the prime but can't switch once you get to one. From then on, you can get to the other planes. Hence you get the standard planescape cosmology while mapping the planes.
Second example: Toril has a sizable amount of portals being a magic rich place. Plus, Forgotten realms is huge and there's really not much of a reason for its inhabitants to travel from there at low levels, so perhaps that's why portals to the planes are more abundant that planeshift slinging mages. Now, to explore the planes they begin walking through various portals. Suddenly, they see it as all of them connect to their home world. Add in a bunch of weird names and you have the Forgotten Realms cosmology.
A mage from a starving world will probably develop planeshift and see it the planescape way.
Also, I'm pretty sure a lot of cagers see their home as the center of the multiverse. Actually, I know they do.
Power of perception
I think that having different cosmologies hurts D&D as a whole, all products with Dungeons and Dragons on them should have the same rule set, including the planes.
What is the point of having a separate set of alternate planes when all of those separate sets could be just layers or alternate names for existing planes, or new planes in the same multiverse. It doesn't make any sense for them to separate things, when its certainly possible for Eberron for example, to be a Prime World with multiple demiplanes around it, sort of like the world of Birthright.
This is one of those situations where 2nd edition is superior to 3rd.
I don't think it has hurt them. It allows for the creativity of the respective DMs. I seem to recall complaints for the opposite way back when the Planescape setting originally came out. The point is that it allows for flexibility. Now me, I use the Great Wheel with a few tweaks in my home-brewed world. I do borrow some concepts from FR (the channeled Astral idea and seperate Astrals for certain locations), but it is my own. Lately, I decided that Sigil was the Center-Of-All. To me, this means that it doesn't matter what world you came from or going to, Sigil has a door to it--even Athas and potentially Ravenloft (although finding THAT particular door should be an adventure in and of itself)
What is the point of having a separate set of alternate planes when all of those separate sets could be just layers or alternate names for existing planes, or new planes in the same multiverse. It doesn't make any sense for them to separate things, when its certainly possible for Eberron for example, to be a Prime World with multiple demiplanes around it, sort of like the world of Birthright.
Anyway, here's my own biased take on the issue: Planescape did a marvelous job in integrating all the different 2e campaign settings in a cohesive whole, despite the obvious fact that some fans from specific settings may not have been too happy with the solution that was found for some issues, as is the case with Darksun. But it would be impossible to please anyone, those settings weren't designed to be compatible to begin with. Yet, Planescape went ahead against all odds and united all 2e settings and core cosmology in a grand unified whole. That's already an achievement in its own.
But that's only part of the story. Planescape wasn't just some sort of compilation, it came off as a creative and exciting campaign setting in its own right. A detour from the typical hack'n'slash style of play into more surrealistic and philosophical grounds. It's among the best fantasy/fiction settings I've ever seen, if not the best. In rpg or literature.
With that said, I must say that I'm glad we have closed and different cosmologies in D&D now. Creativity can't be halted because some setting, even if a wonderful one, established a paradigm. Planescape isn't as flexible as some people may seem to believe. Some things just can't be done in the setting, and if they can, it wouldn't be without a great dose of shoehorning and forceful interpretation. Just look at Eberron or even Beyond Countless Doorways. Those are fantastic 3e settings/cosmologies that wouldn't have come out the way they did if they had to be integrated into the Planescape cosmology. Demiplanes can't be the solution for everything.
I agree the official solution WotC came up with as its core cosmology was kind of a let down. There's no more functional difference between Astral and Ethereal, and that's kinda silly IMO. In my own campaign (old school PS cosmology) there is something else beyond the bounds of the Multiverse, maybe it'd be possible to even reach other multiverses. But it doesn't involve a simple trip to the Plane of Shadow or taking a gate from Sigil. Ether gaps, the Far Realm, the Monolith of Magma, as well as my own concept of the End of Time do the trick for me in my own campaign.
Ok, I think I already babbled too much.
What is the point of having a separate set of alternate planes when all of those separate sets could be just layers or alternate names for existing planes, or new planes in the same multiverse. It doesn't make any sense for them to separate things, when its certainly possible for Eberron for example, to be a Prime World with multiple demiplanes around it, sort of like the world of Birthright.
Once again Everyone missed this important fact:
What is the point of having a separate set of alternate planes when all of those separate sets could be just layers or alternate names for existing planes, or new planes in the same multiverse. It doesn't make any sense for them to separate things, when its certainly possible for Eberron for example, to be a Prime World with multiple demiplanes around it, sort of like the world of Birthright.
BECAUSE... :P ...not everyone likes that setup. Sure, you could probably make various divine realms within the plane (which would solve certain issues, I admit), but there are only so many establish layers (Abyss notwithstanding). Heck, I remember the complaints when it was revealed that Arcadia had lost its 3rd layer to Mechanus.
On a personal note, to me, saying they're demiplanes is a cop-out and doesn't make sense. You should see (if you haven't) the number of PS websites that add to the Great Ring for full-fledged planes. One of them (I can't recall the address
), developed a whole set of planes (including border-towns) that were Neutral-leaning-toward-certain-alignment [as in N(LG)]. Past a certain point, it just becomes too cumbersome.here it goes.
Good Dieties live in the heavens and good heroes may go there some day.
Evil Dieties live in hell avernus the abyss ect and you dont ever want to go there. Gods stay in the heavens or hells and living people stay on Oerth.
simple but thats how I do.
Of course when I play planescape I ignore anything not planescape so IMO you guys should stop rattleing your bone box 'for you get written up in the dead book.
BECAUSE... :P ...not everyone likes that setup. Sure, you could probably make various divine realms within the plane (which would solve certain issues, I admit), but there are only so many establish layers (Abyss notwithstanding). Heck, I remember the complaints when it was revealed that Arcadia had lost its 3rd layer to Mechanus.
On a personal note, to me, saying they're demiplanes is a cop-out and doesn't make sense. You should see (if you haven't) the number of PS websites that add to the Great Ring for full-fledged planes. One of them (I can't recall the address
If the Multiverse is infinite, than what is so cumbersome about there being infinite amounts of planes, but it all being in the same multiverse? That solves everything. Maybe the Outer and Inner planes are not the only groups. (Yes I've read that at the Mimir btw, loved the idea and fills some gaps in the outer planes).
If the Multiverse is infinite, than what is so cumbersome about there being infinite amounts of planes, but it all being in the same multiverse? That solves everything. Maybe the Outer and Inner planes are not the only groups. (Yes I've read that at the Mimir btw, loved the idea and fills some gaps in the outer planes).
Because Planescape is its own setting, and doesn't owe anything to anyone. If you have all the planes in the same multiverse you don't have different settings anymore, just one really big and badly defined one. I don't mind the Forgotten Realms as long as it stays in its own sandbox, but don't you dare invite their adolescents to wander over here and start whining about how Elminster reduced Bel, Mammon, Lilith and Mephistopheles to smoking cinders on his last trip into 'hell'.
The way we work it is thus: each Prime Material Plane is slightly out of "synch" with the others, and each has its own cosmology (though often these are the same--we use the Planescape setting as the "standard" default cosmology).
When you leave one Prime Material Plane and enter another, you automatically fall into "synch" with that Prime, and when you leave it you are now subject to whatever cosmology applied to that Prime. That cosmology continues to apply to you until you visit a new Prime, and then you fall into synch with yet another new cosmology. When you finally return to your home Prime, you fall back into synch with the cosmology that originally applied to you. In other words, the cosmology of the multiverse has to do with where you just came from, not where you originally came from.
This can lead to great adventure opportunities, as PCs visit an Alternate Prime and then leave, only to find that the universe is now set up in an entirely different arrangement than they are used to, and they have to now navigate to find their way home.
Pax,
Krad
In other words, the cosmology of the multiverse has to do with where you just came from, not where you originally came from.
I think it would be interesting if your multiversal setup was based on your home plane. So, for example, a planewalker from Toril experiences the multiverse as that silly tree, while a planewalker from Oerth gets to visit our favoured Great Wheel. This, in itself, isn't particularly interesting. What makes this proposition interesting is the idea that the two planewalkers exist in the same multiverse. So, the Torilian planewalker and the Oerthan planewalker can both be standing next to each other on the same plane, arguing about what the plane is like and how to get to the plane next door.
I think it would be interesting if your multiversal setup was based on your home plane. So, for example, a planewalker from Toril experiences the multiverse as that silly tree, while a planewalker from Oerth gets to visit our favoured Great Wheel. This, in itself, isn't particularly interesting. What makes this proposition interesting is the idea that the two planewalkers exist in the same multiverse. So, the Torilian planewalker and the Oerthan planewalker can both be standing next to each other on the same plane, arguing about what the plane is like and how to get to the plane next door.
The outer planes are shaped by the very fabric of human thoughts, not by physical laws. The great war of the planes isn't the blood war or the war between good/evil law/chaos. Its about how the planes are perceived by believers. You have the major Wheel, Ring and Tree theories that explain how the multiverse is organized (Faerun, Sigillian and Nordic), but in the essence the planes are just there. They're organized into all the different patterns because they're thought as such by sages and greybeards, but in all actuality they are whatever you want them to be. But maybe this approach takes away the mystique of it all too. In the end this is but a new theory that tries to map human belief.
What I'm trying to say is that the design of Planescape elevated the eye of the beholder to the extreme. Want to live in a world where no one is right and wrong at the same time? You got it all, and much more then you asked for too. I must say I understand the bleakers in this. In a world where everyones dreams come alive, your dreams are nothing more than an anonymous book in the great, somber Library of Belief.
If the Multiverse is infinite, than what is so cumbersome about there being infinite amounts of planes, but it all being in the same multiverse? That solves everything. Maybe the Outer and Inner planes are not the only groups. (Yes I've read that at the Mimir btw, loved the idea and fills some gaps in the outer planes).
Cumbersome for the DM. There are groups out there (mine included) who do read every little DM-only text and the minutae of an article. If a DM would put something in there that couldn't (note word choice) jibe with the established, then you get complaints and headaches (especially if you're trying to fit something canon in with your non-canon). And to me, there are seperate multiverses, just one, big omniverse :D
:coolcthulIt seems that the 3rd edition system has one over even diehard Planescape fans.
These maps from each campaign are useful, because they represent what the wise guys in each campaign know, but won't they be surprised if they ever learn the truth. Even those that do would probably stick to their existing maps, because these maps present a logical (from their cultural background) way to arrange things when trying to discuss the planes.
Basically, what I'mn saying is that the multiverse can't possibly be mapped in a way that we could usefully perceive it. The maps presented to us are simply the way that a character in that campaign world would most likely receive the information if they search long enough.
* A tesseract is a 3 dimensional representation of a 4 dimensional object.
* A drawing of a tesseract is a 2 dimensional representation of a 3 dimensional representation of a 4 dimensional object.
* A drawing of the planes as found in the Planescape boxed set is a 2 dimensional representation of a 3 dimensional representation of a multidimensional universe that exists everywhere simultaneously. Everything exists in the same "place" -- just multiple dimensions.
* Just as there are several different ways to depict a tesseract either 2 or 3 dimensionally, there are different ways to depict the planes of the multiverse.
A much harder concept to wrap one's mind around is how everything actually exists at the same time -- no past, present, or furture -- "it happens."It doesn't have to be headache though. I never had a problem with it in 2nd edition, where they purposely avoided having the campaign settings influence each other.
Um, yeah. Good to know that all of the following miscenegations were avoided:
- Lord Soth being pulled from Dragonlance into Ravenloft, a move that POed a lot of the former setting's fanbase and design team.
- Flying ships and spacefaring elves being inserted wholesale into just about every campaign's backstory via Spelljammer, despite the suspension of disbelief involved being enough to dislocate an anaconda's jaw. ("Um, yeah. We have magical flying butterfly ships manned by archmages, but refuse to use them as siege platforms against that pesky army of dragons coming southwards. Or even to get a map of the world beyond our own little dinky subcontinent.")
- Said flying ships hauling in gunpowder in several-ton lots into major port cities, but not changing groundside technology, warfare or culture in spite of such activities.
- Planescape deciding that a certain iconic demon prince has been retroactively dead for millenia, just long enough to bring said demon prince back and have him bump off half a dozen true deities in the process. Yum.
- Post-Planescape planar work deciding that a certain iconic archdevil is, in fact, the Prime Evil that has ever existed, anywhere, that he feeds on the souls of dead atheists, and that his twin counterpart is none other than the goddess of the couatl. (Nevermind the spit-doubletakes of "Wait, the couatl have a goddess?")
- And last but not least, a certain iconic archlich getting bounced out of Greyhawk and dumped in Ravenloft, then being stolen away from Ravenloft so he can barge his way into Sigil and flip the Lady of Pain herself both fingers at once before being beaten down by Your Campaign's PCs in one of the most hideously deux ex machina adventure endings ever written.
If that's "purposely avoiding having the campaign settings influence each other", I hate to see what active cross-metaplotting would've looked like, berk.
What is the point of having a separate set of alternate planes when all of those separate sets could be just layers or alternate names for existing planes, or new planes in the same multiverse.
What's the point of shoehorning them all into the Planescape cosmology? Don't you see that it's more than a little arrogant (not to mention contrary to the entire spirit of Planescape) to insist that Planescape is the end-all and be-all of planar campaign settings, therefore nobody can ever be allowed to come up with any new ideas that don't fit into the Great Wheel? I understand the desire to incorporate new worlds into your Planescape campaign, but you can do that on your own. Planescape was never intended to be a straitjacket for campaign designers to wear.
If the Multiverse is infinite, than what is so cumbersome about there being infinite amounts of planes, but it all being in the same multiverse?
Nothing wrong with that at all, if that's what you want. Just don't insist that everybody else has to agree to it.
Wyvern
(Spelljammer and Ravenloft were both supposed to be cross-over settings, that was why they were so good, but unappreciated, especially Spelljammer)
I wonder if its due to conformity. Wizards has decided that all campaign settings have to have different cosmologies. Planescape fans, and alot of other people in general didn't like this, but now have made themselves like it so they aren't upset about it anymore.
Stranger still, each campaign setting within Toril is said to have its own exclusive set of planes.
So Zakhara has its own multiverse, and Kara-Tur has its own multiverse, and Faerun has its own multiverse, and the only way to get from one to the other is to walk or sail to the appropriate continent. When you're in Kara-Tur, Kara-Tur's planes are accessible but Faerun's aren't.
Strange stuff.
What's not to get? The model is a Tree, right? Each set of planes is attached to a different "branch". You have your main "trunk" with all the Faerûnian planes attached like leaves to limbs--this is the Faerûnian Astral Plane. And then you have other huge arms that branch off from the main trunk, side limbs with their own attendant planes (twigs and leaves).
Or you can think of Maztica, Zakhara and Kara-Tur as having their own "pocket cosmologies", same concept as demi-planes, except on a grander scale. This is not too hard to imagine, right?
The Zakharan, Maztican and Kara-Turan humans are not native to Toril. We have been told these races interloped to Realmspace many thousands of years ago, same as the elves, dwarves, orcs and many other interloper races. These humans are so culturally different and isolated from the native humans of Faerûn that there is no reason their planar schema should be the same. Fortunately the Tree paradigm can adapt quite easily to such a large influx of believers from other worlds.
Ao is an accomodating overgod, he allowed the deities of these interloper humans to set up their own branches (or pocket cosmologies) of planes in a manner that suited them. They are all still attached to the same Tree.
Perhaps there is a "grafting" metaphor that could be made here. Gardners can take a cutting from an injurred or dying plant and splice it into a branch of another thriving plant, and the graft can flourish and bloom with its own flowers, both a part of and yet biologically distinct from the organism it is grafted to. I don't know if this is the exact explanation or not, and there is danger of overextending the Tree metaphor, but you get my drift.
Remember, the Great Tree model is an organic, dynamic cosmology. It is open. It has more planes than the Wheel. And the number of planes is not fixed. It can grow and adapt and add more planes as needed. Planes can split off from each other, and old planes can change, even wither and die.
I am not saying the Tree cosmology is better than the Wheel, just that it is a beautiful metaphor in its own right and as a planar model it works very well on its own terms.
Certainly if one prefers, one could choose to view the Tree and The Wheel as just different ways of interpreting what is essentially the same cosmology. Like different skins for an mp3 player.
But for myself, I love the idea that the multiverse is not a single wheel shape, but rather a fractal, with complex and intricate geometry, and infinitely more planes to explore. From the whizzing, orbiting planes of Eberron, to the unique planes of Krynn, to countless unexplored cosmologies, all strung together along the plane of shadow like clusters of beads on a necklace.
There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in you phiolosophy... ;)
Ao is an accomodating overgod, he allowed the deities of these interloper humans to set up their own branches (or pocket cosmologies) of planes in a manner that suited them. They are all still attached to the same Tree.
I think the whole point is that they're not the same Tree. Kara-Tur's cosmology is as seperated from Faerun's as Krynn's cosmos or Athas'. I don't think Ao has any control over these other cosmologies: in their cosmic schema, he doesn't exist.
It's strange because the Great Tree is a flexible concept, and the designers could have just as easily included the realms of the Zakharan or Kara-Turan deities (say) as a few extra branches in the tree the way the Mulhorandi or dwarven deities are. Instead, they're completely different multiverses, following completely different paradigms.
Of course, the Great Wheel is a flexible concept, too, and the designers could have easily said "the people of Faerun commonly view the planes as a tree, although other cultures see it as a wheel" without disrupting anything or taking away from the unique Realms flavor they were trying to invent.
And Ao certainly has ultimate jurisdiction over every god and aspect of the planes that attach to Realmspace. But they don't have to acknowledge him or even know about him. Ao opperates behind the scenes and is even slowly erasing the mortal memory of himself from the period when he was active in the Realms during the Time of Troubles.
The degree of isolation of the pocket cosmologies of the interloper humans and how much they can interact with or travel between them has yet to be revealed. I suspect the nature of the channeled astral plane and the geographic separation of the cultures may have a lot to do with why it seems like their cosmologies are so separate. But I still see them as connected to the same tree.
In the past I have also used an airport metaphor to describe the planar schema, with the 4 astrals being like different hubs through which you get your connecting flights to the outer planes. But as with any metaphor you can only take the analogy so far.
The arguments against "shoehorning" all settings into the Planescape metasetting apply equally against shoehorning all of Toril into the Faerunian cosmology. Saying the people of Zakhara are clueless berks who don't know about or don't acknowledge Ao isn't too different from saying the people of Faerun are clueless berks who don't know about or acknowledge the Spire.
While I'm not against such "shoehorning" myself it seems like the WotC designers are trying to get away from that, and that this was their motivation behind granting seperate cosmologies to the various campaign settings within Abeir-Toril. Saying they're really tributaries of the same cosmology, and still beholden to the overgod of the Forgotten Realms campaign, seems to take away from that. If your goal is unification rather than tailorization, it seems like that philosophy ultimately leads to the Great Wheel.
If your goal is unification rather than tailorization, it seems like that philosophy ultimately leads to the Great Wheel.
All praise the Great Wheel, the cosmological party of Inclusion!... :D
Kwint
Great Wheel or bust. I personally think tradition is an important part of the D&D experience, and all of these efforts to move the game forward in an "innovative" new direction sort of depress me.
--Erik
What's not to get? The model is a Tree, right? Each set of planes is attached to a different "branch". You have your main "trunk" with all the Faerûnian planes attached like leaves to limbs--this is the Faerûnian Astral Plane. And then you have other huge arms that branch off from the main trunk, side limbs with their own attendant planes (twigs and leaves)....[the rest has been clipped, while good, I needed the room :D ]
Lest we forget, go into a forest some time (or heck, my folks backyard). You might be surprised by the number of trees that have more than one main trunk. There is a tree in my folks' backyard that I liken to Abeir-Toril's cosmology: At the very base of the tree is one trunk that goes up about one foot off the ground (Toril); then it branches off into 3 secondary main trunks (the respective Astral Planes); then finally, the assorted leaves, branches, and nuts (make you're own jokes, it's a walnut tree :P ). All those branches and leaves are on different secondary trunks, but one main one. If you wish to extend the tree analogy to the root system, consider the elemental planes.
Isn't the cosmological challenge presented by "isolated" worlds like Athas, Eberron, and perhaps Mystara relatively easily solved within the framework of Planescape by making them isolated crystal spheres, perhaps with their own attachments to a series of demiplanes? I believe this was the implication in Dark Sun, and I think it works reasonably well with the other settings.
Great Wheel or bust. I personally think tradition is an important part of the D&D experience, and all of these efforts to move the game forward in an "innovative" new direction sort of depress me.
--Erik
I totally respect your view Erik. And I sympathize. I do. I always loved Planescape back in its heyday. But I was under the impression that ship had already sailed. The canon cosmology of the Forgotten Realms is now the Tree. Eberron's cosmology is like a solar system. Future campaign settings may have other configurations. I gather that they do not ever intend to go back to all settings sharing the same Great Wheel cosmology.
One may agree or disagree with the decisions the 3E designers made when they revised the cosmology. But it seems like crying over spilled milk or closing the barn door after the horses got out to try and squeeze the Tree back into the Wheel paradigm.
I don't want to knock tradition, but I also don't think that D&D should be shellacked and placed high up on a pedestal, never to be taken down and played with. I think things benefit from changes from time to time. And 3E was such a revolution in the game system, I think it really revived the game, breathed new life into it, and if they were ever going to change the cosmology, then I think the introduction of 3E was a perfect opportunity to do it.
I was as shocked as anyone five years ago when I opened to those pages in the new FRCS with the new planar configuration and saw the Tree. But I quickly got over my confusion and came to love the new tree design. I think it works well for the FR setting. And I like to keep my game as close to canon as possible and so I use the Tree.
Since there wasn't a lot of detail on the new tree, I have had to fill in a lot of the blanks for myself. Perhaps that is why I love it so much. The sparsity of detail has allowed me to feel like I have really participated in making it my own rather than having been supplied all the answers by brilliant and talented writers. Although I do always eagerly await any new published lore on the planes of Faerûn.
One paradoxical disadvantage of Planescape is that was so wonderfully detailed and every little corner, so mapped out with great writing and art, that it was like playing in a sandbox where every square inch has already been covered with beautiful sandcastles. Not much room left to build or play in without knocking things over.
For people who prefer to keep the Great Wheel, there are myriad ways of handling the changes. You can ignore the changes and keep the 2E cosmology. You can explain them away by saying that Faerunians just think they see a tree, but they really have it wrong, it is really a Wheel. You can say the Tree and the Wheel are just different aspects of the same cosmology, or just different ways of viewing the same thing. You can postulate demiplanes attached to Realmspace's crystal sphere.
But really all those explanations are just rationalizations. Realmspace is no longer a crystal sphere floating in the phlogiston of the same Material Plane as Greyspace or Athas or Aberynis or Krynn. The 3E canon cosmology is that they (or some of them at least) are now in separate universes, with their own unique planes and cosmologies, still tied together by the plane of Shadow. Even though the configuration is different, it still has the scope and grandeur necessary for rip-roaring, fun, plane-spanning adventures.
The good news for the traditionalists is that, as the core cosmology of the Greyhawk setting, the Great Wheel is still being supported as a cosmology some 6 years into 3E. In fact, between Manual of the Planes, Planar Handbook, Fiend Folio, MMII, MMIII, Stormwrack, Frostburn, Sandstorm, 3.5 DMG, BoVD, BoED, Complete Divine and other books, not to mention scads of great articles in Dragon Magazine, the Great Wheel has continued to see far more published in word and page count than has ever been published regarding the Great Tree. (26 pages in the PGtF and 4 pages in the FRCS, a tally of only 30 pages so far for the Tree.)
What I would love to see is, now having made the switch in cosmologies, the designers should have the courage of their convictions and should support the new FR cosmology with new sourcebooks or at least a couple of pages in future sourcebooks.
There seem to be more Non-Planescape fans than Planescape fans on the board now. Judging from everyones views on the subject of cosmology and setting cross-overs. ... I wonder if its due to conformity. Wizards has decided that all campaign settings have to have different cosmologies. Planescape fans, and alot of other people in general didn't like this, but now have made themselves like it so they aren't upset about it anymore.
Don't make assumptions about the motives of people you've never met. I AM a Planescape fan, and I don't appreciate you implying that I'm not, just because I don't see PS as a one-size-fits-all setting. If you're anti-conformist, why are YOU insisting that every campaign has to conform to the PS model of the multiverse? You started out the thread by asking "Are all campaign settings part of Planescape?" and moved through "All campaign settings can be part of Planescape" to "All campaign settings must be part of Planescape." That kind of attitude isn't going to help win any new Planescape fans.
When I created my fantasy steampunk setting, I chose not to use the Great Wheel because I didn't think it fit the flavor I wanted. Insisting that every new campaign setting must use the Great Wheel is like insisting on playing a Jedi in D&D. There's no reason you can't do that, if your GM allows it, but it's ridiculous to argue that every setting must include Jedi because they're just so cool. If you want to make every campaign world fit into the Great Wheel, more power to you. But please refrain from suggesting that anybody who doesn't do the same is not a true PS fan.
Wyvern
Its not really about Planescape, but rather one single cosmology for all D&D settings.
Since there are an infinite amount of planes on the great wheel, choosing to not use it and scrap the entire thing is unessasary
You are badly missing the point. Some of us want a finite universe.
"No, Elminster doesn't exist in this cosmology. You cannot gate over to Toril and ask him to come over and help you straighten out those rogue Dragonmarked. You just can't get there from here."
"No, there is no Elemental Demiplane of Superdense Depleted Uranium that you can use for making Hulking Hurler shotputs. I don't care if you need a 10' diameter sphere that weighs twenty quintillion gigatons so you can succeed in this week's absurdly out-of-character-knowledge plan to destroy Mechanus. Go bother someone else."
"The outer-planar realm of Fergeddaboutis, Quasi-Deity of 'Pushovers Who Have A Lot Of Phat Lewt'? NO!"
You can rant about the inherent superiority of an absolutely infinite multiverse if you really want to, Geddon. The rest of us will be gaming at a table where the DM can put some limits on what does and what does not exist, thank you very much.
There probably is a demiplane of Depleted Uranium, but that doesn't mean you can just come in and take a piece of the plane out and drop it on Mechanius, because:
Number One: Radiation and "uranium" are virtually unknown threwout the multiverse. So one step into the demiplane means instant death, since no magical protections have been created.
Number Two: Also, atoms might not behave the same way on Mechanus, so nuclear fission might not work.
Number Three: And since Mechanus is an infinite plane, such a massive explosion is insignifacant in the planar scale of things.
Also Elminster isn't that easy to find, and even if you were to find him, do you really think he would be convinced to hop aboard a spelljammer or do the massive teleportation required to go from one prime world to another. Or for that matter, wouldn't there be a suitable wizard of equal power to Elminster, such as Mordenkainen for example, that would be capable of the same feats of magic?
The Planescape/great wheel/spelljammer cosmology ROCKS. YOUR. SOCKS.
Other people don't think so.
Therefore, some other people don't use the COSMOLOGY ABOVE ALL COSMOLOGIES.
So, Wizards make alternate cosmologies for the different settings.
This means people who don't want to don't have to use Planescape/Great wheel/Spelljammer. They can use their favorite cosmology.
That's great.
I can still use my favorite cosmology.
That's great, too.
PS: Consider Eberron. Adding it to PS wouldn't change much if the party were already planewalkers, but an entire campaign set in Eberron would experience a change in one of the defining aspects of the setting, namely the moral ambiguity.
Or, in other words, adding EBerron to PS = PS.
Adding PS to Eberron = Not Eberron.
And restricting people's freedom to choose their own flvour of adventure is Bad.
So please stop trying to insist that you have the One True Holy Path to Enlightenment, accept the fact that many people are perfectly satisfied with a Planescape that doesn't subsume absolutely every other bit of cosmology in existence, and let us play our own frickin' game.
Geddon, you're missing the point. In an absolutely infinite multiverse, anything that can exist does exist. In about twelve different flavors, no less.
Well, not to get too philosphical here, but that's not really true. Whole numbers, for example, are infinite (you can keep counting them forever) but they don't have any negative numbers or fractions.
There's also an infinite number of fractions between the numbers 1 and 2, but none of them include the numbers 3, 4, etc.
In fact, it's more accurate to say that there are an infinite number of cases in which the idea of "anything that can exist does exist" isn't true, and yet only one case in which it actually is true.
Pax,
KRad
Since there are an infinite amount of planes on the great wheel, choosing to not use it and scrap the entire thing is unessasary, so yes, someone who chooses not to use the great wheel, when the wheel basically is endlessly versatile, means either: 1. Somebody thinks just because its the wheel, that it doesn't fit their campaign setting, despite the facts I outlined above, 2. Or, they aren't really that found of Planescape.
Or 3. They like Planescape, but don't agree with your statement that it's "endlessly versatile". Flexible, yes. Endlessly, no. You're also missing one very important point: it's not just about whether your world can be fitted into Great Wheel, but also whether the Great Wheel can (or should) be fitted into your world. I could have used it for my steampunk setting, easily; I just didn't think the flavor of Planescape matched the flavor I was trying to create.
You're free to disagree with any or all of the above statements, of course. Which is precisely my point: I'm not insisting that you must share my opinion, so don't insist that I must share yours (or that I'm not a PS fan if I don't). I like Planescape, a lot. But I don't worship it.
Wyvern
Geddon, you're missing the point. In an absolutely infinite multiverse, anything that can exist does exist. In about twelve different flavors, no less. And I don't want to have to contrive an excuse of the week why gate or contact outer plane or summon monster ix can't get the twink player everything he ever dreamed of if he just goes to the exact right place to get it.
So please stop trying to insist that you have the One True Holy Path to Enlightenment, accept the fact that many people are perfectly satisfied with a Planescape that doesn't subsume absolutely every other bit of cosmology in existence, and let us play our own frickin' game.
Well then I know better than you...
The only limitations put on the multiverse are those that the DM decides WILL NOT go into his campaign. In reality the only limits overall are your own imagination. The thing about fitted cosmologys is that basically the entire multiverse is fitted to revolve around a particular world under Wizards' current each cosmology his own system. This is stupid and is totally both uncreative and unnessary.
In the 2nd edition system, prime worlds were like pre-15th century Europe. They assumed the world was flat and that the earth was in the center of the solar system, or universe. Sure your Spirit World exists, but its merely a small portion of an infinitely larger plane.
Sure your Spirit World exists, but its merely a small portion of an infinitely larger plane.
Hmmmmm, funny thing, that: did not a later 2nd edition product in fact outright state that something called a 'Spirit World' did *not* exist, even as a portion of a plane? Or was this whole "Shaman"-thingy just a very convoluted joke?
Hmmmmm, funny thing, that: did not a later 2nd edition product in fact outright state that something called a 'Spirit World' did *not* exist, even as a portion of a plane? Or was this whole "Shaman"-thingy just a very convoluted joke?
Shaman did say that, and parts of that sourcebook's philosophy can be detected in On Hallowed Ground (though it may have been published later_. The idea is that while spirits seem to manifest themselves from and return to a parallel world of some sort, really they're not; the "spirit world" is really just another word for belief itself. "Spirits" are tiny gods, not yet powerful enough to ascend to the Outer Planes.
Well of Worlds said that Faerie didn't exist, too; what the inhabitants of one particular Prime world thought was Faerie was really just the Outer Planes in general. Although I thought that scenario would be fun to rewrite so that Faerie does exist (as a demiplane, perhaps), and some of the adventure takes place exploring that before the PCs get to the Prime.
The appraoch I favor is one born from a blending of these two systems, systems which were inclusive of each other (see the PS description of the Prime in various products, it talks about the phlogiston and Crystal Spheres). In Sj each soalr system is encased in a massive crystalline sphere which floats in a flammable gaseous substance called the Phlogiston, or the Flow. If a priest enters a Sphere where his/her/it's god is not worshipped then he/she/it will not be able to regain spells. He/she/it CAN attempt to petition a deity with a similar portfolio and possibly regain his/her/it's spellcasting abilities. Another option is to use a spell (Contact Home Power) to channel his/her/it's deity's power from a sphere where the deity actually has influence.
Now to me this would denote a complete lack of access to outer planes that lacked a belief base in any given sphere. For instance, Asgard and it's Powers would have no influence in a sphere that contained no worshippers. That also means that it would be very improbable that anyone would have made the trip to Asgard using Plane Shift (or wahtever).
It is not that the various planes do not exist, it is more that the Crystal Sphere's have differing Divine Permeability. SO, if all you know are a few pantheons then your access/worldview/etc will be shaped by this perception of the infinite. Hey look! A Great Tree!
Another note, anything I deem sufficiently far removed from my baseline cosmology still fits. In my campaigns the Great Wheel Cosmology is the core, surrounded by the mind bending Far Realm. Other multiverses float through the Far Realm like the Crystal Spheres do in the Flow. Using that approach keeps them completely seperated should I choose, but also allows me to completely wrench the characters out of their usual planewalking routine and drop them into Eberron OR d20 Modern OR wherever I wish.
I like to believe that my Macroverse take on things gives it all a certain, "As above, so below," symetry. It also really allows you to continually have mystery to spare, something hard to do when you bget to high or Epic levels.
In the end though this is all about belief. All of you are showing your own beliefs and arguing as hard as some evangelists. Only appropriate considering the topic. I would simply beg all to remember Rule 0: The Dm is always right. Myself I would rather have an overabundance of source material to Frankenstein together than a lack of it.
Those are my thoughts, for what they may or may not be worth.
http://www.spelljammer.org
http://www.planewalker.com
http://planejammer.blogspot.com
You are badly missing the point. Some of us want a finite universe.
[clipped for necessity]
You can rant about the inherent superiority of an absolutely infinite multiverse if you really want to, Geddon. The rest of us will be gaming at a table where the DM can put some limits on what does and what does not exist, thank you very much.
Then that's the job of the DM, not the manufacturer. If you want a finite universe, then make it a finite universe. If you want it infinite, make it infinite. Don't expect D&D R&D to conform. When 3rd ed. came out and I found out what happened to planar cosmology(gies), I balked at first, then I came to realize that it actually works better. If you have no intention of doing a cross-over then you don't need to worry about the other cosmologies. Even if you do intend a planar-based campaign, there should be enough to see one cosmology to last a PC's lifetime (even elves and dragons).
In the 2nd edition system, prime worlds were like pre-15th century Europe. They assumed the world was flat and that the earth was in the center of the solar system, or universe.
Well actually no, they didn't.
Spelljammer made it clear tht many prime worlds were well aware that their worlds weren't flat (or necessarily spherical for that matter), that was in the center of their crystal sphere, or that that their crystal spheres were the center of anything in particular.
There probably is a demiplane of Depleted Uranium, but that doesn't mean you can just come in and take a piece of the plane out and drop it on Mechanius, because:
Number One: Radiation and "uranium" are virtually unknown threwout the multiverse. So one step into the demiplane means instant death, since no magical protections have been created.
Number Two: Also, atoms might not behave the same way on Mechanus, so nuclear fission might not work.
1. Wrong! :D The Avoid Planar Effects spell would apply, albeit briefly
2. Doubtful. Einstein and Oppenheimer didn't break any natural laws, they just -ahem-exploited the ones they knew about. But this isn't an argument on nuclear ethics, so let's just move on. :P
2. Doubtful. Einstein and Oppenheimer didn't break any natural laws, they just -ahem-exploited the ones they knew about. But this isn't an argument on nuclear ethics, so let's just move on. :P
Much like *ahem* the Guvners.
Well actually no, they didn't.
Spelljammer made it clear tht many prime worlds were well aware that their worlds weren't flat (or necessarily spherical for that matter), that was in the center of their crystal sphere, or that that their crystal spheres were the center of anything in particular.
I was basically restating what Planescape has said regarding Clueless. Many assume their worlds are the center of the multiverse. In 3rd edition, that might be true because cosmologies are world dependant, rather than how Planescape stated that the multiverse is there and not always what the primes think it is, like Krynnish natives thinking the entire lower planes are the abyss for example.
I was basically restating what Planescape has said regarding Clueless. Many assume their worlds are the center of the multiverse. In 3rd edition, that might be true because cosmologies are world dependant, rather than how Planescape stated that the multiverse is there and not always what the primes think it is, like Krynnish natives thinking the entire lower planes are the abyss for example.
Actually that is what Planescape has said most Sigilians believe regarding non-planars. The reality is starkly different, as was acknowledged in PS products as time passed, showing that the real Clueless were those who who forgot that the multiverse is also not always what the Sigilians think it is.
Think of it this way, in a PS campaign, taking into account only the Great Wheel, a plot by Mephistopheles to conquer Nessus with the aid of Anthraxus is a big idea.
Now what of Mephisto's aid came from someone outside the Great Wheel, someone from say Ebberon's cosmology, or Dragonlance's, someone who didn't gain by Mephisto rising, but still came up trumps from the bargin.
Allowing the existence of multiple Cosmologies adds to Planescape. Besides, all rules have exceptions and having multiple cosmologies is the exception to the Everything Exists in the Great Wheel rule.
I don't have any problem with non-Planescape campaigns that want to use tailored cosmologies, either.
My problem is cosmologies that needlessly duplicate the Great Wheel and still want to be connected to it. Forgotten Realms is the big culprit: it has an Abyss that's exactly like the Great Wheel's Abyss, a Baator that's exactly like the Great Wheel's Baator, and a Mount Celestia that's exactly like the Great Wheel's Mount Celestia (but within a bigger plane called the House of the Triad). This would make sense if this were the only multiverse available in a Forgotten Realms campaign (as was intended by Sean K. Reynolds when he designed it) but when you link the Forgotten Realms cosmology with the Great Wheel cosmology with the Plane of Shadow, River Styx, Sigil, Infinite Staircase, and other places and let your PCs explore those links you end up with a weird redundancy.
Same thing with Eberron. I don't have any problem with Eberron having its own planes in an Eberron campaign, but if you decide to integrate Eberron into a Planescape campaign you end up with a lot of redundancy (Kythri and Limbo are exactly alike, Xoriat and the Far Realm are more or less the same, and so on).
It's better, in these cases, to assume that identical planes are really the same plane. It's simpler, neater, and the players don't have to sit through complicated explanations of how the Graz'zt they made a deal with was the Wheel's Graz'zt and not the same Graz'zt that's presently slaughtering them. That's way too messy, too needlessly baroque, too pre-Crisis for my tastes.
If you find a way to make one Abyss and the other Abyss substantially different (maybe one Abyss is Chaotic Good, for example) then more power to you. I just think an infinite number of more or less identical Abysses in the same campaign is foolish.
In that sense, I guess I'm favoring a finite multiverse over an infinite one. Put in as many planes as the campaign needs, then stop. You can still assume there are infinite alternate versions of every plane if you want, but put a cap on it somewhere. Restrict the campaign to a given stage, and save yourself and your players a migraine.
It appears to be either James Wyatt, or someone else on the PGTF design or editing team that cemented the notion that the planes of the FR cosmology are separate and distinct from the Great Wheel planes.
Since it is no longer an open question and canon states that the planes of the FR cosmology are separate, my explanation of it all is to view FR's Nine Hells as a colony of the Great Wheel's Baator, and the Abyss likewise a colony of the Great Wheel's Abyss. Both are interloper planes, established by avatars of some of the major archfiends from the Wheel.
I figure that when Shar first waged war against Selûne and Chauntea over creating the Sun in the War of Light & Darkness, she must have brought over mercenaries from the Wheel. Probably at the suggestion of a Baernaloth or perhaps an ultraloth such as Inthracis.
Anyway, I figure she brought them over to wage war, and after the war was over they stayed and set up shop in the Tree, creating homeplanes that looked very much like the planes they hailed from on the Great Wheel.
Likewise, Selûne probably sought the advice of wise Oghma to help fend off the armies of her sister that were extinguishing all life in Realmspace. Oghma hooked her up with the Archons, the Guardinals and the Eladrin who sent their mercenaries and avatars of their paragons over to help defend the cause of light. Thus, Realms versions of Celestia and Morwen's Star Court were also established within the Tree.
Celestia has evolved since then and diverged in a lot of ways from it's twin on the Great Wheel. But the Hells and the Abyss have remained very similar to their wheel counterparts. I suppose because they are so archetypal. Or perhaps because of some sort of mythic harmonic resonance that causes patterns of myth to replicate themselves or evolve in parallel across distant cosmoses.
I think the similarities between cosmoses can be very interesting to explore. For instance you have the Fenris wolf biting off Tyr's hand in one cosmology and Kezef biting it off in the FR cosmolgy. You have Yggdrasil and the River Styx in one cosmology and the Celestial Tree and the River of Blood in FR. You have Lolth being cast down by the Seldarine in countless cosmologies. The myths are all similar, but the details may vary from cosmos to cosmos.
Anyway, half the fun for me is explaining away inconsistencies or finding neat resolutions to conflicting or contrary lore. I don't mind the weird redundancy. In fact, the redundancy would seem to flow logically from the close ties between the two cosmoses (cosmoi?).
It only stands to reason, that when you have a huge population of elves that migrate to Faerûn and bring not only their culture with them but their gods and the infrastructure of their belief, then they are going to recreate Arvandor/Arvanaith midst the cosmic boughs of their adopted new home.
Likewise with interloping dwarves, gnomes, halflings, orcs, goblins and even tribes of humans from other worlds that have migrated across universes to settle on Toril. Forgotten Realms is a great melting pot of myth and cultures. It has a long tradition of interloping races and gods. So of course it's cosmology should reflect that. I think the mechanics of the Tree cosmology capture that nicely.
Moronic....Moronic, having Forgotten Realms have a separate cosmology was stupid and moronic.
Anyway, sorry for the rant. :D
Whats the point of having a separate cosmology with almost exhact things as the core one if you can more easily have one large cosmology that is able to fit everything neatly toghether.
Because there were somethings in FR that just didn't fit, despite attempts to try (admirable as it was [Infinite Staircase, anyone].
And it's not stupid nor moronic. It's trying to accomodate everyone; if you don't like it, don't use it. If you like what you see, try it out.
In my personal campaign, I started out with the Great Wheel as a base then expanded from there. This makes me wonder how much of your (directed at Sword, but could be anyone) Great Wheel is still canon with your own campaigns. Personally, I think the multiple cosmologies allows for DMs to customize for their own campaigns (especially, homebrew worlds) without trying to "make it fit" or "how do they relate." You have to remember, like I said in a previous post, it's the clueless primes that determine the reality of the planes, not vice versa.
Because there were somethings in FR that just didn't fit, despite attempts to try (admirable as it was [Infinite Staircase, anyone].
That's odd. The Infinite Staircase appeared in Planescape (in the Planes of Chaos boxed set) several years before it appeared in the Forgotten Realms campaign. What about it makes you think it doesn't fit?
The core of Planescape is that the Primes are all clueless and don't know the nature of the multiverse, various the traveled planars and sigilians know the dark...
While planars definitely knew the dark of many things, I think that they were just as clueless as the primes by virtue of planar arrogance. From boxed set one, the planars admitted the primes determined the primary shape of the universe (but it always seemed that they [the planars] would forget this fact).
Hmmmmm, funny thing, that: did not a later 2nd edition product in fact outright state that something called a 'Spirit World' did *not* exist, even as a portion of a plane? Or was this whole "Shaman"-thingy just a very convoluted joke?
Considering that the Demiplane of Shadow evolved into the Transitive Plane of Shadow, I can see the Spirit World evolving from nothing into something. After all, isn't that how the Outer Planes came into existence, more or less? :D
:lightbulb
Now to be completely evil:evillaugh --Have any of you given thought to the Dreamtime (as presented in Dragon)? I know it's a recent thing for Dragon, but I was thinking about how it relates back in 2nd ed. (blame the Gargoyles TV show
.Much like *ahem* the Guvners.
Touche
Sorry, the all fit.
What the?! I get the last word and it kills the thread? 
The first thing to realize about parallel universes, the Guide says, is that they are not parallel.
It is also important to realize that they are not, strictly speaking, universes either, but it is easiest if you don't try to realize that until a little later, after you've realized that everything you've realized up to that moment is not true.
The reason they are not universes is that any given universe is not actually a thing as such, but is just a way of looking at what is technically known as the WSOGMM, or Whole Sort of General Mish Mash. The Whole Sort of General Mish Mash doesn't actually exist either, but is just the sum total of all the different ways there would be of looking at it if it did.
The reason they are not parallel is they are not parallel is the same reason that the sea is not parallel. It doesn't mean anything. You can slice the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash any way you like and you will generally come up with something that someone will call home.
Please feel free to blither now.
-Douglas Adams
and:
Sepulchrave II wrote:
"There are other worlds, Lai. Sisperi is one small corner in an infinity of infinities."
"That may be so," Lai had said through narrowed eyes. "But it is my corner."
"May I show you something?"
"That, I suspect, is why I am here," Lai had replied laconically.
Yggdrasil meets the Great Wheel?
Yggdrasil meets the Great Wheel?
yes, both are dmg from conflicting cosmology. The wooden wheel is the Great Wheel and the tree is Yggdrasil. The lawn, the house , and the rest of the town is the Far Realm. :D
That said, I do like the idea of each campaign setting having it's own cosmology. I like how FRs outerplanes aren't the Great Wheel's outer planes (With a few exceptions). However, I don't necessarily see this as being counter to Planescape.
From what I can tell of the feel of Planescape, it was that anyone really knowledgable about the Planes knew that they didn't know anything. Sure, people like to say that Sigil hovers atop the Spire, but (at least according to a 3.5 book on the planes), you can't even see it from the city. And people like to say that the Spire is really the center of the multiverse, but no one really knows for sure.
The way I imagine it, the entirety of DnD exists in the Omniverse, and multiple Multiverse's make up the Omniverse. (just like multiple planes make up a multiverse), and each multiverse belongs to a campaign setting. However, I place Sigil and the Outlands "on top" of the Omniverse. Sure everyone "knows" that the Outlands are infinite and distance becomes relative to time the further away you get from the Spire, but who's to say that if you travel in juuuust the right direction, and for juuuust the right amount of time you'll come across Gate towns for the Great Tree, arranged in the appropriate pattern? Maybe even further off in the infinite expanse of the Outlands you'll find a series of orbiting Gate towns that follow the exact orbits of the planes of Eberron?
And who's to say Sigil is anywhere in the Outlands? How can there be a city on top of an infinite Spire anyway? If it was infinite, it wouldn't have a top, right? Perhaps Sigil is "ontop" of each collection of gatetowns, equidistant from all of them at the same time.
I doesn't have to make perfect sense, because well, no one can truely make sense of the planes anyway...
The multiverse and it infinite infinities are shaped(or 'sliced') by the viewer's lens of Belief :D