Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Jan 17, 2006 18:08:02	Now before you dismiss me as barmy hear me out. I have recently been thinking about constructing my own unique cosmology. I was planing on having the planes be based off of concepts, ideas and activities rather than alighnments, for example planes of construction, despair, hope, knowledge, peace, freedom, and war. But I want to try and capture that classic feel of Planescape for this cosmology, however I dont know what I need to do that any suggestions? I already am adding a plane of portals based loosley off of Sigil but other than that I dont know.
#2 ripvanwormer Jan 17, 2006 20:27:02	I'd take a look at some of these inspirations for ideas in capturing that elusive "feel." I also just read this account of murders in 18th century London which feels very right for Sigil.
#3 ripvanwormer Jan 17, 2006 20:33:43	I think you can fit the idea of planes based on concepts, ideas, and activities in the existing Great Wheel. For example, Arcadia could be the Plane of Construction (all those formians), Acheron could be the Plane of War, the Gray Waste could be the Plane of Despair, Ysgard could be the Plane of Freedom, Elysium could be Hope, Arborea could be Knowledge (with the Sensates' emphasis on experience and the forgotten lore buried in Pelion), and a different layer of Elysium could be Peace. Use as many or as few planes as you need, and ignore all the bits about alignment. For example, yugoloths could be creatures of pure Despair without necessarily being evil. Guardinals could represent Hope or Peace without being good. Acheron could be a place of eternal war without being lawful or evil. You could still use the existing planes as inspiration.
#4 zombiegleemax Jan 17, 2006 21:14:44	Thanks Rip, I appreciate the links and the advice. I had infact already been intending for their to be parallels beween some of the planes I am making and the planes of the great ring, for example the plane of war would have several layers, one like Acheron, one like Ysgard, and one that serves as battle fields for the blood war, and the plane of despair was going to have the same entrapping features as the gray wastes. Though I had not thought of the idea of taking the outsiders and taking away their alignment and making them more representitive of the plane they are on, the idea does intrigue me and I will definetley think about it, and I will maybe think of basing them closer to the original planes than I had first intended. Once again thanks Rip, if anyone else has any ideas for how to capture the 'feel' of planescape please give the dark of it.
#5 factol_rhys_dup Jan 17, 2006 23:29:23	I had this idea after *please don't hurt me* watching the movie Constantine. In it, the main character goes to Hell at one point, which looks like the city on Earth, only after it is nuked, bathed in fire, and populated by demon-things. It gave me the idea of having all the planes exist as versions of each other, but at slightly different "frequencies" in a way. You're in the same world, almost, but sort of like examining it through a new lens. While existing in different planes, you experience different parts of that world that you can't see, go to, etc., in other planes. You can think of the Great Wheel as operating like that, but take it one step further and you can have a city on one plane be a shining fortress of justice and then travel to the lower planes and see their version of the city, which is pitted and corrupt. The appeal of doing a more freeform cosmology without the Great Wheel is that you don't have to be bound by so many planes and so much symmetry. For example, everyone has more fun coming up with locations, inhabitants, and adventures on the Lower Planes, which makes the Upper Planes feel rather empty. Just infinitely infinite stretches of happy and friendly farmers watched over by their local celestial, who also serves as judge for the county's annual pie contest. Things feel kind of redundant thinking up so many variations of an idea.
#6 ripvanwormer Jan 18, 2006 0:05:43	I hope we can be more creative regarding the Upper Planes than that. How about: - an Upper Planar region that looks like infinitely branching dandelion seeds - A plane that's an infinite string of brilliant pearls in the void. - A great celestial factory-city with millions of automatic prayer wheels, pumping out celestial weapons and constructs. - An amorphous upper plane of deep shadow, where the gentle and fearsome angels of darkness minister. - A plane of five facing landscapes, like the inside of a five-pointed star. - A plane shaped like a staircase where each landscape is at right angles to the last. - An Upper Planar region bathed in infinite righteous fire. - An arctic celestial realm, where celestials with frost-covered fur preside over brilliant palaces of ice. - A celestial desert intended to purge travelers of their sins through the holy power of the sun and sand. - An ocean of pure light with no surface, where everything is lost but the will to do good. - A celestial forest where the ideal versions of every animal species roam (and yes, I'm wandering into existing planes to make a point). - A heavenly layer that's been turned into an infinite prison for a monster too terrible to kill or to trust to any other plane (see above). - All of these Bytopian places - These Celestian realms I wouldn't say that making lower planar locations is more fun. Coming up with challenging and interesting upper planar scenarios can be challenging, but I think that makes it that much more rewarding. To me, upper planes are rawer, fiercer, more elemental and archetypal than most other outer planes (saving only Limbo). Or rather, they range from raw primal energy to augustine splendor, depending on their Law/Chaos ratio, though Law can be as harsh as Chaos. They're created to be what the celestials think the material planes should strive toward, which doesn't mean they're at all hospitable to mortal life. They can be just as weird and puzzling, surreal, metaphorical, and brain-twisting as the lower planes, or even more so. They're Good, which doesn't mean they're paradises or even particularly pleasant; Good doesn't mean easy. Everything that exists in the Material Plane should have its exaggerated upper planar apotheosis, as everything has its place in the celestial plan. Of course, there's room for happy farm folk too. But the Upper Planes aren't all happy farms any more than the Lower Planes are all monotonous fields of suffering damned. And what do they grow in those farms? What if they plant the souls of the righteous and harvest sentient pumpkins to craft into celestial scarecrows with the power to smite evil? What if they plant good deeds and harvest happiness, but they have to hide it away because it's too strong for mortals to handle unless they've earned it, and there's a black market in dangerously addictive bootleg happiness? And I'm not saying I'm at all against free-form planes. I like the idea of no structure at all, where each journey into the planes can be completely different. I like the idea of metaphysical maps, charts, and orreries just as much. Law and chaos both.
#7 zombiegleemax Jan 18, 2006 0:44:16	Making your own cosmologies does nothing to add to(or detract from Planescape), the Wheel IS Planescape, pure and simple. You need not create new multiverses just for a campaign world. For example: Dark Sun exists in the multiverse, yet it does not connect to the Outer Planes, the Outer planes have no effect on Athas. Instead, Athas has its own Planes, the Black and the Grey. Dark SUn's world of Athas has no connection to the rest of the Prime. Athas is part of the multiverse, but its isolated and other planes lie nearby that are unfamiliar or unknown to the rest of the multiverse. Instead have your campaign world have its own planes and its own section of the multiverse all to its own. Demiplanes can be nearly infinite in size, why not place a world in the Ethereal plane, and have it surrounded by its own Demiplanes, like Hate, Dispair etc.
#8 zombiegleemax Jan 18, 2006 8:16:42	Thank you for the suggestion Geddon, but I really dont want to make my worlds just another bunch of Demiplanes, I already considered that possibility. And I decided I really just wanted my world to be its own free standing multiverse. Rip those are some interesting ideas for good planes I hadn't really thought about it that way. Rhys that is an interesting idea about the planes being the same but on diffrent frequencies, very cool. And one last thing, as far as mapping out the cosmos, that is something I have always thought was cool (wanted to build a small moving model of the normal planescape cosmology for a while) but I also agree it is nice to not have to have them all blanced by alignment, which is partly why I am trying to set up this new cosmology for my world. And as an added note even though I am making this new cosmology, it is only for a pre-existing campaign world of mine mostly set in the material with a number of planar adventures occuring from time to time. If I ever choose to make a campaign set in the planes I will likley use the classic planescape setting. Anyways thank you everyone so far for your suggestions, if their is anything else anyone wishes to add I am all ears.
#9 eldersphinx Jan 18, 2006 10:25:56	Making your own cosmologies does nothing to add to(or detract from Planescape), the Wheel IS Planescape, pure and simple. You need not create new multiverses just for a campaign world. Geddon? It's his fsckin' game. The campaign setting is not 'part' of a multiverse. The campaign setting subsumes the multiverse. The entirety of the campaign setting, and everything in it, is free to be shaped by him and his players. And no one else gets a vote. No matter how you define it, OmegaFrost's campaign setting and cosmology is completely separate from yours. And from mine. And from Rip's. And from Shemeska's, and anyone else's. Absolutely nothing he does can have any effect whatsoever on anyone else's game. So why not let him get on with a cosmology that he prefers?
#10 samwise Jan 19, 2006 11:26:50	The Great Wheel is no more Planescape than the Factions endlessly running roughshod over Sigil is. Indeed, it is no more Planescape than Sigil itself! How can a setting be about endless possibilities if you won't even consider new alternatives after a certain point? Sure you have to have some discretion and not just adopt every change and retcon because someone presents it. But you have to be open to new stuff to begin with.
#11 zombiegleemax Jan 19, 2006 16:20:45	Eldersphinx he can do what he wants in his game, I not arguing against that, just that I like the idea of everyone playing in the same campaign setting, that is Planescape. Getting rid of Sigil, the Outer Planes, and its basically the DM"s own setting. Also I vastly prefer One-Multiverse, like was the case in Second Edition, it was one of the things that fascinated me about the game to begin with, and one of the main reasons why I started playing. For me, seeing every campaign setting have its own cosmology, neither adding nor detract from others(and therefore there is no Dungeons and Dragons Universe), is basically destroying what for me is one of the reasons I like the game to begin with, the vast scope of D&D's multiverse, and the wonder of the Planescape setting when i discovered it, is no more. Another reason is that I got into Planescape because of its "what if this is so?" or "Some say this" sort of thing that often was brought up. I read many of the online Planescape sites which added to this. They had Role-played material, such as is common in the old Planescape books. Basically it was like this: "What if the gods are hiding a whole entire set of planes from the masses, what have they to hide?" and another would respond: "Maybe, but if they are, what could be on these planes to warrant hiding?" Now adays, people would respond not with the above statement, but with: "Who the hell cares? Its your own damn campaign." You see what I'm getting at? Now to return to the nice gentlemen Omega Frost's topic: Since planes can be neither part of the Inner or Outer arrangements, as demonstrated by Athas, and in 3rd edition, Fairy and other places, you could perhaps create, a new catagory of planes. Bare with me here: The inner planes are the planes of Elements. The outer planes are the planes of Belief and of Morality The "Other" planes....are planes of emotion. You could be on to something Omega.... You could create your own outsiders for the new planes, creatures representing hate, love, dispair, hope etc personified(sort of like Incarnates, maybe Incarnates could be the larval form of these new outsiders, somehow found there way to the Outer Planes?)
#12 zombiegleemax Jan 20, 2006 15:02:09	an interesting idea Geddon I hadn't thought of making a new set of planes I will certainly think about the possibilities.