I mean which is the prime material? Greyhawk? Forgotten Realms?
now I do also know that there could be many prime material worlds, and even wild space and spell jamming as well and still have the same outer planes cosmonology, but I wanted to know what the assumed base prime was, as I want to stick with that starting point - and not worry about every being, creature or god of all possible primes.
I hope the above reads ok and makes sense,
Droo
Back in the days before 3e, all of the "prime material" worlds shared the same set of planes, kinda. Boiled down, this meant Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk shared the same plane setup that was first introduced back in the days of 1e and the original Manual of the Planes. Other D&D settings, particularly Birthright, Dark Sun, and to a lesser extent Dragonlance did not delve deeply into planar matters, and had vague planar sketches that did not really match the "standard" plane setup. Spelljammer was simply an extention of FR/GH/DL, and shared the standard planes (but in general did not deal with planes at all).
Planescape was a (rather successful) attempt at taking the standard planes and making a setting out of it. PS was centered somewhat on the city of Sigil, a new city-state set on top of the "Spire" of the Outlands/Outer Plane of True Neutrality. From there, portals allow exploration of every other plane. In a way, it acted as a "glue setting" for the other D&D settings.
3e has thrown a monkeywrench in that all plane setups are not the same, and cut FR from PS by introducing a completely new set of planes for the FR setting. GH's planes have been simplified, but the core planes are still there. Since 3e was released, there have been attempts to reconnsile the different planes so that PS still exists for FR & GH, but I don't know where they stand at this point. Probably best check the official website for more details
Originally posted by Droo
...now I do also know that there could be many prime material worlds, and even wild space and spell jamming as well and still have the same outer planes cosmonology, but I wanted to know what the assumed base prime was, as I want to stick with that starting point - and not worry about every being, creature or god of all possible primes.
I hope the above reads ok and makes sense,
Droo
Well Droo, that was the point of PS. All of the Prime worlds connected to the Planes. The Pantheons of the Egyptians rubbed shoulders with the Norse who competed with the Olympians, the Celts, the Sumerians, the Elves, the Dwarves, the Faerunian Pantheon, the pantheon of Oerth... You get the idea. The Planes being infinite could hold all these gods without Pantheonic wars erupting out... though the various priesthoods did skirmish now and again. Religion, Philosophy, Ideology... All were in conflict in the Outer Planes where Belief means Power.
That's my take on it, anyway.
Spelljammer insists that each star cluster inhabits a crystal sphere that floats around in some kind of super-galactic soup and that one can travel from world to world by sailing across these vast oceans of slime in ships called "Spelljammers." I'm not really very familiar with that setting and I think it's kind of silly and don't use it myself, but there you are.
I would basically use what you want. The focus of a Planescape campaign is on the planes, so it's easy to ignore most of that Prime stuff.
I take Athas as being on a seperate Material Plane, due to the fact that it is nearly impossible to reach through Planar travel due to the fact that it is surrounded by Planes that keep Insiders in, & Outsiders out. Although it is not impossible, it is damn near close, from how the "Black & The Grey" are described.
Originally posted by Iegan
Spelljammer insists that each star cluster inhabits a crystal sphere that floats around in some kind of super-galactic soup and that one can travel from world to world by sailing across these vast oceans of slime in ships called "Spelljammers." I'm not really very familiar with that setting and I think it's kind of silly and don't use it myself, but there you are.
For the record, the phlogiston isn't a "soup" or "slime", but a gas - an incandescent, highly flammable, but breathable gas. Otherwise, your description is right on the mark.
And the Birthright campaign world is Cerilia.
Wyvern
I wanted to throw in here that I've used a twist on the cosmology that was a lot of fun in a huge epic game that involved a prime-material world having its connections to the planes severed (resulting in the dead failing to pass on to their afterlives, among other things).
Over the course of the game, the players learned that the Prime Material was once an outer plane whose gate-town was a much younger Sigil - the gate being the actual ring of the city. Since Gates only connect to the first layer of a plane, it gave me the idea that there could be multiple layers of the Prime Material... each one more difficult to reach than the one before.
Therefore, the first layer was populated by Oerth, Toril, etc. The second by Athas and Cerilia. The third just had poor old Earth with no access at all. That's theoretical, of course. The PCs never went to the third layer.