Given such a variety of "loyalties" I tend to have a pretty diverse view of Planescape, as well as its relationship to other settings. In my experiences over the years, there was this perception from fans of other settings that just like the planar cutters of the setting we love, we were pretty arrogant and know-it-all. And, to a certain extent, I'm not sure I can entirely disagree with this. It's something that really emerged from the 2e-induced connection of campaign worlds--that all campaign worlds were forced to not only fit into the scheme of the great wheel, but to acknowledge that it was also an important part of the setting.
For some settings (Such as Greyhawk and Ravenloft) this change had almost negligible consequences. For others such as FR and DL, however, this required that the settings be pigeon-holed into a set-up that was never the intention of Weis and Hickman or Greenwood or any number of creators. Granted, every TSR/WotC setting has been a shared world, but it's one thing to share a world among a variety of creators who have a passion for it, and another to share it with individuals who consider it little more than a footnote.
Basically, Planescape did to other settings what many feel MotP did to Planescape: it turned them into something they were not meant to be. The cosmologies of said settings were practically thrown right out the window, some of their thematic elements lost any relevence in light of Planescape's themes, and they were just altogether overshadowed by PS. That, and having people say, "Takhisis isn't in the Abyss, you backwater prime!" didn't exactly endear others to PS.
That said, I think Planescape wouldn't be the same without all the elements that are introduced by the various campaign worlds. To remove practically every setting from the mix would make it a lot more bland. It's for this same reason that I'm glad the uber-capable Planewalker team has its hands on PS as opposed to the product being licensed out; were Planescape to see print by way of a third party d20 company, all references to other settings would need to be removed, much like the case of 3e Ravenloft which is not allowed to mention Lord Soth, Vecna, or any of the TSR/WoTC-specific deities worshipped in the world. Through online continuance of PS, this issue can be skirted around. Anyways, I'm diverging too much.
The MotP tried to also address this issue by using the plane of shadow to link the various cosmologies. The problem with this, however, is that it also reduced the scope of Planescape, so that instead of being a place for a canny blood to find some greater truth, it became one of many, indistinct from an infinite number of beads along a single thread.
So basically what follows is something of a write-up that's an attempt to reconcile the "multiversal" aspect of Planescape while preserving the integrity of each other setting's cosmology. I'm sure it's not perfect, and I realize that some might still prefer the Great Wheel being the one and only planar set-up, or even have a better way of achieving this goal, so please just take this as a suggestion and not my way of saying how things "should" be for everyone. It's just something to mull over, and ultimately take or leave as you please.
As any gray beard around the planes can account to, there're bloods seen on all of this vast infinity from an equally numerous amount of Prime worlds. Each worldâ⁈⁚s occupants came to the planes, swearing up and down a storm that the planes were set up "wrong."
"Thor shouldn't call kip here, Mystra doesn't have her sodding realm there. All the petitioners reside under the purview of Hades, nowhere else." For millennia we've sat on our tails and laughed at these primes, discounting them as nothing more than backwater fools who don't know the true dark of things. We've fancied ourselves sages and experts to be reckoned with, and never once questioned the subjectivity of our own beliefs. We allowed ourselves to be caged by the multiverse as we perceived it, never once wondering whether our own beliefs were just thatâ⁈”beliefs and not truths.
Recently, however, I've had my eyes opened (and not necessarily by choice). I've spent the better part of ten years testing and prodding this thesis, traveling to prove to myself that I wasn't barmy (and I realize that's an opinion that might still circulate its way among those of you who read this; to that select number of you all I have to say is this: sod off). Over these past years I've only shared the dark of what I learned with just under two-dozen of the closest, most experienced and trustworthy cutters I've known. They first laughed at me to be sure, but after one or two trips and a few bottles of Baatorian fire ale to calm their nerves, all of these friends came to see the same things as myself. Anyways, without further ado, hereâ⁈⁚s my story.
As I said, it first started some ten years ago. I owned a planar mercantile in the Clerk's ward (real upscale and classy place) and had myself a family. It wasnâ⁈⁚t the biggest or most expansive of trade companies, but I managed a reputation for being reliable, and maintaining customer confidentiality (not an easy feat for a berk whose mum is a full-blooded celestial). I thrived for a number of years and had m'self a family. Then one day it all changed. I had set up a trade route forâ⁈”well, that's not important. What matters is that a bunch of tanar'ri thought I had crossed them. A couple of them had come to make me pay. In one night my wife and children were killed in front of me, forcing me to bathe in their very blood, and the damned fiends burned down my business, destroying everything I'd worked so hard to build.
They would've sent me to the dead book, too, but didn't count on the fact that I'd made my way through the planes a few times and knew how to handle myself. But I knew they wouldn't be content to let me live, and I also knew that the group of tanar'ri in question was too big to look out for the rest of my life. So I figured I'd take the only revenge I could: I'd make sure none of those sodding fiends could kill me themselves, and I made my way to suicide alley, and took a jump.
I really don't know exactly what happened, and I don't think I could remember the dark of what went on between then and the next time I woke up even if I wanted to. All I know is that I came to floating on my back in an ocean. I think I could've handled seeing nothing but water if that was all there had been. It would've been easy to let the waves take ahold of my water-logged wings and sink into a peaceful death, if not for what else was in that ocean with me. In front of me was a turtle. A giant turtle, larger than anything Iâ⁈⁚d ever heard of. I'm familiar with those zaratans that have the islands on their backs, but this thingâ⁈”this could've held a million zaratans on its own shell and had room for millions more.
I swam for the turtle, which held land filled with trees and creatures on its back. When I climbed ashore, I looked out and found that I had just emerged from a lake. Mind you, this was when I first started to doubt how well the old brain box was functioning. It had seemed like I'd just traveled from one plane to another, but this didn't sound like any site in the Great Wheel I'd heard of, nor did it quite seem to follow conventional logic of planar travel. There really was no obvious indication of travelingâ⁈”no gate flaring up, no elemental vorticesâ⁈”nothing. I'd just climbed ashore to a fully functional prime world.
After wandering around dazed for awhile, I found myself encountering some of the native primes of the world. Seein' as it's not too hard to figure me for the descendant of a celestial, they realized I was a cutter to be treated well, and after some use of the limited amount of magic at my disposal, I was able to bridge the communication gap.
They told me their story of creation, of how their primary power known as Skymother had fallen through the clouds from some world on high and had fallen into the ocean from a place called "the Great Blue." The animals of the ocean built a place for her to live on the back of a turtle, and that was how their world came about. I found myself torn between the desire to correct these bloods with what I knew to be true, and the urge to believe them in light of what I'd seen.
I needed to get down to the dark of things, so I tried to get to this sky world theyâ⁈⁚d mentioned. I used the wings my mum had given me to fly as high as I could. After a fashion of time (and what felt like forever) I found a hole in the cloud cover and flew through it. Above the cloud cover I found an entirely new world with buildings, animals, and plants that rested solidly upon the vapors as they would on dirt and sediment. There were also beings tooâ⁈”powers to be more specific.
I s'pose I got lucky. Y'see, these powers didnâ⁈⁚t fancy themselves to be too high and mighty the way that most of the powers found upon the Wheel are. They were powerful, they knew it, but they were also humble. They knew they had the reverence of an entire prime world directed their way, but in the end they just viewed themselves as a people apart from those down below. They also recognized that I was not part of their creation.
I said I was lucky because even though I'd never been in the presence of a power before then, I knew that the bloods brook no disrespect, and I really knew how to act if I ever met one. If I'd addressed St. Cuthbert the way I did with these powers, then I would've found myself turned into a pillar of salt or something just as bad. I wanted to know where I was in the Great Wheel, and where the closest portal to the Outlands was located, and all other sorts of frothing demands.
Confusion wracked my mind, and it was close to snapping. These beings realized that, and had me sit down to eat and drink before they'd explain anything (how many of you can say youâ⁈⁚ve been invited to lunch by powers, huh!) Once my nerves were calmed, one of them who was simply called "Wise Man" told me that I was no longer "connected to the Great Wheel.â⁈
...Oh and one more thing, "Takhisis isn't in the Abyss, you backwater prime!"
I personally remember reading the Avatar trilogy and it's follow-up books and then later being taken aback when I first saw how PS tried to fit FR into the Great Wheel. Nearly all of the planar elements that I had seen in FR's books didn't quite jive well with Planescape, although that didn't lessen my love of PS any. Still, all-in-all it wasn't too hard of a fit, but still one that left me chafing a bit.
Dragonlance on the other hand, is a far more disastrous fit for the Great Wheel. From its inception it was always intended to have a relatively simplistic cosmological set-up (as is reflected in the new DLCS) and having belief equate to power was far from ever being a core Dragonlance element.
Whenever I played Planescape in the days of 2e I had no problem using the standard cosmological setup--because I was still playing a Planescape game. However, it's also my understanding that I wasn't very unique when it came to completely ignoring it for all other settings. But it just never sat well with me essentially having two different versions of any given world: one to increase the flavor and tone of the world itself, and another to increase the flavor and tone of Planescape.
Again, this was meant to just be an alternate view on things, one that keeps everything united while avoiding the pitfalls of essentially having two different versions of any setting. Not something for straight-up PS fans to worry about really, but more of an attempt at a reconcilliation between PS and other settings.
That they devoted no more than four pages to the topic (half of which is devoted to a list of which gods live where, how the dead are sorted out, and where summoned monsters originate) tells you their attitude towards the subject. Just for comparison, the economy of Faerun gets six pages.
If I've got FR people coming in who need to have apparent cosmological discreptancies explained, I tell them the gods of Faerun simply do their best to prevent any worshippers from learning about the planes or discovering the great wheel. After all, they've got their followers pretty well pigeonholed. Can't be raised without a patron diety - ha!
Campaign settings steal from each other all the time. Planescape simply chooses to be more blatant and less apologetic about it. If I'm running a Planescape campaign then I'd prefer to step all over other settings rather than dilute the core Planescape themes, the same way DMs running other settings don't want Planescape uprooting their cosmologies (and themes) like an 800-pound gorilla.
Originally posted by overtrick
If I'm running a Planescape campaign then I'd prefer to step all over other settings rather than dilute the core Planescape themes, the same way DMs running other settings don't want Planescape uprooting their cosmologies (and themes) like an 800-pound gorilla.
And good on you for that. The above scheme is just a possible solution for people who'd rather do neither.
Planescape is like the difference between a LAN and the 'net. You can have your little tiny network set up however the hell you want, but the big thing that links them all is the same no matter where you're from.
The whole "we know what you don't" thing is the point. If they want to abandon the jarring differences in knowledge or whatever else, they'd statblock the Lady (with numbers). Maintaining two different versions of a setting isn't a problem - it's the difference between inside the box, and outside the box.
I, personally, would like to find out what WotC were thinking when the astral became the Swiss Army Plane, the Ethereal was absolutely marginalised, and the quasi- and paraelementals dropped right out of the multiverse. The only fix I can imagine for that one is to blatantly ignore it.
There is a plus side, though. Putting Toril into a little faith-sealed box helps keep their whining, clueless mages from cluttering the multiverse with their whimsical little demiplanes, and we could all do with that.
Originally posted by SnazyKoolKat
I think you really just need to look at it in a setting by setting basis. Some work with it, some don't and you shouldn't force them to. I mean, like Planescape needs some piddling little continent like Ansalon to be part of it?
True, DL is a drop of water in the scheme of the Planescape ocean, but the above model I came up with is an attempt to allow for a (relatively) seamless integration of the two unlike bodies. Keeping in mind that this isn't being forced on anybody, do you think that it's a valid schemata? Or are there any tweaks that you would recommend? (My little way of trying to steer this convo back to my initial postings. ;))
It reminds me vaguely of the Consensus in M:tA. The Powers aren't off forming the Order of Reason, are they?
Reality is determined by one's beliefs. Some can radically alter it, but they're pinned down by the billions of folks who all believe that down is down, and 2+2=4. The more folks believe it, the harder it is to change it, warp it, and whatever else. It's just that reality will always snap back to that dominant belief, and it stays that way since they don't see any differently. The belief determines the reality, the reality cements the belief.
"My belief's better than your belief"
FR could just as easily have been on the great wheel, but chose not to because it would've diminished the Faerun-centric nature of the setting (and then they throw in a pile of planetouched anyway). If you're going planewalking then that's out the window anyway, so there's no reason not to put FR back on the wheel.
Now, show me a campaign setting where the cosmology is actually meaningful and I'll start considering methods of accomodating it.
See where I'm going with this? Before the advent of 3E, Forgotten Realms had a very strong connection to the planes and the Great Wheel. Why the developers felt the need to change their already-established cosmology for a new one come 3E is something that even we Rilmani aren't completely certain about.
But in the end, debating FR's cosmology is not the point of the original post. Regardless of personal beliefs, would the set-up I gave work if you were to assume that A) individual cosmologies (regardless of any specific world) were to be preserved, and B) Planescape's themes and ideas needed to be preserved?
It certainly changes some ideas, but at the same time is strengthened by other published stuff (such as the keepers coming from an entirely different universe). I believe that the PS3e team said they'd be doing something similar of keeping the great wheel as well as allowing for any other cosmological set-up. So basically does this work in those regards?
Thanks for the support for my pro-wheel point of view guys. Those silly primers are always looking for an excuse to say that their world is the center of the universe, and the FR's are worse than most.
Its equivalent of the Far Realms (as defined in the MotP) is the borderline between the last reaches of true existance (of that particular universe) and true non-existance - the latter of which is also the sea in which island-universes exist.
I tend to view true reality as a fractal. As such, in my view / world, the Great Wheel exists, but like a fractal the further one travels from it the more distant and disconnected (seeming) are the universes from it. When one looks at a mandelbrot fractal they seem to see lines forming a rather odd shape, but those lines are just fractals so small they meld together - so too are realities nearest the great wheel seemingly a single reality sharing a single cosmology while in fact this is not quite true. Indeed, sometimes realities may exist seeming within the 'mandelbrot line(s)' yet still be all but disconnected due to details of distance / disconnection that can only be seen under extreem magnification of the 'line' where the universe 'resides'.
Granted, my view is both greatly uninformed (due to a significant lack of knowledge regarding planescape) and not very well stated (due to the lack of need to connect my world to the Great Wheel for it to fuction (planarly) as I originally planned).
Originally posted by Aurotuli
Granted, my view is both greatly uninformed (due to a significant lack of knowledge regarding planescape) and not very well stated (due to the lack of need to connect my world to the Great Wheel for it to fuction (planarly) as I originally planned).
No worries! I'm grateful for the fact that you're engaging in the original topic of looking at the Great Wheel in new ways. I must admit that I had to go look up information on fractals after you posted (I should've paid more attention to that part of High School math ;)) still it seems like a rather fascinating way of looking at other realities existing apart, or within the Great Wheel.
I hope you'll excuse me, now, over my relative ignorance of fractals should I err in the way I conceptualize how they work. From what I just read up about them, it seems like the fractal model could be employed in different ways. The first model (and the one that you seemed to imply) is that the Great Wheel is the most obvious pattern displayed by an initial glance at the fractals. Other cosmologies are to be found by taking a "closer look" at the "borders" of the Great Wheel--where the areas that look like borders are actually gateways into other cosmologies.
I guess that's another way of looking at the sort of thing I described--that the Great Wheel is the compositition of the shared borders of all cosmologies. It's a seemingly big picture composed of the shared areas of a lot of smaller pictures that have their own internal rules when looked at.
You could also look at the Great Wheel and all other cosmologies as being fractals of similar scope with all their edges touching. It looks like there's discernable lines dividing them, but when you look at them close enough you find a subtle mingling of elements showing a microscopic connection.
Am I off here in my approximation of how these things work?
In any event, it was wonderful food for thought, and provided a fascinatingly alternate way of looking at what I said.
Fractals are objects that are self-similar at differing scales and have fractional dimensions. They include such interesting objects as items that have infinite length but zero area and items with infinite surface area but zero volume. Understanding fractals is more or less necessary for understanding complex geometry and chaos (the branch of mathematics, not the alignment
). They are, needless to say, a fascinating area of mathematics. A google search will give several interesting links, although Exploring Fractals is particularly informative to those not overly familiar with advanced forms of mathematics. I would place the link, but I'm not certain that CoC would allow that for a non-rpg topic.
Andre La Roche:
You are entirely correct in your interpretation. I go a little further, however. When you look at a fractal, using as an example the well known mandelbrot set, you may see lines that seem to come to points. If, however, you highly magnify those regions you see that those seeming points have just become too thin to be seen at normal magnification. They may meander for a while, occationally touching or expanding to form 'micro-mandelbrots' but eventually (if you zoom out from the original mandelbrot) they will connect to distant mandelbrots that previously seemed totally disconnected from the first mandelbrot. Furthermore, the more distant one is from the original, the more minute and slight changes build up in form - until there is little resemblance to the original (version of the) mandelbrot first seen.
Rules / Laws of nature and existance similarly change slowly the further one moves from the original reality. Each universe is a fractal, and the sum of innumerable universes with the same natural laws / rules is a 'great wheel' (the mandelbrot for those fractals / universes), but although vast distances and innumerable universes and transitive universes might need to be traversed, eventually one will find other 'great wheels' that previously seemingly had no connection to the first (zoom out from the mandelbrot and eventually you will see distant mandelbrots that seem totally unconnected - but are). Eventually, after uncountable ages that only truely eternal / immortal beings might survive long enough to explore, one would eventually come upon a version of a great wheel so indescribably distant from the first as to bear little or no resemblance.
All game worlds currently played seem attached to either the Great Wheel (as it is known to planescape) or to a version similar to it but set apart. By that I mean, Faerun of 2E is connected to the great wheel as described in planescape, but Faerun of 3E is connected to a rather distant version that has little in common (such as the nine hells/etc but lacking the wheel form/etc). There are innumerable parallel versions of each universe (due to differing DM campaigns if nothing else). Planescape and its great wheel is simply the best known - and therefore the 'original' - mandelbrot set for planar realities. Other forms exist - we just have yet to witness / explore them.
Most realities (campaign worlds) known to planescape exist in conjuction with the great wheel, but just as many if not more exist in conjunction to other 'great wheels' [cosmological set-ups]. The 3E Faerun is one such model. The cosmology I use for my home world is yet another.
Travel across the gulf of non-existance between reality(-ies) can allow for faster and more direct travel between cosmological set-ups, but even powers have a very real chance of becoming lost - never to see any form of reality again. Over deities might create portals between such, perhaps. My view is that even deities / powers are not the sole arbitrars in whether the existance is connected to the great multi-dimensional fractal that is the totallity of multi-reality. They may only limit it to traveling through the core of that universe's reality (which usually only powers can safely traverse without being absorbed or re-defined as they enter new realities) or to traveling across the gulf (which only over-deities have a chance of succeeding at - maybe).
Sorry about the long post, but I decided to better and more thoroughly attempt to explain what I previously stated.
Originally posted by SnazyKoolKat
@overtick: What do you mean "accomodating it?" One of the main ideas of Planescape is that it automatically accomodates all cosmologies.
I mean altering the structure of the planes. Suppose a setting has something akin to the doppler cosmology in the MotP. You really can't capture the flavour of that without tinkering with the structure of the planes a little (but hey, at least then the plane of shadow might have a use beyond being a cool concept).
Now, show me three or four settings with such interesting cosmologies that I'd want to use in my Planescape game and this hook for getting between alternate cosmologies quickly becomes rather attractive.
Of course, at that point the great wheel itself has pretty much become a sideshow since we've made room for several other takes on the outer planes. Planescape's "belief is power" theme isn't really going to seem that relevant if it's not clearly the case in these other cosmologies.
Originally posted by overtrick
Of course, at that point the great wheel itself has pretty much become a sideshow since we've made room for several other takes on the outer planes. Planescape's "belief is power" theme isn't really going to seem that relevant if it's not clearly the case in these other cosmologies.
That was an issue I tried to address in my original posting. Just having the the sequential ordering of planes detracts from the greater mystery of the Great Wheel. The cosmological scheme that I came up with in a sense hierarchizes the Great Wheel above the others (so I guess planar bloods can maintain that superiority complex ;) ) as the great wheel is the culmination of "greater truths" if you will that other cosmologies and existences only touch upon in pinpricks--it essentially is the best that all the others have to offer overlapped, thus making it a place of mystery and power. It's also a place where certain rules have more (or less) sway than they might in other cosmologies--a byproduct of having the Great Wheel be more in touch with some deeper truths of existence.
In essence, I guess you could say that under this model there are also clueless cosmologies (though ones that are fairly difficult to access)--ones that might only tangentally know the power of the rule of threes, or not much buy into belief equalling power. In the end they're off happy by themselves, but hey--if they want something more, then the Wheel's where it's to be found.
At the beginning of the book, it mentions that the Far Realm is: "A newly discovered plane that does not fit into the Multi-Verse as it is currently understood". This means that the "Multiple Multiverses" way of looking at Planescape has its seeds back in 1999(The last year of 2nd Edition and TSR as a semi-separate entity).
Also in the MCA Vol 4, it mentions another plane of existence newly discovered called "Hyper Reality"
And then, in the Third Planescape Monstrious Compendium, a creature called a Chososion is interduced. Not only does the book hint that the creature is somehow, not totally "There" as it is said, but it asks the question: "Are there UNKNOWN planes of existence"
Then theres the Keepers, which were said to come from another Multiverse and brought to this one by the single individual who first imagined them.
In the Darksun setting, two planes, the Grey, and the Black, connect to that world, and act as a replacement for the Outer Planes.
Heres the way I look at it. I both agree and disagree with you Andre, and have found your arguments(And that short story you wrote) both entertaining and interesting. I find the idea of multiple Multiverses, and the big change of looking at the "Great Wheel" just what Planescape needed. It shows that even the Planars are clueless, and that the Multiverse they thought they knew was only one part of a MUCH bigger picture.
I also find the idea of ALIEN planes even more fascinating. Altenate Planes of existence that don't even remotely resemble anything the Human mind. Since the Outer Planes(and to a lesser extent, the all 18 Inner Planes as well) are based on mostly HUMAN beliefs and concepts, I'd imagine realities formed from completely Alien minds, or realities that don't make any logical sense, aren't formed by any kind of belief, and are simply "There".
In that way, I view the Multiverse we all know and love, as sort of a MEGA-Plane, a entire group of alternate planes of existence themed under one simple premise: Human Belief. In that way I view the Multiverse in its classic form.
The various cosmologies, and alternate versions of different planes, like Baator and the Abyss, could simply be explained as different underdiscovered layers(In the case of the Abyss) or as newly discovered realms of newly discovered gods(In the case of Baator)
Also, some worlds might not connect to all the Inner Planes either, this might explain the lack of Para and Quasi Elemental planes. If this is also the case, their also could be MANY more Inner Planes hidden away somewhere.
On this note, the Mimir website even details Eight new inner planes, the Quasi-Para Elemental Planes, or Quasi-Exotica. Which result from the combination of a Para Plane and the influence of one of the two Energy Planes. There could even be a Neutral Energy plane.
Thats the way I look at it.