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Arivia
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Canada
2965 Posts

Posted - 22 Jan 2020 :  03:46:23  Show Profile  Reply with Quote  Delete Topic
I'm running a FR game set in the 1370s (so a lot of 3e sources) and tonight I turned my attention to the idea of cosmology. I'm trying to think through settling on a cosmology for my version of the setting, and I'm honestly not sure which one to choose. No matter what I choose, I'm going to have to make some adjustments for necessities that have been added since (the Feywild/Faerie is a notable one).

We've had a lot of different cosmologies throughout the history of the Realms (at least 3, with different interpretations of each), and there's a fair summary of them here: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Cosmology

I'm mostly torn between 3e's World Tree, and the classic Great Wheel, used in 2e and revised for 5e. Both have their own unique settings that appeal (the World Tree's FR-specific deity realms are nice, but then you lose Sigil.) Both are missing things (I love the paraelemental planes which aren't in the World Tree, and a lot of the Great Wheel's good planes just kind of blend together.)

No matter what I choose, there's always going to be adjustment. None of these are perfectly to my taste. None of these work perfectly for the Realms, but that's a common problem.

Which ones have you used in your games? Which ones work for you, which ones do you prefer, why or why not?

Thauramarth
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United Kingdom
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Posted - 22 Jan 2020 :  10:38:56  Show Profile Send Thauramarth a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I've always liked the Great Wheel, mostly because I'm still stuck, world-wise, in AD&D 2nd Edition. I like the Great Wheel because it allows me to fit in elements from other worlds and other campaign settings (I like Spelljammer very much for the same reason). And I really, really like Sigil.
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ericlboyd
Forgotten Realms Designer

USA
2065 Posts

Posted - 22 Jan 2020 :  10:56:18  Show Profile  Visit ericlboyd's Homepage Send ericlboyd a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Arivia

Which ones have you used in your games? Which ones work for you, which ones do you prefer, why or why not?



I always greatly preferred the Great Wheel.

Reason #1: It makes more sense in a world where the deities come and go, like the Realms.

Reason #2: The Great Tree didn't allow for cultures that were separate from the deities. Where do you put the githerzai or the slaad, for example?

--
http://www.ericlboyd.com/dnd/
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Wooly Rupert
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Posted - 22 Jan 2020 :  11:10:13  Show Profile Send Wooly Rupert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I'm a Great Wheel fan, myself.

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CorellonsDevout
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Posted - 23 Jan 2020 :  04:05:19  Show Profile Send CorellonsDevout a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I like both Great Wheel and World Tree.

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Dalor Darden
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Posted - 23 Jan 2020 :  05:05:35  Show Profile Send Dalor Darden a Private Message  Reply with Quote
My orcs still go to Acheron and war eternally against goblins...always been the Wheel for me.

HOWEVER...

I really like the idea of the Tree; I just think it wasn't developed enough maybe because it did exclude a lot of things that are part of the Forgotten Realms

The Old Grey Box and AD&D for me!
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CorellonsDevout
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Posted - 23 Jan 2020 :  05:45:41  Show Profile Send CorellonsDevout a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I think there are pros and cons to both, but both are better than the World Axis or whatever it was for 4e lol.

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Edited by - CorellonsDevout on 23 Jan 2020 05:50:44
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Arivia
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Canada
2965 Posts

Posted - 24 Jan 2020 :  06:26:40  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I'm coming around to the idea of using the Great Wheel, but I'm having trouble figuring out the Fugue Plane's position in all that (and I do like it, so I want to keep it.) According to a lot of things (but as an example source, F&A page 2) souls in the Realms go to the Fugue Plane for judgment and then out to the Outer Planes for their finality. So the Fugue Plane has to be somewhere very very close to the Material. Is it a demiplane on the Ethereal? Things don't normally go from the Ethereal to the Astral like that would imply, would they? Or do you have souls coming right back through the Material and then back out?

Adding to the confusion, a bunch of sources (including F&A) place Kelemvor's divine realm right on the Gray Wastes. Do souls go right to the Gray Wastes, get judged there, and then spread out to the rest of the planes? Is the Fugue Plane just a name for Kelemvor's chunk of the Gray Wastes? Or maybe he has two divine realms? Any thoughts?

Edited by - Arivia on 24 Jan 2020 06:29:12
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LordofBones
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Posted - 24 Jan 2020 :  17:18:54  Show Profile Send LordofBones a Private Message  Reply with Quote
The Fugue Plane is the demiplane attached to the native Faerunian death god's realm where the souls of Faerun's dead go for their gods to collect them. Kelemvor's realm is the Crystal Spire on Oinos.

I don't the Faerunian pantheon has any member with two divine realms. There are shared realms (Waukeen's realm is 1/4th of the Marketplace Eternal; Loki and Auril share Winter's Hall; Mellifleur and Velsharoon live in Death's Embrace; Lathander, Zodal and Ushas live in Morninglory), but the only deity that stands out as having two separate realms is Hecate - one in Baator and the other in the Waste.
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Zeromaru X
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Colombia
2441 Posts

Posted - 24 Jan 2020 :  20:00:36  Show Profile Send Zeromaru X a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I guess that all boils down to what do you want. While the Great Wheel was created as the general multiverse for D&D, the World Tree and World Axis were created specifically for the Forgotten Realms. The World Tree is more specific, while the World Axis went to become the default cosmology of 4e, and offers the same connectivity of the Great Wheel while playing with different concepts.

Do you want to connect your Realms to the wider multiverse? Then use either the Great Wheel or the World Axis (the choice here is wether you want something specifically created to fit the necessities of the setting or something more general). Want stuff that only deals with the Realms and don't care about the multiverse? Then the World Tree is for you.

Personally, I prefer the World Axis, because it fixes stuff I found problematic, ilogical or outright non-sensical in the Great Wheel (I'm looking at you, elemental plane of ooze). However I also like the compromise they reached with 5e's updated version of the Great Wheel.

Instead of seeking change, you prefer a void, merciless abyss of a world...

Edited by - Zeromaru X on 24 Jan 2020 20:03:41
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Arivia
Great Reader

Canada
2965 Posts

Posted - 24 Jan 2020 :  21:05:26  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones

The Fugue Plane is the demiplane attached to the native Faerunian death god's realm where the souls of Faerun's dead go for their gods to collect them. Kelemvor's realm is the Crystal Spire on Oinos.

I don't the Faerunian pantheon has any member with two divine realms. There are shared realms (Waukeen's realm is 1/4th of the Marketplace Eternal; Loki and Auril share Winter's Hall; Mellifleur and Velsharoon live in Death's Embrace; Lathander, Zodal and Ushas live in Morninglory), but the only deity that stands out as having two separate realms is Hecate - one in Baator and the other in the Waste.



I grabbed the Avatar Series and looked through those, and they do clarify things a bit: the Fugue Plane is indeed a "demiplane" floating above the City of Death (the actual location of that depending upon who is the current god of death). However, it is described as being one of two divine realms for the current god of death in Waterdeep.

It's definitely attached to that second divine realm, too, as Midnight physically climbs the wall out of the Fugue Plane to get into Myrkul's City of the Dead.

So it seems to be some sort of demiplane attached to an Outer Plane? Is there anything else like that? Maybe Sigil?

(postscript: depending upon which book of the Avatar Series you're looking at, the Fugue Plain is either infinite or limited.)

E: So the False and the Faithless definitely go from the Fugue Plane to the City of the Dead for punishment after being judged. The City of Judgment and the Fugue Plane, then, is empty except for the souls of the newly dead, their judges, and the collectors.

Edited by - Arivia on 24 Jan 2020 21:30:03
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
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Posted - 24 Jan 2020 :  21:57:32  Show Profile Send Wooly Rupert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Sigil is an odd case. I don't think it's ever been explicitly stated what, exactly, it is, but it functions much like a demiplane.

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CorellonsDevout
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USA
2708 Posts

Posted - 24 Jan 2020 :  23:28:44  Show Profile Send CorellonsDevout a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Arivia

[quote]

I grabbed the Avatar Series and looked through those, and they do clarify things a bit: the Fugue Plane is indeed a "demiplane" floating above the City of Death (the actual location of that depending upon who is the current god of death). However, it is described as being one of two divine realms for the current god of death in Waterdeep.

It's definitely attached to that second divine realm, too, as Midnight physically climbs the wall out of the Fugue Plane to get into Myrkul's City of the Dead.

So it seems to be some sort of demiplane attached to an Outer Plane? Is there anything else like that? Maybe Sigil?

(postscript: depending upon which book of the Avatar Series you're looking at, the Fugue Plain is either infinite or limited.)

E: So the False and the Faithless definitely go from the Fugue Plane to the City of the Dead for punishment after being judged. The City of Judgment and the Fugue Plane, then, is empty except for the souls of the newly dead, their judges, and the collectors.



The dead go to the Fugue Plane, where they await their deity (or the servitor of that deity), to come collect them. Those whose fate is more ambiguous are judged by Kelemvor, and, based on his decree, are either then taken in by a deity, or judged faithless/false. The petitioners of Kelemvor's faithful also can be found in the City of Judgement, I believe.

As for the location of the Fugue Plane...it's been several years since I read the Avatar series, but Player's Guide to Faerun says this:

Like Cynosure, the Fugue Plane exists outside the normal cosmology of Toril. Souls naturally travel from the Material Plane to the Fugue Plane at death...Divine servants can travel here from the realms of their deities and bring souls back to them, as long as those souls properly belong to the deities they serve. Portals from the Nine Hells open into the Fugue Plane because of the devils' agreement with Kelemvor, and demon lords sometimes create portals leading here from the Abyss. Any other travel to and from the Fugue Plane is impossible.

The Fugue Plane's only inhabitants are the souls of the dead awaiting transport to the planes of their deities...The souls of the Faithless form a living wall around the City of Judgement, while the souls of the False are sentenced to servitude within the city, where they are sometimes tortured by devils.
[so apparently, it's just the Wall of the Faithless, according to this passage, not the Faithless and False lol].

The only feature of this generally featureless plane is the Crystal Spire, the shared realm of Kelemvor and Jergal, which stands in the middle of the City of Judgement. (pg 153, note in brackets mine).

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Arivia
Great Reader

Canada
2965 Posts

Posted - 24 Jan 2020 :  23:48:16  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by CorellonsDevout

quote:
Originally posted by Arivia

[quote]

I grabbed the Avatar Series and looked through those, and they do clarify things a bit: the Fugue Plane is indeed a "demiplane" floating above the City of Death (the actual location of that depending upon who is the current god of death). However, it is described as being one of two divine realms for the current god of death in Waterdeep.

It's definitely attached to that second divine realm, too, as Midnight physically climbs the wall out of the Fugue Plane to get into Myrkul's City of the Dead.

So it seems to be some sort of demiplane attached to an Outer Plane? Is there anything else like that? Maybe Sigil?

(postscript: depending upon which book of the Avatar Series you're looking at, the Fugue Plain is either infinite or limited.)

E: So the False and the Faithless definitely go from the Fugue Plane to the City of the Dead for punishment after being judged. The City of Judgment and the Fugue Plane, then, is empty except for the souls of the newly dead, their judges, and the collectors.



The dead go to the Fugue Plane, where they await their deity (or the servitor of that deity), to come collect them. Those whose fate is more ambiguous are judged by Kelemvor, and, based on his decree, are either then taken in by a deity, or judged faithless/false. The petitioners of Kelemvor's faithful also can be found in the City of Judgement, I believe.

As for the location of the Fugue Plane...it's been several years since I read the Avatar series, but Player's Guide to Faerun says this:

Like Cynosure, the Fugue Plane exists outside the normal cosmology of Toril. Souls naturally travel from the Material Plane to the Fugue Plane at death...Divine servants can travel here from the realms of their deities and bring souls back to them, as long as those souls properly belong to the deities they serve. Portals from the Nine Hells open into the Fugue Plane because of the devils' agreement with Kelemvor, and demon lords sometimes create portals leading here from the Abyss. Any other travel to and from the Fugue Plane is impossible.

The Fugue Plane's only inhabitants are the souls of the dead awaiting transport to the planes of their deities...The souls of the Faithless form a living wall around the City of Judgement, while the souls of the False are sentenced to servitude within the city, where they are sometimes tortured by devils.
[so apparently, it's just the Wall of the Faithless, according to this passage, not the Faithless and False lol].

The only feature of this generally featureless plane is the Crystal Spire, the shared realm of Kelemvor and Jergal, which stands in the middle of the City of Judgement. (pg 153, note in brackets mine).



The problem with this is that it's for 3e and hence the World Tree; it doesn't address the issue of where the Fugue Plane is on the Great Wheel.

I ended up working on a blog post about all of this, so I'll link that when it's done.

And to think, all I wanted was to write a random planar destination table!
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CorellonsDevout
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USA
2708 Posts

Posted - 25 Jan 2020 :  00:15:18  Show Profile Send CorellonsDevout a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Hmm, well, the Fugue Plane is a plane within the Astral Sea, and, in the Great Wheel cosmology, that Astral Sea connected the Prime Material Plane to the first layers of the Outer Plane, whereas in the World Tree, it was a shapeless cloud that surrounded all all the planes.

I'll admit that still doesn't answer the question of where the Fugue Plane is though on the Great Wheel. I couldn't find it on any Great Wheel illustrations I saw.

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LordofBones
Master of Realmslore

1477 Posts

Posted - 25 Jan 2020 :  00:54:21  Show Profile Send LordofBones a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Arivia

quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones

The Fugue Plane is the demiplane attached to the native Faerunian death god's realm where the souls of Faerun's dead go for their gods to collect them. Kelemvor's realm is the Crystal Spire on Oinos.

I don't the Faerunian pantheon has any member with two divine realms. There are shared realms (Waukeen's realm is 1/4th of the Marketplace Eternal; Loki and Auril share Winter's Hall; Mellifleur and Velsharoon live in Death's Embrace; Lathander, Zodal and Ushas live in Morninglory), but the only deity that stands out as having two separate realms is Hecate - one in Baator and the other in the Waste.



I grabbed the Avatar Series and looked through those, and they do clarify things a bit: the Fugue Plane is indeed a "demiplane" floating above the City of Death (the actual location of that depending upon who is the current god of death). However, it is described as being one of two divine realms for the current god of death in Waterdeep.

It's definitely attached to that second divine realm, too, as Midnight physically climbs the wall out of the Fugue Plane to get into Myrkul's City of the Dead.

So it seems to be some sort of demiplane attached to an Outer Plane? Is there anything else like that? Maybe Sigil?

(postscript: depending upon which book of the Avatar Series you're looking at, the Fugue Plain is either infinite or limited.)

E: So the False and the Faithless definitely go from the Fugue Plane to the City of the Dead for punishment after being judged. The City of Judgment and the Fugue Plane, then, is empty except for the souls of the newly dead, their judges, and the collectors.



It's a demiplane attached to Kelemvor's realm, and it's under his wardenship but not his rule. Kelemvor's divine realm is the Crystal Spire, which includes the City of Judgement.

To use an analogy, the Crystal Spire is his office and the Fugue Plane is his company warehouse.
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
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Posted - 25 Jan 2020 :  01:21:36  Show Profile Send Wooly Rupert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Arivia


The problem with this is that it's for 3e and hence the World Tree; it doesn't address the issue of where the Fugue Plane is on the Great Wheel.


The way I see it, the Great Wheel is just a reference -- it's a verbal construct. The planes of the Wheel aren't actually on a wheel -- they literally cannot be on a wheel or in any particular configuration. Most of them are infinite, and multiple infinite objects cannot coexist in the same plane of existence.

The Wheel is the ring of gate-towns on the Outlands, connecting to the Outer Planes. It's like an airport -- it has connections to the other major hubs. But, like an airport, there are places it doesn't connect directly to -- not because they don't exist, and not because they can't be reached, but because all the traffic is going to the busier places.

Like an airport, sometimes the planes of the Wheel are exactly where you need to go -- but other times, you have to go to a larger destination, and travel from there to the smaller one. Or skip the airport altogether, and travel to your destination via alternate methods.

The Wheel is just the connections to the major destinations. You can put any number of alternate destinations there, and they'll all fit.

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Arivia
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Canada
2965 Posts

Posted - 25 Jan 2020 :  01:37:32  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
https://icequeensthrone.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-fugue-plane-summary.html This is what I ended up coming up with to sort all this out.
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CorellonsDevout
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Posted - 25 Jan 2020 :  01:48:43  Show Profile Send CorellonsDevout a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Just a quick note: the petitioners don't necessarily fade into the deity's power; many spend eternity in the realm of their respective deity.

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Brimstone
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Posted - 25 Jan 2020 :  03:19:40  Show Profile Send Brimstone a Private Message  Reply with Quote
The Wheel. It's what I know.

"These things also I have observed: that knowledge of our world is
to be nurtured like a precious flower, for it is the most precious
thing we have. Wherefore guard the word written and heed
words unwritten and set them down ere they fade . . . Learn
then, well, the arts of reading, writing, and listening true, and they
will lead you to the greatest art of all: understanding."
Alaundo of Candlekeep
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Lord Karsus
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Posted - 26 Jan 2020 :  03:49:47  Show Profile Send Lord Karsus a Private Message  Reply with Quote
-I prefer the Wheel just because there's all that Planescape info pertaining to it, but...In anyone's games, has it ever really made much of a difference? I've always played loose and easy with planar travel stuff- mostly because it never came up too much- but I always conceptualized different planes as existing (usually) conterminously on different "radio frequencies" or whatever you want to call it. Mapping that out as a wheel, tree, cosmic soup, whatever, it always seemed more like a scholarly, organizational thing rather than a realistic, how-things-work kind of thing.

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Elves of Faerūn
Vol I- The Elves of Faerūn
Vol. III- Spells of the Elves
Vol. VI- Mechanical Compendium
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George Krashos
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Australia
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Posted - 26 Jan 2020 :  08:11:00  Show Profile Send George Krashos a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Does it matter?

-- George Krashos

"Because only we, contrary to the barbarians, never count the enemy in battle." -- Aeschylus
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TomCosta
Forgotten Realms Designer

USA
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Posted - 26 Jan 2020 :  14:38:21  Show Profile Send TomCosta a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I'm kinda with George on this. I feel like there should always be some sense that when mortals travel the planes like they are not quite getting it all; that their perception of things is not quite right. Thus both the tree and the great wheel are both true and not true. The Fugue Plane is a demiplane, the Shadowfell, and its own plane all at the same time.
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Wooly Rupert
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Posted - 26 Jan 2020 :  15:37:32  Show Profile Send Wooly Rupert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
My objection to the Tree wasn't the structure, it was that they revamped the entire cosmology for no readily apparent reason, chucking out a lot of existing lore and replacing it with incompatible lore. The Tree cosmology basically states that you have Toril and its planes, and nothing else beyond that -- which really makes it tricky for so many entities of the Realms to be from elsewhere.

If I was to use the Tree, I'd revamp it to connect to the divine realms as described in 2E; travel to other planar points would either be going from a divine realm to some place else, or skipping the Tree for more direct connections.

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Arivia
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Canada
2965 Posts

Posted - 27 Jan 2020 :  00:04:04  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
Personally, I prefer the World Axis, because it fixes stuff I found problematic, ilogical or outright non-sensical in the Great Wheel (I'm looking at you, elemental plane of ooze). However I also like the compromise they reached with 5e's updated version of the Great Wheel.



What do you like about the 5e setup? I just looked at it and went "wait, where are the quasi-elemental planes, that's not worth trading in for the Elemental Chaos." Unravelers/mengli already make a case for weird stuff where the planes meet that's not the Elemental Chaos directly.

quote:
Originally posted by TomCosta

I'm kinda with George on this. I feel like there should always be some sense that when mortals travel the planes like they are not quite getting it all; that their perception of things is not quite right. Thus both the tree and the great wheel are both true and not true. The Fugue Plane is a demiplane, the Shadowfell, and its own plane all at the same time.



Sure, keeping the planes mysterious and unknowable is great. The reason I'm trying to sort this out (and sort it out so early in a campaign) is that the various configurations of the planes actually interact with a lot of little bits of the game here and there, even when you're just on Faerun. Magic items malfunction in different ways, you can get around the setting differently (for example, no one's ever followed up on that idea of using the Fugue Plane to cross Faerun quickly as established in Waterdeep), and planar creatures appear in different groups and with different alliances. As a sample example, if Kelemvor's domain is just the Fugue Plane, he's got a limited list of servants. If he's on Hades, does he truck with yugoloths? (And yes, F&A has a short list of servitors, but those lists are kind of old and hoary and also frequently obscure to find a lot of the entries, many of which were never updated to 3e, let alone beyond that.)
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LordofBones
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Posted - 27 Jan 2020 :  01:27:07  Show Profile Send LordofBones a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I...don't really think the planes should be unknowable. Maybe to the common Prime, but there are scholars and organizations that have explored and catalogued the planes, interviewed its denizens and met its rulers. It would be sort of like comparing geography and history books across the eras, with those from, say, Netheril waxing eloquent about the wonders and mysteries of the planes, while the modern ones have notes about hospitable and inhospitable locations, how to bribe the locals, and 'for Mystra's sake, don't stiff the marraenoloths!'
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CorellonsDevout
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Posted - 27 Jan 2020 :  01:48:32  Show Profile Send CorellonsDevout a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Also, even though your average Faerunian isn't going to know the inner workings of the cosmos, there has been at least some establishment in the lore about it, otherwise we wouldn't have the Great Wheel or Tree, or World Axis. And, as LordofBones said, there are those who do know at least some things about it (and the Fugue Plane is common knowledge, iirc). Faerunians at least know they go to their deity when the die, and they know at least some of the planes the deities dwell on, even if they don't know the "neighboring" planes.

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Arivia
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Canada
2965 Posts

Posted - 27 Jan 2020 :  02:58:56  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones

I...don't really think the planes should be unknowable. Maybe to the common Prime, but there are scholars and organizations that have explored and catalogued the planes, interviewed its denizens and met its rulers. It would be sort of like comparing geography and history books across the eras, with those from, say, Netheril waxing eloquent about the wonders and mysteries of the planes, while the modern ones have notes about hospitable and inhospitable locations, how to bribe the locals, and 'for Mystra's sake, don't stiff the marraenoloths!'



One of the many nice things that convinced me I could make the Realms work in Pathfinder 2e is a very robust system for figuring out just how rare any information or game concept is, so I can happily go "well, you know about the existence of the Hells, you know that devils come from there. But knowing how to get there? And where to go once you do get there? That will take some work." Put a bit more control back in my pocket instead of just straight Knowledge checks.

As a result of this research I'm debating putting astral projection and ethereal jaunt on the menu and making the PCs really work for their planar travel instead of just casting plane shift.
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