You know, I'm actually starting to feel pretty confident about this whole thing? I've prepped the rest of this now nine-part project thingy and the ideas, once I start organizing them properly over on Campfire Blaze, actually generally seem pretty good. There's some gaps to fill, and I still don't know how any of this stuff is going to make it into any of the stories, but we'll get there -- I'm even starting to get strokes of inspiration for how the gameplay might work.
Here's the D&D cosmology as it stands in 5th Edition -- essentially, it's the classic version with a few minor touches lifted from 4th Edition; if I haven't mentioned this already, 4th Edition is just so wildly different from any other form of D&D that basically the whole reason Pathfinder was created was to be a 4th Edition that actually felt like D&D. I was a huge 4th Edition fanboy for many years, but I eventually got tired of it and wanted to tell more versatile stories and 5th seemed to be the way to go there, but let's never forget, there'd be no 5E without 4E -- they brought back D&D in its classic form, but they distilled the good stuff! I really mean no disrespect to 4E, like I said, I was a 4th Edition devotee for years, it was an attempt at something new, I for one enjoyed the emphasis on pulse-pounding action sequences, and I genuinely adore the 4th Edition cosmology, I'm so glad bits and pieces of it made their way into this one.
So, let's look at this model of the D&D universe, from the inside out. At the center, we have the Material Plane. Just the normal world where people live. Coexisting with the Material Plane are its "echoes", the Feywild and the Shadowfell, parallel dimensions to the material world, introduced in 4th Edition. The Feywild is the light side, a realm of nature and magic, while the Shadowfell is the dark side, the domain of death. Then we have the Ethereal Plane, which... I don't really get, I guess that's where like ghosts and stuff exist, and they sometimes cross over into the Material Plane? Do we really need an Ethereal Plane and a Shadowfell? Seems a bit redundant.
Then we have the Inner Planes, better known as the Elemental Planes -- air, earth, fire, and water, entire worlds of just... that stuff. And more interesting stuff where they meet, like slimy swamps where earth meets water, volcanic mountains where earth meets fire, and frosty landscapes where water meets air. The Elemental Chaos is what replaced the Inner Planes in 4th Edition; it represented a world where all the elements raged on all the time, instead of the more structured division. Having both is a pretty good idea.
Then we have the Outer Planes -- the realms of the gods. Each of the sixteen Outer Planes is based on one of the sixteen ways you can combine D&D's alignment system -- all possible combinations of Good versus Evil and Order versus Chaos. The seven planes with elements of Good in their nature are the Upper Planes, and the seven with elements of Evil are the Lower Planes. The two on the horizontal axis are the two with neither good nor evil, Mechanus representing pure Order, and Limbo representing pure Chaos. The Outer Planes that people tend to care about are pretty much just the Abyss and the Nine Hells, as those are where demons and devils come from, respectively.
Incidentally, I am extremely attached to the alignment system. Sure, it serves no real purpose, and 5th Edition made sure that no actual rules apply to it except for those related to roleplaying. But it's an interesting philosophical template and an excellent way to start developing a character's personality, a culture, or a system of government.
Back to the Outer Planes, the Astral Plane is the way one travels from one Outer Plane to another, sort of the magic version of outer space. Not depicted here are the Outlands, sort of the seventeenth Outer Plane, a neutrally-aligned realm. On the edges of the Outlands are the sixteen Gate Towns, each one connected to an Outer Plane; in its center is a massive stone spire atop which sits Sigil, the City of Doors, a city built on the inside surface of a ring-shaped parallel dimension. The doors that Sigil is named for can lead you anywhere, and when I say anywhere... well, I'm not actually sure if this is actually canon or just my personal interpretation, but I get the feeling that, as many D&D universes as there are, there is only one Sigil, and by finding the right door, you can travel to any universe.
And then on the outermost edges of this model there's the Positive Plane and Negative Plane, I don't know anything about those, I think maybe they're not places, per se, just representative of positive energy, which heals the living and harms the undead, and negative energy, which does the reverse.
I'd also like to discuss the 4th Edition cosmology, which kept things simpler while also being rather inventive; as I mentioned, the Feywild, Shadowfell, and Elemental Chaos debuted there. In 4th Edition's universe, there were basically six places. There were also only six creature types in that edition, each creature type corresponding to one of the six worlds of the setting.
You had the Material Plane, the Feywild, and the Shadowfell, respectively the homes of natural creatures, fey creatures, and shadow creatures. Above the world (metaphysically speaking) was the Astral Sea, and below it the Elemental Chaos. All of the Outer Planes could be found in the Astral Sea, as scattered islands dotting the plane rather than a neat ring -- all except the Abyss, that is, which could now be found at the center of the Elemental Chaos. Creatures of the Astral Sea were immortal creatures, and creatures of the Elemental Chaos, including demons, were elemental creatures.
Then there's one more plane that you won't actually find on any map of the universe -- the Far Realm. The Far Realm is a separate universe, one beyond mortal comprehension. In the distant past, there were portals to the Far Realm, where aberrant creatures came through, along with the alien magic that sometimes gives people psychic powers. Generally, no portals to the Far Realm exist in modern D&D universes; just as well, as a single glance at the place would instantly break the brain of any mortal.
So, that was D&D Cosmology 101, now let's talk about how I planned it out for K&K. For one thing... I don't like using the word "planes" to describe these places. In my D&D campaigns, I've always called them "worlds" instead, and referred to the Material Plane as simply "the World", and occasionally I drop terms like "realms" and "dimensions", but I dunno, I don't like "planes". Maybe because it feels a bit too sci-fi? Of course, that's also true of "dimensions". I dunno, I'm fickle and I don't understand my own opinions half the time.
The short about cosmology begins with, well, an acknowledgment that Cosmos suddenly becomes a pretty confusing name for a planet once you start also talking about the cosmos. It discusses the material plane, Cosmos itself, and then the ethereal plane and astral plane. These two planes are generally used for fast travel. The ethereal plane is described as the easier of the two to reach (which isn't saying much, most people go their entire lives without getting any inkling that there are other planes); its utility might be to get from point A to point B without being detected by any other living soul, the risks being that you might meet a ghost or a giant dimension-jumping spider or some such. The astral plane, as you might imagine, is reached via astral projection, which is incredibly advanced magic; but then once you're in the astral plane, you can walk to anywhere in the universe, providing you know the way.
Then the Feywild and the Shadowfell are discussed... now, those names aren't part of the Open Game License, because the 5E OGL only includes 5E rules that are either, A) absolutely necessary, or B), were in the 3E OGL, while also being C) not trademarked product identities of the D&D game, and as mentioned, these two dimensions were invented for 4E. So I don't think I can call these places the Feywild and the Shadowfell, as much as I'd like to, but I simply must keep the concept: two worlds parallel to the material world, one of light, magic, and nature, the other of darkness, death, and negativity. One thing established in this short is that between the world and its two echoes, geographical landmarks are recognizable. Say somewhere in the world you have a massive ancient oak tree. In the Feywild, that same tree also exists, but is like a super pretty magical fairy tree! While in the Shadowfell, it's all gray and gnarled and has no leaves, but even though it looks dead, it grows along with its material-world counterpart. And this carries over to all changes in the landscape... if you bulldoze a hill to build a freeway, the corresponding hill in the Feywild and Shadowfell will also vanish, and perhaps some magical semblance of pavement will grow in its place. This portion of the short is narrated by Cristela, whose personal goals in The Choices relate to finding the Feywild. So such a place definitely needs to exist. Just needs a new name.
Then, the short discusses the Elemental Planes and alludes to the Elemental Chaos. These realms are described as being bigger, more extravagant, and more beautiful than anything that can be found in the material world, both in terms of the natural landscapes and the civilizations there.
Then we come to our equivalent to the Upper Planes, identified in the short as the "celestial realms" or "heavenly realms". I never intended to use the sixteen Outer Planes of D&D, which is good, because they're trademarked, I would've been disappointed. Instead, there are only three of them: Olympus, Asgard, and the Offering Fields, one for each of the three pantheons. The heavenly realms are, in a sense, rather easily accessible, as you can walk there from the material world without using any kind of magic; you can climb Mount Olympus in the center of Magnae, cross the Rainbow Bridge in the northern reaches of Athundoft, or enter the great pyramid in the northern deserts of Akhmis. Of course, you're unlikely to make that trip without being noticed by some sort of divine being, so, have an excuse ready. Most of the gods live in their respective pantheon's celestial realm, each having their own territory there, and there's also a lot of heavenly geography to explore and celestial creatures to meet, like angels and ponies and stuff.
Then we discuss the hell dimensions, our equivalent to the Lower Planes. Not in very much detail; all that's said is that they're where fiends come from, that travelers who find themselves there don't live for very long, and that for all intents and purposes there are an infinite number of such places. Then we allude to the Far Realm by mentioning that aberrations are from someplace beyond the hell dimensions, a place that residents of Cosmos probably can't even look at without their minds snapping.
And that was it, it was a pretty short... short, I guess. Final note: Keys & Kingdoms definitely has a multiverse, Cosmos is not the only world that exists in the franchise, there's definitely a couple more that I have in mind and I'm excited to incorporate maybe a few worlds created by some other people! Just need to think of a way to connect them apart from Sigil, Sigil is also trademarked.
No comments:
Post a Comment