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Tyranthraxus
Senior Scribe
Netherlands
423 Posts |
 Posted - 13 Aug 2008 : 05:32:03
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What do you guys think of the 3rd edition cosmology of the Realms? Like, what's up the celestial and fiendish planes and what happened to the Great Wheel? There's even no sign of the Outlands that has portals to every known plane. Doesn't it conctradict with the 2nd edition source material and the novels, that Cyric's realms was Pandemonium (if I'm not mistaken) after the events in Prince of Lies or that Finder Wyvernspur travelled to Sigil to find the Hand of Bane?
Maybe it has something to do with the Time of Troubles? Could it be, that after Ao reassigned the gods he created a new cosmology for them?
And one other thing that just came up my mind. What's the connection between the Realmsphere and the planes? Are the planets in the Crystal Sphere part of the same material plane or are they all separate (demi)planes connected to Toril? If the first is true, could it be possible to teleport or create a portal to another planet within the Realmsphere, for example the moon Sylune?
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Ayunken-vanzan
Senior Scribe
Germany
657 Posts |
Posted - 13 Aug 2008 : 06:14:48
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The cosmology already changed in 3.0 where the Realm's cosmology became the Great Tree. The Great Wheel was part of Realms 2.0. With the change also the divine domains changed; Cyric's domain now is on the plane "Supreme Throne", whereas before it was located on Pandaemonium (and Hades when he was god of the dead). Mystra's domain was named "Dweomerheart", whereas in the Avatar-Trilogy it was on Nirvana.
Edit: More information about the change of the cosmology can be found here, under point D.1. |
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"Anyone can kill deities, cause plagues, or destroy organizations. It takes real skill to make them live on."
Varl
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Edited by - Ayunken-vanzan on 13 Aug 2008 06:24:00 |
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GoCeraf
Learned Scribe
147 Posts |
Posted - 13 Aug 2008 : 06:30:48
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I like the third edition cosmology, largely because it is really the only one with which I'm familiar. As far as I know, the Great Wheel was a standard dnd concept, whereas the Great Tree is what the Forgotten Realms has. As far as what happened to the earlier edition stuff, who can say? It's possible that planes folded in on one another during the troubled Times. Sigil is, like, present in some form in every iteration of the Realms cosmology, but it's very much its own setting, and references to it would be no more common than references to Greyhawk.
I feel as though I've read that the Abyss in the Forgotten Realms and the Abyss in Greyhawk are not the same. The same likely goes for all the others, as well. And why not? Gods that exist only in the Forgotten Realms reside on some of the planes that show up in all settings (Eilistraee and the Demonweb Pits comes to mind, if you can stomach a drow reference). The dead of Greyhawk are not judged by Kelemvor.
It is also worth noting that the cosmology of Toril is faith-based, whereas the cosmology of other settings is usually alignment-based. We also know that there are other Material planes, though I don't know if a number has ever been provided. It's possible that the Material planes are as infinite as the Abyss.
So where does this leave the concept of crystal spheres? Honestly, it's contradictory, and not for the sake of spawning discussion. The most likely possibility is that somebody came up with too many cosmological ideas at some point. We know that there's a crystal sphere for the Realms and for Greyhawk and for Dragonlance and whatever other homebrewed settings there are, and that they most likely exist on the same plane.
A possibility is that the Spelljammer setting was created as a simpler way of explaining the universe. Trying to put the planes into any sort of astronomical sense doesn't help anyone understand them better. Saying that the layers of a plane are "thin," like with the Far Realm, explains jack crap when planes are of infinite size. Arranging anything into a Great Wheel and Inner and Outer and Transitive doesn't help, because you can't look "inward" from the prime and see elemental planes, or look down from Arvandor and see the Barrens of Doom and Despair.
The fact is that cosmology is a poorly (perhaps purposely) defined concept, because that makes it easier for DMs to run things as they will. That sucks, of course, for authors, who try to write in a consistent setting, but there's not much that can be done. There's fluff in nearly ever book pertaining to planar matters explaining how nothing herein is definitive, and is the "greatest theories of the sages."
Not all wizards are sages.
Incidentally, on your question about portal travel to the moons...
Well, it would work whether they're in the same plane or not, since portals can travel between two points on the same plane or between two separate planes. In fact, I think there are supposed to be a couple of wizards towers in Selune's tears.
All the best |
Being sarcastic can be more telling than simply telling. |
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Zanan
Senior Scribe
Germany
942 Posts |
Posted - 13 Aug 2008 : 09:49:16
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| Well, only the Planescape Great Wheelers had a problem. The treeshape has AFAIK always been there World Ash Yggdrasil, celestial staircases and all. Essentially, it is just another "way to look at the planes", not necessarily how they are arranged. Then again, I never took much interest in all this, as it is something which hardly ever concerns the characters. |
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Quale
Master of Realmslore
1757 Posts |
Posted - 13 Aug 2008 : 09:51:53
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| I like some aspects of 3e cosmology and some of earlier editions, so they're merged |
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Jorkens
Great Reader
Norway
2950 Posts |
Posted - 14 Aug 2008 : 09:07:16
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| I have no love for Planescape either, so it was never to much of an annoyance to me. I have usually just used the planes as it suited me at that time, based on the original Manual of the Planes. I don't think mortals should figure out to much about the planes in the first place. |
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Darkmeer
Senior Scribe
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 26 Aug 2008 : 07:06:40
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I'm very much pro-Wheel, myself. However, I do agree that the Tree cosmology is the great tree of the planes, Yggdrasil. One special thing about it is that it goes EVERYWHERE in the planes, yet nowhere at once. So, I decided to reconcile the whole "mess" of two cosmologies. I've posted some of the information here. If you have something you'd like to add to that, please do. (Sorry for the shameless plug).
And Tyranthraxus, I believe that the events of the 2e Adventure Die Vecna Die have something to do with the "multiple" cosmologies (and split ones as well).
The whole deities going to Sigil is part of why the cosmologies changed, as I know of at least 3 deities that have walked in Sigil. Two were "relatively" benevolent, one not so much (see above). So, Ao/Her Serenity/another overpower decided that mortals should not be so inclined to know everything...
Also, it should be noted that even if the Great Tree were always in use, the planes were named differently on each world. Sometimes it was subtle (the "Abyss" in DL), sometimes overt (the Fugue Plane's tenuous connection with Hades', for instance). There are some really fun things you can do with both of them, and with everything that has happened recently in the Realms, makes it even more fun (Speaking only of 3.5 FR, as I own no 4e FR).
/d |
"These people are my family, not just friends, and if you want to get to them you gotta go through ME." |
Edited by - Darkmeer on 26 Aug 2008 07:15:28 |
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Jamallo Kreen
Master of Realmslore
USA
1537 Posts |
Posted - 29 Aug 2008 : 09:07:53
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I think the Vecna trilogy was what was blamed for Third Edition. Or was it Tenebrous who was blamed for that? I blame Wizards....
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Hawkins
Great Reader
USA
2131 Posts |
Posted - 29 Aug 2008 : 18:00:00
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| I personally really like the tree. |
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Alisttair
Great Reader
Canada
3054 Posts |
Posted - 05 Sep 2008 : 14:42:12
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| I enjoyed the 3E cosmology. The fact that it was different in 2E doesn't bother me because the planes should be beyond human comprehension and their very nature should IMO keep them from being static. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 05 Sep 2008 : 16:14:44
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I have to agree with Alisttair, and Quale, for the most part. I managed to reconcile the two together, as just the "Torillian Viewpoint" and the "Planar Viewpoint".
I always assumed that planes didn't really physically 'touch', but rather sections 'over-lapped' each other, creating portals. Ergo, the same plane (like Arvandor) is considered to be in multiple places at once, when the reality is is that it just overlaps various planes at differnt points (it isn't really 'next-to' anything).
It gets a bit harder for me to reconcile this in 4e, because I REFUSE to blame the multi-versal changes on Mystra's death. Instead, I'm picturing 'new information' being discovered which has altered people's perception of how things work. For instance, everyone thought the Negative Plane was a seperate realm earlier, but now people have 'discovered' (from an Imaskarkana?) that planes have 'deeper' levels, and that the negative Plane was really the innermost ring of the Plane of Shadows (sort of like the Etheril and Deep Etheril). In this way, I can say that it isn't the universe that changed, but rather, people's conception of it.
quote:
Originally posted by HawkinstheDM
I personally really like the tree.
The tree was too 'hard' for people to grasp, so now they use 'The Bush'. 
I know there's a political joke in there somewhere.... |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Cosmology
