Quote from: VisionStorm;1114500You're just being pointlessly argumentative and nitpicky at this point. I'm saying I want apples (the planes) and you're telling me I should have oranges instead (the material plane). Oranges have more vitamin C and they're good for me, so WTF do I want apples for?

Maybe I want apple pie? But no, I should try orange pie instead. Don't you know you can make pies with oranges too?

And WTF do you need the recipe for the pie crust for (the multiverse cosmology)? You just go to the store and buy one ready made! You're over thinking this too much!

Except maybe this could be about making my own original, professionally baked pie (publishable game setting) and just buying some random store crust isn't good enough. And pie aficionados (people who actually like plane-hopping adventures and don't readily dismiss them as 'boring') aren't gonna go for some stale, generic, tasteless store bought crust. They want the real savory stuff made from the right ingredients to fit this particular style of pie (actual details about the structure of the planes and the multiverse that add flavor to the setting rather than "you just go into some transitional plane and eventually get to another material plane--cuz fuck the Outer Planes or the Demi Plane of Dread, the material plane is where it's at!").

Moving away from pie and fruit analogies and addressing some specific points:

FIRST: You're nitpicking transitional planes and elemental planes of raw energy and material, and extrapolating that because those specific types of planes tend to be mostly empty, may have material plane analogs in some cases or you don't know what to do with them that therefore the entirety of the planes must be boring, and people shouldn't go there. Ever.

No mention of the Outer Planes or Demi Planes, of course, cuz those ain't just some inter dimensional highway that takes you to an actual plane, or buckets of raw material and energy used to build reality. But then those places have material plane analogs too, so you'll probably just tell me to turn them into material plane worlds instead.

Why not just make Asgard a material plane cuz this is fantasy anyways? Why does the land of the gods have to be some distant heavenly realm most mortals can only dream about when fantasy worlds have unicorns and dragons in them? Why should worlds in the material plane retain some semblance of the real world so they can be grounded in reality despite having subtle magical underpinnings when you can crank the weird factor up to eleven and have the flying islands and endless spires right at home without having to cross some transitional plane to get them? Some select few fantasy worlds do that so why build a world where you can keep the otherworldly and the mundane separate, so you can keep a sense of wonder, when you can make the weird and the surreal commonplace and completely miss the point of having planar adventures?

And all this sarc isn't even getting into how the transitional and elemental planes could still be made interesting by having the occasional weird stuff floating in them that characters could explore or face otherworldly dangers, find lost travelers or a host of other things. But characters aren't supposed to constantly dwell in transitional planes anyways, which is why they're called TRANSITIONAL (i.e. planes in between actual places).

SECOND:


Interesting how the same thing could be said about the planes or otherworldly realms like fairylands and things like that. And children's tales are also full of them.

THIRD:


TSR was notorious for not even not listening to player feedback and publishing regardless of actual interest, which is why they went bankrupt and WOTC bought them. They had a wealth of setting material and novels not enough people actually wanted, cuz they went by their own arbitrary release schemes.

This is not to say that therefore the interest was there, but rather that TSR's publishing history can't be taken for anything but the publishers' whims at the time.

FOURTH:


You refuse to see them cuz you're too busy looking in places where they're not (or they could be, but you "are too lazy to do anything interesting with [them]") or dismissing them cuz why not just make wacky landscapes in the material plane instead?

FIFTH/Rest of your post:
You complain that making the planes suitable for low level characters somehow goes against things being surreal (cuz apparently weird wacky stuff must be level dependent). But then at the end also complained about increasing the starting level, which just highlights how pointlessly argumentative you're being. Integrating lower level characters is not good enough. Increasing character levels just for planar campaigns is also not good enough. Either way you're going to complain regardless.

And monsters being immune to non-magical weapons is a D&D trope. I only brought it up cuz this seemed to be veering towards D&D related questions, like "what about low level characters?" Monsters could just be affected by all weapons normally for all I care. But if we were to build this around D&D rules that might be a factor.

I'm sorry for getting pointlessly argumentative. Planejamming is near and dear to my heart, so I'm constantly frustrated by how poorly Wizards has treated it for the last few decades.

You can't create a fantasy setting, much less a planar adventures setting, that caters to all tastes simultaneously. Different people have different tastes. Different settings have different baselines for what constitutes normal. One of my problems with D&D in general is that it can't decide what it wants its baseline to be, and can't be bothered to explain what kinds of baselines could exist, so it ends up tossing all fantasy tropes into a blender and pretending it works out. I hate that so much.

It's difficult for me to understand others during these arguments because I don't know what their baseline is. High magic? Low magic? Tolkien-esque? Cosmopolitan planejammer? Post-apocalyptic? So I try to limit myself to criticizing the planes as they are written in the books. Which don't do a lot to make the planes seem interesting on their own, which I why I am generally in favor of discarding the planes entirely (especially the transitive planes) unless you actually do something interesting with them.

That's why I like the Mystaraspace model of the planes (and also because Dark Dungeons made it OGL so everyone can make adventures for it). Depicting the elemental planes as their own solar systems with planets is truly inspired even today, since otherwise the elemental planes are extremely boring due to laziness on the part of the writers. I would love to have fantasy space travel adventures on the elemental planes! I would be happy to write an adventure too.

Quote from: Shasarak;1114508If you use my example then they are not boring.  In one we have an exciting investigation scenario, in another an exciting (and uniquely DnD) Ghost story and the third an exciting and dangerous infiltration scenario which are all uniquely focused on the Ethereal Plane.  You specifically can not substitute a mist shrouded moor for any of those scenarios.  And while OCD is always welcome is not required.

It still doesn't do anything to make the ether plane interesting on its own merits. The least you could do is give the place geography, wildlife, and civilizations. That's why I loved the suggestion from The Faerie Ring setting by Zombie Sky Press to condense all the transitive planes into fairyland.

Quote from: Shasarak;1114508I am glad that someone has done some work to make the Plane of Fire interesting for you.  I guess for extra trope inversion you could play as Elementals traveling to the Prime and trying to survive in the hostile environment where liquid water falls from the sky.

That sounds genuinely interesting.

Anyway, for the purposes of illustration I am going to think of a few possible cosmologies.

Cosmology #1: The Flat Earth

This will be a variation of the omniverse cosmology, but more closely based on the flat earth cosmologies of ancient civilizations like the Mesopotamian, the Greek, the Norse, the Hindu, the Mayan, and the Flammarion engraving.

This is the cosmology used by settings like Exalted's Creation and RuneQuest's Glorantha. I don't know for sure, but variations of it may be used by a number of OSR settings such as the Auran Empire and the Dragon Empire.

In this cosmology, the earth or middle earth is essentially flat (even if it appears curved to observers standing on it). Above it is the sky dome or over world, the firmament of the stars and the empyrean heaven. Below it is the underworld, full of dwarves, chthonic darkness, the judge-gods and the shades of the dead. At the peak of the sky dome or even atop it is the throne of heaven, the palaces of the gods and heroes. At the nadir of the underworld, or even below it, is the hell in which the overthrown gods and wicked souls are imprisoned and tormented. There are also various pillars holding up the layers of the world, such as Atlas, Jormungandr, Yggdrasil, Bahamut, etc. Surrounding the three-tiered world is the primordial chaos, the waters of the firmament, ginnungagap, muspelheim, niflheim, etc. Depending on how detailed you want to be you could claim there are nine worlds linked by a world tree or something, but all the schemes are variations on the same basic idea. Many so-called "worlds" may be viewed as countries within the cosmology, such as the homelands of the giants, the elves, the dwarves, etc.

Compared to D&D omniverse, the planes map like so:

• Middle Earth = material plane
• Heavens = plane of air and upper planes
• Underworld = underdark, plane of earth, shadowfell
• Hell = plane of fire, lower planes
• Chaos = elemental chaos, feywild, limbo

Unlike D&D canon, in this cosmology you can simply walk from one plane to another because the geography is contiguous. You don't need spells or transitive planes to do so, thus transitive planes do not exist in this cosmology. It is possible for an adventurer to walk to the literal end of the world and find the seam where the sky or sea meets the earth. It may be possible to traverse this boundary, or it may take the form of an impassible mountain range or "ice wall." Both Norse and Chinese myth introduce the idea of elements associated with compass directions (e.g. Muspelheim to the South, Niflheim to the North, Middle Earth at the center), which may be useful in making the environments of the retaining wall more interesting. An adaption for general D&D may be found at this link: Enter the Elemental Borderlands.)

Travel between this cosmology and other cosmologies generally relies on the surrounding chaos, which by nature is chaotic and therefore may have outlets in the planes of other cosmologies (e.g. Limbo, Astral, Deep Ethereal, Phlogiston). There may very well be many flat worlds of this kind floating throughout the primordial chaos.

Cosmology #2: The Aristotelian Universe

This cosmology was advanced by Aristotle, and later built upon by other authors.

This takes the form of a solar system like in real life, except geocentric and the night sky is actually a celestial sphere encompassing the system. Indeed, each planetary orbit is a giant concentric sphere. The four elements concentrate at the center to form the Middle Earth we live on, whereas the weightless ether forms the planets (Moon, Venus, Mercury, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn). The firmament of the stars marks the boundary of the universe: there may be nothing beyond the sphere, or it may be the same primordial chaos as the flat world.

Dante's Divine Comedy provided further elaboration tied into Christian belief. Hell is accessible though a hole in the ground and ultimately lets out at the Mountain of Purgatory, which is ascended to reach the Empyrean Heaven at the planetary spheres.

Even later scientists recycled the term "ether" to refer to a substance proposed to fill the space between planets. This was later discredited, but fantasy settings went off with it.

The only settings I know of which use any variation of this cosmology are Blood & Treasure and Voidspanners. In the former's case, the inner and outer planets correspond to inner and outer planes. In the latter's case, the planets are mundane planets that may be visited and traded with.

Depending on whether there is anything outside the celestial sphere, this plane could be accessed by simply traveling to the boundary of the sphere from whatever plane meets it (e.g. Limbo, Astral, Phlogiston, Deep Ethereal).

Cosmology #2b: Celestial Spheres and Luminiferous Aether

This cosmology was introduced by Mystara and went on to inform Spelljammer. The basics are recounted by the Dark Dungeons SRD.

This model is inspired by the Aristotelian universe, but changes things up to allow for interstellar space travel. Each celestial sphere encompasses a solar system and its mirrored inner planes (named because they exist inside the sphere). Outside of the sphere is the luminiferous aether, which fills all the space between the celestial spheres of the universe. Outer planes are artificial spheres created by immortals and anchored to natural celestial spheres in the prime plane.

As with the prior cosmology, traveling to this one from another typically takes the form of finding an outlet to the luminiferous aether. The luminiferous aether is comparable to similar planes in other cosmologies (e.g. Limbo, Phlogiston, Deep Ethereal, Astral).

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That's all for now. If you're interested in reading more about planes, then you may be happy to learn that there are a ton of 3pp books dealing with the planes if you know where to look.

• Classic Play: The Book of the Planes
  
• A DM's Directory of Demiplanes
  
• Beyond Countless Doorways
  
• Dark Roads & Golden Hells
  
• Shadow Planes & Pocket Worlds
  
• Legends & Lairs: Portals & Planes
  
• The Slayer's Guide to Elementals
  
• Bastion Press' Faeries
  
• Along the Twisting Way: The Faerie Ring Campaign Guide
  
• The Traveler's Guide to the Elemental Plane of Fire
  
• Fat Goblin Games' Traveler's Guide To Hell
  
• And more!

Some companies devoted more attention than others to certain planes. Zombie Sky Press devoted a lot of attention to the fairylands, and suggested that the various transitive planes are all part of the "preternatural planes" of faerie. Mongoose Publishing wrote numerous books exploring the lower planes, including the campaign setting Infernum where PCs were demons tormenting the damned in hell. Necromancers of the Northwest devoted attention to making the plane of fire playable from level one. Monte Cook has worked on numerous planes across numerous publishers dealing with planar adventures after being inspired by Planescape, such as the settings Ptolus and Midgard.

That's the sort of energy we need if we're planning on fleshing out a Planejammer setting for OSR.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1114562IIt still doesn't do anything to make the ether plane interesting on its own merits. The least you could do is give the place geography, wildlife, and civilizations. That's why I loved the suggestion from The Faerie Ring setting by Zombie Sky Press to condense all the transitive planes into fairyland.

It does have geography, it is the same as the Prime plane, there are plenty of Ethreal creatures to round out a wandering monster table and inventing a new civilisation is beyond the scope of this article.

QuoteThat sounds genuinely interesting.

Thats interesting?  Where are the geography, wildlife or cilivisations?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1114562I'm sorry for getting pointlessly argumentative. Planejamming is near and dear to my heart, so I'm constantly frustrated by how poorly Wizards has treated it for the last few decades.

You can't create a fantasy setting, much less a planar adventures setting, that caters to all tastes simultaneously. Different people have different tastes. Different settings have different baselines for what constitutes normal. One of my problems with D&D in general is that it can't decide what it wants its baseline to be, and can't be bothered to explain what kinds of baselines could exist, so it ends up tossing all fantasy tropes into a blender and pretending it works out. I hate that so much.

It's difficult for me to understand others during these arguments because I don't know what their baseline is. High magic? Low magic? Tolkien-esque? Cosmopolitan planejammer? Post-apocalyptic? So I try to limit myself to criticizing the planes as they are written in the books. Which don't do a lot to make the planes seem interesting on their own, which I why I am generally in favor of discarding the planes entirely (especially the transitive planes) unless you actually do something interesting with them.

That's why I like the Mystaraspace model of the planes (and also because Dark Dungeons made it OGL so everyone can make adventures for it). Depicting the elemental planes as their own solar systems with planets is truly inspired even today, since otherwise the elemental planes are extremely boring due to laziness on the part of the writers. I would love to have fantasy space travel adventures on the elemental planes! I would be happy to write an adventure too.

I don't necessarily disagree about Wizard's (or even TSR's) handlings of the planes or even their treatment of fantasy in general, which tends to take a haphazard kitchen sink approach. Although I don't necessarily share your preferences, which seem to be very peculiar and not entirely evocative of what I'd consider to be actual plane shifting adventures dealing with inter-dimensional/otherworldly travel, but more like magic spacefaring adventures with weird physical world cosmologies stretching across space. That sounds interesting as it's own thing, but I see it almost as it's own genre separate from traditional fantasy or actual plane hopping.

I also don't entirely agree with your take on transitional planes, although I can see where you're coming from. But those planes are not supposed to be places of adventure, but more like "in between" realms of unformed mass that facilitate the transition from one world to the next. Heavily populating them and giving them detailed geography would go against the implicit function of such realms. Although I'm not entirely adverse to stuff like adding the occasional floating island enigmatically rising above the mists in an otherwise empty landscape of flowing aether.

My actual preference (at least for traditional fantasy worlds) tends to be more in line with the idea of the Otherworld, treated as a separate layer of reality overlaid over natural world, nested in multiple layers for different realms. I wrote a thing a few weeks ago detailing some of the ideas I've considered for an Otherworld a cosmology for my RPG worlds, which I posted as a Minds blog in two separate installments.

The first blog post can be found HERE, and the follow up post, expanding on some of these concepts, can be found HERE. This is more in line with the idea of the mythological Otherworld, but with some modern/RPG underpinnings.

I've also considered a surreal science fantasy world about exploring endless pocket dimensions with alien creatures and landscapes submerged in a sea of misty energy. But that setting deals with a lot of original ideas I've had in the backburner for a while, waiting for me to finish my own game system I wanted to use it for, so it's not ready to be shared.

Quote from: Shasarak;1114596Thats interesting?  Where are the geography, wildlife or cilivisations?

On the material plane, right? The elemental PCs are aliens visiting the hostile material.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114599I don't necessarily disagree about Wizard's (or even TSR's) handlings of the planes or even their treatment of fantasy in general, which tends to take a haphazard kitchen sink approach. Although I don't necessarily share your preferences, which seem to be very peculiar and not entirely evocative of what I'd consider to be actual plane shifting adventures dealing with inter-dimensional/otherworldly travel, but more like magic spacefaring adventures with weird physical world cosmologies stretching across space. That sounds interesting as it's own thing, but I see it almost as it's own genre separate from traditional fantasy or actual plane hopping.

Do you mean that the other planes are flat surfaces that extend forever in all directions? I can play with that, but I find a planetary structure easier to grok. It's only really relevant if the characters have a spaceship, as otherwise the planetary surface feels the same as an infinite flat surface to PCs. Continents are big things.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114599I also don't entirely agree with your take on transitional planes, although I can see where you're coming from. But those planes are not supposed to be places of adventure, but more like "in between" realms of unformed mass that facilitate the transition from one world to the next. Heavily populating them and giving them detailed geography would go against the implicit function of such realms. Although I'm not entirely adverse to stuff like adding the occasional floating island enigmatically rising above the mists in an otherwise empty landscape of flowing aether.

I suppose that my problem is with the D&Disms. You don't need transitive planes to serve that sort of role. The concept of transitive planes are game conventions without much if any foundation in myth and folklore. Whenever Otherworlds appear in myth and folklore and even most modern fantasy fiction, they are written as interesting locales in their own right. Transitive planes as written are simply boring IMO, and that's probably why they don't show up outside of D&D.

The closest examples I can think of are the Wood Between the Worlds from Narnia, which has geography, and the Warp from Warhammer, which is both hyperspace and hell.

If the transitive planes weren't grandfathered in by D&D, then would you really imagine that you needed them when world building from scratch? I can't think of any reason why I would need them that can't be fulfilled by something simpler.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114599My actual preference (at least for traditional fantasy worlds) tends to be more in line with the idea of the Otherworld, treated as a separate layer of reality overlaid over natural world, nested in multiple layers for different realms. I wrote a thing a few weeks ago detailing some of the ideas I've considered for an Otherworld a cosmology for my RPG worlds, which I posted as a Minds blog in two separate installments.

The first blog post can be found HERE, and the follow up post, expanding on some of these concepts, can be found HERE. This is more in line with the idea of the mythological Otherworld, but with some modern/RPG underpinnings.

I've also considered a surreal science fantasy world about exploring endless pocket dimensions with alien creatures and landscapes submerged in a sea of misty energy. But that setting deals with a lot of original ideas I've had in the backburner for a while, waiting for me to finish my own game system I wanted to use it for, so it's not ready to be shared.

That sounds very interesting. Thanks for sharing the links.

Just rip off Mortal Kombat:

Earthrealm, Netherrealm, Chaos Realm, Outworld, Seido/Order Realm, Edenia, theoretically countless more both known and unknown. If they merge, reality collapses; Outworld keeps merging with more and more by force at the behest of its despotic emperor Shao Kahn, so many of its inhabitants are non-native (and some criminals hide out there) and it has a variety of landscapes (though much of it is barren purple wastelands, deserts, pools of acid, mysterious mountain peaks, forests with animated faces, with small villages scattered throughout). It, along with Netherrealm (hell), are composed of thousands of different layers.

The whole of Outworld is teeming with magic, and people from there tend to have an affinity for it. In contrast, magic users and magical beings who enter Netherrealm slowly weaken. Vampires (which were annexed into Outworld) apparently have the ability to traverse the realms, and have a reputation for being excellent record keepers; they can travel by day in most realms, they are only highly allergic to Earthrealm's sun.

... in other news, some may find "GURPS Fantasy: Portal Realms" a nice reference for this topic; different types of 'portals,' how to run portal fantasy, appropriate character types, etc. As usual with GURPS supplements it is handy for reference and ideas regardless of what system you use.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114599My actual preference (at least for traditional fantasy worlds) tends to be more in line with the idea of the Otherworld, treated as a separate layer of reality overlaid over natural world, nested in multiple layers for different realms. I wrote a thing a few weeks ago detailing some of the ideas I've considered for an Otherworld a cosmology for my RPG worlds, which I posted as a Minds blog in two separate installments.

The first blog post can be found HERE, and the follow up post, expanding on some of these concepts, can be found HERE. This is more in line with the idea of the mythological Otherworld, but with some modern/RPG underpinnings.

I'm reading your cosmological conceits and I like it. There's a coherent logic behind it rather than the mindless iterating of D&Disms. I especially like your elegant articulation of the concept of "anima," as I planned on using something similar but never articulated it well.

Similar to what you proposed, I was planning an emanation scheme inspired by Kabbalah, Gnosticism, ancient cosmology, and Plato's allegory of the cave. I've still got to work out the details, but generally the descent of energy/souls passes through the upper planes, elemental planes, material planes, and finally to the lower planes. These would roughly correspond to Briah, Yetzirah, Assiah, and Gehenna in Kabbalah.

These planes of existence would determine the origins and ancestry of many kinds of monsters. For example: aberrations and celestials originate in Briah; giants and elementals originate in Yetzirah; beasts, humanoids and fey originate in Assiah; fiends and undead originate in Gehenna.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1114586Anyway, for the purposes of illustration I am going to think of a few possible cosmologies.

*snipped for brevity*

This is actually pretty awesome. Don't know how I missed it yesterday! Going by the post times I probably had started writing my last post before this was posted, got sidetracked along the way--extending the writing time to one hour or more--and posted mine without noticing this.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1114671I suppose that my problem is with the D&Disms. You don't need transitive planes to serve that sort of role. The concept of transitive planes are game conventions without much if any foundation in myth and folklore. Whenever Otherworlds appear in myth and folklore and even most modern fantasy fiction, they are written as interesting locales in their own right. Transitive planes as written are simply boring IMO, and that's probably why they don't show up outside of D&D.

I'm not entirely sure about that. I'm pretty sure I've seen formless misty chambers used when moving across worlds in fiction (can't think of specific examples right now--I usually have trouble remembering details from films or shows unless they're fresh from recent viewings) and the idea of transitive planes has some parallels with mysticism and Theosophical ideas. The Astral and Ethereal Planes are taken almost right out of Theosophy, and the Ethereal Plane takes its name from the Aether, which is one of the classical elements.

I think Celtic folklore also makes mention of mists as a prelude to traveling to fairylands and the Otherworld, and ideas similar to the aether are fairly common the world over. Granted, I'm not sure there's a fundamental distinction between the Astral and Ethereal Planes in real life occultism, so having them as separate planes might be a D&D-ism. But the idea of traversing such realms exists in real life occult/mystical believes and practices across multiple mystical systems from all over the world.

This Wikipedia article covers a lot of this concepts.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astral_plane

My fundamental assumption when dealing with plane hopping and mystical conceptions of reality is that everything is made of the aether or some ethereal-like quintessential substance, which takes more specific forms when manifesting in the material world--leading to the various types of elements that make up everything in the world. And traveling across dimensions inevitably puts you in contact with that substance. The form that substance takes when not bound by the confines of the material world is like Ethereal/Astral Plane--a formless, misty place between realities--which I would handle as just one plane rather than separate planes like in D&D.

One thing I should clarify is that, even in fantasy worlds, I tend to operate under the assumption that (unless otherwise specified in specific settings) planetary cosmology operates like that of the natural world in real life and that any "Otherworld" or "Planes of Existence" operate as separate realities or dimensions transcending the natural world. People who live in these worlds may have myths and folklore that describe the world otherwise, but those are just primitive believes from scientifically illiterate people based on their limited understanding of natural law. And any actual "Otherworlds" that may exist, exist at separate layer of reality or "frequency" or whatever, beyond the natural world.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1114676Just rip off Mortal Kombat:

Earthrealm, Netherrealm, Chaos Realm, Outworld, Seido/Order Realm, Edenia, theoretically countless more both known and unknown. If they merge, reality collapses; Outworld keeps merging with more and more by force at the behest of its despotic emperor Shao Kahn, so many of its inhabitants are non-native (and some criminals hide out there) and it has a variety of landscapes (though much of it is barren purple wastelands, deserts, pools of acid, mysterious mountain peaks, forests with animated faces, with small villages scattered throughout). It, along with Netherrealm (hell), are composed of thousands of different layers.

The whole of Outworld is teeming with magic, and people from there tend to have an affinity for it. In contrast, magic users and magical beings who enter Netherrealm slowly weaken. Vampires (which were annexed into Outworld) apparently have the ability to traverse the realms, and have a reputation for being excellent record keepers; they can travel by day in most realms, they are only highly allergic to Earthrealm's sun.

... in other news, some may find "GURPS Fantasy: Portal Realms" a nice reference for this topic; different types of 'portals,' how to run portal fantasy, appropriate character types, etc. As usual with GURPS supplements it is handy for reference and ideas regardless of what system you use.

I never got into Mortal Kombat, cuz I never liked fighting games. But have found their cosmology pretty interesting when I've run into it when researching these types of topics.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1114701I'm reading your cosmological conceits and I like it. There's a coherent logic behind it rather than the mindless iterating of D&Disms. I especially like your elegant articulation of the concept of "anima," as I planned on using something similar but never articulated it well.

Similar to what you proposed, I was planning an emanation scheme inspired by Kabbalah, Gnosticism, ancient cosmology, and Plato's allegory of the cave. I've still got to work out the details, but generally the descent of energy/souls passes through the upper planes, elemental planes, material planes, and finally to the lower planes. These would roughly correspond to Briah, Yetzirah, Assiah, and Gehenna in Kabbalah.

These planes of existence would determine the origins and ancestry of many kinds of monsters. For example: aberrations and celestials originate in Briah; giants and elementals originate in Yetzirah; beasts, humanoids and fey originate in Assiah; fiends and undead originate in Gehenna.

Thanks for reading! Yeah, I tend to take inspiration from a combination of mythology and mysticism/occult believes and practices, as well as going into my own philosophical musings on these topics then trying to come up with ways of integrating them into RPG worlds and adding elements specific to the world and what the setting is about.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114704I never got into Mortal Kombat, cuz I never liked fighting games. But have found their cosmology pretty interesting when I've run into it when researching these types of topics.

Same. I'm the person who can't memorize the simplest move, and mashes buttons to loss (or victory :cool:). But to your point, there is a pretty interesting history and cosmology to the setting that gives it a half-gonzo, half-edgy-grimdark-teenage-boy-fantasy vibe which I sort of dig! Legacy of Kain / Soul Reaver series is similarly inspirational to me, with its bizarre plot and villains and the mechanics of the world.

When it comes to travel-centric settings (including planar travel), I'd prefer to take inspiration from video games like Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies. If the transitive planes were like that, then I'd probably like them.

To me, cosmologies based on historical mysticism tend to just be more interesting than the D&D great wheel.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1115288To me, cosmologies based on historical mysticism tend to just be more interesting than the D&D great wheel.

I find that true too. I suspect that it may be due to religious cosmologies serving a more practical purpose to their cultures and being refined over centuries to reflect their religious needs. The great wheel was created to fill out a grid based on game conventions, rather than because it added all that much to the world building itself.

The Norse cosmology of nine worlds is probably the most complex of all the ancient mythologies. However, our only sources are accounts by Christian monks and reconstructions based on those texts. We don't know how accurately this "nine worlds" reflects Norse belief and it is likely a post-pagan construct. As an Indo-European religion, there's little reason to believe the Norse cosmology diverges all that much in the gross structure from other known Indo-European religions. Or, for that matter, any of the ancient cosmologies that all seem to roughly follow the same general structure of heavens, middle world, underworld (literally underground), and primordial chaos of some sort.

The nine worlds of the post-pagan Norse cosmology definitely fit into that model when you treat them as realms within a world rather than worlds themselves. Asgard and its Valhalla are the heavens, Midgard is obviously the middle world, Hel and Niflhel are the underworld, Niflheim and Muspelheim are the primordial chaos. So I strongly suspect that Norse cosmology followed the same model as its contemporaries and the "nine worlds" are either invented by scribes or conflated from what were originally realms within the three or four original "worlds."

It should be pretty obvious when you realize that Jotunheim is only home to some giants (and it's questionable whether "giant" is really an accurate translation when plenty of jotun were not gigantic or even humanoid), whereas others live in places like the sea, sky, or Muspelheim.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1115299I find that true too. I suspect that it may be due to religious cosmologies serving a more practical purpose to their cultures and being refined over centuries to reflect their religious needs. The great wheel was created to fill out a grid based on game conventions, rather than because it added all that much to the world building itself.

That's the thing about D&D and modern kitchen sink fantasy stuff--it tends to get built around "It's a game!" or "It's Fantasyyyyyy (don't over think it too much)!" assumptions and watered down self-referential fantasy tropes, rather than solid, internally consistent ideas with a deeper symbolic meaning. It's like a copy of a copy of a forgery of a cheap knockoff that got distilled into some generic idea of what "fantasy" is that refuses to take itself too seriously.

Real world mysticism, religion and mythology tends to be richer because it has layers of archetypal meaning and cultural significance that speak to the human condition and a symbolic view of the world. This is not say that everything has to be based 1/1 on real world mythology, but rather that using that as basis before going off in your wild tangent tends to produce more authentic and inspiring results than going with stale, prepackaged templates that have already been so over used they lost all semblance of their original meaning and became "just fantasy".

Geeky, have you taken the plunge on this project yet? Any brainstorming or words on paper?