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I remember long ago in writing workshops the worst response you could give to a story was "interesting" because it really didn't say anything. It was a stock response if you couldn't care less about what you had just read, or if what you had read was utterly unimportant but you wanted or needed to comment.
So the Feywild, Shadowfell, Candyland, and all that?
Interesting.
It's not D&D.
But interesting.
"May you live in interesting times."
- ancient Chinese Curse
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The ancient greek afterlife was just a shadow realm where everyone wandered around doing nothing. Except for those who were punished. No reward, only punishment.
Except for....
The Elysian fields, or sometimes Elysian plains, were the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous. It is associated with the Christian Heaven.
The only thing that is constant after reading the articles WotC puts up is the feeling that what they are creating isn't the DnD that I've been playing since 2nd edition.
They seem to simplify the game so much that I don't find it appealing anymore, strange but true.
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The ancient greek afterlife was just a shadow realm where everyone wandered around doing nothing. Except for those who were punished. No reward, only punishment.Except for....
The Elysian fields, or sometimes Elysian plains, were the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous. It is associated with the Christian Heaven.
Except that only a very special few got into that afterlife. Even then, the Elysian Fields are probably a later addition. In the Odyssey there is no indication of such a place existing. In fact, the dead are all shades who crave the warmth of blood from a sacrifice.
This concept of a underwhelming afterlife is not horribly out of step with a lot of world mythologies.
Only the greatest warriors got into the Norse Vahalla. Everyone else went to a rather depressing afterlife.
In Egypt you made a journey to a place that was exactly like your time on Earth. Everything transferred over; station, career, etc. That is, of course, unless you didn't get eaten by some ravenous god on the trip there.
According to the Tibetan Book of the Dead the soul made a dangerous journey through a dark place and was subjected to a series of tests. Only if you passed all the tests were you guaranteed to enter a new human body.
In Judaism there was really only Sheol. It is a twilight realm under the earth where all people go. Later Jewish thought added the concept of comfort or torment. You are either near God or seperated from God, awaiting ressurection. I will admit a bit of ignorance on modern Jewish teachings despite have a number of Jewish friends.
There are many more examples from all over the world.
So the bulk of the people in the D&D world could be going to a rather gloomy afterlife. In the ancient world people worshipped their gods not because of what they could do to them in the afterlife but what they could do to them in the material realms. The same could go for the people of the default D&D cosmology. I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to say that the particularly blessed (clerics) and the worthy (heroes) could find their way to a godly realm after death because of their special natures. Tomb robbers? No. Heroes? Yes, most certainly.
The new cosmology does not sound bad and it's the first time I've felt compelled to say anything quite that positive about the 4e announcements.
The Fey Wild sounds like a cross between the Beastlands and Outlands.
Shadowfell is basically the Plane of Shadow, but with dead people. The fact that the dead appear here and then 'fade beyond all ken' suggest that spells such as raise dead and resurrection may have to be cast quicker, so raising someone who has been dead for years will not happen.
I do like the sound of the Elemental Chaos as a source of all elementals, effectively combining most of the inner planes. Sounds like the postive and negative planess are either missing, or merged with this, but they were not really important locations.
But throwing the Abyss in with the elemental planes just seems wrong.
And the Astral Sea is the outer planes (minus the Abyss) with dominions used instead of the outer planes. I have no problem with the outer plane being depicted in that manner as that is sort of what they are anyway. Might take longer to get to the 'dominion' though, as you will have to travel the astral sea rather than simply plane shift from point to point.
Basically, move the Abyss to the Astral Sea and nothing has significantly changed.
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I like it.
Oddly the cosmology I have been working on lately has some passing similiarities to this new cosmology.
I had started with the Outer Planes and Astral Plane, having been inspired by their descriptions in the old school D&D Rules Cyclopedia. In that version the Outer Planes just sort of float in the Astral, seperated by the plane's vast expanse. I like that idea and thought it was very similar to the High Umbra from WoD. After that I began to work my way in and started to see just how arbitrary a lot the Great Wheel was.
So reading this, seeing how similar my designs were to the new canon, just reinforced the idea my intial reactions to the fluff changes were knee jerk responses. I had been playing with variety of cosmologies for years now and that confirms the whole Great Wheel might not have been working for me. I see a number of people probably feel the same.
This debate actually makes me look back and wonder how Planescape was ever accepted as being worthy of the "D&D" moniker by fans. It was quite the departure from what had been done in the 1e Manual of the Planes. It took the planes and made them extensions of the material plane. You have cities of living humans dwelling in odd places, like the Abyss. The domains of the gods were usurped for a setting of alien fantasy as opposed to being depicted as place of the spiritual domains. Don't get me wrong, I like Planescape, I just don't see how it was ever accepted as being in line with what had come before. Despite some cosmetic differences I really feel the new cosmology is a step towards how I used to view the planes, not what Planescape had presented to me.
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It has been mentioned but I do like how this cosmology could allow for all other cosmologies to exist. On Oerth they understand the cosmology as the Great Wheel and the Outer Planes they are familiar with exist in that set-up. Whereas on Toril the planes they are aware of form a Great Tree. It goes on and on. It allows for alternate multiversal theories without invalidating any of them.
I think I might actually be getting excited about this.
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The ancient greek afterlife was just a shadow realm where everyone wandered around doing nothing. Except for those who were punished. No reward, only punishment.Except for....
The Elysian fields, or sometimes Elysian plains, were the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous. It is associated with the Christian Heaven.
Except that only a very special few got into that afterlife. Even then, the Elysian Fields are probably a later addition. In the Odyssey there is no indication of such a place existing. In fact, the dead are all shades who crave the warmth of blood from a sacrifice.
I guess that is open to interpretation. The sources I've read from simply said it was the paradise of the greek afterlife, not that it was limited a very special few. My original point, however, was to show that the Greeks did indeed have some form of afterlife reward, not just punishment.
Contributor
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Hmmm... Everything I've read of Greek and Roman afterlife myth specifically includes the virtuous and heroic being stuck in the same bleak place, with no paradise. Frequently they give advice to the living to live life to the fullest because the afterlife sucks, and to gain fame in life, because it's the only worthwhile form of immirtality. It's been a while since I've studied that stuff, but I did study quite a lot of it.
But throwing the Abyss in with the elemental planes just seems wrong.
I'm guessing they're going for an Alpha/Omega feel to the elemental planes. On the one hand, you have the fundamental elements of all things seething in a plane of creation, and right smack in the middle of it you have this vile, corrupt /thing/ wear the would-be destroyers of all reside. Seems appropriate to me.
Also, I get the visual that the Abyss is this enormous gaping pit like a whirlpool/vortex/black hole with all the abyssal realms whirling and floating inside it. There's nothing to suggest that 'infinite' layers can't be simulated by having some of those abyssal realms be ever deeper in the funnel.
I've had no real investment in the Great Wheel, so I have to say I like what I see. Simplifying the Wheel with something that is still interesting and full of potential is good in my book. I never liked the organization based on alignment, because I hate the alignment system.
If they do indeed get rid of alignment, I'll be a very happy DM.
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If all the dead "fade away silently" then why would the devils have such a great interest in souls? (The "new" defining characteristic of Devils.)
Devil slaver squads raiding Shadowfell would be cool too.The more I think about things I could do with Shadowfell the more I like the idea.
Dead souls traveling to a Shadowfell echo of a city they know, seeking out the temple of a god they worshiped in life in hopes of deliverance.
Many mythologies speak of a journey after death, seeking out their eternal rest. Shadowfell could provide that in numerous ways.
What if a campaign villain dies with important info the party needs? Travel to Shadowfell in an attempt to track down his spirit and question it. He could be captured by devil soul slavers, or traveling to a temple of his dark god seeking ascendancy to his dark domain. The race is on for the party to intervene before the information is lost to them forever.
If all the dead "silently fade away beyond all ken" then why would the devils have such a great interest in souls? (The "new" defining characteristic of Devils.) Now, if the article had said "beyond mortal ken" this might have made more sense.
But beyond ALL ken? No point in devils, now is there?
I imagine - though it's entirely possible I'm wrong - that the intent of that statement /isn't/ to say that one's soul goes poof and not even the gods know what happen to it. It's more likely that it just means that the 'land of the dead' is a waystation of sorts, and not a final resting place.
And yes, it had me scratching my head too until I took some time to mull it over. Chalk it up to a poorly phrased remark.
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i see a lot of people getting hung up on the "silently fade away beyond all ken" remark.
I dunno, but I didn't see anything that discounted the possibility that a god or devil couldn't swipe a soul away from Shadowfell before they faded.
Shadowfell could be a dumping ground for the dead. If no one delivers you from the place you'll fade after a time. In fact, there's a lot a DM could do with it flavor-wise.
What if they remain until those on the mortal realm forget about them? Thus leading some societies in their "Heroic life" pursuits, to be remembered.
With the information we are given thus far, its a great thing. They give you a simple basework from which you can do all manner of things.
THAT is what it should be.
"Ken" simply means knowledge or understanding.
The way I read the Much Debated Phrase™ is that the same planar sages living in the D&D multiverse who have laid forth the current planar theory simply do not know (with certainly) where the souls of the departed go. Even in Tolkien's works, it was clearly understood that Dwarves were reborn thru their descendants and that elves went to the halls of Mandos but that not even the Valar (i.e. the deities) knew what became of the souls of humans.
Considering how much of D&D and modern fantasy is based on Tolkien's work, the notion that souls fade beyond all ken should probably be taken in the context of those who live IN the game world rather than by using meta-game logic...
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Contributor
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I suspect that the main purpose of the 'fading beyond all ken' bit has entirely to do with the raise dead mechanic. As in there will be a mechanic for how long a soul stays in shadowfell, during which time it can be raised, and once it has left, the character is dead forever (or can only be raised by more powerful magic).
What I would really like (Actually, I do this in Eberron already) is a mechanic that rasie dead magic allows you to travel to shadowfell and retrieve the soul. But you have to do it, and it's dangerous. And if you pay someone to cast raise dead, they send you to get the soul, because they aren't going. There are so many good myths based on this concept. Plus, it would be a great side-trek market. You could do a whole book of short adventures in Shadowfell with the simple plothook of "A PC dies, and you cast raise dead to enter shadowfell and bring him back." And you could work in a mechanic whereby if it's a PC soul, they can participate in their own rescue.
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You could do a whole book of short adventures in Shadowfell with the simple plothook of "A PC dies, and you cast raise dead to enter shadowfell and bring him back." And you could work in a mechanic whereby if it's a PC soul, they can participate in their own rescue.
Yeah, Raise Dead in my campaigns has never been a simple ordeal. Necromancer games did a pretty sweet module with a few quests to make the process of raising the dead less "ho-hum".
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You could do a whole book of short adventures in Shadowfell with the simple plothook of "A PC dies, and you cast raise dead to enter shadowfell and bring him back." And you could work in a mechanic whereby if it's a PC soul, they can participate in their own rescue.Yeah, Raise Dead in my campaigns has never been a simple ordeal. Necromancer games did a pretty sweet module with a few quests to make the process of raising the dead less "ho-hum".
I really liked that module. I used it often.
One thing I did notice with Raise Dead and similar spells in my own campaign was the amount laziness associated with it. I got to the point where I just let the spell be cast and that was that. I don't know why I got so lazy when it came to revification.
The ancient greek afterlife was just a shadow realm where everyone wandered around doing nothing. Except for those who were punished. No reward, only punishment.
Not completely accurate. The Greek afterlife consisted of Hades (which is what you are referring to) which was wandering around "doing nothing" other than waiting for your soul to be judged, as well as Tartarus (the Hell equivalent) and Elysium where the "good" souls went. After all, where do you think the D&D NG plane came from? :)
Now if there were only some way to fit silver katanae and trenchcoats into this, 4e might have a chance of winning me over...;-)
Never fear, the Tieflings will have a katana built into their sexy tails, since this seems to be the demographic WotC is aiming for. And they'll be able to slice through tanks with them.
ps: katanae? Is that the Latin plural of katana?! :D
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While the Great Wheel has been a D&D staple for years, I don't think that what we are seeing for 4E is anything different than what we actually DID during a game.
If you look at the great wheel and and took a a blurring tool for each of the borders and cut the place in half you'd have what 4E is presenting.
In PLAY the "border" between the Nirvana and say The Seven Heavens is the astral plane. So we have an "astral sea" now and the aforementioned planes are more like continents now. Whatever. I am only going to play in a very small slice of those realms anyway.
As for the "Alternate" material plane of faery and the shadow-something, those exist already as well in some form or another, whether it be the ethereal and shadow planes, the use of an actual faery plane, etc.
I would like the description of faery to be not only more wild, but more majestic: Mountains taller, rivers more blue, grass greener (nyuck nyuck), etc. But thats not a big deal really.
All in all, Demogorgons realm remains unchanged, Imix's realm remains unchainged, Sigil remains unchanged...all thats changed is how they connect, and since typically its spells like teleport, plane shift, gate, etc that are used, how they physically connect is largely irrelevant.
If that is the case, then the people in the world can act however they want without fear of consequences in the afterlife.The same could be said of real life...
People seem to act heorically enough on the belief of an afterlife; I'm not sure they need to be able to travel there to lead their lives a certain way.
Sometimes people do heroic things because it is the right thing to do, with out regard to a reward now or in the afterlife.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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One quick observation. I keep hearing about how the Great Wheel is core and always has been. I don't believe that is entirely true. The Great Wheel was not mentioned in either the 2e core books or the 3e core books (it is in the 3.5 DMG). Maybe that's part of why I'm indifferent to it. Prior to Planescape, I saw the Great Wheel as one of those funky things from 1e that didn't belong in the game anymore, kinda like alignment languages.
Granted, not including is different from changing, but it still seems as though the argument that the Great Wheel is a core part of D&D is not all that strong unless you hand wave away 2e (which I know is a popular thing to do) and disregard the original 3e core rules.
To me, the Great Wheel is setting specific. That setting is Greyhawk. As such, the GW does not belong in the core rules anymore than any other element of Greyhawk. To the extent the planes are necessary to the core rules, they should be much simpler than the Great Wheel/Inner Planes structure. There's just no reason to have such a complex set of rules for such a marginal part of the core game.
Yeah, I know the feeling. I said the same thing after I picked up the core 3e books.Interesting.
It's not D&D.
But interesting.
It's funny but the biggest supporter of 3rd edition in our group (and he thinks 4th edition is just a stupid idea now), hated 3rd edition when it came out. To him it was not D&D. Gnome bards and dwarf wizards, how absurd!
In fact a lot of the complaining about, this ain't D&D is what I heard during the release of 4th edition. Gnome bards and dwarf wizards, how absurd.
Yeah, I know the feeling. I said the same thing after I picked up the core 3e books.Interesting.
It's not D&D.
But interesting.
It's funny but the biggest supporter of 3rd edition in our group (and he thinks 4th edition is just a stupid idea now), hated 3rd edition when it came out. To him it was not D&D. Gnome bards and dwarf wizards, how absurd!
In fact a lot of the complaining about, this ain't D&D is what I heard during the release of 4th edition. Gnome bards and dwarf wizards, how absurd.
Yeah, when you put it that way, that was disconcerting when we started playing 3.0. Well, that and bards not being uber-powerful anymore.
And I'm still annoyed that they got rid of percentile strength. I mean, that wasn't confusing at all, was it? ;-)
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"Ken" simply means knowledge or understanding.
Thus, as I said, "mortal" would be much better than "all", which implies (probably not intentionally) that even the gods don't know what happens to souls.
I liked the "soul slavers" idea presented, but it still begs the question of why then would devils appear on the material plane at all, if they can just run into Shadowherever and scoop them up by the score.
Just looking for some internal consistency which will probably be hammered out by the final product. Once again, presentation of information not the current strong suit of the wotcies.
I don't usually run or play at high levels, so the Wheel isn't something I deal with often. The arrangement of the planes according to alignment make sense if alignment is central to the characters and the game, and the dissolution of this setup makes sense if you're trying to downplay or eliminate alignments.
I think 3.xe placed a heavy emphasis on alignment on a grand scale, while still allowing you to play you character in shades of grey. I like the idea of good, evil, law, chaos, and balance ("nuetral") being actual forces vying for control over the multiverse. The alignment system is part of what distinguished D&D from other rpgs. Seemingly, the current batch of folks at wotc are the type of D&D players who hate the alignment system, and there are plenty of those. I'm just not one.
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I liked the "soul slavers" idea presented, but it still begs the question of why then would devils appear on the material plane at all, if they can just run into Shadowherever and scoop them up by the score.
Of course its just brainstorming ideas for myself but I've been thinking on a couple reasons.
A. bargained souls hold more power for the devils than one beaten and stolen.
B. Perhaps the Devils can't enter Shadowfell except only briefly to collect a soul after death which belongs to them through a bargain on the material plane. Then, while they are there they snatch as many as they can before they have to leave.
Like I said though, this is just me brianstorming stuff for my own amusement. We don't really know how anything "officially" will work through the simple teaser. But if they leave it pretty vague, I'm gonna have a lot of fun with it.
kinda like alignment languages.
Bring back alignment languages!!
evilspeak.. EVILSPEAK!!!!!!!!
The ancient greek afterlife was just a shadow realm where everyone wandered around doing nothing. Except for those who were punished. No reward, only punishment.Sounds like my current job.
You work for Tartarus, Inc. too? Which department? I'm in Sysiphean IT myself. It's been a long, hard slog, let me tell you, but I think I've almost reached the top.
This, I can stand. If they're going to muck around with the cosmology, having their own to fiddle with is a much better idea than screwing up the wheel. Will make things interesting if they plan on reviving ravenloft, greyhawk, or planescape, all of which are tied to some extent to the great wheel.
As for the new cosmology itself, it's not particularly good or bad, but it has all the elements it needs. Having a faerie realm as "core" is probably the best feature it has over the great wheel. Nearly every campaign I've done has had a demiplane of fey. It's neat to see a less abstract take on the elemental planes, and there's room for divine realms. They really should have printed this article before the demons and devils article. While I still feel that the flavor of demons and devils has been excessively polarized, I would have found the article much more palatable had I known they weren't mucking around in the core cosmology.
I'd just like to add that the "elemental planes are the physical, astral planes are the mental" is much more in the spirit of 2nd edition planescape than anything published in 3rd edition about the planes, which were mostly "places to go, most of which have alignment or element traits"
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Ravenloft (as the demiplane of dread, not the standalone adventure) was always outside the great wheel, kind of a floatie turd of evil in the otherwise empty toilet of the ethereal plane.
Planescape would be fairly easy, sigil lies at the point where space and time and thought and etc etc etc curve back around and all come together. You need 37 dimensions or more, but it is there.
Meanwhile, greyhawk, as others have pointed out, isn't negated by most of this. There was always suppose to be an astral region between the outer planes, now they move relative to eachother, trather than being a big disk... does it really matter that much?
In 18 years of gaming, I have only had characters visit the astral plane twice, as a DM I possessed one NPC with a Demon... so meh, with some more meh
or if you prefer
Great wheel keep a turning,
4e books are a burnin',
rollin'
rollin'
rollin' towards 5th edition
This is my prediction:
"In 2009, (so and so) said, 'and we're really HYPED about 4.5.'s 2010 release date. We're bringing back the Great Wheel. It's going to be FUN!!!'"
~laughter~ Who knows, it might come true.
This is my prediction:
"In 2009, (so and so) said, 'and we're really HYPED about 4.5.'s 2010 release date. We're bringing back the Great Wheel. It's going to be FUN!!!'"
You mean "the great gyroscope of reality!!"
I've let it sit for a while, and I guess I just don't like it. Its actually not simple enough for me to enjoy on a visceral "lets toss out everything we knew before" kind of way. If you're going to simplify, then simplify without mercy.
I never really liked The Great Wheel concept either, actually, but I guess I like it better than this.
ooh idf they are changing alignment maybe we could add in the "wheel of morality" from Animaniacs!!
"Wheel of morality turn turn turn, show us the lessont hat we should learn."
ooh idf they are changing alignment maybe we could add in the "wheel of morality" from Animaniacs!!
"Wheel of morality turn turn turn, show us the lessont hat we should learn."
Today's lesson: chaotic evil is a good thing.
Tune in tomorrow kids!
*And here I thought no one remembered Animaniacs*