So, what does everyone think about this?
Hmmm, not one, but two worlds that mirror our own reality? Sounds a little redundant.
Articles like this again make me wonder if there's going to be a compeltely brand spanking new campaign world in which the cosmology works this way, and if so: Why?
Contributor
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I suspect that they are ditching alignments, as others have said in other threads, and this is one manifestation of that.
Similarly, they are simplifying things. All elementals now come from one place, so blurry elemental creatures automatically have a home without needing to resort to para and quai elemental planes. I suspect that they are basically grouping all outsiders into smaller groups, giving them homes, and calling it a day.
Personally I kind of like this blurrier planar structure, but I'm not havilly invested in the old cosmology as I don't run many plane-hopping adventures. I know other people will feel differently.
As for multiple planes mirroring the Prime Material, that's already the case AFAIK.
I think that this structure looks a lot more like the Eberron cosmology than the great wheel.
Could someone post the entire article again for those of us without access to the D&D Insider login? Thank you.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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WotC: Incompetence is Job #1!
Secret worlds and invisible domains surround the world of the Dungeons & Dragons game. Godly dominions, elemental chaos, shadow kingdoms, and faerie realms are all part of the world. Most mortals know little of these things, but heroes are a different matter. Heroes often find that adventure calls them to distant and strange dimensions indeed.The Feywild
The closest of these alternate worlds is the Feywild, or the realm of faerie. It is an “echo” of the mortal world, a parallel dimension in which the natural features of the lands and seas are arranged in much the same configuration. If a mountain stands in a given place in the mortal world, a similar mountain stands in a corresponding place in the Feywild. However, the Feywild is not an exact reproduction. Built structures and terrains are not copied in the faerie realm, so a valley dotted with farm fields and towns in the mortal world would simply exist as untouched, unsettled woodland in the Feywild.The Feywild’s many vistas can catch your breath with beauty, but the Feywild is far from safe. Heroes visiting to Feywild might encounter:
A mossy forest glade where evil druids spill the blood of hapless travelers over the roots of the thirsting trees;
The tower of an eladrin enchanter;
A fomorian king’s castle in the dim, splendid caverns of the faerie Underdark; or
A maze of thorns in which dryad briarwitches guard an evil relic.
The Shadowfell
Just as the Feywild is an echo of the natural world, so is the Shadowfell. However, the Shadowfell mimics the mortal world in a different manner. The Shadowfell is the land of the dead, where the spirits of the deceased linger for a time in a dark reflection of their previous lives before silently fading beyond all ken. Some undead creatures are born in the Shadowfell, and other undead are bound to it, but some living beings dwell in this benighted realm.Like the Feywild, the Shadowfell also reflects the mortal world imperfectly. Towns, castles, roads, and other objects built by mortal kind exist in the Shadowfell about where they should be, but they are twisted, ruined caricatures. The shadowy echo of a thriving seaport in the mortal world might be a dilapidated, desolate port whose harbor is cluttered with the rotting hulks of shipwrecks and whose busy wharves are empty except for a few silent and furtive passersby. In the Shadowfell, heroes might venture into:
A necromancer’s tower;
The sinister castle of a shadar-kai lord, surrounded by a forest of black thorns;
A ruined city swept by long-ago plague and madness; or
The mist-shrouded winter realm of Letherna, where the fearsome Raven Queen rules over a kingdom of ghosts.
The Elemental Chaos
All of the cosmos is not tied to the mortal world as closely as the Feywild or Shadowfell. The natural world was created from the infinite expanse of the Elemental Chaos (or Tempest, or Maelstrom), a place where all fundamental matter and energy seethes. Floating continents of earth, rivers of fire, ice-choked oceans, and vast cyclones of churning clouds and lightning collide in the elemental plane.Powerful beings tame vast portions of the chaos and shape it to their own desires. Here the efreeti City of Brass stands amid a desert of burning sand illuminated by searing rivers of fire falling through the sky. In other places in the Elemental Chaos, mighty mortal wizards or would-be demigods have erected secret refuges or tamed the living elements to build their domains.
Elemental creatures of all kinds live and move through the Elemental Chaos: ice archons, magma hurlers, thunderbirds, and salamanders. The most dangerous inhabitants are the demons. In the nadir of this realm lies the foul Abyss, the font of evil and corruption from which demonkind springs. The Abyss is unthinkably vast—thousands of miles in extent—and in its maw swirl hundreds of demonic domains, elemental islands, or continents sculpted to suit the tastes of one demon lord or another. Within the Elemental Chaos, heroes might explore:
The crystalline tower of a long-dead archmage;
A grim fortress monastery of githzerai adepts;
The diseased Abyssal continent where Demogorgon rules amid ruined temples and bloodthirsty jungle beasts; or
A vast polar sea lit only by the cold glitter of icebergs and flickering auroras, in which the frozen stronghold of a frost giant warlock lies hidden.
The Astral Sea
One final extradimensional realm touches on the mortal world: the Astral Sea. If the Elemental Chaos is the manifestation of physicality, the Astral Sea is a domain of the soul and mind. The divine realms, the dominions of the gods, drift within Astral Sea’s unlimited silver deeps. Some of these are realms of glory and splendor—the golden peak of Mount Celestia, the verdant forests of Arvandor…. Others belong to dark powers, such as the Nine Hells where Asmodeus governs his infernal kingdom. A few astral dominions lie abandoned, the ruined heavens and hells of gods and powers that have fallen.Only the mightiest of heroes dare venture into the dominions of the gods themselves. In the Astral Sea, heroes may find:
The iron city of Dis, where the devil Dispater rules over a domain of misery and punishment in the second of the Nine Hells;
An artifact guarded by race of cursed warriors whose castle of adamantine overlooks the war-torn plains of Acheron;
The black tower of Vecna, hidden in the depths of Pandemonium; or
A dragon-guarded githyanki fortress, drifting through the silver sea.
No one is knows how many astral dominions there are. Some dominions, such as the Nine Hells, are the size of worlds. Others are no larger than cities, rising like shining islets from the Astral Sea. Several dominions have been ruined or abandoned, usually because the gods who made them were destroyed or forgotten. What sorts of treasures—or perils—might slumber in such places, only learned sages could say.
None of this comes as a surprise. I assumed, after reading the devils and demons article, that they'd probably go this route. I don't hate the design and I think it probably makes a lot of sense if your guiding principle is "simplification."
That said, I think it's a rather flavorless approach that, by abandoning concepts that have existed in the game for 30+ years, makes 4E unintelligible to people familiar with previous editions. I expect that's a feature rather than a bug, but I lament it all the same.
Oh well.
Much obliged, Sebastian.
Hmm. Very reminiscent of the whole Umbra/Ars Magica setup, and definitely much less interesting than the Great Wheel. Simplify the rules, not the setting, Wizards!
Suckiest bunch of suck that ever sucked!
(Ok, it's not that bad. Just not the D&D I want to play.)
(Ok, it's not that bad. Just not the D&D I want to play.)
Indeed. Not that bad, but not for me.
I like it. The old stuff is their. THe fey and shadow realms seem ethreal to me. The astral plane is important again, being the vast ocean which connects the prime with the realm of the gods, and one another. Originally the great wheel was an abstract representation of the outer plane realms, which mirrored the moral/ ethical alignment scheme. Originally the astral plane was the link between these realms. The new cosmology represents that idea better than previous cosmology schemes, which followed the original AD&D Dungeon Master Guide.
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Hmmm..I will at least say that it is definitely different.
I do like the idea of the Feywild, as I'm a big fan of that kind of myth and kind of thought that it wasn't used enough 3.5E, even though that edition has plenty of fey creatures.
As for the Shadowfell , I'm of mixed feelings. I've always liked the Plane of Shadow as a dark, twisted reflection of the Material Plane. Combining it with the land of the dead is interesting. I think it retarded, though, that they are implying that all spirits of the deceased go there when they die and then fade "beyond all ken". If that is the case, then the people in the world can act however they want without fear of consequences in the afterlife. What would be the point of heroism?
While I can at least find something good about the first two, the next one, once again in my own opinion, is just idiotic. It seems they took every elemental, para-elemental, quasi-elemental, and energy plane and combined it all with the Abyss. No more infinite layers. No more Abysm, Demonweb Pits, Zionyn, or that eternal classic Yeenoghu's Realm.
Everything that was left over was chucked into the astral plane, which kind of works. Except for the ethereal plane, looks like that went the way of the dodo.
All in all, this makes me no more enthusiasitc about 4E than anything else they've done. I see a few cool ideas, but for the most part it just seems that they are changing things for the sake of change.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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For some reason this doesn't really bother me so much.
I'd rather the Great Wheel be put away than defiled by people who don't like it, and it looks like you can fit most of the coolest elements of the D&D planar cosmology into this relatively easily. I can imagine the war between the obyriths and the eladrin and the archomentals and the Wind Dukes in the Age Before Ages taking place in the Elemental Tempest, and it looks like we get to keep most of the Abyss essentially as written (minus succubi).
We'll be coming up with something different for Pathfinder, but this is a lot less odious than I'd been fearing, truth be told.
--Erik
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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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.
It's a highly creative cosmology that has lots of potential...
...BUT IT SHOULD NOT BE CORE
agreed, totally.
it worked just fine in EBERRON, (where it belongs), but in general D&D... :(
it's like losing an old friend, but on the bright side making peace with it hasn't been that difficult.
naturally, if i should ever feel inclined to run 4E i will not be using the cosmology.
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The same could be said of real life...
If that is the case, then the people in the world can act however they want without fear of consequences in the afterlife. What would be the point of heroism?
True, but even most older mythology and real world religion had some kind of afterlife where the dead could go for their punishment or reward. This doesn't sound like they have that, which in turn leads to the question of the gods in 4E. If all "spirits of the deceased linger for a time in a dark reflection of their previous lives before silently fading beyond all ken", then does this mean that the gods and their clerics are meaningless in 4E? Why obey or worship the gods when it won't make a difference in the end? If you take the gods out of the equation, then their clerics (and any divine magic users for that matter), are no longer necessary.
Like all things 4E, I guess we just need more info on this before a truly informed judgement can be made. We just have to wait while until the Overlords of the Coast decide to reveal more information to us lowly fools.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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"spirits of the deceased linger for a time in a dark reflection of their previous lives before silently fading beyond all ken", then does this mean that the gods and their clerics are meaningless in 4E? Why obey or worship the gods when it won't make a difference in the end? If you take the gods out of the equation, then their clerics (and any divine magic users for that matter), are no longer necessary.
I figured "beyond all ken" meant no one knows what happens, not that they cease to exist. Probably the gods and their believers claim such spirits go on to a paradise as a result of their service. Just because you can't drive a put-put car to heaven doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I've never been a fan of being able to visit heaven. It begs the question - why leave once you get there?
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I figured "beyond all ken" meant no one knows what happens, not that they cease to exist. Probably the gods and their believes claim such spirits go on to a paradise.
I've never been a fan of being able to visit heaven. It begs the question - why leave once you get there?
Good points all around. I will say, the whole thing is not as bad as it could have been. As Erik said up above, at least this seems to lend itself easily to converting back to the Great Wheel if that is your choice.
And actually, the possibility of clerics and the gods being less important isn't that bad for me. In the Iron Heroes system they didn't even have divine magic, and I was OK with that. Perhaps they are moving to adopting a similar system here.
Still, I do worry that the whole point of the 4E fluff changes will soon become "If it ain't broke, fix it until it is."
As for the idea of there not being anything to look forward to after death, it's not like that there is no precedent for such a thing. Not all real world religions say that you are rewarded in the afterlife... Judaism for example is very much about leading a spiritually fulfilling life on Earth and that life in itself is its own reward.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Good points all around. I will say, the whole thing is not as bad as it could have been. As Erik said up above, at least this seems to lend itself easily to converting back to the Great Wheel if that is your choice.And actually, the possibility of clerics and the gods being less important isn't that bad for me. In the Iron Heroes system they didn't even have divine magic, and I was OK with that. Perhaps they are moving to adopting a similar system here.
Still, I do worry that the whole point of the 4E fluff changes will soon become "If it ain't broke, fix it until it is."
It will definitely take some getting used to. I hate the White Wolf umbra, and to the extent it is as fuzzy as that, I will be disatisifed in my own way. You raise a good point about the gods though - if they can still be encountered and yet the final afterlife cannot, it brings into question their actual power level...
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You raise a good point about the gods though - if they can still be encountered and yet the final afterlife cannot, it brings into question their actual power level...
I didn't see anything in the article which prevented the afterlife from being reached. Just need to think outside the box.
Die....go to Shadowfell.
What is keeping the gods from plucking their favored from the place?
Be just and holy to a cause and you may end up hitching a ride to your god's abode. If not.....fade into oblivion after awhile to lament your faithless life.
I like it and it works.
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Creative Director
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I've mostly gotten over my initial gut-reaction to the Demons/Devils and there/not there succubi. And this new multiverse doesn't really bother me much at all. It's good that there's something about outer planes still in 4th edition, and in a weird kind of way, them going with something new instead of sticking with a variant of the Great Wheel is a little liberating, since it's now to a point where I feel that they're saying "here's a multiverse you can use if you don't have one, but it doesn't have 30 years of history and inertia so you don't HAVE to use it."
Or maybe I've just got 4E Anouncement Fatigue.
Or maybe I've just got 4E Anouncement Fatigue.
I would say that that is probably more the case.
Or maybe I've just got 4E Anouncement Fatigue.
I'm in that park - and I haven't even been paying attention to the announcements.
Maybe Wizards would be doing everyone a big favor by not making announcements for a while.
That said, if you know and love The Big Tire, it doesn't matter if it's core or not. Play it your way.
And my thanks too, Sebastion, for posting the article.
Or maybe I've just got 4E Anouncement Fatigue.
amen
Looks good to me. I disagree with the sentiment that the Great Wheel was more flavoursome, unless by flavour you mean "throw every single ingredient you own into the pot and see what happens." The Great Wheel had to be worked at extremely hard by dedicated writers before it even started to make sense, because it was badly conceived in the first place. It seriously seemed like planar cosmology in 1E was added as an afterthought to explain where demons come from and where the different alignments go after death, and then they were stuck with it because they couldn't be bothered thinking of something new. Every time a new need arose, they just invented a new plane or demiplane and jammed it in somewhere. Call me stickler for efficiency, but that doesn't really seem the optimal way to build a cosmology.
This one at least has the feel of a unified cosmology, like the sort one would find in a real world culture. Now if you need something new you can still invent it, but it will be part of an overarching framework so you know straight away where everything you might invent will fit. New demigod's domain/devil realm = Astral Sea, crazy time travelling archmage's tower = elemental plane, vampire lord's castle = shadowfell. I think its important to start simple and work from there.
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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.
Yeah, I'm kind of wondering if this isn't an actual strategy here. Post the stuff you know won't go over well, wear out everyone's reserves of ill will, then release some stuff that isn't stellar, but is at least workable, and by comparison, it looks brilliant.
So that eventually, even though some decent stuff seems to be coming out, you end up so far away from the core question (i.e. why change some of this stuff to begin with) that you forget that this stuff didn't need to be changed in the first place.
Its actually pretty well played, if you can ignore the annoying blog posts.
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I've mostly gotten over my initial gut-reaction to the Demons/Devils and there/not there succubi. And this new multiverse doesn't really bother me much at all [...]Or maybe I've just got 4E Anouncement Fatigue.
I'm heading in that direction, as well, but I can't seem to shake a feeling of deep depression that the shared D&D/Greyhawk/Planescape mythos I've grown to cherish is slipping further and further away. I'm psyched about new rules (we'll see how long they last before being destroyed by intentional rules bloat again) and, I'll admit, intrigued by some of the new fluff. But it ain't Hommlet and Maure Castle and Sigil and Graz'zt and Malcanthet.
To tell the truth, I'd feel much better if there were at least hints that someone was planning a 4E Greyhawk campaign setting undoing all the 4E fluff. I just can't think of who could be trusted to do such a thing ... ;)
Could someone post the entire article again for those of us without access to the D&D Insider login? Thank you.
Flip Flop Flippity Flop Flop Flippity Flop
Boy, you play every angle. Tomorrow you'll say 4.0 sucks because there's only one color of Dragon.
What the Heck! THat last post was in Response to Sebastions "I Love It."
Could someone post the entire article again for those of us without access to the D&D Insider login? Thank you.Flip Flop Flippity Flop Flop Flippity Flop
Boy, you play every angle. Tomorrow you'll say 4.0 sucks because there's only one color of Dragon.
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What the Heck! THat last post was in Response to Sebastions "I Love It."
ah, you hit the incorrect "reply"
and I figure Sebastian has the same right to react to each thing we find out as we see fit that the rest of us do.
Unimpressed by a fey realm that matches the size of the real world. Indeterminite distance is a pretty key part of most faerie realms in fantasy.
In the mythologies I'm familiar with it's the rate at which time passes, or is perceived to pass, that differs from the mortal realm. Hence someone trying to take a trip into the faerie realm for a night and emerging many years later or a human turning to dust upon exiting because a century has passed.
Of course, in our universe, time and space are tied together so I always figured that the fundamentals of physics are a good deal different in the faerie realm.
After the Demons & Devils article, I find this preview of the planes to be much more reassuring. I fact I'd go so far as to say that I like it.
Furthermore, this doesn't seem like such a radical departure from the Great Wheel as I'd originally thought. Previously, we had the Prime at the center being immediately bordered by/mirroring the Ethereal and Shadow planes. Each plane still had "deep" regions of course but they were basically nearby transitive planes.
In the old system, we had the elemental and positive/negative energy inner planes. Now, we have a single elemental plane wherein it would seem that the positive/negative energy planes must exist as poles with the Abyss existing at the negative pole.
When You look at the faerie and shadow planes, You could see how even they could be considered to be aligned to the energy polls (faerie having a profusion of life, shadow the taint of death). Perhaps being so close to the mortal realm, the ethereal plane is so strongly polarized by the positive and negative energy polls of the elemental plane that they are (for all intents and purposes) seperate planes. (Hmm, so might the plane of mirrors exist in between?)
Lastly, it has been the rule (rather than the exception) for the Astral plane to touch all other planes. For the divine realms/outer planes to now exist within the Astral isn't exactly a huge change.
The way I'm looking at this 4E version compared to the Great Wheel, it seems to me that the GW isn't being invalidated so much as the multiverse is being described by sages and scientists who prescribe to a different philosophy. In other words, perhaps neither system is actually how things really are but rather the best scientific theory by those who live in the D&D multiverse.
Compared to differing/competing/conflicting scientific theories about how the universe we live in came into being, this doesn't seem quite so strange as the demons & devils article originally led me to think it would be...
Judaism for example is very much about leading a spiritually fulfilling life on Earth and that life in itself is its own reward.
Uh, exactly which Judiasm are You thinking of here? The Hebrews most certainly believed in an afterlife. What do You think Sheol and Paradise are?
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 the DMV
There goes my super adventure The Shadow Keep I was hoping to eventually find a home for. Looks like WotC has beaten me to it with Keep on the Shadwfell, or at least close enough to invalidate mine. Dammit!
I dig it alright. It makes me think of the Elric of Melnibone sagas, who I have always thought of as the coolest multiplanar hero...
There goes my super adventure The Shadow Keep I was hoping to eventually find a home for. Looks like WotC has beaten me to it with Keep on the Shadwfell, or at least close enough to invalidate mine. Dammit!
My Ice Age Campaign world is called Shadowfell. I'm positive one of those WotC people hacked into my computer. ;-)
I was initially gobsmacked by the change to the planes, but have since digested it and am now nonplussed. I do wonder whether the ethereal plane is going to disappear though, since there is no mention of it in the article.
Well, when I read this article I had the same feeling that I got during much of the other articles:
"Wow, we've ditched the iconic DnD feel because couldn't make it work better, but we weren't creative enough to come up with anything compelling...."
I'm honestly afraid that these sweeping flavor and mechanic changes will destroy DnD as a hobby shared by people all over the world where you could sit down to a stranger's game and kinda know the rules.
We're going back to the bad old days where every game was a mishmash of homebrew rules and settings and every game was a new edition of the rules.
So sad.
They should wise up to this one basic fact: the fantasy section of the book store has almost as many settings as books. A good rules system, good art, and fun things like minis are all we want. If you want to push your ideas about the setting you want to play in, write a book and CONVINCE people to fall in love with it.... don't hinge the whole hobby on your setting.
We like the default DnD setting. Who the hell are you to change it?