Rebuilding the great wheel

I feel that now is a good time to re-examine the planes from a holistic perspective. What is their purpose? What role do they serve in an ongoing campaign? Are they interesting places to visit? What would it take to run planar adventures starting from level one? Could the great wheel benefit from some streamlining?

This blog is a vehicle for my own elucidation of the planes and planar adventures associated with Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Old School Renaissance, and related tabletop roleplaying games. Over the past 40 years the cosmology of these games, exemplified in the Planescape campaign setting, has become eclectic and unwieldy. Numerous planes and extraplanar monsters are haphazardly thrown together with little thought to cohesion. With the publication of the Open Game License, third party publishers began publishing their own manuals of the planes (e.g. Legends & Lairs: Portals & Planes, Beyond Countless Doorways, Aether & Flux: Sailing the Traverse, Anger of Angels, Pathfinder Chronicles: The Great Beyond, Dark Roads & Golden Hells).

Here is a picture of the "Descending Stair" cosmology from Classic Play: The Book of the Planes, one of several offered models. The unique outer planes presented therein are similar to those of D&D and the PRD, yet these planes are not designed to be different flavors of afterlives, but exotic places to be adventured in (a full comparison may be read here).

As the book explains: "The Descending Stair cosmology traces the descent of energy through the cosmos (Games Masters with a religious bent could do well to research the tree of the Sephiroth). The highest plane is the Firmament, which then descends through the Questing Grounds (an engine for converting the pure energy of the divine into forms compatible with the lower cosmological regions) and the Afterworld. The next plane in the chain is the Vault of Stars, which traces the shapes of the energy’s intentions and destiny. The Astral and Dream planes form a bridge between the wholly immaterial upper planes and the more physical lower planes. The energy explodes into the lower regions in the form of the Positive Energy Plane, which then splits into the four Elemental Planes. These planes provide the raw ingredients to form the Material Plane. The Shadow Plane and evil planes are aborted regions beyond the stair."

This cosmology and other 3pp source books will be the basis of a following series of posts depicting a holistic cosmology for 3.x/d20/OGL fantasy role playing. That said, the cosmology should be applicable to OSR games as well.

Fantasy space travel
Since my cosmology doesn't make an arbitrary distinction between mundane and magical phenomena, I will be adopting the fantasy space travel mechanics from the 3.x/d20/OGL 3pp source book Aether & Flux: Sailing the Traverse. Here, outer space is filled with a background field known as "aether" and sails treated with "flux" will propel ships through this medium.

How aether and flux interact with the Ethereal Sea will be important. I don't want to duplicate planes, so I am thinking that beyond the lunar orbit of the world the distinction between the material and the ethereal sea ceases to apply.

Other models of the planes (may be used?)

• Descending Stair from Book of the Planes
• Ethereal Sea from Beyond Countless Doorways
• Fantasy space travel from Aether & Flux
• Condensed Heaven and Hell from Anger of Angels
• Solar system model from Blood & Treasure
• Wayfarers realms and reduction of elemental planes to energy channels
• ACKS Auran Empire's chthonic darkness vs empyrean heaven
• Labyrinth Lord lawful, chaotic, and neutral planes
• Beyond the lunar sphere there is no distinction between the Ethereal Sea and the outer space traversed by aether ships (see Aether & Flux: Sailing the Traverse).
• The aether traversed by aether ships is the same as the element of aether (see Pathfinder Bestiary 5)
• Ethereal Plane + Astral Plane = Ethereal Sea (see Beyond Countless Doorways)
• Ethereal Sea is divided into the Border Ethereal (SRD Ethereal) and the Deep Ethereal (SRD Astral)
• Astral Plane = Faerie Land (see The Little People Bastion Press' Faeries)
• Faerie is divided into a number of Preternatural Planes (see The Faerie Ring) floating within the Astral.
• Purgatorium (see Purgatorium: Seasons of the Soul) exists in the Astral Plane between the Circle of Judgement and the Material Plane.

A Brief Explanation of the Seven Major Planes of the Universe(?)

• Material: the world that we all live in. It consists of numerous stars floating in an endless vacuum, often orbited by planets that sometimes harbor life. In the "dark tapestry" between the stars lurk unimaginable terrors. Spooky, no?
• Ethereal Sea: the interstitial fluid of the universe, through which it possible to travel from one plane to another. Floating within are innumerable demiplanes and all manner of strange creatures stalk the silver skies.
• Shadowfell: a pale reflection of the material, also known as the shadow lands and the dark world. At the centers sits the mouth of oblivion, the source of negative (or necrotic) energy.
• Elemental Chaos: a twisting, churning morass of platonic ideals and the basic building blocks of reality. Every possibility is embodied here and all life ultimately owes its existence to this chaos.
• Utopia: the plane of perfect order that gives form and definition to all of existence. Law is locked in constant battle with chaos, but both are required for life to exist.
• Heaven: the upper planes of goodness, light and everything nice. Here lies the peaceful afterlife for the good little girls and boys, the holy mountain where the celestial hosts train for battle, and the mythic lands made of living stories where the fey lords hold court.
• Hell: the lower planes of evil, darkness and everything naughty. Here lies the manifold abyssal plains and their deathly decadent courts. All manner of fiends dance and kill and jockey with one another for power and souls.