Need to flesh out a cosmology [Archive] - Wizards Community

Need to flesh out a cosmology [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Chimera245
06-17-07, 02:28 AM I'm going to start DMing a game soon, and the whole campaign setting was made up on the fly by all the other players.
While they developed the material plane really well, they left the planes almost untouched.
Now I have to fill in the gaps, and I've got severe writer's block.

I've tried to make the cosmology as simple as i can without making it boring.

The material plane sits in the middle, as usual.
It is surrounded by the elemental plane, which is a single plane that consists of all six elements (in which I include positive and negative energy). One element leads into another. Magma between Earth and Fire, Lightning between Positive and Air, etc.
That's surrounded by the outer plane, a single plane that goes in a giant ring from good to law to evil to chaos, much the same way the elemental plane does.
The ethereal and shadow planes are a little more complicated.
The Ethereal plane is the reflection of the other planes from the light of the Positive energy, and the Shadow plane is the shadow cast by the other planes from that same light, or perhaps a reflection of the darkness from the negative energy.
The Elemental plane is kinda globe-like, with positive and negative at the poles, so I tilted it, like Earth's axis (the Planet, not the Element), and in the outer plane, certain sections have only an ethereal or shadow plane at certain seasons. Like in Summer, Good has an ethereal plane, and Evil has a Shadow plane, or in fall, chaos has ethereal, and law has shadow, etc.
And naturally, the Astral plane encompasses it all.

And that's all I got. I have no idea what to actually put in the planes. I kinda envisioned the chaos section of the outer plane randomly shuffling its locations around, so any map becomes obsolete after a short while, and in the elemental plane, I saw everything slowly shifting from positive to negative energy, as it's created in positive, and destroyed in negative, (like if you built a city in the "mineral" section of the plane, it would slowly shift into the "earth" section, then into the "dust" section, then into the negative energy and cease to exist) but that would happen about on the scale of continental drift.

Can anybody point me in a direction where I can get inspiration to fill in the gaping blanks in my cosmology?
Rerecros
06-17-07, 02:52 AM Just graft on eberron's cosmology, Kythri the plane of chaos hops around a bit.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eb/20040309a
GoriceXII
06-21-07, 04:11 AM If I might make a suggestion...it might help a lot if you had a very clear idea on what deities you are using, what their relationships are and so on. Then it will be easier to figure out what planes you want to have exist in your setting.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Chimera245 06-17-07, 02:28 AM	I'm going to start DMing a game soon, and the whole campaign setting was made up on the fly by all the other players. While they developed the material plane really well, they left the planes almost untouched. Now I have to fill in the gaps, and I've got severe writer's block. I've tried to make the cosmology as simple as i can without making it boring. The material plane sits in the middle, as usual. It is surrounded by the elemental plane, which is a single plane that consists of all six elements (in which I include positive and negative energy). One element leads into another. Magma between Earth and Fire, Lightning between Positive and Air, etc. That's surrounded by the outer plane, a single plane that goes in a giant ring from good to law to evil to chaos, much the same way the elemental plane does. The ethereal and shadow planes are a little more complicated. The Ethereal plane is the reflection of the other planes from the light of the Positive energy, and the Shadow plane is the shadow cast by the other planes from that same light, or perhaps a reflection of the darkness from the negative energy. The Elemental plane is kinda globe-like, with positive and negative at the poles, so I tilted it, like Earth's axis (the Planet, not the Element), and in the outer plane, certain sections have only an ethereal or shadow plane at certain seasons. Like in Summer, Good has an ethereal plane, and Evil has a Shadow plane, or in fall, chaos has ethereal, and law has shadow, etc. And naturally, the Astral plane encompasses it all. And that's all I got. I have no idea what to actually put in the planes. I kinda envisioned the chaos section of the outer plane randomly shuffling its locations around, so any map becomes obsolete after a short while, and in the elemental plane, I saw everything slowly shifting from positive to negative energy, as it's created in positive, and destroyed in negative, (like if you built a city in the "mineral" section of the plane, it would slowly shift into the "earth" section, then into the "dust" section, then into the negative energy and cease to exist) but that would happen about on the scale of continental drift. Can anybody point me in a direction where I can get inspiration to fill in the gaping blanks in my cosmology?
Rerecros 06-17-07, 02:52 AM	Just graft on eberron's cosmology, Kythri the plane of chaos hops around a bit. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eb/20040309a
GoriceXII 06-21-07, 04:11 AM	If I might make a suggestion...it might help a lot if you had a very clear idea on what deities you are using, what their relationships are and so on. Then it will be easier to figure out what planes you want to have exist in your setting.