Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Meldread 06-21-07, 08:39 PM	Since the Great Tree has been released with 3.0 it's met mostly with negative reviews for obvious reasons. However, I am interested in the thoughts and opinions people here on which Cosmology (the make up of the planes and how they interact and work - not the deities themselves) people here think is more interesting? If you had the following choice put before you, which would you choose? WotC has come to you and said that they are going to give the Forgotten Realm's its own cosmology. However, they are evenly split between those who want to go with an Eberron-style Cosmology and those who favor the current Great Tree Cosmology. You are the deciding vote. Which do you pick? For those unfamiliar with the Eberron Cosmology click here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eb/20040309a).
MarkusTay63 06-21-07, 08:45 PM	Eberron Cosmology is even more restrictive then the Tree, and anything that inteferes with a DMs ability to hand-tailor his campaign is always a bad thing. I do like the fact that planes can become 'in conjunction' with others, making it easier to travel between them. But aside from that little point, I don't really care for the Cosmology looking like a solar system. Meh. Maybe its just because its 'NEW'. :P
XHereticX 06-21-07, 08:50 PM	Great Tree vs Great Atom....tough still, I really don't know crap about the Eberron cosmology besides that the planes often interlope onto the prime material as well. Well, Tree for me any day, the Atom dosen't have enpugh planes for one, does not fit with the Realms whatsoever, and lacks the two planes I can't live without, Abyss and Nine Hells. And Asmodeus, demo, as well as the Baern aren't the big bad guys in the Atom, those weird khyber lords or whatever they are called are.
Meldread 06-21-07, 09:11 PM	For me personally I'm slightly more inclined toward the Eberron Cosmology. I don't really like the things in it just the DESIGN of it. I like how the planes shift and move around and I like the concept of a plane being somewhat like the phases of the moon where they are coterminous, waxing/waning, or remote. For me I can just imagine some planes freely floating through the Astral Plane, occasionally bumping into one another and beings spilling off onto one and onto another. The Realm's has so many interlopers from races to deities I can just imagine the rare occasion as one plane touches the Torillion Material Plane and Elves stepping over from Faerie. My problem with the Great Tree is that it just feels like it was contrived to be the bastard child of the Great Wheel but at the same time the World Tree Yggdrasil from Norse Mythology. It just does not seem to fit together very well. The Eberron Cosmology also feels slightly more flexible because I could conceivably add and remove planes without really changing things all that much. (Although I could be wrong about that, I'm not an expert on Eberron, its lore or its Planes.)
Mr_Miscellany 06-21-07, 09:46 PM	I'd pick the Tree for the Realms, simply because the Tree was designed for the Realms and Ebb's Cosmology was specifically designed for Eberron. I really like what Ebb's Cosmology is and does (it makes the planes relevant, but without having to go to them to experience them), but it's not a fit for the Realms. :)
Gray Richardson 06-21-07, 11:51 PM	I love the Great Tree. I would pick it over Eberron's cosmology (which I do think is interesting and works great for Eberron) and I even prefer the Tree over the Great Wheel. I love the metaphor of a dynamic, living cosmology that can grow new planes, or cast off old and dying planes like fallen leaves. The Tree cosmos can branch and fork. Interloper planes can become attached like a grafted limb. As a cosmology, the Tree really works well for the unique cultures and history of the Realms. :g:
Meldread 06-22-07, 12:13 AM	I am in some ways glad that FR got its own cosmology. My major problem with the Great Tree, aside from invalidating past lore, is that it just doesn't seem unique to the Forgotten Realm's. It feels as if it was only a halfhearted effort. They just took various bits and parts from the Great Wheel, grafted them onto the Great Tree, and said, "Here there you go." It doesn't FEEL unique or separate. That is my largest problem with it. There really is no explanation as to why a being such as Asmodeus exists in both the Great Wheel AND the Great Tree. It wouldn't be so bad if you could ignore the past lore linking the Realm's to other settings still within the Great Wheel, which also have Asmodeus present. I would have preferred if, when they reconned the Cosmology, they had decided to recon the various planes to make them more Realms centric as well.
XHereticX 06-22-07, 09:04 AM	It doesn't FEEL unique or separate. That is my largest problem with it. There really is no explanation as to why a being such as Asmodeus exists in both the Great Wheel AND the Great Tree. ll. That is why we have Gray isn't it?;) I kind of agree with you here however, the Tree is just like: "Hey, lets take the wheel, chop it up into little pieces, remake it into a different shape (but keep those 3 fiendish pieces the same, oh, nevermind, mix the Waste and Gehenna), put it on a different wallpaper, and throw in some last-second made lore/adjustments, and Bonzai! a new cosmology." Yeah, it just seems like a messed-up demented hippie child of the Wheel sometimes. Still, like Gray, I like the whole idea of living, dying, breathing planes that seem to change with the prime itself. Its an active, dynamic cosmology that offers great adventuring opportunities. As much as I would want the Wheel back still, if we get stuck with a tree, then make the most of it I say. Wizards however, has not been cooperative... :(
Kid SixXx 06-22-07, 09:39 AM	Eberron Cosmology is even more restrictive then the Tree, Other than critters showing up on planes where you wouldn't expect them to if you prefer the Great Wheel (ie. devils located on planes loosely associated with their traditional surroundings in the Hells, ex. "fire" devils in Fernia, rather than there just being a Nine Hells), what is so restrictive about Eberron's Cosmology? All of the Eberron planes are still infinitely big, so you can stuff whatever denizens you like on them, and you can travel to them arguably easier than you can in the FR, save for Dal Quor which is never coterminous with Eberron because of the Quori / Giant War. There are also no confirmed gods in Eberron, so that's more space on the planes you can use for whatever else you want to put on them. The planes are only "restrictive" if you prefer planewalking campaigns, which brings me to my next point. The only thing that annoys me about the Cosmology is that Khyber (ie. Eberron "Underdark") always gets the planar castoffs, so I am under the impression that Khyber must either be really big, or really crowded with imprisoned uberplanar beings. A majority of the big action of the setting occurs in Eberron. If you're used to your character "graduating" from thumping orcs to fighting demons, and use the planes as your rite of passage to the Epic game, then Eberron isn't the setting for you. The vast majority of Epic or High-Level encounters in the setting still occur on or under the surface of Eberron. The existance of Khyber & the role it plays really sorta shoots planewalker campaigns in the foot. There's no real motivation to run a planewalking campaign when all of the planar BBEG's wind up being imprisoned underground in Eberron. The whole point of really great planar campaigns (ie. Queen of the Demonweb Pits, the finale of the Savage Tide Adventure Path in Dungeon magazine) is to beat the BBEG on his / her home turf and then beat feet back to your home plane before all hell breaks loose. Can't happen in Eberron since both the Daelkyr and the Rajahs of the Lords of Dust lie in wait in Khyber and not on another plane in the Eberron cosmology.
MarkusTay63 06-22-07, 10:24 AM	Eberron's planes only connect to Eberron, thats whats so restrictive. Also, they can only be traveled to and from at certian times, but that part I kinda like. When FR was connected to the Wheel (which it still is, through Sigil) it just felt more 'limitless'. There are a couple of planes I think that are still the same as the wheel ones, so its not quite as bad as Eberron in that regard. I'm a big fan of the Eternal Champion, World of Tiers, and Chronicals of Amber series; I like my multi-verse all inter-connected.
Kid SixXx 06-22-07, 10:35 AM	Eberron's planes only connect to Eberron, thats whats so restrictive. I'm a big fan of the Eternal Champion, World of Tiers, and Chronicals of Amber series; I like my multi-verse all inter-connected. While that stings of bias, I am also similarly biased because I love the Eternal Champion books. I am also not terribly fond of the the lack of interconnectivity between Eberron planes, and that is yet another deterrant from running a traditional planewalking campaign in Eberron. Even so, one of Keith's primary philosophies in setting design is "redline." Getting someplace may be half the fun in real life, but in RPG's it can be pretty tedious. Sometimes random encounters can be worthwhile and sometimes they can just bog down a gaming session. The cosmology design, the Lighting Rail & Airships (which seem to draw lots of fire here) are all just plot devices to get you from here to there in a respectable timeframe so that you can get to the primary story elements of your campaign without dwelling too much on incidentals.
Alediran 06-22-07, 10:35 AM	The way I handle the Great Treee/Wheel allows me to use both without destroying anything. Great Wheel = high part of a tree (I don't know that word, sorry) Great Tree = rest of the tree. Planes who are the same (or have some kind of connection, like Arvandor with Arborea) in both cosmologies are linked together directly, for example, you can go from Toril to the Nine Hells and from there to any plane on the Wheel. Sigil is the highest leaf of this. This approach from a side point of view is something like this: Sigil Great Wheel Great Tree Toril From this point of view it seems as if Toril fell from the center of the Wheel (where the material plane is located on that cosmology), trying to grab on some planes to avoid complete disconnection from them and that is why there are similar or sub-planes on both cosmologies (it could be linked to the ToT as the changes made by AO to enforce his rules in some way, it also works as the reason for why psionics changed the way they worked after ToT).
XHereticX 06-22-07, 11:00 AM	I don't know too much about The Great Atom(what I call the Eberron cosmology). Despite my opposition to anything Eberron, I would be interested in learning the mechanics of that cosmology in help in creating new systems for homebrew, anyone have any good links?
Kid SixXx 06-22-07, 11:08 AM	I don't know too much about The Great Atom(what I call the Eberron cosmology). Despite my opposition to anything Eberron, I would be interested in learning the mechanics of that cosmology in help in creating new systems for homebrew, anyone have any good links? Check the main Wizards website. IIRC there was once a Macromeda Flash app that animated the path of the planes around Eberron and indicated where & when temporary Manifest Zones would occur.
XHereticX 06-22-07, 11:10 AM	Check the main Wizards website. IIRC there was once a Macromeda Flash app that animated the path of the planes around Eberron and indicated where & when temporary Manifest Zones would occur. The whole way the planes move in cycles like the moon around Eberron is actually pretty cool. What are the Daelkyr by the way? Monsters from the Far Realm?
Kid SixXx 06-22-07, 11:18 AM	The whole way the planes move in cycles like the moon around Eberron is actually pretty cool. What are the Daelkyr by the way? Monsters from the Far Realm? Wikipedia will probably explain it better than I can. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daelkyr)
Meldread 06-22-07, 12:11 PM	http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eb/20040309a That is the link I made in my original post and is more or less the extent of my Eberron Planes knowledge.
XHereticX 06-22-07, 01:09 PM	cool, thanks guys:)
Francius 06-22-07, 03:04 PM	The Great Wheel cosmology (that ties virtually every campaign ever pubblished for the D&D game) and the setting that tied into it (aka Planescape) must be one the best things the D&D fictuous cosmology offered us. The Great Wheel (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/93/Planes.png)
Alac Luin 06-22-07, 11:40 PM	My issue with Eberron's cosmology is there is no inter-planes. I like the flow of the great wheel.... inter planes/elements- material plane/formed from the elements- outer planes/ formed from beliefs on material plane. Eberron's cosmology does not have this flow, at least to me. At least the Realms Great Tree retains that flow.
Kid SixXx 06-23-07, 06:56 AM	inter planes/elements- material plane/formed from the elements- The "elemental planes" are a part of the Eberron cosmology (Fernia = Elemental Plane of Fire and so forth), but they just don't serve as conduits to other planes. The "flow" is that the planes influence what happens on Eberron via manifest zones and such, and not that the planes occasionaly influence one another such as the Great Wheel.
Alac Luin 06-23-07, 05:09 PM	I'm talking about a different "flow", I might call it the "order of manifesting", of I might not, since that sounds like a cheesey term. Eberron does not have the "elemental" planes as such, sure there is "Fernia, the sea of fire" and "Syrania, the Azure Sky" that simulate the elemental planes of fire and air, and the Syrania really isn't that good of a match. Nothing seems close to the elemental planes of earth and water. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the manifest zone/Coterminous/remote aspect Eberron uses. There is just a gap in the "theological" aspect to me (which actually suites Eberron).
MarkusTay63 06-25-07, 02:37 AM	The cosmology design, the Lighting Rail & Airships (which seem to draw lots of fire here) are all just plot devices to get you from here to there in a respectable timeframe so that you can get to the primary story elements of your campaign without dwelling too much on incidentals.I LOVE the lightening Rail and the airships! They're my favorite parts. If I dislike anything, it's the 're-heated leftovers' treatment of the races - Nothing super-original there. Templates could have done the same thing. I also like the Cosmology, but ONLY for THAT setting. It just wouldn't work for FR, because the whole premise behind FR is that it is a 'long lost world' that has been "forgotten" by many of the worlds it is/was connected to. The inter-connectivity is ESSENTIAL to the setting. I wouldn't mind figuring out something that would work similar, with certain planes coming into conjunstion at different times, but that would be a lot of work to add to FR. Of course, there's the old standby of "because the DM says so". Then you don't have to figure out anything, you just TELL players they can or can't get somewhere ATM. ;) I don't know why, but ever since I went to Disney last summer I've wanted a Monorail in Cormanthor. :D
Meldread 06-25-07, 04:00 AM	I also like the Cosmology, but ONLY for THAT setting. It just wouldn't work for FR, because the whole premise behind FR is that it is a 'long lost world' that has been "forgotten" by many of the worlds it is/was connected to. The inter-connectivity is ESSENTIAL to the setting. I wouldn't mind figuring out something that would work similar, with certain planes coming into conjunstion at different times, but that would be a lot of work to add to FR. I have to agree. Of course, I am not really sure how the Realm's could be "forgotten" the place has more portals leading in and out than Sigil. :P (Of course, you can't blame the people of the Realm's for having so many portals to leave. At the rate that RSE's happen I'd want out too. :P) The only problem I have with all the inter-connectivity is the thought that the Realm's has had contact with real-world Earth. That just shatters the sense of disbelief for me. I like to think of all the so-called "real world" cultures that arrived in the Realm's were just other fictional places... but even so the use of real-world deities is also jarring for that same reason. Erm. I think I stepped off topic. Markus if you had to redesign Toril's cosmology and you couldn't use the Tree or the Wheel and had to create something unique... what would you create? ;)
XHereticX 06-25-07, 08:54 AM	Totally agree with you there Markus, every new cosmology is unique in its own way to its own campaign setting and works only in that setting and works well. I think that is one of the reasons WoTC did this whole new cosmlogies rush, to create a cosmology that best reflects the background and spirit of each setting (plus the fact that the authors wanted to go god-shooting:D ). The Wheel is great, but I still think that it sometimes just dosen't feel right with certain worlds and stuff.
ClobberinTime 06-27-07, 04:05 PM	At first I kind of liked both the great tree and the eberron cosmology, but then both started to bother me. The Eberron cosmology while cool in theory ends up being a real mish mash, where they went wrong was in making everything core=eberron. It just kills the aberations like Mind Flayers, or really any funky monster ends up being they serve the Daelkyr, well half the monsters in the monster manual serve the Daelkyr, and the other half serve the lords of dust, not alot of variety. The great tree is the same way only on a smaller scale, The FR has so many portals, planar invasions, etc.. etc... it might as well be the astral plane. In the wheel it all makes sense, but in the tree, no way. Here is my task: Try and figure out why the hell its taking the githyanki so long to find their homeworld in the great tree cosmology. Where the heck was the Mind Flayers Empire, etc... etc.... The wheel is great, the wheel is good, the wheel should have never been tampered with.....
MarkusTay63 06-27-07, 05:42 PM	Clobber, the wheel didn't go away, it just became harder to reach. The way I see it, after the ToT, Ao has been actively, yet subtlely, working on people 'forgetting' about him (thats canon). We can extrapolate a little further, and figure he wants people to forget about many of the 'inner workings' of the gods that they had learned during the ToT. That, plus his edict of more involement between gods and mortals (worship-wise) has lead me to believe that the Great Tree is nothing more then a new concept fostered unto the minds of unwitting Torilians. Gods, because of their new greater need for mortal worship, all have direct links from Abeir-Toril to their Realms. Using the Wheel is no longer required, and the memory of it is slowly being lost to mortal minds in FR. If one were to 'walk-through' a gods Realm, and out the 'back door', you would find yourself on the Wheel once more. It never left, it is just one more thing 'forgotten' in the Realms. ;) Thats just MY take on things, but remember this - GH STILL exists, and is the DEFAULT setting for D&D, and it uses the Wheel! Since you can still travel to GH via the Plane of Shadows, then the Great Wheel STILL most definately exists in the same universe as FR. @Meldread - I made-up my own 'simplified' cosmology awhile back. It was sort of a mini-Wheel, with only nine planes, one for each Alignment. The Elvish Pantheon ruled one, the Dwarves another, etc... all the multi-spheric powers (demihuman) had their own layer on a plane, as did the multispheric humanoid gods. It was very simplified, and you can view a picture of it HERE. (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/50183786/) Each of the lower Planes has three layers, giving us nine Hells, and the Upper Planes have a total of seven Layers, hence 'Seven Heavens'. I also tried to 'line-up' the various lower layers - the Frozan layers on one level, and the 'Oceanic' layers on another, so that sideways travel between layers on different planes is possible (something you can't do on the true Wheel). Asmodeus rules Baator, Lucifer (Hades) the Grey Waste, and Satan the Abyss. However, both defer to Asmodeus in his true Ahriman form (weird, I know, because of the Blood War). Devils come from Baator, Demons from the Abyss, and Loths from the Grey Waste. Modrons run Mechanus/Nirvana, and the Slaad run Limbo. The Celstial (Archons, Angels, and Gaurdinals) dwell in the Upper Planes. Therefore, each plane has a 'native' race, and each is also associated with a multi-spheric pantheon, although in some cases these pantheons are no longer 'functional'. The domains of local gods/pantheons are NOT located on my Wheel, and are tied to their individual homeworlds, floating in the Astral, Ethereal, or Shadow. The cosmologies, like the Great Tree or Eberron's 'Atom', are nothing more then mortals way of illustrating their universe, and is irrelevant. Thats it in a nutshell, but I no longer really think in terms of it - instead I just use the Tree now (as I explained in in my response to Clobber). I have no idea how to work in Eberron's "Coterminous" planes, or the whole "waxing and waning" thing. I would simply state that at certain times certain planes were easier to reach. Perhaps they could be the 'holy days' of certain religions in FR, like Earth's "All Hallow's Eve' being a day when demons can travel to earth easier. Perhaps give some bonus to summoning certain creatures, while at other times penalties would be required. Perhaps there could even be times where reaching certain planes would be impossible, but like I said, that would require quite a bit of work for the DM to work out ahead of time. It would make for an interesting project, however. ;)