No more ethreal plane. Its gone.
The black as a part of the shadowfell? How do you think this should be handled?
The elemental planes become the elemental chaos and those vorticie thingies (whatever they are called) worm like things connected to the sorcererkings are actually from the elemental chaos instead of the ethreal plane?
The astral plane becomes the astral sea, how will this affect darksun?
The feywild? Nuffsaid? How will this work?
What will happen with the gray?
Eberron gives us hope since its planar structure was left intact with only the addition to the new 4e planes. Also the core gods are not gods in eberron, just powerful beings or immortals. So if core gods are injected into DS, will they be considered advanced beings? Great powers from beyond? We also have primordials who are basically the gods of the elemental chaos. (elemental lords?) and Primal Spirits who could easily be the most powerful and oldest of the spirits of the land.
Thoughts? Ideas? Opinions? Doomsaying? Flames? Heres the place to do so.;)
The feywild could be a depleted and spotty plane with tenuous connection the Athas. Maybe that is why eladrin can only teleport 5 squares? Defilers would love portals to the feywild. Maybe the feywild is subsumed into the Athas elemental chaos.
So a cosmology which has Athas prime sitting in an elemental chaos with the black below and the Shadowfell/Gray above. No gods in Athas, so no need for an Astral Sea.
Middle planes are a little bit harder, so please wait until I'm done speaking to flog me. The Grey makes a good Shadowfell, no arguing about that. In my mind the Black makes a good Feywild. The Feywild is an intense version of the Prime, just as Shadowfell is a dull version of the prime. In the Feywild has brighter brights, but it also has darker darks. In a world where the light has been all but extinguished not just by war but by the darkest of magic, I can very well see the Feywild transforming into a plane of near darkness, where the formians rule over many all. Somewhere out there in the Prime there will be fey who fled formian rule, hiding in oasises that are themselves further disguised as mirages.
So yeah, you can flog me now, but that's how I envision it. Dark Sun is supposed to be dark, and it's a darkness that should extend not only over the planet, but also it's planes. If you want to keep feature of the Grey being a desination of failed elemental travel, then just say that as the Prime dies and the Feywild collapses in on itself, the Shadewfell swells in size, literally acting as a barrier to planar travel.
As for the Astral Sea, I see it in a barren place, but just looking at Athas you can see that just being a barren place doesn't mean there is no place to go. When I think of the new "default" planar origin applied to Athas I think of one phrase: "What would happen if the Primordial won?" So I see the Astral Sea as a dead place, with planes like Pluton and Shom being easily copied. Imagine a Pandemonium filled with insane master less angles, and of course there would be the corpses of gods everywhere. There's to vision of how Hell might be created in Athas: either Asmodeus is sitting on a throne thinking "Win the war, then betray your master. Win the war, then betray your master." or his rebellion against the gods didn't happen when they were alive, but after their death as he and other angles discarded their connection to the dead deities as a means of maintaining their sanity.
So yeah, flay me if you want to, but that's the way I envision the planes of Athas.
Plus if the Feywild would have had contact with Athas I would think it would have been discovered before now by a defiler or sorcerer-king and they would have had a field day with it. Unless it is just introduced. Then it would strike off battles to "obtain it" between the Sorcerer Kings. Or maybe it was just eraticatied by one of Rajaat's champions.
Who says they will follow the past planer ideology, especially if they are sticking close to the first box set. Unless I am missing something the only planes I can find discussed in the original boxed set where the elemental planes in the rules book under the cleric class section.
Personally, I'm kicking around an idea to tie it into Lalali-Puy in her role as "Forest Goddess", but haven't worked it out to my liking yet.
What WOULD happen if the primordials won? Like the previous posts, I believe the Astral Sea would be decimated. The gods would be destroyed or imprisoned. (Sidenote: epic campaign to find and free Moradin. dwarves finally get their revenge for being enslaved.) Primal spirits keep the primordials from destroying the world and only allow them to influence the world through proxies. The whole twisting of arcane magic to make it draw its energy from living matter could be a primordial plot to make the created destroy creation.
Atahs could also have been planned as a final redoubt for the primordials. That would explain why the gods can;t grant spells and the like there. Treat it as a reboot in effect. The original material made little to no reference to other planes apart from the elemental planes which easily becomes the Elemental Chaos.
I hadn't thought about that, but it makes a lot of sense.
Although I don't see much access to any other planes. Access was always temporary at best, and the general rule for interactions with Planescape and Spelljammer was that there was no interaction. Or it may require so much power to access the feywild and shadowfell that its out of the reach of anything short of a dragon or avangion- which would explain the easily disbelievable Githyanki invasion.
They can make the Gray a kind of planar barrier around Athas.
The Elemental Chaos is directly connect to Athas but a small barrier of Grey ''mist'' make travel to the shadowfell (The Black) tough (like a -5 on ritual roll) and the feywild/astral near impossible (like -10).
I see a wasted Feywild that can have gnome slaves and eladrin slavers in it, race that have powerful defilers.
To be honest, I'm all for keeping the feywild, astral sea, and shadowfell completely disconnected. They won't add anything to the setting except the possibility of people trying to get out of Athas onto other worlds.
I certainly don't think they need to be shoehorned in, but they need to be represented in some form to account for the mechanics of immortal, shadow, elemental, and fey creatures. I would hope they are incorporated into what already exists on Athas.
Given what the Manual of the Planes says on Parallel Planes p.8 (Shadowfell and Feywild) being strange copies of the material world, I can see the Feywild working. It could be an echo of the green or blue age or an echo of the current age, who says it the designers won't twist(possibly devistate) the Feywild like Athas is devistated compared to other more typical fantasy worlds that the current Feywild is based on.
Plus if the Feywild would have had contact with Athas I would think it would have been discovered before now by a defiler or sorcerer-king and they would have had a field day with it.
Exactly. That's why I personally think it fits better to have a devastated Feywild for Athas rather than a regular one.
How do you think it will be handled in 4e?
No more ethreal plane. Its gone.
The black as a part of the shadowfell? How do you think this should be handled?
The elemental planes become the elemental chaos and those vorticie thingies (whatever they are called) worm like things connected to the sorcererkings are actually from the elemental chaos instead of the ethreal plane?
The astral plane becomes the astral sea, how will this affect darksun?
The feywild? Nuffsaid? How will this work?
What will happen with the gray?
Eberron gives us hope since its planar structure was left intact with only the addition to the new 4e planes. Also the core gods are not gods in eberron, just powerful beings or immortals. So if core gods are injected into DS, will they be considered advanced beings? Great powers from beyond? We also have primordials who are basically the gods of the elemental chaos. (elemental lords?) and Primal Spirits who could easily be the most powerful and oldest of the spirits of the land.
Thoughts? Ideas? Opinions? Doomsaying? Flames? Heres the place to do so.;)
Hmmm...Kind of paralleling this list...
DS Planes
Athasian Plane..................................D&D Equivalent
The Gray.........................................Ethereal Plane
.....................................................Negative Energy Plane
The Black........................................Plane of Shadow
Elemental and Paraelemental Planes....Elemental Planes
.....................................................Positive Energy Plane
Deep Gray.......................................Outer Planes
The Gray.........................................Ethereal Plane
.....................................................Negative Energy Plane
The Black........................................Plane of Shadow
Elemental and Paraelemental Planes....Elemental Planes
.....................................................Positive Energy Plane
Deep Gray.......................................Outer Planes
More fuel for the Athas = Abeir fire.
Athas cannot be Abeir. Athas is in a sealed sphere. Given the number of spelljamming ships that visit Toril (or at least used to visit it during 2e), I see no way it could've gone unnoticed for so long.
And there's also the fact that Toril has an earthlike sun, and if Athas and Toril shared a sphere then Toril would have the same red sun.
*sigh*
Why is everyone going out of their ways to break one of the core points of Dark Sun, which is that it has no connection to any other plane, world, or dimension; with the exception of the elemental planes? No feywild, no shadowfell, no astral sea. None of it. Elementals don't even have permanent access- once the task they were hooked for is complete, they bounce straight back to the elemental chaos. And the clerics (shamans now) who summoned them have no way in or out of those elemental planes either.
I personally wouldn't have the Cleansing Wars spread to Feywild/Black, but instead have the defilement of the Cleansing War affect the Feywild just as it did Athas. As their forests withered, the Eladrin lost their war against the Formians. But in the Feywild the darkness is always darker then in the real world, so not only was the land barren of life, it was Hollow and essentially barren of itself.
This follows the theme of how I would envision Athas's cosmology taking shape in 4th edition. Tyranny and desolation are everywhere, not just on Athas but also on it's planes. In 2nd edition we had one outer planes, one great wheel. 4th edition's "cookie cutter" cosmology isn't like that. Athas has it's own locations in the astral sea, and while I certainly see them as dead places they are certainly still there. While I can envision lore for keeping the mechanics of the Grey impeding planar travel, it isn't a necessity anymore as long as we make every corner of it's planes just as poor off as Athas itself.
- The Black - The Shadowfell.
- The Gray - What's left of the Astral Sea after the primordials got done with it. The remaining wrecks of the astral dominions are gloomy and swarming with undead.
- The Feywild - I'd just leave it out, but like I said in another thread, I'd tolerate its inclusion if it were just as wrecked as Athas.
Athas cannot be Abeir. Athas is in a sealed sphere. Given the number of spelljamming ships that visit Toril (or at least used to visit it during 2e), I see no way it could've gone unnoticed for so long.
And there's also the fact that Toril has an earthlike sun, and if Athas and Toril shared a sphere then Toril would have the same red sun.
*sigh*
Why is everyone going out of their ways to break one of the core points of Dark Sun, which is that it has no connection to any other plane, world, or dimension; with the exception of the elemental planes? No feywild, no shadowfell, no astral sea. None of it. Elementals don't even have permanent access- once the task they were hooked for is complete, they bounce straight back to the elemental chaos. And the clerics (shamans now) who summoned them have no way in or out of those elemental planes either.
Not to be confrontational, but there are myriad references to outer planar interaction in Dark Sun literature, and even more Athas-Outer Planar connections in Planescape. Athas is mentioned by name 17 times across 6 documents from Planescape, and every one of the 2e DS books dealing with magic make reference to the interaction between Athas and other planes, not limited to the Grey, Black, and Elemental planes. The Outer Planes are mentioned in Dark Sun 2E materials 38 times spanning 12 documents, primarily in Dragon Kings, the Will and the Way, and Black Spine. About 2/5 of DS products mention the Outer Planes. Athas is not and never has been completely isolated, travel there is just extraordinarily difficult. The Grey is a difficult medium to traverse. But many beings make the trip, in one direction or the other. Some dark powers from the Outer Planes masquerade as Elementals, granting spells to followers even, via manufactured Living Conduits. It is not specified whether the Living Conduits give them the ability to receive worship energy from their followers,but most evil gods wouldn't waste the energy without some type of payoff. This is mentioned in Dragon Kings. Fiends are present on Athas, mentioned in various DS books. There are no Powers physically present on Athas,perhaps because they too suffer a percentile chance of being lost in the Grey, and don't want to take the risk. It's the very same Gray that prevents the need to impose the standard 4e cosmology upon Athas. In fact, the cosmology of Athas is such an integral part of the setting that it wouldn't be Dark Sun with a Feywild and Shadowfell imposed upon it. Smart money says the writers for the 4e version recognize this, and it is said in the Dragon Mag article that they were very careful not to ruin the flavor of Athas with conflicts and changes imposed by 4e. But back to my original point - if you check out any three DS products at random, at least one of them has a reference to some type of interaction with an Outer Plane or its denizens.
The Black could be the local section of the Shadowfell, cut off from the rest of that plane. Not much tweaking the setting there. But the Feywild has no place in Athas. The only fey having anything to do with Athas (who were not descendants of the Halflings )are, IIRC, the Spirits of the Land. Not a single other one.If the Feywild touched on Athas, it would have presented lot more races and sources of power to the people of Athas.
I dunno. I might have a view slanted towards what I want to see (a 4e DS that isn't sacrilege), but it seems to me the designers are saying they had their eye on the same prize.
Plus the fact that even if a defiler did get to the Feywild... what good does it do them? They can't defile the plants of the Feywild unless they're in the Feywild, they can't target locations in the materium while they're there, so what's the big deal? As far as I know, defilers leech life-force only when actively casting, they can't suck a place dry and then go somewhere else to use that stored power.
Come to think of it, the Sorcerer-Kings might actively guard the Feywild, each considering it an ace up their sleeve, so to speak. They can't enforce everywhere, and they don't personally get involved in squabbles (that's what expendable humanoid minions are for), but if they do decide to get off their tails and do something, each knows that they can tap into the Feywild for extra defiling juice- but only if they keep mortals from ruining the place first.
Come to think of it, the Sorcerer-Kings might actively guard the Feywild, each considering it an ace up their sleeve, so to speak. They can't enforce everywhere, and they don't personally get involved in squabbles (that's what expendable humanoid minions are for), but if they do decide to get off their tails and do something, each knows that they can tap into the Feywild for extra defiling juice- but only if they keep mortals from ruining the place first.
Honestly, if it exists (which I hope it doesn't), the Sorcerer-kings might guard it simply to keep the nasty creatures that live there out of the prime material. The nasties there are bad enough without mutant killer plant behemoths coming across and devouring, oh, all of Tyr or Balic?
As for the Gray and Out Lands... most about the Gray impeding planar travel was, from a metagaming perspective, was done to keep the option of fleeing from Athas to the Out Lands off the table. The Out Lands don't exist in 4th edition, not as we knew them when. Athas gets it's own planes now, and every single one of them is probably going to be as desolate as Athas itself.
And honestly, I've been reviewing the various planar travel rituals. Without known teleportation circles for portal rituals or navigational focuses for plane shifting, the only planar travel going on will be to the adjacent Shadowfell and Feywild and to the Elemental Chaos below. And good luck getting back from the Elemental Chaos. So the function of the Gray itself might be moot.
*sigh* I'm going to need to pick up the Prism Pentad soon. With the possible reboot of any old material, it's the best thing to count on as a resource.
Athas cannot be Abeir. Athas is in a sealed sphere. Given the number of spelljamming ships that visit Toril (or at least used to visit it during 2e), I see no way it could've gone unnoticed for so long.
And there's also the fact that Toril has an earthlike sun, and if Athas and Toril shared a sphere then Toril would have the same red sun.
Abeir and Toril are in different dimensions, as evidenced by the traumatic phasing that occurred during the Spellplague, but regardless I am not arguing that Athas is Abeir. I was merely pointing out that the text reminded me of that discussion.
Zardnaar's point is actually the perfect point. Most of us here aren't trying to impose the Feywild and Shadowfell on Athas; we're going the exact opposite, imposing Athas on the Feywild and Shadowfell.
True, if they're determined to do so. But they stressed in the interview that it was of paragon importance to keep it as close to the original Boxed Set as far as timeline goes, while keeping the Prism Pentad as one possible outcome, and very plainly stated that they had to make sure people who read the Prism Pentad as their only previous Dark Sun experience would still recognize it as the same world in the books. That means an intact Grey and Black with very specific conditions.
The Black could be the local section of the Shadowfell, cut off from the rest of that plane. [Emphasis added.] Not much tweaking the setting there. But the Feywild has no place in Athas. The only fey having anything to do with Athas (who were not descendants of the Halflings )are, IIRC, the Spirits of the Land. Not a single other one.If the Feywild touched on Athas, it would have presented lot more races and sources of power to the people of Athas.
I dunno. I might have a view slanted towards what I want to see (a 4e DS that isn't sacrilege), but it seems to me the designers are saying they had their eye on the same prize.
In regards to the emphasized section above, there's a difference between "will BE the Shadowfell or Feywild" and "will FUNCTION AS the Shadowfell or Feywild." I think that's an important distinction for this thread.
The devs said they want to stick to boxed set DS flavor, but they also stated long ago that 4e will try to adapt the basic skeleton of the core cosmology to each setting. I don't see the two objectives as mutually exclusive, because the fluff can be changed as much as needed. If the Black looked like the Black and functioned just like the Black but secretly we knew it counted mechanically as the Shadowfell or the blasted Feywild for Athas, I'm not sure I see how that would negatively affect anything.
Extending this further, and perhaps addressing a sore point for some fans, the Feywild wouldn't have to be included in lore at all if there were a statement like, "Athas does not have nor ever has had a Feywild, so in a DS campaign any mechanical references to that plane should instead point to ."
I'm not trying to pick a fight, but is it impossible that Athas's Feywild might be a Jungle Deathworld, as opposed to the Desert Deathworld of the Prime.
Well, it's not like the idea of a savage, green echo of Athas is completely unfathomable, uninteresting, or irrational, but IMHO it's just too much green for DS and that may turn off others as well (though I'm only speaking for myself).
If the Feywild were "combined" with the actual prime material in some way I could maybe see it as being the remaining pockets of greenery (or being within them). Entering the Forest Ridge would be like crossing a planar boundary, similar to entering the Shadowlands in the Rokugan setting. This could be caused by ties to the past ages or the Pristine Tower or something like that, and maybe certain DS monsters (e.g., monstrous plants) might be be considered fey.