Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 laredric Feb 26, 2010 10:47:07	I really like how WoC reinvented the travel book when they published their Underdark and Elemental Chaos tomes, and I am hoping that they can keep it up with the Astral Sea. So here would be the thread to yell about your hopes and fears. My start would be 1. I never could keep Elysium,  Byutopia, Arvandor, etc straight, or tell the difference between Hades, The Grey Waste, etc etc. Did we really need Grandfather Oak in one plane and then Yggdrasil in the next plane? Multiple layers of one good plane? Both Limbo and the Pandemonium? Did we really need not just four elemental planes but the quasi-elemental planes of ash, salt, etc etc. So cheers to dropping the great wheel cosmology and lets find everything a new home.      Still, the Astral Sea seems almost too unstructured; as if there were a lot of great places to visit and nothing but void between them. We used to have the Rivers Styx and Oceanus, the infinite staircase and Yggdrasil to connect the outer planes to one another. Modrons used to march around the great wheel. Will the upcoming Astral Sea book take all the outer planes and make them "Points of Light" in an Astral Sea?       Ahh, the sour grapes, lets find a home for the old outer planes in the new world 2. Stick a lot of the Outlands, Arvandor, the Beast Lands in the Feywild 3. Carceri, (the prison plane) in either the Shadowfell or with the devils in their nine hells 4. Mt Celestia and its extensive surroundings as rising out of the Astral Sea. 5. Limbo and Pandemonium are not planes but troubled Astral Seas 6. No idea where the Modrons are going to end up      Well, this is what I am hoping for. Is there anyone in the community looking forward to the Astral Seas book?
#2 LordofKhyber Feb 26, 2010 11:42:16	Nah, I've been disappointed with the DM centric books (Draconomicans, Manual Of The Planes, Underdark, Plane Below) so I think I'll be skipping on the upcoming book. Plus I need to save for some of the more exciting material coming out this year.
#3 Tharag_Bocc Feb 26, 2010 14:23:12	5. Limbo and Pandemonium are not planes but troubled Astral Seas Personally I'd likely be inclined to place Limbo and Pandemonium in the Elemental Chaos, possibly even connecting them to the Abyss.  Though a good argument could be made to place Limbo outside/between all the other planes, given it's use in other fictions 6. No idea where the Modrons are going to end up The modrons, much like the their home plain of Mechanus, are very ALIEN.  In many ways The Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus would be as much alien and even anathema to normal life as the Far Realm, though in a completely opposite way.  As such, like the Far Realm I would place it completely outside the basic planar structure.  I could even see a setup ideal for high level play, where the PCs have to stop their world (including its surrounding planescape) from becoming the next field of battle in the endless war between the Lords of Madness and the Lords of Perfection.
#4 laredric Feb 26, 2010 23:13:55	I just looked through the Manual of the Planes once again. It does refer to a Mt Celestia, Arvandor, Cania (a hidden prison in the Astral Sea) but no modrons, or any of the bestial/chaotic planes like Valhalla. I am mostly fine with that. The alignment system is now greatly simplified and there used to be this need to shoehorn something in for every alignment. But gosh darn it, I do miss the Modrons. I guess they could get re-introduced to 4.0 as creatures that an artificer made a little too well (think warforged with very rigid programming). I also want to be able to walk from the gates of the nine hells to mt celstia without having to go through the astral. If there was something like the endless path or infinte staircase or world tree I would be happy.
#5 strand0 Feb 26, 2010 23:26:21	This astral SEA stuff, makes me wonder if we'll be getting Spelljammer stuff in here.
#6 mercaius Feb 27, 2010 1:46:57	I'm really looking forward to it, though I'm tentative that my expectations will vary from what's provided about the natural state of the Astral Sea between godly domains. I do imagine something similar to Spelljammer for most of the Astral Sea, if perhaps less oddball than Spelljammer could get. Githyanki pirates, docks and cities built on crumbling bits of astral stone, lots of aerial "naval" battles and rules for what happens to people that drop through the endless sea. Lots of demiplanes and domains that are each unique and terrifying or inspiring, many ruled not by gods, but scavengers or powerful mortals and angels. But hey, maybe it will be more of an actual sea, with some kind of celestial water-skin line. Or something even more different. Have there been many adventures that take us directly into the space between domains yet?
#7 MacEochaid Feb 27, 2010 14:10:37	I feel that Pandemonium flavor wise was kind of pulled into the Deeps of the Underdark, Torog would definitely live in the old Pandemonium. I would like them to settle the relationship between Corellon, the Feywild, and Arvandor a little bit more, but I suspect we won't see Corellon statted until the feywild book. Also am intrigued by this damn spiral tower, where the hell is it, Feywild or Arvandor? It's strange how there are so many evil gods and so few good gods, with a couple unaligned in between. However I think they should have kept Tiamat in the nine hells or given her her own dominion. Tytherion was by far my least favorite place in the book. I would rather there have been some fluff about Tiamat serving as watchdog against Asmodeus rising again to take on another God, but the cat's out of that bag I guess. I hope they can bring a better flavor to the two really great villainous Gods domonions.
#8 the_fan Feb 28, 2010 8:20:39	Interestingly, there are now actually THREE areas that resemble Pandemonium: 1) Pandemonium: In MotP, Pandemonium is Tharizdun's domain in the Astral Sea. He hasn't been there in a while, since he's down in the Abyss. Pretty much classic endless tunnels of darkness and howling, maddening wind. 2) the Keening Delve: Also from MotP (referenced again in Plane Below), it's a network of tunnels carved in a mass of rock in the Elemental Chaos. Howling winds constantly rush through them, sounding like the echoes of a dying beast. Within travelling distance of the City of Brass. Possibly the site of a primordial's death 3) Howling Warrens: A network of tunnels (again), this time in the Shallows of the Underdark. Strange echoes and screams echo throughout it, some of it coming from Torog's torture dens. The cacophony eventually drives creatures mad and makes them want to stay there. So though the OFFICIAL pandemonium is in the Astral Sea, there is something resembling it in the other two places suggested too. It's also possible they're connected somehow by Torog's rampage, but that'd be up to the DM. Could just be an interesting case of parallel evolution.
#9 Marandahir Feb 28, 2010 9:32:42	Not to mention the Pandemonium Stone from The Plane Below.  Though that's a bit different from the other Pandemoniums in 4e.
#10 MacEochaid Feb 28, 2010 14:02:39	After chewing on it a little bit, I love the idea that the Modrons in the new mythology a mysterious alien force that sweep the world chasing out the Far Realm. They could be a great threat to Psionic characters, silent little automotons who try and slay them impassionately, until the players prove that they too are working to combat the madness beyond and are finally contacted by a Secundus who recognizes the party's antipathy to aberrants and becomes a patron who gives them new quests without ever explaining the full plan of the Modron march. All that said, I think so far Wizards has been a little wishy washy about going ahead and making sweeping changes to make the cosmology work. How Gruumsh fits into the pantheon confuses me. I wish they had a little more guts and just make Gods the good guys and demons, devils, far realmers and primoridials bad guys. They always get so squeamish about evil aligned player characters,  anyway. So make standard PC races those created by Gods, and monster races those that follow other powers that oppose the Gods.  Below this is my silly little if I had done it I would have, which nobody cares about but me, how do you do that little hidden "spoiler alert" thing? I'm a novelist geek not a tech geek. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- just make Gruumsh, Tharizdun, Torog, and Zehir, Primordials, Far Realmers, or Demon Princes. Corellon and Sehanine Archfey who sided with the Gods and ascended to Arvandor, and Lolth Corellon's ex-consort who sided with the Primordials so she descended to the Abyss, Asmodeus an Archdevil period. Vecna a Liche who rivals the Gods in POWER, but has Necromancers and Darklocks in his service, no Clerics. Allowing Bane and Tiamat who still fit in the concept of "champions of law" (and have both since been described as having respectable if slightly questionable followers in large cities) to be Gods on the fringe. Oh yeah, and make Melora the most human of the Primal spirits with a Clerical tradition since she trucks most heavily with the Gods like Erda in Wagner's ring cycle, and make Erathis lawful good, (I appreciate the effort WotC, but I have much more complex Baneite Hobgoblin's who seem to be doing good by ridding monsters if only for their own purposes, than the blandness of Erathian hob's) and Sehanine and Kord good, since they are love and valor to me.
#11 Marandahir Feb 28, 2010 14:55:13	Could Shardminds be the spiritual successors to the Modrons? Fragments of the Living Gate, seeking to control the madness of the Far Realm's intrusion.
#12 MacEochaid Feb 28, 2010 15:01:58	eh, unlike Devas who I think were a much more interesting idea for a clestial race, (the Aasimar seemed to just be divine elves, so Goody goody they were boring, very pretty, and with pointed ears) I think Shardminds, as I understand them so far are an entirely new concept. If they do encroach too much on each other Primus and the Modrons could have been a joint effort between Ioun, Moradin, and Erathis to make the ultimate weapon against the Primordial's Chaos only for Primus to go rogue and decide the Gods themselves were too passionate. Either way, I think there is plenty of ways to bring Modrons into the fold and still make them monsters for the PC's and not just quirky NPC's that make great pictures in the margins without a DM ever finding a compelling way to use them.
#13 Hippolyte Feb 28, 2010 17:44:38	The concept of Modrons is interesting. The art from previous editions was worse than ridiculous. Why would embodiments of pure law and geometry have ugly little legs attached and fleshy eyeballs and eyelids? They should just be floating shapes, using non-mammalian means of perception and motion. Psionics, since they are so much from science fiction, not myth and legend.
#14 laredric Mar 01, 2010 7:11:21	The concept of Modrons is interesting. The art from previous editions was worse than ridiculous. Why would embodiments of pure law and geometry have ugly little legs attached and fleshy eyeballs and eyelids? They should just be floating shapes, using non-mammalian means of perception and motion. Psionics, since they are so much from science fiction, not myth and legend. What an interesting idea. Modrons could be re-imagined as the five platonic solids trying to live in a non platonic world, or as triangles or squares out of Flatland. Perhaps it is good that Modrons have not yet appeared in the game, so there still is some space for re-imagining.