Would you play it that there are pockets of positive/negative energy or that the entire domain has a good/bad vibe about it?
That said, I think the logic behind uniting the Positive Energy Plane with the Feywild is also compelling. I just wanted to point out an alternative theory. I don't know for sure what the answer is.
While the Negative Energy Plane seems like an okay fit with the Shadowfell, the Positive Energy Plane does not seem quite as good a fit with the Feywild. I don't think the Feywild comfortably accommodates positive energy motes, vast regions of unbridled life, shining plains of radiance or other such features you might expect to find in the former Positive Energy Plane. I suppose you could make them fit, but it would feel like some serious shoehorning.
In 3e, the souls of the unborn came from the Positive Energy Plane. While the Shadowfell has some affiliation with death, I don't think the Feywild has a similar affiliation with life energy. And I'm not sure if unborn souls are supposed to come from the Feywild.
I honestly don't know what a good solution is, maybe the designers will discuss what their thoughts on the matter are.
Each of these pockets would affect, and be affected by, its surroundings. For example, a pocket of positive energy that was in the middle of the Calim desert would turn a pocket of the desert into a lush oasis but only would heal desert-native things (e.g. yuan-ti or more interesting... Sarrukh). Or a pocket in the Shadowfell would basically neutralize the negative energy of the surroundings. Hmm... a pocket in the Abyss *shudder*.
Then it could be a very nice high-level campaign to either chart these pockets or attempt to recombine them.
I'll end up going for this approach. I just wanted to make sure I hadn't overlooked canon in my reading.
Arguably, the conversion from 2E to 3E involved a retcon, which did not have an in-game explanation for the changes. However, the changes from 3E to 4E were done according to an in-game explanation/story that did not involve retroactive changes to continuity, so presumably all the planes that used to be around in 3E were still around up to 1385. Where they went AFTER 1385 is a big question in some cases, but they had to have gone somewhere, and what happened to them is both an interesting question to ask and fun to try to answer.
Of course, there is a difference between retconning and "secret history" which is newly revealed historical events that hadn't been known or at least publicized, until recently. Secret history does not alter continuity, but simply adds supplemental information that may be surprising, but doesn't contradict establish facts (at least objective facts, although it may contradict subjective "facts' that is, what people THOUGHT they knew) So, for instance, while it had not been known that "Talos" was actually an alias for Gruumsh until it was revealed post-Spellplague, the fact that it was revealed does not make it a retcon, just new information that does not contradict established continuity.
As for "so much is lost" well, perhaps, but then a lot can be gained as well. Change should not be done for change's sake alone, but if it serves a purpose, then change can be a very good thing indeed. Just ask any slaad!
The Planes are vast and near infinite and beyond mortal comprehension, so really the way i see it is that the planes havent really changed from previous editions, just peoples understanding of the Planes has changed, so in my games all the Elemental, Para-and Quasi-Elemental planes still exist as well as the Negative and Postive energy planes, and the Ethereal plane.
glad their gone, thats one good thing about the 4e realms, it got rid a few headaches.....
hahahaha, it gave new ones though.
Helm's Blessing to you
I had the idea that the Greater Gods used the Positive Energy Plane to maintain their own Planes. Or that the 3 Greater Gods that locked Cyric up used the Positive Energy Plane to imprision him.
can I borrow it?
I had the idea that the Greater Gods used the Positive Energy Plane to maintain their own Planes.
I like that idea a lot. I imagine that the greater gods had to draw on an immense amount of power all at once during the Spellplague to maintain their Astral Dominions.
While they might have a certain amount of "souler" energy on reserve, could perhaps even have drawn it from their petitioners, it is definitely a possibility that the needed to channel a vast amount of supplemental energy from the Positive Energy Plane to effect their work.
The divine energy that gods use may or may not be the substance called "incarnum" from the 3.5E sourcebook Magic of Incarnum, which may or may not be related to or distilled from what is known as "positive energy" from the Positive Energy Plane. We know that souls hail from (used to anyway) the Positive Energy Plane, and gods value souls so much that they try to recruit mortals in order to bring them to their respective afterlives. I have always suspected that this is in order supply a source of "souler" energy (aka incarnum) to the gods to fuel their divine power.
We know that clerics also can manipulate positive energy, so gods certainly can do so in greater fashion. It's not only possible but likely they did so during the Spellplague. I really like the idea that the gods tapped the Positive Energy Plane like a battery, and then drew enough energy out of it that it was left drained. Maybe it burned out, exploded, or dissipated. Perhaps the core of the Positive Energy Plane is still floating around the Elemental Chaos somewhere. Whether it is truly dead or just needs time to recharge is a really good question.
If the remnants of the Positive Energy Plane began to recharge, reform, or suddenly "relight", it could make for interesting adventure possibilities for whatever location where that were to occur.
And I still want to know what happened to the Bastion of Unborn Souls which resided there. Where did it end up? Or if it was destroyed, what took its place as the source of preincarnate souls?
Incarnum was such a stupid concept, let's not drag that garbage into the Realms.
And how the hell can you 'use up' an infinite plain?
Well, sorry to hear you didn't care for the concept of incarnum, although, since it is (or at least was) published canon, I don't think you can just hand-wave it away. Where it stands in 4e, I don't know. However, I think it is an important concept and explains very well an interesting facet of D&D metaphysics. Incarnum, as I see it, is the fundamental stuff that makes up or empowers the soul. The soul has been a major part of D&D metaphysics since the beginning. There are spells that manipulate the soul, fiends and evil gods desire sacrifices of souls, fiends make pacts to obtain souls, and gods work very hard to get souls to come to their astral dominions upon death, where the souls eventually are absorbed into the god's plane or merge with the deity (in some cases the god actually eats the soul). I think incarnum is a fitting substance and mechanic to describe some of the essential properties of outer planes (or astral dominions) gods and god bodies.
Tell me, aside from finding it "stupid" what were your particular criticisms of incarnum?
As for the "infinite" nature of planes, the word has been bandied about in a somewhat careless manner. You are taking the word probably in the mathematical notion of "extending forever", although there is another meaning, which is simply "uncountable", something so big that you aren't ever going to be able to define its limits, although it may have them.
Although it has been debated before in these forums as to whether D&D planes are actually infinite, or if that language has been used as hyperbole to describe planes that are just merely cosmically large in scale, I think the current notion is that planes are in fact not infinite and may have boundaries. Note that the prevailing theory about our own real universe is that, despite being very large (billions of light years across) it is not infinite, but rather a bounded volume that may be in the shape of the surface of a hypersphere or some other higher dimensional topology (like a barbell, or a hyper-pickle).
But if you want to read some stories that illustrate the concept of using up all the magic of a place, Larry Niven wrote some wonderful fantasy short stories collected I think in the book The Magic Goes Away in which he posits a world that is saturated with magic (or manna) that fuels spells but which can be used up and indeed eventually is. Really fun reading, highly recommended.
It's a, IMO, moronic and useless attempt to explain something that didn't need to be explained and is better off not being explained, that was made up entirely to sell yet another inane splatbook in 3.5 that most people ban anyway because the DM doesn't want to learn *yet another* wonky 'magic' system with its own rules.
Nor is it a particularly useful, exciting or intriguing idea. It's just a bunch of stupid crap that annoys the hell out of me.
And I associate the Great Wheel with the Realms still, so I really don't give a damn what the 'latest thinking' is. I know 4e has its own insultingly oversimplified crap. I don't care. Infinite means what it says on the label. Infinite. You can't use something infinite up.
And why would I want to read something about a concept that I don't like that isn't even related to the topic at hand anyway? Magic doesn't come from the Positive Energy Plane and never did.
Now as for why you dislike incarnum, I had asked you for particular criticisms, but instead you offered a string of invectives that have nothing to do with the specific contents of the book. Have you even read the book? Because you didn't offer any particular examples or specifics, just that you find it to be moronic, inane and useless. But that's not really criticism is it? Criticism involves analysis and evaluation of merits and faults; you have not really done that here. You basically tell us that you don't like it because you don't like it. That's just a tautology. I was expecting something more... informed and reasoned.
As for the "infiniteness" of the Positive Energy Plane, I don't accept your premise. Can you point me to a sourcebook and page number that references the "infiniteness" of the plane? If I had some context about what you meant (or the authors meant) by "infinite" we could maybe have a discussion about that. But I don't accept that that word you keep using means what you think it means.
But then again, even if, for the sake of argument, we were to accept your premise, it does not mean that something "infinite" cannot be used up. There are varying degrees of infinity. If the drain on the plane were say, at an aleph-one level of infinity, and the plane only contained an aleph-null level of infinite energy, then the drain would be greater than the capacity of the plane, and the energy would be used up.
But we don't even have to assume that. By analogy, consider the "quantum vacuum energy" that (presumably) exists everywhere in our own universe--the effects of which produce such phenomena as the Casimir effect and Van der Waals forces. The amount of such energy in one cubic centimeter of empty space is estimated at one trillionth of an erg. Not infinite, just a trillionth of an erg. Now what is the amount of positive energy that infuses each cubic centimeter of the Positive Energy Plane? We don't know, but it is certainly not infinite. Beings are not incinerated when they travel there. They gain hit-points at a set rate. The amount of energy available is finite.
And nothing has been shown to prove that positive energy infuses every cubic centimeter of the volume of the plane. It's possible some parts of the plane are void and devoid of positive energy. A being at the center of the Sun may think it is really hot there, may not even be able to consider that there is an edge, or a place in the universe where it is cold, but there are certainly places within our universe where the plasma of the sun does not extend. In fact the vast majority of our universe is cold and empty. We don't know that the Positive Energy Plane has a uniform energy distribution.
But even if the plane were infinite, with uniform energy distribution, it is conceivable that gods could drain off all the power that was available within a given volume of the plane (I'm not going to get into discussions of light-cones and such unless you really want to), so there are various scenarios and combinations of physical (or metaphysical) laws that would allow gods to drain off the plane entirely or, alternatively, all available energy.
Lastly, why would you want to read a book about a concept that you don't like that isn't even related to the topic at hand anyway? Well, because the book is really cool, practically a fantasy classic, is in fact very interesting and well written, would provide you with immense enjoyment, and because you are open-minded and willing to entertain concepts that are foreign to your way of thinking. If you don't think any of that applies, then of course you are free to ignore my recommendation.
But any way as for the infinite plane thing, Ive always saw it as planes having definite borders and boundaries, but an infinite space in between. Such a concept is truly mind boggling, but thats how the planes should be. I dont think they god would of completely drained the positive energy plane regardless of how many gods they banished. But its still an interesting concept that the god were channeling it until magic sorted it self out. Id like to think that the Positive Energy Plane is still out there some where. Im still not sure what to do with it in my home games. IM thinking strongly of putting it in the Astral Sea with a strong connection to the Feywild, but the Elemental chaos is an intriguing idea too.