Multiple Material planes?

[Akisa]

I was wondering if there are any DnD settings with multiple material planes?

[Artanis]

I believe Spelljammer does. I'm not sure if they count as multiple planes or different places in the same plane though.

[urkthegurk]

I've always assumed that there are plenty, and that they're just really difficult to get too. You have to travel into the deepest parts of the Plane of Shadow to access another material plane, according to any book that mentions them at all. In my campaign there are five that, while not visited regularly, have had player characters on them, and human inhabitants.

The moons of my plane are also habitable, to various degrees. They are difficult to get too, because they are technically on the same plane, but out of range for most teleport spells.

[starwoof]

The setting I`ve been working on has two material planes. The idea is that one is a possible future for the other.

I think the normal cosmology assumes that theres a plane of the evil mustaches somewhere. If not... I`m not sure where I got that idea.

[Bibliomancer]

The default DnD setting (which is similar to Greyhawk) has a nigh-infinite number of Material Planes, all of which are connected to the Great Wheel. This explains why there are an infinite number of demons, devils, and angels, since there are also an infinite number of mortals. The problem is, using Plane Shift always returns you to your world, since the others are so far removed from yours. Spelljammer is just a way to bridge this gap.

This means that on, say, the Battleplain of Ida in Ysgard, many of the mortals encountered there are from alternate versions of your world, and an adventurer may come face-to-face with himself in the heat of combat.

It's an interesting detail that's often overlooked.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I think the normal cosmology assumes that theres a plane of the evil mustaches somewhere. If not... I`m not sure where I got that idea.

There's a variant cosmology at the back of MotP called the "doppleganger cosmology" that has a mirror Prime that inverts the alignments of everyone on the "real" Prime, but it's not part of the default cosmology.

[Inyssius Tor]

The default DnD setting (which is similar to Greyhawk) has a nigh-infinite number of Material Planes, all of which are connected to the Great Wheel. This explains why there are an infinite number of demons, devils, and angels, since there are also an infinite number of mortals. The problem is, using Plane Shift always returns you to your world, since the others are so far removed from yours. Spelljammer is just a way to bridge this gap.

This means that on, say, the Battleplain of Ida in Ysgard, many of the mortals encountered there are from alternate versions of your world, and an adventurer may come face-to-face with himself in the heat of combat.

It's an interesting detail that's often overlooked.

This is actually so in the default 4e setting as well, though again it's almost always overlooked. There was an alternate Material Plane which Tharizdun had consumed in Dragon Magazine a while back.

[jmbrown]

In canon D&D cosmology, a plane is always infinite and a demiplane finite but both have "borders" which represents the area you travel in. Some borders are harder to reach than others like Arthas (Dark Sun's world) which is shielded by a barrier caused by the foul magics that destroyed the world.

Generally people ignore this because planar travel isn't part of their game or they just don't want to handle multiple worlds. In AD&D they mentioned in the "Summon X" spells that it was possible for adventurers to disappear and reappear in an instant with no recollection of what happened. This ended up becoming on of the more famous excuses for those who didn't show up at game sessions.

[starwoof]

There's a variant cosmology at the back of MotP called the "doppleganger cosmology" that has a mirror Prime that inverts the alignments of everyone on the "real" Prime, but it's not part of the default cosmology.

Thats definitely what I was thinking of. I like that variant. :D

[Zaydos]

Planescape connected the various Primes of Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, etc.

Spelljammer did as well, but it was without planar travel so it is only questionably "different primes".

The Manual of the Planes specifically lists the Plane of Shadow as the way to reach other Primes.

In my own campaigns...
Interra: You could reach other prime materials via the Far Realms; this included alternate time lines. Spelljammer also functioned for some planets but other Primes could not be thus reached and were connected to other Outer/Inner Planes as well.
The Three Worlds: There were 4 counterminuous prime material planes with similar geography, as well as nigh infinite Nth Worlds which were sometimes closer or further away and often unreachable. Meanwhile the 3 primary ones were easily reached by a 4th level spell (with a 10 minute casting time to keep you from using it as a get out of battle free card), and the 4th was harder since it had been sealed away. No Spelljammer, or easy way to enter other cosmologies such as Greyhawk.
Chikyuu: Is specifically a wadded up mass of reality cast out into a whole between multiverses (technically created by super-magic abuse by a mega-wizard on the Three Worlds) and so is an easy place to reach other Primes from. No Spelljammer (finite size actually, and questionably just a demiplane).

So in short: Questionably so in official products (Spelljammer and Planescape), and most definitely been played before.

[Devils_Advocate]

The default DnD setting (which is similar to Greyhawk) has a nigh-infinite number of Material Planes, all of which are connected to the Great Wheel.
Hizzah huzzah wha?

My understanding of the situation is as follows:

In AD&D, each campaign setting was in one of many different crystal spheres floating in the vast sea of phlogiston on the Prime Material Plane. It was possible to travel from one crystal sphere to another via spelljammer. There was just one cosmology, the Great Wheel.

Then, Vecna invaded Sigil and reset the multiverse. (Seriously. I am not making this up.) So, all of the sudden, in 3E, each setting exists on a different Material Plane with its own cosmology. Greyhawk retains the Great Wheel cosmology. You can get from one Material Plane to another by way of the Plane of Shadow.

I'm not sure what reset button(s) they pushed for 4E, but I think that all of the settings use pretty much identical cosmologies now. Or maybe they're all in the same cosmology? Heck, I dunno. Anyway, they got rid of the Great Wheel, which was only attached to Greyhawk anymore. Did they dump Greyhawk too, or are they gonna bring it back? I remember reading something about them reviving several settings at some point.

Anyway, I don't think that the above quote from Bibliomancer is accurate in any edition, but I could be wrong.

[Inyssius Tor]

I'm not sure what reset button(s) they pushed for 4E, but I think that all of the settings use pretty much identical cosmologies now. Or maybe they're all in the same cosmology? Heck, I dunno. Anyway, they got rid of the Great Wheel, which was only attached to Greyhawk anymore. Did they dump Greyhawk too, or are they gonna bring it back? I remember reading something about them reviving several settings at some point.

The Forgotten Realms got nuked--they killed Mystra, broke the Weave down into a omnicidal arcane plague that eats gods and planar boundaries, slammed another planet into Faerûn, and jumped the timeline ahead by a hundred years--

(Seriously. I am not making that up.)

--and now it uses the default cosmology. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that the standard setting uses the Forgotten Realms' new cosmology; the FR design team came up with it, and WotC liked it so much they made it the default.

Eberron had a different model, and that hasn't really changed--but Eberron's universe has serviceable equivalents of the planes in 4e's default cosmology, so the 4e books refer to them by the default names in some places. Because that makes things easier when it comes to translating concepts into the setting, for obvious reasons.

Greyhawk isn't currently supported by Wizards, no. The 4e implied setting doesn't have a name. Which is... kind of annoying.

Dark Sun is coming back next year. There will be the equivalent of at least one of the 4e cosmology's transitive planes, the Feywild, though it's probably not at all like the default Feywild. Beyond that, we don't know anything, but I would bet it's not going to be identical to the standard model.

The 4e cosmology's basic stance on alternate worlds: the universe is freaking big, and there are a lot of things in it. Yeah, there probably are alternate worlds, reachable via whatever plot device you want to use. A couple of entities (sharns, for one) may have come from such. But it's really not part of anything at the moment; ask again in a couple of years, maybe we'll have brought back Spelljammer by then.

[Akisa]

The Forgotten Realms got nuked--they killed Mystra, broke the Weave down into a omnicidal arcane plague that eats gods and planar boundaries, slammed another planet into Faerûn, and jumped the timeline ahead by a hundred years--


Excuse my ignorance but then how do they explain how everyone can cast spells now let alone wizard still exist? Did they make shadow weave as the default weave and increase its accessibility?

[olentu]

Excuse my ignorance but then how do they explain how everyone can cast spells now let alone wizard still exist? Did they make shadow weave as the default weave and increase its accessibility?

I recall that whats her name, shar perhaps but in any case, tried to grab the regular weave so as to have both but was unable to hold on to either and then after the crash people realized that the weaves were not really necessary to do magic and the power was always inside them or outside of them or something like that (ring was something out of a cereal box or whatever that was).

[Sir_Elderberry]

I can't remember and don't have my FR books, but I thought I remember reading that someone set up another Weave, or there's some other god keeping magic running now, but I don't quite remember.

[olentu]

Ah here are the quotes I was thinking of.



For eons, magic in Toril was focused through the Weave,
controlled by the goddess Mystra. Although Netherese
wizards of ancient days learned the truth, most people
believed that magic would not be possible without the
deity’s existence. However, the death of Mystra gave the
lie to that belief.




Not satisfied with her portion, Shar plotted
to seize control of both when Cyric murdered Mystra.
She miscalculated. The Weave collapsed so completely
that Shar not only failed to gather up its fraying threads,
she also lost control over the Shadow Weave.
Just as magic persists without Mystra, so does the
power of shadow endure without Shar’s intercession.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I can't remember and don't have my FR books, but I thought I remember reading that someone set up another Weave, or there's some other god keeping magic running now, but I don't quite remember.

Nope and nope; the point of getting rid of the Weave (well, there really was no point, but for the sake of argument) was to explain how you went from Vancian casting to at-will/encounter/daily powers. Vancian casting was using the Weave to bundle the raw magic of the world into safer, more manageable chunks, allowing you to do more powerful things with less effort but limiting you per-day; now, using raw magic, you can't get nearly the same power without taking forever casting it and using up lots of materials, and even then you can't approach the power there used to be (i.e. rituals) but a lot of the quicker, less world-changing magic (i.e. powers) can be used much more frequently because you can just grab it out of the surrounding magical field.

[Inyssius Tor]

I don't know much about the setting myself, but my understanding is: when the Spellplague started eating the arcane underpinnings of the universe, magic went completely nuts. It's not that the magic went away. It's that it went everywhere, and there had been a lot of power invested in making sure that--for instance--the Outer and Inner Planes didn't all moosh together simultaneously. Or, on the local scale, in making sure you personally didn't dissolve into some extremely peculiar variety of dead.

So--once they got past the stage of breakdown where memorized spells would turn into little blue sparks of fire inside your actual physical brain, or punch holes through the Astral Plane when cast, or coagulate into sharns--workarounds were surprisingly easy to devise for intelligent or talented spellcasters. (The ones who didn't derive a lot of their power from Mystra personally, at least.)

One interesting detail of the new Forgotten Realms: there are bits of the Weave still floating around the universe, mostly disused. Some casters who remember the old ways fondly are each trying to weave a new Weave out of the detritus and ambient magic and so on. Which means that in a hundred more years, if Mystra doesn't come back to life again, there might be multiple competing Weaves jockeying for dominance in Faerûn, each backed by its own epic-level arcanists.

[Akisa]

So there is still hope that Vancian spell casting would return with 5ed ^^

[Inyssius Tor]

Speaking purely in-setting--no, it wouldn't be hard to justify that.

A simpler and more likely, if less interesting, way they could justify a decision like that: just bring Mystra back to life. Again.