The layers of the Abyss

[Grim Portent]

In D&D the Abyss is supposed to be made of infinite layers extending up and down forever. Each layer is meant to be different from the others. Doesn't this mean that eventually one of the layers will contain all of reality due to the fact that when there are infinite possibilities and an infinite time to happen in all possibilities will happen at some point?

And if so doesn't this mean that you could use this one layer of the abyss to travel between universes? So if you accessed it from the Greyhawk setting you could travel to Eberron for example.

Is this correct or have I missed something that says otherwise? (Other than the abyss being Chaotic Evil made manifest, but that doesn't alter the nature of infinity surely.)

[Benthesquid]

It's entirely possible to have an infinite set of things which excludes certain items.

For example, the set of odd integers is infinite, but there is also an infinite set of numbers not contained therein.

[Teron]

That assumes the layers are truly infinite in number (which at least some official sources present as uncertain) and infinitely diverse. More likely, there are just a lot of nearly identical seas of screaming blood and what not.

[Grim Portent]

So by that reasoning the abyss naturally contains every possible thing that is both chaotic and evil but excludes everything else? Makes sense I suppose.

[Phelix-Mu]

So by that reasoning the abyss naturally contains every possible thing that is both chaotic and evil but excludes everything else? Makes sense I suppose.

Ah, but as soon as the Abyss makes sense, then you know you've got it wrong somehow.:smallwink:

[Captnq]

Think of the abyss like a cake.

There are many layers to a cake. There is the filling between the layers. Then there are kneecaps on rhubarb. Which is like encyclopedias ripping the head off a chair. Best to just let the rain jump out of a tin dog... but greener.

I WANT TO BURROW INTO YOUR CHEST AND LAY MY EGGS.

Touch your forehead to the glass.
Press it hard.
Stare.
Gaze with wonder.
Tremble in fear at the low, low, low prices within

Captain Quaalude's Taxidermy Emporium.

We are slashing our prices on taxidermy equipment and supplies.
We are slashing our prices on petrified animal carcasses.
We are slashing everything.

EV-REE-THING.

Our prices are insane.
Our prices have chewed off their own manipulative digits down to twitching bloody stumps as they thrust their upper appendages repeatedly into their gibbering, chattering, spasming, consumption orifice.

Consume.
CONSUME.
CON-SUME.

Support small town businesses.
THINK. globally.
ACT. Locally.

This has been a word from your sponsor.

YOUR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR.


(That's what the abyss is like.)

[Doc_Maynot]

That was beautiful.:smallredface:

[Malimar]

Think of the abyss like a cake.

There are many layers to a cake. There is the filling between the layers. Then there are kneecaps on rhubarb. Which is like encyclopedias ripping the head off a chair. Best to just let the rain jump out of a tin dog... but greener.

I WANT TO BURROW INTO YOUR CHEST AND LAY MY EGGS.

Touch your forehead to the glass.
Press it hard.
Stare.
Gaze with wonder.
Tremble in fear at the low, low, low prices within

Captain Quaalude's Taxidermy Emporium.

We are slashing our prices on taxidermy equipment and supplies.
We are slashing our prices on petrified animal carcasses.
We are slashing everything.

EV-REE-THING.

Our prices are insane.
Our prices have chewed off their own manipulative digits down to twitching bloody stumps as they thrust their upper appendages repeatedly into their gibbering, chattering, spasming, consumption orifice.

Consume.
CONSUME.
CON-SUME.

Support small town businesses.
THINK. globally.
ACT. Locally.

This has been a word from your sponsor.

YOUR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR.


(That's what the abyss is like.)

I judge this too weird for the Abyss, not weird enough for the Far Realms.

[Sith_Happens]

I judge this too weird for the Abyss, not weird enough for the Far Realms.

I'd say the Abyss is definitely weird enough for that, seeing as if you keep going down through it you eventually get to the part where Obyriths come from.

[Czin]

Think of the abyss like a cake.

There are many layers to a cake. There is the filling between the layers. Then there are kneecaps on rhubarb. Which is like encyclopedias ripping the head off a chair. Best to just let the rain jump out of a tin dog... but greener.

I WANT TO BURROW INTO YOUR CHEST AND LAY MY EGGS.

Touch your forehead to the glass.
Press it hard.
Stare.
Gaze with wonder.
Tremble in fear at the low, low, low prices within

Captain Quaalude's Taxidermy Emporium.

We are slashing our prices on taxidermy equipment and supplies.
We are slashing our prices on petrified animal carcasses.
We are slashing everything.

EV-REE-THING.

Our prices are insane.
Our prices have chewed off their own manipulative digits down to twitching bloody stumps as they thrust their upper appendages repeatedly into their gibbering, chattering, spasming, consumption orifice.

Consume.
CONSUME.
CON-SUME.

Support small town businesses.
THINK. globally.
ACT. Locally.

This has been a word from your sponsor.

YOUR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR.


(That's what the abyss is like.)

This seems to strike me as more of Limbo than the Abyss.

[AuraTwilight]

I maintain that there are always 666 Layers to the Abyss, no more no less, but that they change dramatically when their Demon Lord rulers shift and topple each other in their endless struggles.

[Eldan]

This seems to strike me as more of Limbo than the Abyss.

Too violent for Limbo. The Abyss is just as insane, after all. It's just also evil as well.

[Czin]

Too violent for Limbo. The Abyss is just as insane, after all. It's just also evil as well.

But limbo is chaotic enough to be anything. Even orderly at times.

[Grim Portent]

Think of the abyss like a cake.

There are many layers to a cake. There is the filling between the layers. Then there are kneecaps on rhubarb. Which is like encyclopedias ripping the head off a chair. Best to just let the rain jump out of a tin dog... but greener.

I WANT TO BURROW INTO YOUR CHEST AND LAY MY EGGS.

Touch your forehead to the glass.
Press it hard.
Stare.
Gaze with wonder.
Tremble in fear at the low, low, low prices within

Captain Quaalude's Taxidermy Emporium.

We are slashing our prices on taxidermy equipment and supplies.
We are slashing our prices on petrified animal carcasses.
We are slashing everything.

EV-REE-THING.

Our prices are insane.
Our prices have chewed off their own manipulative digits down to twitching bloody stumps as they thrust their upper appendages repeatedly into their gibbering, chattering, spasming, consumption orifice.

Consume.
CONSUME.
CON-SUME.

Support small town businesses.
THINK. globally.
ACT. Locally.

This has been a word from your sponsor.

YOUR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR.


(That's what the abyss is like.)

I simply love this explanation.

[Clistenes]

I'd say the Abyss is definitely weird enough for that, seeing as if you keep going down through it you eventually get to the part where Obyriths come from.

Actually, the Obyrinths were natives from Pazunia, the first layer. They lived only there for the longest time, until the few most adventuring among them started exploring the rest of the Abyss.

Demons (both Tanar'ri and Obyrinths) migrated en masse to the deeper layers due to the War of Law and Chaos (the internal struggles when the Queen of Chaos tried to unify them, the battles with the forces of Law, the Eladrin attack and the Tanar'ri rebellion) that made demons flee from Pazunia to survive.

[Czin]

Actually, the Obyrinths were natives from Pazunia, the first layer. They lived only there for the longest time, until the few most adventuring among them started exploring the rest of the Abyss.

Demons (both Tanar'ri and Obyrinths) migrated en masse to the deeper layers due to the War of Law and Chaos (the internal struggles when the Queen of Chaos tried to unify them, the battles with the forces of Law, the Eladrin attack and the Tanar'ri rebellion) that made demons flee from Pazunia to survive.

Well, I'd hardly say that the creations of the Baernoloths are natives to Pazunia. Despite what Tulket said, it seems that the outsiders used to just be four species.

The Primal forces of Order from Mechanus, the Primal force of Good from Elysia, the Primal forces of Chaos from Limbo, and the Primal forces Evil from Hades.

These forces then branched out, but it seems that Good and Evil were rather more willing to expand, colonize, and experiment than Order and Chaos, hence why the Obyriths don't really take after the Slaadi. Although of course, the longest ruler of the Obyriths, the Queen of Chaos, was herself a native of Limbo and thus likely a Slaad before abandoning her home plane and declaring the Abyss the true Chaos.

I'd say that she probably abandoned Limbo because it was simply too chaotic to bother spreading chaos ironically. You can't force any sort of unity or purpose upon the Slaadi because unity and purpose are anathema to the very essence of the Slaadi. While the Obyriths, not being so "pure" in their anarchy, could actually be given direction.

Otherwise your post is entirely valid.

[prufock]

In D&D the Abyss is supposed to be made of infinite layers extending up and down forever. Each layer is meant to be different from the others. Doesn't this mean that eventually one of the layers will contain all of reality due to the fact that when there are infinite possibilities and an infinite time to happen in all possibilities will happen at some point?

No. Infinity / Infinity is not equal to 1. So a plane of infinite layers need not contain all the infinite possibilities.

[Radar]

Infinite layers of Abyss don't have to cover all possible realities for quite a few reasons connected to the weird qualities of infinity. The simpliest case would be that the set of all possible realities is uncountable, whereas Abyss layers are clearly countable, which means they can't cover all possible realities.

Now if the set of all possible realities is countable (or further down the line Abyss layers become uncountable and of the same cardinality as possible realities, just to screw with our perception of reality), they still can cover as much or as little of all possible realities as we decide without ever having to repeat layers. It is easier to show it on countable sets, so let's say we have possible realities from ordered from 1 to infinity and the same goes for Abyss layers. We can for example connect them like this:
1->1, 2->2, 3->3, ...
Which means, that each Abyss layer copies a single possible reality and all possible realities are there somewhere. Yet, we can just as easily do it like this:
2->1, 3->2, 4->3, ...
or
1->2, 2->3, 3->4, ...
or even
1->2, 2->4, 3->6, ...
leaving out as many realities or Abyss layers unaccounted for as we want. The same argument can be made for uncountable sets, but won't be as clear.

[Clistenes]

Well, I'd hardly say that the creations of the Baernoloths are natives to Pazunia. Despite what Tulket said, it seems that the outsiders used to just be four species.

The Primal forces of Order from Mechanus, the Primal force of Good from Elysia, the Primal forces of Chaos from Limbo, and the Primal forces Evil from Hades.

These forces then branched out, but it seems that Good and Evil were rather more willing to expand, colonize, and experiment than Order and Chaos, hence why the Obyriths don't really take after the Slaadi. Although of course, the longest ruler of the Obyriths, the Queen of Chaos, was herself a native of Limbo and thus likely a Slaad before abandoning her home plane and declaring the Abyss the true Chaos.

I'd say that she probably abandoned Limbo because it was simply too chaotic to bother spreading chaos ironically. You can't force any sort of unity or purpose upon the Slaadi because unity and purpose are anathema to the very essence of the Slaadi. While the Obyriths, not being so "pure" in their anarchy, could actually be given direction.

Otherwise your post is entirely valid.

The Fiendish Codex: Hordes of the Abyss claims that the Obyrinths lived for a long time only on the first layer.

The origin of the Obyrinths is kind of a mystery, just like the Baatorians', but as far as we know they weren't created by the Baernoloths. The Obyrinth Lord Bechard claims that they were created by somebody else in another Plane and they migrated to the Abyss from there, but that's the only source I have found that hints to the Obyrinths not being native to the Abyss.

The Baernoloths (well, one of them, Apomps) created the Gerheleths, and they claim that they created the Tanar'ri and Baatezu out of the Law and Chaos "impurities" within the Yugoloth race, but that is contradicted by other sources: Fiendish Codex: Tyrants of the Nine Hells claims that Asmodeus and the original Baatezu were exiled servants of the Gods of Law (Celestials?) and they created the next generation of Baatezu out of mortal souls. The Tanar'ri were created as slaves out of mortal souls by the Obyrinths.

[Lactantius]

And if so doesn't this mean that you could use this one layer of the abyss to travel between universes? So if you accessed it from the Greyhawk setting you could travel to Eberron for example.

Well, if you include the Forgotten Realms, then we have a strict rule for travelling between the planes.
The Players Guide to Faerûn got some specific rules for the FR which trump the basic rules from the DMG and Manual of the Planes.
This comes from the idea that the grehawk cosmology works like a great wheel while the realms cosmology works like a big tree.
And the branches of this tree have special rules where you can travel to and where not.

[johnbragg]

In D&D the Abyss is supposed to be made of infinite layers extending up and down forever. Each layer is meant to be different from the others. Doesn't this mean that eventually one of the layers will contain all of reality due to the fact that when there are infinite possibilities and an infinite time to happen in all possibilities will happen at some point?

No, because as many other posters have explained, infinite in number does not mean "contains everything."


And if so doesn't this mean that you could use this one layer of the abyss to travel between universes? So if you accessed it from the Greyhawk setting you could travel to Eberron for example.

If you the Mighty, Wise and Powerful DM so rule, then sure, go for it.

[Killer Angel]

Think of the abyss like a cake.


You're near.
Think of it like a birthday cake. Unleash all the children.
There, you'll have the Abyss (the chaotic part, at least).



Everyone else has already gone into awesome amounts of detail about what the Abyss is and why it's terrible in every way, so I'll just say this: If you want to connect any two given settings, there are canon ways to do it. In your example, you can stick Eberron into a crystal sphere or you can have it be the Prime in one of the numerous alternate cosmologies accessible through Shadow.

or Sigil.

[Clistenes]

Everyone else has already gone into awesome amounts of detail about what the Abyss is and why it's terrible in every way, so I'll just say this: If you want to connect any two given settings, there are canon ways to do it. In your example, you can stick Eberron into a crystal sphere or you can have it be the Prime in one of the numerous alternate cosmologies accessible through Shadow.

But forcing his players to travel through the Abyss is more exciting! He can let them sneak into the Demonweb Pit, that is connected to every plane where there are drow, and search a portal to their intended destination...think about all the possible adventures...

Anyway, his players will only try that if their PCs are stupid. If the PCs have half a brain, they will try to use another Plane.

[Radar]

You can always combine the Abyss feeling with your Spacejammer travels by describing the Flow as the Warp from Warhammer or the Eldar Webway (or whatever is left thereof).

[Makiru]

Let me just bring this up pretty quick: The Abyss is only called "infinite" by mortals, simply because they haven't seen it all and haven't documented any layers deeper than #665 because that's where Obox-ob and his cannibal bug obyriths hang out. Not every layer is fleshed out in the books because they're unexplored. It's to make wiggle room for DMs to make their own layers with their own demon lords to have their own adventures. So, even if there are finite layers, keeping most of it in the dark allows it to be effectively infinite.

[Grim Portent]

The reason I was asking about this is because in a campaign I've got on hiatus right now I had one of the PCs summoned by fiends I homebrewed across the boundaries between different universes. I basically plucked him from his previous campaign and dunked him into mine. (The player did ask for someway to get to play that character.)

At the time my concept for how this worked was that one part of the abyss was linked to all other versions of the abyss. So someone who knew how could get to this layer (difficult for obvious reasons) and open a portal or door of some kind and step out into a different version of the abyss somewhere else thus enabling travel between settings. I had no intention for the players to ever do this themselves but it was a good tool for the BBEGuys to pursue. I figured that since the campaign is currently paused I'd ask around and find out if this makes sense or if I should look for an alternate explanation. Thanks for the information, though I really need to get my hands on some of the sourcebooks about the planes I think.

[Nettlekid]

Think of the abyss like a cake.

There are many layers to a cake. There is the filling between the layers. Then there are kneecaps on rhubarb. Which is like encyclopedias ripping the head off a chair. Best to just let the rain jump out of a tin dog... but greener.

I WANT TO BURROW INTO YOUR CHEST AND LAY MY EGGS.

Touch your forehead to the glass.
Press it hard.
Stare.
Gaze with wonder.
Tremble in fear at the low, low, low prices within

Captain Quaalude's Taxidermy Emporium.

We are slashing our prices on taxidermy equipment and supplies.
We are slashing our prices on petrified animal carcasses.
We are slashing everything.

EV-REE-THING.

Our prices are insane.
Our prices have chewed off their own manipulative digits down to twitching bloody stumps as they thrust their upper appendages repeatedly into their gibbering, chattering, spasming, consumption orifice.

Consume.
CONSUME.
CON-SUME.

Support small town businesses.
THINK. globally.
ACT. Locally.

This has been a word from your sponsor.

YOUR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR. SPONSOR.


(That's what the abyss is like.)

And now...the weather.

[Animastryfe]

Doesn't this mean that eventually one of the layers will contain all of reality due to the fact that when there are infinite possibilities and an infinite time to happen in all possibilities will happen at some point?


This is not true. Even though there may be an finite number of different planes, there may not be this specific plane.

See the cardinality of infinite sets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinality#Infinite_sets).

[Lanson]

At the time my concept for how this worked was that one part of the abyss was linked to all other versions of the abyss. So someone who knew how could get to this layer (difficult for obvious reasons) and open a portal or door of some kind and step out into a different version of the abyss somewhere else thus enabling travel between settings.

This makes me think that all the great archmages from all the various settings in your games are actually just one dude. Just for the hilarity of it.