Looking for help in understanding the relative positioning of the planes.

[CoolOnTheTable]

Hopefully none of my future players see this...

Hello everyone! I'm in the process of writing my first campaign for D&D 5e, hopefully to be ready to start in a couple of months. I've never DM'ed before, so I'm a bit nervous, and wanted to seek some advice on the forums. I'm planning to have my master plot revolve around a small group of villains who all believe in some way or another that they are doing the right thing. Their plan, though only 1 or 2 would know the full extent, would center around using a massive magic circle to shut out the gods from the material plane, a move that creates a ripple effect that would cause all of the planar boundaries to collapse, thus resulting in the chaos pouring into and destroying the material plane.

I got this idea partially after seeing the diagram of the planes on PHB pg. 303, but it then occurred to me that that's probably not the literal representation. Is it, and if not, is there a good picture that demonstrates the planes' positioning relative to each other?

Thanks for taking the time to read this, any recommendations or advice that you might have is appreciated.

[Kane0]

In what particular setting sorry?

Planescape often gets used as a reference point, it's got some decent depictions for how it all fits together. Its like a dimensional babushka doll.

[CoolOnTheTable]

In what particular setting sorry?

Planescape often gets used as a reference point, it's got some decent depictions for how it all fits together. Its like a dimensional babushka doll.

I haven't picked one, and I don't know any of the specifics for the different worlds/settings. It'll probably be a homebrew mish-mash based based off convenience and coolness. Or something like that.

[Kane0]

For my game I generally use a slightly simplified cosmos, feel free to take what you like:

In the centre of the multiverse lies the prime. The Feywild and Shadowfell are mirror realms attached to it.

The Ethereal plane connects these central planes to the inner (elemental) planes, which is pretty much a sphere. Fire, water, air and earth are on opposite sides of the sphere and the between parts are blends (steam, ice, dust, etc). A lot of these parts are actually somewhat habitable, if hazardous and chaotic due to elemental storms.

From here the astral (really just a continuation of the ethereal) connects the inner and outer (alignment) planes, arranged in two rings (upper and lower). These are Celestia, Mechanus, Elysium, Beastlands, Asgard, Baator, Carceri, Gehenna, Limbo and the Abyss. The great Tree Yggdrasil connects the upper planes together, and the river Styx the same for the lower planes.

Then beyond the outer planes lie the far realms, kept at bay by the efforts of various deities and powers.

[Beelzebubba]

I'm planning to have my master plot revolve around a small group of villains who all believe in some way or another that they are doing the right thing. Their plan, though only 1 or 2 would know the full extent, would center around using a massive magic circle to shut out the gods from the material plane, a move that creates a ripple effect that would cause all of the planar boundaries to collapse, thus resulting in the chaos pouring into and destroying the material plane.

I got this idea partially after seeing the diagram of the planes on PHB pg. 303, but it then occurred to me that that's probably not the literal representation. Is it, and if not, is there a good picture that demonstrates the planes' positioning relative to each other?

I don't think a literal representation is possible. Planes are infinite. All things with infinite space will overlap and it gets mind-bindingly weirder and weirder. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj3_KqkI9Zo).

The big take-aways:

The Ethereal tends to 'overlay' our Prime and the planes you get to from there have some fundamental association with the Prime, like the Feywild or the Plane of Fire.

The Astral is more like outer space - it's mostly empty, getting to the Outer Planes feels like a long arduous journey, and the Astral itself has no real relationship to the Prime once you're in it.

That said, make your own cosmology, if you're so inclined!

[Corran]

This probably wont be of any help, but with the groups I've played, we always treated planes as different actual planets.

[Naanomi]

In 5e it goes something like...

Elemental Chaos-Elemental Planes-ethereal-(shadowfel/prime material/feywild)-astral-Outer Planes

The positive and negative energy Planes overlay the whole thing

The Far Realm has no 'dimensional/spatial' relationship to the Great Wheel cosmology other than they shouldn't interact at all but sometimes do, to disasterous results to both sides

Other Demi-Planes also exist, usually floating about in the ethereal or astral Planes. There are also places in the Planes that defy common categorization whose 'place' is a bit of a mystery

If we expand to 2e/3e planescape cosmology (which 5e heavily draws from), the shadow plane also exists (as the larger 'medium' that also connects to other cosmologies) as does the Temporal Prime (the medium of time-travel that overlaps all Planes where time exists)

Note that the Prime itself is a bit more complicated than the physical universe, with crystal spheres and the like being involved

[Millstone85]

The 5e Great Wheel is really two wheels.

http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/146269/GreatWheelMap.jpgOld picture, but still correct by 5e lore.

https://i.imgur.com/UaBJVTf.jpgThat picture is from the 5e DMG.

The energy planes are something of a third wheel in this edition, pun intended. I am going to ignore them.

The main issue with combining all these into one wheel is that the Material and the Outlands are competing for the center. The PHB just didn't draw the Outlands, which is a shame.https://i.imgur.com/rQIoBVc.pngThis feels more like looking at one wheel through the other. Which brings me to my next point.

I have been looking for thematic connections between the Inner and Outer Planes. On the PHB's illustration, it seems fitting for the Plane of Air to be near the Seven Heavens and the Plane of Fire to be near the Nine Hells. And with the DMG's intermediary elemental planes ("paraelemental"), we would get the Plane of Magma near Gehenna, the Plane of Ash near Mechanus, and the Plane of Ooze (seriously) near Limbo, which is also fitting. But I can't well justify the neighborhood of the Plane of Ice, and in the end the inner wheel can probably be rotated however you want.

This makes me think about how 4e's World Axis just sent the astral and elemental stuffs to their own corners.https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/9/91/4e_FR_cosmology.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/520Alas, this also jumbled the planes, so there was no wheel anywhere.

Maybe we need some kind of Wheel Axle cosmology.