working on a 5e compatible cosmology, looking for feedback! [Archive]

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Rfkannen

2018-06-19, 08:43 AM

HI! So I just started a 5e game in a homebrew setting, and decided that I should probably make all the cosmology for it, partially just because it would be fun but also just in case people start wanting to do planar adventurers. My goal is to make a cosmology that has room for most 5e content (monsters, spells, ect) while having some unique flavor.

So here it is, if you have any ideas for improving it I would love to hear them!

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Before Time here was the far realm, at the bottom of the far realm was the astral sea, and in the astral sea there was an island that was the 4 elemental planes, and at the center of it the abyss.The universe was in balance, the astral sea and the far realm kept to themselves, and the neither the elementals or the demons ever got strong enough to really damage the other. That is until 8 angels from the astral sea grew into great power, and became the gods.

These gods decided that they wanted to make their own world, and so together they took material from each of the elements and used them to create the material plain. After that each of the gods used their power to make a new aspect of reality for the beings on their newly created plane. One god made it so written language was possible and bound the wild magic of the universe to spells, one made life, another made death, one made nature, and so on and so forth for the rest of the domains. The gods are the only things keeping their creations existing, so for example if someone killed the god of life every mortal thing would die, and if you killed the god of death every dead thing would become undead, at least until someone took over their domain.

In addition, each god made themselves a throne to watch creation from, and those thrones are the outer planes.

However, by using the fabric of the elemental planes to make the material plane, they weakened the elemental plane, this had two effects.

Pissing off every sentient being in the elemental planes.
Making it so that the elemental planes were not strong enough to contain the demons of the abyss, which wanted to destroy literally everything

The gods realised that the demons were on a path to destroy the entire universe, and came up with a plan to stop them. They kidnapped an army of demons, and warped them into beings known as devils, the ultimate army to stop the demons. This was accomplished by all the gods, but the two biggest players were the god of knowledge who bound them as she had spells, and the god of honor who made them lawful beings ever dutiful in their quest.

This worked well, and the devils were strong enough to ward off the demons, however they also got strong enough that they decided they didn’t need the gods anymore and that they should be the ones who ran the material plane (and all of existence) however they have been too caught up in their war with the demons to actually follow up on that plan.

Since then, the material plain has existed in its current state, and things have been fairly stable. The only thing worth mentioning is that a lot of mortals don’t actually worships gods, but instead worship other types of beings, such as powerful devils, ancient dragons, and elder elementals, which have grown in power to rival the gods. In fact, the area the campaign is currently in the two main religions worship an ancient bronze dragon and a marid, each of incredible strength, but not technically divine.

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Now my problems:

The feywild has come up in the campaign, I have no idea where it came from. In addition i like the idea of using the shadowfell as a realm for the dead, but I also don’t know who would have made it. Any idea where these two planes came from?
Having trouble with some of the domains, because I want there to be a god for each of the phb domains(others are fuzed, like grave/death and arcana/knowledge). Knowledge, life, and death are all pretty easy, but I am not sure for some of the others. A nature god makes sense, but doesn’t that overlap with life? Some of them kinda overlap with the elemental planes which I am not sure how to death with, namely light and tempest, didn’t fire give off light and air have storms before the gods? Not sure how to deal with this. And a couple of them I just don’t have any idea how to fit into the idea that they created their domain, namely war and trickery, as what happens if you kill those gods? Can you not fight anymore? Clearly you can, the demons fighting is pretty important. And I am not sure how to wrap my head around trickery. My main idea is to replace the god of war with one of horror, as I mentioned in the main body, but I am not sure about this.
Not really a problem but wasn't sure where else to put it. The god of tempest has come up, but I haven’t really figured out what they do. All that the players know about him is 1) he made orcs and 2) he commands his followers to experience all of life, and feel the heights of emotion, from roaring rage to crushing sadness to gushing happiness.

MoiMagnus

2018-06-19, 09:32 AM

Millstone85

2018-06-19, 10:38 AM

Your cosmology appears to sit closer to the World Axis than to the Great Wheel:
* Astral Plane referred to as the Astral Sea.
* Fewer outer planes, probably without symmetry.
* Abyss in the Elemental instead of the Astral.
* Divine/primordial conflict over the creation of the Material.
* Shadowfell as the realm of the dead.

If you aren't already digging deep into 4e Nentir Vale lore for inspiration, perhaps you should.

Anyway, I think your eight thrones could be:
* Life. As you described. Doubles as the Feywild.
* Death. As you described. Doubles as the Shadowfell.
* Arcana / Knowledge. I really like your idea on the power of words.
* Forge / War. Since there's a god of honor, why not give them those?
* Light. In a reverse Titanomachy, this god stole fire from the primordials.
* Tempest. Same as above, for the elements of air and water.
* Nature. And finally, earth, around which all the others are balanced.
* Trickery. Pretty much has to be the odd one out. Maybe a complete mystery.

Rfkannen

2018-06-19, 12:43 PM

For the feywild and shadowfell, here is some suggestions:
1) Mirror images. They are a byproduct of the material plan. In order to create reality, the gods took essence of the elemental plane, and used a "magical prism" to extract what they wanted from it. However, when you use a prism, you obtain rainbow-like stuff. The material plane is the center of this rainbow, the feywild is above and the shadowfell under.
2) Feywild is the domain of dreams. Shadowfell is the domain of deads.

Additional points:
+ In your universe, the gods created the material plane, so they do not depend on being worshiped to exist, am I right?
(To the contrary of universes where the power of gods depend on the number of person worshiping it)
So, why do they have priest? Is it just to have some influence on the material plane (you help me, I help you). Is it in order to claim their soul after death?
+ The problem of "If the god of ... dies, then ... no longer exist" only work for things that are are created by gods. If the god of light dies, it does not mean that light no longer exist, since fire create light even in the fire elemental plane. However, what you can find is a role to each god, that will not be done if the god is dead. This role is linked to the domain, but you should not ask for it be exactly the domain. Suggestion:
Death Domain -> (no changes) Preventing dead from being undead
Knowledge Domain -> (no changes) Making magic work
Life Domain -> Allowing new people to be born
Light Domain -> The sun, moon and stars
Nature Domain -> The seasons, the climate, the ecosystems
=> Both life and nature are required to have plants, animals, fertile lands, ...
Tempest Domain -> God of the sea and sky (and you can give to orcs a viking-like origin)
=> Both nature and tempest work on the weather.
Trickery Domain -> He prepared enough nasty things to occur "in case he would die", and everybody is aware of it. He is basically blackmailing the universe with "if I die, I will take you with me". As long as he does not cause too much problems, the other gods have more urgent things to take care of. He probably takes care of the "divine CIA" to make sure nobody endanger the gods' power.
War Domain -> War against the devils, demons and elemental.

Like both your plane suggestions, in fact I think ill use both!

Putting it more as a job they do than a thing they maid makes a lot of sense, I like that! I had tossed around the idea of some of the gods being younger than others, and maybye that some of them were mortals that had become gods, that war domain as being about the cosmic war would fit perfectly with that!

going to have to think about the question of worshipers, that is a toughie.

Your cosmology appears to sit closer to the World Axis than to the Great Wheel:
* Astral Plane referred to as the Astral Sea.
* Fewer outer planes, probably without symmetry.
* Abyss in the Elemental instead of the Astral.
* Divine/primordial conflict over the creation of the Material.
* Shadowfell as the realm of the dead.

If you aren't already digging deep into 4e Nentir Vale lore for inspiration, perhaps you should.

Anyway, I think your eight thrones could be:
* Life. As you described. Doubles as the Feywild.
* Death. As you described. Doubles as the Shadowfell.
* Arcana / Knowledge. I really like your idea on the power of words.
* Forge / War. Since there's a god of honor, why not give them those?
* Light. In a reverse Titanomachy, this god stole fire from the primordials.
* Tempest. Same as above, for the elements of air and water.
* Nature. And finally, earth, around which all the others are balanced.
* Trickery. Pretty much has to be the odd one out. Maybe a complete mystery.

4e was my first edition, and I loved the setting there, but I haven't gone back to the books in ages, thank you for the suggestion!!

Also, I had forgotten about forge domain, that does seem a good place to put it, and i'm really fond of the reverse titanomachy idea for those three planes, I will definitely use that!

PhoenixPhyre

2018-06-19, 01:11 PM

Honestly, I like the world axis model much better than the great wheel. The identification of planes with alignments annoys me, and reading through planescape has not made my appreciation for the great wheel any stronger.

I use the axis as a basis for my (decidedly not standard) 5e cosmology.

AureusFulgens

2018-06-19, 07:00 PM

Putting it more as a job they do than a thing they maid makes a lot of sense, I like that! I had tossed around the idea of some of the gods being younger than others, and maybye that some of them were mortals that had become gods, that war domain as being about the cosmic war would fit perfectly with that!

going to have to think about the question of worshipers, that is a toughie.

This reminds me of the story of the Valar in Tolkien's lore. The Valar (angelic powers on par with pagan gods) came into the world at different times. Melkor (evil) came first, in his eagerness to take command of the new world. Manwe (the sky), Ulmo (the sea), Varda (the stars), and some of the others came behind him, and there was an ages-long war between Melkor and the rest over who would have control. The Valar sent word home to the Ainur (angels who did not come to the world) and Tulkas (strength, war, joy) arrived to be their champion in the war with Melkor. Or something along those lines; I haven't actually read the Valaquenta or the first chapter of the Silmarillion in a while.

As far as worshippers: The solution I use in my cosmology is that there are severe limits on how gods are able to interact directly with the Material Plane, and so clerics wind up being their primary instruments. I've never quite defined why these limits exist, but if I recall, since 4e has been brought up a lot, the Nentir Vale setting's answer to the same question is the Primal Ban: the spirits of the natural world somehow imposed a restraining order on both the gods and the primordials that forbade them to intervene directly, forcing them to ordain clerics. Thus a god's power might not be derived from their constituency, but their capacity to influence the material world is closely related - if you have more worshippers, you can ordain more clerics.

Honestly, I like the world axis model much better than the great wheel. The identification of planes with alignments annoys me, and reading through planescape has not made my appreciation for the great wheel any stronger.

I use the axis as a basis for my (decidedly not standard) 5e cosmology.

Agreed. I adopted a similar model to the World Axis without quite realizing it, and solidified it when I first read a fourth edition sourcebook. There's something more elegant about it, and flexible - you can have things like the Abyss and the Nine Hells have their own unique, separate origins (as a shard of extrauniversal evil thrown to the bottom of the Chaos, and the former domain of the creator of humankind stolen by his evil right hand man, respectively), since they aren't necessary parts of the full Wheel of Sixteen. Plus you aren't tethered to the standard alignment system.

With that being said, I recently read the Great Modron March for the first time, and I really appreciate the way they wrote old sourcebooks. It's almost immersive. Despite feeling lukewarm about the setting in general, I

PhoenixPhyre

2018-06-19, 07:30 PM

Agreed. I adopted a similar model to the World Axis without quite realizing it, and solidified it when I first read a fourth edition sourcebook. There's something more elegant about it, and flexible - you can have things like the Abyss and the Nine Hells have their own unique, separate origins (as a shard of extrauniversal evil thrown to the bottom of the Chaos, and the former domain of the creator of humankind stolen by his evil right hand man, respectively), since they aren't necessary parts of the full Wheel of Sixteen. Plus you aren't tethered to the standard alignment system.

With that being said, I recently read the Great Modron March for the first time, and I really appreciate the way they wrote old sourcebooks. It's almost immersive. Despite feeling lukewarm about the setting in general, I

I'm not fond of alignment at all (and have removed it entirely as a cosmic force in my setting. Not even angels, devils, or demons are cosmically good or evil). Reading through Planescape, it struck me just how hostile the planes are to adventuring, especially the inner planes. Going there has a long list of "must have ability X or you're instantly dead. Must have ability Y or you're instantly dead. And even then you're at severe penalties" Etc.

The outer planes are more hospitable, but 90% of them are "if you're found by anyone, you're either ejected (good) or dead (evil)." They exist to be cosmological and philosophical statements, not places to adventure.

My planes have the following properties:

* They're all bounded (about 2 AU in radius).
* The elemental planes are one continuous thing--if you can, you can walk from one to another. May take a while (space is big).
* The astral is the home of gods, angels, and devils.
** Gods are servants of the Great Mechanism that distributes energy throughout creation. They get their power for doing their jobs maintaining their domains. Within their domains they're very powerful, but can only affect the Material plane through believing individuals (due to the super-wish that let them intervene at all).
** Angels handle police duties, fighting off creatures from beyond and keeping the elemental planes doing their jobs.
** Devils handle mortal-interface duties--if you see an angel on the mortal plane, it's really a devil in an angel suit. Basically run like mafia families. They'll contract with mortals for little bits of their souls. The "devilish" shapes you see them in are their battle suits--traditional guises made as part of the summoning rituals.
* The abyss was originally a prison, but that prisoner is gone. It's small (about the size of a gas giant) and orbits in a complex path through the astral plane. The current inhabitants, called demons, all get their power by devouring souls. This is generally considered to be a bad thing.
* There is a shadow plane that serves as the boundary between the mortal plane and all the others. It's where 99% of dead people end up, until they dissipate. After that...who knows? The gods aren't talking.

AureusFulgens

2018-06-20, 09:14 AM

I'm not fond of alignment at all (and have removed it entirely as a cosmic force in my setting. Not even angels, devils, or demons are cosmically good or evil). Reading through Planescape, it struck me just how hostile the planes are to adventuring, especially the inner planes. Going there has a long list of "must have ability X or you're instantly dead. Must have ability Y or you're instantly dead. And even then you're at severe penalties" Etc.

The outer planes are more hospitable, but 90% of them are "if you're found by anyone, you're either ejected (good) or dead (evil)." They exist to be cosmological and philosophical statements, not places to adventure.

My planes have the following properties:

* They're all bounded (about 2 AU in radius).
* The elemental planes are one continuous thing--if you can, you can walk from one to another. May take a while (space is big).
* The astral is the home of gods, angels, and devils.
** Gods are servants of the Great Mechanism that distributes energy throughout creation. They get their power for doing their jobs maintaining their domains. Within their domains they're very powerful, but can only affect the Material plane through believing individuals (due to the super-wish that let them intervene at all).
** Angels handle police duties, fighting off creatures from beyond and keeping the elemental planes doing their jobs.
** Devils handle mortal-interface duties--if you see an angel on the mortal plane, it's really a devil in an angel suit. Basically run like mafia families. They'll contract with mortals for little bits of their souls. The "devilish" shapes you see them in are their battle suits--traditional guises made as part of the summoning rituals.
* The abyss was originally a prison, but that prisoner is gone. It's small (about the size of a gas giant) and orbits in a complex path through the astral plane. The current inhabitants, called demons, all get their power by devouring souls. This is generally considered to be a bad thing.
* There is a shadow plane that serves as the boundary between the mortal plane and all the others. It's where 99% of dead people end up, until they dissipate. After that...who knows? The gods aren't talking.

I'm always impressed by people who actually have a sense of scale. I can never figure out how big things should be.

I like the design here. And I can no longer resist the worldbuilder's urge to lay out my own cosmology

The world is essentially a Great Axis deal: a vast disk of material worlds, sandwiched in between infinite Astral and Elemental Seas (representing unrealized thought and unformed matter, respectively).
The disk has its center at Mechanus, a Pole of perfect order. Its edge is the Feywild, a place where wild magic enters the universe and runs rampant.
In between are the material worlds. There used to be just one, but it was partitioned into many (on the order of millions) in order to prevent any single divine war from ravaging creation.
Above is the Astral Sea. The nearer astral domains are each tethered to a material world, and manifest in that world as suns (or moons, if they are sufficiently damaged). For example, my main material world has one sun and five moons. The further ones float free.
Astral beings are responsible for partitioning the Prime. Each individual world's original gods were celestials, but not all of them are still around - in the world I do most of my work in, five of the six gods were killed, and there have been two other pantheons since (of fey and humans).
Devils are any celestials who turn to evil - most of them, as it happens. A particularly interesting race of them rule the world of Tenebrous under the leadership of that world's single, diabolic god, Luminous, and their astral domain is the Nine Hells (which I've restructured significantly).
Beneath is the Elemental Sea. If you go deep enough, it becomes a Chaos, but in the vicinity of a given material world, the presence of basic concepts about the nature of matter organizes it into what we would recognize as elemental planes - and the pattern is different for each material world (I've included a quip in my notes that one world might have 118 elemental planes; Redcloak would approve).
At the bottom of the Elemental Sea is the Abyss. I recently came up with the fun bit of lore that the Abyss was originally the plane where the material world's creators (the archons) lived. Most of the archons died in a war with their rebellious servants, the dragons, and the survivors were embittered and corrupted, becoming the destructive demons, who now seek to avenge themselves on the rest of creation.
The dead are released into the Astral Sea. From there, depending on the world, they might spend time in an astral domain, but nearly all eventually move on, proceeding further upward to... somewhere. (Like you, I'm reticent about the final fate of the dead.)
I determined that all living creatures have free will, but that exercising it does change one's type. A gold dragon who goes evil would not be gold anymore, but rather a color reflecting its new outlook; angels and devils are simply good and evil versions of the same creatures, one laboring under a curse for being evil; and demons are evil elementals, with frequent corruption of other elementals creating more demons and rare demons shifting back.

Millstone85

2018-06-20, 09:20 AM

Imagining alternate cosmologies is fun. I think mine would look like this:

Skies of Arcadia

Flows of Elysium

Gears of Mechanus

Material Plane

Glades of Arborea

Flames of Gehenna

Depths of Carceri

* Material Plane. The mortal world. Primal spirits and other druidic forces are its unseen rulers.

* Gears of Mechanus. A gigantic soul-processing machinery. All souls go there after death. Most are stripped of their memories, through the purgatorial reliving of key events, and then sent back to the Material Plane for reincarnation. A few are kept whole and sent to one of the other planes. Fewer still are made into deities. Three beings supervise it all: the Raven Queen, the Prime Architect and the Varakhut, the second of which holds the most authority.

* Skies of Arcadia. This is the plane of large-scale utopias, heavens built on clouds and counting billions of souls each. With very rare exceptions, each of these heavens is also the creation and realm of a particular deity or pantheon. Air elementals are native to the plane. Like other elementals, they remember a time when the plane belonged to their kin alone.

* Flows of Elysium. Souls sent to this plane become prismatic gleams in its dark waters, their consciousnesses sinking into personal heavens. Multiple souls can share the same heaven if they agree on its design, but none can impose their presence upon another. Water elementals are native to the plane. Some take on the properties of holy water near souls.

* Glades of Arborea. The Feywild, mostly the same as it is in 4e and 5e. Elven deities live there with their roaming courts.

* Depths of Carceri. Similar to the Underdark on the Material Plane, but without a surface. Universe-ending horrors are buried there. Some are in chains, others are just lost in the labyrinthine tunnels. Archdevils who disregarded infernal laws are also banished to this plane. Some manage to build kingdoms there, declaring themselves demon lords. Earth elementals are native to the plane and, by necessity, the closest thing it has to jailers.

* Flames of Gehenna. The destination of damned souls, whose jailers were once devas. Over the centuries, these devas became the first devils, then began reshaping the damned in their image. Despite the complaints of angels, Mechanus continues to send souls to Gehenna. Fire elementals are native to the plane. Devils let them try to burn the damned, knowing this to be an excruciating unending experience for the latter.

Edit: Made some changes. Original version in AureusFulgens' post below.

AureusFulgens

2018-06-20, 11:15 AM

Imagining alternate cosmologies is fun. I think mine would look like this:

Mists of Elysium

Fountains of Arcadia

Smokes of Mechanus

Material Plane

Glades of Arborea

Flames of Gehenna

Depths of Carceri

* Material Plane. The mortal world. Primal spirits and other druidic forces are its unseen rulers.

* Smokes of Mechanus. A gigantic soul-processing machinery. All souls go there after death. Most are stripped of their memories, through the purgatorial reliving of key events, and then sent back to the Material Plane for reincarnation. A few are kept whole and sent to one of the other planes. Fewer still are made into deities. Three beings supervise it all: the Raven Queen, the Prime Architect and the Varakhut, the second of which holds the most authority.

* Mists of Elysium. Souls sent to this plane get to mold it into their personal heavens. Multiple souls can share the same heaven if they agree on its design, but none can impose their presence upon another. Air elementals are native to the plane. Unlike souls, they can freely explore the heavens. Also unlike souls, they can be killed, so most prefer to remain in the misty spaces between the heavens.

* Fountains of Arcadia. This is the plane of large-scale utopias, heavens that count billions of souls each. With very rare exceptions, each of these heavens is also the creation and realm of a particular deity or pantheon. Water elementals are native to the plane. Some are tamed through a process not unlike the sanctification of water. Others remain hidden in the numerous rivers, lakes and seas of the plane.

* Glades of Arborea. The Feywild, mostly the same as it is in 4e and 5e. Elven deities live there with their roaming courts.

* Depths of Carceri. Similar to the Underdark on the Material Plane, but without a surface. Universe-ending horrors are buried there. Some are in chains, others are just lost in the labyrinthine tunnels. Archdevils who disregarded infernal laws are also banished to this plane. Some manage to build kingdoms there, declaring themselves demon lords. Earth elementals are native to the plane and, by necessity, the closest thing it has to jailers.

* Flames of Gehenna. The destination of damned souls, whose jailers were once devas. Over the centuries, these devas became the first devils, then began reshaping the damned in their image. Despite the complaints of angels, Mechanus continues to send souls to Gehenna. Fire elemental are native to the plane. Devils let them try to burn the damned, knowing this to be an excruciating unending experience for the latter.

This is a really neat concept. It's delightfully simple - you manage to cover the Elemental and Philosophical planes in a single ring. As a matter of design philosophy, I'm not sure how I feel about two elements being evil and two elements being good, but that might just be a matter of taste. I'm also pleased that I'm not the only person who thinks Mechanus and the Feywild are a good choice for opposites.

As I look at it again, there's something mildy peculiar about the orientation. We can roughly categorize the six outer planes as Lawful, Good (Chaotic), Good (Lawful), Chaotic, Evil (Chaotic), and Evil (Lawful), and the four elements have their natural orientation Air - Water - Earth - Fire. But the planes aren't quite in order in terms of alignment? Or perhaps that isn't what you were going for.

Millstone85

2018-06-20, 04:57 PM

This is a really neat concept. It's delightfully simple - you manage to cover the Elemental and Philosophical planes in a single ring. As a matter of design philosophy, I'm not sure how I feel about two elements being evil and two elements being good, but that might just be a matter of taste. I'm also pleased that I'm not the only person who thinks Mechanus and the Feywild are a good choice for opposites.I am glad you like it. I think of the elemental planes, including metal and wood, as having been conquered at some point by more philosophical forces.

As I look at it again, there's something mildy peculiar about the orientation. We can roughly categorize the six outer planes as Lawful, Good (Chaotic), Good (Lawful), Chaotic, Evil (Chaotic), and Evil (Lawful), and the four elements have their natural orientation Air - Water - Earth - Fire. But the planes aren't quite in order in terms of alignment? Or perhaps that isn't what you were going for.This is something I struggled with. For some reason, I didn't see how to match the concept of personal heaven with water. Now I think I got it. Post edited.