Cosmologies

[Kosjsjach]

I'm looking for varied (and hopefully in-depth) cosmologies to either adopt for a game or "borrow" ideas from. Everyone knows The Great Wheel, or Eberron's orbiting planes, and 4E's Astral Sea. There's also Pathfinder's... er, whatever you'd call it.

Are there any major ones I'm missing? Any particularly-inventive ones I'm unaware of? Excluding Spelljammer. Sorry, but from what I've gleaned it just doesn't do it for me.

[Zeta Kai]

Are there any major ones I'm missing? Any particularly-inventive ones I'm unaware of? Excluding Spelljammer. Sorry, but from what I've gleaned it just doesn't do it for me.

Spelljammer is just a meta-cosmology of all the other cosmologies. Nothing to fear, but not what you're looking for.

As for cool, in-depth metaphysical realms, there's the Umbra from the old World of Darkness. It was good enough to use in all of White Wolf's games for over 10 years.

[Serpentine]

I have the cosmology for my game... It's not terribly in-depth, but if you're just looking for ideas anyway...
My Material Plane is a cake-thing. There's probably an extended universe around it (stars are mostly just stars, other planets, etc) but we're never gonna find out about that so I haven't really bothered to think about it. The Shadow and Ethereal Planes abut and overlap the Material. The souls of the dead wander through the Ethereal Plane to get to Gates, which link with the Material plane and all other planes, and on to their final resting place.
The Elemental Planes form a ring around it, spinning round and so causing seasons. Beyond that are the alignment-based planes, the hells and the heavens and so forth. They are also meant to keep turning, on a much larger scale, causing each side of the planet to experience cycles of dominant Good, Evil, Law and Chaos. A past event of enormous magical might managed to stop that cycle, however, and now the planet has a sort of "dark" and "light" side.
Then there's all the other miscellaneous planes scattered about around the outside.
Finally, all the above is a Pratchetesque mix of real and unreal. So, it can be taken as literal or metaphorical, depending on context.

Just to offer a potential ideas source...

[Altair_the_Vexed]

3e's Oriental Adventures (and I believe the Rokugan setting published for 3.5e) had another:
There is only the Material and the Spirit World. Hell is a place on Earth.

Prime Material is as normal.
Spirit Realm is a parallel world that includes exagerated mirrors of all the Material world locations - where there is a magnificent mountain in the Material world, the Spirit wolrd has a bigger, more impressive mountain; where there is pollution and corruption and neglect in the Material world, there is a cesspool of filth and taint in the Spirit world - and so on.

[Dervag]

Hmm. I'm not familiar with the literature, but I might be able to make some suggestions if you'd like to talk about what ideas you have to start with to begin with.

What do you want your choice of setting cosmology to achieve? What do you want to avoid? Is it important that the cosmology be firmly nailed down in advance- this is a common mistake made at the start of campaigns, where cosmology can matter less than having the village headman be a realistic character.

[bosssmiley]

There are the wacky alt-cosmologies offered in the Manual of the Planes.

I currently make heavy use of William Hope Hodgson's conception that deep space, particularly the umbra of planets, is the Outer Darkness (hence night being the time of the supernatural). Spelljammer-meets-Cthulhu for a sword-and-planet party.

[Zeta Kai]

Here's a link to the New World of Darkness cosmology. Warning: the image is huge.

[SethFahad]

Try adopting the cosmologies from known heroes like: Corum, Elric of Melnibone or Waylander (Drenai Saga).