D&D Veterans, Assemble: What Was the "Golden Box" (1E) Cosmology?

[Leliel]

I keep on hearing the term tossed around on occasion, and I would like to know what it means.

So, what was the Original D&D Cosmology?

[jmbrown]

1E's cosmology are the inner planes including the astra, ethereal, negative, positive, and prime. The outer planes were Seven Heavens, Twin Paradises, Elysium, Happy Hunting Grounds, Olympus, Gladsheim, Limbo, Pandemonium, 666 layers of the Abyss, Tarterus, Hades, Gehenna, Nine Hells, Acheron, Nirvana, and Arcadia.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I keep on hearing the term tossed around on occasion, and I would like to know what it means.

So, what was the Original D&D Cosmology?

To expand on jmbrown's answer, here's a picture straight from the back of my 1e PHB:

[JonestheSpy]

Never heard of the Golden Box, but the planar structure was pretty much the same as later versions (with less phobia of names taken from real religion), minus the plane of Shadow. You traveled the Ethereal Plane to reach the Inner Planes, and the Astral Plane to reach the Outer Planes. The Abyss had 666 planes, not an infinite number.

No such thing as the Blood War, certainly no concept that the Lower Planes were more powerful than the Upper Planes. Upper Planar creatures were generally rarer and more powerful than their infernal counterparts. Demons and other outer planar entities were definitely on a lower tier than the gods, even the unique baddies like Asmodeus, Demogorgon, etc.

And there was no nonsense about everyone going to the plane they'd like best after dying. If you were evil, you went to the appropriate lower plane and suffered, no two ways about it. The most evil might be turned into Manes or Lemures after a few millinia, but there was no concept that it might be some kind of reward. I remember the first module that was set on a non-Prime plane, Queen of the Demonweb Pits - the non-Euclidean pathways you walked were made of compressed souls, and they were not happy to be there.

Spells for planar travel existed, but there was no expectation that such travel was common.

[Crow]

Those planes sound way cooler than the current ones. "Happy Hunting Grounds"...just awesome.

[Morph Bark]

Those planes sound way cooler than the current ones. "Happy Hunting Grounds"...just awesome.

Most of those names are still used (well, in 3.5, not 4E), but moreso as part of the greater name or as a nickname. The Happy Hunting Grounds has become the nickname for the Beastlands, whilst the Seven Heavens are now "The Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia" or Celestia for short. Gladsheim is the only one I've never heard of.

[Balain]

I think he means the box sets and not 1E ASD&D those were two different games.

If I remember right there was a gold box from the box sets. So Basic, expert, etc. The last one was the immortal set which was gold. I Never played The immortal set, but a guy I went to school did lots. Your character that you started back in basic set is now a god. So all the PCs are gods and you fight other gods and demons and devils and stuff from what I remember. That's about all I can tell you about it.

[The_Snark]

Gladsheim is almost certainly equivalent to 3.5's Ysgard: a Nordic kind of heaven, associated with good and chaos but with emphasis on the chaos.

Really, it looks like the only difference between this and the 3.5 cosmology is that some of the names were changed, and the box-shape became a wheel.

And there was no nonsense about everyone going to the plane they'd like best after dying. If you were evil, you went to the appropriate lower plane and suffered, no two ways about it. The most evil might be turned into Manes or Lemures after a few millennia, but there was no concept that it might be some kind of reward.

... did that change? That was always my impression of the 3.5 afterlife, too.

[Fizban]

And there was no nonsense about everyone going to the plane they'd like best after dying. If you were evil, you went to the appropriate lower plane and suffered, no two ways about it. The most evil might be turned into Manes or Lemures after a few millinia, but there was no concept that it might be some kind of reward. I remember the first module that was set on a non-Prime plane, Queen of the Demonweb Pits - the non-Euclidean pathways you walked were made of compressed souls, and they were not happy to be there.

I don't know anything about the plane "they'd like best." Last I heard in 3.5, it's the plane of your deity or the one closest matching your alignment if you didn't worship a god. Upon arrival, your soul was pretty much up for grabs: on the good planes you'd just chill and maybe get recruited to be a petitioner, on the evil planes you'd be used as a toy and/or food and/or currency. So good people are rewarded and bad people are the playthings of demons and devils. The only time I've heard about actually getting a deal is in Forgotten Realms, if you don't have a god and cut a deal with the devils.

[Xefas]

The only time I've heard about actually getting a deal is in Forgotten Realms, if you don't have a god and cut a deal with the devils.

Actually, the Fiendish Codex II goes into cutting deals with devils in whatever setting. Usually it's something like "Do X thing for us, and after we've scourged your soul for a thousand lifetimes, instead of making you a Lemures, we'll instantly promote you to a Spinagon (the next level up from Lemures in the hierarchy)."

And, of course, afterward, they look at that Lemures, with their hand on the Promote button, and go "Well, technically the contract said we'd be promoting Steve Darkevil to a Spinagon, but really...does this thing even count? It's more like a flayed remnant of the true Steve Darkevil. Meh, lets not waste the energy." And they walk away.

And then you get nothing. Because you're evil.

[The Big Dice]

The "golden box" could well be the old Immortals box set. The cosmology in there was surprisingly intricate and got involved with things like multiple linear dimensionality and stuff.

At the heart of everything is the Prime Plane, the universe as we experience it. The Ethereal Plane touches the Prime at all points, and travel between them is possible via the use of wormholes. Also contained within the Ethereal are the four Elemental Planes. Each Elemental Plane is connected to the Prime by a series of wormholes and each point within those planes touches the Ethereal. Taken collectively, these six planes are called the Inner Planes.

Beyone the Ethereal is the Astral Plane. This surrounds and touches the Ethereal and Elemental planes in the same way as the Ethereal does, but does not touch the Prime Plane. Within the Astral exist the Outer Planes. These are the homes of the Immortals and other beings.

Only three known planes of existence are infinite in size: the Prime, Astral and Ethereal Planes. All the others are limited, and are called "bounded" planes. As a whole, the Prime, Elemental, Ethereal, astral and Outer planes are known as the Mutiverse.

This is pretty different from anything used in AD&D or any of it's children by WotC. But it does allow for just about anything you want tobe out there on an Outer Plane, if you want it to be.