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Which was your favourite Forgotten Realms Cosmology?
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<blockquote data-quote="Epic Meepo" data-source="post: 9331165" data-attributes="member: 57073"><p>Well, there’s no way to debate subjective terms such as “needless,” so I accept that you find needless complexity in the Great Wheel cosmology. In contrast, I see the Great Wheel as something that’s only as complex as I choose to make it in my home campaign, just like the Forogotten Realms setting is only as complex as I choose to make it.</p><p></p><p>I can run a Planescape campaign where PCs use planar pathways to travel on foot between a few planar locations without ever enumerating all of the inner and outer planes, the same way I can run a Forgotten Realms campaign where PCs use roads to travel on foot between a few cities on the Sword Coast without ever enumerating all the nations of Faerun.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>On these points, the AD&D <em>Manual of the Planes</em> disagrees with you. It provides a concise overview of the cosmology later known as the Great Wheel with only half a page of explanation.</p><p></p><p>According to that source, “there are five basic groupings of the planes: the Prime Material Planes, the Ethereal planes, the inner planes, the Astral Plane, and the outer planes.”</p><p></p><p>A single paragraph describing each of the five regions follows. Inner planes are defined as “regions of primary forces, the primary building blocks of the multiverses.” (Apparently, there’s more than one multiverse!) Six inner planes are listed as examples, but that list isn’t part of the definition itself.</p><p></p><p>A later paragraph defines what outer planes are by listing their many shared properties. Not a single outer plane is mentioned by name in that paragraph (or anywhere in the overview), not even as an example. The Seven Heavens (a.k.a. Celestia) aren’t mentioned anywhere therein.</p><p></p><p>The next page in the same book has an illustration entitled “Traditional Depiction of the Planes” which portrays the entire D&D multiverse. There are exactly five named locations in that illustatrion: The Prime Material Plane, the Ethereal Plane, the Inner Planes, the Astral Planes, and the Outer Planes.</p><p></p><p>Later chapters start listing and illustrating specific inner and outer planes, but the overview of the cosmological model itself doesn’t delve into any of those details. The AD&D MoP version of the Great Wheel can be (and literally is) explained without referencing any of those details.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Epic Meepo, post: 9331165, member: 57073"] Well, there’s no way to debate subjective terms such as “needless,” so I accept that you find needless complexity in the Great Wheel cosmology. In contrast, I see the Great Wheel as something that’s only as complex as I choose to make it in my home campaign, just like the Forogotten Realms setting is only as complex as I choose to make it. I can run a Planescape campaign where PCs use planar pathways to travel on foot between a few planar locations without ever enumerating all of the inner and outer planes, the same way I can run a Forgotten Realms campaign where PCs use roads to travel on foot between a few cities on the Sword Coast without ever enumerating all the nations of Faerun. On these points, the AD&D [I]Manual of the Planes[/I] disagrees with you. It provides a concise overview of the cosmology later known as the Great Wheel with only half a page of explanation. According to that source, “there are five basic groupings of the planes: the Prime Material Planes, the Ethereal planes, the inner planes, the Astral Plane, and the outer planes.” A single paragraph describing each of the five regions follows. Inner planes are defined as “regions of primary forces, the primary building blocks of the multiverses.” (Apparently, there’s more than one multiverse!) Six inner planes are listed as examples, but that list isn’t part of the definition itself. A later paragraph defines what outer planes are by listing their many shared properties. Not a single outer plane is mentioned by name in that paragraph (or anywhere in the overview), not even as an example. The Seven Heavens (a.k.a. Celestia) aren’t mentioned anywhere therein. The next page in the same book has an illustration entitled “Traditional Depiction of the Planes” which portrays the entire D&D multiverse. There are exactly five named locations in that illustatrion: The Prime Material Plane, the Ethereal Plane, the Inner Planes, the Astral Planes, and the Outer Planes. Later chapters start listing and illustrating specific inner and outer planes, but the overview of the cosmological model itself doesn’t delve into any of those details. The AD&D MoP version of the Great Wheel can be (and literally is) explained without referencing any of those details. [/QUOTE]
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