Forums: Forums -> Step 3: Cosmology

Right, so it's been a while since I put anything down here. Sorry about that, school pressures and all. I'm hoping for two posts here today, and the first one is on my setting's cosmology. This will be the "true" creation and shape of the multiverse for my campaign setting.



The Inner Planes for the building blocks of the universe, as well as providing the source of most magic powers. Originally there was just the positive and negative energy planes. The interaction between the two planes spawned the four elemental planes. The interaction between these six planes resulted in the "self-creation" of the gods. The first of these gods were destroyed because of the unstable nature of the inner planes.

Eventually, the interaction of the four elemental planes spawned the material plane, with a thin, porous boundry protecting it from the chaos of the inner planes. This boundry is mistakenly called the Etheral "Plane", despite the fact that it is not an actual plane. Future gods were plopped onto the material plane, giving them stable shapes.

When the dieties began to think, these thoughts formed ideas. Ideas solidified and formed the outer planes. Because of the shifting nature of ideas, the outer planes were relatively unstable until a fair number of gods were thinking. With ideas forming in their heads, different types of outer planes began to solidify. These eventually formed into nine distinct planes, representative of different mental perspectives (what is currently called alignment).

At first, the outer planes merely had physical elements that were representative of their nature, but as the ideas of the deities evolved, so did the planes. Planar creatures began to appear, sprung from the thoughts of the gods, and their repeated failure at crafting and keeping "souls". These creatures were remarkably different depending on their plane of creation, and for the most part, were not directly created by the deities. This was the beginning of the population and growth of the outer planes.

The deities weren't lazy on their own plane. With their tremendous powers, they were crafting a universe. Planets, stars, black holes, comets, whatever struck their fancy. The deities sacrificed some of their power in order to gain direct access to the Inner Planes, tearing small holes in the Etheral Membrane. Their first attempts at creating others like themselves, through the manipulation of the positive and negative energy planes, failed horribly. They managed to craft souls, but without corporal bodies, they dissipated and "disappeared". The souls actually went to the Outer Planes and into the first creatures that were being created there by thought.

Inevitably material bodies were formed before the souls, and one world on the material plane began to be populated with animals and the three races: Noxians, Dragons, and Dwarves. Eventually holes were ripped in the Astral Membrane allowing for some transport there as well. Due to worldly events, dragons eventually devolved into kobolds, and various non-intelligent creatures evolved into Goblins, Humans, elves and halflings.

The Outer Planes are not all the same size, or of equal power. The denizens of one outer plane can extend their lands onto another outer plane. The outer planes now survive, develop, and gain or lose power as much more as a result of the thoughts and ideas of mortals than of the gods.

The deity and race histories will be covered in future posts.

In summary:

6 Inner Planes (Positive Energy, Negative Energy, Earth, Air, Fire, Water)
1 Material Plane
9 Outer Planes (1 per "alignment")

It is important to not that the inner and outer planes cannot be "seen" from the material, or from each other. A thin membrane keeps the outer planes out of phase with the physical. This membrane is often called the Astral "Plane". A similar membrane protects, but connects, the Outer Planes to the Inner Planes, and that membrane is called the Shadow "Plane". It is important to note that the Astral, Etheral and Shadow "Planes" are not actually planes. All spells in relation to them as such, no longer exist in this campaign setting.