I did this work recently after many years of finding The Great Wheel cosmology model frustrating to work with. The Great Wheel looks good and evokes that feeling of an old scroll but it's not very helpful when trying to visualise it more systematically and understand what’s art and what is actually part of the model. So after some thinking and tweaking, I got to a model that I think works well at providing this 'cleaner' view, and because it changes how The Great Wheel is shown I'm posting it here in Homebrew despite not really changing The Great Wheel, just how to visualise it and adding some extra elements (I explain it all below). So now I'm opening here to the community hoping this helps others, but also if there's something I got wrong please let me know.
Some context on the problem:
The image below shows the cosmological model we know as The Great Wheel. From what I understand, this model is the most normalised and widely accepted representation of the planes and their arrangements since it has been included in 5e materials such as the DMG and the Spelljammer book. This view somewhat continues now in the Player's Handbook 2024. Although it's not presented anymore as The Great Wheel, and I don't know if the idea is to move away from the model entirely, but now the planes are shown in a more illustrative way and in 2 'slices' so I think the problem of viewing the Great Wheel continues. I won't show the Player's Handbook 2024 version because it's not available for everyone yet, and I'm not sure what guidelines there are on this.
Apart from creating a more comprehensive, modern, and clean version of this Great Wheel model, I wanted to better show how the Positive and Negative Planes influence the other planes with a 3D visualisation of the model. The version shown in the Player's Handbook 2024 does this already with Feywild and Shadowfell which is really good to see. So a few important assumptions were made at the start:
The World Tree cosmology model remains an alternative view and is therefore should not be considered
The Quasi-Elemental planes are acknowledged but should not be considered
The Para-Elemental planes are not shown in the Great Wheel but are in the Player's Handbook 2024, so they should be considered
Point 1: The neutrality of the planes
A key part of my model is placing the Elemental planes in a way that reflects their neutrality. The Great Wheel shows them horizontally divided by the Positive and Negative energies.
Something I couldn’t find, and a question that remains is if the further up or down an Outer plane is, the more affected by the Positive and Negative energies they are. For instance, does Elysium being at the top and Hades at the bottom mean they are more or less positive/negative than others? I don't think so, it just means a binary property, either positive or negative. This was not taken into account in my final model.
Continuing on the topic of neutrality for the Elemental planes, the two images below (which I believe are from 2e and 3.5e respectively) show the Elemental planes positioned in the middle of the Positive and Negative influences. They also show how Quasi-Elemental planes closer to the two energies are affected by their presence for example Ash and Dust are closer to Negative, and Radiance is closer to Positive. The Player's Handbook 2024 doesn't explicitly show Positive and Negative but does show how Feywild and Shadowfell are affected, so it's unclear to me how they want to consider the energies. However, the more relevant point for my model is that the images below place the Elemental planes in a central and neutral position. The Player's Handbook 2024 also places them in a neutral position, aligned with the Material plane, which supports this idea.
The problem here is that The Great Wheel model shows an energy orientation of the four Elemental planes. I show this in the image below, with Air and Water on the Positive upper side indicated by the green part, and Fire and Earth on the Negative side indicated by the red part. The interesting point about this split is that the Feywild and Shadowfell do align with the Positive and Negative polarities, which is shown in the Player's Handbook 2024 version, enforcing the idea that position matters for some Inner planes but not other Inner planes.
A better representation might be to consider the Positive and Negative energies in a 3D model. I don't know the source of the image below, but it allows this 3D view to represent the same concept as the 2e and 3.5e images above:
I didn’t include the Quasi-Elemental planes in my revised Great Wheel model because from what I understand after the Spellplague most of the matter making up these planes collapsed together to become the Elemental Chaos. This is likely why the Great Wheel model doesn’t include them. So apart from the Elemental Chaos, the neutrality of the four Elemental Planes is reflected in my model.
Taking apart the Great Wheel model:
In my representation, the model is taken from 2D to 3D, and the Inner and Material planes are placed on a "ring" that is then rotated 90 degrees, see the graph below:
This creates neutrality for the Elemental planes while making the Outer planes fit the upper and lower orientation used in the Great Wheel, since they are literally up and down. The Material Plane is also kept neutral, but its reflections, Feywild and Shadowfell, can be positioned up and down to represent their proximity to the Positive and Negative planes. Just like the Player's Handbook 2024 now shows.
Point 2 considered: Law and Chaos
The Great Wheel model shows what I can best describe as a thematic grouping, orienting the planes left and right to group them by law or chaos. It’s unclear how or if this affects the Inner planes, and I couldn’t find anything suggesting that this needs to be visually represented in the final model, as it seems more like a descriptive grouping only for the Outer planes like "external" or "inner" rather than an entity like the Positive and Negative energy. So this is not shown in my model.
Point 3 considered: The Astral Sea
With a 3D representation of the Great Wheel, the Astral Sea becomes tricky to solve because you can not only navigate front and back, left and right but now also up and down. The possible view I considered was a 3D sphere that starts in the middle of the model and expands outward to the Far Realms, as shown via the blue gradient in the figure below. This 3D sphere was easy to represent, and I found no reason to discount it. So this is shown in my model via the X, Y and Z.
Final thoughts and feedback:
I believe my final model achieves the goal of producing a modern, clean and “digital” visualization of the Great Wheel. I tried to base all my assumptions on official sources and to have an explanation for each decision, hopefully creating something that can be used by others. The Player's Handbook 2024 way of showing the planes, supports the decisions I made and does not break my model so I think they complement each other nicely. Did I forget something? Let me know. Below are all the views of my model.
Wow! This illustrates much more consistent intellectual model to navigate the any I stumbled on before. I appreciate your work!
Also I guess when everyone around uses wheels to swim - somebody gotta suggest a paddle and always someone else will say "you're reinventing the wheel" :D
Hello!
I did this work recently after many years of finding The Great Wheel cosmology model frustrating to work with. The Great Wheel looks good and evokes that feeling of an old scroll but it's not very helpful when trying to visualise it more systematically and understand what’s art and what is actually part of the model. So after some thinking and tweaking, I got to a model that I think works well at providing this 'cleaner' view, and because it changes how The Great Wheel is shown I'm posting it here in Homebrew despite not really changing The Great Wheel, just how to visualise it and adding some extra elements (I explain it all below). So now I'm opening here to the community hoping this helps others, but also if there's something I got wrong please let me know.
Some context on the problem:
The image below shows the cosmological model we know as The Great Wheel. From what I understand, this model is the most normalised and widely accepted representation of the planes and their arrangements since it has been included in 5e materials such as the DMG and the Spelljammer book. This view somewhat continues now in the Player's Handbook 2024. Although it's not presented anymore as The Great Wheel, and I don't know if the idea is to move away from the model entirely, but now the planes are shown in a more illustrative way and in 2 'slices' so I think the problem of viewing the Great Wheel continues. I won't show the Player's Handbook 2024 version because it's not available for everyone yet, and I'm not sure what guidelines there are on this.
Apart from creating a more comprehensive, modern, and clean version of this Great Wheel model, I wanted to better show how the Positive and Negative Planes influence the other planes with a 3D visualisation of the model. The version shown in the Player's Handbook 2024 does this already with Feywild and Shadowfell which is really good to see. So a few important assumptions were made at the start:
Point 1: The neutrality of the planes
A key part of my model is placing the Elemental planes in a way that reflects their neutrality. The Great Wheel shows them horizontally divided by the Positive and Negative energies.
Something I couldn’t find, and a question that remains is if the further up or down an Outer plane is, the more affected by the Positive and Negative energies they are. For instance, does Elysium being at the top and Hades at the bottom mean they are more or less positive/negative than others? I don't think so, it just means a binary property, either positive or negative. This was not taken into account in my final model.
Continuing on the topic of neutrality for the Elemental planes, the two images below (which I believe are from 2e and 3.5e respectively) show the Elemental planes positioned in the middle of the Positive and Negative influences. They also show how Quasi-Elemental planes closer to the two energies are affected by their presence for example Ash and Dust are closer to Negative, and Radiance is closer to Positive. The Player's Handbook 2024 doesn't explicitly show Positive and Negative but does show how Feywild and Shadowfell are affected, so it's unclear to me how they want to consider the energies. However, the more relevant point for my model is that the images below place the Elemental planes in a central and neutral position. The Player's Handbook 2024 also places them in a neutral position, aligned with the Material plane, which supports this idea.
The problem here is that The Great Wheel model shows an energy orientation of the four Elemental planes. I show this in the image below, with Air and Water on the Positive upper side indicated by the green part, and Fire and Earth on the Negative side indicated by the red part. The interesting point about this split is that the Feywild and Shadowfell do align with the Positive and Negative polarities, which is shown in the Player's Handbook 2024 version, enforcing the idea that position matters for some Inner planes but not other Inner planes.
A better representation might be to consider the Positive and Negative energies in a 3D model. I don't know the source of the image below, but it allows this 3D view to represent the same concept as the 2e and 3.5e images above:
I didn’t include the Quasi-Elemental planes in my revised Great Wheel model because from what I understand after the Spellplague most of the matter making up these planes collapsed together to become the Elemental Chaos. This is likely why the Great Wheel model doesn’t include them. So apart from the Elemental Chaos, the neutrality of the four Elemental Planes is reflected in my model.
Taking apart the Great Wheel model:
In my representation, the model is taken from 2D to 3D, and the Inner and Material planes are placed on a "ring" that is then rotated 90 degrees, see the graph below:
This creates neutrality for the Elemental planes while making the Outer planes fit the upper and lower orientation used in the Great Wheel, since they are literally up and down. The Material Plane is also kept neutral, but its reflections, Feywild and Shadowfell, can be positioned up and down to represent their proximity to the Positive and Negative planes. Just like the Player's Handbook 2024 now shows.
Point 2 considered: Law and Chaos
The Great Wheel model shows what I can best describe as a thematic grouping, orienting the planes left and right to group them by law or chaos. It’s unclear how or if this affects the Inner planes, and I couldn’t find anything suggesting that this needs to be visually represented in the final model, as it seems more like a descriptive grouping only for the Outer planes like "external" or "inner" rather than an entity like the Positive and Negative energy. So this is not shown in my model.
Point 3 considered: The Astral Sea
With a 3D representation of the Great Wheel, the Astral Sea becomes tricky to solve because you can not only navigate front and back, left and right but now also up and down. The possible view I considered was a 3D sphere that starts in the middle of the model and expands outward to the Far Realms, as shown via the blue gradient in the figure below. This 3D sphere was easy to represent, and I found no reason to discount it. So this is shown in my model via the X, Y and Z.
Final thoughts and feedback:
I believe my final model achieves the goal of producing a modern, clean and “digital” visualization of the Great Wheel. I tried to base all my assumptions on official sources and to have an explanation for each decision, hopefully creating something that can be used by others. The Player's Handbook 2024 way of showing the planes, supports the decisions I made and does not break my model so I think they complement each other nicely. Did I forget something? Let me know. Below are all the views of my model.
.
I guess you could say you’re reinventing the wheel
Best Spells: https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/2190706-applause, https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/2047204-big-ol-switcheroo, https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/2188701-cerwicks-copper-cables
Best Feats: https://www.dndbeyond.com/feats/1512461-soapbox-revised
Best Monsters: https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/3775489-jar-jar-binks, https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/3860024-spare-ribs
Wow! This illustrates much more consistent intellectual model to navigate the any I stumbled on before. I appreciate your work!
Also I guess when everyone around uses wheels to swim - somebody gotta suggest a paddle and always someone else will say "you're reinventing the wheel" :D
What about The Outlands, or Sigil? Is it just Out of Phase with the PMP?