Some sort of Yggdrasil framework? It would be an interesting idea, sure. I would have to unlearn a lot about the old cosmology, and would have to put on my thinking hat to figure out where to hide Ravenloft if the Ethereal isn't the default planar interstitium?
The thing about the Planes model has less to do with the planes themselves, then how a PC chooses to or has access to traveling between them. If they have access to the world tree, that method will be how they see the planes. If the only way they have of such is the AD&D LoT5R, then some planes will be missing and whole new planes exist. Watch for the taint its nasty. If they Travel the Astral Sea, then that. If they travel the Phlogestian streams, then that.. NOTHING stops them from being all true at the same time.
Whatever, let 'em just slap some Norse stuff onto this b*tch, who cares, it's generic and popular. Just the way they added ki. Nobody ever uses it or even mentions its existence except for one class, but why not?
I'm being sarcastic, I don't like these intrusions into cosmology or powers that exist in a bubble of plot convenience and never interact with anything outside the bubble.
Asking Wizards for consistent planar lore is like asking a chef to fix your car. They'll just stare at you in uncomprehending confusion before asking "....why?"
Yggdrasil has been part of the Dungeons and Dragons Cosmology since 1st Edition's Planes of Chaos in 1987. It isn't Yggdrasil or The Great Wheel, it's both, and it's been both since just about the beginning.
The thing about the Great Wheel to remember is that it's not a literal wheel any more than the representation of the ocean on a globe means that the ocean coast never changes. The Great Wheel is a way of thinking about the Planes. Although the Wheel reflects the Gate Towns of the Outlands, even then it is a representation or a kind of semi-literal metaphor.
Yggdrasil does literally exist. It stretches from the chaotic good plane of Ysgard (heavily Norse influenced) down to Niflheim in the Grey Wastes at its roots. In the D&D cosmology, Yggdrasil can be thought of as a sort of quasi or transitive plane like the Infinite Staircase. Not quite a Plane of its own, but hella useful for traveling from one plane to another on the chaotic end of the Planes.
Do I support this and other theft from 10,000 cultures that essentially make up the D&D cosmology? Ehhh, that's a complicated question. I loved it as a kid and teenager, as an adult I can see its problematic side and am aware that simply throwing every kitchen sink from every culture in history can create inconsistency and absurdity. On the other hand settings like Planescape thrived on this kind of absurdity and had unique stories to tell that one wouldn't be able to tell without the zaniness; and for all its sometimes silliness, Planescape also had some of the most interesting and thought-provoking stuff around. YMMV, I guess.
Anyway, my point is Yggdrasil is not new. It's inclusion does not mean a switch, just an inclusion of something that's been in D&D for about as long as the Planes have.
I ended up with a mage, Hierophant Druid with psionic Probability travel, in 1st edition. He would laugh at the idea of consistency. "If you see the Planes the way I see the planes, as a string of multi-dimensional bubbles some strung together some not and withing and churning.. consistency it ain't
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Itinerant Deputy Shire-reave Tomas Burrfoot - world walker, Raft-captain, speaker to his dead
Toddy Shelfungus- Rider of the Order of Ill Luck, Speaker to Friends of Friends, and Horribly big nosed
Jarl Archi of Jenisis Glade Fee- Noble Knight of the Dragonborn Goldcrest Clan, Sorcerer of the Noble Investigator;y; Knightly order of the Wolfhound
Do you all think that wotc is going to change the planes model back to the world tree because of the new barbarian subclass?
"There's a planar tree that extends across multiple cosmologies" doesn't have to mean "we're changing the whole planes model." Lots of things are common to all the cosmologies, like the Astral, Feywild and Shadowfell.
Except Yggdrasil or the World Tree was the whole cosmology in 3rd edition, and it's still pointed to as a thing occasionally in 5e. So it doesn't just exist in a vacuum.
Um, so, for example, where in relation to the tree was Sigil placed then? Cosmology chart in DMG doesn't have any trees, either.
Also in my personal opinion, the World Tree being a thing is a lovely way to flavour Druids casting plane shift.
EDIT: I know they took plane shift away from Druids in OneD&D, but there could be a World Tree-related spell to give a similar function, kinda like a planar travel equivalent to transport via plants.
No worries unless they change the Druid spell list they have it back since the primal list is dead
Makes me wonder where exactly on the World Tree the entrance to Duat is situated, is there a way out of Sansarah via the World Tree, and whether it connects Prav, Yav, and Nav)
Makes me wonder where exactly on the World Tree the entrance to Duat is situated, is there a way out of Sansarah via the World Tree, and whether it connects Prav, Yav, and Nav)
The Myriad Mythos Melange is labyrinthine and infinitely interconnected, recursive corridors of philosophy that always end up where they began.
More on point, while I do enjoy and understand having in-game creatures and phenomena that reference real world, I also wish that these things would be a bit more agnosticised and painted with the game's own brush instead of lifted mostly intact from our world. Especially with names of locations and individual beings. For instance, while I do like the gods Oghma and Loviatar, for instance, they're direct rip-offs of Gaelic and Finnish mythology. Would it have been better to change up their names to make them truly original?
Should the world of D&D have vestiges of ours in it? Yggdrasil, Asgard, Olympus, Hades, Sheol, Yanluo, Agartha? Or would it be more interesting to encourage and expand on its own ideas like Sigil, Mechanus, Concordant Opposition, Abyss, and the Infinite Staircase?
Should the world of D&D have vestiges of ours in it? Yggdrasil, Asgard, Olympus, Hades, Sheol, Yanluo, Agartha? Or would it be more interesting to encourage and expand on its own ideas like Sigil, Mechanus, Concordant Opposition, Abyss, and the Infinite Staircase?
Putting aside that that ship has sailed (see planes that exist in both like Elysium, Nirvana, Hell, Hades, Limbo...) I don't see why it has to be either/or. Some D&D planes have names in common with similar myths/concepts in our world. Some go beyond names to sharing mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics (for example, both versions of Elysium have a river named Lethe that makes you forget your mortal life.) Some are the same concept by different names (e.g. the Far Realm is Lovecraft's Dreamlands.) And some are entirely unique to D&D like the Wall of the Faithless, though even those have multiple inspirations sourced from our own mythology because that's just how fantasy writing works.
All of it can fit under the big D&D tent just fine.
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Do you all think that wotc is going to change the planes model back to the world tree because of the new barbarian subclass?
Some sort of Yggdrasil framework? It would be an interesting idea, sure. I would have to unlearn a lot about the old cosmology, and would have to put on my thinking hat to figure out where to hide Ravenloft if the Ethereal isn't the default planar interstitium?
The thing about the Planes model has less to do with the planes themselves, then how a PC chooses to or has access to traveling between them.
If they have access to the world tree, that method will be how they see the planes.
If the only way they have of such is the AD&D LoT5R, then some planes will be missing and whole new planes exist.
Watch for the taint its nasty.
If they Travel the Astral Sea, then that.
If they travel the Phlogestian streams, then that..
NOTHING stops them from being all true at the same time.
Itinerant Deputy Shire-reave Tomas Burrfoot - world walker, Raft-captain, speaker to his dead
Toddy Shelfungus- Rider of the Order of Ill Luck, Speaker to Friends of Friends, and Horribly big nosed
Jarl Archi of Jenisis Glade Fee- Noble Knight of the Dragonborn Goldcrest Clan, Sorcerer of the Noble Investigator;y; Knightly order of the Wolfhound
Whatever, let 'em just slap some Norse stuff onto this b*tch, who cares, it's generic and popular. Just the way they added ki. Nobody ever uses it or even mentions its existence except for one class, but why not?
I'm being sarcastic, I don't like these intrusions into cosmology or powers that exist in a bubble of plot convenience and never interact with anything outside the bubble.
Asking Wizards for consistent planar lore is like asking a chef to fix your car. They'll just stare at you in uncomprehending confusion before asking "....why?"
Please do not contact or message me.
But wouldn't you be tickled if your chefsmith actually rolled her sleeves up and DID her darndest to fix the car?
Of course, it now smells like freshly baked bread whenever you turn the ignition, but, hey, that's a feature not a bug :)
Yggdrasil has been part of the Dungeons and Dragons Cosmology since 1st Edition's Planes of Chaos in 1987. It isn't Yggdrasil or The Great Wheel, it's both, and it's been both since just about the beginning.
The thing about the Great Wheel to remember is that it's not a literal wheel any more than the representation of the ocean on a globe means that the ocean coast never changes. The Great Wheel is a way of thinking about the Planes. Although the Wheel reflects the Gate Towns of the Outlands, even then it is a representation or a kind of semi-literal metaphor.
Yggdrasil does literally exist. It stretches from the chaotic good plane of Ysgard (heavily Norse influenced) down to Niflheim in the Grey Wastes at its roots. In the D&D cosmology, Yggdrasil can be thought of as a sort of quasi or transitive plane like the Infinite Staircase. Not quite a Plane of its own, but hella useful for traveling from one plane to another on the chaotic end of the Planes.
Do I support this and other theft from 10,000 cultures that essentially make up the D&D cosmology? Ehhh, that's a complicated question. I loved it as a kid and teenager, as an adult I can see its problematic side and am aware that simply throwing every kitchen sink from every culture in history can create inconsistency and absurdity. On the other hand settings like Planescape thrived on this kind of absurdity and had unique stories to tell that one wouldn't be able to tell without the zaniness; and for all its sometimes silliness, Planescape also had some of the most interesting and thought-provoking stuff around. YMMV, I guess.
Anyway, my point is Yggdrasil is not new. It's inclusion does not mean a switch, just an inclusion of something that's been in D&D for about as long as the Planes have.
I ended up with a mage, Hierophant Druid with psionic Probability travel, in 1st edition.
He would laugh at the idea of consistency.
"If you see the Planes the way I see the planes, as a string of multi-dimensional bubbles some strung together some not and withing and churning.. consistency it ain't
Itinerant Deputy Shire-reave Tomas Burrfoot - world walker, Raft-captain, speaker to his dead
Toddy Shelfungus- Rider of the Order of Ill Luck, Speaker to Friends of Friends, and Horribly big nosed
Jarl Archi of Jenisis Glade Fee- Noble Knight of the Dragonborn Goldcrest Clan, Sorcerer of the Noble Investigator;y; Knightly order of the Wolfhound
That's okay, Cee-Cee. I was just running with Yurei's comment about chefs not being car mechanics :)
Never assume my posts contain actual points! :D
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Metaphorgotten
"There's a planar tree that extends across multiple cosmologies" doesn't have to mean "we're changing the whole planes model." Lots of things are common to all the cosmologies, like the Astral, Feywild and Shadowfell.
Um, so, for example, where in relation to the tree was Sigil placed then? Cosmology chart in DMG doesn't have any trees, either.
No worries unless they change the Druid spell list they have it back since the primal list is dead
Makes me wonder where exactly on the World Tree the entrance to Duat is situated, is there a way out of Sansarah via the World Tree, and whether it connects Prav, Yav, and Nav)
The Myriad Mythos Melange is labyrinthine and infinitely interconnected, recursive corridors of philosophy that always end up where they began.
More on point, while I do enjoy and understand having in-game creatures and phenomena that reference real world, I also wish that these things would be a bit more agnosticised and painted with the game's own brush instead of lifted mostly intact from our world. Especially with names of locations and individual beings. For instance, while I do like the gods Oghma and Loviatar, for instance, they're direct rip-offs of Gaelic and Finnish mythology. Would it have been better to change up their names to make them truly original?
Should the world of D&D have vestiges of ours in it? Yggdrasil, Asgard, Olympus, Hades, Sheol, Yanluo, Agartha? Or would it be more interesting to encourage and expand on its own ideas like Sigil, Mechanus, Concordant Opposition, Abyss, and the Infinite Staircase?
Putting aside that that ship has sailed (see planes that exist in both like Elysium, Nirvana, Hell, Hades, Limbo...) I don't see why it has to be either/or. Some D&D planes have names in common with similar myths/concepts in our world. Some go beyond names to sharing mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics (for example, both versions of Elysium have a river named Lethe that makes you forget your mortal life.) Some are the same concept by different names (e.g. the Far Realm is Lovecraft's Dreamlands.) And some are entirely unique to D&D like the Wall of the Faithless, though even those have multiple inspirations sourced from our own mythology because that's just how fantasy writing works.
All of it can fit under the big D&D tent just fine.