Favorite cosmologies from different sources

Re: Amber - I keep wanting to snag the concept of Trumps from the setting and use them in a Planescape game. It's hard to reconcile them with a level based game though.

Mage: the Ascension's cosmology, even if it was sometimes hard to get the idea that the other planets of Earth's Solar System were also the Shard Realms of the Spheres of Magick. Yeah I know they passed the idea of those other planets off as nothing but Technocracy propaganda. And had it where a Dreamspeaker Shaman could breathe just fine out there, but a Void Engineer Space Marine needed an environment suit.

A set of Trumps would be an astonishingly powerful item in a Planescape game -- reliable interplanar communication and site-to-site travel in portable form! -- so much so that I'd rate one as an artifact if the players were able to use them. Amber and the Courts as secret layers of Mechanus and Limbo would work great as a source for the high-powered royals in an epic-level game.

(I have absolutely no experience with the AD&D module that actually used the Amberites! So no clue what the canonical information on them was there.)

Re: cosmologies. As rip kindly noted above, I enjoy the Pathfinder setting as well as various real-world mysticisms.

Various Buddhist traditions have amalgamated quite a complex structure of parallel worlds organized by the progression of souls birthed therein along the cycle of reincarnation, ranging from the hells up to the material world, up to the worlds of the devas and anagamins and finally the true world those that have achieved final enlightenment. The Sahasra cosmology even mentions alternate material worlds, billions of them, organized into "chiliocosms." There is even a version of elemental planes -- the "foundations of the earth" are, in order, a layer of golden earth, a layer of water, and a layer of wind. I have never seen an RPG cosmology based on this arrangement but it would be awesome.

Much of my original exposure to the Tree of Life was through Ken Hite's Cabal setting for the GURPS system. Cabal itself has a fine multiplanar cosmology, but it would be a radical departure from Planescape. Its "material," "ethereal" and "astral" planes are radically different from D&D's! (Basically, its material could be the Prime easily enough, but its ethereal, Yetzirah, would be more like the D&D Astral, and its Astral, Briah, would be more like the Outer Planes. Atziluth would be Chronias, except people claim to have come back from there.) Also, the decans are pervasive throughout reality, so that there ethereal and astral manifestations of the elemental energies as well as other concepts like Anoster (rest, satiation), Phthenoth (healing), or Mardero (rebellion).

I find In Nomine interesting, and have GMed a couple campaigns of it. It's originally a modern game of angels-vs-demons. I proposed on these boards a version of the game that could be set Planescape-style, with the various Archangels and Demon Princes making their cases on various planes, and sponsoring cleric orders devoted to principles (their Words) rather than themselves.

Ah, I didn't know -- just saw the name, was always intrigued by the notion.

Interesting. Any freely available extensive source material? I know very little about the OD&D cosmology.

We've twice jacked Planescape forward a version, but the fact that the first one there is Entropy gives me the notion of reversing course -- could the 15 factions fit into selections of emphases from among the five primary forces? There are 15 ways to pick two elements from a selection of six, so throw in "no other" as a choice and have five of them focus exclusively on one. Some of them you have to tweak their focus a little, but I think these fit reasonably well:

Single-issue factions:

Entropy: The Doomguard, of course. Entropy as the ruling force of the Multiverse.

Matter: the Takers. What else matters but cold, hard stuff?

Thought: Signers. There is nothing but thought.

Time: The Bleak Cabal. Time goes on. That is all.

Energy: The Transcendent Order. Action without thought or pause.

("double-none": the Clueless, supposedly.)

Dual-Force philosophies:

Entropy-Matter: The Dustmen. This world is flesh, not soul, and dead flesh at that.

Entropy-Thought: The Anarchists. All systems of thought break down eventually.

Entropy-Time: Indeps. You let us be, we'll figure out our own path with enough time.

Entropy-Energy: Xaositects. The world is, think not, all things in motion, disorder creates anew.

Matter-Thought: The Society of Sensation. Learn about all things.

Matter-Time: Harmonium. The clockwork ticks, everything is orderly and rhythmical. The heavens sing in harmony with the earth.

Matter-Energy: The Athar. Thought, time, entropy, all these things arise from the natural components of existence. Gods too.

Thought-Time: The Fraternity of Order. Understanding encompasses the pattern of events, and can affect it.

Thought-Energy: The Mercykillers. Every desire, every sin and virtue, gives rise to its just reward and punishment.

Time-Energy: Godsmen. In the beginning was the Source, and as time goes on the cycle purifies everything.

I once ran a game inpsired in part by Zelazny's chaos vs law model. I had the game set in an Astral plane with Amber at one end and Chaos at the other - Sigil smack dab in the center as a neutral trading post.

The setting was very exploraion/trade centric, where people would ply the length of the Aether, popping in and out of the planes that ran its length to trade goods. As they navigated close to chaos the paths became less reliable and aether storms/similar dangers were far more common ... but the danger, naturally, made the potential for profit higher. As one moved closer to the law side things became more reliable, but eventually one ran into dangers of uniformity.

This provided for exploration of many varied prime planes with a reason to do so. The elemental planes surrounded the aether like the shell of an egg, occasionally eating through the barrier and causing distortions in the astral "yolk".

Continuing the egg methaphor, what we'd know as the "outer planes" swelled and grew at the center of the aether, absorbing the collected beliefs of all those who's worlds touched the aetheric realm.

Unfortunately, like many of my games, it got sidetracked a few weeks in and never got any more developed than that.
(I'm a victim of my own wild imagination, which has a problem settling in one place for long)

The cosmology in the anime/manga Angel Sanctuary is interesting, I think. Angels conquering Hell, with its sympathetic indigenous demons.

But I can't believe I forgot the DC Vertigo/Sandman/Books of Magic cosmology. With Faerie, Asgard, the realms of Dream, Destiny, Desire, etc., that mysterious necropolis, Hell, the Silver City, GemWorld, the Inn at Worlds' End, and all kinds of neat things. And there were some very cool things in the Lucifer part of that cosmology too, like fragile lattice-worlds far beyond the known planes.

The comic Fables also has an interesting cosmology, with thousands of worlds based on the various worlds of fiction and folklore connected by gates, through which a despotic Emperor has conquered hundreds of them.

And yes, Jem, I think those Sphere-Faction pairings work very well.