Universe vs. Multiverse

As far as I understand it, before 3e presented the whole alternate cosmologies thing, 2e Planescape had one cosmology (Inner Planes, Demiplanes, Ethereal Plane, Material Plane, Astral Plane, and Outer Planes) referred to as the "Multiverse" while the seperate planes were simply referred to as Planes. I really don't remember any instance of the word "Universe" being used to refer to either a cosmology or a gathering thereof. If anything, it could refer to a single plane. "Verse" was a cant contraction for "Multiverse". In 2e, the differences regarding how the multiverse was arranged between different settings (such as Forgotten Realms' tree thing) were simply attributed to clueless sods trying too hard. But that was according to the Planescape setting. In 3e, the default configuration resembles that of Planescape, but it allows for infinite variability that the DM can tap, and the multiple cosmologies/multiverses was just another attempt to tie it all together into something resembling cohesiveness.

Iavas, you have it mostly right. In 2e there were no alternative cosmologies; everything whether Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms or Planescape were part of the same multiverse with the same Outer and Inner planes. In 3e they made the previous multiverse which we associate with Planescape the default multiverse and the one for Greyhawk; but they decided that every other setting should get their own multiverse which would be connected through the shadow plane. Frankly, I think this is enormously stupid since it amounts to every planet having its own arrangement of infinite planes; I strongly encourage everyone to ignore this idea and continue on with the idea that there is ONE multiverse that everything (excluding the Far Realm) is part of. The term universe would describe a single plane, and would most likely be used in reference to the material plane.

I might also point out, possibly redundantly, that the Plane of Shadow used to be a simple, if larger than average, Demiplane in the 2e days. So, if you're going to stick with the Planescape setting, you might not want to follow WotC in accepting the Plane of Shadow as a super transitive that connects all possible realities. The Far Realm, even if it's rather new itself, would be a much better choice for such a role in Planescape, were such a role needed to be filled. The mere idea that there might be other multiverses to connect to would be mindblowing to an average planar (sort of like telling a prime farmer that there's not only a heaven and hell, but infinite worlds just past his doorstep). And the PoS does not connect different Prime Material worlds either, that would be the phlogiston (or the Ethereal, in a roundabout way).

I'll reassert my irrational rage caused by the notion of the Forgotten Realms having its own cosmology.

The Shadow Plane as a full plane as opposed to a demiplane really does make more sense; the spell shadow walk would really not be able to work otherwise. It makes more sense to me for the the various shadow conjuration and shadow evocation spells to draw matter from a plane coterminous to the material plane rather than from a demiplane. Also, the pholigston connects the various finite crystal spheres within one material plane. There are multiple material planes and the shadow plane makes sense as a way to connect them; but they are all connected to the same Inner and Outer planes.

The Far Realm existed in the 2e, and was only somewhat fleshed out for 3e. The Ordial plane was never part of any offical books and is entirely fan made. It has no place in the new "generic" cosmology; but in the old cosmology I really don't see how it exists outside of the multiverse. The Macrocosm was mentioned in 2e, and is never mentioned in 3e; but it does seem to be extracosmic.

I disagree with Rips claim that the Ordial plane is outside of the Planescape cosmology; whether or not the plane exists is up for debate, but if it does it exists within the Planescape cosmology. We shouldn't give ground in the encyclopedia to the idea that every crystal sphere has its own cosmology by mentioning it as if it is a valid viewpoint; that's akin to humoring the fundamentalists by talking about intelligenct design in a science class.

Ultimately, I think we should treat the ideas of alternative cosmologies like the Australian government used to treat aborigines: pretend they don't exist.

I was equating "cosmology" with multiverse as opposed to conception of the multiverse. Using conception of the multiverse, the Ordial plane would exist outside of the cosmology. Defining cosmology as multiverse, the Ordial plane, along with the underside of the Outlands (which certainly warrants discussion) would be part of the Planescape cosmology.

I basically agree with this view. The Prime Material Plane with the phlogiston and crystal spheres in it is not necessarily the only Material Plane. There could also be Eberron, our universe, and whatever. But all are linked to the Shadow, just as the phlogiston connects the crystal spheres. This makes it seem surperfluous, but I don't really see the Shadow as a transitive plane. I see it as either a layer of the Ethereal Plane, or else as one Plane that is part of the Prime Material group of planes.

I like the idea of Cluelessness making only some outer planes connect to various Prime worlds. After all, the Outer Planes are based in belief, right? However, if you take the idea to far then you contradict the idea that faithless land in the Outer Plane of their alignment. I think that if you believe in a cosmology, and your cosmology for example contains Niflheim, Ysgard, and Yggdrassil, those are the places you can end up after death. If your religion's afterlife is a Plane or just a godly realm would not matter. But if you don't have any set beliefs, you "default" so to speak to the plane that your alignment draws you to.

I don't think that this property has to be related to the Shadow plane, though. More likely to me is the idea that the dominant beliefs in a crystal sphere (or wherever) forge the Astral connections to the Outer Planes. So a faithless person who lives in Oerth or wherever, can still get to a lot of the Outer Planes, but a person living in Eberron is subject to Astral connections to Eberron's orbiting planes instead, and probably has little chance at all of ending up in the Great Ring.

Perhaps, the idea that faithless go to the plane of their alignment only really fully applies to Outlanders.

Iavas I agree with you for the most part, but I think one can use reason to draw some conclusions such as there being more than one material plane. Since there multiple infinite Outer Planes and multiple infinite Inner Planes; it stands to reason that there would be multiple infinite material planes. I have read all of the Planescape texts and it is never stated that there is only one material plane; and to planers it would be extremely difficult to tell the difference between someone from one material plane and someone from another. The arrogance of the clueless being as it is, they would all think of their material plane as being the "prime material plane" thus reinforcing the term "Primes" as an insult. My thoughts regarding the shadow plane have already been clearly expressed.

We're not getting off topic; the topic is merely evolving. While it is somewhat true that the infinite nature of the material plane renders the existence of multiple material planes unnecessary; the more I look into this the more it seems that there have always (by which I mean at least a dozen years) been more than one material plane. The grell, for instance, are described as coming from a different material plane. One of the key features of the shadow plane as a full plane is that it connects different material planes, this obviously requires the existence of multiple material planes.

Regarding the inclusiveness (I hate that word) of Planescape; the philosophy of 2e was that there would be one cosmology to encompass them all. It was accepted within all of the campaign settings that there was one collection of Outer Planes and one collection of Inner Planes. 3e foolishly moved away from this to give every setting its own cosmology. So whereas before everything was compatible and fell into place; if the inclusiveness of Planescape is to be maintained it will either require it to incorporate foreign elements that will disrupt its cohesiveness or require us to impose the Planescape cosmology upon other campaign settings. Since our presence on this message board shows that we favor the Planescape cosmology, I support the latter approach.

Okay, here are the viewpoints that I see appearing:

¤) There is one material plane with numerous crystal spheres and one cosmology around it. All inconsistencies of beliefs are roared at as Clueless in order to preserve the essence of Planescape in the face of other settings being greatly and incohesively altered for 3e.
¤) There are multiple material planes that tie in to the same cosmology around it. The inconsistencies in the cosmology are also considered due to Clueless thinking. The different material planes are as hard to tell apart as layers on Mechanus or Limbo, but are thought to exist nevertheless. This option adds changes and house rules to the Planescape setting without altering it too severely.
¤) There are multiple material planes, each tying into a seperate cosmology. The crystal spheres in any single material plane all share the same view of their cosmology, thus any sphere that does not share that view must be in a different cosmology that fits their own interpretation. This does not comply with Planescape rules, as there have always been Faeruneans and Oerthians meetings in the Planes despite their believing in 'different' cosmologies at home. This option updates Planescape to 3e to completely comply with WotC's new view of the planes, but is ultimately a different creature than the original Planescape, even if it roars less and is not threatened by extinction.

Personally I choose the first option, with the second option being freely open to DM's. I don't really consider the 3rd option as true Planescape. That, however, is just my opinion.

I don't think we have to call them clueless and ignore everything they say, but there are times when we are best off just disregarding something. At any rate, as far as I'm concerned, there is only one Material plane with an infinite number of infinitely variable crystal spheres. Unique cosmologies should be explained as a combination of differing beliefs, foolishness, and machinations of the gods. For whatever reason, these "cosmologies" (which are usually just divine reams, demiplanes, and portions of other planes) have been cut off from the greater multiverse. Generally the only ways to get to the Great Wheel proper from these "Gated Communities" is by finding a portal to Sigil or another planar pathway that even the gods can't interrupt, Spelljamming to a less isolated Prime (may not work for weirder Crystal Spheres), or finding a "hole in the wall" -- that is, a plane that is reachable both by the fenced-in Prime and the greater multiverse (the Abyss in Toril, for instance). Spells that teleport between planes like Planeshift or Gate (probably) still work, but there is no way to intentionally teleport to planes you don't even know exist. It may be helpful if we come up with semi-canon reasons for any given Prime world to be seperated. Here's some ideas:

Toril has its own "cosmology" because the resident Overpower, Ao and the other gods wanted to keep the dirty foreign dieties out (or maybe they didn't, Ao is pretty inscrutable). This may have something to do with the Time of Troubles. Who knows? Toril has a long history of being an active member of the Great Ring though, and the Abyssal and Infernal lords had numerous worshipers who would not be denied, so the Hells and the Abyss managed to muscle into the cosmology, more or less breaking any attempted isolation from the Outer Planes. Toril has pretty much the same Inner and Transitive Planes, but they have been warped by isolation and divine meddling. You can still get to anywhere in the multiverse through the Transitives, but it is a major pain. Aside from a shift in where the dead go, and a few extra planes that nobody cares about, the average Torillian hasn't even noticed, and most still think (correctly, it turns out) that they are connected to the Great Wheel. Therefore, a Torilian who does some basic research (DC 15 at most) can find out enough about a given plane to Planeshift to it, even if the plane isn't supposed to exist anymore. With a bit more work, you can find a portal to do the same thing.

Eberron is trickier, they pretty much universally believe that the world of Eberron, all its demiplanes, and the ether they float in, comprise everything in the multiverse. For some reason, Eberron and its assosiated Crystal Sphere (which is, interestingly, totally unnavigable via Spelljamming) have been cut off from the rest of the Prime. Eberron has been almost totally disconected from the Outer and Inner planes, but retains it's conections to the Transitives. The portals and planar pathways that (probably) once connected Eberron to the greater multiverse millenia ago, combined with the lingering belief on the world and (presumably) some divine intervention have coalesced to form 13 Astral Demiplanes of nearly infinite size. These planes form a defacto cosmology, and serve as stand-ins for the true Outer Planes. It is unclear if this multiverse-in-a-bottle is the cause of the strange way belief and the gods operate (or don't operate) on Eberron, or a symptom of it, but it can reasonably be assumed that the two are related (I'm tempted to write a lot more on this subject later). Eberronians rarely come into contact with the greater Multiverse, and those that do generally have wandered in via the transitives and the Plane of Shadow. As always, the Lady's will cannot be denied, and there are a handfull of portals to Sigil and other planar hubs scattered across Eberron's "mini-verse," but they always seem to be located in incredibly dangerous or inaccesible locations and usually have rediculously rare keys. This phenomenon appears to be far to common to be anything other than Divine spite, which lends credence to the notion that Eberron's gods are behind it all.

See, even a setting as weird as Eberron can be explained in a way that makes sense.

While doppleganger material planes have precidence, I stand by them being irrational. Athas can be thought of as a precident for dealing with Crystal spheres with different cosmologies: when playing from the Planescape perspective, assume them to be wrong. Though of course all of this is up to individual DMs to decide.

My personal campaign setting contains both the Forgotten Realms and Planescape. I entirely ignore the Forgotten Realm's new cosmology; as it adds nothing and takes away so much. Eberron's cosmology is more interesting; I have yet to include it any games that I've run but I would consider it to be a different material plane that is cut off from the Outer and Inner planes, that has demi-planes orbiting around it. The plane of shadow can be used to travel to it and from it from Material planes where the Inner and Outer planes are more easily accessable.

My view is that the multiverse as a whole is subjective, and that the great wheel cosmology is the most wide-spread because it accounts for most of existance. However there are many places out there that the great wheel cosmology can't account for, and the plane move and connect in strange ways that are hard to map out clearly.

Different places are there just hard to reach, as some might not be reachable as they exist outside someones concepts.

For example there may be a transitive plane called the digital web (to borrow from Mage) or the grid (or Alternity), that really can only be reach by planewalkers who are familiar with the concept of internet. And therefore someone from Faerun is never going to find themselves on that plane.

The new Toril cosmology is new to 3e. Originally the philosophy was to have one cosmology for everything; Planescape and Spelljammer were born of this philosophy. The new philosophy seems to be to create a unique cosmology for just about everything.

Heck, even some of the current writers for FR ignore the 'Great Tree' thing.

I agree with you that the setting should evolve, but I don't believe that it should assume or seek to explain all the changes and retcons that WotC is making. To be completely clear, Wizards 3e D&D focuses primarily on options. It gives you all the tools to make your game unique, setting some of them as default. Just because its default cosmology resembles, closely though it be, the Planescape cosmology, it is not recreating Planescape. Likewise, the changes it makes to the other published settings it owns, including Forgotten Realms, no longer attempt to tie in to an overarching cosmology of Planescape, like they did in 2e. Thus, attempting to incorporate all the diverse and often inconsistent changes into the Planescape setting would not only dilute it, but also make it complex beyond reason. That's what I meant by admitting that despite its pretensions, it is still a single setting. The fact that it could tie all the other settings together in 2e times was due to the fact that all the other settings were made to be tied together. Now, it should stick to its established nature. It should evolve, yes, and not become stale, but the changes should be made gradually and through modules or stories, not retcons and rewrites (At least officially. Individual DM's should do whatever they feel like). That would make it a different setting altogether.

Well yes and no. Dwarfs, elfs and orcs are all capable of breeding with humans, and two of the pairings produce fertile offspring. The jury is still out on whether elves and orcs can interbreed, but given how closely such a hybrid would resemble a human, I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to. Meaning, that elves, humans, and orcs have to at least be in the same genus (Homo Nobilis, Homo Sapien, and Homo Vulgaris, maybe). The chances of them evolving independently are laughably low. I think it's perfectly reasonable (and even traditional) to say that the various races have crystal spheres all to themselves, but they should be interdimensional colonists or created by the gods, or magic, or whatever else, as opposed to actually being from a given sphere (they don't have to know that though).

The way I see the various humanoids races is like this: first is has to be understood that reality works differently in Dungeons and Dragons, as especially evidenced by bizzare "chemistry" of the Inner Planes. Evolution works differently; it seems to happen at a ridiculously fast, but sporadic, pace and it seems to happen similarily in a wide variety of crystal spheres, leading humans to evolve independently on hundreds of worlds. Humans are the natural product of evolution, but on some worlds pantheons of powers redirected the evolution of the humans to fit within their ideology (though it should be noted that the powers themselves were largely shaped by the belief of these proto-humans, I can expand on this and tie Durkheim into it). Dwarves, gnomes, orcs, goblinoids, and most other humanoids were the result of this. Orcs are capable of reproducing with humans because they share a common ancestor, humans are naturally adaptable, and orcs are naturally virile. Its more difficult for humans and dwarves to reproduce due to greater degree of genetic and physical differences; and gnomes and goblinoids are unable to naturally reproduce with humans due to the extent of physical difference. Elves are different, and I haven't entirely figured out/decided their origin yet. They are definitely related to the fey but are now entirely mortal; but the plane of Faerie doesn't exist in my cosmology/planescape cosmology so I cannot identify that plane as their origin (I welcome suggestions in this area). In any case, they are able to reproduce with humans due to their magical nature (that is not a cop out).

I've noticed it, and thought it was a generally cool, if occasionally confusing feature.

I think to understand how evolution works in D&D, you have to remember a few things:
1. Individuals pass on their genes (or the genes of their current form) in the normal way,
2. Individuals also pass on seperate and unrelated magical legacies,
3. Both of these processes can be artificually simulated through magic.

I'd say that Humans, Elfs, Orcs, and Halflings (Halflings being miniaturized humans) are all in the same genus and evolved from a common (but unidentifide) ancestor. That proto-human evolved from the common ancestor of the Dwarf/Gnome branch (gnomes being miniaturized Dwarfs), and the Goblinoids. This ancestor, in turn, evolved from (or is) the common ancestor of humanoids, Giants, and the various monstrous humanoids.

Rip, what you suggest in your last post about elves is largely what I was thinking: originally primarily spiritual beings who lived in an Outer Plane (I was, and still am, thinking Arborea) but eventually ended up becoming mortal and inhabiting the material plane (this happening before the advent of anatomically modern humans). But the question is what caused them to give up their immortal existence in the Outer Planes to live in the material plane? Pride or hubris seem like easy answers, but they are too Christian for my taste; and also, the fact that they are still good suggests that they didn't "fall from grace". On the other hand, it seems unlikely they would willing give up immortality and paradise... There must be some sort of "neutral" event that was out of their hands.

That would make the elves too old for my liking. To asign numbers, I see the elves becoming mortal perhaps 50,000 years ago whereas I would say the overthrow of the original progenitars of CG (assuming that the Eladrin are not the original progeniters and the apparent fact that they don't make use of petitioners leads me to believe that they probably are) at least a couple million years ago.