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This is my interpretation of a gnostic version of the mythology of Arda (Lord of the Rings). The major shapes from the top of the page downward are the Valar in their divine forms, and each are part of the spell of existence cast to cage the red dot - basically Azathoth.
I know it's fanfiction but it's for a game which seems to make it more acceptable.

>>51243124
Are there Green Lanterns in your setting?

>>51243536
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/5nwk9i/this_finally_made_it_on_to_paper_heres_a_map_of/?utm_content=comments&utm_medium=front&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=worldbuilding

>>51243516
It got posted horizontally but I think you'll figure it out.

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Chaos Undivided is more than a pantheon a philosophy, it is the Eightfold Path, it is the Truth behind the curtain and the sin of knowledge, the revelation and the secret, it is many things but not a religion as we understand it. Chaos is freedom, ambition, power and glory, it is damnation but also reward, it is the moment when you break your chains, when you dispose of your humanity and when you embrace something so unfathomable that dives you insane but also ecstatic with the knowledge that your destiny is in your OWN hands.


When an enlightened one exults For Chaos! across the din of the battlefield he evokes this truth, he utters in words what his eye have seen and what his soul has felt when he opened his mind to the truth for the first time. When marching under the banner of Primordial Truth the warrior of Chaos does not favor a Exalted Power in particular way, neither he favors them all, but he is the herald of the Truth, the Truth of which destiny lies beyond the skein, the Truth that follows death, the Truth that power and ambition are rewarded, the Truth where you as an individual can become a literal god, an immortal, a being of such utter power only if you will it, only if you dare it.

>>51243595
>Pic
Da fuck is that from? And please post the rest!

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Chaos Undivided is not a religion, it is a philosophy, a philosophy of the self interest, of tangible power and the shattering dread of the ultimate Truth. This philosophy teaches a human that if he is ambitious enough he would be rewarded, it teaches him that if he kills with the name of the True Gods on his lips he would catch their eye and receive their boon, it teaches him that one day he can become a demigod, a mortal no more, and all this if he only wills it and dares it.
It is also the philosophy of the metaphysical, where reality and dogma shatter, a philosophy that teaches its followers that the laws of physic do not exist, that any laws are artificial, that dogma and ad a closed mind lead your soul to be shattered by the dreaded dream predators. Chaos Undivided is a philosophy that teaches you that you have a soul, teaches you that with your dreams you shape the universe and it teaches you that nothing is impossible, everything can be done if only one dreams it.

>>51243568
>le reddit discussion
Interest = lost

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That is why a disciple of the Primordial Truth bears proudly the Star of Chaos even if he pledged his allegiance to only a variant of this philosophy, perhaps to Nurgle's teachings, it is because once you pass over the skein of reality and you see the vast landscapes of infinite possibilities nothing can ever be the same and everything becomes possible, all that is required is a simple dream.

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>>51243619
It's from the Liber Chaotica

>>51243595
christ, shut up, dude

>>51243663
This is not a main subreddit and that's where the illustration comes from so what was I supposed to say ?

>>51243704
?

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>>51243124
Generic BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia.


The "inner planes" are layers of a single plane.
Layers are injective to eachother, not not necessarily surjective.

The "main layer" is the Ethereal plane, which is made of inert, sticky fog.
You can view other layers from the Ethereal, but there's not much else to do.
The only points of interest are wormholes (more on that later) and things left by travelers.
The Ethereal is an enormous sphere of finite size, after the edge is the Astral (more on that later).

Air beats Water beats Fire beats Earth beats Air. Air and Fire hate each other, ditto for Earth and Water.
The elemental planes are composed solids/liquids/gases of one element (travelers included).
They have stars, planets, and moons and otherwise behave like a normal fantasy setting.
You can overhear rumors of the fire dragon razing the fire fields, at the fire bar while attempting to woe the fire barmaid, etc.
Natives can survive on the elemental planes, but travelers require magic to protect themselves from the environment.

When elemental planes have overlapping celestial bodies, there's also a pocket layer made from a mix of the elements.
The "Prime Material Plane" is a rare overlap of four similarly sized planets.

Wormholes are magic tunnels between planes, they run through the Ethereal.
For all intents and purposes, they're naturally occurring dungeons.

The Astral is a mix between Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions and a Saturday morning cartoon.
Everything (except Gods or acts of God) exists in one less dimension than normal, including travel and magic.
Walking moves you in one dimension, walking+jumping moves you in two... levitate doesn't move you at all, etc.
To move in a third dimension, you need to teleport (which acts like flight instead of "moving you through four dimensions").
The Astral is infinite, and contains many "outer" planes (which are to-scale when approached from the Astral).

>>51244051
This is pretty cool. I like how the Ethereal and the Astral connect, gives a better precedent for ghosts and shit being in the Ethereal when the Astral is connected to it. Also ectoplasm and fiendish ichor. Good stuff. Also, the innumerable domains like bubbles in the Astral Sea.

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>>51243595
>>51243634
WH40K chaos is order with a different coat of pain.

t. Xiombarg

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>>51243124
>"Hek" pasted over another name
It's okay anon, we're all adults here. You can say "hell."

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>>51244311
The Chaos Star does incorporates the Pillar of Law...

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>>51243124
Several universes were smashed together by the apocalypse and thus exist as a hodgepodge of existence. Time struggles to keep a normal schedule while the laws of physics and reason have pretty much given up and defer to what people believe will work instead of any actual internal logic. Existence on a personal level has hardly changed and if you're a peasant in a secluded village you would't even have realized the world's gone to fuck.

As such, the gods of different realities now all exist at the same time. Even more confusing is that many of them share the same name and domains across multiple realities. The party accidently attracted the god of the sea once... All of him. They quickly scrambled to sail away as about seven goliath sea dragons decided to settle who the real god of the sea was the old fashioned way.

>>51244311
Also great taste. Elric of Melniboné is very good.

I adapted the world from several Dwarf Fortress worlds.

The world is an overgod's die. Each face is aligned with one particular number, which appears far more than normal. For example, on side 4, there are four races, four nations of each race, four days in a week, four seasons, etc.

Each face is only about the size of Ireland. The faces are bordered by barriers which switch gravity by 90 degrees. Each soul can only pass through a particular barrier once in a lifetime. The sun and moon have square orbits.

The sides 2-5, the ones on the side of the cube, are very lush and full of life. "Magical" radiation comes own from the sun. Plants catch the radiation and grow 4-5 times as quickly. Where there are no plants, such as oceans and high mountains, the radiation penetrates deep into the ground and gives rise to cavern life.

On side 1, the "north" side, there is no life. It's a polar wasteland where the sun never rises and blizzards blow constantly. However, in the center of the side, there is a hole which leads to the center of the die. I haven't come up with what's in the die yet.

On the "south" side, side 6, it's still a polar wasteland. There are six races that would be dwarves, elves, humans, goblins, kobolds, and orcs, but crossed with polar bears. It's barely habitable because of of the equivalent of cleric magic. At some point I'll have them invade whatever side the players are on.

Thoughts?

>>51244051
That sounds cool, especially the part where the astral plane is 2d.

>>51244441
So close to quints. That said, I would love to play in this world. It sounds hilarious.

>>51244533
The different faces don't know about each other, thanks to the whole "you can't come back through the same edge" deal. The only contact the faces have is a shipwrecked traveler every few hundred years.

The world was created 500 years ago. Everyone woke up in pre-built towns, forts, or whatever their race prefers, with rudimentary knowledge of survival and civilization. Not even the gods know what happened before that point.

>>51243663
>everything on reddit is immediately bad
Please go back to /b/.

>>51244660
Is there a Circus underground ?

>>51244533
>Each soul can only pass through a particular barrier once in a lifetime.
So, making sure I understand this, you can come or go from a face multiple times if you use different edges. Right?

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>>51243124
In the beginning, the Gods made the world. Then a greater god came along, looked at it and said,"It's shitty. Do it again."

So they did it again. Pic related.

"Better?"

"Nope, it's complete garbage. Anyway, next step."

The gods really sucked at worldbuilding, so they just made the sun and planets smaller and closer, like the Ptolemaic model.

"This good?"

"Just... Let's just get on with this already.

>>51244699
Yes, but nobody's been stupid enough to break into it. You need divine metal to break raw adamantine.

Side 4 is the only side the players have visited, and therefore the most fleshed out side. There are still two demon masters around, but they're pretty chill. Both their nations are in locations so hostile, they're more worried about survival than conquest.

>>51244737
Yes, but nobody's tried that yet. People don't even know there are other faces.

>>51244830
>People don't even know there are other faces.
>Each face is only about the size of Ireland.
H o w ?

Nothing exists.

Before there was anything, there was nothing, and after everything is gone nothing will remain.

Nothing was fine being nothing, but then one eternity, something happened and the entire universe appeared.

Nothing preferred non existence, but existence was only a mild inconvenience to it, so it decided to create the forces which set the universe in motion.

>>51244895
Ireland is huge, I am not sure if someone could walk from an edge to another in a lifetime.

>>51245013
Reminds me of something int Blue Dragon. Throughout the game you open treasure chests and some open up and say "there is nothing inside".

Late into the game you meet a shop keeper who only trades in nothing.

>>51245035
>not sure if someone could walk from one side of Ireland to the other in a lifetime
Please never write sci-fi.

>>51245035
>Ireland is huge,
Ireland is ~300 miles across, the longest way.
That's a little over 2 weeks travel at reasonable pre-industrial rates.

>I am not sure if someone could walk from an edge to another in a lifetime.
Disregarding reasonable rates for a moment, the world record for running 100 miles on foot is like 12 hours.

>>51245035
I take it you're not from North America?

>>51245125
Why ?

>>51244895
I made a thread asking about sea serpents a few weeks ago. Sea serpents are why. Sailing is scary.

>>51245035
No, you can do it in a couple weeks.

>>51245198
Nope, Belgium.

>>51245035
Dude, walking at 3 mph for about 8 hours puts you at covering 300 miles within 2 weeks. Unless there are some fucking serious natural bounderies or the world was literally just made there is no reason people haven't already tried jumping the edge to see how far they go.

>>51245230
I've heard of a saying that goes—an American thinks a hundred years is a long time; a European thinks a hundred miles is a long way.

>>51245021
Aren't there multiple material planes?

>>51245296
How do you mean? There are the Shadowfell and Feywild which are mirrors of the material but not quite. Unless you just mean multiple populated worlds in the universe then, unless you're playing spelljammer, who cares. They might as well be outer planar creatures.

>>51245336
Like the FR world, the Dragonlance world, the Greyhawk world, and so on.

>>51245208
Sci-fi writers are notorious for having no sense of scale, and I would like to avoid continuing that tradition.

>>51245407
Tv Tropes?

>>51245021
The Feywild and the Shadowfell are too good for that bullshit.

>>51245461
Other way around, and the Outlands are in the wrong spot.

>>51245035
>>51245125
Don't you two have Xianxia to write?

>>51245461
What are Feywild and Shadowfell ?

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All I have right meow is a basic vague map with five directions. Each direction has a single settlement and a dungeon of some kind. I'd like to flesh it out but I don't wanna overwhelm the group.

Some ideas I have plopped out:
-There are three moons and they orbit the planet in a 1:2:4 resonance, like the Galilean moons of Jupiter. The most distant one is dominated by eldritch horrors, the middle one is barren and the closest one is ruled by plants and maybe grodairs.
-If you dig deep enough, you reach the Endless Dark, go deeper and you might find a gate to the Infernal Bureaucracy. The paperwork required to get in is hell enough.
-A few gods created physical realms for their followers. One in particular raised an island to the east and his/her (it's a gestalt of machismo folk heroes) followers have turned it into a shithole. The "mother of monsters" goddess is gestating her realm underneath the Mossy Spine to the north.

>>51245284
A hundred years is a long time when you're pooping and there's no toilet paper.

Wait.

>>51245296
By D&D™ cosmology, there are separate Prime Material Worlds but they're all part of the same Prime Material Plane.
Travel between Prime Material Worlds requires crossing either the Ethereal Plane or the Phlogiston.

>>51245523
The 4e cosmology is:
• Prime Material ~ as normal
• Shadowfell ~ plane of shadow, meets negative energy plane, meets Ravenloft
• Feywild ~ here there be Welsh folklore
• Astral Sea ~ silver ocean, Spelljammer-esque. Gods live on islands
• Far Realm ~ shitty Lovecraft knockoff with no sense of tone

>>51243124
all I have so far is that doomguy is a minor deity of holy bloodshed, and revenge

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>>51245687
Is Samus his wife?

>>51245646
>Travel between Prime Material Worlds requires crossing either the Ethereal Plane or the Phlogiston.
What book is that in?

>>51244533

Hello TheFlame52. How's that campaign going?

Currently? Well everyone is living underground. They know there's a surface...but something really bad happened up there and we don't talk about it.

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The short version: FUCKED.

The long version: fourteen deities came across an undifferentiated sea of Unformed Chaos, and created fourteen pocket dimensions in which to do as they pleased, including creating subservient races. They also had a test-bed planet upon which they could test ideas, which they all shared. The fourteen heavens wound up being kinda boring though, since none of the servant races really had the initiative to do anything cool.

The gods decided to create new races made of innocent souls and allow them to take flesh in their own likenesses, then opened one-way portals to the test bed world and let them all interact. They made their lifespans finite, gave them the ability to learn in real-time, and just for extra experimental value, gave random ones magic. Souls were allowed to return to the heavens upon death for reabsorption into their creator deity.

This did not go well.

In no time at all, the individual mortals given the ability to commune with the deities directly, called Heralds (of which only a few had been needed per species at first) started taking more power for themselves. The Gods responded by creating two demigods a piece, one male and female from each species, and bestowed upon them all manner of unique powers. Between Heralds and demigods, demons were created, by merging some of the Unformed Chaos with specific mortal souls, belonging to people who had exemplified some trait in life - discretion, cleverness, subtlety, kindness, etc. Hells were created, where souls that had strayed too far from the original experimental protocol were sent for cleansing. Demons were, almost without exception, wonderfully nice people, and all had powers second only to the gods in power, but limited to the interior of specific buildings.

Demon here for visual support.
(1)

>>51245829
From what I remember all planetary systems are actually crystal spheres floating in a substance called Phlogiston.
The Spelljammer setting is space fantasy and based on that but otherwise you can also travel to an another world through the Ethereal Plane.
There is also the bullshit about some settings being on anothers prime material planes to justify some inconsistent planar differences but that's not very important.

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The fucked part is that all but three demigods, every god, all the first spirits, and all but two demons died in a colossal war when Godslayer bombs were allowed to go off twice, and the demons were trapped where nobody could reach them. The heavens and hells were shuttered and eventually lost, because the three living divine powers, thoroughly nice people all, simply didn't have enough power left to keep both the test bed world's alchemic weather machines operational and keep the pocket dimensions open.

Three thousand years later, just before the setting of the campaign, the two demons were released - purely by accident. The demigods had to kill one which had gone insane, and had absorbed its immense power to increase their own substantially. The other one opened up a little shrine and bakery thing where tens of thousands of people line up for holy blessings and snacks.

The Heralds and their transhuman bodyguards have also been reactivated, under far more strict supervision, but that may wind up being a more transitory condition, contingent on how much help and security the demon needs. The players' actions may also impact that.

Pic related, it's the last three demigods. Nice folks, just don't try to find their physical bodies in the air-tight, suboceanic geode in which they've barricaded themselves for safety while they communicate with their Illusory Avatars elsewhere.

>>51246054
Yeah, the current D&D interplanar cosmology is a messy kitbash of the old Spelljammer and Planescape settings, the 4e revisions, and the new, Sundering material by Greenwood and Perkins. Basically, there are Prime Material Worlds like Oerth and Aebir-Toril and Krynn, and each of those is orbited by increasingly bizarre and thought-fuelled inner and outer planes, with parallel planes like the Feywild and Shadowfell beside them serving as a convenient source of homebrew races. The city of Sigil sits at the center of it all, and it plays by its own rules, while the Phlogiston fills in the gaps between each planar ring and the Crystal Sphere at the middle containing each individual Prime. The Elemental Chaos and Astral Sea also somehow still exist in some unclear way. It's not been the focus of any 5e books to speak of.

>>51245829
Plogiston is from AD&D: Adventures in SPAAAAAAAAACE!
Drawing a blank of the Ethereal one, Manual of the Planes IIRC?

Ethereal is:
Prime Material -> Border Ethereal -> Deep Ethereal -> different Border Ethereal -> different non-Ethereal location
just like any other non-local Ethereal travel in AD&D.

>>51246165
>The Elemental Chaos
Oh, right that.

Forgot about that here: >>51245646
• Elemental Chaos ~ Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo, but also contains the City of Brass and the Abyss

One other addendum,
• Feywild ~ here there be *mushrooms and Welsh folklore

>>51245284
> I've heard of a saying that goes—an American thinks a hundred years is a long time; a European thinks a hundred miles is a long way.

I went to a wedding in deep Upper Peninsula Michigan. Our British friend arrived and said "Fucking Christ, I've never driven for 8 hours and been in the same country before."

>>51245125
Isn't that just good advice in general?

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>>51243124

The best D&D cosmology.

>>51246494
>sigil
Get that outta there

It's a sort of inverted gnosticism and not terribly complicated.

There's the great chaos that just goes on forever, presided over by a tyrannical Godhead.

At some point, a powerful spirit, the Demiurge, with a host of others, fled its gaze and used its body to make the Material World where souls will reincarnate forever away from the dominion of the Godhead. As its form fell through the chaos, it left a trail behind it called the Wake, empty space where reincarnating souls will pass through, if they're not going underground instead.

Around the corpse of the Demiurge formed a firmament of various cast off bits, forming moons and suns. The moons will drift through the Wake sometimes, and drag souls into them, creating haunted celestial spheres. The Archons dwell here, invisible and unseen, drawing souls from the chaos into the Material World. They don't and never will interfere, allowing the souls they find to flourish and grow as they please. Some became gods and heroes, or rogue spirits seeking control of the world, some became birds and beasts, some became humans of all kinds. There are gods good and bad and neutral, and they dwell in the air or in the planet, usually unseen.

Then there's the Material World itself, mostly fine and verdant, for the most part, save for the far northern and southern rims of the planet, which are tainted by the Godhead's influence and exist in perpetual darkness, where the mad Gnostic sorcerors who seek to destroy or rule the world dwell. Darkness of any kind is the domain of the Godhead's power, it breeds demons and other things, and changes what it touches. From ocean depths to underground caverns and even just forgotten basement corners, this is called The Deep, which is more of a state than an actual place. Souls going underground through reincarnation are at risk of darkness.

>>51246712
Interresting setting, but I have a few questions

Is the Godhead the creator of the Great Chaos or "only" the most powerful spirits ?
Who are the Archons ? are they former souls ? fellow spirits of the Demiurge ?

>>51245854
Yep, that's me. Looks like my campaign is starting to become recognizable. Who you?

>>51245563
What's with the pic?

>>51247117
Weight gain fetish.

>>51247126
No I know but what does it have to do with the post. Seems random.

>>51246494
>scarytown

>>51247139
Pretty this is indeed random.

>>51247012
These are good questions, actually, stuff I'd like to further develop.

Everything, I think, is ultimately of the Godhead. Just what the Godhead might be, a particularly powerful spirit or another class of entity altogether which straight up made it, I don't think we'll ever know. Regardless, it is the master of the Great Chaos, undisputed. I think it could possibly interpreted both ways.

The Archons were spirits, amongst many others of many kinds, the Demiurge took with it when it fled from the Godhead's gaze. They're spirits sort of just below the power of the Demiurge who had the spiritual mass or ability to make the Material World, Archons just protect it. I assume, somehow, way back in the day, there was a decision or understanding amongst them all to create and protect the Material World.

>>51247280
Now I know the question is less important because settings don't need to be "philosophically" correct as long as they are interresting and internally coherent but...

If everything is ultimately part of the Godhead, how the Demiurge was able to act against It ? it's a bit the problem of the devil being able to revolt against God and to act against him if we don't consider that the rebellion was predestinated like everything else and God allow it because he values free will so much and not letting the angels and humans being able to make the wrong choice is by definition incomptatible with free will.

Also the fact the source of everything seems to want to take over the Material World or to destroy it (unless I'm interpretating the Darkness wrong) but is unable to do it.

In Greek Mythology, the first generation of gods were born from the Void/Chaos and don't have such a degree of pervasiveness with everything, so it's not really a problem if their children are able to overthrow them.
Also similar to Exalted where the Primordials were born from the Khaos, are not omniscient and all powerfull over everything they create and are shown to not fully understand what they are doing,
So the fact the Incarnae were able to overthrow them through the Exalted and that the Exalted themselves could overthow the Incarnae is not more a problem than a mere wizard being able to invent a spell he barely understand yet more dangerous than he is.

bump

Not one ?

>>51247718
No, I understand exactly what you mean, it's good you brought it up.

Now, the Godhead isn't necessarily omnipotent or omniscient, but it is nigh-immeasurably powerful, so much so that by force alone it has dominion over this Great Chaos. But a king doesn't necessarily know all that goes on in his kingdom. It's like in Lovecraft, how the Elder Things of Antarctica were hyper advanced aliens who are responsible for life on Earth, but what's actually here now is sort of just because of negligence. Or how in Dark Souls one day there was just a First Flame, no one planned on it, really, and the Lords went with it until the flame began to fade and suddenly they became very scared, and put in place an imperfect system to keep it all running.

Darkness as a physical thing is a bit weird, I don't think I'm explaining it right. It's not active, it's more of a byproduct. The Godhead itself I think is unaware of the Material World, or if it is, it doesn't know where in its vast domain it is, and the Archons hide it. The Great Chaos itself is just darkness, sort of the natural state of the universe. The Demiurge, ultimately, is of the Godhead, as are the Archons and every spirit and soul on the planet, however distant they may be now from that existence. I think that stuff will just always be there, it's not a perfect system, there's room for error in the Demiurge's plan. The Material World, technically, is an abberation, in an otherwise wholly spiritual universe. It's the first of its kind, so the Demiurge really had nothing else to go on before making it.

It's the things that come from that darkness, various malevolent demons and corrupted creatures, and the Gnostic sorcerors who study and dwell within it, who are the real problem, who would spread darkness over the world.

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>>51243524
>>51243506
>>51243477
Reminds me of the old idea for Buddhist Marines

>"If I do not descend into the hell-worlds of the Warp and preach the pure dharma there, who will?"
>"And if I do not pass, in the mind, in the spirit, in the volition, in the perceptive-feelings, in the emotions, in consciousness, into the unclean realms to preach the pure dharma, who will?"
>"And if I do not pass into the gardens of Nurgle, tainted by desire, into the palace of Slaanesh, tainted by desire, into the labyrinth of Tzeentch, tainted by desire, into the throne of Khorn, tainted by desire, into the Chaos Wastes, tainted by desire, and preach the pure dharma there, who will?"
>"Monks, in pursuit of the pure dharma, in the name of the pure dharma, for the blessings of the pure dharma, I must descend into all these hellworlds that I might liberate the trillions of sentient beings living there. Abide therefore in the truth until I return."
>And with that, the great Chapter Master Maitreya closed tight his eyes in the meditation, and was not heard from again.

Everything in what we perceive as reality is a four-dimensional shadow of the true infinitely-dimensioned reality.

>>51248183
Cool setting, I can understand the Lovecraft analogy.

>>51248183
How existence is in the Great Chaos and the Darkness ?

>>51248456
Thanks anon, I'm actually pretty happy with it. I need to properly flesh out the full world a little more, I know the basics but it needs some meat.

I hope the answers made sense, but then again, it is fantasy, so a lot of it is dependent on magic or supernature, like things just manifesting out of darkness, making a Material World, all that stuff.

>>51248474
In the Great Chaos itself, beyond the comparatively minuscule Material World, everything is just stagnant. Controlled and dominated obsessively by the tyrant Godhead, there's little room for growth or change, really. Why the Godhead is like this, honestly, who knows. But that's how it is.

In darkness, what you'd call The Deep in-universe, any place that goes without light for a long time, or never had it in the first place, is much the same. In deep, dark oceans and subterranean caves and caverns, it's just silent, cold and still. People who visit these places, either willingly or by mistake, would describe them as silent, but filled with what can only be described as 'movement without sound', in that there seems to be something moving around all the time, but you don't see it or feel it or hear it, you just...sense it.

The Deep can get so bad that lights brought it in are actively snuffed out by dark. Torches are dimmed and matches are just quenched like dunking it in water. But it's not really a physical thing you could bottle, it's just darkness.

>>51244263
>gives a better precedent for ghosts and shit being in the Ethereal when the Astral is connected to it
There's a reason for that, >>51244051 was the cosmology when "ghosts and shit" were first getting ironed out in D&D.

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I don't feel like re-typing all this shit out, so I'm just going to copypaste from my game's wiki. My two design goals for this were to
1) keep it simple, and
2) bring back a sense of mystery.
Ever since I started playing D&D I felt like they put way too much detail into extraplanar stuff and left too little to imagination, and robbed it of any sense of mystery.

The Astral Realm

This is a luminous, spacious realm of spiritual energy and is thought to be where the souls of the living travel after death, when their lifeforce — thought to be what anchors them to the Material Plane — is snuffed out. Powerful mages who have traveled to the Astral Realm have written that they have seen the souls of the recently dead as vaguely humanoid shapes, coalescing as they travel in great streams toward a distant light.

The Great Beyond

This place is visible from the Astral Realm at first as a distant point of light, but on approaching, it appears as a brilliant luminous wall of immeasurable size, stretching off in all directions, with innumerable vast lifestreams flowing into it. No astral explorer who has entered the Great Beyond has ever returned from it, no matter their magical might or knowledge or skill, hence its name. It is thought to be the final destination of all souls, but its purpose and function is otherwise unknown, and nothing has ever been seen exiting the light.

While traveling in the Astral Realm, explorers feel a spiritual pull leading them back to the Material Plane, but the closer they get to the Great Beyond, the weaker this pull becomes. As they near the Great Beyond, they can feel the light pulling them away from reality and into it. Curiously, spells used to communicate also become weaker with proximity to the wall of light.
(cont)

>>51250320
The Void
The Void is thought to be the realm between realms, a place of transition and chaos. There are pockets of stability within the Void, and strange creatures lurk there. When the barrier between the realms becomes thin, Voidsent can break through to the Material Plane, where they’re able to wreak havoc and indulge their chaotic and unknowable urges.

All spells that involve teleportation, summoning, and travel between Planes touch the Void in some way, however briefly, and adds an element of risk to their casting. This is why these spells are closely guarded and only taught to the most skilled and responsible mages.

Voidsent
These strange creatures come in wildly differing shapes and sizes, but all seem to share a taste for the flesh and blood of the living, even if their strange and sometimes impossible anatomies don’t seem to support a digestive system. Some appear as twisted mockeries of known creatures, while others are wholly alien.

Void Realms
These islands of stability within the Void appear as chunks of land upon which are built towns and cities, all crumbling with age, many warped by the Void’s chaotic aether. Some are teeming with Voidsent, while others are bizarrely empty and devoid of any life whatsoever. The true nature and origin of these places is unknown.

The Near Void and the Deep Void
Similar to travel between the Astral Realm and the Great Beyond, the Void has a metaphysical depth that has been observed with extensive travel. The Near Void is the region touched briefly by teleportation magic and where the majority of Void Realms can be found. As one travels deeper, Void Realms become fewer in number and the laws of nature become less stable and reliable. What has a reproducible effect in the Near Void might have an entirely different effect — every single time — in the Deep Void, resulting in chaotic regions where the laws of nature become so twisted that they are outright hostile to life.

>>51243663
There is nothing wrong with Reddit.

>>51248183
I'm going to be an asshole and say that you've literally just remade standard Gnosticism.

You've not inverted/subverted it in any meaningful way.

>>51250503
Well in his version, the Demiurge is good and the Logos figure is evil, the Material World is good and the Plemora is bad. (So the Material World is a refuge)
It's not inverted in a meaningful way ?

>>51245451
Define Tv Tropes

>>51250503
How so? I'm honestly curious, I know sort of the basics of Gnosticism, but not enough to get into the nitty gritty.

>>51250728
*Monad, not Logos.

>>51243124
who cares
def not players

>>51250774
Your "Godhead" is basically the same as the Demiurge.

Check out "Luciferian Gnosticism" for a mythology similar to the one you're describing.

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>>51243516
I know it is sideways

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>>51243124

>>51250416
There are things wrong with Reddit. There are also things wrong with 4chan. The amount of literal children clogging up both sites with shot posts and memes is a fault with both.

>>51250945
What are you talking about ? All I have found about luciferian gnosticism / gnostic luciferianisme is basically the same as loads of gnostic sects :
The Ancient Testament God is the evil demiurge, the Serpent is the true god and liberator in the NT and they just identify it with Lucifer.

This is not more like what he described than normal gnosticism and it's not like his mythology where the Demiurge is good and the true god is bad.

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>all these Anons who joined tabletop with 4e

bump

>>51249577
>>51249728
>>51251383
DELETE THIS
it's just good courtesy

>>51250945
That was sort of the kernel of the idea, reverse the traditional roles of Gnosticism and make the Demiurge the liberator and the Godhead the imprisoning force. The goal being to remain in the material world and that knowledge of the cosmic truth is in fact possibly detrimental to your continued existence, or at least freedom, and actual Gnostics in my setting are actively attempting to free themselves, others and undo the world as they see it as unnatural.

I see the similarity with the Luciferian Gnosticism, mainly the inversion or refutation Lucifer from malevolent to positive, but I don't get what else is so similar. I'm reading up on it now, but it puts much emphasis on enlightenment whereas my setting would say learning the truth and gaining knowledge of the self and universe is potentially harmful.

>>51243124
There are two higher planes
>Heaven
>The Halls
Per the stories of the faith, Heaven is a physical place with a spirit its own, from which the culture heroes robbed fire, grain, iron, and the first magic. There is no defined resident, but it is called a palace.
The Halls is the divine of worship, where the culture heroes, referred to as Saints, reside in a sort of afterlife, hearing and heeding prayers. It is said you never know who may have joined them, so in theory it could be an afterlife for everyone, but saints are generally only recognized after heeding prayers, so having a reputation in the world before death is a good approach for it.
most souls actually simply merge their energy back into Heaven, as a sort of undifferentiated mass of souls.
actually even the saints go there, it is just the collective memory of them that allows them to continue answering prayers

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>>51251394

>>51251406
I agree with you.
Luciferian Gnosticism is just gnosticism with Lucifer.
I could understand why he thinks your mythology is not deep inversion/subversion but here there is a deeper one : Gnosis is seen as a bad thing.

>>51251381
4e has the best cosmology and lore.

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>>51252328

>>51252328
The ONLY thing good about 4e is the mechanics.

>>51252593
>>51252328
Talks about settings, please.

bump

bump

>>51243575
I really like it. Captures the kind of mystical uncomprehendability of Tolkein's system but makes sense too.

>>51253020
>mystical uncomprehendability of Tolkein's system
What?

>>51253125
Bullshit in a good way ?

>>51253988
I meant that Tolkien's pretty straight forward in my opinion

>>51252371
Not that anon but it's actually pretty good, it makes the outer planes indeterminate in number instead of neatly divided in sections of an alignment pie. It also brings in the idea of a primordial and chaotic sea with the Elemental Chaos, and a terrible underworld with placing the Abyss below that.

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>>51243124
>What this the cosmology of your world /tg/ ?

Sure, I finally finished this:

In terms of local Cosmology, Brun is host to 1 natural satellite (The Moon “Nadia”, named after the large, clear, ,shallow, land-locked oceans that have formed in it's craters) and 6 elemental parallel pocket dimensions or “planes”: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Food, and Machine.

All planets have their own elemental planes and they're formed when the excess mana of a world drifts out of it's atmosphere and into space; forming ethereal, elemental-based, parallel dimensions using their home world as a base or mold.
These Planes then orbit around their homeworld, layered upon themselves, while using their native planet as a sun/source of energy.

Elemental planes can only be accessed with the help of portals which themselves require natural magics to create (either man-made or very rarely naturally occuring). Psychic organisms, however, can 'naturally' plane-shift: Bakus, Flumphs, Push-Me-Pull-Yous, and Xorns are all psychic creatures and can freely travel between neighboring dimensions.

This isn't to say the Elemental Planes are immune to mundane beings invading them; even Brun's plane of Fire and Machine have become mildly terraformed due to the cross-contamination of physical organisms crossing over via portals and flourishing in these once empty dimensions.
Some Naturalists have even taken advantage of this- searching for and even finding extinct plants and animals that had lived on and flourished within the elemental planes, but had died out in their native realm.

>>51243124
Totally fucked. The mortal plane, infinite divine realms, and everything in between are starting to cave in on eachother. Half gods are as common as people with red hair, everything is some degree of haunted, and elementals are basically utilities.

The world tried to hold it at bey by building a giant magic wall around the continent holding the Wesslands, the region where the breach between worlds is most apparent. It doesn't actually do much except create immigration issues and waste money.

The celestial bureaucracy is vast and complex beyond all mortal comprehension, to the point that it's actually traumatic. Add into that divine clan politics, warring factions of demons, rouge spirits who try to rebel against the infinite machinations of the Eldest, the first gods, and the fact that there's a deity for literally everything, and the situation gets absurdly complex.

bump

It's still something I'm trying to work out, I haven't thought about it much.

What I need to achieve is the world having two suns, both of which are weaker than our own sun, and together they are slightly weaker than our sun. They are meant rise and set at different speeds, with the stronger sun being extremely slow while the weak sun appears in 26 hour periods. The goal is for the world to have dim sun periods where the greater sun is not present every few years which last for months. During these periods harvests are poor, the world grows cool, people get seasonal depression, and monsters and vampires thrive, but it isn't any sort of extreme apocalyptic event. The purpose of having this is mostly cinematic, most main characters in the setting are vampires and I much prefer the aesthetic of grey/dusky/dim environments to darkness or bright light.

It's probably best for the world to not really be a planet, and instead have the suns orbiting the world rather than the world orbiting a sun.

>>51257332
Sounds good. If the world is a flat plane, what will the other side look like?

>>51257454
It's probably going to be a sphere.

>>51252593
Flash card game for Kindergarten

>>51257579
dude lmao just be a nomad and constantly outrun the sun/run with the sun

>>51257579
Ah.

bump

>>51257332your planet would most likely be much closer to one of the stars, but when the other periodically gets closer for a time, it could pull it away from it's primary star, and then take a few years or decades to settle back to a more stable orbit closer to the nearer star.

bump