D&D Cosmology (Homebrew)
There are three realities, each of which is sub divided by 3, which in turn is sub divided by 3, because the multiverse loves that number...a lot. Native of Planes other than the Material Plane are called Outsiders, who are defined by A) Being made of the essence of a plane B) Lacking free will C) being able to be summoned
Objective Morality: The fundamentals of the world
The objective world cannot be altered by circumstance or larger reality, these are absolutes in an otherwise fluid world. It includes
The Outer Planes: These are the objective afterlives, based upon your morality, 9 major ones in total. The rulers and desitiens of the realms are called Exemplars and they personify a certain morality. Demons are always Chaotic and Evil, Archons are always Lawful and Good, Aeons are always True Neutral etc. The Outer Planes are largely defined by The Blood War, the largest war in history between the Lawful Evil Devils, and the Chaotic Evil Demons. Evil is far more powerful than good and could wipe out good in an instance if they ever unified...but they don’t. The Outer Planes are further divided but that is too nuanced to get into now. Archons, Demons, Daemons, Devils, Raksha, Ashura, Asuras, Daevas, Devas, Angels, Celestials, Fiends, and Qlippoth are all examples of Exemplars
The Inner Planes: These are the elemental planes, which make up the fundamentals of reality itself, these elements define magic, alchemy, physics, everything. The locals here are called Elementals, and they embody their concepts. The world is divided by into 5 sets of 4 elementals combos, with void at the center making 21. Earth, Water, Air, and Fire is one system. Positive (healing), Negative (Decay), Light, Dark is another. Time, Space, Ooze (Life), Ash (Death) is another system. Void is the center of all, supposedly there was another system (Quintessence) but it was killed. Fire Elementals, Void Elementals, Wood Elementals, Ash Elementals are all examples of elementals, not that clever. Supposedly their is an Oblivion plane here but that doesn’t exist, I swear.
The Middle Planes, these are rotating planes which move around the Material Plane like planets, they embody various concepts that mortals are obsessed with, like Dreams, Madness, War, Weather etc. The Natives are known as Others
Subjective reality: Will Power and personality
This realm is define by personality and the inner psyche of mortals themselves. Weird fellows.
The Far Sphere , The Hedge, The Fae Realms: The Fae are strange mysterious entities who are tied to unhealthy patterns of human behavior, each type of Fae embodies an unhealthy coping mechanism. Each of the 9 Courts is subdivided into Seelie and Unseelie versions, unseelie Fae are actively malicious and cruel while Seelie fae are….also actively malicious and cruel but wear a smiley face.
The Near Sphere, A’lam Al-jinn: The “Hidden Realm” this is the domain of the Jinn, who are generally pretty cool, they act like more extreme versions of mortal intellectual thought. There are 16 realms each based on a different terrain (Swamp Jinn, City Jinn, Rural Jinn, Tundra Jinn, Ocean Jinn, Mountain Jinn, Cave Jinn etc) none of which are necessarily good or evil. It depends on the Jinn
The Spirit World: The realm of the spirits keep the multiverse running, but are changing, altering, and shifting creatures. They are subdivided into 5 types, Transformation Spirits (Dragon Age), Preservation (Chinese Mythology), Evolution (Native American) , Destruction (Central Asian Spirits) and Creation (African). Spirits are alien but but there is always a method to their madness. The Wheel of Reincarnation is located here.
Conceptual Reality
Reality is what we perceive it to be, existence by consensus. It also seems the most repetitive of the worlds, with the same themes repeating themselves over and over again (Thanks Jung)
The Divine Tree: This massive spiritual tree is the realms of the Gods, and their Servitor...well servants. Mortals can avoid going to the afterlife if they worship a god, and may dwell with their god or Gods for millennia, but even gods die and the soul will find their way to the next realm eventually. Some argue that the tree isn’t actually a real tree, but a metaphor for some greater conceptual entity that we can’t understand, oh sweet lord Kabbalistic theology is so esoteric I can’t even. Supposedly there are two other types of gods that exist, the 13 Elder Gods which embody Taboos and are locked away, and The Old Ones who seem to embody primordial fears and senses, but that isn’t true.
The Color Wheel: Supposedly the 12 great colors have some sort of raw power that governs the world, but that is just dumb.
The Great Houses: Supposedly there are 4/4 types of entities that embody base assumptions, but really who would be dumb enough to believe that, I mean seriously now.
Relative Reality
Doesn’t exist, that would be fucking stupid, everybody knows relative reality isn’t real, it would ruin the whole 3 theme we have going for us, god why are people so fucking stupid…..but if it did existed
The Realm of the Primordials: Haven’t come up with a name for it yet, the Primordials were the co creators of Gods, but after a great conflict called “The Dawn War” they were overthrown and killed, with their realm neglected and abandoned now
The Realm of the Titans: The Titans used to rule over the Gods, but the gods rebelled and replaced them, the 13 Elder Gods
The Realms of the Dead: Ok, these ones we definitely know exist, but it totally isn’t relative I swear, that would just be stupid. Reapers, Shinigami, Psychopomps aren’t relative, what are you talking about?
The Material Plane
Where all of the realms come together, the Material Plane is mostly made up of mortals, animals, Dragons, Giants, Mormons, Plants, Beasts, Undead, and Sylvans, the latter being personifications of the Material Planes and tend to be guardians of nature. Most Mortals are either created by gods for a purpose (Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins, Halflings, Gnomes, Bugbears) or were created by the “Seven Creator Races” strange entities who made a lot of animal themed entities. Humans are a weird exception, they seem to just be animals who evolved to sentience which is why most other races see them as inferior. Dragons were the very first mortals and the world exists for them, and Giants are the caretakers of the Material Plane (they don’t do a very good job). There are 25 “ISlands of Time” which are special Material Plane PLanets created to embody a specific theme, but all of them are slowly merging
Sigil: The Single greatest city EVAR, it is the center of the multiverse and it is where the entire world mixes into one. Governed by the 16 hilariously ineffective factions, this city is the most important and least competent entity in the world
The Transitive Realms
These realms are more places of travel than true realms, you use these to get around
The Astral Plane: A giant silvery ocean of existence, mortals and souls travel around this realm which connects the entire multiverse, but it is so vast that it is very hard to get around
The Ethereal Plane: The first place souls go to before they travel to the Realms of the Dead, this is like an alternative version of the Material Plane, a ghostly creepy realm.
The Plane of Shadows: Made up of what we can’t quite see, this realm is a strange alternative version of the Material Plane that is shadowy, gloomy, obsessed with card games, and seems to be based on the Road Not Taken
The Plane of Mirrors: This realm is one of twisted altered possibilities, strangely enough it is NOT an alternative of the Material Plane for some reason.
Other Realms
For some reasons, not everything fits into this neat happy theme...but there time will come
Mundus: The home of strange entities called the Daedra, Eetra, and Aedra, these simultaneously alien but also deeply human entities claim to belong to an alternative morality that no longer exists
Faerie and the Shadowfell. These two realms are where Fairies and Hags come from respectively, Fairies live off positive emotions, while Hags live off negative, but don’t mistake that for morality.
Taterus: Supposedly a race of entities attempted to overthrow the Gods themselves, and were imprisoned, but they could come back at any point
Malfeas: Once Upon a Time, the Material Plane had special entities who guided and controlled it, called Protogenoi. However due to some sort of accident (Gods did it) most of them were overthrown, with only Gia left. The remaining Protogenoi were locked away inside the bowls of their leader and have since transformed into creatures known as Yozi, twisted world ending abominations of what they should have been. Scholars have noticed how repetitive mythology seems to be, and are fairly certain reality itself is taking the piss.
The Underworld: Some of those Protogenoi were actually killed rather than imprisoned, but because they are tied to the universe itself, they cannot die. So their corpses created this terrifying realm where souls cannot rest, most Undead come from here
The Wyrld: The very edge of reality itself, this is a land were stories become real and the world itself shifts to accommodate the rules of drama. Ruled by the Raksha.
The Lying Darkness: wait...what?
The Far Realm: Seriously WTF, this alien eldritch realm is basically another multiverse entirely, and its very existence breaks ours and visa versa. The creatures there are totally alien and likely as scared of us as we are of them.
The Netherworld (Not sure about the name: This is the alternative afterlife of some alien mortals who don’t quite fit in, like Mind Flayers or Beholders. Thing Purgatory from Supernatural
Eden: Once Fate existed and it was located here , but now lays in ruins.
Zen-Mu: The realm of the 4 Houses. Or possible the home of the primordials
Yu-Shan: THe home of the Celestial Bureaucracy, it is the home of the other 4 houses.
The Dark Tapestry: I don’t know what that is?
The Deep Below: Before there was existence, there was water, and those waters exist outside the multiverse itself
Outsiders
Outsiders are the native creatures of the planse and they might resemble mortals in many way. They have personalities, they think, they can even form relationships and have FEELINGS. But they aren’t like mortals in one critical way, they lack Free Will. Mortals can change their mind, have character arcs, and discover new perspectives, Outsiders cannot, they embody their plane. So a Devil embodies Lawful Evil, they can’t not be Lawful and Evil personified. A devil might save a person’s life or give money to charity but they cannot do so for its own sake, and a Devil will never act in a chaotic manner, Devils don’t spontaneously do things, everything they do is according to some lawful system. Similarly, a Water Elemental is all about water, they can have a personality and goals, but it all comes back to water in the end.
Summoning outsiders
There are three different ways an outsider can come to the Mortal World.
Called Creatures: This is what happens with your basic “Summon monster” spell, a spiritual projection of the creature shows up, does some stuff, and then leaves after a set amount of time. Short of incredibly powerful magics, Called creatures cannot be permanently hurt, they just go back home when killed or when their time runs out
Summoned: This is basically calling a creature but on a permanent basis, a spiritual projection of the being arrives on the plane and walks around doing stuff, it’s basically like they are here in the flesh. Summon creatures when ‘killed’ don’t actually die, they just go home to their own realm, and are unable to be summoned again for 100 years. Sounds great, except that summoned creatures are extremely susceptible to certain spells which can instantly banish them. Against a summoned creature, with the right spells, you can basically instantly send them back to their home domain, no problem.
Arrived Creature: They are here, in the flesh, totally here. This means no weaknesses, and much much more powerful than their reduced Summon form. This is very rare, normally you need a special ritual to fully bring an outsider to the Material plane or a very powerful being to drag them here. This makes them more powerful but if they die, they die for good. Sometimes they can arrive via portals, which can be very scary if a whole lot of them arrive at once.
Last Notes
Outsiders usually can’t come to the Material Plane without Permission and in large numbers, there are billions of them and they could easily conquer the Material Plane if they had half a chance. But sometimes portals do open int oa new world, and that leads to a Planar Wars, the worse wars.
Oh wait, no, one last thing, the BLood War. The Largest War in all time is between the Demons and the Devils. Lawful Evil, vs. Chaotic Evil, this war is larger than any other conflict in history and threatens to destroy the multiverse some day. If these two sides unified for even a day, they would take over the entire world.
