[Forum Philosophy] #18 - Cosmology

[Matt Larkin (author)]

[note=Got an Topic Idea?]Send me a PM. Remember, we are discussing any topic relating to world design (but not system design), so fire away.[/note]
[ic=Philosophy Archive]
Week 1 - The Cost of Magic
Week 2 - Villains
Week 3 - Genre Conventions
Week 4 - Design Method
Week 5 - Characters
Week 6 - Theme
Week 7 - PCs in the World
Week 8 -  Politics
Week 9 - Government
Week 10 - Alignment
Week 11 - Magic Items
Week 12 - Philosophy
Week 13 - Races & Ethnicity
Week 14 - Tone
Week 15 - Content
Week 16 - War & Crime
Week 17 - Names and Language
Week 18 - Cosmology
[/ic]

Cosmology
Do you enjoy reading about cosmologies and cosmogonies? What makes for a good one?

Do you prefer complex or accessible?

How much does it affect people in your setting? Do they know about it?

What makes for good deities? Do you prefer close or distant gods? Gods that aren't real at all?

Edit: If you have interesting superstitions in your setting, share them here. Do you make much use of it in your writing? Do you assume most of the mystical is true, or is it just peasant superstition?

[LordVreeg]

Slightly older pertinent thread
This thread somehow bumped along for a year, dealing with this question.

  It might be good to reference.  

[beejazz]

I don't think the cosmology needs to be terribly complex. I do think a GM needs the option of limiting access to planes. Additionally, it's better not to just have a map of the entire cosmos to start with, I think. A few important planes are nice to think about ahead of time, but leaving room for new material is a good idea IME. Additionally, not all planar travel should be intentional. The fabric of reality should shift and rip accidentally from time to time in a multiversal campaign.

[Steerpike]

Complex cosmologies can be really tricky because they often end of full of contradictions, executed correctly - I'm thinking here of Sandman - baroque cosmologies with lots of factions are my favorites.

[Hibou]

In most of my more recent settings I haven't used the concept of multiple planes often, if at all. Vibrant sort has them (but not really) with the alternate universes thing, but I don't consider that at all the same with a pseudoscience basis. Haveneast definitely does have alternate planes but they're quite different from D&D ones and are very inaccessible. Most people don't know that any other realms exist in Haveneast even though at the same time they believe in holy and unholy places of the afterlife.

I've never seen a setting with close gods that I particularly liked. I did enjoy playing Forgotten Realms I suppose, and would still probably play it, but I'd be sure to leave deity interaction to be purely through the whims of their worshipers. There's something about the removal of that mystery that makes a setting seem a lot more dull. It leaves a lot less room to formulate new belief systems or denounce them as the story desires, because the truth is so much more set in stone.

[Ghostman]

I don't think Savage Age has any "planes" in the usual sense. There is the matter of the Spirit Realm vs mundane reality, of corse, but that really is more of a quirk of perception than an actual planar division. The Spirit Realm is basically just a (super)natural part of the world that mortal races generally cannot see or interact with. Calling it a separate plane of existence would be kind of like calling radio waves a separate plane of existence. From the point of view of religion and mysticism however, the Spirit Realm and it's many geographic divisions could certainly be considered a cosmological system.

That said, actual cosmologies within Savage Age are simply imperfect and biased constructs made up by various religions and philosophies, that may very well contain things such as planes of existence - These may or may not exist, but are never going to be actually visited and thus are only relevant for in-character theological debates and the like.

As for other part-of-the-same-reality type realms in SA besides the Spirit Realm, there may be some. I'm particularly keen to implement some kind of underworld, which unlike the Spirit Realm would actually be fairly accessible to mortals (as you could literally walk down there if you knew where to find an entrance). It would still be a "different" world in a way, being governed by different rules than the mundane reality, and might function as a path to reach yet other realms. Kind of like how some religions/mythologies feature in their cosmologies hells that literally exist underground, or heavens on the sky or on mountaintops, etc.

[Nomadic]

ME doesn't have concrete cosmos. There's no sky, no void beyond. The only cosmos are the various and often contradicting realities put forth by various religions. But nobody has seen them as far as anyone else knows.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Since I generally make even my fantasy rather science-y I avoid alternate realms of existence out of it being easier than trying to work them into a science framework.

One thing that bothers me about the way many RPGs do cosmologies is they make this huge expanse of different realms of all different sorts............and then for some reason it all relates somehow to this one, small material realm of mortals.  It feels very screwy.  I prefer my Mortal Realm-related stuff to always feel smaller than the mortal world, as it feels more logical that you wouldn't need a place to keep the bureaucracy running the mortal world that's bigger (and thus feels more important than) than said world.  Or at least keep the size vague or something.

Size really does overwhelm me: I hate alternate universes for the fact that it means there's another huge expanse beyond the one I'm already dealing with.  I even thought up the idea that if I need an alternate Earth or something I just place it in the same universe as the first one and then make up some babble to explain how.

[Superfluous Crow]

Close gods are one of my least favorite tropes. Without that mystery about their existence, belief comes down to nothing. They cease being something spiritual. And in my mind, being a god means that they are somewhat outside the order of the mortal universe; in most close god universes, the gods can be tracked down, talked to directly, and even killed.
I have a love/hate relationship with planes. The idea of the alternate world is enticing, but from what I've seen they mostly turn out to be terrible template worlds where everyone is good, everyone lives upside down, everyone fights all the time, everyone lives on cubes etc... An alternate world should be strange and different, but the same rules of diversity that apply to a standard setting should apply to them as well. I think my favorite 3.5 DnD plane was Pandemonium though; it was simple yet interesting (I could have lived without the gravity stuff though).
That being said, I love the whole demons vs. angels thing, as seen in Constantine and Supernatural.

I'm not a fan of explicit cosmogonies. This mostly comes down to the fact that the settings with cosmogonies often have active gods which are clearly involved in the process. On the other hand, handling cosmogony for each religion in your setting would be pretty cool; it is an aspect of smaller religions which is often skipped I believe.      

[Elemental_Elf]

Aeolond has planes but these are less vast, unfathomable realms and more the personal kingdoms of the 7 Shadeen (lesser gods). Each Shadeen has their own realm which mirrors their own role in the world and personality. For example, the Throslands, home of Thros (god of Death, Darkness, Killing, Undeath, etc.), is a bleak ashen land filled with the stench of decay and all manner of terrible undead horrors. By contrast the Lehtalands, home of the warrior queen of the sun, Lehta, is a lush verdant land filled with grassy hills and a bright, loving sun. So in reality, the Planes are simply quirky places to have fun adventures.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

I don't think Savage Age has any "planes" in the usual sense. There is the matter of the Spirit Realm vs mundane reality, of corse, but that really is more of a quirk of perception than an actual planar division. The Spirit Realm is basically just a (super)natural part of the world that mortal races generally cannot see or interact with. Calling it a separate plane of existence would be kind of like calling radio waves a separate plane of existence. From the point of view of religion and mysticism however, the Spirit Realm and it's many geographic divisions could certainly be considered a cosmological system.

Actually, I'd call that pretty close to what the word plane really means.

Sadly, in part because of D&D, that's not how many RPG fans see planes. They see them more as parallel universes. That can also be fun, but it tends to create the mindset that a plane is another world (because it is in D&D), and that sometimes bugs me.

[Elemental_Elf]

I don't think Savage Age has any "planes" in the usual sense. There is the matter of the Spirit Realm vs mundane reality, of corse, but that really is more of a quirk of perception than an actual planar division. The Spirit Realm is basically just a (super)natural part of the world that mortal races generally cannot see or interact with. Calling it a separate plane of existence would be kind of like calling radio waves a separate plane of existence. From the point of view of religion and mysticism however, the Spirit Realm and it's many geographic divisions could certainly be considered a cosmological system.

Actually, I'd call that pretty close to what the word plane really means.

Sadly, in part because of D&D, that's not how many RPG fans see planes. They see them more as parallel universes. That can also be fun, but it tends to create the mindset that a plane is another world (because it is in D&D), and that sometimes bugs me.

I'm not so sure. What are Heaven and Hell if not alternate realities of immeasurable size and grandeur?

[Superfluous Crow]

Hmm, it's true. A plane is more of a "layer" than a separate world. The Ethereal plane or the shadow plane of D&D would be a good example of what a plane would really be since they have some overlap with the material.
The other D&D planes are more akin to the separate worlds as the only thing they have in common with the material is the astral plane. But that's just D&D

[LordVreeg]

I think it is more than just D&D's fault.  Some of the writing that inspired Gygax, especially Moorcock's Multiverse, uses planar terminalolgy often, and they often have little to do with each other except for a few cornerstones (Tanalorn, for one).  
A good example would be the 15 planes used in the first Corum series.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

I'm not so sure. What are Heaven and Hell ...

Outside the scope of the real world esoteric cosmology referred to by "planes," which refers to specific layered existences (e.g. Astral, Etheric, Mental, Casaul, etc.) of a usually finite number (oftne 7). Part of the problem, of course, is that what Heaven and Hell mean is different in different doctrines. You could very well fit them into the basic idea of the planes provided the architecture provided they remained vertical. The big thing here is that they would be removed from the physical plane, and thus not physical places. So, you couldn't storm the gates of heaven using your +5 armor and +5 sword, because only consciousnesses, souls, or whatever would exist in something so far removed from physical reality (or rather closer to the true, non-physical reality in many esoteric visions).

If Hell is a place you (not just your soul, but your body and weapons and armies) can go, it's not a plane, it's an alternate reality. My original point was that the two concepts have been conflated, which is a problem for me when trying to use the esoteric definition of planes and everyone sees it as places you can go (other worlds rather than different levels of existence). I think the vertical structure is the real key, here.