#I like the dark seladrine pantheon

[ranger-danger]

Okay wait I was going back over drow things and Keptolo really is just the drow 50s househusband.

I know most people only know of Menzoberranzan through Minthara, and I feel like even thinking about what she’s says about it helps show what it is rather than these weird conclusions people have.

[diagraphers-brother]

Attempts to reconcile information about the planes in Dungeons and Dragons between editions

I am concerned here specifically with D&D settings such as the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk that have some amount of interaction with the rest of the multiverse - totally self-contained settings like Eberron and Dark Sun don’t raise the kinds of questions I’m talking about.

My impression reading the Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks is that 2E and 5E treat all the settings as being part of a shared multiverse, with overlapping pantheons and shared outer planes; whereas 3E and 5E treat them as entirely seperate settings, with entirely seperate pantheons and outer planes. Overlapping gods aren’t removed from settings in 3E-4E, but they’re treated as reused setting elements rather than a single entity that straddles both. In every edition Corellon Larethian is worshiped by elves in both the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, but in 2E and 5E he is a single god whose power extends into both worlds, whereas in 3E and 4E the Forgotten Realms Corellon's Arvandor is part of the Forgotten Realms cosmology while the Greyhawk Corellon’s Arvandor is part of the Greyhawk cosmology and there is no attempt to make these compatible.

This would be all well and good, except that every edition attempts to set itself up as a sequel to the last and explain all the changes with metaplot - 3E is 2E after Vecna attacks Sigil, and 5E’s Forgotten Realms is 5E’s Forgotten Realms is  4E’s Forgotten Realms after the Second Sundering. This would seem to imply that Vecna’s attack on Sigil split the multiverse in to large numbers of non-interacting parts, and that during the Second Sundering they came back together. This is not, in itself, a problem, but how cross-setting gods like Corellon and Moradin fit into it is left unexplained.

On the other hand, 5E’s DMG presents the Great Wheel cosmology used in 2E, the World Tree used by the Forgotten Realms in 3E and 4E’s World Axis as being different theories propounded by different cosmologists within the same setting, which seems to point towards the discrepancies between the editions being a matter of different takes on a single constant cosmology rather than the result of actual changes to the cosmology. You’d think the fact that they can be distinguished by leaving a divine domain and seeing if you’re in an outer plane or the Astral Plane, but spellcasters capable of travelling to other planes are rare enough that it makes sense that it’s hard to get accurate information about them. This, however, would imply that the information on the outer planes in previous editions is near-groundless in-setting speculation rather than a statement of fact, which does not match with how it was presented at the time.

Tracking Which Domains go Where

We are not told explicitly which divine domains go where when the outer planes combine back into the great wheel. However, we are given information with which we can surmise what happens in most ambiguous cases, at least assuming analogous ambiguous cases are handled differently. The Golden Hills are stated in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes to be in Bytopia, despite the fact that Arvandor, where 4E’s Forgotten Realms puts them, would presumably return to its position in Arboria: This indicates that domains that have merged with other domains after the split return to their original planes rather than following the domains they merged into. Volo’s Guide to Monsters places Nishrek in Acheron despite Gruumsh’s alignment having become Chaotic, so the domains are clearly drawn into the outer planes that match their original locations rather than those that match their deities alignments. And Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount makes it clear that those Dawn War gods who originate in other settings are back where they were in 2E while the gods who originate in 4E still have domains in the Astral Plane.

So, having established which domains went where, what can we conclude about the state of the different planes?

The Straightforwards ones

Some of the planes are fairly straightforwards: Mechanus, the Outlands, Acheron and the Beastlands have never existed in any cosmology other than the Great Wheel, nor had any significant part or inhabitant do so, so we can assume them to have gone through things more-or-less unchanged. The Abyss, Pandemonium and Hell have been presented extremely similarly across editions and settings, and the Abyss and Hell get much more detailed write-ups in the 5E DMG than the other planes, so we don’t need to speculate as to what they’re like.

Planes Missing Major Powers

In other planes, the planes themselves haven’t been mentioned outside Great Wheel material, but gods with great influence in them have been. This is the case in Bytopia (which was dominated by the gnomish gods, who 4E Forgotten Realms place in Arvandor), Elysium (dominated by Pelor before 4E, when he’s in Hestivar - Elysium’s situation is further complicated by the fact that Pelor only seems to have risen to his position there in 3E, when many of the other gods who lived there had already left), Ysgard (dominated by the Aesir until 3E, where Deities and Demigods puts them in a seperate cosmology) and Limbo (where the Spawning Stone that formed the centre of Slaad civilisation spend 4E in the Elemental Chaos)

If we take the 5E DMG “different theories” approach, it may be that nothing has changed in these planes at all, and 4E simply presented an alternative cosmology that did not include these planes and put important parts of them in different places. This approach is feasible for Ysgard and Hades, where the 3E cosmologies place them more-or-less on their own, but the Golden Hills, the Spawning Stone and Pelor have explicit other locations in the World Axis, such that the only way I can see to have the same Golden Hills be in both Arvandor and Bytopia is to pull some sort of space-warping to give the hills two outsides (which, to be fair, is not unfitting for the outer planes), but with the spawning stone we can take a similar approach by proposing that Limbo is a part of the Elemental Chaos.

If we instead approach the changes as changes to the cosmology, there are still two possible approaches with these planes: it is clear that after Vecna’s attack on Sigil, large numbers divine domains split off from their planes, leaving a reduced great wheel attached to Greyspace and containing the gods worshiped there and the demihuman pantheons. However, when a number of Greyhawk gods move to Astral Sea dominions in 4E, it is not clear if the great wheel continues to exist in an even-more-reduced form, still attached to Greyspace, or if they dissolve entirely.

In the former case; we could see political fragmentation as a result of the loss of major power centres; major planar burgs (e.g. Release from Care), major outsider power groups (e.g. Prince Talasid and the Five Companions) or previously-minor gods (e.g. Olidamara) stepping into the gaps left by the more powerful gods or neighbouring planes coming together as they no longer have the resources to manage apart. In any case, once the planes come back together, the planes would face a choice as to whether to stick to the new order or return to the old one. Aspects of how this occurs are likely to differently between the planes - things are likely to be resolved peacefully on good and lawful planes and violently on evil and chaotic ones - but similar uncertainties exist for all of them.

If the planes dissolve entirely, they presumably recoalesce in 5E from the divine dominions that broke off from them and the raw essence of their alignment. In this case, the gods and planars could might revive old customs of interaction or renegotiate new ones from scratch. This possibility raises the question of what happened to inhabitants of the outer planes who weren’t inside dominions - were they annihilated and new ones created when the planes reformed? Split off to other parts of the multiverse we know nothing about? Trapped in isolated demiplanes? placed outside of time so that their consciousness resumed after the second sundering as if no time had passed? Any of these would be entirely compatible with what we know.

Planes Differing Significantly Between Editions

The remaining planes are Celestia, Arborea, Carceri, Gehenna and Hades. Gehenna is straightforwards in and of itself but has complications to do with its relationship to the Yugoloths and Hades. In each of the others, at least a layer is featured in 4E’s World Axis cosmology, and Celestia and Arboria are featured in the Forgotten Realms cosmology as well, but each plane undergoes major changes at some point from the end of second edition to the beginning of fifth:

Arborea

In AD&D, Arborea is dominated by the Olympian and Seladrine pantheons. Come 3E, Olympus and some smaller domains such as Brightwater are split off into their own cosmologies, and Arvandor comes to encompass the entire first layer. In 4E, the parts of Arborea other than Arvandor are not mentioned, but the fact that Arvandor goes from being dominated by forest in 3E to an island-filled ocean in 4E indicates the it may have merged with Aquallor. Mithardir’s fate is unclear, but possibilities include that it broke away from the rest of Arborea to become Shom, was cut off from the rest of the universe and effectively in stasis, was destroyed, went off to some other part of the Astral Plane we haven’t heard of, remained attached to Arvandor and Aquallor and simply wasn’t mentioned in 4E, became an out of the way part of Arvandor or was overtaken by the monsters of Carceri when Corellon opened the connection between the planes and is now abandoned to them and treated as an extension of Carceri.

In 5E, Arvandor is presumably connected to Olympus and the rest of Arboria again, but may still be merged with Aquallor and connected to Carceri.

If we want to equate the 2E-3E and 4E-5E versions of the Eladrins, it may be that part of Arboria also formed into the Feywild.

Mt Celestia

Mt Celestia has three significantly different presentations between the editions (four if you count 3E’s presentation of the layers, but that doesn’t really have consequences that extend to 5E’s tiered mountain version): In the Great Wheel, it is a single mountain ruled by the Hebdomad. In 3E Forgotten Realms this mountain becomes part of the larger plane of the House of the Triad, along with the three surrounding mountains of Martyrdom, Trueheart and the Court. Of these, Martyrdom was originally part of Bytopia, while the other two were part of Mt Celestia. The Hebdomad maintains its authority over Mt Celestia itself, but Tyr becomes overall ruler of the plane.

Come 4E, the House of the Triad is renamed to Celestia, and Torm moves to the city of True Court near the top of the mountain (possibly a renamed Yetsira?) and becomes ruler of the plane.

In the default setting, meanwhile, the seven layers of Celestia become seven seperate mountains. Of these, only Venya, Solania, Mertion and Chronias share names with previous editions’ layers. Venya, previously a gentle, peaceful layer, becomes the domain of the war-god Kord; The lower parts of Chronias’s slopes are explored and settled, while the Bridge of al-Sihal is moved up its slopes to guard the part that is still mysterious (There is also discrepancy here between 4E’s Manual of the Planes and The Plane Above, with the former implying the bridge is near the base of the mountain while the latter places it near the summit); Moradin and Bahamut take over Solania and Mertion from Pistis Sophia and Raziel, and along with Kord replace the Hebdomad as the rulers of Celestia as a whole; and the other mountains all come to be dominated by wilderness and used mainly for the (newly introduced) Game of Mountains.

This makes Celestia the single most complicated plane to merge back into the Great Wheel cosmology. The Forgotten Realms version is relatively simple - Martyrdom is, by analogy to the Golden Hills, presumably back in Bytopia, while the Court and Trueheart could either have returned to their original locations in Mercurial’s and Lunia or simply merged onto the sides of the central mountain to become mountains in Lunia. Default 4E celestia is more difficult - Should the plateaus of Mt Celestia correspond to the original layers of Great Wheel Celestia or the mountains of 4E’s version? In the latter case, what order should they appear in? Will Moradin and Bahamut somehow adapt the Game of Mountains to deal with the fact that the layers no longer have summits to fight over?

Furthermore, in combining the previous versions of Celestia for 5E, we need to figure out how to reconcile the different rulers of previous versions. Will Torm rule Celestia? Moradin and Bahamut? Will Kord continue to rule Venya despite having presumably returned to the Hall of the Valiant in Limbo? Will the gods whose realms have been merged back into Celestia want to place the Hebdomad back in power? Replace Kord in Moradin and Bahamut’s triumvirate? There’s a lot that’s uncertain.

Carceri

In the Great Wheel, Carceri consists of chains of concentric spheres, while the World Axis cosmology makes it a number of moving islands. The World axis version also makes all the islands cold and swampy, where in the Great Wheel only the outermost layer was swamp and only the innermost two are noted to be cold. Finally, Nerull lives in the Great Wheel version of Agathys, while the abominations on 4E’s version would make this suicidal.

5E’s description of the plane indicates that the terrain has gone back to 3E’s version, and the description of the plane as having “layers” implies that the overall form of the plane has done so as well. Whether Agathys contains Necromanteion, the abominations or both with enough space between them to keep Nerull safe (or some other comparable protection for him) is unclear.

Nerull

Speaking of Nerull, he has his own uncertainties around him that straddle Carceri and the Gray Waste: In 3E, as mentioned, Nerull lives in Carceri, but in 4E he is implied to have ruled the Gray Waste for a long time before being killed by the Raven Queen. This implies either that Nerull was resurrected at some point after his death, that there is an extremely long time gap the times of 3E and 4E’s default settings or that 3E and 4E’s Nerulls are seperate beings. Of these, the second seems the most suitable explanation, as it Nerull’s resurrection seems to go against the implications of 4E’s description of his death while treating Greyhawk and Dawn War gods as seperate beings goes against the implications of Explorer’s Guide to Wildermount presenting a pantheon almost identical to the Dawn War one but with the gods shared with Greyhawk in the locations of their Greyhawk versions. The question is raised, in this case, of which plane Nerull lives on now that he has (going by 5E’s list of the deities of Greyhawk) been resurrected, and of whether power in Hades is now held by himself, the Oinadaemon-Hel-Hades trifecta who ruled the plane’s layers in prior editions or some other group who have come into power after Nerull’s death.

Yugoloths

The other issue to do with the Gray Waste concerns the Yugoloths. This uncertainty does not relate to its 4E version at all, but to different editions versions of the Great Wheel cosmology. In 1E Hades is the Yugoloths’ home, and in 2E, while they have moved to Gehenna, they are mentioned as originating in the Gray Waste and have a magical connection to the plane as a result of this. In 5E, on the other hand, the Yugoloths are stated to originate in Gehenna and their magical connection is now to it. I see no way to reconcile these accounts. And going with 5E’s version of the Yugoloths, the question is raised of whether Khin-Oin and the Baernaloths, previously located in the Gray Waste due to the Yugoloths’ connection to that plane, are now in Gehenna as well.

So, what do people think about this? Is there anything important I’m missing? Other takes people have on things?