Talk:Cosmology

Demi-Elemental Planes
"Several quasi-elemental and demi-elemental planes also exist, sitting at the junctures between the elemental planes such as the Elemental Plane of Cold that lies between the plane of air and water." Do you have a source for this? Non of the source books I've been using for this article (FRCS, PGtF, MotP) specifically list such planes, of course they mention that there are an endless number of demiplanes, but the only ones specified are ones created by Elminster and some other wizard who I forgot. Also, if there was a thing like a demiplane of Cold, wouldn't Auril inhabit it instead of Fury's Heart, or atleast have a portal link to the plane or some such?

And thanks for the typo correction, I suck at this :P Zerak-Tul 22:09, 22 March 2006 (UTC)


 * On page 165 of The Player's Guide to Faerun it says all of the demiplanes in the Manual of the Planes sourcebook exist in the cosmology of Toril. The demi & quasi-elemental planes are described in said sourcebook.

New Cosmology Image
I created a new image of the pre-spellplague cosmology, since the existing one doesn't cite its source and appears to be copyrighted. Please take a look at it for correctness. Also, I'm thinking of creating something similar for the post-spellplague cosmology... but before I do so I'd like to get some feedback on this one. Comments? 13:38, 24 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm... I like it, though it doesn't resemble the existing image very closely at all, or the concept of a "tree." It does, however, resemble the Great Wheel of Planescape fame. Artistically, it's well done if somewhat simplistic. In terms of data... I'm not sure if I'm a big enough lore expert to tell you if it's good or not in that department. Niirfa-sa 05:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Just a quick note on this, since I've noticed that this image has been moved to a "Great Wheel" sub-section. It was not my intention to use that term per se.  Rather, I was trying to show all the planes in the FR setting, and their relation to each other.  The existing image (for the 2E cosmology) does not include them all.  In hindsight, yes it does kind of look like the core setting "great wheel" visualization, but we needn't call it that, or separate it out.  It's just a different way of looking at the complete 2E FR cosmology.  21:02, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Split
This article is absolutely huge right now. Splitting it up would be great. I think the Cosmology article needs to give an overview of the planes, not necessarily listing each individual one, and explain the differences between editions, but beyond that, specific information on planes can go on articles about those planes. Fw190a8 18:47, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Isn't it already split though? I mean, the blurbs on the planes are literally one to two sentences long. I'm sure actual articles on the planes, many of which do exist and many more of which I'm hoping to create, would contain more information than that. However, I can see you point about the article being very, very long - though many wikis have articles just this long on a regular basis.
 * If we were to split the article, however, I'd think a better idea than cutting out the individual planes would be to create separate articles for each of the cosmologies, with this article covering them in broader terms. For instance - the World Axis cosmology and the World Tree would both get their own articles, as would the Great Wheel, while this article would provide a vague description of each with a main article header. The plane descriptions could then be cut and moved to these articles, with the plane type descriptions being vastly reduced (perhaps to the current length of plane descriptions) to take up less space.
 * What do you think? Niirfa-sa 20:24, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm thinking we should have a "Pre-Spellplague" cosmology article and a "Post-Spellplague" cosmology article (article names TBD). The difference between "Great Wheel" vs "World Tree" is negligible as shown in our current article: they have the same content but are really just different ways of drawing an N-dimensional concept onto a 2-dimensional image.  On the other hand, after the Spellplague we've seen vast changes in the planes themselves, and the "World Axis" cosmology is one way of conceptualizing the new relation between the planes.  There's no reason we can't have a "2 Half-Sphere" visualization of the new planar relations (as portrayed in the DMG) as well.
 * In short, I suggest it be broken based on content, and not on how it's visualized. 20:59, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, two articles would probably be fine - though the two spheres is simply a different graphical representation of the World Axis cosmology - it differs in no way, whereas the Great Wheel and World Tree actually have differing structures, if identical planes that inhabit those structures. World Axis cosmology and World Tree it is (with the latter having an addendum for Great Wheel). I think these titles would work best since I really dislike using the terms "Post-Spellplague" or "Pre-Spellplague," particularly since it's likely the cosmology was different before the sundering of Abeir-Toril and may also change again.
 * Sound good? Niirfa-sa 22:39, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yep, sounds good. Just curious: how do you see our Great Wheel and World Tree images as differing structures?  Is it the lack of connections (lines) between the connected planes on the Great Wheel image? That could be fixed, if desired.  07:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not so much the image (although that too) but rather just the Great Wheel cosmology in general, which was considered standard for all D&D settings until 3.5, at which point hte World Tree was introduced. The Great Wheel has a distinction between "outer planes" and "inner planes," which the World Tree doesn't really have - or at least not in the same manner. True, the World Tree does have the celestial and fiendish planes separate from the elemental and energy planes, but the former don't reside in a circle surrounding the latter, which in turn don't surround the Prime or the transitive planes. Granted, this is a pretty minor difference, but it's still more substantial than the differences between the MotP and DMG illustrations of the World Axis which, except for a difference in how to portray the Astral Sea and the Elemental Chaos, are identical. Once again, I'd probably just go with two articles.Niirfa-sa 08:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)