Category talk:Planes of existence

Categorization
Okay... I went a little crazy... I have wanted to organize the Planes Inhabitants, Locations, etc. for a long time. I know Admin Movie is a pro with the Planes, so please check out my organizations starting with Category:Inhabitants of the Planes and see if I have the correct order... I have not problem with deleting or changing my categories, but I want to have a nice system, like the Category:Inhabitants of Toril and Category:Locations on Toril... with all the nice category jumps and such :) So check it over and tell me what you think... even if it is bad. - Darkwynters (talk) 17:56, February 8, 2014 (UTC)
 * At the moment, Category:Inhabitants by plane of existence and Category:Inhabitants of the Planes fulfill more or less the same function, so we should put them together in my opinion. To get the system working similar to Category:Inhabitants of Toril, etc. we could have Category:Planes of existence parallel to Category:Inhabitants by plane of existence. And then down -> Category:Great Wheel planes/Category:Inhabitants of the Great Wheel -> Category:Outer Planes/Category:Inhabitants of the Outer Planes -> Category:Locations in the Abyss/Category:Inhabitants of the Abyss.
 * Similarly, Category:Planes of existence is nearly identical in function to Category:Locations by plane of existence. I personally would keep Category:Planes of existence and drop the Locations... (as outlined above). But in any case, in my opinion those two should be merged. Daranios (talk) 18:50, February 8, 2014 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the late reply, I got distracted and forgot to get back to this. First thing is the Astral Sea is a 4th edition (World Axis) concept related to the Spellplague. Before that it was just the Astral Plane, so I would make a new category for the World Tree and Great Wheel versions to say Astral Plane. Second, the Inner Planes and Elemental Planes can be considered synonymous in the Great Wheel and World Tree cosmologies, see the disambiguation page. Therefore you don't have to put "Elemental" inside "Inner" unless you want to create an Energy planes category and limit Elemental to being just the four elements. Third, in the Great Wheel model, the Outlands is one of the 17 Outer Planes, so it should be a child of "Outer Planes" and not a sibling. Fourth, the Demonweb Pits should be a child of the Abyss in the Great Wheel, a child of the Astral Plane in the World Tree (which you have), and a child of the Astral Sea in the World Axis. I think this will fix itself if you make the Astral Plane cat as described above. Finally, your Elemental Chaos category should go under World Axis, and I agree with Eli (below) about putting primordials/former gods in both categories, and the renaming of the categories as stated by Daranios (also below). &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 14:00, March 3, 2014 (UTC)


 * Awesome response, Movie. Please check under the parent category: Category:Inhabitants of the Planes and see if I correctly made your suggestions. Thanks :) - Darkwynters (talk) 17:42, March 3, 2014 (UTC)


 * Movie, is there anyway you could use your tech mastery to add an Inhabitants, Locations, Settlements, and Organizations section to the Plane template... actually, now that I am thinking about it... could we add an Items, Food and drink, and Events section to the Location template... Remember, these are just ideas... if they stink, just let me know and I will fix all my categories to how everyone wants them :) - Darkwynters (talk) 17:58, March 3, 2014 (UTC)


 * Ohh. In this case, would it also make sense to include Deities (and maybe for 4th Edition Primordials), as we have now started doing them "by home plane"? Might also be interesteing for the category jumps for planes. Daranios (talk) 18:34, March 3, 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, I can do that. Not sure about Deities and Primordials...are these not already covered by Inhabitants? &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 20:42, March 3, 2014 (UTC)


 * I was always a bit fuzzy if deities count under inhabitants or not (and where that fits into the category tree). Some deities have the category "Inhabitants of...", but using that only would invalidate Category:Deities by homeplane. But just putting "Category:Deities from xy" into "Category:Inhabitants from xy", hm, why not? Daranios (talk) 12:38, March 4, 2014 (UTC)


 * I removed the empty category Locations in the Elemental Planes and the Settlements and Inhabitants that went with it. Does it look right now? I feel it is a bit confusing that we have both Settlements and Locations in the category jump, with Settlements being a subcat of Locations, but if you guys want to keep it, that's fine. It just makes for a lot of cross-links, with things like

Locations in the Great Wheel +->Settlements in the Great Wheel +->Locations in the Inner Planes +->Locations in the Elemental Plane of Fire | +->Settlements in the Elemental Plane of Fire +->Settlements in the Inner Planes +->Settlements in the Elemental Plane of Fire where Settlements in the Elemental Plane of Fire shows up three times. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 15:59, March 4, 2014 (UTC)
 * +->Settlements in the Inner Planes
 * +->Settlements in the Elemental Plane of Fire


 * Hmmm, I noticed Daranios you placed Category:Locations in the Outlands in Category:Locations in the Great Wheel... I am guessing the Great Wheel is not like Toril... for example, Cormyr is located in Interior Faerûn, which is located in Faerûn... so the categories are like a microscope... moving from smallest to largest area... so the Planes are the main location, such as Toril... and the Great Wheel is a 2e concept, just like the World Axis is a 4e concept... does this make sense :) - Darkwynters (talk) 16:05, March 4, 2014 (UTC)


 * Movie, are you saying we should not make Settlements part of Locations... for example... Category:Settlements in Cormyr should only be linked to Category:Settlements in Interior Faerûn... interesting idea... is this what you were thinking? - Darkwynters (talk) 16:05, March 4, 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, Great Wheel, World Axis, World Tree are concepts, but they are concepts related to locations: Some locations exist just in one of them, e. g. Warrior's Rest is one of the Category:World Tree planes, the Outlands one of the Category:Great Wheel planes. Thus I would prefer to treat the Great Wheel etc. as locations like Toril. The we could have e.g. Inhabitants of the Planes -> Inhabitants of the Great Wheel -> Inhabitants of the Outer Planes -> Inhabitants of the Outlands. There is a problem with Category:Outer Planes, however: It is used for both Great Wheel and World Tree, destroying the straight path downward categorization (that's why I additionally added Category:Locations in the Great Wheel to the Outlands, etc.). To get around this we would have to distinguish Great Wheel Outer Planes and World Tree Outer Planes, making it rather cumbersome. Any ideas here? Daranios (talk) 16:25, March 4, 2014 (UTC)


 * I think I know a way to fix this, but don't have time to write much right now. Give me 2 or 3 hours.&mdash;Moviesign (talk) 17:55, March 4, 2014 (UTC)


 * Oooo I am quivering with anticipation :) - Darkwynters (talk) 19:16, March 4, 2014 (UTC)


 * I am sortof reversing myself from what I said earlier, but this might make the categories easier to organize. I propose using Inner Planes and Outer Planes for 1st and 2nd edition only (as children of the Category:Great Wheel planes); Celestial Planes, Fiendish Planes, Neutral Planes, and Elemental Planes for 3rd edition only (as children of the Category:World Tree planes); and Astral Sea, Elemental Chaos, and Parallel Planes for 4th edition (as children of the Category:World Axis planes). Planes that exist in more than one cosmology will be put in all that apply. For example, the Abyss is an Outer Plane, a Fiendish Plane, and a member of the Elemental Chaos. This is the way the cosmology images are labelled, which is good for clarity. Transitive Planes can be a child of all three cosmologies.
 * As for Settlements/Locations, I was thinking maybe dropping "Settlements in..." entirely and just using "Locations in...". All Locations that are also Settlements could be put in Category:Settlements to distinguish them. Having two nearly identical category trees where every leaf and branch of Settlements is a subcat of Locations just seems unnecessarily complicated and confusing. How does that sound? &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 20:50, March 4, 2014 (UTC)
 * If you really want a list of just Settlements, I think I can make a DPL template that you can use in your Category Jump that will list all pages that are in both Category:Locations in Thay and Category:Settlements for example. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 20:59, March 4, 2014 (UTC)


 * So... you think we should make all Settlement categories into... Category:Locations by type, like Seas for example... hmmm, I am not completely against this idea... would take a lot of cleaning up (but I actually like organizing)... As for the planes... would Sigil be set up like...

Locations
 * +->Locations in the Planes
 * +->Locations in the Great Wheel
 * +->Locations in the Outer Planes
 * +->Locations in the Outlands

Or we could just stop linking the Settlement categories to the Location categories, such as Arabel... Settlements
 * +->Settlements on Toril
 * +->Settlements in Faerûn
 * +->Settlements in Interior Faerûn
 * +->Settlements in Cormyr

Maybe... all towns and cites should not be included in the Location categories... just Settlements... like the Bent Bow Locations
 * +->Location on Toril
 * +->Locations in Faerûn
 * +->Locations in Interior Faerûn
 * +->Locations in Cormyr
 * +->Locations in Arabel

Thoughts? - Darkwynters (talk) 22:23, March 4, 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, rather than duplicating the Location hierarchy, just mark Settlements with the all the applicable Category:Locations by type cats. I can then make DPL templates that display things like "all settlements in Thay" or "all mountains in South Faerûn" and perhaps even more complicated groupings. I would like to see the Location hierarchy contain every possible location and then qualify them by adding cats from Category:Locations by type.
 * The Sigil categorization is essentially correct, but since we have Category:Great Wheel planes I would make it Category:Locations in the Great Wheel planes and do the same for Category:Locations in the World Tree planes and Category:Locations in the World Axis planes. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 01:07, March 5, 2014 (UTC)


 * Okay, I like where this is going... but I want to verify a couple of things... Sigil category set up... of course the actual page will not link to the category "Locations by plane of existence"

Locations / Planes of existence
 * +->Locations by plane of existence
 * +->Locations in the Great Wheel planes
 * +->Locations in the Outer Planes
 * +->Locations in the Outlands
 * +->Demiplanes

We can probably delete my Category:Locations in the Planes unless you want a catch all category...

Hmmm - Darkwynters (talk) 04:59, March 5, 2014 (UTC)


 * Movie... I removed all "Settlements in" categories from Elmwood... are you saying as long as the "Locations" cats are there... you could essentially create "Villages on the Moonsea" and "Settlements on the Moonsea" categories... am I reading your wonderful insight correctly? - Darkwynters (talk) 05:06, March 5, 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree, we don't need both Locations in the Planes and Locations by plane of existence.
 * They would not be categories, they would be "reports" or "queries" based on your category system. Check out User:Moviesign/Moonsea query 1 for two examples. I am still trying to figure out how to parameterize these queries so users can get whatever they want without having to learn complex syntax. Not sure how successful that will be, but at least we can put a link to these reports (like the Settlements link) in your Category Jumps, if you wish. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 15:54, March 5, 2014 (UTC)


 * I love all your ideas above, I would just suggest one small modifiction: I would like to have both Category:Locations in the Elemental Planes (in the narrow sense of air, earth, fire, water) and Category:Locations in the Energy Planes (as both those classifications are used in the World Tree without a superior category) and put them into both Category:Locations in the Inner Planes (for the Great Wheel) and Category:Locations in the World Tree.
 * Speaking about Locations by type: Should we have a type "Realm" for the deities' realms (2nd edition version), or would that be too confusing as one might expect a worldly kingdom or something? Daranios (talk) 16:18, March 5, 2014 (UTC)


 * Hmmm... If you look at this image, File:Cosmology.jpg, from the 3rd edition, it has the label "Elemental Planes" for all 6 planes. That's why I recommended we lump them all under Inner Planes for the Great Wheel, and Elemental Planes for the World Tree&mdash;just to keep it simple. I can live with it either way. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 17:50, March 5, 2014 (UTC)


 * Ah, right - I had looked at the text in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 3rd edition, where "Elemental Planes" and "Energy Planes" are equal headings. Let's do it as you said - simple is good, where possible :-). 17:55, March 5, 2014 (UTC)


 * Okay, Movie... love the query... so all "Settlements in" categories can now be removed... correct... and I will remove all my "Planes" categories :) - Darkwynters (talk) 00:48, March 6, 2014 (UTC)

By edition?
I stumbled upon another difficulty with the primordials: At the moment Grumbar for example is in Category:Primordials from the Elemental Plane of Earth. That, I think, is a mixture of 2nd and 4th edition. It should, in my opinion, be Category:Primordials from the Elemental Chaos. Can anyone move/delete Category:Primordials from the Elemental Plane of Earth and Category:Primordials from the Elemental Plane of Water? Also, in 4th Edition Grumbar and the like have been retconned to be primordials, not deities. I would still like to keep the deity categories that fit to the descriptions from 2nd Edition, to treat all editions equally. Any objections? Daranios (talk) 20:26, March 2, 2014 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't Grumbar simply be in both categories if we are aiming for an edition-inclusive wikia? Same way an individual could be in the Netheril and Anauroch regions at different time periods. I understand the Elemental Chaos is different from the Elemental Plane of Earth. What do you think?--Eli the Tanner (talk) 00:56, March 3, 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, putting Grumbar in both categories was also exactly what wanted, I just did not express it clearly. Daranios (talk) 18:18, March 3, 2014 (UTC)