Birthright's Planar System

[Mark_Aurel]

Birthright should most definitely have a different cosmology from other D&D worlds. Defining or agreeing upon something appropriate becomes the big issue.

The Shadow World as is is pretty similar to the Plane of Shadow and the Plane of Shadow can be used for the Shadow World with relative ease. There has been little or no mention of other ways to cross the planes in Birthright, so one would have to come up with something appropriate or even say that the Shadow World is the only link to other realms (it used to be different before Deismaar) - strictly speaking, transitive planes aren't even necessary - the realms of the gods could touch directly upon Cerilia.

As for the properties of the realms themselves, these can be extrapolated from existing materials with relative ease, I think.

Finally, another thought that may have some merit would be to add planar traits to some provinces - Elven provinces could have traits similar to the Plane of Faerie, some awnshegh provinces could be sinkholes of evil, etc. I think the Manual of Planes provided some good tools for giving game mechanical traits to some of the "special" areas of Cerilia in this regard.

[the Silver Prince]

Whatever planar system is adopted there should be some thought about celestials and fiends. Either they should work for the gods directly and live on their home planes or they should have their own planes. You have to remeber that if any planes are cut some spells will not work and some outsiders will not exist.

[jimi]

I dont see there is a problem here.
A particular world's cosmology is derived for the viewpoint of its inhabitants. As par as Aebrynis is concerned the inhabitants would be aware of the planes (for example the homes of the gods, demons, devils etc) but (except for a few with Planr knowledge) would not be aware that those planes are shared by other Outisiders.

There are several links in published BR products to the Planescape univese both implied and specific (the Sword of Roele) specifically refere to the Shadow World as the "Demiplane of Shadow". And several planescape products refer to Aebynis (and also the difficulty of getting there (through the Shadow World)

In the new MotP read the description of the Plane of Shadow - not a million miles away from the Shadow World! The designation of the Shadow World as a Transitive Plane makes even more sense in this context.

If the Shadow Plane is the only Transitive Plane that connects to Aebrynis (poss. because of Deismar) I dont see any problem with using the standard of Planescape cosmolgy.

I've used both Planar and Spelljamming elemnts in my home campaing with no noticable problems (aside from introducing Mind-flayers to Cerillia which caused some interesting dillemmas !!!

[Lord Grave]

> There are several links in published BR products to the
> Planescape univese both implied and specific (the Sword of
> Roele) specifically refere to the Shadow World as the
> "Demiplane of Shadow". And several planescape products
> refer to Aebynis (and also the difficulty of getting there
> (through the Shadow World)

In Iron Throne, it is said that Shadow World was Fairy World, before the
Cold Rider came. I don`t think that Fairy World would be a part of
Demiplane of Shadow.

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[jimi]

If you read at the MotP its clear that the Planes are mutable (especially to the actions of Gods)

Places are not necessarily fixed in the planes, nor are planar boundaries unchanging. There is enough evidence of this in Planescape and other sources (even in the Planescape:Torment game one of the Border towns is dragged down to Carceri)

Perhaps some climactic event caused Aebrynis's Fairy World (part of the Plane of Faery) to be "swamped" by the Plane of Shadow - some machination of Azrai, perhaps, to increase his power.

This might make even more sense if you consider some of the concepts of Shadow Magic and the Shadow Weave from the FR campaign setting. This would make powerful magic available to Azrai's followers.

It would also benefit Azrai by alienating a popwerful source of good (the seelie court) and damaging the most powerful demihuman race -the elves- by splitting them from their faery counterparts (cf The Book of Shadow).

[Ariadne]

I think Aebrynnis should by part of the great wheel. In the planscape book "on hallowed ground" (ok, 2nd Edition) the realms of the gods are described and the outer planes also exist in the 3rd edition. So I don't think the realm names or planes should be changed. (Maybe someone said that allready)


In my oppinion the shadow world is an equivalent to the Astral or Etheral plane (sorry, but which I forgot). So it might be, that you can travel to other planes through it.

[marcum uth mather]

if the cosmos is diffrent, would the hevenly and hellish servents be diffrent to? would a D.M. use baatsue or tenarie (demon, or devile, dang spelling:p) what would the good powers use ase servents. If its a unique cosmos, then would only souls of former worshipers be found in the afterlife? Could deismaar have been so climactic in a spiritsual way to have sundered BR from the rest of the universe? this would explain how treped deamons got there in the first place. before deismaar BR was part of planescape. After deismaar they were cut of due to the death of the gods.

[jimi]

Some food for thought.

1. The Planes were clearly part of 2E Birthright, the Sword of Roele in particular used them as a major plot device and used a powerfulPlanar being (the Monkey King) as an NPC. The Plancescape setting material cleary refrences Aebrynis and the BR gods in several books (and acknowledges the difficulties of the Shadow World). If the new conversion departs from this established continuity then it runs the risk of seeming somehow less like an "official" product.

2. There are a wholw mess of people out there running Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk etc. etc. if we "detach" from the standard cosmology and established system we're potentially cutting those people off from running their parties though a "visit to Aebrynis" scenario which may in turn encourage them to run more Birthright. If we want the setting to survive and grow we need hooks to encourage more players, not take potential hooks for other DMs out !

3. Birthright is a "Dungeons & Dragons" Campaing Setting, if we "lose" the connection to the wider D&D universe we run the risk of becoming just another d20 setting !

just my two cents worth :)

[Birthright-L]

On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG wrote:
> 1. The Planes were clearly part of 2E Birthright, the Sword of Roele
> in particular used them as a major plot device and used a
> powerfulPlanar being (the Monkey King) as an NPC. The Plancescape
> setting material cleary refrences Aebrynis and the BR gods in several
> books (and acknowledges the difficulties of the Shadow World). If the
> new conversion departs from this established continuity then it runs
> the risk of seeming somehow less like an "official" product.

This is not really a convincing argument. Some adventures for BR
have a distinctly less BRish feel than the campaign setting material :)
Warlock has an underdark, another one (I don`t recall which) features a
couple of drow, and if Sword of Roele features an extraplanar being, it
could easily be discounted like those other non-BRish elements.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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[Mark_Aurel]

1. ALL of TSR's official 2e campaigns were linked to the official cosmology. This is no longer the case. The MotP serves an example cosmology based around Greyhawk. FR has its own cosmology now, which has nothing to do with the Planescape cosmology anymore. Probably same with Dragonlance, or Dark Sun. Of the old standard worlds, Birthright was the least "cosmically oriented" world, and cosmology doesn't mean that much - however, the Planescape cosmology is not well suited to BR to begin with. Too much baggage.

2. Cross-selling like that won't work.

3. Dungeons & Dragons is a set of rules, not a consistent world.

The references to BR in PS products were there for the sake of completeness. The references to the PS cosmology in BR products were mostly in second-rate or third-rate products, the BoP being the main exception. The BR cosmology should be based around the godly realms as outlined in the BoP.