บทที่ 6: จักรวาลวิทยา (Cosmology)
The worlds of D&D are part of an immense cosmos. Most campaigns and adventures play out on worlds on the Material Plane. The rest of the multiverse consists of different planes of existence defined in relation to the Material Plane.
The planes of existence are strange and often dangerous environments undreamed of in the natural world. Adventurers can stroll along streets of fire, test their mettle on battlefields where the fallen are resurrected with each dawn, and behold the terrifying majesty of the Lady of Pain as she floats above the streets of the ring-shaped city at the center of the multiverse.
ภพภูมิ (The Planes)
The planes of existence are realms of myth and mystery. They’re not simply other worlds, but dimensions formed and governed by spiritual and elemental principles. They fall into the following categories:
- Material Realms. Most D&D worlds are located on the Material Plane, which has two planar echoes: the Feywild and the Shadowfell.
- Transitive Planes. The Ethereal Plane and the Astral Plane are boundless realms that provide passage between other planes of existence.
- Inner Planes. The four Elemental Planes (Air, Earth, Fire, and Water), plus the Para-elemental Planes between them, are the Inner Planes.
- Outer Planes. Seventeen Outer Planes correspond to the nine alignments and shades of philosophical difference between them.
- Positive and Negative Planes. These two planes enfold the rest of the cosmology, providing the raw forces of life and death that underlie all existence in the multiverse.
The Great Wheel
The default D&D cosmology includes more than two dozen planes, detailed in this chapter. The most common understanding of these planes visualizes them as a group of concentric wheels, with the Material realms at the center. The Inner Planes form a wheel around the Material Plane, enveloped in the Ethereal Plane. Then the Outer Planes form another wheel around and behind (or above or below) that one, arranged according to alignment, with the Outlands linking them all.
Since the primary way of traveling from plane to plane is through magical portals, the spatial relationship between different planes is largely theoretical. No being in the multiverse can look down and see the planes arranged like a diagram in a book. No mortal can verify whether Mount Celestia is sandwiched between Bytopia and Arcadia; rather, this theoretical positioning is based on the philosophical shading among the three planes and the relative importance they give to law and good.
Other Configurationsp173
For your campaign, you can use a different model of the planes. Here are several examples:
- Planes situated among the roots and branches of a great cosmic tree (literally or figuratively)
- Material Realms suspended between two other realities: the Astral Realms (the Astral Plane and the Outer Planes) above and the Elemental Realms (the Inner Planes) below
- A cosmology with fewer planes: a Material Plane; the Transitive Planes; a single undifferentiated Elemental Plane, where all four elements churn in chaos; an Overheaven, where good deities and Celestials dwell; and an Underworld, where evil deities and Fiends reside
- Planes arranged in a complex system of orbits, with planes exerting greater influence on the Material Plane the closer they draw to it
Material Realms
The Material Plane is where the philosophical and elemental forces of the other planes of existence collide in the jumbled existence of mortal life and matter. It is a thoroughly magical place, reflected in the two planes that share its central place in the multiverse.
The Feywild and the Shadowfell are parallel dimensions occupying the same cosmological space as the Material Plane. The landscapes of these three planes are similar, but those of the Feywild are more marvelous and whimsical, while those of the Shadowfell are more bleak and ominous. Passage between the Material Plane and these other realms is sometimes effortless, even accidental. Adventurers might enter a grove of trees on the Material Plane and suddenly find themselves in a lush, colorful forest on the Feywild or a grim wood of dead trees on the Shadowfell.