✦ Arvandor, the Verdant Isles We recommend leaving the parallel planes and

T H E WO R L D A X I S CO S M O LO G Y
✦ Carceri, the Red Prison fundamental planes in place. Many spells, effects,
and monsters are tied to the Astral Sea, Elemental
✦ Celestia, the Radiant Throne
Chaos, Feywild, and Shadowfell. If you eliminate
✦ Chernoggar, the Iron Fortress these “structure” planes, you may create gaps in the
✦ Hestavar, the Bright City game rules. For example, if you get rid of the Shadow-
✦ Kalandurren, the Darkened Pillars fell or greatly alter it, the Shadow Walk ritual would
have to be changed, too. Relatively minor alterations
✦ The Nine Hells of Baator
are possible. If you don’t want a goddess of death on
✦ Pandemonium, the Howling Depths your plane of shadow, you can remove the Raven
✦ Pluton, the Gray Waste Queen and her palace of Letherna, and move a simi-
✦ The White Desert of Shom lar deity of death to the astral dominions. It won’t
interfere with any rules operations in the game.
✦ Tu’narath, City of the Githyanki
When considering your cosmology, make sure you
✦ Tytherion, the Endless Night address the following:
✦ A place for good-aligned deities, angels, and
Elemental Realms: In the vastness of the Ele-
immortals to come from.
mental Chaos lie scores of elemental realms. Some
of these, such as the Abyss, are differentiated enough ✦ A place for devils and evil-aligned deities or angels
from the surrounding elemental maelstrom to be to come from.
planes within a plane. Others are specific locales ✦ A place for demons and elemental creatures to
within the chaos. Major elemental realms include: come from.
✦ The Abyss ✦ A place for fey creatures to come from.
✦ The City of Brass ✦ A place for shadow creatures to come from.
✦ The Ninth Bastion ✦ A way of getting from one plane to another.
✦ Zerthadlun ✦ A way for spells or effects referring to astral,
elemental, fey, or shadow planes or creatures to
Demiplanes: Demiplanes are places that exist function.
outside the fundamental planes. Each was created by
artifice at some point in the past, since they do not One of the simplest adjustments to the cosmology is
naturally occur. Many demiplanes exist, but only a substituting the deities of the core pantheon for the
few are known by more than a handful of individuals. deities of a specific campaign world. For example, you
The most famous demiplane is Sigil, City of Doors. can remove Bane from Chernoggar and replace him
Anomalous Planes: Finally, the cosmology with Tuern the Merciless, the god of war in your own
includes some planes whose exact nature is not clear. home campaign.
Major anomalous planes include: The next step up in difficulty is adding or deleting
✦ The Far Realm specific astral dominions and elemental realms. The
exact number, name, and inhabitants of the vari-
✦ The Plane of Dreams
ous astral dominions can be switched out to reflect
the Dungeon Master’s campaign preferences. This
Customizing the customization leaves the fundamental planes and
Cosmology parallel planes intact, so planar travel works pretty
much as it does in the core cosmology. As an example,
The World Axis cosmology only represents one of
you could add the plane of Ysgard (or Asgard) and
many possible planar arrangements for a D&D
several of the ancient Norse deities to your cosmology.
campaign. It’s the default setting, and all upcoming
If Thor replaces Kord in your game—or even exists as
4th Edition DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game products
a rival or ally of Kord—everything still works just fine.
assume that the World Axis cosmology is the one
If you are ambitious, you can overhaul the basic
you’re using in your campaign. However, you can
planar structure. In your game, the Elemental Chaos
create your own cosmology for your campaign.
may not exist, and all elemental creatures come from
the natural world. In your game, perhaps, all the
astral dominions and major elemental realms are
parallel planes. Therefore, venturing to the domains
of deities is a matter of finding the correct “echo” of
the mortal world.

CH A PTER 1 | Exploring the Planes

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