#great wheel cosmology

[kassil]

Tourist destinations of the Great Wheel

Mechanus: The Grand Museum of Law and Order. It consists of a single 10' x 10' x 10' cube of a room with a sheet of paper and an equation written on it, which a nearby modron is tasked to explain is the fundamental rule that underpins all existence, thus proving that law and order came first and foremost. There is no gift shop, because the knowledge of law's perfection is the gift.

Arcadia: The Harmonious Hall of Education and Concordance is always happy to have visitors, staffed as it is by eager low-ranking members of the Harmonium who want very much to convince you that their beliefs of a perfect and orderly multiverse are inherently superior to anything else. It does have a gift shop, but everything is absolutely tacky for anyone who isn't already a hardcore believer.

Mount Celestia: The Silver Shores Grill is an excellent place to stop, located beachside in the first of the heavens; the main chef is a reformed mezzoloth, and their greatest delight is preparing exactly the dish you wanted, whether or not you knew you wanted it. There's no menu, and the waiting time is usually under five minutes from being seated to being fed.

Bytopia: The Auditorium is a wandering performance hall carried on the back of an absolutely absurdly oversized squirrel. The inhabitants have open mic night every single day, and you're invited to take part. They're more than happy to let you sit in the audience, too, and sell mildly rotten tomatoes for a copper each. The gift shop is full of both absurd prank nonsense and thoughtful volumes on the history and practice of comedy.

Elysium: The First Spring Salon sits at the headwaters of the planar river Oceanus, and is a full service salon, spa, and wellness retreat. Nearly any entity imaginable, save for those fiendish sorts who wither on contact with the plane's energies and undead vulnerable to holy water, can be found relaxing here. There is a gift shop, and it sells the best skincare kits to be found across the planes.

The Beastlands: The Changer's Way is a park handled by a pair of enterprising druids who use their own magic and the nature of the plane to let visitors experience what being an animal is like for a day. There are waivers to be signed that if you get eaten, it's your own fault and that you agree to accept whatever form they reincarnate you into, no matter how absurd. The gift shop is whatever twigs and rocks you collect as a beast.

Arborea: It's just called Barry's. Ask the locals where to find it, because no one from outside the plane will ever stumble onto it by accident. It's a pub run by a satyr with a corgi hound archon as the main waitstaff. The drinks and food are amazing, and you never end up with a hangover afterwards. There isn't a gift shop, but you can buy a commemorative tankard.

Ysgard: The Hotel at Branch's End is situated in a crook of the World Tree, and has a steakhouse, brewery, and set of divinely heated springs that are all part of the experience when you arrive. Just be careful about any ravens, they like to task drunks with legendary quests. The gift shop mainly sells spice blends and drinking horns.

Limbo: The tourist destination is whatever the person with the strongest imagination cooks up, and the gift shop will probably result in a pocket full of water.

Pandemonium: The Caver's Race Course is, oddly enough, a windboarding experience, where experienced locals will take sufficiently wealthy individuals on an aerial tour of the miles-long winding circuit. For an added fee, they'll provide enchanted earplugs to keep the wind out. There is no gift shop, on account of it having blown away again.

The Abyss: Grazz't's Bar and Grill is a perfectly nice place to get a meal if you happen to be in the area. The bartender is a fallen solar whose divine weapon still has enough sacred energy to keep the local fiends from getting too rowdy, and she has a strict policy that no souls are to be stolen, sold, traded, or tricked away on the premises. Surprisingly, Grazz't does indeed dine here, and enforces the rules. The gift shop mostly sells spice blends and soul larvae.

Carceri: The Last Hope is a fortress built by angels ages ago, meant to be a beachhead for an invasion of the prison plane. Staffed entirely by the locals these days, who are happy to give guided tours while trying to get you to sell your soul to them. It's not a great stop, but that's Carceri for you. The gift shop exists, and everything in it costs your soul.

Hades: Yeah, no, sorry, there's nothing worth it here unless you like depression and the color grey. Well, other than the Museum of Misery, run by a pair of dust mephits who've spent centuries cataloguing every form of mortal sorrow, despair, and suffering. It spans dozens of leagues at this point and they're constantly building onto it. The gift shop is present but totally empty, since disappointment is a form of misery.

Gehenna: Magdul's Marvelous Mountainslide is an arcanoloth-run toboggan experience that sends you hurtling down a volcanic slope on a course that changes hourly due to volcanic flows. There's a strict policy of no refunds and that you agree to any dangers inherent in the experience, and a clause that if you die on the course Magdul gets to keep your soul. The gift shop sells soul-infused obsidian and pumice, and replica toboggans.

The Nine Hells: There are a great many lovely tourist destinations in the Nine Hells, but the only one that doesn't literally cost your soul to experience is a gymansium in Dis that has no signage, with only an unmarked scorching hot door. If you can find it, you're allowed in, and if you can survive the equipment you're accepted. The interior is red-hot, and all the workout equipment is similarly hot iron and steel. The showers produce jets of boiling unholy water.

Acheron: Master Menzenno's Marvelous Mystery Mashup is a scrapyard run by a salt mephit, where they charge you for everything you find as salvage, assigning prices on a whim. Worth it mainly for the chance of finding lost artifacts and forgotten magic items, which Menzenno pretty much always vastly underprices. The entire place is the gift shop. Beware of rust monsters.

The Outlands: The Cafe is situated at the innermost ring about half a mile from the base of the Spire. It's a coffee shop and library, and they do a reasonable business among people who really want to just have a quiet place with a cup of coffee and a nice book, where no one will bother them. Run by a god of knowledge who abandoned her duties millennia ago and survives by the faith and gratitude of those who patronize the shop, with a side of the way the laws of the cosmos are thoroughly suppressed there. The gift shop sells mugs, tea, and coffee.

Roughly inspired by this post

#planescape #great wheel cosmology #D&D #humor

[sabakos]

Desire to run a Dead Gods campaign intensifies.

#need to find a group with “Great Wheel cosmology” levels of autism

[essektheylyss]

Oh, and now there's a DRAGONLANCE book coming out??? But STILL NO PLANESCAPE??? @ WOTC DROP MULTIVERSE FROM YOUR MARKETING SCHEME RN OR GIVE ME A PLANAR MANUAL

#to be very clear this is a joke hence why it is not rebloggable #also I am being cajoled and heckled into just taking matters into my own hands 😔 #and let me tell you. my will is fading with every new book announcement. #to be clear I don't know when the dragonlance book was announced I just happened to see it when I was checking out the one d&d playtesting #I just! would like some 5e sigil lore! and also if the spelljammer people got to yell for decades about spelljammer I do too #but this is also about my rage over corporate marketing schemes. I'm not against them but also make them make sense. #I KNOW the point is ~more settings~ but also planescape is like. the fabric between the settings. pls. #and also some of the great wheel cosmology from older editions sucks lorewise. so like. pls someone update it. I'm begging. #like that's really the struggle is that great wheel cosmology is veeeery alignment contingent and I would like to revisit that #and like I know different settings have different cosmologies but like. #there is an eberron npc IN rising from the last war who is labeled as 'jumped planes to sigil' like HELLO??? #vi my fucking beloved #icon shit ngl. #but yeah like some of the lore is THERE ALREADY so my issue is that my only resource for that is older editions with shitty lore #and so is everyone else's #like it really comes down to the fact that they're updating the lore to be more accessible and inclusive and Not Shit but like #if connecting lore is still being referenced that hasn't been updated in twenty years... you're still directing people to that #so you kind of negated the point here

[prokopetz]

Inadvisable RPG worldbuilding premise #137: Dungeons & Dragons style outer-planar cosmology, except instead of a Great Wheel based on the Good/Evil–Law/Chaos alignment grid, the planes form a Great Hypercube based on Myers-Briggs type indicators.

#concepts #gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #myers-briggs #mbti #worldbuilding #dungeons & dragons #d&d

[dailyadventureprompts]

Why I don’t Use the Great Wheel Cosmology

For those of you who might not know, “The Great Wheel” is a name given to the arrangement and relations of planes that’s provided for the “default” d&d setting, and is assumed to be going on in the background of 99% of all published d&d material. It arranges the planes in a looping sequence vaguely based off the alignment chart, with wordily embodiments of the most extreme forces of good, evil, law, and chaos existing at the cardinal points. Souls depart from the material plane and are drawn directly to whatever plane most aligned with their alignment, to either live on in an eternal state or to become outsiders of their particular domain.

Over the years that I’ve run this blog I’ve stated time and again my distaste for the great wheel cosmology, meting out my critiques in bits and pieces as they were relevant to whatever I happened to be writing about at the time. This has happened so much that I wanted to collect all my gripes in one place so I could link back on it instead of reexplaining myself each time. So without further ado, brace yourself for an opinionated nerd telling you his in depth opinions about something that absolutely does not matter: 

The whole point of a cosmology is to describe the natural order/structure of the universe, and the great wheel describes a universe that’s effectively just the christian dichotomy of heaven and hell with a few extra steps. It’s a fundamentally moral view of how the multiverse works, and makes “right” and “wrong” not only into objective facts, but a geography you can walk across, travelling from the most morally correct place to the most incorrect place with just a couple of protals. 

This system is painfully rigid, not only removing any nuance over whether a course of action is correct, but preventing any competing worldviews from even existing: you can’t have differing belief systems/schisms of faith when you can go out and see proof of the rightness of the great wheel. Much like with how d&d handles gods, this paradoxically removes the idea of “faith” from matters of worship, which to me removes the whole point of having gods in the first place, reducing the big questions around death into a moral assembly line with one of a select number of pre-determined outputs.

It’s no stretch to say that the great wheel is just the alignment chart canonized as a fundamental part of the game world, and while we’ve all grown past the fundimentally black and white morality of the alignment chat It still mystifies me that d&d uses the great wheel as a piece of worldbuilding upon which most campaigns are supposed to be set. 

This boggles my mind because d&d has a much better and simplier cosmology upon which campaigns can be set, one that makes no moral judgments and instead allows for the infinite creativity that the game is supposed to be all about. The astral sea is an infinite expanse of possibility, where worlds are spun together from thoughts and dreams paralleling the process of creation that goes into the act of storytelling itself. What better way to explain a multiverse that functions on narrative tropes more than it does physics? Where hope really can prevail against wickedness and rule of cool supersedes the dictates of fate.

To end with a couple of personal gripes, the great wheel is really kind of boring? As a selection of afterlives about half of them are idyllic natural landscapes with nothing really going on and the other half are unplesant caves/wastelands suffering some kind of fucked up weather event. Most of it is painfully eurocentric when it comes to visions of the afterlife, and those planes that DO stand out ( The crashing metal cubes of Acheron) are more weird for the sake of weird. 

I can’t help but focus in on how much the great wheel doubles down on the game’s weird hodgepodge of colonialist belief structures. While WOTC has hastily amended out “always chaotic evil” over the past couple years, they still set their material in a cosmology where creatures like orcs/goblins/gnolls are born evil, drawn to evil all their life, and are doomed to suffer eternally in various hells because “evil” is in their very nature. This isn’t good worldbuilding, it’s the authors seeking some kind of weird vindication for their own beliefs by creating a group of people they can feel morally justified in punishing, and we all know where that gets us.

#planescape #the great wheel #dnd #dungeons and dragons #d&d #5e #pathfinder #dm advice #dm tip #dm tips #dm tools #writing advice

[asha-mage]

WoT Meta: 'Salvation and Rebirth'

One thing that is fascinating to me about The Wheel of Time is that, despite the fact that the two of the biggest influences on Robert Jordan's cosmology are traditional Hinduism and Protestant theology (in general but especially American Protestantism), as near as I have been able to determine on my 20+ re-reads his world has neither a concept of karma or heaven.

Karma- the belief that your deeds in your current life will impact your rebirth in your next life (to vastly simplify)- is very Big Deal in Hinduism (and several other related religions, such as Buddhism- another big influence on Jordan's cosmology) and yet it is entirely absent from anyone's belief system in the WoT. No one seems to attach strongly to the idea that terrible deeds in your past life might be the source of your misfortune in this one, or that the reason to do good things in this life is to ensure a better rebirth next time. People hope for rebirth into a better life all the time, but they treat this as a capricious whim of fate, not something their actions might reasonably impact.

Interestingly though, some characters do subscribe to semi-related idea, not from Hinduism, but Christianity: Godly living. This is the idea that all troubles are self inflicted, and that if you just work hard, live virtuously, and embrace God ('walk in the light') nothing bad will happen to you ('you wont attract the Dark One's attention'). But their is no serious suggestion that this might be tied to past or future lives, and also the series takes great pains to demonstrate that it's wrong. Bad things happen to seemingly good people all the time (including Our Heroes), and if their is rhyme or reason to be found in it, it's usually the result of a working of fate so vast that the characters involved can not perceive it with their limited knowledge and view. This is one of those central themes of the series that I find so compelling and one Moiraine lays out in TDR (and during her confrontation with Logain in the show): The Wheel itself is not good or evil, it just is, and it weaves fate to a design so intricate and so massive that the human lives pulled about within it are given as much care as....well, as the loom gives to a single strand in a tapestry.

In the same vein the idea of a heaven- an enteral paradise, even just an intermediate one between rebirths, is also absent from Jordan's world building. Their is a belief that your soul will return to the nebulous 'Light' upon death if you where a good person and be taken by the Dark One if you where a bad, but no one seems to equate the 'returning to the Light' with being rewarded for good actions with a paradise where all their desires and needs will be meet, and where they get to chill out until, presumably, its time to be reborn. The idea of Heaven- that earthly suffering being rewarded after death with eternal salvation is a Big Deal in pretty much all Christianity but especially Protestantism, which fundamentally is/was about the idea that salvation could not be gate kept by earthly institutions and was solely the providence of God to deny or grant. The closest you get in Jordan's world any kind of afterlife is the World of Dreams, where the Heroes of the Horn (and only the Heroes) await their rebirth. But that can't properly be called a Heaven- not when nightmares walk it, and the conflicts of the living world can easily, and frequently do, seep inside. Not to mention any mortal can reach it without having to die- by just going to sleep.

And which, on that note, the very idea of the Heroes of the Horn is contradictory to the idea of an eternal salvation. In a system where their is salvation after death, the Heroes would be rewarded for their valor and heroism with eternal peace. Instead their reward is endless lifetimes of adventure, which means endless conflict but also endless legends and stories, as well as the chance to keep making the world better, righting wrongs and putting fate back on track. In this way the Heroes of the Horn are clearly inspired by the idea of the Dashavatara from Hinduism- mortal incarnations born specifically right the ship of cosmic order when fate/the world is getting out of whack. But interestingly, in Hinduism the Dashavataras (and the other avatars) are all Gods taking mortal flesh, and so inherently divine. This is an idea, once again, that many people in Jordan's world believe to be true (most notably the Prophet and his followers) but isn't- Rand isn't the Creator in the flesh, or a vessel of the Light. He's just a person, one whose heroic nature and kind heart earned him a place as a Hero of the Horn, but still mortal beneath all else that he is. And that fallibility, that reality that he isn't a God, that he can bled, be hurt, die, even turn to the Shadow- is a core part of understanding Rand's character arc.

One final thought on this (and the thing that started me thinking on the subject to begin with since The Fires of Heaven is where we are introduced to this idea for the first time in the books): there is something incredibly fascinating to me that to the characters in Jordan's world, the highest and most sacred oath you can swear is on 'your hope of salvation and rebirth'- which taken in the lens of our world are two fundamentally opposed ideas. For Christians salvation is eternal- the salvation of the immortal soul in Heaven free from earthly suffering. In Hinduism, rebirth by definition means continuation on earth, a chance to redeem past mistakes, to better the world, to make new good karma that will enrich your fate.

And yet, the characters in Randland don't view them as contradictory (or if someone does we never hear them voice that thought). Which makes me suspect that salvation and rebirth refers to the Prophecies of the Dragon and the hope they will come true. Salvation in this context is not the salvation of the soul, but the salvation of the world, the wheel, the pattern, fate- saved to continue on into eternity. Rebirth refers the hope you will get to be reborn again- which would only be denied to a person should the Dark One triumph and remake the world....or maybe even the hope that the Dragon will be reborn to save the world, to bring salvation to earth.

That would mean the oath came from a time when the Prophecies where fresh and new, before False Dragons tore countries asunder in wars and before hatred and fear of the Dragon had time to embed itself.

But by then, as often happens we are told, the origins, the why, where forgotten, even the tradition remained, and so no one realizes that, to this day, the most sacred of oaths, including the Three Oaths of Aes Sedai, are sworn in the name of the Dragon and on the hope of his coming.

#Wheel of time #WoT #WoT on PRime #Wheel of time on Prime #Wot Meta #Wheel of Time Meta #Rand al'Thor #Moiraine Damodred #I think about this series WAY to much #I don't think their are any spoilers in this so I'm going to leave it untagged #everything mentioned is either an idea the show has established or a vague allusion

[blackcrowing]

Blackcrowing's Master Reading List

I have created a dropbox with pdfs I have gathered over the years, I have done my best to only allow access to documents which I found openly available through sites like JSTOR, Archive.org, or other educational resources with papers available for download.

That being said I ALSO recommend (I obviously have not read all of these but they are either in my library or I intend to add them)

📚 Celtic/Irish Pagan Books

The Morrighan: Meeting the Great Queens, Morgan Daimler

Raven Goddess: Going Deeper with the Morríghan, Morgan Daimler

Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom, Erynn Rowan Laurie

Irish Paganism: Reconstructing Irish Polytheism, Morgan Daimler

Celtic Cosmology and the Otherworld: Myths, Orgins, Sovereignty and Liminality, Sharon Paice MacLeod

Celtic Myth and Religion, Sharon Paice MacLeod

A Guide to Ogam Divination, Marissa Hegarty (I'm leaving this on my list because I want to support independent authors. However, if you have already read Weaving Word Wisdom this book is unlikely to further enhance your understanding of ogam in a divination capacity)

The Book of the Great Queen, Morpheus Ravenna

Litany of The Morrígna, Morpheus Ravenna

Celtic Visions, Caitlín Matthews

Harp, Club & Calderon, Edited by Lora O'Brien and Morpheus Ravenna

Celtic Cosmology: Perspectives from Ireland and Scotland, Edited by Jacqueline Borsje and others

Polytheistic Monasticism: Voices from Pagan Cloisters, Edited by Janet Munin

📚 Celtic/Irish Academic Books

Early Medieval Ireland 400-1200, Dáibhí Ó Cróinín

The Sacred Isle, Dáithi Ó hÓgáin

The Ancient Celts, Berry Cunliffe

The Celtic World, Berry Cunliffe

Irish Kingship and Seccession, Bart Jaski

Early Irish Farming, Fergus Kelly

Studies in Irish Mythology, Grigory Bondarnko

Prehistoric Archaeology of Ireland, John Waddell

Archeology and Celtic Myth, John Waddell

Understanding the Celtic Religion: Revisiting the Past, Edited by Katja Ritari and Alexandria Bergholm

A Guide to Ogam, Damian McManus

Cesar's Druids: an Ancient Priesthood, Miranda Aldhouse Green

Animals in Celtic Life and Myth, Miranda Aldhouse Green

The Gods of the Celts, Miranda Green

The Celtic World, Edited by Miranda J Green

Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Tradition, Edited by Emily Lyle

Ancient Irish Tales, Edited by Tom P Cross and Clark Haris Slover

Cattle Lords and Clansmen, Nerys Patterson

Celtic Heritage, Alwyn and Brinley Rees

Ireland's Immortals, Mark Williams

The Origins of the Irish, J. P. Mallory

In Search of the Irish Dreamtime, J. P. Mallory

The Táin, Thomas Kinsella translation

The Sutton Hoo Sceptre and the Roots of Celtic Kingship Theory, Michael J. Enright

Celtic Warfare, Giola Canestrelli

Pagan Celtic Ireland, Barry Raftery

The Year in Ireland, Kevin Danaher

Irish Customs and Beliefs, Kevin Danaher

Cult of the Sacred Center, Proinsais Mac Cana

Mythical Ireland: New Light on the Ancient Past, Anthony Murphy

Early Medieval Ireland AD 400-1100, Aidan O'Sullivan and others

The Festival of Lughnasa, Máire MacNeill

Curse of Ireland, Cecily Gillgan

📚 Indo-European Books (Mostly Academic and linguistic)

Dictionary of Indo-European Concepts and Society, Emily Benveniste

A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principle Indo-European Languages, Carl Darling Buck

The Horse, the Wheel and Language, David W. Anthony

Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, Robert S.P. Beekes

In Search of the Indo-Europeans, J.P. Mallory

Indo-European Mythology and Religion, Alexander Jacob

Some of these books had low print runs and therefore can be difficult to find and very expensive... SOME of those books can be found online with the help of friends... 🏴‍☠️

library genesis might be a great place to start... hint hint...

#books #book #resource #blackcrowing #pagan #paganism #irish mythology #celtic #irish paganism #irish polytheism #celtic paganism #celtic polytheism #celtic mythology #indo european #indo european mythology #historical linguistics #paganblr #masterlist #irish reconstructionism #irish reconstructionist #celtic reconstructionist #celtic reconstructionism #masterpost

[shamandrummer]

Shamanic Cosmology: The Reality of the Soul

Myth is the reality of the soul, just as history is the reality of the temporal world. Humans have always looked beyond the factual world of ordinary reality for something solid on which to ground their lives. The models of the mystery of life have always been based on the wisdom of inner vision. "Mythological cosmologies do not correspond to the world of gross facts, but are functions of dreams and visions," writes the late Joseph Campbell, one of the great mythologists of the twentieth century.(1) Dreams and visions have always been, and will always be, the creative forces that shape cosmology, which embodies a culture's basic ideas, truths and understanding about the nature of the universe. A culture's mythical cosmology gives physical shape to its mystical ideas in the form of stories and rituals. It is an inherent product of the psyche, a symbolic language of metaphysics recognized by shamans and seers.

Mythological cosmology is evocative rather than referential. It is not science or history, but rather symbolism that serves as a catalyst of spiritual well-being. In shamanic cultures, mythic cosmology serves a dual function. It not only engages the individual both emotionally and intellectually in the local tribe, but also serves as a means of disengaging from this local system in order to experience the "Great Mystery." It disengages the individual from the integrating component of ordinary thinking consciousness and invokes the mysteries of the imagination and intuition. The emphasis is on the individual, of breaking free and discovering one's own uniqueness in order to bring something new back to the group.

Shamanic practitioners utilize trance-inducing rhythmic drumming as a means of journeying into the mythic realms of the soul. Transported by the driving beat of the drum, the journeyer travels to the inner planes of consciousness, using myth as an inner map to guide their journey. There is a bridge on the sound waves of the drum that convey you from one world to another. In the sound world, a tunnel opens through which you can pass. When you stop playing the drum, the bridge disappears.

Cosmologically, the drum depicts a microcosm of the universe, as well as the vehicle of travel. Carried away on the sound of the drum, the shaman's spirit is said to ride on the animal whose hide is stretched over the drum frame. The frame of the shaman's drum is invariably round, symbolizing the circle of life. In the shaman's world, all aspects of life, energy, and the cosmos spiral in circles. The plants, the animals, the minerals, and the elemental forces of nature all exist within the circle. All creatures walk the circumference of the wheel of life, experiencing birth, life, and death. After completing a cycle of learning on the sacred wheel, each one returns to the source, the Great Mystery at the center of the circle.

Transformations of Myth through Time

The cosmology of the drum, as well as that of shamanism itself, represents the worldview of animistic Paleolithic hunting societies. The archetypal symbolism developed from a reciprocal relationship that existed between animals hunted and the tribal cultures dependent for sustenance on their offering themselves. The totemic animals or animal archetypes are themselves great teachers as well as man's co-descendants from the mythical paradise. The totemic animals gave to humans the rites to be performed whenever game animals were slain so that their spirits would return to the source for rebirth. The hunt itself was a rite of sacrifice. When the rites were properly performed and recognition thus given to the order of nature, then harmony with nature was maintained and a food supply assured.

The structures of shamanic cultures are circular. Like the hoop of the drum, the circle represents the wheel of life. All are equal in the circle; no one is above or below. In a circle, each person's face can be seen; each person's voice can be heard and valued.

Agriculture transformed the structures and cosmologies of shamanic cultures. Nomadic, subsistence hunting societies were assimilated into food growing communities structured on hierarchy. The Neolithic order of agricultural societies imposed a rigid social system on Paleolithic peoples used to the freedom and rites of the hunt. The plant displaced the animal as the model of the mysteries of life. Complex ceremonials and rituals based on the cycle of death and rebirth in the plant kingdom rigidly interlocked all individuals into the endless formal procedure. Shamans, with their individualistic style of spiritual experience, were viewed as a threat to the dogma of the ecclesiastical hierarchies. Shamanism was discredited as heresy and replaced by a socially anointed priesthood.

The paramount function of mythic cosmology in agricultural societies has always been that of suppressing individualism. Generally, this has been achieved by imposing dogmatic archetypes of behavior, symbols, and belief systems on people. Individual expression, interests, or modes of experience contrary to the social mandala are discouraged. The cultural imprinting of hierarchical, agriculturally based societies leaves the individual outside the realm of personal spiritual experience. Any sense of the Great Mystery is beyond the individual's grasp.

Today the mythologies of hierarchy and the priesthood are dissolving. Individuals are searching for new ways to relate to nature and spirituality. Joseph Campbell wrote, "What is required of us all, spiritually as well as corporeally, is much more the fearless self-sufficiency of our shamanistic inheritance rather than the timorous piety of the priest-guided Neolithic."(3)

Shamanic cosmology is one of disengagement from the rigid patterns that suppress the manifestations of individualism. Through the beat of the drum, a sense of the original source is evoked, along with the forces of the universe, which have been suppressed in the subliminal abyss of the unconscious for six thousand years. The drum, as a microcosm, becomes a tool for effecting changes in the macrocosm. It enables us to participate directly in the work of encountering and transforming our inner structure, which mirrors our culture. Structure determines how energy will flow, where it will be directed, and what new forms and structures will be created. Through the transformation of our inner landscapes, we transform the external landscapes. We create new forms, new structures that are not based on hierarchy, estrangement, and exploitation. We renew the sacred hoop of harmony and balance. This is the work of the shaman--of myth making.

Joseph Campbell, The Flight of the Wild Gander (South Bend: Regnery/Gateway, Inc., 1979).

Joseph Campbell, The Flight of the Wild Gander.

#shamanism #mythology #shamanic drumming #drumming #cosmology #shamanic journey #spirituality #shamans #animism

[thydungeongal]

I personally feel like D&D as its own overarching setting peaked in 2e with stuff like Planescape and Spelljammer. Every attempt to "simplify" the cosmology has hurt me somehow.

I kinda get where you're coming from, and on their own I do think Spelljammer and Planescape are pretty cool settings (although put together it's... Kind of a lot. Like, I feel having both in play at the same time feels like there's too much), my personal favorite version of the D&D cosmology is the 4e one.

Like, I think the Great Wheel is nice and symmetrical, and it works for Planescape... But outside of Planescape it's a bit too neat and symmetrical? To me it only really works as a backdrop to the one D&D setting that's actually built around it which also happens to be, in my opinion, is one of the toughest settings to actually play D&D in because thematically it's at odds with so many of the expectations built into D&D.

So anyway, Planescape seems like the sort of setting ancient philosophers would come up with to explain why the world is like that. And it's thus the perfect planar composition for the setting that's supposed to be about conflicting philosophies. But the 4e World Axis cosmology feels more mythic. Like, it's not just "places where the gods live, set neatly in a circle," it's got like some real fairytale stuff in it. I love that there's a shadowplace and a fairyplace and an astral sea and oh what do you know you can actually do Spelljammer in the astral now.

But like yeah I think there's good stuff in the old editions, but I'm also glad 4e did its own thing, which felt like an actual mythological cosmology, marked once again by an overarching conflict between order and chaos.

#thydungeongal answers

[your-reference-here]

I'm not ruling out Fearne popping up in Exandria just yet, but if she IS on another plane...based on the Forgotten Realms wiki description, Arborea sounds like a really good candidate:

The Olympian Glades of Arborea, sometimes simplified to just Olympus or Arborea, was the Outer Plane in the Great Wheel cosmology model embodying the chaotic good alignment. A plane of joy as well as sorrow, Arborea was the home of the dreamers, a seemingly delicate sylvan realm of astounding heartiness and deep-seated enchantment. Its beauty was almost overwhelming, the landscape embodying the lovely and peaceful, and the passionate and wild, all at the same time.

#the dreamers and sylvan mentions are what got me going 👀 #doubt it's the same name but it could be the inspiration #critical role

[omgkalyppso]

For the 30 questions ask meme:

5, 9, 11 for étoile!!!

And 4, 5 for whoever is your most recently played bg3 character 👀

Thank you for the ask!! (:

Étoile

5. Describe their idle animations!

Elbows to knee crunches. Meditating cross-legged (+ Mourning Frost laid across their lap after it's reforged). Reading cross-legged. Playing their flute (aaaabcbd. aaaabcbg).

9. What’s the significance behind your Tav’s name?

Étoile is the child of my skyrim dragonborn oc Wylla and the skyrim stolen-npc-now-oc-adjacent Aranea Ienith, who worshipped the Daedric Prince Azura and had a quest to cleanse Azura's Star. It is for this star that Étoile was named in that setting and in my thought process. In Faerûn, Étoile was named for the stars that Aranea would have come to love after having spent her youth in Menzoberranzan in the Underdark.

11. What is your Tav’s go-to comfort food?

You may be interested in the answer to their Favorite Foods from last night.

But I'll say something new.

I think when Étoile is tempted to seek out comfort food that they want something rich in different textures — so it can't be a homogeneous soup or pie. Still, this might be just an excuse for me to say some kind of tacos / taco-like dish, with crisp vegetables and soft fruit, protein and sauce, and something to hold it together.

Inithray

My most recently played Tav is for an ongoing evil multiplayer campaign with some of my usual dnd friends. They can't know about my full concept for him because they haven't even reached Act 2 in their personal playthroughs, but I like to think that Inithray is some manner of undead — and an experiment of Vlaakith's, to see how long such a creation of hers can "live" after an initial interaction of her magic, or how far her influence extends in the Great Wheel cosmology as he's sent to different planes.

He is magically and culturally, her creature. Nothing she could do would shock or shake him.

Inithray has resulted in the deaths of Damays and Nymessa so far. I asked the party if they wanted to save Arabella because if so they didn't want me / Inithray leading the conversation; and they decided that the way their characters want to be evil might extend no further than stealing the idol of Silvanus and killing the druids but not aligning with the Goblins. We'll see.

Anyway!

4. What would your Tav’s romance scenes look like? How many would they have?

A lot of the githyanki specific dialogue options demonstrate their isolation, which will be more appropriate for my solo (probably not evil aligned) Tav, Yar'sul, but don't exactly suit Inithray. I think Inithray would need githyanki player characters to demonstrate their aptitude / knowledge of their own culture at the very least, if not an understanding of the world. He's attracted to power, but he's interested in someone who can carry a conversation with interest or experience, rather than simply charm.

Regardless of player race, Inithray will doubtlessly also come on (too) strong like the other resident githyanki once his interest's been captured. His bluntness will be more about visions / fantasies about what the player character might look like in ecstasy rather than scent.

His Act 1 romance scene would include an observation about how cool / clammy he is, with a question as to whether that's because he's a gith from non-githyanki or if it's because he's from the astral plane from a githyanki. He'll say yes either way, with an Insight check to see that he's lying. If you press into his mind then you do not fully find your answer, but from Inithray's perspective you remember hands burning with the fire-ice of divine energy reaching into your heart. The player character can decide if this kills the mood.

If it doesn't, then I think the player character is given two opportunities to use force in their intimacy; maybe a default choice of pulling his hair / shoving him against the ground and some class specifics. With visible confusion (/disappointment?) if the player character is gentle with him.

His Act 1 romance scene can no longer trigger once the player character has confronted Vlaakith in the crèche.

Inithray's Act 2 romance scene does not trigger if the player character was gentle with him in Act 1 but it opens him up to being willing to reject Vlaakith in Act 3. You cannot use power (or logic) to alter his allegiance / worship while his romance is active.

His Act 2 romance scene includes a(n optional) challenge. I won't step too far on Lae'zel's battle's toes; it can be a race. Either from one landmark and back to the starting point, or up a mountain. If it's to a landmark and back then when you get to the landmark he gets to use his githyanki psionics to jump like a grasshopper back to the starting point, and if you're racing up a mountain then he does the same from the beginning. A Perception check to see that he's about to jump lets you use a spell or a rock on his ankle to set him off balance, or as a githyanki, to do the same.

Making it through the race gets him out of breath and half laughing, reaching out to run his hands up the back of the player character's head (falling to his knees to do so for shorter body types) to share adrenaline high kisses.

One of the options to reject his challenge includes an accusation about how he just wants to show off, and Inithray declares that if he wanted to show off then he would do something altogether darker, and call upon his warlock magic to coalesce in blue-black shapes and smoke around his hand and his temple, and the player character can respond "Show me." to still pursue the night rather than reject him outright.

His Act 3 romance scene would require me thinking up a personal quest / how to account for whatever the player decides to do about Vlaakith, but either it can be tentative and sweet where he confesses that he's confident that Vlaakith need only look at him for him to fall to pieces; or full of dark promises where he will see the player character's power secured and the city razed for its transgressions against them if they wish it.

5. Describe their idle animations!

Reading a book. Reading a slate. Juggling a ball in one hand while counting his fingers up and down on his opposite hand, "It's good for coordination." Dicing ingredients at a little alchemy table at his tent.

#long post #oc tag: inithray #yeah he gets a tag. another new oc. it's fine. i'm fine #oc tag: étoile #baldur's gate 3 spoilers

[sabakos]

The received lore on Anglosphere fantasy creatures is basically a mishmash of Tolkien and Forgotten Realms with some other things tossed in at random, usually Planescape/Great Wheel cosmology or some other mass market ttrpg campaign settings. But like most folklore traditions, many people presumably haven't read or seen any LotR or played any D&D and still manage to pick this up by osmosis.

This does result in a fair amount of nerdrage stemming from disagreements when inevitably neither party knows what probably-conflicting source material either of them is drawing on.

[cookinguptales]

wwdits tarot: wheel of fortune

Time for X. The Wheel of Fortune! This is the 11th card of the Major Arcana (don’t forget that we start with 0) and that means we’re halfway through!

Thanks for reading and uh. Never underestimate my ability to overthink a stupid joke.

That’s it, that’s the card.

I kid, I kid.

I mean, no, I’m not kidding, I absolutely do want the Big Bang Theory slot machine to be my Wheel of Fortune, but there’s quite a bit more to it than that.

Having a slot machine of any kind stand in for The Wheel of Fortune makes sense in a very literal sense, I suppose. It’s quite literally a wheel that deals in chance. But The Wheel of Fortune is a more complex card than you’d think at first look, and I think this particular stupid joke actually plays well with the concepts this card represents.

The Wheel of Fortune, while often represented by a gambling wheel of some kind, actually refers to a more metaphysical idea. In the Rider-Smith-Waite tarot, it is actually a reference to the Rota Fortuna, which is the wheel of the deity Fortuna. In other words, while it's translated as the wheel of fortune, perhaps an easier way to think about it is the wheel of fate.

I’m not going to get into the history of this symbol here because we’d be here for days. But suffice it to say that the idea we’re working with here is a wheel that we all exist on, and that's constantly turning. There’s a sense of impermanence to this symbol, and the implication is that nothing good will last forever, but nothing bad will, either. Our lives all contain ups and downs as Fortuna turns her wheel.

There is an element of luck and good fortune to this card, but the overriding idea is the impermanence of station and the inevitability of fate. The pitiful will rise and the great will fall and nothing can ever be taken for granted.

If you’ve ever spent much time in Atlantic City, you’ve probably seen this happen on a micro level in the gambling halls. (Sorry, Sean.) So on that level, a slot machine works as a symbol.

But on a deeper level, I want to talk about the characters’ emotional journeys in this episode. Like it really is one of those episodes that shows that life can change on a dime. Sean loses everything right when he’s happiest. Laszlo goes through a crisis of friendship. Nadja realizes that time changes everything even when the vampires stay still. And Nandor learns that his entire conceptualization of the universe is about to be upended.

(Though perhaps the character going through the greatest status changes in the episode is our dear Guillermo…)

It's important to remember, I think, that The Wheel of Fortune is both a warning and an encouragement. It reminds us that change will always come for us all, but that can be a bad thing or a good thing. It's telling us not to take things for granted, but also presenting change as an opportunity to remake ourselves.

I think the duality of this is best represented by Nandor’s experiences with this slot machine and the big bang theory. He’s broken over the idea that cosmology has changed so much over the centuries, but an opportunity for change is being presented to him as well: Nandor has allowed himself to stagnate too much over the years and The Wheel of Fortune is pushing him to change with the times.

This card is really talking about the idea of change but in a very cyclical sense. Good will follow bad, and then good will come back again. The wheel just keeps turning.

This episode is so interesting because every character experiences some kind of crushing defeat or humiliation right as they feel most elated. Sean, about to renew his vows, gambles away his house money. Laszlo, excited to be invited to his friend’s renewal ceremony, gambles with his friendship. Nadja, thrilled to see her old friends again, realizes that those friends (and perhaps her glory days) are dead. Nandor gets addicted to a new game only to realize that his entire conceptualization of the universe and his life in it are false. The vampires lose their powers during a fun night out. Guillermo, thrilled to be finally seated at the table (so to speak), is immediately humiliated when they turn away without listening to him when it matters most.

As for Colin… well, as soon as he finds his favorite show they’ll no longer let him watch it! But on a more serious note, his reflection in the mirror hints that he’s going through much more substantial changes than everyone else…

:')

But The Wheel of Fortune ever turns, and everyone’s lot in life is restored to some degree by the end of the episode. (At least for now.) Guillermo is entrusted with saving them all, and he earns their respect and gratitude when he pulls it off admirably. Sean gets his money back. (Sort of.) Laszlo saves Sean and solidifies their friendship. Nadja is able to regain power in the casino, partially by using her experiences with her old friends. Nandor… well, at least he cheers up once he has Guillermo around to give him some structure again.

And Colin finally gets to watch his goddamn show.

Honestly, the events of the episode fit with the ideas of The Wheel of Fortune so well that you kind of have to wonder if they were thinking about it while writing it.

The Wheel of Fortune serves as a constant reminder that you should savor the good times and weather the bad, because neither will last forever. It also presents people with an opportunity for change, a critical turning point that can be used for good or ill. As the rest of the season (and indeed the show) plays out, it becomes clear that several characters went through key changes in that episode, especially Nandor, Guillermo, and Colin, and those changes will affect them profoundly in the years to come.

It all comes back to that damn slot machine, though, and the concept of the Big Bang. 

(And the general vibe of The Big Bang Theory. Bazinga.)

------------------

The imagery of the Wheel of Fortune card is very complex, but my imagery on my card will be less so.

Going through all the symbolism on this card would take forever. I’ll just say that there’s a lot of occult symbolism here, from divination to alchemy, Hermetic to Kabbalistic, so yeah, that’s just the vibe here. There’s a ton of history and symbolism in this card in particular, but it all kind of goes with what I’ve already been saying.

I’ll mostly just direct you to the four characters inside the wheel (which symbolize earth, air, fire, and water), the animals hangin’ out in the clouds (symbolizing the astrological signs of Aquarius, Scorpio, Leo, and Taurus), and the letters around the wheel, TARO/ROTA. (Tarot and Rota Fortuna, natch.)

I would make the imagery of this card the slot machine from the episode, perhaps with Nandor close by getting way too into it, and instead of BBT characters in the slots, I would have those symbols. T, A, R, O; the symbols you can see in the wheel on the inner spokes; and the symbols for the astrological signs I mentioned before.

(Note: I am purposefully not including the Hebrew letters because they spell out the Hebrew name for God. This is partially because I have very mixed feelings about the way occultists have historically appropriated various cultural/religious traditions for their ideas and partially because putting that name in front of our vampires would presumably make them die.)

Also, just in case you’re curious — you can probably find plenty of photos of this particular slot machine online as it is quite real. I’ve taken selfies with it myself. lmao

wwdits tarot masterpost

#wwdits #wwdits tarot #wwdits meta

[dailyadventureprompts]

Planescape: The Astral Dreamscape

 I make it no secret that I’m not a fan of D&D’s default “great wheel” cosmology as I find the rigidity of its worldbuilding gives me very little to play with as a DM. So here I’m going to present my version of the astral plane, which I’ve found to be a much more convenient narrative thread to weave into my stories involving high magic and the truly weird

Setup: As the feywild exists as a heightened form of the mortal realm’s vitality and emotion, and the shadowfell acts as it’s dark and ghastly inversion, the astral dreamscape takes its form from the cast off thoughts and imaginings of all conscious creatures.

It is the place where the dreaming mind ventures when freed from the body, where fancies become theories become thoughts before becoming forms. It is said to be the origin of all magic, as a mage shapes the impossible form of the spell with their mind before setting it lose in the waking world, a wave of creation taking form in the astral sea before breaking on the material shore.

When viewed in its natural state, the Astral dreamscape resembles an endless starry sky, filled with swirling fogs, auroras and nebula like gasses. Vast structures float directionless in the expanse, growing like coral heedless of any physical constraint.

Adventure hooks:

Many arcanists seek a path to the astral plane, as a sufficiently powerful will with access to the right preparations can shape the raw material of the plane into anything they can imagine, creating island in the astral sea or cathedrals out of stardust. After these architects die or grow bored with what they’ve made their creations drift aimlessly, slowly dissolving back into the aether or being colonized by the creatures that drift through the infinite starscape. There’s fortunes to be made in looting the dream-mansions of long dead wizards.

When magic goes wrong, it evokes a phenomenon that learned types call “ astral bleed”, and adventurers call “ wild magic”. Space shifts and warps in on itself, objects randomly become enchanted or animate, and creatures from the astral sea begin to scuttle through dimensional cracks. Often dangerous magical experiments can be found by following a trail of increasing weirdness that leads to their secret laboratory.

Sometimes a dreaming mind will get lost in the astral plane, their consciousness getting lost in the vastness while their body sinks into a coma. The traveller will have to dodge psychic predators, while formless nightmare things seek to find their way back to the empty vessel that is the traveller's body.

One also can’t mention the astral sea without discussing the spelljamming ships that skirt across it from world to world, trading and raiding like star-spanning pirates.

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #d&d #5e #dm advice #dm tip #dm tips #dm tools #writing advice #pathfinder #planescape #astral #setting

[ourbetterdevils]

The Citadel’s War

Summary: The Wizards of the Citadel in exchange for magic have struck a bargain to help the nine hells fight the blood war.

Ever since we’ve been introduced to the citadel and the nature of their whole we’re at war thing and raised a forest to be a perfect desert combined with my knowledge of Brennan Lee Mulligan and his many other campaigns and passions has me inclined not to take this at face value. They’re just Wizards doing empire is boring.

I don’t really substantively have much to work with here but, the initial description of Eoighorain inclines me to think he’s a non-standard Balgura supported with the express use of Simian.

The fact they are traveling somewhere that is simply dangerous by virtue of being there and that couldn’t be supplemented by considerable wizardry inclines me to think this would have to be somewhere extra planar and not terrestrial.

Balgura, War, Categorically Dangerous the blood war and it’s unending occurrence make a pretty compelling fit.

Now we don’t know what exactly the cosmology of this world is and likely won’t for a while but, I do maybe remember off hand hearing that Planescape and the cosmology of the great wheel was a favorite or Mr.Mulligan’s.

We also do know it was a point of emphasis and explicitly mention in Fantasy High Sophomore year of the blood war and the need for distinction to be made between Devils and Demons. With Demons truly being a force of unrepentant destruction in the alien Deus-Pah’zhul way than anything useful to cosmology. While Devils are portrayed as generally bureaucratic and not necessarily pleasant but, can be bargained or reasoned with.

What we want to extract then is why would the blood war be a thing to challenge our characters narratively. For this we gotta go back to Eruslon’s initial foray into the mortal world. There’s a need for soldiers and while you’re probably saying hey not everything needs to be connected. I am simply saying everything we have been show has to have been chosen to be so. We have been shown knights on a road marching. We have been show citadel wizards marching. This world is stepped in conflict. Maybe just one though and maybe just the same one. Demand more and more of the people who fight that makes them forsake honor and everything else precious like balance or the spirits because none of them help them win the war: the bloodwar.

So to string this out to the max we got the world probably made by gods great wheel cool.

Mortals learn magic initially from nature probably become the first druids and witches they learn and are of the same tempo with the natural world and maybe a little more.

However, someday someone chuffs at this arrangement they take more than they give and the spirits get angry and take back their gift of magic for the most part. Mortals are pissed and are adamant not to be granted a gift but, to wield a power.

They find other ways to magic darker ways but, it’s just words right nothing more than complicated airflow and the gift of magic so great. The Hells makes a deal to give them wizardry for their participation in the bloodwar. This places a considerable burden on the wizards to service this debt essentially a debt that will never be paid off(maybe) because I assume the debt was always to win the blood war for hell.

The whole empire stick is an after thought just a means to pay back this debt and continue to fight and win the actual war that matters. However, maybe something like the citadel is running out of world to colonize and it’s opposition becoming more intense. Has lead to an over taxing of resources. So it’s desperate it’s doing the equivalent of the German Wunderwafe programs moonshot projects with a non-zero Chase of maybe winning the war outright and an extremely high chance of being junk like Caging a massive ocean spirit and fight a continental force of Kudzu are exemplary ideas they betray desperation of securing anything any edge to win the war.

But mortals can’t want the bloodwar to end its well known the only thing that is keeping both hell and the abyss from cleaning up isn’t the forces of good but each other. If either side wins they whole rest of the wheel loses.

The nature of the bloodwar by default though is that they’re too evenly balanced perfectly even one might say. So that neither is ever able to do so.

Unless say one cheated by say getting mortals to win it for them. Or rather to use the ingenuity of humanity to provide the necessary cosmological change to make winning the war possible. Then hell doesn’t even care if mortal kind is free of its debt because they’ll claw them all down anyways.

#worlds beyond number #wbn #brennan lee mulligan #bloodwar #the citadel

[blackcrowing]

Blackcrowing's Book Review Masterpost

Irish Paganism: Reconstructing Irish Polytheism, Morgan Daimler

The Book of the Great Queen, Morpheus Ravenna

The Druids, Peter Berresford Ellis

The Horse, the Wheel and Language, David W Anthony

Celtic Cosmology and the Otherworld, Sharon Paice MacLeod

The History of the Vikings: Children of Ash and Elm, Neil Price

A Practical Guide to Pagan Priesthood, Lora O'Brien

God Against the Gods, Jonathan Kirsch

A History of Pagan Europe, Prudence Jones & Nigel Pennick

A Guide to Ogam Divination, Marissa Hegarty

Polytheistic Monasticism, Jann Munin

Ireland's Immortals, Mark Williams

A Circle of Stones, Erynn Rowan Laurie

This is a growing list that will be added to as new reviews are made

#book review #books #book #resources #masterpost #masterlist #blackcrowing #paganism #pagan #polytheism #celtic mythology #celtic paganism #celtic polytheism #norse mythology #Norse Paganism #norse polytheism #indo european #proto indo european #history #linguistics