I’m planning a series of posts about Hawk Tales FRP and its development. It was really hard to figure out in which end to start, but after a few days of thinking about it I decided to start at the beginning, both literary and figuratively with a brief overview of the cosmology. The cosmology was where I first started to think in the terms of rules, I wanted a set of rules that treated the fantastic elements like other planes and magic, less like rule mechanics and more as phenomena in the world. This is a quick overview of my take on the cosmology, a bit on how things came to be and a few glimpses of how that ties into mechanics. I hope this brief introduction will peak your interest and prepare to dive deeper into the various parts of abilities, magic, combat and much more.
This also ties into the world creation story I’m using in my Greyhawk campaign. This is a peek into the “behind the scenes” version that tells how things really happened. I’m also working on the creation myths that various cultures use to describe their history as well, together they can hopefully provide a good base for other Greyhawk GM’s to build on and modify to suit their campaigns.
The Multiverse is a BIG place made up of lots of planes of existence, some familiar in nature, others very strange. They fall into three broad categories, the real ones (made up from real matter), the ones that are only in your mind, and the ones in between. Let’s begin with the real ones.
These are real places you can travel to in person, either using mundane or magical means. A creatures Strength, Dexterity and Constitution determines what it can do in the physical world.
The places in the multiverse most familiar to us are the Prime Material Plane, which the world Oerth and its surroundings belong to. It’s a place made of real physical stuff (Elemental and Ethereal) and has life that has (for the most part) evolved here and is native to it. The prime also provides the base for all the other planes mentioned below. This means that all the other planes in some way co-exist on the Prime which makes the Prime a unique and very diverse place, where a lot of things are possible. All of a creatures abilities are a work in the Prime, Physical, Mental and Metaphysical.
Both the origin and end of our existence and what drives it are the Energy Planes. Everything else, in some capacity revolves around the two Energy Planes, the Positive and the Negative.
The tension between these two nodes, created the beginnings of our world eons ago. Rumors have it that a reverse multiverse is hidden on the other side, completing the energy circle between the positive and negative.
Positive Energy Plane
The source of energy for life and everything else that brings life and movement to the prime and other places beyond as well. Radiant damage comes from here.
Negative Energy Plane
The end of all things, it destroys life, brings cold and standstill. Necrotic Damage comes from here.
The Ethereal is what gives the physical structure, time and space, it is the scaffolding of the physical world at a fundamental level. Everything in the Primal exists into the Ethereal (or vice versa). This Border Ethereal is like a window into other dimensions, and is the basis for a lot of phenomena, like Darkvision, and ghosts and other Incorporeal creatures. Force and Vorpal damage is using aspects of the Ethereal.
If you move beyond the Border Ethereal, several weird properties start to emerge. The Ethereal now extends into Time, meaning it can be used to see (and even travel) in time. What effects this has is a thing for a different time, lets briefly look at some of the Ethereal plane’s other aspects. No color, smell or sensation except space, texture and movement. Imagine a place which you can only touch, and maybe even at a distance. True Seeing is using this effect to discern what is there or not, even if it is hidden by illusion or other effects.
Creatures’ native to, or well adapted to, the Ethereal seems to be able to perceive its many dimensions in a much more effective way than a creature with only the normal senses used in the Prime Material Plane. They can use the Ethereal to see through matter at long distances and deep into the Ethereal, detecting anything that stands out or moves. Hiding in the Ethereal is about shape and position; by sitting still and moving only very slowly you can avoid detection for a time. It’s about patients; a patient observer might detect you if it just keeps looking long enough to detect the change over time.
The Ethereal Plane's weird capability to accommodate many dimensions makes it a great way to create Demi Planes that can be very hard to find, and that can in turn be gateways to realms of various kinds. This is the effect used by various forms of magic to create pocket dimensions.
Often referred to as the Inner Planes, which is accurate for most of them - earth water and fire, who literary makes up our world. The Plane of Air surrounds us, and to some degree mixes with the others. The material making up the Prime is elemental and where you find enough of them in a place opens up the possibility to travel to the realm of that Element. For examples volcanoes and places deep Underdark filled with lava are literal gates to the Plane of Fire, you just have to be able to stay alive long enough to enjoy the journey.
Over time life has found ways to exist in the Elemental Planes as well, giving rise to creatures’ native to these realms. The Elemental Planes are well knows to spellcasters with both a Strain, and its own school, and a whole range of Damage Types are elemental.
Mental planes only exist in the minds of creatures, and in a way, every creature’s mind is its own mental plane. It is when these mental planes connect and interact, amazing things start to happen.
The emergence of life, and its evolution into more and more advanced forms have altered the fabric of reality itself. One of the most profound effects, though hard to impossible to detect, is the Dreamscape. Every creature advanced enough to have feelings and urges creates its own realm where this mental exercise takes place. And when creatures who are aware of each other can share this realm, and with creatures expanding capabilities the scope and reach of the Dreamscape has been ever increasing.
Mental Planes are realms you cannot visit in person, only travel to in your sleep, using magic or interact with using your emotions and feelings. The real world can be perceived while inside it using a creature’s senses, but that is where the real world ends. The Dreamscape lacks dimensions and distance, things are connected by thought and perception. What you see, hear, touch and even think of is present in the Dreamscape. Time is a weird concept in these realms, moving back and is possible and its not all that obvious when it time something happens or have happened.
Magic can be used to harness various aspects of the Dreamscape, like accessing the minds of others, send mental messages, or even travel through it in spirit. Some creatures do this regularly to stay in touch and keep safe, like the Fey and Elves who can use their revery state to share a world together. Other creatures and magic are far more capable in this realm so beware, lots of pitfalls here!
Psychic Damage hails from the mental, and it has its own Strain of magic, the Cerebral.
The Dreamscape over time given rise to a whole new form of planes, the Metaphysical. Let’s look at this part of the Multiverse next.
As life grew more and more capable, it had an increasing impact on the expanding multiverse, in many ways life made it expand. Creating a myriad of metaphysical realms, places that are both a product of imagination and real at the same time. So far, the true location of these realms has eluded scholars and wise folks, there are many theories but few hard facts. Widely known and accepted are the impact these realms have on the world, from life and death itself to ideas, visions and tragedies. These realms covers it all and more...
Each creature has an essence that carries its metaphysical aspects, humans and many others have a soul they are born with that must take all their life’s ups and downs. These aspects are Comeliness, Presence and Taint describing a creature’s impact in the Multiverse and rule over its life, death and beyond.
The urges, desires and feelings of the animal world gave rise to the early Dreamscape, and as the animal world developed so did the multiverse. Eventually something managed to escape into it and reside there, and the first Metaphysical realm was born, the embryo of the Feywild. A world full of all everything that animals have been busy thinking about since the dawn of time was starting to see new forms of creatures’ spawn that was a form of spiritual offspring to the animal kingdom starting to develop all by itself.
Who was the first Fey is long lost, but a whole range of creature has sprung into existence in the Feywild, maybe even more than anywhere else in the Multiverse. New waves of creatures from the prime managed to make the transition to the Feywild, and inevitably some made it back again. This is, most scholars agree with, the source of a lot of creatures that possess extraordinary and often even magic powers. Everything from striges to dragons has been blamed for having their origins in the Feywild.
Day and night are a key aspect of nature and so always played a key part in the Feywild as well. The lower parts of the Feywild is often named the Shadowdark. Over time, as the multiverse expanded and developed further the Feywild and its gloomy sibling the Shadowdark developed into a realm with lots of connections to other parts of the multiverse, especially to the upper and lower planes.
The role of the Feywild has become more and more of a transitional realm for those who want a way to travel around the multiverse without relying on powerful magic that can be detected and traced. The drawback is that travel in the Feywild can be very dangerous, it is a world filled with all the dangers of nature in various twisted and exaggerated forms.
The Feywild can be likened to a gigantic sloping landscape full of dramatic geography, life in all its forms in forms that are often "larger than life" in every way possible, both size wise, smarter, stronger, and so on. Higher parts of the landscape are continually lit by an increasingly brighter sun the higher you go, the lower you go, twilight slowly comes and eventually you will be surrounded by a perpetual darkness.
Portals to the higher planes are found in the higher parts, and portals to the lower planes are found in the lower parts. The Feywild has not only given rise to a lot of strange and awesome creatures, and it also fuels the Strains of Fey and Shadow magic.
The Energy Planes seeps in from the portals to the Outer Planes, slowly spreading their influence around bringing the struggle between them into the Feywild.
When life became really intelligent its mental capabilities expanded beyond simple instincts, urges and feelings. Reasoning morals and ethics became powerful forces when masses of intelligent creatures could harness their thoughts in way previously impossible. Their devotion, rituals and persistent dedication started to build on top of what already existed in the Feywild, and over eons it gave rise to the outer planes.
This part of the multiverse is more often the playground of intelligent creatures combining intellectual and cultural traditions, worries and triumphs put on top of what already existed since the dawn of time. The result is the Great Wheel Cosmology, Good, Evil, Chaos and much much more.
The outer planes are home to most of the gods and their kin of various forms, the worst creatures that have ever been imagined and more. From paradises and places of joy to the worst pits of despair, the outer planes make the Feywild almost seem tame....
These planes are the collective creation of the minds, spirits and souls of the world, it is the combined subconscious (and conscious efforts) that creates them.
Metaphysical planes are partially real, but things can spontaneously spring into existence here, even things resembling living beings. The plane itself can react as a living environment, spawn things and change quickly. Time, energy and matter don't follow normal rules here.
Can be visited both mentally and in person, but at great risk, few things come back from here for reasons good or bad..
The power of Positive and Negative Energy is a huge influence here, turning the existence of everything into a struggle for greatness or extinction.
In the center of the Outer Planes are the Outlands, like the eye of a huge storm it is an enormous expanse of land harboring gates to all the outer planes on its rim. In its middle it said a tree grows all the way through the Feywild down to the lower planes. A river is sourced here that flows through all the lower planes.
This is the place where petitioner will end up, if they made the journey passed death unhindered. Where they spawn and in what shape is guided by their Taint and circumstances surrounding their death, so choose your demise carefully....
Above the Outlands is a vast expanse of sky, the Astral, made up of all the casual and mundane thoughts that have existed in history. In it endless and so much can be found there and even more is said to have been forgotten.
One rim of the Outlands is always in daylight and its edge is always obscured by clouds. Rising behind the clouds is an otherworldly range of impossibly high mountains. These are the Higher Planes, where the best ambitions of creatures find solace, hope and ambition.
The other rim of the Outlands ends in darkness and the land disappears into the dark. Down there are places where light, hope, love, respect and empathy have ceased to exist. Endless horrors await those who dare (or are forced to) enter...
