One of the intriguing possibilities of role-playing games is the opportunity to describe not only a fantasy world, but to create a complete cosmology. I already wrote about the deities I will use in the Fractured Realms, but how does the world itself connect to magic, the gods, and opportunities to weave in interesting stories for the players?

The World Tree of Norse mythology is one obvious example to appropriate, but I will again be borrowing ideas from the Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition world axis cosmology. The 5th edition books repeat it as a possible option along with the older great wheel cosmology used in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Your mileage may vary, but it's a good idea to have some kind of general pattern established for how your multiverse works in your game.

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The Multiverse

The universe is a complex interaction of many “planes,” or dimensions of existence. The world your characters know is called the “Material Plane.” Everything you can directly observe in any direction is part of this plane, including the sun, moons, stars, and your world. However, there are other places outside your plane of existence, and they are all capable of interacting and influencing one another. Parallel to the Material Plane are two intersecting planes, the Feywild and the Shadowfell. These mirrors of our world reflect it strangely, and there are places and times when they can also interact in a much more physical way, and it is even possible to travel between them, but there are unique dangers in each plane.

The Feywild is an extreme manifestation of magic and nature, untamed by restraint. Its mountains are more rugged, its oceans always seem storm-tossed, to forests more lush, and its cities more ornately built. The world seems bathed in the light of a perpetual brilliant dawn, and even the depths of its forests have a mystical glow. The natives include nymphs, satyrs, and giants. It is the geography of our world taken to an extreme. The harsh, magnificent beauty and primal magic power can be a boon, but they can also be a threat to the unwary. It is commonly thought that druids tap into this realm for their nature magic.

The Shadowfell is in contrast a bleak world of decay and sorrow. Colors seem washed out and gray. There are no stars in the sky, and the perpetual twilight feels like an oppressive burden. The landmarks coinciding with the Material Plane look twisted and eroded. Cities are built with less care, and often show signs of disrepair. The people seem listless, and many are merely shambling undead, though they exhibit little of the mindless hunger they manifest in the Material Plane.

Other planes are less directly connected to our world.

Clerics draw power from a plane called the Astral Sea, the domain of the gods. It is conceptually described as “above” the Material Plane, although this is but a poor description hampered by mortal language and understanding. Whether it is a single plane or the nexus of many branching and intersecting planes that are each the domain of a different god is disputed by scholars and religious sects.

“Below” the Material Plane is the plane of Elemental Chaos. This is the source of the power wielded by wizards and sorcerers. Again, many scholars and mystics believe it is the intersection of many elemental planes that each have their own identity. Some prefer to chart these planes as a wheel around our Material Plane, instead. All agree that encounters with any beings from these planes are typically fraught with greater danger than most can hope to endure.

Whether other planes exist, or can be reached by any means at all, is unknown.

In my universe, there is nothing beyond these concepts, but your world could be far more complex.

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Next: Geography and Points of Interest in the Fractured Realms