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Welcome to the first post detailing my World of Cthon cosmology!

I'm happy to announce that, along with the previous post and the next ones, this series/project will be part of a "blog carnival" as of now titled "If I Ruled The Multiverse", aimed at writing our ideal cosmology for D&D Next, but more than anything just at jotting our cosmological thoughts out!
An idea of Richard Greene, of whom you can read the related blog post here, along with the rest of his very interesting blog, while you're there!

As it is natural for this particular cosmology, which aims to be so "concentrated" that it inevitably also becomes a psuedo-setting , I'm going to start from the origins, talking about the First Age, dominated by the Elder Gods.

A note for those not wanting to read the first post first, even if this First Age is not the age in which games should be set (although it could be, at DM's discretion and players' will), the World of Cthon's peculiarity is that these ages, and the world they created, are not lost in time, but merely in space. This First Age becomes the Underdark of the Second Age, and goes even further down to constitute the deepest parts of Underdark and even the Abyss of the First Age, which is default age in which adventures are set.

About this post: all of this was once part of the previous post: "The First Age", but I think it was too heavy, so I decided to create a separate post for the Elder Gods, adding a bit more information to the previous post that would have been too much combined with all that we got here.

As with the previous post, the most "meta-gaming" info, for DMs, will be written in italics.

What are the Elder Gods?

The mortal sages of later ages tried to study the Elder Gods of the First Age (since some of them remained dangerously alive well into the Second and Third Ages), often and unsurprisingly without much success.

Sources of knowledge about the Elder Gods during the Ages.

In the Third Age, the influence of rationalism and theology both drove the studies of these beings, leading to many classifications without any factual meaning. Scholars called some of the Elder Gods "demons", some others "aberrations" or "abominations", and went on trying to fit each of these beings (and the countless creatures they spawned in their inexplicable, godly thirst for creation), always ending up into dead ends: very few if any of these creatures could be related to one another except for the most direct relationship of "creator and spawn".

In the Second Age, humans were still a young race, and rational thinking was something they enjoyed very rarel Probaly because of this, they understood the Primordials quite better than later sages. They understood that they were like "experiments" of the world itself. Beings that defied reason because they were created by irrational forces. They limited their classification to what each and every Elder God seemed tied to, both among natural concepts or immaterial and irrational ones. The runic grimoires of the deep-delving dwarves of the Second Age, the stone tablets of the ancient human philosophers, and the speaking trees of knowledge of the elves are therefore among the very few sources of reliable knowledge on the Elder Gods.

The third age "demonomicons" and "eldritch bestiaries" are instead full of misguided attempts of classifications and more often than not also completely false information, mostly because they are influenced by the various churches of the Celestial Gods which, often at war with one another, tried to associate these beings with rival gods, manipulating the facts to reach these goals.

So in the troubled time of the Third Age, adventurers are deeply ignorant about everything related to the Elder Gods and the First Age, and should first try to locate and recover some source of knowledge coming from the Second Age World before even thinking about battling with Elder Gods or their spawns.

The birth of the Elder Gods and their godly status.

Not even the most informed sages of the Second Age, and the invaluable words that reached the Third Age folks, know how or why the Elder Gods came to be, and especially how such strange beings became gods.

The Third Age lore even negates the godly status of the Elders, explaining that they can't give powers to their followers as the Celestials or some Primordial/Titan God, and that they aren't immortal, and that they can't call souls of mortals to their domains after the mortals' death. One can't blame them for such ignorance: none of them ever died and returned to the world to tell a different story, after their souls were taken deep into the Abyss, tortured and transformed to create countless more wretched creatures..!

The Second Age sages were far more cautious in their trying to understand the world, and they left these fundamental questions unanswered, simply recognizing that if more often than not many a Titan were needed just to imprison a single Elder God and thus avoid world destruction, then they were godly just as much as the strongest Titans and Primordials, if not more. They also knew for a fact that they could grant powers to mortals, since cults that venerated them abounded in the many uncivilized areas of the Second Age World, and those tribes often threatened the most civilized empires with terrible eldritch powers.

However, nobody knows for sure how the Elder Gods attained their status. It wasn't the earth itself trying to put some order back into a nearly destroyed world, like it was for the Titans, and it wasn't spiritual divine ascension as with the Celestial Gods.

There truly are some sources of information about this, but they are hidden and extremely rare, because they come from nothing less than the eons-old and defunct First Age civilizations. There are stories of Shadow-Web-encased dark jungles, recalled by the maddened and lonely survivors that went there and managed to come back, that talk about colossal stone temples devoured by alien vegetation of enormous proportions, and in these structures, written in the cursed languages of Yuan-Ti, Troglodytes, or even worse creatures, there are dreadful accounts of the history of some Elder Gods. Even if one wants to believe to the confused stories of this maddened adventurers, there seems to be no single version of the facts.

So the question remains unanswered, with certainty belonging only to the ones who lost their sanity while voluntarily or accidentally seeing an answer with their own eyes.

Note: I don't want to specify a fixed way for gods to become gods, especially with the chaotic Elders, so here are a a few possible origins for the godhood of the Elders:

• - A being becomes so venerated by a lesser race that it acquires godly powers and status.
• - A lesser race becomes so mystically powerful that it creates a god in its image by sheer force of will and psionic power.
• - A being becomes so powerful (due to the exploding force of life proper of the age) that it becomes an Elder God.
• - An already god-like being descends upon the world from outside of it.

In the last two cases, the god can also create a mortal race, which could be similar to it or not much.

How godly is an Elder God?

Elder gods are physical beings. As such, they might seem to be less godly than the later gods, such as the abstract Celestial Gods, or the mighty Elemental Titans.

In some cases it's true, but more often than not, their power is equal, and in a few cases (perhaps only one), the power of an Elder can even be greater than any other god.

Even in these terrible cases though, the Elders often have limitations that are connected to either their physical form, or their alien minds. Many sleep for ages, others have absolutely no interest in the world, and others still were cast so deep and far into the bowel of the earth, that even if they want revenge on the whole world itself, it will take them ages for them to actually drag their bodies out from their rock prisons.

Another way in which Elders are "disabled" despite their incredible power is because they were later hunted down and imprisoned, especially by the Titans, sometimes aided by mortals.

In very few cases and under very strict conditions, some of the less powerful Elder Gods can even be permanently killed. But the most powerful ones, even when completely destroyed, will often rise again, perhaps eons after having poisoned the very planet with their blood.

The Most Famous Elder Gods

Here are some of the most famous Elder Gods are listed here, including the name by which they came to be known in later ages, their areas of influence, and the race or races that adored them.

• The Prince Of The Depths
  - A fish-like being of enormous size, combining the worst characteristics of the worst aquatic species with a malicious and keen mind and a vast knowledge. It lures creatures inside the deepest abysses producing an entrancing song.
  - Portfolio: the abysses, knowledge, music
  - Favorite races: Locatah, Kuo-Toa
  - Historical name: DAGON
   
•  The World Serpent
  - A snake so enormous that it could strangle mountains and poison whole continents. It had a large role in the disaster that destroyed the First Age World.
  - Portfolio: hunger, poison, apocalypse
  - Favorite races: Yuan-Ti
  - Historical name:  just World Serpent, sometimes SSETH
  
  
• The Night Serpent
  - Another enormous snake, probably brother or sister of the World Serpent, which threatened to eat the Sun itself.
  - Portfolio: darkness, nightmares, apocalypse
  - Favorite races: none
  - Historical name: DENDAR
  
  
• The Lord of Vermin
  - An elder being combining the worst traits of every insect and vermin.
  - Portfolio: insects, metamorphosis
  - Favorite races: insectoid demons, insectoid mortals
  - Historical name: OBOX-OB 
  
  
• The Great Spider
  - A colossal and armored spider.
  - Portfolio: spiders, death
  - Favorite races: ettercaps, bebiliths
  - Historical name: The Wolf-Spider or MISKA
  
  
• The Mad Jungle King 
  - A giant bipedal reptilian, also covered in fur and with tentacle-like arms, with two baboon-like heads. Mad becaue of the two personalities of his two heads, and constantly at war with others, mastering great armies of demons and jungle behemoths.
  - Portfolio: jungle, madness, tyranny
  - Favorite races: Bar-lgura, Girallons, others
  - Historical name: DEMOGORGON
  
  
•  The Prince of Undeath
  - Historical name: ORCUS
   
• The Many-headed Dragon
  - Historical name: TIAMAT
  
• The Dreaming God 
  -  Favorite races: Illithid
  - Historical name. CTHULHU 

And so on..! As you can see, some of these were regarded as primordials, one even as classic god, some as Obyrith demon lords, classic demons lords, and then aberrant/lovecraftian beings.
Basically, every demonic, aberrant or simply gigantic being of D&D lore can be an Elder God in this cosmology. Even the infamous Tarrasque. Not all of them need to have a race that venerates them, or a clear protfolio.

An interesting thing is exploring the concept of how a being later known as an obscure demon lord could once have been a god that was venerated by entire empires, and how it once had a portfolio a bit wider than just "world destruction", which instead became their only objective when they were cast into the underworld. It gives these beings a little more character, lore, and reason, although they still always are mostly destroyers.

A few elder gods might also be forces of good. In the First Age, being good or evil didn't matter much, since everything and everyone was under the classic Law of the Jungle first and foremost. But in later ages, the substantially good nature of a few Elder Gods might become more important, since they could constitute allies that are not affiliated with the normally warring Celestial Gods and Elemental Titans.

Examples of possible "Good" or even "Lawful" Elder Gods:
 - Qotal, god of the Couatls. (a solitary elder god that continued to be revered in isolated continents of the word even by later humans)
 - Ubtao, the god of behemoths. (an elder god that often protected the world against other destroyer elder gods)
 - Chronepsis, the watching dragon. (possible "good" elder god of death)

As you can see, any god, primordial and so on, with a physically distinct appearance and an "ancient feeling" can be made into an elder god, and this may include a few good or even lawful ones. After all, the First Age was so chaotic, that even some lawful forces existed, to generate even more conflict..!

False Elder Gods and Creatures: Devils.

In one thing, the scholars of the Third Age were right, about the Elder Gods. There are certain creatures and powers that resemble them but are unrelated. This is the case of Devils, for example.

The origin of Devils is another mystery, a lot like those of the Elder Gods. But at least, it seems, it doesn't go as far back in time.

Although I will talk about Devils more in detail later, there seem to be fundamentally two different theories, perhaps not even mutually exclusive, about their origin and their relationship with Elder Gods.

The Fallen Angels

The Third Age and perhaps also the latest moments of the Second Age saw the birth of Angels. They are mysterious beings that don't offer but riddles about their nature, but what everyone knows for sure is that they serve the Celestial Gods.

It is said that among these beings, loyalty is unbreakable, but that at least once, during the chaotic times of the Great Disaster between the Second and Third Age, one of them would have betrayed its god. Some say that by doing so, it also killed the god and acquired godhood for itself. Others say it couldn't make it, but everyone agrees that one god or a coalition of allied gods, cast down the betrayer into the depths of the earth, imprisoning it for eternity.

The Evil Primordials

The second theory dates back the birth of Devils at the start of the Second Age. They would be the offspring of Titans and Primordials or even their half-blood siblings, who would have taken small godly portfolios, often connected with negative concepts such as Revenge, Murder, Hate, Terror, Incest, and other terrible acts and sentiments.

This theory, deduced from cryptic passages of epic poems of the Second Age that survived into the Third Age, doesn't speak of a "Prime Devil". There would only have been a countless number of minor devils, that lived underground to escape the fury of the Titan Gods, and to be nearer to Hades, the portion of what would later become the Shadow Web which was the domain of the first God of Death and the Underworld.

In the shadowy underworld, these devils would have tempted the souls of the dead to reach their own, deeper domains, in which they would have tortured these souls, sometimes "cultivating" the negative thoughts and sentiments these souls had when they were living, to either empower themselves or spawn more devils.

The relationship with Elder Gods.

Whichever theory is true (if any, and if not both are), what is sure is that these devils dwell somewhere very close to the domains of some Elder Gods, and in particular to the portion of the First Age World that became known as the Abyss in the Third Age. The scholars of this age who distinguished these beings, also distinguished their domain, calling it Hell or The Nine Hells.

What these devils have in common with Elder Gods is the terrible use they make of mortal souls.

It could be that they even learned these dark arts from some Elder, or it could be that their formerly godly (or half-godly) nature empowers them to do so.
Some say that the Prime Devil is nothing but an Elder God that is trying to take over the world. Others say that the Fallen Angel might have robbed an Elder God of his power. Others still say that the Devils are at war with the Elder-spawned Demons, deep into the bowels of the earth, and that this is the only reason why neither side has yet conquered or destroyed the world of mortals.

Whatever version of the story is true, everything about devils is probably as mysterious as the truths behind the Elder Gods. With one additional complication: devils don't just want to destroy the world and eat the souls of the mortals. They want to corrupt them, and they want to conquer the world, possibly without the mortals even realizing it.

Welcome to the first post detailing my World of Cthon cosmology!

I'm happy to announce that, along with the previous post and the next ones, this series/project will be part of a "blog carnival" as of now titled "If I Ruled The Multiverse", aimed at writing our ideal cosmology for D&D Next, but more than anything just at jotting our cosmological thoughts out!
An idea of Richard Greene, of whom you can read the related blog post here, along with the rest of his very interesting blog, while you're there!

As it is natural for this particular cosmology, which aims to be so "concentrated" that it inevitably also becomes a psuedo-setting , I'm going to start from the origins, talking about the First Age, dominated by the Elder Gods.

A note for those not wanting to read the first post first, even if this First Age is not the age in which games should be set (although it could be, at DM's discretion and players' will), the World of Cthon's peculiarity is that these ages, and the world they created, are not lost in time, but merely in space. This First Age becomes the Underdark of the Second Age, and goes even further down to constitute the deepest parts of Underdark and even the Abyss of the First Age, which is default age in which adventures are set.

This cosmology doesn't aim at a complete transposition of classic D&D planes, but its equivalent of planes often include either the traits of classic planes, parts of them, or sometimes even those planes in their entirety.

Since the closest equivalent of the planes in my setting are these "ages" which also have very different physical worlds connected to them, and which naturally change their position  appearance, and function over time, I should describe each age from three perspectives: its own, and the ones of the other two. Although the most relevant perspective is that of the Third Age, which is the "prime material / natural world as we know it", I'll also give more detail to each age's own perspective  to describe how the world was different during it.

In the most relevant sections, I'll also add some "conversion notes", describing which planes I have incorporated and where, and which godly (or not) entities I have transformed into deities in Cthon, and what does this deity status mean (it's not always the same "type of godhood", or power level).

The most "meta-gaming" info, for DMs, will be written in italics.

The World of The First Age

The earth was young during the First Age, and all but completely inhospitable.

The driving force of this age is, contrary to what sages of later ages could think, Life. Life was young in the First Age, and as all young beings, it was strong, curious, and without self-control. Life was so strong that it created the most astounding and gigantic flora and fauna that the World had ever seen. And the most terrible.

Where there is so much life anyway, there is also a lot of decay. Beings sometimes refused to die, so powerful was the Life Force during the First Age. But this also meant that they stayed alive while decaying. It was undeath, although in a primitive state like everything else. And just as with everything else in this age, nothing followed a fixed rule, not even death and undeath. Some beings simply died, some others didn't even materially decay, their flesh and "animus" much more resilient than those of later life forms.

Beings that defy reason and classification abounded in the First Age, as the force of life exploded without control. Some sages think that some of the products of this age might come from outside the World, while others think that rather than hosting alien beings, it was the world itself to be "alien" in these remote times.

The physical world of the First Age.

Life force was so strong during this age, that certain features that are normally made of earth and stone during later ages, were made of living vegetation, or worse, in the First Age. Entire mountains made by nothing more than gigantic trees growing on top of each other, immense inter-connected bridges of living wood and foliage chaotically climbing towards the dense sky, small seas made of living, fetid slimes, and more unfathomable features of this kind were common during the First Age.

Temperature was unbearably hot during this time, and humidity so high that the air itself felt more like thick mist.

Gigantic rain forests and thickly vegetated swamps were the most common terrain type, although they can't be compared with later equivalents of these terrains, due to dimensions, the aforementioned features, and the general alien appearance.

The races of the First Age.

While humans and demi-humans were primitive and weak, hiding themselves in the handful of relatively safe places of the whole world, hiding from a world that could kill them with overpowering ease, other intelligent races dominated the world.

Reptilian and amphibious races enjoyed the climate and morphology of the world of the First Age, so in different parts of the world, creatures later known as Lizardfolk, Troglodytes, Yuan-Ti, and Kuo-Toas built the first artificial stone structures on land or superficial waters, while Sahuaghin, Illithid, Locathas, and even stranger creatures (such as the powerful Aboleths) conquered the depths of the earth and seas.

Nagas, Couatls, and other powerful creatures bloomed in this age too, battling with dinosaurs and other gigantic behemoths too strange to be classifiable. 
Dragons for example, instead of being divided into clearly identifiable races and species, were still not very differentiated from other reptilian creatures, including Hydras, so every dragon (and there were many) was a unique-looking monster, sometimes becoming so powerful and long-lived as to acquired godhood. 

Insectoid creatures of every kind and every degree of intelligence were also very common in this age, often forming empires under the humid earth or above it.

Many demons roamed the earth too, and either ruled lesser races or swarmed the parts of the world that were too inhospitable even for the dominant races of the First Age. They were so powerful for a reason: they were spawns of the Elder Gods themselves.

Magic in the First Age.

Magic as we know it didn't exist in the First Age. The most common and closest equivalent of magic among many of the mentioned intelligent races was Psionics.

The second most common kind is "Eldritch magic", sometimes called witchcraft or "black magic", the one mastered by Warlocks. This was the equivalent of Divine Magic, since the beings that granted these powers were either Elder Gods or their vassals.

Primal magic was also present but different, more primitive. Natural Spirits were absent in the First Age, and at the same time, all nature was imbued with mystical power. Because of this, Primal magic existed but it was more of an independent phenomenon that either blessed or cursed individual beings chaotically, a bit like Sorcery in later ages.

Necromancy is the only form of traditionally Arcane or Divine magic that existed in the First Age. It is said it was mastered by an Elder God first, or that it was like Primal Magic, connected to the superior strength that Life itself had in the First Age. So much that death was easily overcome, although with horrid consequences.

The Elder Gods and the end of the First Age.

The most powerful creatures of this age, sometimes attained levels of intelligence and supernatural power high enough to be considered true gods.

These are the true undisputed masters of the First Age, but also the most probable culprits of its disastrous end. 

Constantly vying for domination, these earth-walking gods, often of colossal dimensions, clashed in combats that were both physically and mystically terrible. The earth and sometimes the fabric of reality itself suffered so much damage, that at the end of the First Age, a disaster of planetary proportions struck the world, leading to the immense changes in the geography of it, that finally shifted and buried the First Age's World in the far depths of the earth, making the world's surface virgin again.

Life flourished after the disaster, but not anymore with the violence and chaos of the First Age. As such, living physical beings as powerful as the Elder Gods never walked the world again. But many of them were too powerful to die even in the great disaster that ended their age... So they either sleep or crawl in the immense innards of the world, dreaming or plotting their revenge against the World itself.

Planar features, and the First Age after its end.

The Shadow Web, which it is said was connected with the skies in the First Age, remained "higher" compared to the rest of the First World: an intermediate place between the shallow underground and the deep places where the First World was sealed off. So in this age it was a bit different compared to what it became during the Third. It was less of a web of shortcuts, and more of a "transitional realm" that drained towards it the mortals, when their light essences were free from their bodies. After death.
It became the Realm of the Dead, also called Hades, and a large portion of it became ruled by the Titan God of Death.
It was only after the magical disaster that ended the Second Age that the Shadow Web actually became web-like, connecting places that were materially distant.

The Elemental Titans were largely individualistic, but also, for the first time in history, gregarious. While the Elder Gods were all profoundly different and as such could nearly only relate with each other through conflict, Titan Gods were more of a great family, with varied relationships between each other. As such, when some Elder God crawled up to the surface, threatening of destruction the whole world, the Titan Gods often grouped together to confront the menace, and uniting their forces, they more often than not won these conflicts. Even so, they seldom managed to kill the Elder Gods they fought with, so they mostly gave them in custody to their brother god of Hades (sometimes known as Hades himself), who was a sage of the underworld and known the best places to imprison the weakened Elder Gods.

So most of the artificial godly prisons of the imprisoned Elder Gods were made during the Second Age by the Titan Gods.

It is also said that some of the Primal Spirits (the Gods of Life and Nature of the Second Age) were connected to the First Age, even that they could have been transformed Elder Gods. Note: this hook can be used to add a twist to certain campaigns: a primal spirit or forest god is secretly an Elder God that perhaps covets revenge against the earth itself. The greatest of twists, that I used for my "cosmology template" described in the previous series of blog posts, could be that Corellon, the Forest God of the Second Age and god of the elves, might be himself a transformed Elder God, perhaps even one of those coming from outside of the world, making elves and fairies a force that is secretly bent on destruction..!

The First Age World in the Third Age.

After the magical disaster that ended the Second Age, the First Age World should have become even more distant, and it did mostly. But it was also fragmented, just like the Shadow Web actually became a web, distorted by the disaster.

If the Second Age showed order in most thing, including the relationship with the First Age and the returning Elder Gods, in the Third Age everything is less certain, less defined, less known. The now distorted Shadow Web could bring ancient horrors back into the world on a whim, and the underworld, now largely formed by Second Age World portions shifted to the depths, is still connected with the First Age World, which is also less solidly sealed off than in the Second Age.

An important and unforeseen role of the deep First World places in the Third Age is that they became for some reason among the very few material (and immaterial) places from which the realms of the Celestial Gods could be reached.
The daring mortals who would like to reach the incredibly distant realms of the gods before death, would have to travel to the incredibly dangerous depths named Hells and Abysses first, and aided by the dark shortcuts of the Shadow Web that in those places still forms knots nexuses, they would then reach the ethereal and astral realms of certain Celestial Gods.

Planes that fit the First Age, and their locations

As a footnote, I'd like to specify what traditional planes are part of the big "meta-plane" that is the First Age World.

• - The Abyss: this is a no brainer. The deepest part of the world, near its core (earth science not withstanding), is the Abyss. It contains probably countless layers because space changes here, due to the warping influences of the Shadow Web, which also has its "nexus" here. Going to the Abyss is like going back in time into the First Age: everything is alive, everything is hungry.
  Location: not only the deepest part of the World: the layers need not to be stacked up vertically. In the Second Age there was more or less a vertical order, but in the Third Age everything fragmented more, and important layers, such as The Shadowsea (Dagon's realm) and the Gaping Maw (Demogorgon's realm) went up and they're now touching the earthly seas in some points, or the seas of the Underdark.
  
  
• - The Shadowfell /Plane of Shadow: this is the Shadow-Web. In the Second Age it was also the Realm of the Dead or Hades, while in the third age it became more of a "web", justifying the travelling power of spells such as Shadow Walk. It still contains some souls of the Second Age, and many of them became Shades. The truly Shadowfell-like properties come in the form of the pockets and folds of the Shadow-Web. These may include places from multiple Ages, all characterized by unnatural passing of time, some sort of still time.
  Portals don't have many reasons to exist in The World Of Cthon due to the physical location of the planes, but the few portals that do exist, always use the Shadow Web as the (unreliable) shortcut to anywhere that it is.
  Location:even a "non place" like the Shadow Web has some sort of location in The World of Cthon. In the Third Age, it's just very dark places. Sometimes, due to the power and fixations of the dead/undead spirits that haunt the Shadow Web, some sort of "planar merging" can occur in places where very dark deeds are committed and the like. This could result in these places being "engulfed" into the Shadow-Web, or the Shadow-Web "opening" into the world.
  
  
• can be earthly in The World of Cthon: it's the point of the setting! Dominions of particularly alien Elder Gods (that is, those that in D&D were classified as Aberrant entities or perhaps as Obyrith demons), are places that look alien themselves. And they are equivalent to pockets of Far Realm. If using the option of making these Elders come from the stars, the Far Realm pockets could be near to portals or conduits that take to the "outer Far Realm" from where these Elders came.
  Location: as with the Abyss, it is better to have these places far underground. But again, the magical disaster that ended the Second Age might have shifted things randomly. Plus, since these places could be connected with the dreams of the Elder Gods themselves (just as the Feywild is like the dream of some Forest God and Primal Spirit of the Second Age), there's always the option of making the plane "leak" into the surface. This could happen where secret cults dedicated to the Elders manage to call the attention of the dreaming minds of the entities they crazily venerate.
  
• - The Nine Hells: although Devils are not directly related to Elder Gods or Demons, as I explain in the later post, the Nine Hells work very well as a "smaller Abyss", closer to the surface or at least the shallow Underdark, since in the Nine Hells were born in The Second Age. They were also originally very connected to Hades, that is the Shadow Web before it became a web, when it was a more defined place in the shallow Underdark. For this reason or some other eldritch one connected with the history and origin of Devils, the Ninth Hell is also a "nexus of the Shadow Web", thus an important place to reach if one wants to travel to the secluded godly dominions of the Third Age (and this of course is tailor-made to represent a Dante's like voyage!)
  Location: as already said, simply on top of the Abyss works well enough, so somewhere near to the middle of the Underdark there could be entrances to the Nine Hells.
  
• - Other traditionally outer or inner planes: in no particular order and without much explanation, here are the planes that in some way or another are parts of the First Age World and are thus buried deep underground in The World of Cthon during the Second and Third ages.
  - Positive Energy Plane (not as a true plane, but some "unbearable wellspring of life" is "compatible" with the concept of the First Age World)
  - Negative Energy Plane (again not as an infinite plane, but as a place connected perhaps with the origin of the Shadow Web, which also makes the Shadow Web a place of death/undeath, where living creatures can't normally survive for long.
  - Limbo (a place with bits of everything dancing in chaos. It could contain also parts of the Second Age, mixed with parts of the First. Plus, Slaads make for a perfect race from the First Age)
  - (another one connected to both Second and First age, could be the section of the Underdark where the Titans imprisoned some Elder Gods.)
  - Tarterus (its strange spherical structure makes it perfect to represent the center of the Earth, making it the absolutely deepest part of the First Age World during the later Ages. As such, it could be another place where travel would be needed to reach Godly domains and such.)
  - Gehenna (not particularly fitting, but it could represent parts of the underground where the First or Second Great Disasters are still raging.)
  - The River Styx (returns to be what it was meant to be: the great river of the Underworld leading to all the various "hells")
  - Tytherion (the domain of Tiamat and Zehir, two deities that with little modifications make perfect Elder Gods, could be contained into a vast but secluded pocket of the Shadow-Web, or even simply be a secluded part of the world (for example in a continen at an opposite longitude compared to the main inhabitated continent). In this case it could be the last remnant of the First Age to remain at the surface of the world.)

Hello fellow planeswalkers!

I've been quiet for a long time, and the cosmology as I had thought about it is actually quite done as it is, in that it is meant to be generic, a sort of "meta-cosmology", a template that anyone can use to make his or her own thing.

An idea has kind of sprout out of this loose project, something a bit more exotic and a bit less generic.

Real world / anthropological inspirations: three "classes" of gods.

The idea sparked while talking about the real-world inspiration behind the "trinity" composed by Elders, Primordials/Titans and Gods.

I tried to explain how in our world, all long-lasting cultures tend to have in their mythologies at least two "classes" of gods, the older and the newer, with some also remembering some beings that were pure chaos and that came way before even the first generation of "gods".

I tried to explain how in our world, these different generations of gods represent the level of cultural advancement of the culture that invented them.

The first generation of gods, the Elders: pure darkness and chaos.

The "Elders" would be chaotic and destroyers because the most primitive cultures that generated them basically viewed the whole world around them as an evil killing machine, that destroyed everything and everyone.

They are very often represented as hybrid beasts that mix the worst traits of the worst predators, and are more often than not aquatic or tied to the darkness, because both water and darkness are the two "elements" in which man feels less safe.

Typically, these "deities" require human sacrifices, irrational rituals and even worse things from their desperate followers.

The second generation of gods, the Primordials: masters of the elements.

Then comes the Elemental/Primordial generation, which is the beginning of rationalizations.

These gods start having humanoid features, especially in their "personalities", but they're often identified with natural landmarks or forces (volcanoes, the sea, etc), and their destructive side is directly connected to this.

We still have aquatic and darkness "deities", but they're a bit more benevolent.
They're not anymore mindless killers, but they're like very moody and powerful giants. Please them and they let you pass, anger them and they turn the forces of nature against you.

Generally speaking, the age of these "Titan gods" is a "golden age", in which the first mighty heroes arise, and the land begins to be generous to mortals. And these mortals become the legends of the successive era. Their grand-grandsons will remember this age as an age in which life was easy and good. Probably because rationalism hadn't yet "plagued" the minds of men.

The third generation of gods, the Celestials: incorporeal and intelligent.

Then comes the age of the classical Gods, Celestial gods in that they are much more often associated with the sky and/or are considered "ethereal" and abstract.

These gods are all but completely humane, and even if they still control the forces of nature, they are not one and the same with them, and they do so with intelligence, even if they're often subject to human emotions and passions, and can even fall in love with humans.

[The previous generations of gods, mythologially speaking, could also probably procreate with humans, but the offspring would be either complete monsters (in the case of Elders), or maybe giants and other not so lucky beings (in case of Titans/Primordials). Celestial gods procreating with humans would instead produce the typical demi-gods, or at the very least legendary heroes.]

Men living in this age (which I consider the typical age in which D&D campaigns are set) have fallen a bit back in terms of happiness. Their gods are not evil anymore, but they're also distant, and the advancement of civilization has probably brought more nations into contact, generating war. And rationality and the beginnings of science/magic have also made the mortals feel more wary of each other.

Note that I know this latest generation of gods and connected era isn't actually a faithful representation of the classical Greco-Roman gods from which it takes inspiration: I'm shifting things a bit forward to encompass the "medieval feeling" of typical D&D settings, but without of course including monotheism. 
In this "system", the classical Greco-Roman gods and age would sit a bit in the middle between the Celestial and the Elemental.

The tree types of gods as a foundation for a D&D cosmology.
 

But all of this is not the point! The point is that as you can see, these generations seem to build one on top of the other. But most D&D campaigns would like both a plane or two associated with each one of these categories, and most importantly, would want these categories available at all times. That is, the Elders must still be a  threat, and so the Elemental gods.

So I thought about the most simple concept of geology, my field of study and I hope work. "The new always sits on top of the old".

Gods and their domains "pile up" on top of each other, inside the earth.

So here's the idea: these three generations of gods or powerful beings, would actually have dominated the world in different and distant times. But due to cataclysms, time itself and a good dose of fantastic elements, they would have not died but gone where all really old things go: underground.

So much more than in the cosmology I described in the previous posts, this cosmology would be "vertical" and "localized". That is, planes exist in physical spaces (although they could still be infinite, at least from the point of view of mortals), and they exist on top of each other.

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The Elders: primitive and dangerous, sleeping deep underground or under the sea.

Note that Elders, in this case, are not anymore the beings from other universes. Their alien nature is represented more by the fact that the races that worshiped them were very primitive ones, and this in D&D means they were not human-like. Perhaps not even humanoid.


A dragon-like elder, distinguished by the later dragons for its more primitive, demonic, and chaotic features...


Another demonic and strange Elder god...

What's more, I would add demons in this mix. All the strangest and more evil creatures, including demons and aberrations, would be the spawns or maybe even hybrid offspring of these Elder Gods.

The Elder's favored intelligent races: monstrous and primitive.

Kuo-toas, Lizardmen, Sahuagin, Troglodytes and the like would be the races that "thrived" when these gods were at the apex of their power, and the appearance of these gods would have been similar to that of these races, which were probably their creations (or the opposite!).

While humans were just scared cave-men or hadn't even evolved yet, these first races would have erected temples and cities in honor of these gods. Elves probably hadn't yet arrived in the world (because maybe the Feywild wasn't yet connected to the world or didn't even exist because the true "elven gods" weren't even born yet), same for all the typical races. The world was too violent and chaotic for these races to survive.


Colossal serpentine Elders rise from the deepest primitive jungles to appreciate the temples that their reptilian followers have built for them...


The surreal, chaotic, and incredibly dangerous world of the First Age.

The legacy of the Elders.

Some races will have murky and chaotic legends and stories recalling this age, but there would be so many different versions of these stories, that nothing could be sure. So this era will go away practically forgotten, its knowledge recorded only in dead languages written on lost objects by all but extinct races.

This also allows the DM to decide that just about anything could have happened in these ancient times.

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The rise of the Primordials: embodying the natural disasters that birthed them.

Natural disasters came in big numbers at the end of this era, until the primitive races and their first empires were all but destroyed, and the very surface of the world shifted and this "corrupted" world was swallowed by the earth itself, becoming the first Underdark.

The second age would be elemental-themed also in the fact that it is born of the great disasters that submerged, swallowed and destroyed the elder world/era. 
Volcanoes are more active than ever, big deserts abound, but also new virgin forests where the climate allows it, and in general, even if nature is fierce, there is a lot of variety and this permits the rise of civilization here and there.


The colossal disasters and commotions that destroyed the first age world, sending it underground, and starting the "elemental age"...

The Primordials' favorite races: dragons and giants, but also elves and dwarves.

The classical races are born in this age, although most of them are still primitive. Humans in particular, are just coming out of their caves.

This is the age of dragons (actually, some of the elemental gods can and should be draconic), of giants, and of the glorious dawns of elves and dwarves.

The Feywild or "World of Faerie" from which elves traditionally come from would be something like the dream of a Forest God, turned into a parallel world.

Note that Primal Spirits are mixed with these Primordial gods in this cosmology, just as Demon Lords and Elders are grouped together.


A draconic "forest god" primordial, with a small dragon.

The typical Primordials would be the more classically elemental of the bunch, while the "primal spirits" would be "elementals" of the primordial forests, embodying the "elements" of life, wood, etc.


A typical elemental Titan, battling the very first mortal heroes...

Dwarves would instead be of course the creation of an Earth primordial, which you can cal Moradin if you like.

The problem of the origin of the gods: a non-solution that still works.

It is actually tricky to decide if we want the races to be created by gods as the D&D tradition wants, or the contrary.
This whole idea was born while thinking the contrary, but it's not necessary to be coherent in this in all cases. That is, some gods could predate their followers or have created them, while some other could have actually originated supernaturally from the prayers of the mortals.
One way to see things is that a race becomes connected to a god when it reaches its apex. The god could be either a creation or a creator, but simply enough it becomes "associated" with the race when it becomes important, when it acquires culture and spirituality.
This allows for a much more ancient human race, perhaps even having resisted since the first age. Because we don't have to think "who created them?", since it's not a question relevant to this cosmology. It's more like "they're not an important race yet, so they don't have a patron god".

In this case, Elves should not "come from the dream-world of the Forest god", but perhaps having gained access to this world since they became the favorite race of the Forest God, because of their natural affinity and respect for Forests, and their wisdom. More of a "each god chooses its favorite race" thing, that allows ambiguity between creator and creation, and a good measure of mystery.

Anyway, this age is the typical ancient time of any campaign. A "golden age", but where Elves and Dwarves start their wars or grudges, Dragons thrive, Giants rule etc.


The second age is the "golden age", where mortals are strong and happy (or remembered this way), and the first empires rise, in harmony with nature, at least for a time...

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The classic Celestial Gods are born: from material entities to abstract entities.

The third age is the age of men. The second age ended a bit like it started: great disasters, but this time more magical in nature. The elves pushed their spells too far, the dwarves dug to deep (perhaps unleashing the demons locked away before!), the dragon-gods rained fire and ice on the whole earth and made mountains crumble while fighting for supremacy, and the giants did other terrible and BIG things.

The result? The world changes again, many places are swallowed by the Earth, the great Elven empires blink away into the Feywild bringing with them the first primordial forests, and everything becomes smaller and less extreme. That's why men (and other "weak" races, such as halflings) begin to thrive.


The third age world, where everything is "smaller" than in the past, an in which humans begin to thrive, wondering about the ancient ruins that surround them...

The new gods could also have been born out of the magical disaster. Or perhaps they're just created by the prayers of men, finally listened to. In any way, these new gods are now secluded in the skies and are ethereal.

They can't personally walk the earth like the previous gods, but that doesn't mean they can't bring trouble. In particular, they use their very numerous followers [humans always beat all the other races at one thing: reproduction rate!!] making them battle against each other for supremacy, and things like that. Before, holy wars were wars between gods. Now the gods just move their mortal armies from above.


If humans could see the true forms of their celestial gods, they would not perfectly understand it. Still they can appear also in very human-like form, although ethereal.

The age of humans, and the legacy of the previous ages.

So humanity is apparently the biggest mortal race and thus the luckiest in history, but it is also the most divided, a bit because of the gods, and a bit because of human nature itself (and aren't the two things the same after all..?).

In this bitter/sweet state of uneasy expansion into a rather emptied world, humans discover that in the murky past, the world was different and hosted big empires and a lot of knowledge has been lost to the earth and sea.

A runic artifact uncovered from abandoned halls in the mountains could teach useful magic as well as bring back from hibernation some forgotten elemental god.

A strange idol washed ashore after a storm could imbue its finder with psionic powers but also give him strange visions that could make him bring back a cult of an Elder deity, and with time the Elder itself.


Dangerous ancient rituals risk to surface back in the Third Age, bringing terrible evils back with them...

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Final considerations on the cosmology: simple and straightforward.

It's actually a very simple cosmology, which uses time and space as the true limit between the various "planes" and deities, which include all manners of powerful beings.

Adventurers could reach the "planes" (that is, the dominions of the current or past deities) relatively easily, and although they would still be arcane, dangerous, and alien places, the fact of having them on Earth and the fact that each of them had been on the very surface of the world at some point in the recent or distant past, makes this cosmology ideal for small campaigns in which players want to see a lot of different places, and dig into a lot of different plots and stories in a short time.

There's no need of portals or costly rituals to reach fantastic places. The adventurer just needs a bit of knowledge, and the guts to go deeper underground.
It also makes for the perfect "infinite dungeon", in which each level brings you to something more ancient, strange and dangerous.


The dungeons and deep places of the world always lead to the ancient locales of the previous ages. The deeper one goes, the more ancient things he encounters...

So this is why although being quite new in conception, it is also an "old" cosmology: it's actually a cosmology for the good old dungeon-centric typical D&D world! 
And it can be made into a very realistic and simulationist cosmology (with gods being only invention of each race, for example, made powerful by the number of their followers), or a classic fantastic one with ease.

What's next??

As I typically do, I considered this project "done" when it's actually just begun.
This is because I like cosmologies to leave a lot of room for customization, but since I started this one saying it would be less generic, I think I will follow up with another post with the actual facts and details about this one, or at least, my version of this one.

Giving the cosmology a name is also necessary at this point. It must be something related to the earth, because if you noticed, all is earth-centric, all has originated on the earth and many things have been buried under it.
The first word that comes to mind is "Cthon", the greek-roginated word that is used to refer to the most ancient deities of ancient Greece, the "cthonic gods", more or less similar to Elders and/or Primordials.

So let's change the title of this post, and in the next post, we'll be delving deep inside the World of Cthon!

Given the good feedback, I'll detail this "new" cosmology of mine in a small series of blogs. After a little intro that explains a bit of what I did with this cosmology in the latest blog, I will then delve into the concept of Elders and how they (can) mingle with the Fey.
While the previous blog was more of a "lore" article, now I'm doing more of a "designer's notes".

So what about the planes?

As you may have noticed, my cosmology draws heavily from 4e, more than from the Great Wheel. It is aimed at explaining things more rationally than the classic cosmology, even 4e's, so fitting in the aligned planes and the "wheel" schematic is a bit weird IMO.

I wanted a more "top-bottom" approach, that I actually see more as concentric.

That is, I see the "Elemental Chaos" as being nothing more than a "very bottom", an underworld. Every "planet" would have its "elemental chaos" inside it. And demons would dwell there. Probably even devils, if the corrupted god had been casted in it by the others (reminds of something else..?? ;-) ).

Then the World, or Prime Material, is nothing more than the main planet of the system. Note that I called Universe what I could also call solar system. That is, the Elders could come from other solar systems. But it's more fantasy to talk about entire universes.

The Feywild and Shadowfell are echoes of the World, which exist connected to the Spirits (4e's Primal Spirits), and are their dreams. Good dreams become the Feywild because a good dream for a being that represents life, is a world where life is stronger. Shadowfell would be the nightmare of Spirits because there life is weaker.

We could also say that undeath comes from the Shadowfell, or from mad, dead, or angered spirits. Which is actually the same thing! Because when and where spirits are like that, that's where the Shadowfell comes into being.

As you can see, I use a concept that we could call "infradimensional spaces". I like to picture the planes as places that can be found inside the regular world, but that distort space and time. Think about Narnia: you enter through a wardrobe and there's a whole world inside. You get out and not a minute has passed.

So I can picture many typical planes inside the world. The most difficult of course are the outer planes (excluding the Nine Hells and others like it). The gods are of course better set in the "sky/space" that is the Astral Sea. But the "infradimensional space" would then be represented by the fact that you could actually reach those places by flying very very high. Spelljammer anyone?

Of course though, I don't want to dumb down the planes and planar travel. There must be some mystical aspect too. For example, speaking of Feywild and Shadowfell, you might not be able to access these places even if you're in the right place and time if you don't please (or trick) the natural spirits somehow.
Another thing, in a campaign where these sorts of "palanar travel permits" are taken seriously, one could not access the godly planes if not by visiting the only (or only known) "god casted down from the heavens"... Asmodeus for example! And his underground realms. A Dante type of voyage: going all the way down to then reach Purgatory and eventually Heaven. In D&D terms it could mean you have to travel to the Nine Hells to get to an outer plane that could have been the previous realm of Asmodeus (or equivalent deity), and from that deserted place, you could then try to travel towards a godly domain.

I hope I covered enough ground, now let's focus on the other important points.

Who or what are these Elders exactly?

I could answer with one word. Obyrith. Let me quote from Wikipedia:

"The obyriths are so ancient that they predate mortal life, and even the gods. They rarely have a humanoid shape, and some say that just looking at an obyrith can drive a mortal insane. Their great age and apparent ability to instill insanity at a glance are strong hints at some relation with the Great Old Ones created by H. P. Lovecraft. "

As simple as that. I just give these beings more importance, a stronger identity and an explanation that continues to draw from the classic D&D lore, 4th edition too:

"In 4th Edition, the role of the Obyriths is changed a great deal. According to the Demonomicon, the Obyriths lived in a different reality, one destroyed by their evil. With their realm in ruins, the surviving Obyriths created a shard of pure evil and pushed it through the fabric of reality, where it was ultimately found by the god Tharizdun. "

As you can see, there is the "coming from a different reality". In my case, the shard of pure evil pushed through reality is actually integrated with their very nature. They are the corrupting force that pushed itself through the fabric of reality. But after all, each story could be different. The important fact is viewing them as the corrupting force beyond human comprehension, and so old that they predate everything, coming from an older universe that is now ruined, perhaps by them.

I also in some way justify their evil. Being their whole universe in ruins, ended, they do not have any purpose in their new universe, except for destruction or corruption. The latter could even just be something they need to do to survive. They are alien, and they need to re-create their alien environments in some way.

One thing I don't like much of what I wrote in the first part is how I make everything evil originate from them. For a twist, we could actually have Elders that are not inherently evil (although for their very nature, they would still be at least dangerous and/or unpredictable), and Gods and Primordials that are far worse than them.

The point is just having a category of beings that encases all that is Far Realm, all that is Lovecraftian, alien, older than everything, stranger than anything.

From an anthropological point of view, they are simply the pantheon of gods of the darkest and most primitive times. Followed by the Primordials, and then the Gods.
This makes sense in our history, where the pantheons represent the civilization that created them. A civilization always on the brink of death, living in caves and fearing everything coming from outside, creates these images of powerful beings that are evil and dangerous. Everything is unknown to them, so these beings are abstract horrors. Once they start to know the world around them, they think of superior beings that incarnate the dangerous elements, the Primordials of Sky, Earth, Fire, Water and so on. Finally, when they master their environment, they create gods that are a lot like them, with ideas and emotions. The typical Gods.

In D&D we generally assume that all these superior beings actually exist, so instead of justifying them like this, I simply "translated" this hierarchy into a chronological order of appearance, unrelated to humans.

And what about the strange connection between Fey and Elders?

This is actually where my cosmology, that was aimed at being usable and customizable, shows a degree of personal customization. The point is that Elders can corrupt Gods and Primordials, or even substitute themselves to them, a bit like godly doppelgangers.

In my personal take, the God(s) associated with the Fey are more vulnerable, because under the strange space and time conditions of the Feywild, the protecting role of the Spirits, the watchful eye of the Gods, and the impulsive fury of the Primordials are weakened. The Feywild (and Shadowfell) are somehow the most hidden places of the cosmology, so they could be the most convenient places to start corruption, for the Elders.

In one of my storylines, a paladin of Corellon became an adept Warlock of Caiphon after discovering some ancient manuscripts. (It was back when that Caiphon Paragon Path synergized perfectly with Paladin powers..! The story began from mechanics!!)
When he discovered these dark powers, he feared that Corellon would have taken back the powers given to him, but starngely this didn't happen. And when his superiors in the knightly order discovered his new powers, they didn't chastise him or exile him as he though, but praised him. He became more and more a successful paladin, but he felt something was wrong with this.
Ultimately, I decide that the wrong thing was that Corellon and Caiphon were nothing less than THE SAME BEING!
And a few within the Eladrin knew this and were actually working for the Caiphon side... Preparing an INVASION!
Being the paladin a half-elf he would have been torn between his love for elven-kind, and the dark and dangerous truth about them, and he would have found himself the only one able to save the world, if maybe at the cost of his life...

So there you go, this is an example of what you can do with the cosmology, but it's only one way to go. In 4e, Tharizdun is the "hidden god of doom" that secret sects follow. In your setting, it could be the god of death, perhaps using his power over souls to fuel his world domination plans.

As I mentioned before, you could even leave the corruption from the Elders aside, and concentrate on other beings as the source of the main evil.

Perhaps, the fey truly are connected with the Elders, but that actually doesn't make them evil. Perhaps Corellon or the fey god of choice is actually an Elder, but a rare good one. Their "corruption" would be the tendency to "make everything like the Feywild", and it could even be desirable.

All in all, I just like to connect the fey to Elders because they are antithetical concepts, so it makes for a big plot-twist. And at the same time, I like to view Elves as a force that endangers the world, because I despise them for their perfection, and I "smell alien" in it, downright!
But your views could be opposite and you could still use this cosmology. Simply don't use all these connections. Create new ones, or don't.
You could still go with the "default role for the Elders", that is the simple Far Realm one: entities from a very different and distant space/time that want to change the world as we know it into something completely maddening.

• GODS (IDEAS, SOULS)
• PRIMORDIALS (MATTER, ANIMATION)
• SPIRITS (LIFE)
• ELDERS (CORRUPTION OF MATTER, IDEAS, AND LIFE)

In every given universe, Gods and Primordials coalesce from the raw elements, and are intsantly separated, with the heavier Primordials going towards the bottom of the universe, where the physical elements collide eternally...


Primordials are quintessential compositions of elements, animated more than alive, but filled with force of will focused on creation (sometimes resulting in destruction), and able to forge anything made of their elements with their sole force of will.

...And the Gods floating towards the high heavens, where the etherealness of ideas and souls is at home.


Gods often appear in the shape of their mortal creations, but it's impossible to know their true appearance, because appearance itself is something that is not in their eithereal nature.

Spirits then form where the Primordials and Gods mingle, in their pursuit of recreating themselves through the creation of mortal life in the material worlds. The Spirits are like an inevitable byproduct of life: where there's life, there are spirits, and while they can't create life on their own, they are needed to sustain it, and the more life there is in any given world (to which spirits are confined, this being their limit), the more power the Spirits acquire, becoming able to rival both Primordials and Gods, when their native world is involved. On the contrary, if Life diminishes in some way, the spirits lose their power.


When Spirits of Nature manifest in physical forms, their connection with pure life is always apparent...

Universes are very far from each other, and they spring to life and die during the eons. The so called "Elders", are powerful beings that come from dying or dead universes into younger ones, and are said to be what remains of Gods and/or Primordials of those ruined places. They witnessed the end of all things, and somehow survived it, but they lost everything that matters to them, because in no universe is reality forged in similar ways, so the Elders always find an alien reality in the universes they end up into. And they inevitably want to destroy it all or corrupt it to make it similar to their own.


The shape of Elders is unfathomable for mortals, but even if they descend from Gods and Primordials of other universes, they are themselves mortal when they reach the universe they want to corrupt, since the elements that compose them are different. Even like this, they are as hard to kill as any God or Primordial.

Elders can even corrupt Gods and Primordials, but they can't corrupt Spirits because they're too different in nature. In fact, Elders are never descendents of Spirits of other universes, because Spirits are confined to material worlds, so they never travel outside of them, and they never survive the death of entire universes. But by corrupting Life itself, the Elders "compete" with Spirits and can even eventually kill them.


Where Elders and their creatures walk, nature and life become corrupted or dead, making the Spirits die with them.

Elder-corrupted Primordials are called Demons. They become agents of Destruction, as opposed to their former Primordial nature that was so focused on Creation.


A water primordial corrupted into a water demon lord, existing only to destroy.

Elder-corrupted Gods are very rare, and more often then not, only one God in any given Pantheon (and Universe) becomes courrupted by Elders. Normally, this god then gives rise to Devils, who are corrupted Angels. These corrupted Gods and their Devils corrupt souls and ideas, as opposed to the Primordial-originated Demons dealing only with destruction or corruption of physical matter and flesh.


Elder-corrupted gods combine the majestic and ethereal nature of the gods, with the alien nature of the Elders, becoming opposites of the intelligent concepts that their uncorrupted selves embodied.

Mortal souls are a source of energy for these corrupted and corruptor beings, and they use them to forge new creatures of their kind. The Gods normally reclaim the souls of their mortal creations, but if demons eat them (by force), or devils corrupt them (by temptation), those souls become drops of inexhaustible fuel for the engines of destruction that are the demonic and devilish hells.


Demons and devils from their second generation onwards take on appearances that resemble the mortal souls they are fuelled by, their worst sides in particular.

There are then powerful beings that are related to Spirits, and that can also be corrupted by Elders, but again, they're very rare, because these beings live in parallel worlds, or "world echoes", which are created by the dreams (or nightmares) of the Spirits themselves. These are normally called Feywild (that which originates from Dreams), and Shadowfell (that which originates from Nightmares). They are worlds in which Life is, respectively, heightened or diminished. And they can come into physical contact with the world itself, when the balance of life and powers of a world is in some way changed.
Some Gods and/or Primordials take interest in these parallel worlds, and they make their mortal creations dwell there, and that's how those Spirit-related powerful beings are born.


Beings generally called "Forest Gods" are either Spirit-infused avatars of gods and primordials or their offspring, and contrary to the spirits that gave life to them, they can be corrupted.

Elders of certain types have affinities for some of these world-echoes, probably because in their universe they were tied to one of them. When such an Elder exists, its corruption is often much subtler than that which can happen in the prime material world, because the Gods and Primordials have less power in these Spirit-crafted worlds, so they often can't perceive the corruption, and they become very connected to the Elders themselves. When this happens, Elders often appear in the dreams of mortals, being dreams always connected to the Spirit worlds.
If this kind of corruption is sparked, not even the most knowledgeable Gods can foresee the destruction it can bring to the world.


Corruption is much more dfficult to detect when it targets beings that are more closely connected to life itself.

It is even said, that the gods that take the Spirit Dream world as their favorite, are actually already masked Elders, or Elders that come from a rare universe in which life and reality were visually similar. If this was true, the Fey folk would be the closest thing to a folk created by the Elders themselves, and it would be an agent of destruction more subtle and dangerous than even Demons and Devils.


When the destroyer alien is beautiful, the world that hosts it is doomed...

The latest Legends & Lore article by Mike Mearls finally touched the aspect of the game I'm most fond of: multiclassing. And it talked about Prestige Classes too.

To sum up, and also clarify what I found out to be misconceptions about what the article said, the model of multiclassing that D&D Next will follow is the 3e model. This doesn't mean the same system.

A few words later, Mike makes evident that the system won't be the same by citing two important changes to the system:

1. A much needed "spreading of the front-loaded features over more levels" (by means of separate class tables for when you take a class from multiclassing).
2. Some "special rules to adjust the level of spells gained by multiclassed characters".

This basically negates all the problems of 3e-style multiclassing, so saying that "D&D Next will have 3e-style multiclassing" is so much of a stretch it is plainly wrong: it will just use the same model which we could call the "Take a level in X" model.

So we know that "I take a level in X" will be a "legal" thing to say in D&D Next, but that will probably be the only thing it will have in common with D&D 3e multiclassing. Also because you won't actually look at the Classes chapter and see what the chosen X class gives you; you'll instead go to a "multiclassing chapter" in the book (which will be labelled as optional rules, for campaign that don't want to allow multiclassing for some reason), and if you wanted to multiclass in Wizard, you'll look at the "Multiclass Wizard" table, which will probably just be called Wizard, since it will already belong to a "multiclass chapter".

Enough with multiclassing: Mearls pretty much solved the issue in a few words, for me, so I won't propose anything for it. Although I may or may not add a little bonus on multiclassing at the end of the post. Now let's talk Prestige Classes.

Mearls didn't touch the problems of prestige classes as much as those of multiclassing. He only made 3 small points about it:

1. "A greater emphasis on their role as a tool to reflect [...] elements of a campaign setting."
2. "Prerequisites for entering them that include story elements."
3. "You can expect that these will also be an optional rule."

So he didn't talk about the problems of Prestige Classes, but instead talked about differences in their concept, compared to 3e's.
I will instead try to point out the problems of Prestige Classes first, starting by those that I feel are addressed.

1. Taking the defining feature of the Prestige Class by dipping into it for one or two levels and then continuing on with more powerful classes.
2. Being able to choose from a vast number of Presige Classes, making the very number of available options a "power creep" all by itself, and leading to powerful characters.

So these problems I feel are addressed.
First of all by the new philosophy of multiclassing, which should guarantee that Prestige Classes too are made with their features spread across a few levels, so you have to commit to them to take the best out of them.
And the second problem is addressed by Prestige Classes having prerequisites that are campain specific. So that even if the DM allows Prestige Classes, some of them will simply be out of question because if in your campaign there's no "Izzet Guild", neither will "Nivix Guildmages" exist. (Big wink to somebody..! )

But here are the other problems I think are tied to Prestige Classes:

1. One way or another, you lose something from your class by taking a Prestige Class, unless the Prestige Class also advances your class in some way.
2. Sometimes you want the story benefits of a Prestige Class, but the mechanics mesh too badly with your character so you stay out of it, even if the concept would be perfect for your character.
3. The Backgrounds of D&D Next seem perfect in what they do with their "Trait" to represent story-based benefits, much like those suggested by Mike Mearls for Prestige Classes.

So my proposal for Prestige Classes, that tries to solve these problems takes a bit from Backgrounds and a bit from another element of 3e, a bit obscure maybe: Substitution Levels. And in particular their optional nature.

Without further ado, here's a sample Prestige Class that I could see working in D&D Next, even in the actual playtest, I'll present it piece by piece first, and then as a whole.

ARCANE TRICKSTER

Prerequisites:
- Mage Hand cantrip
- Sleight of Hand and Magical Lore skill training bonus of +5.
- Be a member of a Tricksters Guild

So there are mechanical prerequisites and story ones. Note that the training bonus of a skill starts at +3, and can become +4 at 2nd and +5 at 4th level. So it's a 4th level Prestige Class.

Entry Benefits:

Arcane Trickster Trait:
You can perform magic shows to earn double the rates of a regular entertainer.

Advanced Skills:
- You can use the Mage Hand cantrip to use the Sleight of Hand skill from a distance.
- You can use the Magical Lore skill as if it was Profession Lore to perform your magic shows.

These would be the "free benefits". Anyone taking the Prestige class would take these. They're all out of combat benefits and represent some sort of evolution of your Background, something that every Prestige Class should be, conceptually. The "Advanced Skill" part is just an idea. A trait might suffice. But I think that if "custom skills" have a place in the game, that's Prestige Classes. New uses for old skills may suffice, and to give the idea of something "advanced", they could mesh a bit with other cool things, such as spells. (Sleight of Hand checks using your Mage Hand). But I would not be against exclusive new skills.

Substitution Features

Rogue, 5th: Scheme
Lethal Distraction: You can use Mage Hand as part of an attack, giving you Advantage for it.
You can do this only once per opponent, since the victim won't be fooled twice.

Wizard, 5th: 3rd level slot OR
Sorcerer, 5th, 4 Will Power points OR
Warlock, 4th, 1 Invocation know
Trickster's Mirror: You can use Mirror Image at-will but creating only one duplicate.
You can also use it as a reaction to an attack, but it won't work on the same opponent twice.

Originally, I though about class-specific substitution levels, and they'd still be an option. But since the features I had in mind where going to substitute only single features, I thought this might have been the way to do it. Note that they would be optional. You could still choose not to take these, even if you've chosen to be an Arcane Trickster.

Substitution Levels

Any class, 6th:
- Mimic Spell: You can use Magical Lore and Sleight of Hand to mimic a spell you witnessed.
You must have witnessed the casting of the spell during the last minute.
Consult the following table to determine how "real" will the spell casted this way be.
[Skill check table]
You must take a short rest before being able to use Mimic Spell again.

This is technically a new use for an old skill, but since it has combat effects and it's a big feature, you need to give up a level of your class to get it.
The way I envision these Substitution Levels, first of all they're optional just like the Substitution Features above. And besides that, they wouldn't make you stop advancing in your class, they'd just replace whatever the class gives you at that level. It could be tricky to get right spells this way, because you'd have to keep record of the spell slots you didn't gain that level, and the DM should then check you don't gain those at the next level, just because your class table says so. I think it can be done easily though.
Let's move on to the last thing!

Prestige Benefits:

Arcane Trickster Prestige Trait:
You are now a respectable senior member of your Trickster guild.
You can commune with your fellow guild-masters via secret ritual, to learn new arcane tricks.
Note that Arcane Trickster guild-masters teach new tricks only through tricky puzzles.

This is the "cap feature" and guess what? It requires you to have taken all the substitution features/levels. It's a bit stupid of course, just an example, but it should clearly bring more benefits than the entry one, and could include new uses for skills, or Advantage on ceratin checks, or whatever.

Note that there can also be more Substitution Levels/Features, and they'd also require the previous substitutions, but since I'm not in a very creative mood, I'll stop here on this mini-Prestige Class, and hear from you for some feedback!

Here's the "complete" Arcane Trickster Prestige Class:

ARCANE TRICKSTER

Prerequisites:
- Mage Hand cantrip
- Sleight of Hand and Magical Lore skill training bonus of +5.
- Be a member of a Tricksters Guild

Entry Benefits

Arcane Trickster Trait:
You can perform magic shows to earn double the rates of a regular entertainer.

Advanced Skills:
- You can use the Mage Hand cantrip to use the Sleight of Hand skill from a distance.
- You can use the Magical Lore skill as if it was Profession Lore to perform your magic shows.

Substitution Features

Rogue, 5th: Scheme
Lethal Distraction: You can use Mage Hand as part of an attack, giving you Advantage for it.
You can do this only once per opponent, since the victim won't be fooled twice.

Wizard, 5th: 3rd level slot OR
Sorcerer, 5th, 4 Will Power points OR
Warlock, 4th, 1 Invocation know
Trickster's Mirror: You can use Mirror Image at-will but creating only one duplicate.
You can also use it as a reaction to an attack, but it won't work on the same opponent twice.

Substitution Levels

Any class, 6th:
- Mimic Spell: You can use Magical Lore and Sleight of Hand to mimic a spell you witnessed.
You must have witnessed the casting of the spell during the last minute.
Consult the following table to determine how "real" will the spell casted this way be.
[Skill check table]
You must take a short rest before being able to use Mimic Spell again.

Prestige Benefits

Arcane Trickster Prestige Trait:
You are now a respectable senior member of your Trickster guild.
You can commune with your fellow guild-masters via secret ritual, to learn new arcane tricks.
Note that Arcane Trickster guild-masters teach new tricks only through tricky puzzles.

___________________________________

So here it is, any feedback appreciated!

___________________________________

BONUS: My version of a Wizard multiclass table!

Requirements: Magical Lore training and Int 15

Lv Hit Dice Magic Weapon  Spell DC  Class Features 
            Attack Attack 
1   1d4       +1      +2  10+Int    Arcane Magic, 1st Cantrip

2   2d4       +2      +2  10+Int    Spellbook

3   3d4       +2      +2  11+Int    2nd Cantrip

4   4d4       +3      +2  11+Int

5   5d4       +3      +2  12+Int    3rd Cantrip

Multiclass Wizards Spells per Day
You gain 1 spell slot per level.
You can make it of any level available to a Wizard of a level equal to:
(Multiclass Wizard level + 1/2 your summed up levels of other classes)
But to have a slot of any level, you must have at least a slot of the previous level.

Example: Rogue 2/Wizard 4

MC Lv   1st 2nd 3rd
1        1

2        1   1

3        1   2         

4        1   2   1

This is a response to Dave The Game's latest D&D Next post on Critical Hits (here: critical-hits.com/2012/09/14/too-many-pi... ).

These thoughts were originally written as comments on facebook, in the D&D Next group ( www.facebook.com/groups/DDNEXT/ ) and I had posted them as they were, but Dave The Game found out that they had personal insults to him, and I admitted to this fault and edited them.
I didn't want to be insulting, and I hope the current version makes it clear that while I don't approve everything Dave said, I did approve his creative proposals, and I respect him: he's a great blogger whom I have always followed and I always find interesting.

Here we go...

Answering point-for-point, referring to the titles in his article.

- Weird Combinations Mean Inferior:
True about some cases. But the solution is not ditching feats/specialties, simply including some no-brainers into class, like a 3rd level maxed healing for clerics.
So I agree in that the choice of specialty shouldn't feel railroaded depending on class, but that's it, it's already true in most cases.

- World-Building Implications:
I admit I asked myself "What kind of metagaming is he implying"? He mixes rules and in-game definitions in weird ways. I think that just as a Thief is only recognized as a Thief in the game world if he ever gets caught, every other mechanical component of your character could (or not) be hidden or even completely indiscernible.

Then he cited multiclassing in this passage: "Along those lines- if I’m a Fighter who takes the Magic-User theme, how is that conceptually different than a Fighter with some Wizard levels? Probably very different mechanically, but really blurry to translate from character concept to mechanics."
- Well I think it's clear, even if we don't know the rules yet, that the answer is that in one case you're a Fighter that just dabbles in magic, in the other you are both a true Fighter and a true Wizard, who studied deeply to become so. So I don't see the blurriness he talks about.

(Update: Mike Mearls talks about multiclassing in this interview at EnWorld and his view on "multiclass-like Specialties" and how they compare to true multiclassing is basically the same I had written. Here's the quote: "Yes, we 100% plan to include multiclassing. Some specialties give you a light touch of another class, but the full system allows you to integrate multiple classes. I see this as simply another area where players can choose how deep they want to go into a class or archetype.")

- Option Overload:
Here I was surprised. A lot to assign? Lists of character compounds? Those "lists" (race/class/background/specialty) are actually complete character sheets.

What was once defined by lists of skills, feats, features etc, can now be defined with four WORDS: your race, class, background and specialty. He says they are long lists (he adds subrace), but to say what they say about a character in 4e or 3e terms, you should name all your feats and powers and skills. Now those would be long lists. All those things are now implied in four words. 

Plus, you can still say "I play a halfling rogue" and add more about it only if relevant. They're much more like very compressed but very eloquent character sheets, and it's not necessary to say your character is all that, unless you always specified all the feats and skills and powers of your characters when talking about them, instead of just stating race and class.

Choices and options had never been so few and easy since 1e, I think this is a fact.

- Missing Out On Cool Tech:
Ok, themes were good in 4e, I think so too.

- Solutions:
While his reasons are very debatable in my opinion (and even objectively so in many cases, because characters can now be created in few minutes, so choices and options aren't that many or difficult) - I like the final proposed solution (although I have some reservations, more on that later).

Since Backgrounds never really advance with levels (only skills do), I could see the "Theme" including the background Trait and one or two skills, while Class and Race give the rest of skills. And the true "background" becomes again only something you can write about freely.

I'd be ok with putting back into classes some of the most obvious things too, such as the level 3 feat of the Healer specialty.

But still, if themes would end up also as collection of feats like now, that can (and should be) tinkered with when making a truly unique character, putting the background mechanics into it means you'll have to take a theme completely apart to customize it. I'm fine with this, but many people would see it as "hacking".

I hope WotC will focus on his proposals, not his criticism which I really fail to see applicable to Next as I experienced it.

Final considerations:

Now part of me hopes WotC won't consider the blog very much because I love backgrounds and specialties as concepts, and part of me wants them to listen to his proposals.

About the theme eating up the mechanics now in place for background, and changing them into options that the character really never needs, but are more like a "glue to give depth and sense to the character", more like 4e themes, there are some questions to ask and give answers to, though.

First off, if we still want to make these new themes as collection of feats, how do we fit very generic feats like Two Weapon Fighting? Because you can't put dual wielding into class only, unless you want to lose a lot of simulationism/simulationists. And still it doesn't really fit many themes, considering Themes as he suggested them.

So you either separate Themes from Feats (which might be good, but then you might have to create Specialties again if wanting to group more feats into single game elements), or you end up with arbitrary decisions like "to be a dual wielder take the "Borderlands Warrior" theme", to make an example of "richer theme" that ends up eating very generic feats.

As I said before, these "too many options" are really very few IMO, and very quick. So if wanting to stay with the four pillars (confusing terms, since we used the "pillar" word to refer to Combat, Exploration, Story/Social Interaction), I say that we might simply let classes eat up some of the most class-specific feats that are now into Specialties (like the 3rd level Healer feat and... Not much else comes to mind), and let feats do things that only add to your character and never feel like something you're "missing out" if you don't take.

If wanting to return a bit to the feeling of 4e themes, I'd be ok with it, but only if feat selection were to be rolled into themes only unofficially, that is, as a suggested feat selection that you can change. And let themes be simply Trait + A few skills you might or not get automatically (that is, there might be three skills you could choose only one from, the rest being from race and class) + a suggested list of feats, which to remain true to the modularity, you could also not take (just as you could also not take Theme at all to play "old school").

I don't think this is actually good for character creation though. I mean, what does it solve exactly? Is it really less choices to make? No because those generic feats you might need, you still have to choose them...

So in the end, I hope that what WotC takes from what Dave wrote is to put into feats things that are always possibly "a top layer" that doesn't significantly change your class if you take them or not. I think this is true already in many cases, but still it's worth reminding it.

I'm completely convinced that no class can or should exist with no clear place in the game world, distinct from that of any other class. In particular, when talking about the arcane triad of Wizard, Sorcerer and Warlock, I'm of the opinion that extra thought must be placed, to explain why their magic is different, and ultimately what is the origin of magic itself.

I always had in mind some lore and cosmology when thinking about my version of the Sorcerer, and as always, it's not something incompatible with what Wizards told us, on the contrary.

I wanted to write the whole thing as an in-game legend, but I found it's really too complex as of now, so I'll just write down freely, explaining to you (few) readers my ideas...

________________________________________

The origin of Sorcery, that is, channeling of raw magic, goes back to a time where the Gods were newborns, and the Primordials thrived. It is, in fact, the magic of the primordials, and arguably the first kind of magic, although certain Warlocks claim that strange and incredibly old entities mastered Eldritch Magic eons before.

But Sorcery is far easier to understand, especially in its links to the Primordials.

The primordials lived in the Elemental Chaos (or Maelstorm), an amalgam of all the elements, and were made of the very same elements themselves. It was with a sheer act of will that they shaped the world from those elements, because only will separated them from the matter outside them. And this is exactly Sorcery.

The myths about how Sorcery had come into the hands, or better into the blood, of mortals, are many, and nearly as many are the races that claim that the first Sorcerer was born among them.
The most prominent schools of magic though, mostly have one version of this story in their restricted archives, and it has to do with the creation of mankind and the Dawn War between Primordials and Deities.

The legend speaks about the gods having the power of forging souls and sparking life, while the primordials had the power of forging anything physical.

Most primordials only knew how to channel the four material elements. Although very powerful, this ability wasn't very compatible with life, and the primitive world saw many living creations of the gods die under the sheer power of the elements that the primordials shaped.

Few creatures resisted, and it is said dragons were among them, although it's not clear whether they were created by the gods, the primordials, or both.

The first humanoids were always destined to ruin in such a world, because they couldn't master elemental sorcery, since it was an innate ability of primordials that would have required offspring between them and the mortals to be passed to them, and this was physically impossible.

But one day,  the youngest and cleverest among the primordials discovered how to channel a fifth element, or a non-element: an immaterial energy which was Chaos itself. With this ability, he could manage to shape things beyond raw matter, and he used it on himself firstly, becoming a being far more refined than the elder primordials.

Finding himself the first member of a new generation of beings, this primordial whose name has been erased by all records, was very lonely, and it is said a god understood his feelings, and thought of a way to make him happy and at the same time help his creations be the first to thrive in the primitive world.

The god created the race of mankind, not much in his image, but resembling the young primordial, and gave them both the rationality proper of the gods and the impulsive creative spirit of primordials.

These first human beings looked like young brothers and sisters for the clever primordial, who observed them from a distance, and learned a lot about them.

The elder primordials saw a lot of danger in this, and prohibited any contact, but they couldn't do much to contain their youngest, since with the power of Chaos that he had mastered, he could trick their minds easily.

With an illusion, he simulated a long voyage to the far reaches of the universe, and with a transmutation he changed his true self into a human, starting to mingle with them. Eventually, he fell in love with a woman, as the creator god had hoped, and gave birth to children who displayed, for the first time in a mortal, his ability to manipulate Chaos.

The first Sorcerers were born, and their presence was readily noticed by the Primordials, who understood the betrayal of their younger brother, and went to destroy humanity. The god that created humans readily descended to the world to defend his creation, and the Dawn War began between gods and primordials.

The mortal sorcerers were very strong, but they couldn't compete with primordials, so they were all dying. Eventually, their primordial father showed up to defend them, and his elders could finally recognize him. In a joint effort of vengeance, they captured him and it is said they damned him to an eternal torture, in some remote place of the world or outside of it. But the military effort required to do so put the primordials in disadvantage in the context of the war, and gods and mortals were managing to beat them for the first time.

The first and strongest of the mortal sorcerers understood that however, his ability could not last, and his descendants could eventually be all killed. So with the help of the god of knowledge, he went to meditate about magic itself in a remote place of the world, passing long years alone in his hermitage.

In the mean time, the other mortal sorcerers managed to tame dragons, and with their help they created the first empire of history. The dragons, already possessing the spark of sorcery, eventually acquired the ability to channel Chaos too, and transforming themselves briefly, they were able to procreate with humans, founding a second bloodline of sorcerers with dragon blood, able to channel the Elements instead of only Chaos. Again, the primordials, with the help of a traitor god, concentrated all their strength against this new threat to their dominion, this time bringing the first demons with them, said to have appeared in the Maelstorm after some foul act perpetrated by the traitor god.

The war was destroying the world itself, when something unexpected happened. All the chaotic energies produced by magic duels that raged all over the world, found their way inside the world itself, and gave life to it, creating the first primal spirits. These spirits understood that the world they were part of was going to be destroyed if left in the hands of beings that came from outside of it, so in a single battle in which they allied with the purest of the mortals, those not "tainted" by sorcery, giving them unimaginable powers that later became known as Primal, they managed to banish the outisiders and kill most of the equally dangerous sorcerers. The world was peaceful for the first time, the first mortal empire ruined, and sorcery remained confined to a few lonely and mad survivors and the dragons who had surrendered themselves or who fled to the most remote corners of the world.

Someone saw this great retreat of dragons coming towards him, the first sorcerer in hermitage and meditation, who finally woke up from his decades-long meditation with a long white beard, having lost the years of his youth. And waking up, this old man understood that thanks to the help of the god of knowledge, he could speak a language that controlled his magic, without using his sorcerous power.

He understood that his life was approaching its end, and travelled towards civilization, wanting to teach this language and magic to humankind, to make their life easier. But he got very tired, and had to stop his voyage in the first virgin forests of the world. There he encountered the elves, who with the help of primal spirits had helped make the world peaceful.

He was treated with respect and kindness, and his ability was recognized as something beautiful, by the sensitive elves of the dawn of the world. They let the primal spirit judge that new form of magic, and since they could only sense the power of things that were alive, such as the magic inside the blood of sorcerers, they couldn't recognize any danger from magic that came only from rationality. So with the spirits' permission, the elves learned the art from the old man, and wizardry was born.

Nothing is known about what happened to that old individual, or how wizardry came to humankind again.

Nothing is known either about what happened in the world of the fey, from which elves came from, and how some other powerful beings came to develop their magical abilities. Some warlocks claim that the language of magic existed long before the first wizard, and that wizardry never approached its full power, left to beings such as the Archfey or the Devils, who it is said were the angels of the traitor god.

In any case, Sorcery managed to come to the mortals and stay, although in very few individuals, and from the very first love between the forgotten primordial who had first mastered Chaos, and mortals (not everyone agree they were humans), the first mortal Sorcerer was born, and with him Wizardry, since with the godly gift of knowledge and rationality, the manipulation of Chaos could finally become a learned ability.

____________________________

This is roughly the lore I have in mind to explain the passage from Sorcery to Wizardry, with a clear reference to classic mythology. (I guess nobody missed it )

As I explained, or better failed to explain, the place of Eldritch Magic, or Warlocks, is unclear in this. The best explanation could be that the first Warlocks found out that selling their souls to powerful individuals gifted in sorcery could lend them power, just by speaking the right words of the Tongue of Creation. One could argue then, that Wizardry could more likely come from "cracking the code" of that language, thus breaking the need of the bargain with powerful beings, and making magic available through study instead.

The final point thus is that both Warlocks and Wizards have ways to learn more refined magic powers than Sorcerers, but that without Sorcery, and in particular the Mastery of the Fifth Element, Chaos, Wizards and Warlocks could not exist, since the essence of Chaos is the essence of raw arcane power itself.

From a game point of view, this kind of lore where magic gets gradually learnable, from a time in which it was impossible for mortals to master it, offers many hooks for additional stories and adventures even. In fact, there could be all kinds of secret form of arcane magic, perhaps coming from different lines of sorcery, perhaps not even from the primordials in a first place, and the legend I just tried to write, could be instead some kind of big lie that covers up a different truth for the interest of someone, or something...

At any rate, I hope that through stories like this, gamers won't think that Sorcerers and Warlocks don't have a place in the world, just because the Wizard class was born before. The point is that Wizardry is like a fantasy equivalent of high technology, the triumph of rationality. But just as high technology requires many lower technologies to exist in a first place, Wizardry can't be the original, first kind of magic, it simply doesn't make sense. Sorcery and Eldritch Magic both help fill that "fantasy-historical gap", and make magic itself far more varied and mysterious, making any D&D campaign a deeper and more engaging fantasy experience for the players.

The Sorcerer. My favorite class since the very first time I saw it in a manual, I always seen in it way more potential than what the rules (and consequently the designers) actually put into it.

As I explained here, I envision the Sorcerer not only as a magic user whose talent is innate, as opposed to the learned wizards and the bargaining warlock. But I see (or wish I could see) the Sorcerer as a wielder of a more fundamental type of magic. The neglected, once-fabled Elemental Power Source, basically. But in what I could explain as a transition between Elemental and Arcane, Sorcery should actually be "raw magic". A dangerous, chaotic, roiling energy that only very few individuals can "see", let alone use.

Key Concept: Raw Magic

The Sorcerer as I envision it could have been born with this privilege or not. Be part of a bloodline of sorcerers or not. have Draconic ancestry or not. It's not something that I like to see in the class, since Backgrounds can cover the non-combat aspects derived from such ideas, and Specialties/Feats can further explore the matter, especially since they could be Sorcerer-only (or not).

Key Concept: Leaving Origin to Backgrounds and Specialties.

So what belongs in the Sorcerer class? Many things. Or actually just one, but big: a completely separated magic system, different from that of any other class. But surprisingly simple.
Seeing the actual version of the Wizard and Warlock as good ones, I'll often use them as comparisons, and endpoints from which the Sorcerer should stay away, mechanically speaking. In particular, I'd like to form a particular mechanical relationship in which if the Wizard has daily-based management f resources, the Warlock encounter-based management, then the Sorcerer should take an even "faster pace" of resource management. I'd like the Sorcerer to manage its resources on a round by round basis.

Key Concept: Round-per-Round Resource Management.

Adhering to this model is cool for the Sorcerer for one particular reason... It makes it feel what it is: a being that breaths magic. And as a breathing lung, it produces a rhythmical respiration, taking energy in and out. I envision the Sorcerer alternating rounds of "charging" to rounds of "blasting".

Key Concept: Charging and Blasting

Another model I'd like to base the Sorcerer on is that of being "the Barbarian of Magic Users". In two ways: being easy and fun to play, and being potentially dangerous, especially to himself. Words such as "Surge", "Overcharge", and similar come to mind. The concept here is that the Sorcerer can eventually break its "respiration function" that is the charging/blasting rhythm, to reach higher levels of power, at a dangerous cost.

Key Concept: The Barbarian of Magic Users / Surges of Power

At the same time, other Sorcerers may prefer a different style. Their personality should reflect on their way of channelling raw magic, so a Chaotic or simply impulsive individual may follow more the Barbarian model, while a more Lawful or simply calmer individual may take an opposite approach. While the Surges of Power focus on the Blast phase of Sorcerer's channelling, at the cost of needing more charging afterwards and/or becoming a glass cannon, the Arcane Stance method is something that recalls the Monk class and the katas of meditative martial arts. It is nothing less than the missing link between Sorcery and Wizardry, and it's about a focus on the Charging phase and on passive magic. That is, at the cost of being more passive and blasting less, a more defensive and efficient way of channelling magic is reached, with various advantages. Of course, Arcane Stances are completely incompatible with Surges of Power. They can coexist in the same Sorcerer, but not in the same event of magic usage. That is, not in the same encounter.

Key Concept: The Monk of Magic Users / Arcane Stances

A good link is forming under my eyes, between these latest key concepts and the mechanics of the class. While the Surges of Power seemingly need a lot of physical strength, the Arcane Stances, with their martial arts-like movements and discipline seem more linked to agility and precision. Keying these two mechanics to Strength and Dexterity respectively might be a really good idea, for two reasons. Both are used for weapon or anyway physical attacks, and Dexterity points to a dodgy form of defense. Thus making Strength a candidate for mechanics such as Damage Reduction, to compensate for a low AC.

Key Concept: Strength for Power, Dexterity for Discipline


A disciplined Earth sorcerer needs no protection other than his magic-infused body and agility.

But the true power of the Sorcerer always came from Charisma. Will I leave that stone unturned? Yes and no. I think certain sorcerers, perhaps the majority, are quite fine with Charisma being their primary Magical Ability. But others would need something else. And here comes another division for the Sorcerer class, one much more radical than the Power/Discipline one. And it has to do with the type of energy that the Sorcerer channels. And I'm not talking about the particular element either. I'm talking about a fundamental difference I'd like to see between Elementalist Sorcerers and Chaos Sorcerers. The Elementalist kind has the true energy of the elements flowing inside their very bodies, so I think Charisma would help them very little in resisting those energies, let alone using them. Elementalists should use nothing less than Constitution as their primary Magical Ability. Chaos Sorcerers are instead the ones who channel that undefinable part of raw magic that was later organized in spells that don't deal with elements. It's way more subtle, but not less deadly. And is controlled through sheer force of will, Charisma.

Key Concept: Constitution for Elementalists, Charisma for Chaos Sorcerers

So now we have some neat borders, classifications. Structure. But we have dodged the heavy work, the true cogs of the mechanism of Sorcery, the Channelling of Raw Magic. Well the idea is this: while the Wizard spends his existence in search of new spells that shape reality each in a different way, and the Warlock seeks eldritch knowledge that lets him bypass the rules of wizardry and "crack reality" with mysterious invocations, the Sorcerer takes a nearly opposite direction. He IS the spell that cracks reality, and he passes all his life to "learn to cast better himself". Mechanically speaking, this means that the Sorcerer doesn't have spells. He has something more akin to a single magic weapon or better yet "weapon of magic", maybe two or three. And he learns maneuvers to use them in different ways, to strike an analogy with the Fighter.

Key Concept: No Spells, but a Weapon of Magic (and maneuvers to use it)

The only problem is that while the Fighter has just to learn the moves, train, and repeat without much effort, the Sorcerer is exposing its very life essence to dangerous levels of energy each time he or she channels magic, especially when such channelling becomes complex, quick, or intense. The sorcerer has a pool of Raw Magic that as we said he can charge and discharge. But discharging more than a certain number is dangerous, and overcharging to over-discharge is even more dangerous. What is this danger then? I have an idea: the terrible, dreaded, Ability Drain. What should be tested is if it's better to drain the secondary or primary Magical Abilities. Both would make sense, but the primary would be a greater danger of course, since accuracy would take a hit, and damage too. And in case of Constitution, even HP. But the point is giving the Sorcerer a second level of resource management, with a general rule such as "too much power, or too much discipline, and your body or mind will take a hit". Note that accuracy shouldn't be a big problem for the Sorcerer, since ideally, in the rounds of charging he/she could try to gain Advantage for the next round.
Other "more permanent resources" that a Sorcerer could burn are HPs and HDs. These would be perhaps easier to manage, and would make for an Encounter, instead of Daily based second level of resource management. Even Ability Drain could be, for this sole purpose, reduced to something recoverable after each encounter, but it could seem like too much even for the magic-infused Sorcerer perhaps!


A surging Air Sorcerer can be a living weapon of lightning, his very muscles pumping energy in his deadly bolts.

Key Concept: Physyical Drain for excessive "withdrawal" from Raw Magic Pool

Well, the class is taking form. Now back again to the main mechanic though, because we're dodging it again. These "weapons of magic". I basically envision three of them. The Burst, the Blast, and the Ray. The Blast would actually be more like Area in 4e terms, and the Ray would be more like Ranged, and could eventually be used in melee too, since it would be more like any form of Concentrated energy, not necessarily ranged. The interesting thing could be that Sorcerers actually begin their lives with just one of these capabilities. The others would be unlocked through experience. But where's the versatility then? Well here's the trick. The Raw Magic Pool, a pool of points, can be used to modify any of these, and sometimes even simulate another Form. The fact is that it will cost you. So the first Form is important because it will become the "cheaper form to use". The other points can be used to do other things such as increasing damage, increasing range/area, casting faster (yes, even while moving!), or transforming the effects altogether.

Key Concept: Basic Forms of Burst, Blast and Ray, Points used to Modify and Augment.

About these transformations, it is tricky. First of all, each element would have its own, and Chaos would have the most different from all of course, being actually a different subset of Raw Magic. Examples, anyway, could be things such as Flight for Air and Fire. Conjuration of structures for Water/Ice and Earth. Immobilization/Caging for Ice. Ongoing damage for Fire. Pushing around for Air. Blocking and Proning for Earth. All of these would have their own costs, and the tricy thing is that even at low level, a Sorcerer can attempt difficult ones using Surges of Power or use Arcane Stances to get minor but more constant and less costly effects.
Chaos would be different in that it can control minds to a certain extent (a chaotic extent), generating lots of Conclusion-like effects, teleporting of objects and creatures, and creating pseudo-illusions perhaps. But the principle is the same.

Key Concept: Elements and Chaos offer Different Transformations of the Basic Forms.

So let's stop theorizing and start creating something practical. First of all, while not as squishy as the Wizard, the Sorcerer is not exactly a tank by itself. So staying in melee for prolonged amounts of time can be dangerous. So the basic forms will deal more damage the more risky they are.

Burst: 3d6
Ray: 2d6
Blast: 1d6

This also puts a parallel with the Warlock's Eldritch Blast which is the closest thing to the Basic Forms of the Sorcerer. Eldirtch Blast is more damaging than the Sorcerer equivalent, but if the Sorcerer uses its Burst, in melee, the damage becomes equal. Not only that, remember that the damage can be boosted. Ideally, boosted so much that casting every other turn is feasible. So I'd say let's start with a Raw Magic pool of 3, just like the current Sorcerer's Will Power points. These points mean up to +3d6 damage (but leaving the pool at 0 would cause damage to the Sorcerer), or +2d6 normally. But when you charge from the pool you're not casting. So ideally, we're comparing a 4d6 ray every other turn in the Sorcerer with a 3d6 ray every turn from the Warlock. It's starting to look underpowered right? But then you should see the Surge of Power... With a Surge of Power, you add your Strength modifier to the amount of Raw Magic points you can collect. That's ideally up to +3d6, making the Sorcerer's ray a 7d6 beast, even at first level. If accepting the risk of the Surge (not decided yet, but see Ability Burning and HP/HD are considered, see above). Now, considering that this Ray would be shot with Advantage, ideally, an accurate 7d6 every other turn is already better than 3d6 every turn. And if the Sorcerer starts with Blast, they would be 6d6 in a 15x15 feet area, or even in a 20x20 area, using the last point of the pool. We're looking at a fireball at first level, so the drawbacks must be big.

Key Concept: Outdamaging Other Classes at a Big Cost, or Staying Lower.

We've jotted down an example of Surge mechanic: adding Strength mod to the raw Magic Pool. And I like it because it evokes the image of a Sorcerer that strains itself to squeeze more power. The Arcane Stance, the other method, should be quite different. I see it more as a list of traits that the Sorcerer can acquire if he/she refuses to use Surges. And the number of these acquirable traits could be based on Dexterity, since a lot of coordination would be needed to keep many of them active (they are slow and arcane movements, like martial arts katas, combining them increased their complexity and difficulty). The basic idea is that first of all, for every stance you have active, you can have one round of free recharging before a short rest. This compensates the fact that you can't use the Surge, by channelling more often. Then, you'd have the benefit of the particular stance chosen. Boosts to movement, to defenses, damage to attackers, and perhaps even regeneration or benefits to allies. More powerful stances can be acquired with higher levels.
These stances would cover a bit of the ground normally covered by cantrips, with stances dedicating to detecting magic and boosting Wis-based skills for example, or others that create Light and impose penalties on melee attackers.
Note that it's not just damage that takes a hit when using Stances. Actually, damage takes the least amount of nerfing. The problem is that certain Trasformations cost lots of points, and only with Surges (or waiting till higher levels) you can use them. So I think a balance can be found, and the good thing is that a Sorcerer can start the battle without using any of these techniques, to then wait and see how the battle unfolds. If more power or bigger effects are needed, Surges are the way to go, and Stances become unavailable. if the situation require more defense, than Surges will be unavailable until short rest, and Stances are available.

Key Concept: Arcane Stances as Cantrips and Defensive Boosts, Mutually Exclusive with Surges of Power.


Well, time to think some final details. First of all, another effect of Surges would be Damage Reduction, to compensate both for a lower AC of the typical user, and the probable bull's eye that an intelligent enemy would paint on such a dangerous opponent. Damage Reduction could be equal to the Strength modifier, and be active only during recharge. It would basically be the Stance-compensating factor: just as Stances compensate the lack of Surges with rounds of free recharging, Surges compensate the lack of Stances bringing a little Stance of their own, giving Damage Reduction, and perhaps also the same mount of damage reduced being dealt to the attacker enemy, if it's adjacent. It's like power erupting from the body of the Sorcerer after all.
Other things... While the Stances are learned from a list, the Transformation are all available, as long as you have the Raw Magic points to spend. And there are different lists for each element.
So what about the elements? Well, just as the basic forms, I think they should be "unlocked" with levels. You start with one, and get the second quite soon. A third much later. The fourth never, and it could be the opposite element of your first. That is, a Sorcerer that starts with Earth will never master Air, and Water will never mater Fire and vice-versa. Chaos instead is another matter. Chaos sorcerers don't learn elements, so what do they learn when Elementalists learn new elements? I'd say they learn some permanent transformations, allowing them to focus on Charm, Illusion or things like that.
At high levels, Sorcerers can also learn to pass at least once to Surges from Stances and vice-versa, overcoming a big strategical limit, perhaps a limited number of times per day.
As per the actual charging mechanics, I'd say that each time the Pool of Raw Magic reaches 0, the Sorcerer gets damaged. Either 1 point of Magical Ability or 2 HP. Doing so in a Surge could raise the damage, and the Surge should also have additional drawbacks. Perhaps, damage taken from a Surge doesn't heal till Long Rest. Maybe a cool table of random effects is rolled upon, each time a Surge is used, with consequences that could go from the Intoxicated state to Immobilization and such! Maybe each element gives its own Surge state, with Fire Sorcerers taking more damage, Air Sorcerers moving randomly and so on.

Well, time to write down the first draft of my Next Sorcerer, levels 1 to 5!

    Weapon  Magic  Spell      Hit     Raw    Arcane   Class
Lv  Attack  Attack  DC        Dice    Magic  Stances  Features

1    +2      +2    10+Cha/Con  1d6     3       1      Element/Chaos, Form, Stance

2    +2      +2    10+Cha/Con  2d6     4       2      Surge

3    +2      +2    10+Cha/Con  3d6     4       3                  

4    +2      +3    10+Cha/Con  4d6     5       3       Form

5    +2      +3    10+Cha/Con  5d6     5       4       2nd Element/Chaos Trait 

Forms: Burst (2d8), Ray (2d6), Blast (2d4) [1 less die for Chaos]

Lv   Arcane Stances 

1    Sorcerous Vision, Raw Light, Channeling Hands, Far Reach (Chaos) 

5    Solid Power, Arcane Speed, Entropic Missiles (Chaos)

RM   Element: Water (Cold)

1    Damage, Reach

3    Slowing, Area

5    Flow, Wall, Cure

RM   Element: Earth (Acid)

1    Damage, Reach

3    Proning, Area

5    Tunnell, Wall, Shield

RM   Element: Air (Lightning)

1    Damage, Reach

3    Pushing, Area

5    Fly, Wind, Whirlwind

RM   Element: Fire (Fire)

1    Damage, Reach

3    Ongoing, Area

5    Ignite, Firewall, Shroud

RM   Chaos (Force)

1    Damage, Reach

3    Trait, Area

5    Teleport, Vortex, Entropy

Chaos Traits: Charm, Illusion, Trasmutation

Element/Chaos: If you choose Element, choose Air, Water, Fire or Earth, and you will always use Con as your Magic Ability.
If you choose Chaos, choose a Chaos Trait, and you wlll always use Cha as your Magic Ability.

Surge of Power:
As part of the action for recharging your Raw Magic Pool, you can initiate a Surge and gain DR equal to your Strength modifier for one round, and during that round enemies hitting you take the same amount of damage, of the type determined by your element. You also recharge the same quantity of additional Raw Magic points. You cannot initiate a Surge if you have initated a Stance, unless you take a short rest in between.

Arcane Stance:
As part of a move action, you can initate a Stance if you don't move more than 10 feet. You gain the benefits of the stance and a free recharging of your Raw Magic Pool. You can have active as many stances as your Dexterity modifier. You cannot initiate a Stance if you have initated a Surge, unless you take a short rest in between.

Recharging and Channeling.

Recharginng requires an Action and always brings your Raw Magic Pool back to its maximum point value. Channeling requires an Action and it means using a choosen Form and eventually applying effects to it determined by your Element, paying a certain amount of Raw Magic points. If the Raw Magic pool ever reaches 0, you take 1 point of Ability Burn in your Magic Ability and you lose 2 HP. The Ability Burn can only be restored by a Long Rest.

(Note: this is a long-standing idea of mine, but the latest dev blog about feat taxes sparked this actual writing.)

I will write a more full-fledged blog post (in my "Class Action" series) to go into further detail on some of the classes, but I also wanted to write about the problem in general as briefly as I can, to the lurking developers and the fellow playtesters that read in here. 
I see basically only one problem in Next design guidelines and it's summarized in one motto I've seen used: "Fighters should be the best at fighting". It's a motto that assumes that "Wizards should be the best at casting spells" and other similar mottos are also design decisions. This is so wrong and it's not just my opinion, it's logic: there are many classes that fight, many classes that cast spells. And if they're not called Fighter or Wizard, their players are going to have less fun, if these mottos become mechanics. And no, I'm not saying classes should have a combat role like in 4e. Because in 4e, the combat role enforced a tactic. Tactics should be things that can vary from round to round. Defending, Leading, Controlling, and Striking should be things that every single character COULD be able to do (in different rounds), if built to do so. But this is another matter. One may also want his character to be be good at a single tactic, that's fine. I'm just saying that classes shouldn't enforce a tactic like in 4e (good idea to make themes handle those things in a way). BUT shouldn't also steer in the opposite direction and extreme of "fighters are the best at fighting". For the above reason. Because it's a direction that will spark many wars and more importantly, lessen the fun at the tables.
What's my solution to this? Simple: each class should be able to be very accurate and effective (with effective meaning damaging OR NOT) when following a class-driven STRATEGY. Not tactic. I'm talking of something much broader than 4e role, and much narrower than current Next's philosophy of "being best at weapons". The problem is finding a good, defining strategy for each class. Something I see very akin to defining the class' true SOUL. And I think the soul of certain classes and especially the basic ones, hasn't been understood yet.
As I told you, I'm ok with "Defender" and "Striker" being things of the past. they're to gamist, and they do not belong to class: themes make them available to anybody who loves that style of play and that's good. So what would be the Fighter's specialty if it's not to be too broad as "weapons", and too narrow as "defender/striker"? For me it's simple: Fighters are the best in the front-line. War-like situations. When outnumbered. I'm for making classes more situational, yes. But also able to create the situations they're good at. Wizards shouldn't just be "best with spells" (cause where would that leave Warlocks? Sorcerers? Shamans? Whatever?), or "controllers" (anybody should be able to control, that's a player's choice). They are the "engineers" of D&D, the guys that deal with complex stuff. So in battle, they should be best when dealing with complex situations, they change the battlefield, they morph things around them. That's their soul. Their strategy.
The fixed bonuses, the +1s and +2s that as of now the Fighter only gets with weapons, should be accessible to it and all the other weapon-using classes, but in different situations. Fighters have them when in the thick of melee, Rogues when fighting dirty, Rangers when taking advantage of terrain, Paladins when they face the strongest enemy maybe, or when sacrificing themselves, or whatever their creed says. Wizards should be good with complex spells, Sorcerers with simple spells, Warlocks should be good with darker things, things that isolate them from their very allies (I picture warlock magic as tainting, forcing allies to leave them alone). Spellcasters are a different problem actually, because they need balancing on their spell effects and resources usage, and you can read many other blog posts I wrote about this. With weapon users, the "situational math solution" I'm suggesting is much more straightforward and it really just requires developers to understand these never well-understood SOULS of each class.
And to represent better the classic specialties, such as "fighters are good with weapons", instead of the math bumps, add more possibilities. The Paladin and the Fighter may be just as accurate and strong with their swords in their relative "specialty situation". But the fighters knows how to do MORE things with that sword. Maneuvers maybe, whatever. And more importantly, the Fighter may know how to exploit the strengths of every weapon. Take the 4e new Expertise feats. What I'm saying is give the accuracy bonus to everybody (situationally), but the Fighter may be the one to get automatically the secondary benefit associated with that weapon expertise. A fighter with a polearm may be better at stopping enemies in their tracks with a spear better at charges and resisting charges maybe and so on. THIS is something that would make the Fighter "the best with weapons", without making other melee classes mathematically worse. Also, other classes could also specialize in weapons, but would never be specialized in ALL of them as the Fighter may be. Other classes of course would have other benefits that the Fighter will never have, and here you have balance, not through numbers, but through different possibilities, and keeping tradition.
Here it is. Lengthy but this in my opinion a solution for the old problem of balance VS simulationism/tradition.