I'm trying to do a gritty and realistic version of Khoras for my players where everything is explained (or explainable :p ).
I'm trying to fit and explain why there could be so many "magical" creatures and monsters in a fantasy world like Khoras (or Faerun or whatever...), so, for example, Goblyns that could attack PCs in Duthelm are actually vicious and evil, but in more civilized and peaceful countries, if you meet Goblyns in a cave, it's just that they fled from a life of misery and violence and hoped to find a peaceful land where they'll be welcome.
And in fact, they're feared and hated and are forced to live outside of civilisation (still better than living in a place where their families would be killed and raped by evil goblyns or whatever...
So they're in Ithria like the Roms are in France for example... and it become not so easy to decide what to do when villagers say they are stolen and are afraid to be attacked and you find you in front of families of goblyns with women and children...
SO !
There's so many creatures from other planes in the monster manuals of D&D and bestiaries of Pathfinder I'd love to see in Khoras but donc like the idea that everyone just magically call them to our plane, or that they travel between planes easily for hunting or whatever...
My surely dumb idea would be that the sundering hurted the complete order of the universe (locally) and merged and mixed some parts of planes.
So you could find elementals because they're lost and stuck in our plane, maybe the Xorians could be there because of it too...
Since the sundering happened a long time ago, it could explain whole established colonies of "fairy" hidden in a forest for example...
It could explain "portals" between planes because some places merged and a place could be both in our plane and in another.
And, in my version of the "cosmology", there's parallel universes, an unlimited number of it.
The nearest "parallel universe" of us would be an universe where only a small detail is changed.
And so, the "plane of fire" is just a very different universe, where the "small detail" that was different from ours is something changed in the rules of physics.
The only planes that are not "parallel" would be the dark plane (something like a corrupted copy of our plane - think to dark silent hill after the siren ring) and the ethereal plane (with "ghosts", think about silent hill with the fog).
Don't know what to think about it, if it's a good idea or not.
i suppose you could use the sundering for that...
I've always considered Khoras (or rather the Khoras universe) to be merely one plane of existence among many. I like the idea of a multiverse. So, in my opinion, the worlds of Faerun, Greyhawk, Middle Earth, Dark Sun, Krynn, Eberron, Forgotten Realms and every other campaign setting out there are merely other planes of existence. And yes, I think the multiverse could consist of many thousands of dimensions or possibly even infinite worlds. And it's possible to travel to those alternate dimensions. It's also possible to summon creatures from those alternate dimensions to Khoras. I think that maximizes the potential for story telling, campaigns and other possibilities. Also, this line of reasoning would suggest that all worlds are equally valid. And I like that too.
There's a page on the Khoras website that talks about alternate worlds and I think the writing there sums it up pretty well:
"There are endless worlds of adventure out there among the stars... and beyond, infinite dimensions in a vast and tangled web. By spell or science, magic or machine or even through holes in the fabric of space... there are countless ways to reach them".
I really like that little bit of writing. :)
Anyway, my point is that if you and your players want to bring in something from another campaign setting, you could easily explain it away by saying it was brought in from another dimension. Wizards and powerful magic items can open up temporary dimensional doors. And it's possible for gates to be permanent too (if, for instance, you wanted to bring an entire race or nation in). As always, the Game Master has unlimited authority to create and change whatever he wants. Khoras is one world among many. And you can bring in anything else that you need to make your story or campaign work.
And regarding your idea... yes, absolutely, the Sundering could have had side effects like that. The Sundering could have produced hundreds of holes in the space-time continuum... holes that led to other worlds. It's possible that these holes could have stayed open for weeks, years or even decades after the Sundering. Huge migrations could have occurred between planes. I don't think that's a dumb idea. I think that's an interesting explanation. Actually, that's a BETTER explanation that rapid evolution... darn, I wish I would have thought of that... :)
Happy you like it :D
But I don't think it's "better" than rapid evolution, the sundering could have caused both, like shaking the fabric of reality, opening holes and portals, make big colonies disappear from its universe to appear on khoras spontaneously ("wtf are we doing here ?") and also accelerate and disrupt evolution.
As if the entire multiverse got it's parameter randomized (around khoras).
Also, my version of time travel is that there's parallel universes exactly like our plane, with the only difference is that the time is slower or faster. So when you travel to a plane identical to yours but where 1 second of you = 1,00001 second of this universe, you find the world in a previous state. You can witness events, see who killed who for example, but cannot change the future. You can change the event and avoir the murder, but as it'll be "somewhere else", it doesn't matter, nothing would have changed in your universe.
So no problem with inconsistencies of temporal paradox ! If you kill someone "in the past" he won't be removed from the present, as it's another "present"
And it still enable nice stories about being the witness of events in the past, or take someone who is dead in your universe but whose you need his knowledge (it will be a kidnapping), or whatever...
I think your idea is interesting, even if I still prefer the "evolutionnary" one.
After all, evolution can occurs on minor caracteristic in few decades (do you know that some white butterflies became black when the pollution began in the XIXe century?). And this happened on Earth without drellisian radiation!
Concerning other planes, I also like the principles of the multiverse. But I don't like AT ALL the principles of parrallele universes. I don't like the idea of similar universes, with same people doing the same thing with subtile differences.
For me there are an infinite number of universes which are different from our by an (undefined) set of dimentional coordinates.
It means that for a given x,y,z you can play on one or several of these dimentional coordinates to reach the same point (x,y,z) in another universe.
As the universes are mainly full of vacuum, I think funny that every wormhole built from Khoras by a stupid would-be-comologist lead to the void. You need to adjust not only the dimentional coordinates but also the standard x,y,z to "reach" something interesting.
Of course, as many think, physical laws are similar in universes in the same "dimentional region". It allows to explain why we can explore a lot of them, and let some room to imagine other physical/magical rules in the other RPG. I also see the demonic planes as universe with quite different physical law, being some sort of exception to the previous rule. It explains why these planes are full of terrible beasts, completely different with what we use to meet (in harsh environement it's more difficult to built a raffined and exquisite civilisation).
At the end, I also imagine that a universe can "move" in its dimentional coordinate. Then it can sometime come very close to (or even cross) an other universe. In this condition, a huge number of holes can open naturally, mainly from space to space. But sometime, it can also connect a dangerous world to Khoras...
Well that's just my vision
Hehe, I like your idea of universe that could "move", so in my version, the sundering would have shaken everything around, litterally.
Where we diverge is about parallel universes and your vision. I like the "identical except one detail, and the butterfly effect does it's job", so you could have very different worlds (if the "detail" is one of the rules of physics, or the temperature of the big bang or whatever) or could be the "Oh I just realized i'm not at home, but in a almost identical world".
I think the "alien world" (like Golarion or the forgotten realms) could be just far far away in the galaxy, no need to other planes for it.
But it's interesting to see other views on it, as except the writing David quoted, there's no "precise" cosmology.
In fact what I don't like in the "parrallele universe" theory is precisely the butterfly effect.
To my opinion, this effect is incredibly underestimated. If you change a very simple detail, it will induce bigger and bigger changes all around, like circles in water.
- In weeks, a lot of details will be changed (position of people, amount of currency exchange...)
- In months, several persons will die instead of living, or live instead of dieing (accident, fight...)
- In years, a lot of people will live in different place due to the previous modifications
- In decades, all new born child will surely be different, as there is no reason why the same chromosomes will be chosen (sexual acts will be different, skiped, postponed...)
Ok I'm a little bit strict (I'm a physicist :D ), but I think things would happen like that if it would exist in reality.