Worldbuilding: Regan Cosmology

We've talked about the gods of Rega. We've talked about Creation, and how the peoples and nations of the Successor States came to be. But we've only lightly touched on a pretty big topic:

Cosmology. How is the world put together, what is the afterlife like, what other planes and dimensions touch the world of Tellus? This sort of thng can be a very big deal in a fantasy setting, and drive all sorts of plots. You can have people have beliefs about it that may or may not match the truth, and the truth may be unknown or unknowable. In Rega, the truth is . . . mostly known, at least from the gods point of view. The existance of the planes, in general, is verifiable. Magic can be used to reach at least some of them. So, what are they, and perhaps more importantly for our purposes . . . how did we decide?

Maybe the first thing to do is figure out what the cosmology is for. What do we want it to accomplish, in terms of a fantasy setting?

Here's a few things it can help explain:

Where do fiends come from? If you have demons, devils, and the like, they have to be somewhere, and usually that's not the main world.

Where do celestials come from? Same thing. If the gods have servants like angels etc, where are they? For that matter, where do the gods themselves exist, if not in the world ? (They can, by the way. That choice has some implications to consisder.)

Is there a place between these worlds, a transitive plane? More than one? How do you get from one world to another?

Where do ghosts exist? Elementals?  Fey? Is there a singular spirit world right next to ours where ghosts, elementals and the fey live when they aren't messing with us? Or does each have their own place? Are these places on the way to the place the fiends or celestials live? Or maybe even the fiends and celestials just have parts of that spirit world staked out.

Where do people go when they die? Do they travel through someplace like the ethereal or the astral on their way to 'Heaven' or 'Hell'? Are ghosts souls or something else?

Your cosmology can even give in world explanations for physical laws that in our world would be explained by science. They don't have to be scientific, in your fantasy setting. (Obviously looking at least a little sciency is good if it’s a sci fi setting, but there still might be alternate planes like Hyperspace or the Warp...)

These things are important for necromancy, for summoning magic, if it exist in your setting, for travel magic. Maybe it uses one of these planes to move through, like DnD uses the Astral for planar travel and sometimes teleporting. Or how it uses the shadow plane for a different kind of transit and the Ethereal for yet a third...

If you have aberrations or eldritch horrors, where do they come from? Is that different than where fiends come from? How? Why?

In some cases, you might want planes that correspond to moral alignments, like the DnD alignment chart.

Now that we know what they are for, how do we decide what we have? Like everything else, I suggest taking inspiration from real world mythology and tweaking it to suit your needs, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. I even recommend this over taking DnD itself as an inspiration, because DnD and Pathfinder's base cosmology is, in many cases, needlessly complicated and cofusing, and has sort of built up by accretion over a lot of years, rather than being built with a real purpose in mind. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not how I roll.

So. which mythology do we use for inspiration? Just like with the gods, it's pretty simple. The one you think is the coolest. Or even better, the ones you think are the coolest, remixed.

You might build your cosmology like the Norse World Tree, Yggrdassil, with the Tree itself being the way between worlds, and the worlds being in the branches, on the trunk, and between the roots.

You might have a single spirit world, like many animist cultures, where fey live one place, nature spirits another, elementals another (ok, so fey might actually just be nature spirits or elementals but folks always seem to see them differently), but all in the same plane, with the gods and celestials having a stronghold in one area (or even different strongholds depending on the god.) Galunlati from Tsalagi or Cherokee myth seems to be a little like that.

In the case of the Successor States of Rega, the overall feel of our mythology is Greco-Roman flavored, though the gods come from many sources, and the setting itself is like 11th century Europe. So I'm going to be working with a kind of mix and match from Greco-Roman influences, Christian influences, and even a little Mesopotamian.

We've already established that the gods live on a great mountain caled Aula Dei. ( This got established in the Gods of Rega collection, but you can check the Regan Articles section of my website for most of the context.) We also know, from the Creation myth, that there is a definite Outside to creation, and that the gods built the sky as kind of a wall to protect their creation inside. We know there is an underworld where the Sun and the Sun god go at night, and where mortals go for their afterlives, or at least to be judged.

Combining that with our inspirations, let's set up Aula Dei, the realm of the gods, as basically the pinnacle of Heaven. It is a mountain in the highest sky, and a fortress against the threats from Outside creation, much like Asgard's wall in Norse myth. Tweaking it a bit with some medieval ideas, maybe there are 7 Heavens, each attuned to a particular Virtue, and watched over by the incarnation of that Virtue, lesser gods or greater angels in the Greek mode. Those seven heavens sit around the peak of the great volcanic mountain that is Aula Dei. At it's base, it touches the mortal world, as well as the Empty Field where the rivers of Marea flow below into the Underworld. Many of the dead rest forever in the underworld. Only truly exceptional beings are asked to serve the gods and celestials in Aula Dei or any of the Heavens.

At the base of the mountain, then, is where it touches the world. Now this isn't exactly literal, as there isn't one particular mountain in the world that literally leads up to Heaven...but any mountain could. That base is actually firmly planted in the spirit world that sits beside the physical world, that connects the realms above and below. That spirit world is the place of all spirits, from ghosts to fey (and nature spirits, if different) to elementals, though they do tend to reside in different areas. Ghosts stay here only if they have a reason to avoid moving on: sometimes to avoid judgment, sometimes to finish something in the mortal world. Most ghosts are the souls of the dead.

Speaking of above and below: Heaven is metaphysically above, and in the sky. It is close to Outside, but it is strongly defended. This distinction is important, as we'll see soon..

As for Below...well, just below the mortal world and the spirit world is the Underworld. It is a place  of judgement, and for some, punishment, but it is not Hell. Any punishment fits the crime, and is not eternal. Most folks just have boring afterlives, or get reincarnated. To get to the Underworld, one goes, metaphysically, West, where the sun goes down. This involves being taken to the sea by the god Favonius, then across the sea by the Goddess Marea, to be delivered unto the Sun God Solis for judgment. From there they go to punishment or reward that suits them.

But there is further below, and further from Heaven, because the three Dark Gods entered in at the beginning as detailed in the Creation Myth and Gods: the Matter of Creation. So down there, lower than the underworld, is Hell, the evil mirror of Heaven. There are seven hells, each deeper than the last, places of horror and torment, but also power and prestige. They are ruled by seven archdevils, one for each deadly sin, lesser gods of darkness who serve the Dark Three and form the Pantheon of the corrupt Karthian. At the very bottom is the domain of  the Dark Three, the hideous opposite of Aula Dei, a Pit to the Outside which the siblings have their domains in a triangle around. The deepest part of this Pit is where the body of Invidia landed, and is called the Abyss. Fiends that serve the Dark Three include all sorts of demons, and devils, and other things...eldritch horrors enter the world through the Pit , and are usually turned to the purpose of Interitus, but not always. Sometimes, Things get through on their own, for their own purpose.

To answer the question of travel, most traveling spells access and channel the spirit world in some way, as it combines what DnD would call the Ethereal, the Feywild, the Shadowfell, and the Astral all into one...the different spells just acess different aspects or properties of it.

At some point, I'll explain the process I used to devise the Seven Sins and Virtues, and the Seven Hells and Heavens specifically, as kind of an expansion on pantheon building...and why I did it.