An Historical Dig into the Planes of Existence Pt. II

Today's post is a continuation of my work into developing a planar model as an extension of the mystic class/psionics system I'm working on for BX/LL.

As an extension of yesterday's post digging into the history of planar concepts (as an extension of the mystic class/psionics system I'm working on for BX/LL), today's chart is from the 1925 book A Treatise on Cosmic Fire by Alice A. Bailey. Like Mr. Leadbeater, Ms. Bailey was a theosophist/esoteric philosopher. Also like Mr. Leadbeater, Ms. Bailey suggests the lowest three planes are physical: 1) solids, 2) liquids, 3) gases; and that the next four planes are etheric. From there, Ms. Bailey's planes seem to coincide with Mr. Leadbeater's, with some Western additions to the Eastern naming...

Level	Leadbeater	Bailey
7	Mahaparanirvanic	Divine/ Adi
6	Paranirvanic	Monadic/ Anupadaka
5	Nirvanic	Spiritual/ Atmic
4	Buddhic	Intuitional/ Buddhic
3	Mental	Mental/ Manasic
2	Astral	Emotional/ Astral
1	Physical	Physical

More importantly, I like how this diagram (of the "Kosmic Physical" planes) from Ms. Bailey suggests that gates/portals connect some of these planes directly.

So, at this point, I'm still thinking that...

1) Access to other physical planes from the prime material plane (that is, to the positive material, negative material, elemental planes, etc.) will be through the ethereal plane.

2) Access to the astral plane will be through the ethereal plane. (See this post at Delta's D&D Hotspot, and the comment thread, for discussion of early editions, and whether the astral plane was accessed through the ethereal plane, or accessed directly, from the prime material plane.)

3) Access to the higher planes will be "up" through the "upper" ethereal plane to the "upper" astral plane.

4) Access to the lower planes will be "down" through the "lower" ethereal plane to the "lower" astral plane.

5) Moving to the outer edges of the physical plane accesses the "dreamlands"; moving "up" from the dreamlands access deep dreams, and moving "down" from the dreamlands accesses nightmares. (This is a concept I'm adapting from Steve Marsh's current model of the planes... but that's a whole 'nother post.)

An Historical Dig into the Planes of Existence

For some additional context on today's post, see this post (and its comment thread) at Delta's D&D Hotspot regarding the spell Contact Other Plane.

I was doing some digging around to older resources on concepts of the planes of existence (as an extension of the mystic class/psionics system I'm working on for BX/LL) and came across a couple of things. First, the writings of the Theosopher Charles W. Leadbeater who really launched the whole theosophy/metaphysics field around 1900. He (along with Annie Besant) is credited with systemizing the planes in his writings. Most of what has come afterward (entire 20th century and beyond) seems to be based (at least in part) on his writings. While his concepts are based on some older Hermetic thoughts (older Egyptian and Greek philosophies), he's the one who (at least in a modern context) suggests concepts like astral travel. This page (at left) from his 1903 book "Man Visible and Invisible" seems to lay out the concept that the astral plane is accessed by means of etheric double.

The Kybalion (by "The Three Initiates," 1912) seems to be the other "go to" theosophic book on the planes. The second chapter, ("The Principle of Correspondence") embodies the idea that there is always a correspondence between the laws of phenomena of the various "planes" of being and life (p.28). This text lists the "Plane of Ethereal Substance" as the 4th sub-plane of the 7 minor physical planes (essentially the same place that Leadbeater puts it). But the Kybalion's ethereal plane itself consists of 7 sub-planes... "This Ethereal Substance forms a connecting link between Matter (so-called) and Energy, and partakes of the nature of each. The Hermetic Teachings, however, instruct that this plane has seven sub-divisions (as have all of the Minor Planes), and that in fact there are seven ethers, instead of but one."

So where am I going with this?

Well, as I stated at the beginning of this post, I'm trying to lay out some ground rules (but, honestly, little more than that, for the sake of fearing being too restrictive and cumbersome) for a "planar travel" appendix to the mystic class/psionics ruleset I'm developing for BX/LL (which is coming along swimmingly, BTW, thanks to some great insight I graciously received from Steve Marsh... the nearly-uncredited genius behind a lot of the planar concepts of D&D¹). I've been trying to decide what rules are "givens," and which things are better left to DMs to develop themselves. Based on the above, I think I'm going to stick with the basic concept that one must access the ethereal plane before accessing the astral, even though both the 1e PHB version of the diagram of the planes (and it's predecessor from Dragon Magazine #8, pictured below) suggest that the Astral plane (area 9, in light blue) can be accessed directly from the Prime Material plane (area 1, in purple). This physical-to-ethereal-to-astral model seems to support the "higher consciousness" aspect of the mystic class I'm developing. The ethereal plane will still access all the other material planes (e.g., the elemental planes, and things like the positive and negative material planes, should I keep those "as is"). It's the astral plane and beyond that I'm still contemplating.

But, then again, I might decide to abandon this structure altogether.

There are some other ideas I'm toying with, so I'm sure there will be more posts to come.



¹ "When ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS was still in its earliest conceptual stage, Steve Marsh and I exchanged considerable correspondence pertaining to the planes." Gary Gygax, "The Sorcerer's Scroll," Dragon Magazine 38 (Vol. IV, No. 6), December 1979.

Dragon Magazine #65: Orange Dragon Claw Attack Damage

I picked up a hard copy of DragMag #65 today for a buck and was reading the article The Missing Dragons. It "officially" details the yellow, orange and purple dragons. (The orange and yellow dragons had been covered previously as slightly different iterations in the Leomund's Tiny Hut column in issue 38.) For some reason, I was stumped when I saw that the orange dragon's bite does "2-23" points of damage. And it took me a minute to figure it out. I'm so used to the idea of adding extra points of damage (e.g., 2-7 is rolled as 1d6+1) that I sat there for a moment and thought... "How the hell do I roll 1d22+1?"

Once I phrased the question like that, it didn't take long to figure it out. If you haven't figured it out yet, the answer is 3d8-1.
I can't say I remember seeing that particular dice indication anywhere else. Huh. Why not just 3d8? Thoughts?

As a side note, the orange dragon from issue #38 does only 2d6 bite damage and is 1HD weaker, but is slightly smarter and has a much higher chance of magic use.

How did I end up with Roger E. Moore's magazines?

I'm not sure if Roger E. Moore sticks out to me from among all the Dragon writers in my early years with D&D because 1) he wrote the articles that meant the most to me, 2) he was one of the most prevalent contributors to the mag, or 3) I liked (Sir) Roger Moore so much in Live and Let Die that anybody with the same name must be pretty cool.

Some of my favorite REM articles from Dragon (in chronological order) were:
• Be a Two-fisted Fighter, #68, 12/82
• Caped Crusaders and Masked Marvels, #69, 1/83
• The Ecology of the Mind Flayer, #78, 10/83

There's also a nice overview of Moore's Astral Plane article from a few weeks back at Grognardia.

So imagine my surprise when (not having thoroughly checked my "new" old issues of The Space Gamer at the store) I got my "new" old issues of The Space Gamer home to find that the stickers on the "protective mailing covers" had the issues addressed to one "Roger E. Moore" of Kentucky.

So how did they get from Louisville, Kentucky to Rockwall, Texas? Hmm.