Me getting into DND lore: oh wow fantasy! DND: incredibly concerning cosmic horror

"Before there was time, before there was anything, there was nothing. And before there was nothing, there were monsters."

"So, I can't smoke inside the ship?" "No." "Alright, alright... I'll take it outside." *"NO!!"*

"You have been disconnected from your god."

Sometimes when you roll initiative into the void, the void rolls initiative back.

Whenever you mention, “Created by a higher authority,” I think, “Yeah. The Dungeon Master.”

“All living beings (temporarily) crystallise when they run out of air while in the phlogiston”. d-does that mean the crystal orbs protecting reality are made from crystallised living tissue?

Well now I just have a badass scenario in my head of a level 20 party ordering a mass evacuation of a crystal sphere that cracked through some truly unholy power.

TL;DR: All things end in Lovecraft.

“Upon take off, all Scrying Crystals must be set to airplane-mode.”

"If we see the gods as gods, then why don't we have beings that see us as gods?" We do. We call them dogs.

“Guys! The Phlogiston has broken through the crystal sphere and is heading for the sun! What do we do?!” *Everyone turns to look at the wild magic sorcerer* Sorcerer: frantically begins casting spells trying to cause the sun to explode

Inside the phlogiston - can't solve problems with fireball Wizards: *HEAVY SWEATING*

Gods: *mostly harmless* Hitchhiker's DM Guide to the Universe

I gotta say this sounds like a pretty awesome set up for a lvl 20 campaign. After reaching level 20 you are summoned to the home of the gods, where they explained that something is causing the breakdown of the crystal shells. They task the adventurers with leaving the crystal shell since they can not and finding and fixing the cause of the breakdown phenomenon to save not only the universe but they themselves from total annihilation. Imagine as a player being given a task that not even the gods can complete because you are mortal you can do something that even they can not. It's the perfect scenario for a group of lvl 20 adventurers!

I have no experience whatsover with DnD, this just got into my recommendations and I got hooked by the title

*~ Cthulhu:* _"Sup."_

4:16 "Eventually, Kars stopped thinking"

Wizard: "I'll cast fireba-" Phlogiston: "Do you want to explode?"

"People who run out of air in the Phlogiston turn to stone and enter suspended animation" *Eventually, Kars stopped thinking*

"Why dont we have beings that think kf us as Gods?" Me: Looks at Dog. Dog: *Stares in pure wonder lust as I listen to a voice emitted from a box and eat food from the infinite food box, perhaps reflecting how him and his Father were so fortunate to be the servants of this gentle entity.*

Well, the probability of an ancient evil trying to bring an end to gods and everything is awesome. Wonder if it's even possible for players to stop this kind of apocalypse.

Pelor: I AM THE LIGHT Tempus: I AM WAR Lolth: I am darkness and evil Azathoth: *Yawns*

My guess is that the phlogiston is a resemblance of the DM's thoughts, connecting the diffrent worlds. Thats why every map of it could be diffrent depending on your game. (furthermore the phlogiston is known as the "essence of creation" so I think it makes sense)

campaign idea: a team of clerics and paladins traveling and evangelizing throughout the differing crystal spheres to grow their god's influence/ power.

Me: Explaining for 3 hours why gods afraid space DND My friends: Can we play now?

So theoretically, if you somehow managed, by rolling like, a billion charisma check on Tiamat and convinced them to join you on a voyage through the phlogiston and you managed to push them off your ship, would Tiamat eventually run out of air and petrify and resulting anyone relying on their power to become powerless??

Back in 2e Spelljammer I remember it saying something about how a god could establish itself in a new sphere. Basically, a cleric of his/hers/its has to travel to the new sphere, then establish a congregation of converts numbering at least 100 or 1,000 (can't recall which one). If the cleric can do that and maintain that number of believers for a year, the god can grant powers and spells the same in the new sphere as in the old. There were also religions that focused heavily on space and spelljamming, and so clerics of those religions (Ptah and Celestian) had access to their spells in any sphere.

explains how the phlogiston is flamable evocation wizards: *heavy breathing*

I've been working on a homebrew campaign with a BBEG that's a lesser god from the shadowfell who lives in a huge lake of slime that he can form into his body. His ultimate goal is to have a ship drag his slime across the phlogistim rivers, turning himself into a sorta living leyline between spheres who can keep growing and keep connecting spheres until he has power over every world

Bonus fact: phlogiston means something that catches fire or something like that in my language. I believe it comes from another word "Phloga" meaning fire :D

"God, why have you forsaken me?" "cause Cthulhu is lurking in the shadows. good luck. don't call me, I'll call you, bu-ye."

"Why don't we have creatures that venerate us as gods?" Clearly you've never had a beloved acolyte doggo.

40th level spell: Pierce Crystal Sphere

I had no idea there was a hyperspace travel network in D&D.

I know what's beyond phlagiston: EMRAKUL, THE AEONS THORN

Imagine a villain who left his home sphere to uncover the secrets of phlogistion and intentionally became an ephemeral to allow himself to continue his research, all in a bid to find a way to kill all of the gods...

I once dreamed of the Greek Pantheon had a space program, to reach even higher than Olympus, but their powers had never extended into the Uranian void, and thus struggled despite being gods. I had no idea that D&D had basically canonized this idea :D

"The universe of Dungeons and Dragons is an ocean of worlds inside crystal spheres, but outside of these crystal spheres is composed of nothing but a rainbow colored ether called The Phlogiston." And that was only the first ten seconds.

If I remember correctly, in the Forgotten Realms after the time of troubles everybody found out that the gods worshipped Ao, and at the end of the book based on the module it turned out that Ao worshipped a higher deity as he pulled off a Mork calling Orsen, and his boss was The Luminous Being aka God, big G. I haven't read it in over 30 years but I think that's the jist of it. Also Ao has no fear of the Phlogiston? As he is the overgod of two spheres. Mind you last time I played ad&d or read the books Wizards of the Coast had just purchased everything from TSR back in the late 80s so things may have changed.

"Quite harmless to living things." Tell that to a Survivor. Lol

Please you are the only one that i trust to explain such a complicated topic: What is a SOUL? Why so many spells, gods, entity ecc utilize them?

Most actual, real, interstellar space ~91% is hydrogen, the rest is helium, oxygen, bits of dust... Hydrogen is named after water. In D&D there's phlogiston, named for fire... If phlogiston is the analog for hydrogen, then the crystal sphere already has a star/sun fusing "phlogiston" into helium. Fantasy space is weird.

the phlog is so scary since it pairs well with a coordinated uber push and can wipe the whole enemy team if you have max mmph

Me: I can't believe we finally escaped into outer space! I'm gonna have a cigar to celebrate! Shortest spaceflight ever

Technically a warlock that derives its power from the Old Ones should be fine.

I wonder if anyone has run a campaign story where a player had the opportunity to allow an Ephemeral safe passage to their home sphere via voluntary possession in exchange for some equivalent favor.

phlogistinator users in the phlogistion: *demonic laughing noises*

_"...Do you think that God stays in heaven because He, too, lives in fear of what He has created?"_

Are warlocks with great old ones patrons also lose their spell outside their home ball?

I can imagine a campaign centered around a fallen god. One whose crystal sphere was cracked open by an eldritch aberration. They take the form of an avatar wandering aimlessly through the void until rescued by the players and then brought to their new crystal sphere where they can regain their powers and bless the players. Perhaps even making them part of a new pantheon altogether?

God's: I fear no man Space: exists God's: it's that thing it scares me

"Why don't we have beings that think of us as gods?" - we do, their called dogs

Alternate theory: the gods fear the mighty Crab Empire which dwells in the phlogiston, so they hide away in their Crystal Spheres and pretend to be in control.

"Why do Gods fear space in D&D?" Because that is Disney and Star Wars territory

That was cool. You actually helped me out quite a bit. I had a character I've been meaning to bring over and I needed an explaination of how he got to our world from Ravnica.

Successful phlogistan warfare: delayed blast fireball.

D&D gods do have gods, at least they had when I was still playing 15-20 years ago. I think the Toril one was called Ao or something like that and he had a father/god in return. At the end of one D&D book (about the Time of Troubles) he talked to the gods of Toril, then he left and went back home were his Father told im he did a good job... (or something like that!? Like I said its been a pretty long time since I read my last D&D book or played the pen and paper the last time)

They know azathoth is sleeping somewhere in space, and they're afraid he might wake up. So they dont go looking

I like the idea that the spheres were made by a higher power and that power is us as dms. It’s a lore based way to explain why homebrew settings can’t be interacted with by beings from another setting.

I did do the gods have gods, well specifically a god, he was the main villain. Long story short we could not kill them because this will kill the multiverse, so we put it to sleep under the collective power of gods, This made another campaign where the villain tried to wake up the god.

D&D designers grasping inside a hat: "And we shall call the interplanar space ocean.... uuuh.... Phlogiston." "Shouldn't that have to do with alchemy?" "Do you have a better idea?" ".... No."

My greatest campaign I ran was a Spelljammer one. It was over a six month period. And now almost, ow boy, 18 years later my friends that were on it still bring it up! Makes me proud.

I lean towards the theory of a power above the gods; an Absolute that set up separate realities where things can play out differently. Perhaps the beings of the Far Realm serve as a reset button, to be released into individual spheres to wipe everything out, and let things start over anew.

"What does God need with a starship?"

My pet theory: Phlogeston is essentially a material assertion of everything existing. And elemental void is a similar assertion that nothing exists, with the difference in color and shade being a result of how EMPHATIC the assertion is in that place/time. Ergo by grabbing specific times/places of the two, and ramming them together you neutralize all possible existences except one or two thus creating items, events, people, gods, etc. This idea makes the natural dissipation of phlogeston inside a crystal sphere the result of the sphere being defined by the lack of phlogeston being inside. Which I kind of like. Bonus note: I used to have dreams of drifting through a substanceless place with the same visual description as the phlogeston. This was always the intro to a dream about visiting a world forign to me.

But wouldn't Ao technically have influence over the crystal sphere if anything were to happen? I mean, each crystal sphere has an Overgod who created and rules over it. And, in the event that a particularly important Sphere were to be damaged, would it not make sense for the Luminous Being to intervene directly? (Though, if you take the idea that the Luminous Being is in fact the DM, then I guess having your DM say "Nope. I deny access of the Phlogiston in to the world." would technically be canonical...)

Would Great Old One's Warlocks be affected the same way that clerics and other warlocks are? I would assume not since in context it seems like the eldritch gods they would serve work under different rules as the planar gods?

Finally an Answer to the age old question "Why does God need a Spaceship?" - Capt. Kirk

The gassy ether that is the phlogiston is not space, it is something more akin to sub-space or hyperspace. The crystal spheres are really Dyson spheres that protect wild space from the far realm. The far realm isn't that far. It's just on the other side of the Dyson spheres. You see, D&D is set billions of years in to the future after the Milky-way collided with Andromeda. The denizens of the far realm are just life forms from Andromeda.

Theory: the crystal spheres and the gods were created by a higher power, and there are other higher powers of equal or greater strength, which are either indifferent to this, or hostile...

This video for some reason I couldn’t find on you channel took three years for this to come my way so happy it did

Can you talk about the Elder Brain ? You never finished the series on mind flayers

As I recall from the SpellJammer 2nd Edition source books, there is a mysterious shattered Crystal Sphere out there where it is speculated that somehow the Phlogiston got in.

Very enjoyable trip down memory lane for us old codgers. Things I haven't read about/thought about in years, some details I didn't have from disparate sources or just never had the chance to put all together. Thanks, made a very enjoyable morning watch.

I've just started getting into DnD lore and I had NO idea it went this much into space, that they even made it function completely differently from space as we know it

I'm so happy we have an explanation for what happens to clerics and warlocks outside their crystal sphere. But what happens to wizards and sorcerers? Don't their spells rely on the weave, which is generated by a god?

Third theory...lord AO is the "shepherd" overgod of Faerun, insert another overgod for each sphere. Tablets of fate series? Spelljammer sourcebooks. Elminster mutterings and Shar Selune battles, spellplague series spoilers. Shar dances in the far realm constantly and controls much..."In the darkness of the void we hear the whisper of the night , heed its voice"

This might be my favorite DnD video anyone has ever made and it's inspired me as a DM on a level that my players should fear

Cool lil history thing here: phlogiston was a medieval concept that attempted to explain how fire and weight worked. It was a measure of something’s ability to be burned/ the actual PART of flammable thing that would burn. Modern day, we know that when you burn wood, it loses weight because it loses a load of carbon atoms, molecules, and trace chemicals as they’re turned to gas. Phlogiston, however, was a gas-like substance that filled all flammable things, and was lost or destroyed when it was burnt. So, ice would have 0% phlogiston, where wood would have, like, 80% phlogiston in its makeup. Ash was what was supposedly left of the wood. If you think about it, this is still technically correct overall: when something is lit on fire, a large portion of its mass will eventually turn to gas and escape into the atmosphere, so they’re both describing the exact same process, it’s just that one creates a new element while the other uses already existing atoms and chemical processes. Really cool thing, and also a good way to show how intelligent people have always been

This is the 8th apocalypse you've covered on this channel. Civilization ending: Dracolitch, Aboleths, Krakens, Mindflayers, Dragons Vs Giants. Existence ending: Asmodeus' true serpent form, Entropy, Far Realm.

One question keeps nagging me: since arcane magic seems to work fine, and gods have no power, it would appear that wizards can show Mystra the middle finger in the phlogiston and cast whatever non-planar magic they know with no restrictions. How does this actually work out?

This is one of my favorites of your vids, awesome!

I love the amount of magic the gathering arts you use for your videos and I recognise so many I love your DND videos because it shows me so much lore and it's amazing because as someone who wants to be a DM lore is important to me

That creepy voice at the end sent shivers up my spine.

All this does is put the image of medieval Gurren Lagann in my head. Heroes rise up to the ranks of godhood and beyond in order to stop an evil force trying to destroy the crystals

I didn't know anything about this. never really dealt with planar stuff in any of my past gaming groups. Clicked on the video purely by accident. And was still thoroughly entertained. Good work, man.

Just a quick thought: maybe a cleric of the travel domain could be granted more spells? Could be a good homebrew idea. If most powerful deities can give spells of 1-2 level, maybe a travel domain greater power could grant up to 3 or 4?

11:56 Charizard is that you?

Pro Tip: Make warlock pacts with those things that dwell in the Far Realm and Phlogiston. One-up the gods. Lol

_"We push through Darkness to serve the Light, as Light wars the same, to guard us from the eternal shadow. Unseen by even our gods, a war wages for as long as time lasts. For the defeat of either side, for the end of balance between scales, signifies the end of time. All are slaves to one above. The one staring down, we resist. Such is the fate of the Source. Such is the fate of the Unravelling."_

God I love your videos. This is such a huge thing I didn't know about and I'm already cooking up spooky stuff for my poor players. And they were so happy to get that air ship...

What happens to the elven kind? If I recall they are connected, unless they are the dark kind, they are out of the elven channel? If there are 2 elven people in the space vessel they get a private elven channel or still can't communicate write each other?

If we're going with the notion that all lore across every edition of D&D is given equal weight, then the "correct" answer to the question is that there IS, in fact, a higher authority that created the spheres and the phlogiston. Early D&D took a lot of inspiration from contemporary fantasy sources, and one of the more interesting "high cosmology" inclusions is that the Wheel of Time is canon. Rand al Thor is, or was, real, on some world or place, at some point in time. The Dragon is real. The Enemy is real. Io, the God of Gods, is explicitly based off of the transcendent existence Rand attained at the end of the series. Many of Io's nicknames are callbacks to the Wheel of Time and the accomplishments of Rand and his friends (the Ninefold Dragon, the Shadeswallower, the Great Wheel). At the end of Wheel of Time, Rand achieved a state where he stood "outside of the world," and held the Enemy in the palm of his hand. In that moment, he realized that the long shadow cast by the great nemesis was thrown from a tiny, wretched, wormlike thing that was almost completely powerless when met on equal ground. Rand had the opportunity to destroy it, and in doing so end all Evil everywhere for all time. But standing outside of all worlds and time and looking in, he realized that the existence of Evil and the enemy served a purpose: the cosmos was a wheel, and the spinning of that wheel is what time itself was. The Enemy, ever defeated and ever craving to invade and take over the cosmos, would exert it's own power to turn the wheel and try again to conquer existence. If it was destroyed, then eventually time itself would end and all of existence would simply stop where it was, forever frozen and dead. So Rand al Thor did what every other manifestation of the Dragon has done when, having triumphed in the great struggle against the Nemesis, they stood in that place with a sword to the throat of the heart of all Evil. He sheathed his sword and walked away. Thus the cycle continues. The enemy taunted him as he left, saying "I can try forever, one day I will win." And Rand, not even bothering to look back as he left that place that was not a place, said "no. You won't. Because we will always be there to stop you." If we accept the 1st and 2nd edition lore on the subject, then the inclusion of the Wheel of Time means there IS a hierarchy of gods, and it looks like this: The Watchmaker God Rand Prayed To Who Created Everything And Showed Him The Truth > Overgods like Io/Rand al Thor/titans/other supreme beings > normal gods > demigods > mortals. Gods absolutely have their own gods, in the sense that there are beings that far surpass them to whom they own their existence, though whether beings like Io or the Creator need worship or prayer in ANY form to maintain their existence is questionable at best. This is also the reason, for the record, that in older editions of the game, Io was the only being in the entire D&D canon that was "unaligned." Because he was based off of Rand al Thor (because he IS Rand al Thor), and at the end of his massive saga Rand had achieved a state of 'greater goodness' in which he realized that evil had to be permitted to exist so time would advance and good things would flourish and create more good things. His morality was transcendent and incomprehensible god morality to anyone who hadn't been with him every step of the way and seen what he had seen. Ergo he was "unaligned." When Rand communed with the 'Creator,' it was revealed to Rand that the vast systems of the cosmos, including the Wheel and the structure of Time itself, had been arranged by Him. Originally, he rejected what he saw and raged against what he thought was an unfair system, but when he finally stood Outside himself and looked in, he realized that it WAS the best system that could be made, all things being considered. So the Spheres and phlogiston in D&D were almost certainly created by an aloof but benevolent YHWH-style creator, who reveals His will and designs to various Overgods like Io/Rand who then filter that design further down to normal gods and mortals. Beings like the Nemesis, and places like the Far Realm and the abominations within, are permitted to exist because their omnicidal ambitions and actions play a direct role in allowing the broader multiverse to continue to exist.

thank you MrRhexx for making these content, i have improved way more than i tought i could as a DM.

Man I remember you used to do hella skyrim content. Happy to see you’re still posting

Oh frick. The implications... did anyone else's blood go cold after hearing the answer?

Hey, Rhexx, something has been bothering me lately in regards to elves. What would happen to an elf that dies and is brought back via the spell Reincarnate into a new type of body? Will they still be able to pass into Arvandor when they die (and subsequently re-reincarnate) or will they be prevented from doing so? I can't find anything that talks about this.

Bruh. Got to admit, that voice over work at the end was top notch, got me thing I was listening to an audiobook, or an old wise traveling man telling a story around a campfire at night.

Honestly, with the Ephemerals, I don’t really consider them to be bad. They just want to go to an afterlife and they don’t kill you, they just severely inconvenience you for a bit.