Worldbuilding Questions

I don't know how to make it work in a way that doesn't involve extra-planar shit, especially with no gods and stuff. The big thing would be clerics and warlocks.

Faith magic runs oin the faith of the person who uses it. No faith, no magic. Will to power and all that. Warlocks is only a little harder - gods/demons/creatures might exist in the world as actual creatures and spirits that inhabit places or object, rather than some metaphysical otherworld. They still need servants and protectors and guardians, and give power in return for services granted.

>Warlocks

They make pacts with powerful creatures. Serve as their paragons. Dragons, great beasts, elementals. Could also form covens that unite their spirits to a location or individuals to draw energy.

>Clerics

Belief still exists. They are powered on belief. Gods don't have to be physical beings. Philosophies, ideals, principles. They serve their beliefs.

So would a clerics belief just give them the magic then? And I assume a druid and a paladin would work the same way.

Well, warlocks gain their power from a source other than themselves, no religious stuff necessary.

Clerics would be "I believe this will happen" and then magic would happen because they've completed the necessary steps for magic to happen.

Magic doesn't care about what's being believed in, it's just triggering off the caster doing the thing that makes the magic do the stuff.

Druid draws on nature, Paladin draws on his faith and oath.

This isn't hard man.

Just dont use them?

I'm just trying to figure out how to rationalize planar creatures and all of that shit without planes.

I'm just worried about explaining shit in a way that makes a modicum of sense.

It doesn't have to. Free your modernized mind and let superstitions accumulate.

Elemental planar creatures are just elements given form. Its fine to have a "fucked mirror dimension" that most other stuff comes from, then you can just have heaven and hell expys that are a real place. Magic can just come from nowhere, and things from fucky places can just come from unknowable dimensions. The problem with planes isnt that they exist, its that the cosmos is totally mapped and well established. A better approach is to just hand wave it (as above), then get more detailed if players have a reason to start investigating shit.

Thats actually key from a worldbuilding perspective: dont fill everything in, but make sure to have one sentence about everything in general. If players dont care, then you dont have to make it. If they do, just wing it.

I doesn't need to make sense to me. Some of my players will want to understand as much as they can though. My players are hella into lore and shit, which is good and bad because if I can't explain things well they tend to tune out.

This kind of answers my above suggestion though. Except at least one player will care.

Then if one player cares, give them as much information as their character would know, and give them a chance to explore more if they have a good reason. This is GMing 101.

Don't make the planes a major focus, 9/10 games can go through the entire game without even exploring the nature of planes. Lower and upper planes "heaven" and "hell", demons and devils are different factions same sort of thing with different celestials, done. Fey, Shadow, astral and Far realms are thought planes, the sort of collective dreams, nightmares and thoughts of the material. Elemental's can sort of just be hand waved as magical constructs I guess.

That's just like 2 minutes of thinking that covers, most of the planes you'll actually encounter. There's others but just don't overthink or over complicate it. Remember, as a DM there's a finite amount you can show your players so after a point of complexity it can't be shown.

Also, don't bump you own thread that often, Veeky Forums is a slow moving board. Don't expect answers within a few minutes.

I just don't know how much to prep in advance for it. And, I haven't GM'd in a long while, so I'm trying to relearn.

That last bit is my bad, I don't know what to expect with Veeky Forums.

Literally what I just wrote. As much or as little as you want to include. Good gods literally live in the clouds, evil ones are banished to earth. Evil mirror dimension where spookies come from. Elementals are elementals. Things from beyond are from beyond your comprehension. Ya dun.

Player asks more about good gods:
>They live among the stars, and by their movements justice may be divined. It is not the place of men to walk among the stars.

Player asks about evil gods
>Caves'n ruins'n shit. Places where evil shit lives. VOLCANO LAIR.

Player asks about mirror dimension
>its dangerous, and few who venture there return alive or...unchanged.

Player asks about spheres beyond
>Nobody knows about them. get a magic telescope.

From there, you decide where things go.

The best advice I can give you is this: its ok to give players only what they ask for, but never exactly what they want. If they ask for information on shit you havnt fleshed out, tailor the information to their purposes.

If they want to break into a castle using the mirror dimension, make it dangerous, allow it if you want.
If they want to find an evil god, make it dangerous, make it end badly.

Its easier than it sounds. Kayfabe is all about committing to impulsive lies.

If you're talking about d&d there are certain planes that are necessary ( Astral and I think a few others ) because of spell effects but otherwise they aren't necessary.
>How about a setting without existent gods?
Considering in 5e paladins don't need to have a god for power, I don't see why you can't extend this to all faith based classes.

>or at least use them well?
Just snagged [pic] from OSR General.
tl;dr → Don't over design.

You should also make planar travel flavorful.

Orpheus descended into Hades by convincing the ground the part for him.
Aboriginals hold that you can enter the spirit world by vacationing hard enough.
The Irish thought Tír na nÓg was some place you could just sail to.

occultesque.com/2017/04/portals-inter-dimensional-travel-made.html

Well, I might as well repost it here.
I made this

What do you think of this cosmological model?
Basically there are the planes of conjunction that are the easier to access from the material plane because, well, they're "joined" in a non-physical fashion since they share much of their contents although the material realm is the center where everything is more balanced of course. Each plane has subplanes that have a variety of "themes", especially those attached to other planes are considered equally existing in both, in a sense even those joined to the physical realm are "part" of it although in a non-physical way.
The rest of the planes are harder to get to since they are far away from the material but through a lot of travel it is possible even if risky due to the denizens of the Soulsteppes.
Alternatively there are a few portals in the right planes of conjunction, which are "closer" to them spiritually (Realm of Decay>Byduria or Odran'Pa etc., each has at least one plane more easily reachable due to their similar nature.
Then there is Aeidiggeon which is an everchanging plane which holds all the four elements conflicting with one another and is the only one not static moving though the Soulsteppes, getting into the planes of conjunction's domain and changing them with it's passage.
The external of the sphere is called the Unknowable Reaches and is an uncreated storm of possibilities, a boiling cauldron from which everything came to be. The only "real" thing in the Unknowable is the Archive of the Ages, a library containing all possible knowledge, including all the lives and thoughts of all the people who existed and will ever exist.
It's just a fast model I made so of course it's not perfect.

I was thinking of killing off the Soulsteppes cuse it's too similar of D&D's astral plane ands maybe make the only means of travel to the external planes only through the conjunction planes.
Also the Mutable Palace is a huge palace existing in all the five planes contemporaneously that changes its rooms depending on the strengthening or weakening of the planes currents and can lead to many different places, supposedly even non-existing ones although its corridors are full of dangers and only the strongest of adventurer groups can hope to fight through it.

Go read some Planescape.