Constructing D&D's Default World

[angelfromanotherpin]

No, Chain Binding is using Lesser Planar Binding to get Limited Wishes out of... whichever Outsider has <7 HD and grants Limited Wishes, then spending the Limited Wishes as full Planar Bindings to get actual Wishes out of Efreets.

[vagrant]

Is there an Outsider of that type?

[angelfromanotherpin]

Upon further research, the classic method involved the 8 HD Dao (Manual of the Planes) and a feat that raised the HD cap on Lesser Planar Binding. I'm sure there were other ways.

[schpeelah]

The most basic way is that when you get 3 wishes out of an Efreet, you use one or more of them to emulate a Planar Binding, summoning another one. Thus, an unlimited chain of wish-emulated Planar Bindings. The scenario assumes you have a repeatable way of getting Efreet to grant you Wishes, such as using one of the Wishes on what they want. If you don't you can always wish for a wish-granting item such as a Ring of Three Wishes or a Staff of Wishes instead of Planar Binding, or an item that casts Gate, ensuring the summoned Efreet's full cooperation.

[Kaelik]

No, Chain Binding is using Lesser Planar Binding to get Limited Wishes out of... whichever Outsider has <7 HD and grants Limited Wishes, then spending the Limited Wishes as full Planar Bindings to get actual Wishes out of Efreets.

No you are completely wrong and also insane.

The essential components of chain binding are that you bind things, and that you form a chain of bindings, IE, you wish for the ability to bind more things.

Absolutely zero fucking percent of Chain Binding requires you to use Lesser Planar Binding to get to Planar Binding. Level fucking 1 characters being chain binding with Pazuzuzuzuzuzuzuzuzuzuzuzuzuzu. Level 20 characters begin with Gate. Anyone in between can choose any damn thing they want, and no one cares whether you ever cast Lesser Planar Binding. If you are using Bound efferti to give you more bound efferti that is chain binding.

[angelfromanotherpin]

No you are completely wrong and also insane.

I've defined it this way twice before in threads Frank was active on, and never been corrected. Since he originated the term and my understanding of it is based on posts he made, you can eat seven dicks.

[Kaelik]

No you are completely wrong and also insane.

I've defined it this way twice before in threads Frank was active on, and never been corrected. Since he originated the term and my understanding of it is based on posts he made, you can eat seven dicks.

First of all... HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Your claim to authority is that you made up a definition something and a specific person who may or may not have read what you said didn't correct you. That is garbage. Do you have any evidence whatsofuckingever that Frank was specifically thinking of Lesser Planar Binding a Dao with a feat that raises the HD cap? Do you not see how fucking insane that is?

Like, people talk about Chain Binding all the fucking time, and in literally every single context it is talked about as something literally any Wizard could wake up and do tomorrow, not something that is explicitly confined to level 9 or 10 Wizards who took a specific feat.

3) You probably didn't "define" chain binding as that before this thread, you probably gave it as an example, and as long as you use the Planar Binding to get a Candle, it is a valid example of chain binding.

4) I've also defined chain binding in threads that Frank has probably posted in as not that at all. So either you can tell us all that Frank is a filthy liar who believes contradictory things, or you can admit that maybe "was not directly contradicted" is not the best method of figuring it out.

5) Blah Blah, fluid language, people do not get to invent a word and keep static meaning, but really I don't need to put much effort into it, because Frank has very obviously used Chain Binding to refer to things besides using Lesser Planar Binding and a weird feat that you don't even know the name of to get to Planar Binding.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Do you have any evidence whatsofuckingever that Frank was specifically thinking of Lesser Planar Binding a Dao with a feat that raises the HD cap?

...Yes?

Yeah, but if you want to you can spend a feat to jack the limit up to 8hd, then pull in a Dao and get Chain Binding going without ever visiting a magic item shop.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

Can you read at all? I'm just curious. Do you not see how that statement obviously proves you wrong, because it means that if you don't take that feat you do Chain Binding with a goddam item, which by the way, obviously isn't useing that feat?

Like, how can you be so incredibly stupid that you refuse to understand the concept of chain binding?

[angelfromanotherpin]

How can you be so incredibly stupid that you refuse to understand the concept that you have zero credibility with me?

[Kaelik]

How can you be so incredibly stupid that you refuse to understand the concept that you have zero credibility with me?

Uh... I don't care or see how that is relevant? Words do have some meanings, and it is painfully obvious to literally everyone but you that even the post you made shows that Frank things that you can Chain Bind using items, and since no items have the feat that lets you Lesser Planar Bind Dao, it follows that Chain Binding does not require Lesser Planar Binding Dao.

So even accepting for the sake of argument that what Frank posted on thread you read (as opposed to every other instance of Threads about Chain binding, like the thread called "Chain Binding") you would still be proving yourself wrong. If you could read, you would know that.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Part of the reason you have no credibility with me is that when you make claims that I 'can't read' or 'don't understand foreshadowing,' I glance at the wall to make sure that I did not, in fact, dream up my actual degree in English. And then I put you on ignore for a month.

[Kaelik]

Part of the reason you have no credibility with me is that when you make claims that I 'can't read' or 'don't understand foreshadowing,' I glance at the wall to make sure that I did not, in fact, dream up my actual degree in English. And then I put you on ignore for a month.

Uh... I really do not recall what imagined foreshadowing related slight you think I gave to you, but given your current pattern of refusing to understand a basic conditional sentence structure and complete inability to grasp that asking someone if they can read in a written form in response to their written post on a forum might be something other than strictly literal, I genuinely have no doubt that either you failed to understand foreshadowing in some media or misunderstood something I said to to interpret it that way. So I mean good for, you have the second easiest to acquire college degree. I have two useless Bachelors, so what up with that boi. Can you stop harping on how I have no credibility and skip to the step where you:

1) Explain how you think magic items allow you to Lesser Planar Binding a Dao to Planar Bind.
2) Have some crazy alternate definition of the word "but" such that the sentence you quoted does not establish a clear and super obvious to even 10 year olds implication that if you don't take that feat you can still Chain Bind.
3) Admit you read that wrong, and that in fact Chain Binding clearly includes methods of Planar Binding Shit to get Wishes that don't involve Lesser Planar Binding, but still hate me, because vendettas for shit that is irrelevant to this conversation are super important.

Or I mean, I guess you could pick option 4, like you have been.
4) Continue to talk about how I "have no credibility" because you think my insults are not literally true, and therefore continue to refuse to actually fucking address any arguments as if you were some kind of rpgnet backwater puss mod who believes that the truest form of art is to refuse for as long as possible in the most creative ways possible to address any actual arguments, then in a day get told the exact same thing by anyone else, that Chain Binding clearly and obviously refers to actions that don't involve Lesser Planar Binding, and then admit fault, but still know in your heart of hearts that truly Kaelik is always wrong because he is mean, and meanness = wrongness. And he insulted your English degree, so clearly he must be a monster.

[Ice9]

Part of the reason you have no credibility with me is that when you make claims that I 'can't read' or 'don't understand foreshadowing,' I glance at the wall to make sure that I did not, in fact, dream up my actual degree in English. And then I put you on ignore for a month.

Ok, but you are still wrong. Chain Binding is a term used outside TGD as well, and it just means using some form of binding spell to get another binding spell + something, resulting in infinite something (generally Wishes, but could be Solars too).

And the quote fits completely with that. If you get a Candle of Invocation (by visiting an item shop, frex) then you can start Chain Binding. Or you could wait until you can cast Planar Binding. Or you could use the Dao trick to kick-start it a couple levels early.

Compare: "If you visit the Otyugh Hole, you can get into Incantrix with one less feat spent". It doesn't imply that visiting the Otyugh Hole is necessary for getting into the PrC, just that it provides a shortcut.

[Kaelik]

Damn we hit step four early I see. I was truly hoping we might accidentally stumble into 3 one of these days. I didn't think it would be today, but it was worth the attempt.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Ok, but you are still wrong. Chain Binding is a term used outside TGD as well, and it just means using some form of binding spell to get another binding spell + something, resulting in infinite something (generally Wishes, but could be Solars too).

I can't believe this incredibly boring discussion had more than two people invested in it. Common usage frequently drifts the meanings of terms, to the point that the common usage is literally correct. But like I said: people have asked the question 'what does Chain Binding mean' multiple times before on this forum, and I've given my answer and gotten affirmation from various peoples. This is the first time anyone has made a controversy out of it. I don't have a burning need to be right, I was just trying to be helpful.

The actual term coiner is on the board; if he tells me I've misunderstood, I'll eat my crow. Nitpicking a casual statement is just a fundamentally unconvincing action.

[Kaelik]

Ok, but you are still wrong. Chain Binding is a term used outside TGD as well, and it just means using some form of binding spell to get another binding spell + something, resulting in infinite something (generally Wishes, but could be Solars too).

I can't believe this incredibly boring discussion had more than two people invested in it. Common usage frequently drifts the meanings of terms, to the point that the common usage is literally correct. But like I said: people have asked the question 'what does Chain Binding mean' multiple times before on this forum, and I've given my answer and gotten affirmation from various peoples. This is the first time anyone has made a controversy out of it. I don't have a burning need to be right, I was just trying to be helpful.

The actual term coiner is on the board; if he tells me I've misunderstood, I'll eat my crow. Nitpicking a casual statement is just a fundamentally unconvincing action.

Your belief that Frank Trollman invented the term is unjustified, and further, your claim that you have ever given that as the definition at all is dubious at best, and the claim that you received affirmation is completely full of shit.

[codeGlaze]

[...] Nitpicking a casual statement is just a fundamentally unconvincing action.

You're primarily debating a lawyer.

[Dr_Noface]

man kaelik so helpful what a great gyu

[Kaelik]

man kaelik so helpful what a great gyu

Well what am I supposed to say, he has a shifting set of claims with no evidence.

Hey guys, Frank definitely invented the term, because I recall having a conversation with him once in 1642 where he used it, and he agreed with me that the definition is definitely about using a bound thing to bind other things.

How are you supposed to respond to that? If he had even a single example of him actually saying that in a thread and anyone giving affirmation he would have presented it already.

[Dr_Noface]

I dunno man I guess I try not to roll out the hyperbole so soon when correcting someone

[Dean]

D&D Cosmology: Plane Crazy
The problems with D&D's cosmology are well known so lets cover the bottom lines of what needs to be solved and then get to solving them.

Gods don't function at all. There are far too many planes, they're all infinite, and there's nothing to do in most of them. Alignment is gibberish, team Good is worse than team Evil, and good never gets anything done and leaves everyone impoverished.

That's a lot of ground to cover so lets get started.

PLANES ARE LIKE COOKS, THERE'S TOO MANY
D&D's planes are a warcrime. If you told me your campaign was taking place in the plane with infinite terror water I would have to ask you which one. If the D&D writers didn't have actual Earth as a reference point their default game world would have featured an infinite sand plane for desert campaigns, an infinite england plane, an infinite top of the sea plane for pirate games, and an infinite bottom of the sea plane for mermaids. It's unbelievable.

The first thing is that infinity needs to go. An infinite plane of demons makes no sense and would collapse on itself instantaneously. Any story you can possibly tell is also undermined by making both ones enemies and allies have infinite resources and troops because nothing you do will matter or even potentially matter. So that stops. Nothing is infinite and the storyworld will be better for acknowledging that so from now on just read "infinite" in D&D writing to mean "really big" because that's what they mean. Likewise immortal should be replaced with "really long lived". Entropy consumes everything in the fullness of time. Both Dorian Grey and his painting are equally mortal. People use immortal to mean "things that can likely live a few thousand years" and that's fine but important to say. No one in the universe can give you genuine immortality because entropy exists and a day will come when all the stars go black and all the worlds are dust. Still the opportunity to go from living 70 years to ten or a hundred times that is an enticing one. So demon armies are large but not irreducible by any finite number of deaths, and angels are long lived but have not existed before the planet they rule over ever formed.

Now that infinite planes are out lets start cutting the chaff. Every story anyone would ever desire to tell with D&D can be told with 4 planes. The planes should be

Nice Plane: Celestia: The home of gods and godly realms. Good gods, angels, archons, guardinals, etc.
Worldly Plane: The Prime: Home to badgers, assassins, dragons, and most of your stuff. It has advantages no other plane has and is considered prime real estate.
Hellish Scary Plane: Hell: An unpleasant place full of fiends, devils, and demon princes. The blood war no longer needs to be between "Devils" and "Demons" but is the name for the perpetual war waged between all Demon Lords in their neverending battle for dominance over each other.
Dark Scary Plane: The Void: The dark plane, mixing the purviews of the plane of shadow, carceri, tartarus, styx, the astral plane, and some layers of the abyss. It's threats are mixes of the undead, negative energy beings and outer plane entities like aberrations. Lovecraftian monsters and the undead share a lot of source material and putting them both on a plane that is representative of entropy itself puts them both in the camp of beings that want to destroy as a matter of course. In some ways this makes this plane more terrifying than Hell because at least a Demon is negotiable whereas to the hungry undead andpulsing nightmares of the Void your existence is anathema and non-negotiable . This assumes a Crawling Darkness view of negative energy.

This gives primacy to the planes people actually adventure on. People talk to gods in Celestia then attack Demon Princes in hell. D&D doesn't need the Plane of Fire, no one goes there. You can just put the Bronze City in Hell and everything's cooler for it. No one goes to Bytopia, just have there be one place where high level adventurers get their orders then a couple places where they go high level dungeon delving. You can fight Liches and Neolithids in the Void, Demons and Devils in Hell, and Dragons and Tarrasque's on the Prime. No one has ever needed an Infinite Plane of Air to have the adventures they wanted.

THE BASICS
There's so much wrong we need to rewrite the basic assumptions on everything so here's the new rules: First of all alignments can die in a fire, everyone from the Prime is now neutral. Good and Evil remains but only applies for good and evil extraplanar entities or anything that has a Good or Evil aura. So mortals no matter how nice or mean are neutral but Demons or high level Blackguard are still capital E Evil.

Now to lay down some afterlife fundamentals: In D&D's world you have a soul. When you die the natural course of action is that the soul would be pulled through the void and be destroyed. There's no need for a positive energy creation plane to oppose the destructive void plane because the Prime already fulfills that role. The Prime creates, the Void consumes.

The natural course for the soul would be destruction on death but some beings have become powerful enough to interrupt that process. The gods and demon princes can halt the souls journey on the way to destruction and give it new form. The process of rescuing and reforming requires power and reformation into more powerful forms require even more input. Many sentient beings serve the Gods during their lifetimes as a means to increase the odds of a better afterlife. The covenant of worship between Gods (and some Demons) and men is one of worldly deeds for otherworldly repayment.

Celestia and Hell have different philosophies as to the reformation process, the effects of which we will cover in more detail later. In brief the primary difference between a fiendish and an angelic formation is one of identity. Good outsiders like Angels have the threads of many souls woven into a single being while Evil outsiders like Demons are formed from a single soul. Evil outsiders on average retain much more of their identity, traits and memories than Good ones. This makes the afterlife of Hell particularly appealing to those with unfinished business or strong senses of legacy. The Good religions preach notions similar to reincarnation, that you should serve your god well and pass on into a different form while the Evil religions promise continued rewards and opportunities even after death.

In this worldview "Death" can be separated from "True Death". Death means only to cease living as you are now. It means that your soul still exists and can perhaps be raised, trapped, or reformed. A True Death occurs when the soul itself is consumed by the void, destroyed forever and unrecoverable. A few spells and artifacts are noted as being able to cause a True Death, but for most of the mortal world that is a rare worry. For Outsiders it can be a more regular concern as an Outsider killed while away from their home plane suffers a True Death and cannot be reconstituted. As a result Outsiders, particularly powerful ones, are reticent to travel away from their home plane. Yet the rewards of existing on the Prime are high enough that means have been devised to do just that.

Perfect Summoning
A Perfect Summoning is a way to have the best of all worlds. An Outsider, say a Demon, that is Perfect Summoned can exist on the Prime (benefiting from all the Tome of Fiends rules as well as being a way bigger badass relatively to the locals) and if killed is simply shunted back to his home plane. Needless to say Perfect Summonings are extremely desirable particularly to Fiends and many Demon Princes scheme for centuries to find a way to enact one. Mechanically a Perfect Summoning requires a spell capable of bringing the target creature to the Prime, the expenditure of 1000gp times the intended creatures CR squared, and a number days of ritual and preparation equal to the creatures CR squared. After the first 2 weeks of a Perfect Summoning ritual the environment begins to show effects. Altered weather, omens, and changes to plants and animals will be seen within (CR) miles of the summoning location. After the first 30 days the signs become stronger and the effects can be seen within (CR squared) miles of the location. This means summoning a Quasit familiar takes you 4 grand and half a week and no ones the wiser but bringing a Balor to rule the Prime creates an effect that has a visible radius the size of Spain.

GOOD IS DUMB
If God is all powerful, all knowing, and good then how can evil exist. D&D struggles with the question as much as real world theists and to give it a satisfactory answer we need to change a few things. The first thing we need to address is that the celestial powers in D&D are way to fucking powerful. Good Outsiders are at a power level so high no story can be told with them with the mechanics provided. Of the 3 angels we get stats for in the MM only the lowest of them can't summon an infinite angelic horde. The second worst Angel in the MM is an unlimited EL encounter. The higher angels and the gods above them destroy settings on contact, they are unusable and unplayable. So the first and biggest change we need to make to D&D gods is to wipe them out and replace them with Planetars. From now on Planetars are your new gods and they fit the role better than any god D&D ever published. Planetars can raise the dead, perform miracles, heal the sick, and can even descend from the heavens and walk the earth in mortal disguise. They fit the role better than any god WoTC has ever published and they are at the very ceiling of the power range where D&D functions at all. No one would want to go toe to toe with a being as powerful as a D&D Planetar but you CAN and that makes them perfect for a game that has always been supposed to end with your characters fighting the gods. In heaven the Hierarchy of the celestial realm now goes

Gods: Planetars
Lords: Trumpet Archons
Nobility: Astral Deva's
Knights: Leonals and Paladin Hound Archons
Soldiers: Hound Archons and Avorals
Populace: Lantern Archons

A note about this is that the command structure of the Hell can actually stay exactly the same. The higher CR threats in the demon and devil entries are fine and create a good dynamic. While a Balor or Marilith could destroy a Trumpet Archon in a fight in every area other than combat the Trumpet Archon is more valuable by miles. That means while the forces of hell are individually very threatening to their heavenly counterparts the Kingdom of Celestia collectively has massively more resources and capabilities than their fiendish opponents. It creates a brain vs brawn dichotomy that feels appropriate for each side. It also means that, because lots of Celestia's forces can Plane Shift and almost none of Hell's forces can that the forces of good have much easier access to the mortal realm. So a Trumpet Archon can just walk the earth as a wizened old woman dispensing moral guidance if it wants but a Marilith doesn't have the same luxury.

DEFINING GOOD
When people say "Good" or "Evil" behaviors in the real world what they're usually describing is Selfish and Cooperative game theory behaviors. What helps the group is good, what helps only the self is bad. Human beings display a mix of these behaviors and will often surprise you as to what they do in given situations. Good and Evil outsiders however are much more predictable. Evil outsiders like Devils make selfish choices almost universally and, inversely, Good outsiders naturally make cooperative choices. This is an innate part of their beings. For instance an Angel has had his soul interwoven with a hundred others so helping only itself over others makes no sense to it, it genuinely sees others as an extension of its own identity. The impact of the reformation process on Celestial and Fiendish culture is immeasurable. So to humans Celestials will seem innately trusting, generous, forgiving, and kind. It simply expects that any effort it puts into assisting another is no more than anyone else would do for itself. A celestial naturally empathizes and assumes that lapses in the repayment of like kindness is caused by circumstance and is easily forgiving because of this.

Fiends on the other hand are innately selfish. They take any chance for personal gain over others as long as that opportunism will not immediately harm them. Fiends selfishness is less intrinsic than Celestials cooperative tendencies but no less widespread. It's just more a matter of nurture than nature. A Fiend crawling out of one of hells birthing pits is coming into a world that makes Gotham look like the the Hamptons. Hell is a prison that's been run by its inmates and the environment combined with the natural tendencies of those who reincarnate has created a completely sociopathic culture. A society that only works together under the whip of a greater threat. Fiendish society is, as a result, incredibly draconian and focused on punishments to enforce cohesion. It's a place of iron handed rulers whose authority ends where the arm of their laws can no longer strike.

One noteworthy result of Celestials trusting nature and Fiends selfish one is that Angels are no good at dealing with devils and they know it. Celestials are too nice for their own good and in anything other than direct confrontations their natures will inevitably assert themselves, preventing them from making many of the cruel choices required to win a total war. In complex situations like rooting out fiendish corruption Celestials need to task mortals to the duty. Trying to do it themselves would be like having Mr. Rogers lead an internal investigation of the CIA. So while Celestials are perfectly capable of defending against planar incursions they need to task trusted and capable mortals to do the kick-in-the-temple-doors style adventures that become a mainstay of mid level games.

GOOD IS OUTGUNNED
The final and most important piece of the puzzle to allow Good extraplanar beings in a world rife with poverty and disease is the acceptance that Good is Outgunned. Due to the method of Celestial creation mixed with the unfortunate truths of the human psyche the planes are not equally populated and Hell has the lions share. The line has been drawn in the extraplanar battle of Good versus Evil and Evil just has more. For every Celestial there are 6 Fiends of comparable power only stopped from ruling the earth by the fact that Good is united and Evil is fractured. If Hell acted as a unified front it would crush heaven under cloven boots. This means that Good is forced to act as covertly as possible to avoid activating their opponents. When Good sticks to quietly improving things Evil mostly fights amongst itself but if Good instituted a plan to mass migrate to earth curing disease and fighting evil worldwide that would be a plan that every Demon Lord would spend time and resources fucking up and the result would be net gains for Evil. Good’s worst nightmare is unifying Evil and nothing unites enemies better than an immediately present threat to all of them.

Good's planeshifting ability combined with their smaller numbers mean they have to fight a guerrilla war. They have to stay mobile and under the radar to arm the populace against a more powerful foe. Trumpet archons can't fly around the Prime solving the worlds problems but they can walk in disguise doing good deeds where they can and small miracles when word of them might not travel far. They are compelled to try to do good but doing so is dangerous for them. If word spreads too far of the kindly stranger curing lepers it may not be long before every assassin and sellsword in the region is headed that way for the biggest bounties Hell can offer. A kindly Archon who's heart speaks louder than his sense risks the True Death, moving Hell's advantage one space forward.

[Previn]

Likewise immortal should be replaced with "really long lived". Entropy consumes everything in the fullness of time. Both Dorian Grey and his painting are equally mortal. People use immortal to mean "things that can likely live a few thousand years" and that's fine but important to say. No one in the universe can give you genuine immortality because entropy exists and a day will come when all the stars go black and all the worlds are dust.

While I like the rest of it, this sticks out a bit since, well... magic.

[MGuy]

D&D Cosmology: Plane Crazy
The problems with D&D's cosmology are well known so lets cover the bottom lines of what needs to be solved and then get to solving them.

Gods don't function at all. There are far too many planes, they're all infinite, and there's nothing to do in most of them. Alignment is gibberish, team Good is worse than team Evil, and good never gets anything done and leaves everyone impoverished.

That's a lot of ground to cover so lets get started.

PLANES ARE LIKE COOKS
D&D's planes are a warcrime. If you told me your campaign was taking place in the plane with infinite terror water I would have to ask you which one. If the D&D writers didn't have actual Earth as a reference point their default game world would have featured an infinite sand plane for desert campaigns, an infinite england plane, an infinite top of the sea plane for pirate games, and an infinite bottom of the sea plane for mermaids. It's unbelievable.

The first thing is that infinity needs to go. An infinite plane of demons makes no sense and would collapse on itself instantaneously. Any story you can possibly tell is also undermined by making both ones enemies and allies have infinite resources and troops because nothing you do will matter or even potentially matter. So that stops. Nothing is infinite and the storyworld will be better for acknowledging that so from now on just read "infinite" in D&D writing to mean "really big" because that's what they mean. Likewise immortal should be replaced with "really long lived". Entropy consumes everything in the fullness of time. Both Dorian Grey and his painting are equally mortal. People use immortal to mean "things that can likely live a few thousand years" and that's fine but important to say. No one in the universe can give you genuine immortality because entropy exists and a day will come when all the stars go black and all the worlds are dust. Still the opportunity to go from living 70 years to ten or a hundred times that is an enticing one. So demon armies are large but not irreducible by any finite number of deaths, and angels are long lived but have not existed before the planet they rule over ever formed.

Now that infinite planes are out lets start cutting the chaff. Every story anyone would ever desire to tell with D&D can be told with 4 planes. The planes should be

Nice Plane: Celestia: The home of gods and godly realms. Good gods, angels, archons, guardinals, etc.
Worldly Plane: The Prime: Home to badgers, assassins, dragons, and most of your stuff. It has advantages no other plane has and is considered prime real estate.
Hellish Scary Plane: Hell: An unpleasant place full of fiends, devils, and demon princes. The blood war no longer needs to be between "Devils" and "Demons" but is the name for the perpetual war waged between all Demon Lords in their neverending battle for dominance over each other.
Dark Scary Plane: The Void: The dark plane, mixing the purviews of the plane of shadow, carceri, tartarus, styx, the astral plane, and some layers of the abyss. It's threats are mixes of the undead, negative energy beings and outer plane entities like aberrations. Lovecraftian monsters and the undead share a lot of source material and putting them both on a plane that is representative of entropy itself puts them both in the camp of beings that want to destroy as a matter of course. In some ways this makes this plane more terrifying than Hell because at least a Demon is negotiable whereas to the hungry undead andpulsing nightmares of the Void your existence is anathema and non-negotiable . This assumes a Crawling Darkness view of negative energy.

This gives primacy to the planes people actually adventure on. People talk to gods in Celestia then attack Demon Princes in hell. D&D doesn't need the Plane of Fire, no one goes there. You can just put the Bronze City in Hell and everything's cooler for it. No one goes to Bytopia, just have there be one place where high level adventurers get their orders then a couple places where they go high level dungeon delving. You can fight Liches and Neolithids in the Void, Demons and Devils in Hell, and Dragons and Tarrasque's on the Prime. No one has ever needed an Infinite Plane of Air to have the adventures they wanted.

THE BASICS
There's so much wrong we need to rewrite the basic assumptions on everything so here's the new rules: First of all alignments can die in a fire, everyone from the Prime is now neutral. Good and Evil remains but only applies for good and evil extraplanar entities or anything that has a Good or Evil aura. So mortals no matter how nice or mean are neutral but Demons or high level Blackguard are still capital E Evil.

Now to lay down some afterlife fundamentals: In D&D's world you have a soul. When you die the natural course of action is that the soul would be pulled through the void and be destroyed. There's no need for a positive energy creation plane to oppose the destructive void plane because the Prime already fulfills that role. The Prime creates, the Void consumes.

The natural course for the soul would be destruction on death but some beings have become powerful enough to interrupt that process. The gods and demon princes can halt the souls journey on the way to destruction and give it new form. The process of rescuing and reforming requires power and reformation into more powerful forms require even more input. Many sentient beings serve the Gods during their lifetimes as a means to increase the odds of a better afterlife. The covenant of worship between Gods (and some Demons) and men is one of worldly deeds for otherworldly repayment.

Celestia and Hell have different philosophies as to the reformation process, the effects of which we will cover in more detail later. In brief the primary difference between a fiendish and an angelic formation is one of identity. Good outsiders like Angels have the threads of many souls woven into a single being while Evil outsiders like Demons are formed from a single soul. Evil outsiders on average retain much more of their identity, traits and memories than Good ones. This makes the afterlife of Hell particularly appealing to those with unfinished business or strong senses of legacy. The Good religions preach notions similar to reincarnation, that you should serve your god well and pass on into a different form while the Evil religions promise continued rewards and opportunities even after death.

In this worldview "Death" can be separated from "True Death". Death means only to cease living as you are now. It means that your soul still exists and can perhaps be raised, trapped, or reformed. A True Death occurs when the soul itself is consumed by the void, destroyed forever and unrecoverable. A few spells and artifacts are noted as being able to cause a True Death, but for most of the mortal world that is a rare worry. For Outsiders it can be a more regular concern as an Outsider killed while away from their home plane suffers a True Death and cannot be reconstituted. As a result Outsiders, particularly powerful ones, are reticent to travel away from their home plane. Yet the rewards of existing on the Prime are high enough that means have been devised to do just that.

Perfect Summoning
A Perfect Summoning is a way to have the best of all worlds. An Outsider, say a Demon, that is Perfect Summoned can exist on the Prime (benefiting from all the Tome of Fiends rules as well as being a way bigger badass relatively to the locals) and if killed is simply shunted back to his home plane. Needless to say Perfect Summonings are extremely desirable particularly to Fiends and many Demon Princes scheme for centuries to find a way to enact one. Mechanically a Perfect Summoning requires a spell capable of bringing the target creature to the Prime, the expenditure of 1000gp times the intended creatures CR squared, and a number days of ritual and preparation equal to the creatures CR squared. After the first 2 weeks of a Perfect Summoning ritual the environment begins to show effects. Altered weather, omens, and changes to plants and animals will be seen within (CR) miles of the summoning location. After the first 30 days the signs become stronger and the effects can be seen within (CR squared) miles of the location. This means summoning a Quasit familiar takes you 4 grand and half a week and no ones the wiser but bringing a Balor to rule the Prime creates an effect that has a visible radius the size of Spain.

GOOD IS DUMB
If God is all powerful, all knowing, and good then how can evil exist. D&D struggles with the question as much as real world theists and to give it a satisfactory answer we need to change a few things. The first thing we need to address is that the celestial powers in D&D are way to fucking powerful. Good Outsiders are at a power level so high no story can be told with them with the mechanics provided. Of the 3 angels we get stats for in the MM only the lowest of them can't summon an infinite angelic horde. The second worst Angel in the MM is an unlimited EL encounter. The higher angels and the gods above them destroy settings on contact, they are unusable and unplayable. So the first and biggest change we need to make to D&D gods is to wipe them out and replace them with Planetars. From now on Planetars are your new gods and they fit the role better than any god D&D ever published. Planetars can raise the dead, perform miracles, heal the sick, and can even descend from the heavens and walk the earth in mortal disguise. They fit the role better than any god WoTC has ever published and they at the very ceiling of the power range where D&D functions at all. No one would want to go toe to toe with a being as powerful as a D&D Planetar but you CAN and that makes them perfect for a game that has always been supposed to end with your characters fighting the gods. In heaven the Hierarchy of the celestial realm now goes

Gods: Planetars
Lords: Trumpet Archons
Nobility: Astral Deva's
Knights: Leonals and Paladin Hound Archons
Soldiers: Hound Archons and Avorals
Populace: Lantern Archons

A note about this is that the command structure of the Hell can actually stay exactly the same. The higher CR threats in the demon and devil entries are fine and create a good dynamic. While a Balor or Marilith could destroy a Trumpet Archon in every area other than combat the Trumpet Archon is more valuable by miles. That means while the forces of hell are individually very threatening to their heavenly counterparts the Kingdom of Celestia collectively has massively more resources and capabilities than their fiendish opponents. It creates a brain vs brawn dichotomy that feels appropriate for each side. It also means that, because lots of Celestia's forces can Plane Shift and almost none of Hell's forces can that the forces of good have much easier access to the mortal realm. So a Trumpet Archon can just walk the earth as a wizened old woman dispensing moral guidance if it wants but a Marilith doesn't have the same luxury.

DEFINING GOOD
When people say "Good" or "Evil" behaviors in the real world what they're usually describing is Selfish and Cooperative game theory behaviors. What helps the group is good, what helps only the self is bad. Human beings display a mix of these behaviors and will often surprise you as to what they do in given situations. Good and Evil outsiders however are much more predictable. Evil outsiders like Devils make selfish choices almost universally and, inversely, Good outsiders naturally make cooperative choices. This is an innate part of their beings. For instance an Angel has had his soul interwoven with a hundred others so helping only itself over others makes no sense to it, it genuinely sees others as an extension of its own identity. The impact of the reformation process on Celestial and Fiendish culture is immeasurable. So to humans Celestials will seem innately trusting, generous, forgiving, and kind. It simply expects that any effort it puts into assisting another is no more than anyone else would do for itself. A celestial naturally empathizes and assumes that lapses in the repayment of like kindness is caused by circumstance and is easily forgiving because of this.

Fiends on the other hand are innately selfish. They take any chance for personal gain over others as long as that opportunism will not immediately harm them. Fiends selfishness is less intrinsic than Celestials cooperative tendencies but no less widespread. It's just more a matter of nurture than nature. A Fiend crawling out of one of hells birthing pits is coming into a world that makes Gotham look like the the Hamptons. Hell is a prison that's been run by its inmates and the environment combined with the natural tendencies of those who reincarnate has created a completely sociopathic culture. A society that only works together under the whip of a greater threat. Fiendish society is, as a result, incredibly draconian and focused on punishments to enforce cohesion. It's a place of iron handed rulers who authority ends where the arm of their laws can no longer strike.

One noteworthy result of Celestials trusting nature and Fiends selfish one is that Angels are no good at dealing with devils and they know it. In anything other than direct confrontation. Celestials are too nice for their own good and can't properly wage total war on their foe. In complex situations like rooting out fiendish corruption Celestials need to task mortals to the duty. Trying to do it themselves would be like having Mr. Rogers lead an internal investigation of the CIA. So while Celestials are perfectly capable of defending against planar incursions they need to task trusted and capable mortals to do the kick-in-the-temple-doors style adventures that become a mainstay of mid level games.

GOOD IS OUTGUNNED
The final and most important piece of the puzzle to allow Good extraplanar beings in a world rife with poverty and disease is the acceptance that Good is Outgunned. Due to the method of Celestial creation mixed with the unfortunate truths of the human psyche the planes are not equally populated and Hell has the lions share. The line has been drawn in the extraplanar battle of Good versus Evil and Evil just has more. For every Celestial there are 6 Fiends of comparable power only stopped from ruling the earth by the fact that Good is united and Evil is fractured. If Hell acted as a unified front it would crush heaven under cloven boots. This means that Good is forced to act as covertly as possible to avoid activating their opponents. When Good sticks to quietly improving things Evil mostly fights amongst itself but if Good instituted a plan to mass migrate to earth curing disease and fighting evil worldwide that would be a plan that every Demon Lord would spend time and resources fucking up and the result would be net gains for Evil. Good’s worst nightmare is unifying Evil and nothing unites enemies better than an immediately present threat to all of them.

Good's planeshifting ability combined with their smaller numbers mean they have to fight a guerrilla war. They have to stay mobile and under the radar to arm the populace against a more powerful foe. Trumpet archons can't fly around the Prime solving the worlds problems but they can walk in disguise doing good deeds where they can and small miracles when word of them might not travel far. They are compelled to try to do good but doing so is dangerous for them. If word spreads too far of the kindly stranger curing lepers it may not be long before every assassin and sellsword in the region is headed that way for the biggest bounties Hell can offer. A kindly Archon who's heart speaks louder than his sense risks the True Death, moving Hell's advantage one space forward.

I'm going to totes use this from now on.

[Seerow]

Yeah I totally dig that cosmology. It makes sense, and sets the stage for lots of potential PC adventures, which is everything you expect a cosmology to accomplish.