I mean there's this thing called "convergent evolution". The cultures of Kaldheim and parts of Dominaria just coincidentally happened to resemble real life Scandinavian cultures.

Also Dominaria has pretty much everything aside from Native American and Aboriginal Australian analogues.

I mean, that’s not *really* how convergent evolution works.

If the multiverse is infinite, then it could just be coincidence, but that’s not a very satisfying explanation narratively.

And part of the *reason* Dominaria is so diverse is because of its interplanar migration (from Rabiah, Kamigawa, etc.). If Dominarian Djinni come from Rabiah/Wildfire, it makes sense to assume perhaps Dominarian Valkyries come from Kaldheim.

It’s going to get even weirder (mind-bendingly stupider) when Forgotten Realms becomes canon this year, and with it actual Norse gods become part of the multiverse:

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Norse_pantheon

The way some much MTG gets so close to its real world inspiration sometimes bugs me. You realize that their version of Hades, lord of the underworld actually shares a name with the actual Greek underworld? That's not clever, just lazy.
I can at least say they had no idea what they were doing back in the old days at least.

Do we actually know how the Forgotten Realms stuff i going to work canon-wise? Please, please tell me it's not canon to the story. What would that even mean?
And why couldn't it be Planescape instead? I'll just pretend they're saving that for a planechase supplement

I mean pretty much all fantasy settings resemble real world cultures, with 99% being rip offs of medieval western europe. I don't see why we need to single out Kaldheim or Theros.

While the Norse gods are still mentioned in the D&D 5e books, I don't believe they are currently a canon part of the Forgotten Realms. They leave them in the books so that people can use them in homebrew campaigns, but as far as I know the official campaign modules only ever mention the gods which were created specifically for D&D.

I don't think DnD lore is gonna be suddenly canon to Magic, I think they said its gonna be more like the Walking Dead and Godzilla, magic cards with DnD flavoring. For me it looks like its mostly gonna be used to spice up a typically "boring" core set.



The Greek Underworld is called Hades, Erebus is the primordial god of darkness and shadows, brother-husband to Nyx (night) and sometimes the name of a region in Hades. But honesty Hades or Tartarus is more commonly used.

So has anyone noticed Green and Black get the most gods? Given the Heinir before the Skoti, is it possible Kaldheim gods just are oriented towards Golgari colors?

Some are more "on the nose" than others

I think I recall some natter that the Forgotten Realms set WILL be considered more of a true "Crossing the streams" than Walking Dead or Godzilla. If that's the case, it has all sorts of bizarre and troublesome implications. Are the Blind Eternities more like Wildspace, then? The Weatherlight a Spelljammer? Or given Kaldheim is the whole "Great Wheel" that contains the D&D cosmologies (including Forgotten Realms) a single plane within Dominia? Or are they paralell to each other, with only some weird bridge between the Great Wheel multiverse with Sigil at its center and the Blind Eternities multiverse with Dominaria at its center? And yes, I'm aware most of my concerns are more Planescape-y, but Planescape technically remains the "top level" of D&D's cosmos, containing Toril and Athas and all the others with all their weird granular traits, even the otherwise transplanar Spelljammer. So FR implies PS even if I'd MUCH rather see PS (As long as Her Serenity, the Lady of Pain would not be reduced to a card with stats) as the focus.

Broke: concerns about worldbuilding

Woke: Both MTG and D&D are figments of Satan's imagination and hell is the only canon plane.

I mean, at the very least, Forgotten Realms has Tyr (a pretty straight Norse rip-off homage. And, uh, Baldur’s gate, I guess (That’s named after Balduran, just a coincidence like Megheddon Defile on Dominaria where Armageddon happened).


But also, isn’t Toril part of the Planescape multiverse, which includes Ysgard?

I do like the idea (I don’t really; the crossover is awful and lazy) of the entire Planescape multiverse existing in one Dominian plane. After all, Rabiah has 1,001 planes contained within its little corner of the multiverse, so why not?

Planes within planes within planes.

Did they ever actually tie the D&D settings together officially? THat just sounds like a terrible idea. Something like the Forgotten Realms could slot right into one of the bigger cosmologies but how do you reconcile Planescape with Spelljammer? Those both scream "top level cosmology".

Essentially, accorting to PS+Spelljammer unification, all the worlds visited in Spelljammer are part of the Material Plane, or Material Planes if you prefer. Different worlds, which I will note typically can't be accessed by 1:1 planeshift, exist in the Material separated by Wildspace. Spelljammers typically can't reach the Outer or Inner planes.

This was established back in 2e when the Planes were slightly better thought out. The Ethereal was the transitive plane between the Material and "Inner" planes, while the Astral was the path between the Material and Outer. Going from outer to outer or inner to inner or (in the case of Spelljamming) material to alternate material isn't accomplished by the same mechanisms, needing other pathways. For instance, if you want to get from the Abyss to the Nine Hells, you can boat down the River Styx. Want to go from Great Dismal Delve in the Plane of Earth to the City of Brass on the Plane of Fire? Find the right guide and you could cross through the paraelemental plane of Magma. Need to get from Toril to Oerth? Hop a Spelljammer. Want to get from Celestia to the Plane of Water? You won't be taking a "direct flight" since there is no (known and usable by mortals) Transitive plane between the Outer and Inner (The Oridal Plane is, in setting, theoretical and mysterious)

Or you could visit Sigil, City of Doors, which is unique in that it could have portals to literally anywhere, hence why it's considered the Center of the Multiverse.

Also, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything contains a spell which allows you to travel to other versions of the material plane. Like, it's definitely only there to justify crossovers between the Forgotten Realms and Exandria (the Critical Role setting), but because it exists we have to consider these things. And considering both Ravnica and Theros are already D&D settings, I'd say the issues already exist. The rules currently 100% allows you to go between at least those specific planes and the Forgotten Realms.

I don't consider Ravnica or Theros to be part of the D&D cosmology any more than I do Rick and Morty, or Godzilla to be canonically part of the Magic multiverse. They're there to give players a way to run a game they are familiar with in a non-D&D setting. Unless I see Jace prancing around in Waterdeep, I'll continue to assume they have no relation to each other, but I will lament the D&D set just as much regardless.

Lorwyn resembles British folklore, Kaldheim references Norse mythology. Alrund is a one-eyed God of drawing cards with a raven familiar. He exists as an Odin stand-in, and doesn't feel remotely like a real character. And it's ok to reference things as long as they feel like an organic part of the setting as a whole, but it's really hard to see Kaldheim as more than just a bootleg Norse mythology. World of Warcraft also have a lot of references to Norse mythology, and while Odyn and the Halls of Valor are a bit on the nose, the titan watchers are an inseparable part of the setting that feels unique to World of Warcaft, while Kaldheim will only ever exist through its relationship to the source material.

A) WOW's worldbuilding focus on pretty much one world, B) that is highly subjective considering Kaldheim so far has remained pretty unique.

Kaldheim's version of Thor is called "Toralf" and he's got a hammer which returns when you throw it. It's not very subtle. Yeah, Kaldheim worldbuilding has some cool unique aspects, but when you cover that with obvious references to the source material, guess what most people will notice and remember?

And what, you expected an objective answer? Did you want me to get into the neuroscience of why Kaldheim and Theros is often criticized for being themeparks?

As much as I have an affinity to any Thor reference, you have a point here.

For some time since Kaldheim spoilers/leaks came out I was maintaining that Tyvar be some sort of Thor allusion... but I guess they just went straight up "OUR VERISON, YUH!"

More evidence that elements of the Norse mythos (presumably related in some way to Kaldheim) exist somewhere in Dominia: