| abstract | - Great Wheel is the cosmology model in which the world of Toril was said to exist during the first and second editions of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game, although the actual term "Great Wheel" didn't mean the cosmology as a whole until the 3rd edition of the D&D game and its Manual of the Planes 3rd edition. In second edition, "Great Wheel" or "Great Ring" meant the Outer planes only. The cosmology as a whole didn't require a name other than "the Planes" or "the Multiverse," as there weren't any formally named alternatives in the AD&D game. Ed Greenwood created the Faerûnian pantheon by choosing deities from the first edition Deities & Demigods book, sometimes renaming and modifying them, with the aim of ending up with one deity for every Outer plane or Outer planar layer in what we now call the Great Wheel cosmology. In this sense, the Faerûnian pantheon was created with the Great Wheel in mind. As it was described in first and second edition, the Great Wheel was a complex, comparatively cosmopolitan place in which the gods of many worlds and pantheons mingled, the beliefs of many faiths and peoples bleeding together in a set of Outer planes shaped predominantly by the polar forces of Law, Chaos, Good, and Evil. Thus it was that Lliira and the Greek goddess Hecate could feud over the love of the Sumerian god Enki and work at a pleasure palace operated by the Aztec gods Xochipilli and Tlazoteotl. That was in first edition, long before the debut of the Planescape Campaign Setting in 1994, which offered alternative names for many of the planes. On Hallowed Ground noted a number of alliances between the gods of Toril and those of other worlds, for example between the original Mystra and Wee Jas of Oerth. In the novel Tymora's Luck, a plot by a god of Toril ends up involving the gods of Krynn. In 3rd edition, the Forgotten Realms cosmology was retconned, with the World Tree cosmology replacing the Great Wheel. No in-game explanation was given for the change, which shifted the realms of many deities around to group them by pantheon or theme rather than alignment. Nonetheless, planes of the Great Wheel continued to receive mentions in official products. For example, in Sacrifice of the Widow, Cavatina Xarann tells that Vhaeraun's realm is in Carceri (Tarterus) and Eilistraee lives in Svartalfheim. The Player's Guide to Faerûn still uses the terms Inner and Outer planes even though they are no longer thought of as concentric spheres.
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