Aether, Tether, Nether

The Supernatural & Reality: Planes of Existence

While most common folk will not be aware of this scholars and priests of Tazlure have long since determined that there are three levels of existence, separate planes that can influence each other.

Tether

The Thether is what most people will perceive as reality, the natural world. All intelligent and non-intelligent life, and even minerals contribute to this plane, also known as the material existence. People live and die here.

Aether

This is the spiritual plane, also known as the aethereal existence. Spirits that still feel bound to the real world roam here, and the entities known as deities have made it their home, each creating its own spiritual temple. Time and distance have no meaning here, and the reality of the Tether is perceived in a totally different light.

The Aether is all around the Tether. It connects to it at certain points, or becomes mildly visible. Mages and priests are able to connect to the Aether using their energy, and use its properties to travel with their minds eye. This is known as "walking the Aether". This is also the place were souls can go to if they dream.

The portal system uses the Aether in a more physical way, propelling creatures or items of the material world through the Aether to a different point in time and place. Because the Aether is resistant to this physical use it causes warps and potential portal sickness in the travelers, causing disorientation and an openness to the Aether.

It is important to note that once one is physically in the Aether it is possible to die there. If one is spiritually in the Aether outside of a dream one can get "soul lost".

Threads made in the Aether, while bound to the "going forward in time" rule, are not bound to rules of logic unless moderated. Since these are mostly dream sessions people from all over Tazlure can meet in their dreams in the most weird fantasies.

Nether

Like the Aether this is a non-material plane, in this case of all the dark and destructive forces associated with the daemon's plane of existence, also known as Netherworld or Nether for short. It is a bleak place, a big void and the entities within hunger for the Aether, which they try to use by violating the Tether. These forces feed on spiritual essence like emotions, souls etc.

Sometimes the Nether is able to contact the Tether through dreams or other spiritual means, and vice versa. Most often however there is an actual physical connection, with entities being summoned by mages or priest, or breaking entry to the Tether on their own (the so called rifts, or "rips in the folds of reality"). An entity of the Nether, like a daemon, has no physical existence without the cooperation of creatures of the Tether, and this is something mothers warn their kids about.

There is a complete structure in the Netherworld of daemons and other entities and their underlying hierarchy. This however is information that you must seek in character.