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The Ethereal Plane

The Ethereal Plane, according to tales, is a disorienting place of dense fog and vibrant mist. Although it is said a skilled traveler can reach any of the Energy Realms, and even the Plane of Magic itself, few are foolhardy enough to leave the safe confines of the Ethereal borderlands, where the ghostly, permeable echoes of the Material Plane can still be perceived.

The true nature of the Ethereal Plane is much debated. The dominant school of thought, based on the famous Drankorian treatise known as the Aetherium, argues the Ethereal Plane is an echo or extension of the Plane of Magic, that becomes more transparent and dilute the closer it comes to the border of another plane, creating the obvious distinction – apparent to anyone who has traveled to or perceived into the Ethereal Plane – between the borderlands and the deep Ethereal. However, a minority of scholars, primarily planar dualists, claim that it is wrong to speak of the Plane of Magic as a distinct entity; rather, one should think of the Ethereal Plane as the fundamental magical counterpart to the Astral Plane, with the Plane of Magic best considered a particularly dense region of the Ethereal Plane. No traveler has ever returned from the farthest depths of the Ethereal Plane, so no empirical evidence exists to settle the argument.

The Ethereal Plane is known to contact the Material Plane, as well as the Energy Realms and the Plane of Magic. While it is well-known that powerful magic can allow one to step across the boundary from the Ethereal borderlands to the adjacent plane, or the reverse, arcane geographers claim that natural portals also exist, connecting the Energy Realms and the Material Plane to the Ethereal Plane.