Gooday
Regarding Astral and Ethereal -
Always wondered why have two 'travel' planes?
Why not have just One plane that links to all other planes.
This transient plane can still have whirlpools or border areas that link to the other planes.
This astral-ethereal mix would have no gravity, be timeless, infinite in size, have nighthags, ghosts, even githyanki if you like
it would be made up of every thought, dream, nightmare, emotion that every sentient being ever had, and the longer that being existed the larger the area, so perhaps demi planes or even outer planes were spawned here eons ago?
any item or magic that involves astral or ethereal would still work, but that it's dealing with the same plane.
thoughts/comments/suggestions?
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The separation of the ethereal and astral planes is legacy code from the old cosmology of D&D. It was supposed to represent that the ethereal was the plane where ghosts lived, and the one you crossed to reach "inner planes," like the stuff that the material world used for building blocks, and it overlapped the material world in places. The astral plane was the sea that separated mortals from the gods, and that souls crossed to reach their afterlife.
If you're cool with ghosts and normal souls occupying the same metaphysical space, then there's no reason you can't just combine them. Lots of campaign settings did away with the standard cosmology back in the old days. You just have to decide what happens to magic that relies on that schism.
Jeremy Puckett
Gooday
Regarding Astral and Ethereal -
Always wondered why have two 'travel' planes?
Why not have just One plane that links to all other planes.
This transient plane can still have whirlpools or border areas that link to the other planes.
This astral-ethereal mix would have no gravity, be timeless, infinite in size, have nighthags, ghosts, even githyanki if you like
it would be made up of every thought, dream, nightmare, emotion that every sentient being ever had, and the longer that being existed the larger the area, so perhaps demi planes or even outer planes were spawned here eons ago?
any item or magic that involves astral or ethereal would still work, but that it's dealing with the same plane.
thoughts/comments/suggestions?
The astral plane and ethereal plane are both thematically very different. The physical laws and player interaction involved with those planes are similar in many ways but the ecology of the planes is different. From the perspective of the characters these places are going to be VERY different.
That said I like the idea of blending the two. Sometimes the Astral Plane is incorrectly pegged as D&D's version of space by people who think Gary Gygax invented the idea of Astral Travel and Silvery Cords comming outof our chests.. I think the blend will go a long way in correcting that. However I'm not too keen on the idea of constructing said plane from a fabric of dreamstuff. That goes a step too far in my book and reminds me a little to much of Dal Quor from Eberron. Such a plane would certainly be interesting but I don't think it makes a very good replacement for the current Astral/Ethereal planes.