What They Don't Tell You About The Ethereal Realm - D&D

gray light shifting and swirling dominates your vision you move but not by physical exertion but through sheer force of will you feel as though you move through mud slowly and inefficiently you hear whispers and spy shapes moving in your peripheral images from other worlds other planes they move slowly their voice is muffled as if viewed through water you embark on your journey unsure what you might find everything around you seems familiar yet strangely alien you feel as though nothing has any weight and as you pass familiar sights you find them just beyond your ability to fully perceive you wonder why it seems to take longer to travel the same distance but then you suddenly see your destination before you what i just read to you in regards to the ethereal realm and planner travel can be found on describe.com the sponsor for this video this grab is a website where you can search for any dnd spell monster or dmd related location and receive a detailed professionally written boxed text that you can then read to your players you know if you have your players find themselves in a blue dragon's lair and you're unsure how to describe it or you want some help to enhance your own description you can simply head on over to the website type in dragon on the search bar and you will get tons of different options for descriptors that refer to dragons as you can see here you have a description for a copper dragon a dragon town there's a descriptor for a young blue dragon but going further down you see that they also have one for an ancient blue dragon so they have descriptors for specific dragon ages but also a different descriptor for the lair of said dragons you can do this exact same search for spells and items i mean most things that can be described could be found here again written by professional writers who understand and play the game themselves i have partnered with describe and their excellent resources so from now on on my videos you will see me use them a lot to describe some of the locations that i cover at the beginning of the video just how i did it for this one their stuff is just really good so i'm glad to be able to do that if you want to take advantage of this as well then head on over to dot com slash rex that is d-s-c-r-y-b dot com slash rex there's a bunch of content for free in there that you can access but if you pay the premium then you get access to all of the thousands and thousands of descriptors that they've got if you do make sure that you do it with the coupon code racks at checkout to save yourself some extra money but now back to the ethereal realm so let's see how exactly am i going to tackle this video the topic is massive and i shouldn't skip much either since most people don't know much about this particular plane i suppose i should start with why you should actually care the reason i feel the ethereal realm gets typically brushed over to the side is because there frankly isn't much of a reason to ever go here i mean the only way a dm or a player would ever get to truly interact with it typically would be either through a ghost or through the spell etherealness but even then the spell is so high level that most adventures won't even get high enough to the point where you will be able to pick it and quite frankly 99 of players that deal with ghosts do so on the material plane not on the ethereal they would probably just wait for the ghost to materialize itself to deal with it so why should you care about the ethereal well you should because you use it actually more than you realize that i'm of the sound belief that the more people understand it the more likely that they will interact with it and there is so much to interact with so in what ways can you interact with it well for starters your dreams this one might come as a shocker for you but when you dream you actually are in the ethereal realm if you cast the spell dream what you're actually doing is you're finding the dreamer in the ethereal realm and invading his personal private sanctum and then of course manipulating it second demiplanes are also on the ethereal so any spell that creates a demi plane directly creates that piece of land or building on a floating ether of the ethereal thirdly whenever you or your adventuring party is ever contacted by more than one god and your dm creates a visual scene of you seeing the gods that would also take place in the ethereal there's actually a fun set of scenes in pillars of eternity too one of my favorite games where the characters talk to all of the different gods in a mysterious kind of foggy plane well in the indeed that would be the ethereal and then fourthly well i already mentioned it but ghosts goes are actually not invisible if they were then technically you could interact with them perfectly by just touching them like any invisible person instead they reside in the border ethereal understanding what exactly is that and how it works will make all of your interactions with those monsters all the better okay so there it is now that we know why we should care let's start with what is the ethereal realm so for most wizards and scholars their answer to this question would be well the ethereal realm is a transitory plane it is merely what is between the prime and the inner planes in reality it is a bit more complicated because the realm is far greater than just simply merely a road if the inner planes hold all of the elemental building blocks of the multiverse then the ethereal realm holds all the potentiality of the multiverse quote infinite in depth and containing within it as yet unrealized space and matter end quote the ethereal realm is like the bowl that holds all of the physical reality but more so than just a container it is also a propagator quote the ethereal is in some ways like a murky pool laden with dissolved elements a ripple on its surface is sometimes enough to cause a blob of solid ether to crystallize possibly forming a seed for demiplane growth it's the mists and thugs themselves that are the visual sign of the dissolved elements constantly streaming forth from the inner planes end quote we are talking now about the metaphysical understanding of how the dnd worlds work now the inner plants those being the the plane of fire the plane of water earth and air and others they embody physical reality they are the concrete building blocks of everything that is real you can combine every single one of those elements of the inner planes and then well form limitless worlds and creation if you have fire earth water and air you can basically create anything well then it is the ethereal plane that has the purpose of actually combining and then mixing those elemental building blocks this is why all the material worlds border the ethereal it all started from here quote one could view the mists of the ethereal as potential matter unresolved but full of possibility this is because the ethereal vapors are made out of tendrils each with the potential of earth air fire water and mixtures of elemental material thus all matter on the ethereal plane is gas-like and flush with possibility when the waves of potential reality collide they form solid ether and demi planes end quote alright so that's the fundamental place of the ethereal plane in existence but now practically speaking how does one actually get to interact with such a place first it is important to understand that for the purposes of adventuring there are actually two ethereal planes what we call the border ethereal and the deep ethereal the border ethereal is what you first access whenever you try and reach the ethereal in this place you're essentially simultaneously on both planes at the same time you exist in a form of in between that is in between the material and the ethereal this is the place that most people are actually accustomed to and the place where ghosts and apparitions would dwell i use this analogy a lot but the border ethereal would look very much like when frodo puts on the one ring where everything just looks fairly normal except that it's foggy and with grayish color tones and it allows him to see things that might otherwise be unseen the main difference though is that interaction between the border ethereal and the material plane can be quite challenging first of all vision while on the border is fairly limited typically you can't see anything past 60 feet on a particular sunny day or well illuminated area if the area is not illuminated well at all then it is possible for this range to drop down all the way down to even 15 feet of visual range you also can't hear things very well coming from the real world it has been described as attempting to listen to someone speak while underwater you can kind of make out very emphatic statements like help or look out but anything more complex than that would basically be impossible on the other side though attempting to interact with something on the material plane from the ethereal is it's mostly impossible the general rule of thumb is that someone from the material can interact with you on the ethereal but with great difficulty whereas you on the ethereal cannot interact at all with those in the material you can have the the most badass and intense boss battle on the ethereal realm with explosions and screams and and beams and magic spells being thrown around and people could be just walking around on the material side without anyone even hearing or noticing anything this is why interacting with a ghost can be very interesting and mostly challenging a ghost can only see you if you are fairly close and they can understand you too but only if you speak in very short and very emphatic sounding words whereas nothing that the ghost does on the ethereal will be known to you or felt by you they could be speaking their hearts out and you would not hear a thing now ghosts do work a bit different from normal adventurers in the border because ghosts have the special ability to at will materialize and de-materialize after that so they can play around a little bit with the rules they can come in and out of the border basically at will but this is why you don't need anything special to attack a ghost that is trying to attack you you can hurt them with your normal weapons because they have chosen to materialize on the material plane so the at that point are basically as real as you and i but while they are on the ethereal however well that's an entirely different story see a person or monster on the border ethereal can pass through most things which means they cannot be hurt by most things even if you see a ghost or someone else on the border ethereal say with like a spell like true sight or see invisibility if you were to try and strike at it with your fireball spell or with a normal sword attack you actually wouldn't do anything those things will simply pass through the creature this is actually one of the greater benefits of going into the border ethereal being able to pass through solid objects like stone or elements like water fire or even magma that can be very useful the restrictions however are very specific and very useful to know a person or monster on the border ethereal cannot pass through living tissue or very dense materials now these rules are changed every so often but once again i want to note that we are using the great wheel cosmology model and hence we're going by planescape rules which means a ghost or a person on the ethereal plane cannot pass through living tissue obviously unless you have a special ability to do so anyways living tissue is pretty straightforward everyone knows what that means basically you can't pass through people now the concept of very dense materials on the other hand can be a tad more difficult to nail down the general rule is that anything more dense than lead will prevent a person on the border ethereal to be able to pass through it lead has a density of 11.4 grams per cubic centimeter this means that to a person on the border ethereal something as dense as lead will feel to them like a wall or a solid object other materials which would also feel like a wall to them at this point would be gold and platinum which are actually considered some of the more dense materials in the world to put it into perspective gold has a density of 19.32 grams per cubic centimeter while platinum having a bit more than that at 21.45 as a dungeon master i would also allow silver to be a wall against ethereal traveler not just because in the mythos silver has always hurt ghosts we all know that but also because they are almost as dense as lead sitting at 10.49 grams per cubic centimeter so it just makes sense it's basically almost like lead anyways these numbers matter not just because if you want to protect your dungeon or chest from ethereal snatchers you might want to coat it with these elements but also because if you're hoping to attack something on the ethereal realm then coding your weapons with these materials might actually do the trick a gold or platinum weapon could technically strike at a person on the border ethereal since they cannot pass through it though if you don't have access to unreal amounts of money in order to make that happen then force damage is known to also do the trick ethereal travelers can pass through any element except for force a wall of force on the material plane will prevent a border ethereal traveler from passing and in the same vein a spell that does force damage should also technically be able to harm them now i say technically because according to jeremy crawford who decides the rules for dnd he said in a tweet that you in fact could not hurt an ethereal creature with forced damage but yeah technically it would make sense that if force damage becomes a wall to you then a wall moving really fast towards you and striking you would hurt you but i suppose one can reach the argument that the different elements of force are indeed different forces or something anyways on the other hand there's typically nothing that a person or monster in the border ethereal can do to you from there unless of course they have a special ability to do so just how night hacks for example can haunt your dreams from there now when it comes to types of magic duration spells tend to affect those on the ethereal realm spells that protect and ward seem to be particularly powerful in this regard and they seem to carry on these effects over into the ethereal if you are an ethereal traveler and you're traveling through a dungeon or a wizard's tower you should always be careful of glyphs of warning whose effects will most certainly activate and damage you even in the ethereal realm spells like dispel magic and anti-magic fields are particularly dangerous to you because they will take you out of your ethereal form and jaunt you back into the prime a very dangerous process if you're not ready because if you face back into reality instead of a wall well you're dead lastly outside of magic and special ores there actually is a mundane concoction that one can make that would prevent ethereal travel into your domain that is gorgon's blood if you combine goragon's blood with the mortar of your building it will function as a wall on the ethereal plane very interesting stuff oh and remember that the gorgon in dnd is a metal ball not a medusa that gets confused a lot though i should mention medusas are definitely part of the conversation here most spells and abilities do not work against those on the ethereal but the medusa's eyes do all you have to do is gaze at the medusa's eyes and even from the ethereal you will be turned to stone this also applies with basilisks and cockatrices who can see into the ethereal and petrify you now movement in the border ethereal is quite simple you can use whatever form of travel you typically use and it should work over there if you have legs you can just walk if you have wings you can simply fly it all works however you can also simply just wield yourself to move and you will move if you merely think about flying up into the air you will do so even if you don't have any wings if you wish yourself to burrow under the floor you can do that as well things happen this way because the border ethereal is a combination of the prime material world and of the ethereal you're combining the laws of gravity from the planet you come from and the rules of movement from the ethereal plane this process of combining these two factors is important because if there is a specific magical or logical law of nature from your plane that is special and different from the norm it will most likely also be incorporated into its border ethereal for example the border ethereal of the plane of fire can still burn you now to finish off this video we will talk about how to leave the border ethereal and enter the deep ethereal then on our next episode we will basically invest it all into just talking about the deep because that's that's a whole other kind of worms so from the border literally all you have to do is will yourself into the deep there actually isn't much to it at all a movement in the ethereal is all about willpower and knowledge of where you're going and entering the deep is really just not that much different quote a body on the border who witnesses someone else leaving the border for the deep sees the traveler suddenly obscured in a royal of multicolored mists that finally boil away into nothingness leaving no sign of the traveler end quote when a person does this and enters the deep ethereal they will notice themselves floating in a realm free of the features that they were accustomed to before a realm of floating mists and behind them from where they came from just a vast undulating curtain of vaporous color quote this wall of color represents the boundary between the deep ethereal and the border if a body immediately decides to leave the deep ethereal she can will herself back through the curtain traveling to the exact same spot on the border from which she originated if a traveler moves along the curtain a distance before re-entering the border she will find herself in a different part of the border end quote the thing to keep in mind here is that distances in the deep ethereal are all subjective traveling for five minutes along the curtain one time will not yield the same results as the next time you travel along the curtain for five minutes all locations on the ethereal are not relative to each other and completely subjective to your perception now this wall of color pertains to the border to your world but not the border to other worlds you will have to travel into the deep and find other walls of color to join in other realms now this wall of color is only visible from the deep ethereal if you are in the border ethereal you cannot see it instead you would see the world that you're currently bordering but what particularly makes that wall of color cool is that it not just functions as a gate to the world from the outside but it is also a plane in and out of itself in fact it is inside that wall of color where the world of dreams is located this world is typically not accessible you can't just go in and manipulate it unless you have powerful spells and abilities that would allow you to do that once again like the night hacks they can haunt it or magic like the fifth level illusion spell dream so how does it work see the shimmering wall of color that forms the door into your world from the ethereal is actually a reflection of reality of the reality of the plane when an entity dreams a portion of her inner being resonates with this reflection quote this dream persona simultaneously maintains a connection with the physical body and with the dream occurring beyond the veil of sleep analogous to the way an ethereal traveler exists both on the border and an adjacent plane simultaneously only dreamers can pass beyond the veil of sleep and enter the dream plane that exists within the wall end quote now inside this color wall that we will now call the veil of sleep many separate and private dreams unfold all the time though you can't see any of them from the outside now typically there's nothing nefarious there's nothing weird going on in this plane of dreams and for the most part whatever happens in there will only if anything change the mood of the participant only a bit upon waking up like there's never anything crazy dramatic in there but if you have the right abilities in particular if you're a powerful psionic you can then move into the curtain and participate in the various dreams of other people along the way though there is always danger if you encounter a dream of particular clarity and lucidity things could indeed then hurt you in any case these realms and worlds would cease to exist the second a person wakes unless it is being maintained through some great magic or via godly power like when a god sends prophetic visions to his cleric now sometimes dark gods and dark magic can keep a particular nefarious nightmare realm open for its evil purposes like what you might find in the nightmare lands of ravenloft but yeah i bet you didn't expect to find this on a video about ethereal travel but i suppose let's go ahead and talk about dreaming quote sleeping characters manifest dream cells that move through the mental landscape of the dream plane these dream selves are reflections of reality and are much like the character's true selves end quote while dreaming your strength is equal to your wisdom and your dexterity is equal to your intelligence but typically everything else would stay the same unless you're a bard at which point you basically get bonuses to everything the lore literally describes that because bards have great creativity and mental acuity they become basically super strong whenever they are dreaming now here's the part that i know you have been waiting for if you die in your dreams do you die in real life kind of if you're reduced to less than half your hit points in your dream world you're expected to do a saving throw when you wake up and if you fail you permanently lose points in intelligence if you take more than just have your hit points and depending on the severity of the damage and the extent of the psychological trauma you could then end up in a coma in madness or even in death in some of the most extreme cases but there it is we covered the border ethereal and how to enter the deep ethereal on the next video we will cover the full extent of the deep ethereal which man it's like a whole other thing you can have an entire campaign just simply sit in the deep this thing is massive and shock full of lore i would like to personally thank my patreon supporters barry maskant 5e magic shop morgan johnson rusty rayne biotechnofrag duck feeder brad salazar walker motley terry culp the great kodini omega scales ozol alex cookson stephen faulkie 951 benjamin busters thomas hunt prince daylight morning crown sabine kurshab solarensis or doric nathan mccomb silent chapa bushido burrito werewolven game soulless rider roleplay with advantage mr salty stalia lost crusader tython treb 909 garrett minik jd green tony arsey famine 52 george fortland olef klepp trevor hess sovereign mind drag logia 5 who's stuart zirin king the living guild pack michael walker and street blow for supporting me on patreon at the 25 level if you would like to support me as well then please head over to patreon.comrex to support all right guys next video is going to be on the deep so look out for that it should be out in just about like a day or two and i i made these two videos simultaneously so that they would come out basically almost together so it shouldn't take me too long to upload the next one so see you all there bye

Channel: MrRhexx

Views: 178,554

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Id: Osu3g1Kh17M

Length: 24min 16sec (1456 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 26 2021