The Spirit Realm

Always here, Always there

The spirit realm, also referred to as the Always, is as much of a law of the world as it is a place. Before there was a world, there was a place of such energy that life bloomed from the ether. When talking about the spirit realm, an important distinction must be made. It is a place, but also the literal concept of life itself. It is energy, feeling. It is light and darkness. Spiritual energy courses through all things, through both the material and the ethereal. Only difference is that in the ethereal, it is given form.

The Plane of All Life

Through the spirit realm, all things are given life. From the largest vaettir to the smallest flower, everything has its roots in this place of mystery and wonder. It is believed that when a being is conceived, its soul manifests in the form of a spirit before finding its host. It is because of this that all beings can walk between realms, except for humans of course.
When the Celestial Bloom first flowered, its flowers severed the seperation between the material, Gai'ia, and the spirit realm. Its pollen gave life to the first spirits, who took the form of lights, as golden as the pollen itself. The first material life, the spriggans, were created when the wind ushered wayward spirits, lost souls, into the material plane. This was the beginning of life, also known as the Flowering.

Rules of Nature

The fundamental difference between souls and spirits is that spirits do not inhabit a material body. They are pure spiritual essence given form. A soul, on the other hand, inhabits a body, and thus gives life to what would otherwise be a lifeless realm. This connection goes two ways; spirits influence the physical state of the world, while material beings influence the metaphysical chaos of the spirit realm. This influence most often comes in the form of feeling, thought and state, and are of equal importance in their effect. For example, a human that experiences great loss may inadvertently cause a great rain to fall, soaking the spirits around them. Consequently, a spirit that is witness to the sorrow may, through the shared feeling of grief, cause a sudden blooming of mournful flowers around said human.
These two sides of the same coin are in constant flux with each other, but will always find themselves in balance eventually. This is the most fundamental rule of nature.

Different Paths, Same Destination

All creatures have a spiritual connection, a shared oneness, but the path this connection takes varies greatly. Spriggans have a connection to the wind, fey the earth and vaettir fire. Humans are the only people that do not have a connection, but this does not mean they are completely severed. On the contrary, humans have the most chaotic effects on the spirit realm and its inhabitants, as they don't have a clear cut path for their share of the energy. Most humans never experience this however, as their proclivity for technology often hinders its manifestation.

Type

Metaphysical