Two Realms

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. (Nicene Creed)

In the SpiritQuest universe, the sum of all reality consists of two overlapping Realms or “planes” of existence: the Material Realm and the Ethereal Realm. These Realms of the “seen and unseen” exist simultaneously everywhere, within the same time-space continuum. The intersection of the two realms is part of the legendary and mythic nature of the SpiritQuest world.
THE MATERIAL REALM: This is the physical Realm of matter — the things that can be seen, heard, and felt by earthly means. The Material Realm is the natural, historical, known world in which the game story plays itself out. This Realm is bound to linear earthly time, moving forward in a single direction from past to future. All things that exist within the Material Realm have a finite beginning and end. For the most part, the characters in the SpiritQuest game live out their lives within the Material Realm of existence — some may not even acknowledge that there is anything more. The world itself, Uléa (oo-LEY-ah) gets it's name from the ancient elvaen world ulé, meaning matter, substance.
THE ETHEREAL REALM: This is the spiritual Realm of pure energy. Though some think of it as the “supernatural” world, it is no less a part of reality than is the physical world. It surrounds and fills the same space as the Material Realm, but it is not bound by space and time. Past present and future have no real meaning in the Ethereal Realm; all times are as one. In religious parlance, the Ethereal Realm is often thought of as the heavenly plane -- the source or home of invisible or Elemental Spirits. Such beings are alternately referred to in the SpiritQuest Rules as “spiritual” or “ethereal” creatures. Normally speaking, pure spirits cannot be affected (touched, hurt, etc.) by material means alone, since they do not "exist" in the material plane.