-The ethereal/shadow/radiant plane will be considered "the spirit world". As for now, I am granting clarisentient focused psions, anything with divine power, elemental, undead, and outsider status spirit sight-- to be able to see into the spirit world.

-Ancestors will be a relevant part of society and honor.

-many wars wage in the spirit world that the divine can easily see... great temples may be constantly besieged on the spirit world in an effort to tip the balance on alignments in the region. You can just see blessed and profane regions by how the spirit world appears.

-to penetrate into the ethereal while still alive is a literal magic trick.. but folks like ghosts cross that border freely.

-although I still intend on using ghostwalk, until I get access to it again, I'm deemphasizing.. but the spirit world is teeming with dead folks and ghosts.... granted, evil spirits like to eat their souls, so moving on to your outer plane of -choice to become a petitioner is wise... but not mandatory. strong family ancestors will often stay to protect the family from malevolence, or to spread evil/family goals/whatever. monks, for exmple, often choose to serve their temple for 500 years before moving on to the great after.

what this means to you

-everyone knows about ghosts.

-important people will have wards to protect them from possession... you gotta worm your way up through unimportant underlings, but still have major risk of being discovered by rented holymen, or "dipping" advisors who gain a bitof divinity to simply see spirits.

-Possessing someone without permission is very dishonorable.

-Warforged are living constructs... they are built SPECIFICALLY to allow the dead to possess them. Often created to be assigned to speciic people. if left unattended for too long, they begin to think for themselves... and go rogue. the rogue may "rent themselves out" to the dead, or develop as characters themselves.. whatever. they're still VERY second class.

there is no "natural" way to move from the spirit world to anything else... anything native to the spirit world is not intended to leave it. Pulling a spirit from the spirit world results in undead (prime mateial), or petitioners (inner, outer, demi planes)

dead mortal spirits "go beyond" almost immediately, to be drawn to their gods and become petitioners... but others linger on. these are the ancestral spirits revered in society. they become either ghosts, poltergeists, shades or shadows.

Although incorporeal in the prime material, they can be interacted with as though flesh and bone in the spirit world.

necromancers grab mortal spirits before they're able to go beyond, forcing them back to the prime as undead slaves. this is taboo and dishonorable.

all summoned critters are actually manifested spirits.

more as needed.. dm space only

more to be added.. DM space only