Planar Dualism

Planar Dualism is a minority school of metaphysical cosmology that treats the Astral Plane and the Ethereal Plane as the only truly fundamental planes. In this model, what other scholars call the Plane of Souls, the Land of the Dead, and the Plane of Creation are regions or densities within the Astral Plane, while the Plane of Magic is a deep region of the Ethereal Plane rather than a distinct plane.

Planar dualists often describe the multiverse through images of flow rather than geometry. The Ethereal Plane is imagined as a vast sea of magical energy, with Ley Lines as rivers or cascades running through the planes toward the deepest wells of magic. The Astral Plane is the corresponding realm of Soulstuff, with the Land of the Dead and Plane of Creation understood as places where soulstuff becomes especially dense.

This model is not dominant at the University of Chardon, but some of its metaphors are common even among scholars who reject the doctrine itself. In particular, planar dualist language is often used to describe extraplanar weak points as currents or conduits of planar energy rather than simple places where two planes are geometrically close.