Spirit realm

The Spirit Realm is best known to common folk as the place where the spirits of the dead must pass to enter the realm of the gods. When a person dies, complex burial rituals must be performed to summon a spirit guide to assist the spirit of the deceased in getting to its new home. Failure to perform these rituals by error or design can trap their spirit in the Spirit World. Some spirits have unfinished business and refuse their spirit guide's assistance to remain close to the waking world to encourage the living to complete some piece of work. Finally there are the dispossessed. People who have lost their bodies to more powerful spirits. They are trapped to wonder the Spirit World attempting to reclaim their bodies.

Priests, but druids especially, understand that the Spirit World is much more complex. Most Cerilian creatures have a spirit that resides in the Spirit World. It is connected to the body, but resides in the Spirit World. This allows ancestors and other guides to advise and assist people with ideas or insights. It also puts people at risk of attack in a world they have no understanding of. Some arcane spell casters are identified as witches who specialize in summoning, communicating, and attacking spirits. When such a witch sees someone, the witch sees not only their physical self, but their spirit as well, an effect often called the person's 'aura'. Witches attack the spirit of enemies in order to harm them, control them, or otherwise work the witch's will.

The Spirit World contains both friendly and malevolent spirits. Normally an individual's spirit is protected by divine agents of the gods, who are aware when a devoted spirit is attacked and come to the aid of the devoted spirit. Atheists put their soul in grave jeopardy. Powerful priests who study and come to know the way of the Spirit World can also intervene in the Spirit World. The most well known such example is exorcism. However, most divinations involved at least spirit intermediaries, if not direct communication with spirits. Some druids, known as seidhr, become highly skilled in the Spirit World, and can learn and practice feats with the spirit descriptor.

Cellwair (Halflings) and Sidhelien (Elves) do not have spirits in the Spirit World. The Sidhelien once had spirits, but in days long past, the waking world and the Shadow World were sundered and the Sidhelien were torn in two as well. On this side the Sidhelien remain, and disconnected from them are the Seelie. Much of the Spirit World and the Shadow World are hostile to Sidhelien, who are entirely foreign to the Shadow. The Fey know the Sidhelien from before the sundering of this world and the other, and frequently encounter them in the deepest parts of nature in this world, but it is the Fey alone who regard the Sidhelien with cheer in the worlds beyond Aebrynis. The Sidhelien have no spirit allies, no gods, and many enemies in the Shadow.

Cellwair used to dwell in the Spirit World, but some unknown horror has driven them from it. The Cellwair don't discuss it, and only a few humans know that it was the rise of Azrai which drove them into Aebrynis. At one time there was no Shadow World, and the only true parallel world was the Spirit World (the Faerie World is a connected place, but not parallel), but the rise of Azrai saw not only his conquest of many realms in this world, but in the Spirit World as well. This conquered territory is now known as the Shadow World.