Talk:Ether spider
Categories [originally posted as Talk:Phase spider]
Are there other canon sources on phase spiders that might clarify whether they're outsiders as the article text implies? B1 text is a low-tier source. That might also determine how the inhabitant or plane categories might work. -Oznogon (talk) 21:07, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
- I am comfortable with the magical beast and that is in the monster stats so becomes a Tier 1 source overriding any text information. The ethereal jaunt capability suggests they are on the Material Plane as much as the Ethereal, so that might indicate the lack of an (extraplanar) subtype. A later source, from 2015, as you requested, is Shadow of the Storm Tyrant 25 which has advanced phase spiders; they are also magical beasts with no subtype. Planar Adventures 94ff. references them and their community in the Eth Plane chapter, they clearly live there, but has no stats. Etheric dragons, similarly, are Eth Plane/Inh but not outsiders. I guess the Cat:Ethereal Plane is a hangover from the days all cats were placed on an article and I removed that. I added a self cat. I think it is properly categorized now, but does that answer your point, Oznogon? --Fleanetha (talk) 10:52, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- The Ethereal Plane is a transitive plane, and thus does not impose the extraplanar subtype on creatures from there. Shadow and fey creatures also don't get the extraplanar subtype, because their planes are coterminous with the Material.—
Yoda8myhead (talk) 21:44, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
- The Ethereal Plane is a transitive plane, and thus does not impose the extraplanar subtype on creatures from there. Shadow and fey creatures also don't get the extraplanar subtype, because their planes are coterminous with the Material.—
Removed art
I removed this art because the humanoid-faced Pathfinder First Edition phase spiders explicitly do not reflect the appearance of ether spiders. I'll leave it to others to determine whether the First Edition art reflects a variant in canon or has been retconned completely. -Oznogon (talk) 04:25, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
- I've also tried to reconcile to retain both versions as canon, barring a published source suggesting that phase spiders should never have existed, in which case we have a few canon conflicts to deal with starting with Indarelle. -Oznogon (talk) 04:33, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Split the page?
Catching up a year later, I think a good compromise was struck, but I have moved the 1E cats to the 1E page and added a 1E template to it at phase spider. I also note there is a discussion left languishing at Talk:Phase spider after the page move that probably should be moved to this page if the redirect is continued. However, I wonder if it is worth splitting the 2E page ether spider and clearly marking phase spider as the 1E form and ether spider as the 2E. We now already (unusually) have separate category trees, discussion pages, and image repositories for the one creature. The obvious problem is it is likely the same creature just updated to the new edition; do we have documentary proof of this? In splitting, we store up problems if any named phase spider gets used as an ether spider too. Though, then we would just have the individual in both category trees serving 1E and 2E folks. I am torn. If we don't split, minimum is we should bring the two talk pages together, though, as is normal for such page moves on renaming. --Fleanetha (talk) 15:49, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
- "do we have documentary proof of this?"
- "Phase spider" is a D&D name. We aren't going to get documentary proof because the whole point of renaming them to "ether spider" is to avoid that association. This isn't the only creature that 2E has renamed — why is this one such a relative problem?
- "In splitting, we store up problems if any named phase spider gets used as an ether spider too"
- This isn't a repair drone/robot situation where two different canon sources described two distinct but similar creatures that couldn't be reconciled. Ether spiders are the same creature with exceedingly similar mechanics, and more importantly to us identical lore. The only canon change is to the name.
- I don't understand why we would treat this differently than we already treat other creatures with alternative names, by using the preferred canon name for categorization, mentioning the alternative name in the lede, and pointing altname redirects to the article. -Oznogon (talk) 08:05, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- That's exactly my point, Oznogon: we are treating this one creature differently from other 2E renames. Thanks for your response, and let's then reduce oddity and treat this like any other 2E rebrand. I am going to combine talk pages and close down the 1E cat tree. For your reasons above, let's keep the independent image repositories for now as a small exception. --Fleanetha (talk) 15:14, 16 December 2020 (UTC)