Aetheryte

[Kennar]

...snip...

All good thoughts. Perhaps, technically, anything could be teleported through the lifestream, but the further removed something is from a living being with a spirit (and a will), the more magick it takes to do it; and without a will to hold it together, there is no guarantee the object will come back complete on the other side. Your gear being spiritbound, your spirit "knows" the composition of your clothing, weapons, items, etc., and through strength of will those things can be faithfully recreated on the other side. We know there are various teleportation devices of Allagan and Garlean design, but the power requirements are likely immense for the distances at which they can operate.

I agree with you about not being able to carry unreasonable amounts of stuff, from a lore perspective. Even as a hulking Roegadyn, I would still have to travel relatively lightly. This takes a little hand-waving, but maybe if our packs/pouches/purses are bound to us, then the things inside of them are bound by proxy--the lifestream and magicks involved treat your pouch of stuff as one object. The more stuff in the pouch, the more difficult it would be to recreate, which would provide limits on what could be teleported.

I'm not sure how much of this is spoilerific, so I'll just hide it all...

I see what befell Y'shtola and Thancred as not being changed by teleportation magicks or the lifestream, but a result of what is essentially data loss in the lifestream. Using a proper spell opens a conduit between two aetherytes that provides accurate tranferrance of information with negligible losses, much like a telegraph or fiber optic cable in our world.

Y'shtola's forbidden magicks, in effect, broadcast her and Thancred's information into the lifestream like a radio, in hopes a "reciever" could quickly pick it up. She was, very briefly, one of the most powerful transmitters in the world. Time weakened their signals, and it was probably only shear strength of will that kept their spirits intact enough that they came back as they did. A person of lesser constitution might have come back a vegetable, or been absorbed by the lifestream entirely.

I assume more than one Sharlayan researcher met a gruesome end in the name of science while studying teleportation magicks. Y'shtola was lucky to come back only missing her sight. What if she came back without her face? *shudder*