The Shadowlands is a term that is a common coinage among residents of the material plane. It typically encompasses the ether, the Shadow, and the astral reaches. It may include the elemental realms, but rarely includes divine realms.

Shadowlands is a distinctly mortal coinage, demarcating the boundary between the prime material and other planes. The Shadowlands, sages say, are kept separate from the material plane by virtue of the planar membrane.

Planars do not think of the Shadowlands as one place, but a panoply of places, and their use of language reflects this. They refer to planes and collective regions, with no real term for “everything-but-the-material-plane.”