Outlands

The Concordant Domain of the Outlands, also known as the Concordant Opposition, is the Outer Plane where the souls of people of Neutral alignment are sent after death. It is popular as a meeting place for treaties between the powers. The Outlands are also home to the gate-towns. At the center of the Outlands is the Spire, atop which Sigil can be seen. The Outlands are the home plane of the neutral-minded Rilmani.

Overview

Reminiscent of the Material Plane, it is easy to mistake the Outlands for your home plane, at least for a short while. The icy mountains, parched deserts, and mist-covered forests dot across the plane, though the further you may out from the spire and get past the gate towns, the pastoral plains and sweeping grasslands become the dominant biome. There is no sun, stars, or a moon, instead travelers orient themselves based on where the spire is, known as spireward. The day and night cycle is similar to the Material Plane, but instead of a sun rising in the distance, the plane just starts to become brighter. Heavy fogs and early-day mists are a constant threat to travelers as it is easy to become lost when you can’t see the spire. The weather of this plane is never extreme, instead, it is largely moderate and maintains a steady feel to it. Due to the true-neutrality of this plane, ice storms and blazing hot deserts are almost unheard of, gentle snowfalls and warm deserts greet travelers. The weather is rarely something that must be fought while in the Outlands.

The Layers of the Outlands

The Outlands is actually made up of ten layers that circle around the spire every 100 miles, though they tend to ebb and flow slightly by a few miles. At 1,000 miles out from the spire, all magic works like normal, but for every 100 miles you get closer to the spire, powerful spells begin losing their potency and stop working. In the 9th ring, at least 901 miles from the spire and beyond, magic functions completely normally. Once you move 1 mile closer to the spire, you enter the second layer, known as the 8th ring, though there is no physical barrier or sign of such an event, only that 9th-level spells can no longer be cast. As travelers continue to move closer to the spire, additional magic can no longer be cast, this even has a strange effect on the gods, limiting their own power if they journey too close to the spire. Layer Miles from the Spire Effect? 1st layer / 9th Ring 901+ Miles Out Magic functions as normal 2nd layer / 8th Ring 801-900 Miles Out 9th-level spells annulled 3rd layer / 7th Ring 701-800 Miles Out 8th-level spells annulled 4th layer / 6th Ring 601-700 Miles Out 7th-level spells annulled 5th layer / 5th Ring 501-600 Miles Out 6th-level spells annulled 6th layer / 4th Ring 401-500 Miles Out 5th-level spells annulled, poisons no longer work 7th layer / 3rd Ring 301-400 Miles Out 4th-level spells annulled, demigods lose their magical offensive power, conjurations spells no longer function 8th layer / 2nd Ring 201-300 Miles Out 3rd-level spells annulled, lesser deities lose their magical offensive power, no creature can reach the astral plane from here 9th layer / 1st Ring 101-200 Miles Out 2nd-level spells annulled, all deities lose their magical offensive powers 10th layer / Spire 0-100 Miles Out All magic annulled, deities lose all magical powers (offensive & defensive) The closer to the spire that someone gets, the more power they lose until they leave the circles, even the gods are restrained by such power. Due to this strange phenomenon, many deities and proxies of opposing powers may meet in the 3rd or 2nd ring of the Outlands in order to come to agreements or talk about plans. No one likes to journey into the 1st ring, as it leaves gods completely powerless, not even their godly immunities to a simple club would function in this ring. Deities only meet here for the direst of circumstances, and not for very long at that.

Gate Towns

Gate-towns are settlements found in the 9th ring which are built around a permanent portal to a certain Outer Plane. Gate-towns are important strategically because they provide a relatively stable way to enter a desired Outer Plane. The gate-towns reflect the plane that they lead to.

There are 16 such gate towns, each connected to their own Outer Plane

• Glorium (Ysgard)
• Xaos (Limbo)
• Bedlam (Pandemonium)
• Plague-Mort (Abyss) A diseased realm of squalor and verminous fecundity, choked with razorvine and bizarre alien parasites. People here are so desperate that they have taken to the worship of the Lady of Pain en masse, constructing their makeshift mud hovels with blades atop them in the hopes of placating her. They pass their days agonizingly trying to numb their pain beneath layers of hard vices, slowly mutating into forms less and less recongizable. Elsewhere in the city, in massive cruel fortresses, the rich and powerful parade inhuman wealth and power before the suffering masses.
• Curst (Carceri) City of Traitors and Betrayers. The inhabitants constantly plot against one another, attempting to send others to the vast prison below the city before others arrange to have them sent there. It is arranged in concentric circles, the innermost housing the rich and powerful. The city gate to Carceri is a pair of crossed arches covered in moaning skulls of the betrayed, and is activated by a chain link.
• Hopeless (Hades) A bleak, gray city where colors are forbidden, built like a maelstrom that spirals to a central murky tarpit--a sinkhole to its patron realm. Ruled by a once human wizard garbed in chains and an iron wolf mask who is in turn served by a cadre of beholders. Its gate is a massive blood red screaming face.
• Torch (Gehenna) An everchanging furnace of cracked lava rock descending into steaming runlets of lava covered with hundreds of iron towers, hot as frying pans, that stretch up to a roiling sky choked with black smoke. The creatures that live there, mostly fire elementals, yugoloths, barghests as well as a subrace of nomadic humans called Desh, do so in order to savor the endless pain and suffering that comes from living there.
• Ribcage (Baator)
• Rigus (Acheron) A massive fortress-city enclosing a military camp endlessly engaged in preparations for war. Blacksmiths bang away at hot metal in the streets while corner venders sell military provisions and war animals. The city is built on a hill and is surrounded by a series of seven circular walls, each rising higher than the last. At the center, in a section of the city known as the Crown, a winding stair penetrates deep underground to a grey-green nimbus of twisting light like a great cat's eye: the portal to the city's patron plane.
• Automata (Mechanus)
• Fortitude (Arcadia)
• Excelsior (Celestia)
• Tradegate (Bytopia)
• Ecstasy (Elysium)
• Faunel (Beastlands)
• Sylvania (Arborea)

Realms

The Outlands is the location of a number of realms, including the following:

• The Caverns of Thought, realm of the illithid deity Ilsensine
• The Court of Light, realm of the naga deity Shekinester
• The Flowering Hill, the realm of the halfling goddess Sheela Peryroyl
• Gzemnid's Realm, home of the beholder deity of gases and vapors
• The Hidden Realm, home of the chief giant deity Annam
• The Hidden Vale, realm of the god Gilean
• The Hidden Wood, realm of the nature god Obad-Hai
• The Library of Lore, realm of the god Boccob
• The Mausoleum of Chronepsis, realm of the dragon deity Chronepsis
• The Marketplace Eternal, realm of the god Zilchus
• The Palace of Judgement, Yen-Wang-Yeh's realm
• The Scales of Wealth, the realm of Shinare
• Semuanya's Bog, 9th Ring, near Curst, realm of the lizardfolk deity Semuanya
• The Steel Hills, realm of the goddess Ulaa
• Thoth's Estate, the realm of Thoth
• Tvashtri's Laboratory, realm of Tvashtri god of artifice
• The Web of Fate, realm of the goddess Istus
• The Well of Urd, realm of the Norns
• Wonderhome, realm of Gond

Three dwarven gods, Vergadain, Dugmaren Brightmantle, and Dumathoin share the realm of The Dwarven Mountain 7th-8th Ring, near Glorium.

The gods (Daghdha, Diancecht, Goibhniu, Lugh, Manannan mac Lir, Oghma, and Silvanus) share the realm of Tír na nÓg.

Inhabitants

• Rilmani

Petitioners

While the petitioners are a large population of the Outlands, they are outnumbered by the planars and clueless travelers from the Material Plane. The petitioners are interested in keeping the balance of neutrality, but that doesn’t mean they don’t take sides. Petitioners are just as likely to help someone out as they are to harm them, all depending on their tallies.

Every petitioner here keeps tallies of how much good they have been doing verse how much wrong they’ve done. Law and chaos must be done in equal measure, but that doesn’t mean that they have to do it at the same time. Most petitioners keep a mental tally or write it down in a book, as to how much right or wrong, how much law or chaos they’ve done, and try to make sure that these values even out. They might do a great deed for someone else, and then a few years trying to ‘balance the books’ by doing a great wrong to someone else.

This makes them hard to interact with as no one knows what their tallies are, though so long as you don’t ask something of them that could be seen as swaying to one side or another, most petitioners are happy to assist. Then again, if their tallies are strongly unbalanced one way or the other, they might take the opportunity to balance them. They might offer a random piece of advice with a little prodding, or they might lie to the guards that you are thieves

Features

• The Power of the Journey: On the Outlands, the physical distance between places tends to shift around and to make traveling an even-handed affair. Moving from one place to a location nearby will take 3d6 days to complete, no matter who does the traveling, what method they use, or what speed they move at. A traveller walking on foot and one riding a horse who are traveling from Hopeless to Curst will both arrive at the same time, though they may have seen different things along the way. Teleportation (assuming it works; see below) and portals will work normally.
• Rings of the Spire: The Spire neutralizes magic and other effects the closer a traveler gets. Consult the following table to see the effects.
• Walking Castles (Varies):Massive castles move across the Outlands, controlled by the wizards who built them... or at least bought them. The castles were given movement due to the shifting borders of the Outlands, sometimes a ring around the Outlands will shift its position and when you thought you were in the center of the 7th ring, you might end up barely in the 6th ring. These castles make sure to move as the rings shift, always staying in the ring of the wizard's choice. Due to the limitations of magic in this plane, most wizards will ensure that there castle stays in the ring that allows them to cast their strongest spell, no wizard wants to be attacked by someone who can cast stronger spells than them.