The Outlands

The Outlands are a plane of concordant opposition — a disk-shaped plane of perfect neutrality at the centre of the Outer Planes. Anything and everything can flourish on the impartial and balanced canvas of the Outlands: a broad region whose boundless terrain blends to match the extreme forces that shape it. Arid, flame-scarred plains give way to heroic mountain ranges sculpted in the likenesses of gods, mouldy caverns ruled by sapient fungi, bottomless seas, and anything else that makes for great adventures.

Save for the domains of gods, realms in the Outlands are subject to a planar phenomenon known as cosmic realignment. When a location embodies the nature of one of the Outer Planes too closely, that plane absorbs the location and its inhabitants, restoring balance to the Outlands and expanding that plane. Some creatures combat cosmic realignment by acting in direct opposition to the linked plane’s temperament, while others gladly welcome this fate or pursue it outright.

Though the plane has no apparent suns, moons, or stars, the Outlands experience day and night cycles, sometimes referred to as peak and antipeak, respectively. In the morning, the sky gradually brightens, darkening to night 12 hours later. In the absence of clearly visible celestial bodies, travellers orient themselves based on the direction of the Spire, known as spireward. The opposite of spireward is brinkward.

A ring of sixteen evenly spaced towns, equidistant to the Spire, lies at the edge of the Outlands. Each is constructed around a portal to one of the Outer Planes, and these gate-towns are dramatically influenced by the realms they border. The towns and their inhabitants vary wildly from each other, mirroring many of the extreme characteristics of their respective planes of influence.