Our next stop in The Planes series is the Outlands-
a plane connecting the Outer Planes around a single axle.
Introduction to the Planes
Reflections: Feywild, Shadowfell
Inner Planes: Ethereal Plane, Elemental Chaos,
Plane of Air, Plane of Earth, Plane of Water
Outer Planes: Astral Plane, Arborea, Beastlands, Bytopia, Gehenna, Mechanus, Mount Celestia, Pandemonium, Sigil, Ysgard

What is the Outlands

The Outlands, which are sometimes referred to as the Concordant Opposition or the Concordant Domain, is located at the very center of the Great Wheel cosmology. While most charts of the planes don’t typically show the Outlands, instead choosing to place the Material Plane in the center of the graph, the Outlands is the center of the Outer Planes, touching every Outer Plane. This plane is considered to be true neutral, as it exists perfectly in the center of the more rigidly aligned multiverse of the planes.

This plane is known as an infinitely large wheel that touches each of the sixteen Outer Planes at specific spots around the wheel. In the center is a great spire that rises from the center, and is thought, whether abstractly or literally, to be the cylindrical axle that the Great Wheel spins around. This spire is visible at any location on this plane as it rises infinitely high into the sky, towering above the clouds and stretching into the sky above. At the very top of this spire is Sigil, the City of Doors, though there is no entrance into Sigil at the height of this spire, at least any that have been found.

Manual of the Planes, 1987 TSR Inc. — **Manual of the Planes**, 1987 TSR Inc.

History

The Outlands is featured in the Manual of the Planes (1987) as the Concordant Opposition, for many thought that the Outlands was the direct opposite of every plane due to its neutrality. In 2nd edition in the Planescape Campaign Setting, only those from the Prime Material Plane would call the Outlands that due to their clueless insights into the planes. The Outlands is more fleshed out in the 2nd edition with the introduction of the gate towns and descriptions of the inhabitants of this strange plane, while the 3rd edition provides a few more details. The Outlands are removed in 4th edition but return in 5th edition with little information added.

An Outsider’s Perspective

At first glance, a new arrival would be excused for thinking that they never left the Material Plane, especially if they had never traveled across the planes before. The plane has a little of everything when it comes to the terrain and biomes, from patches of deserts to dense jungles to sweeping grasslands. The further one moves away from the spire, at least a thousand miles out, the terrain tends to even out into a singular and vast grassland that spreads out forever.

Most visitors to this plane will arrive at one of the sixteen gate towns where much of the trade and commerce can be found on this plane, though there are plenty of towns, and cities, the closer you move to the center of this plane. Depending on where an outsider ends up can greatly influence their opinion about the planes, the parts of the Outland that are closer to the Lower Planes are often filled with unsavory bandits, fiends, and even just people looking to steal what little possessions an outsider might have. Arriving closer to the Upper Planes provides an outsider a greater chance of getting their bearing and meeting friendlier people that can help, of course, many realize that the petitioners of the Outlands are more interested in keeping their neutrality than truly helping, even if they live in gate towns to the Upper Planes.

A Native’s Perspective

Planescape Campaign Setting, 1994 TSR Inc. — **Planescape Campaign Setting**, 1994 TSR Inc.

Everything is in balance with itself on the Outlands, and the same goes for the inhabitants and petitioners who are spending their afterlife on this plane. Inhabitants of this plane, at least those who are spending their afterlife here, often do what they must to maintain the balance of their deeds. A petitioner is just as likely to help a traveling group of adventurers being chased by a pack of hell hounds as they are as likely to explain to the hell hounds exactly where you are hiding in the barn. Petitioners are not cruel or mean, but for every good action they do, they must ensure that their tallies remain balanced and will have to do something wrong later.

Beyond the petitioners, many of the inhabitants live in the towns and cities across this plane. The most prominent villages are the sixteen gate towns equally spaced in a circle 1,000 miles away from the spire, each linking the Outlands to one of the Outer Planes. In these cities, trade caravans come and go, selling the wares of the Outer Planes to other planes. It is not only the gate towns that see such traffic but also the cities that are built closer to the spire, where magic starts losing its potency. In these inner cities, opposing entities can meet freely without the worry of being ambushed by powerful magic.

Apart from the petitioners, traders, and those who reside in the cities, are also the various denizens across the planes. Any creature from the Outer Plane can be found wandering across this plane, on errands of their own or from the powers that they serve. Most may have little interest in bothering other adventurers, but some, like demons or bandits, can’t pass up the opportunity to break up the monotony of travel with violence.

Atmosphere

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.

Traits

Travel to the Plane

The Outlands is a very easy plane to travel to with portals leading to the sixteen Outer Planes located at set distances around the spire and with several portals leading to the Material Planes throughout the layer. Leather brown color pools in the Astral Plane lead to the Outlands and there are several portals from Sigil that lead here. Astral portals only link up to the 4th ring, while there are still portals from Sigil up to the 3rd ring.

Traversing the Plane

Traveling across the Outlands is a lot like traveling across the Material Plane, except you don’t have any celestial bodies to guide you. Instead, you must rely on the direction known as spireward, which is always the direction of the spire. Luckily, due to its infinite height, the spire can be seen easily rising high above the clouds with Sigil at the very top of this spire. This causes a lot of confusion, as to how can the spire be infinitely tall and yet an onlooker can easily see Sigil at the top of this spire? Most planars, people who live in the planes, often just shrug and say that that is just how it is and there is no point in getting worked up about it.

The Outlands has no borders, instead the further out you move away from the spire, the fewer inhabitants you are likely to find. The terrain, once you get at least 1,000 miles away from the spire, turns to grassy plains and is described as empty, though there are still small beasts and other creatures that have somehow ended up on the Outlands from across the Outer Planes. Moving closer to the spire is a lot more difficult as the biomes change, some say quite sporadically and when you least expect it. Icy mountains might stand next to jungles, deserts might be found in the center of tundras, and so on.

Traveling from one gate town can be very strange as the plane finds ways of being highly mutatable. Travel from one gate town to the next can take anywhere from 3 to 18 days so long as you are going to an adjacent gate town, if you are traveling to one on the other side of the plane, your travel time will be adjusted by the number of gate towns you must pass through. Traveling towards the spire takes the normal amount of traveling as the plane doesn't want to make it too easy to reach its center, and if you travel past the gate towns and further from the spire, even thousands of miles away, you can easily reach the nearest gate town in 3 to 18 days so long as you focus on traveling there.

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.

9th Ring - 901+ Miles Out / Magic functions as normal
8th Ring - 801-900 Miles Out / 9th-level spells annulled

7th Ring - 701-800 Miles Out / 8th-level spells annulled

6th Ring - 601-700 Miles Out / 7th-level spells annulled

5th Ring - 501-600 Miles Out / 6th-level spells annulled

4th Ring - 401-500 Miles Out / 5th-level spells annulled, poisons no longer work

3rd Ring - 301-400 Miles Out / 4th-level spells annulled, demigods lose their magical offensive power, conjurations spells no longer function

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
1st Ring - 101-200 Miles Out / 2nd-level spells annulled, all deities lose their magical offensive powers
Spire - 0-100 Miles Out / All magic annulled, deities lose all magical powers

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.

Locations

The Outlands is made up of several villages, realms, gate towns, and more. The ancient bones of a massive dragon might be the home for a bandit camp, while the bogs are the territory of the lizardfolk. The Outlands has a home for any true-neutral traveler, power or petitioner, and thus has an amalgamation of realms and locations within its borders.

Manual of the Planes, 2001 WotC — **Manual of the Planes,** 2001 WotC

Gate Towns (9th Ring)

There are sixteen gate towns that connect to each of the Outer Planes, each of these gate towns emulates the plane that they are connected too. It is the goal of many of the inhabitants of these gate towns to shift their town into the plane they emulate, thus building up the size of their respective planes. When this happens, the city simply slides into the adjoining plane, though the portal remains in the Outlands. A new city will immediately be built up again around the portal, and the inhabitants will begin anew. This does not happen very often because there are people all across the planes that don’t want to see other planes grow larger and thus a lawful city, like Automata who borders Mechanus, has many chaotic residents who keep Automata from shifting.

The gate towns are Excelsior (Mount Celestia), Tradegate (Bytopia), Ecstasy (Elysium), Faunel (Beastlands), Sylvania (Arborea), Glorium (Ysgard), Xaos (Limbo), Bedlam (Pandemonium), Plague-Mort (the Abyss), Curst (Carceri), Hopeless (Hades), Torch (Gehenna), Ribcage (the Nine Hells), Rigus (Acheron), Automata (Mechanus), and Fortitude (Arcadia). Each gate town will be more fully explored in another article, though two are looked at below.

Automata

This gate town is the home of the portal that leads to the perfect law of Mechanus, and there is a rule for everything. New arrivals in Automata are expected to go to the Offices of Visiting Entities where they must form an orderly queue and fill out paperwork for the next 3 to 4 hours that details their entire lives, they are then given a visitors pass and provided a pamphlet of rules for Automata.

A Player’s Primer to the Outlands, 1995 TSR Inc. — **A Player’s Primer to the Outlands,** 1995 TSR Inc.

Traveling across Automata, the streets are laid out in a perfect grid and every building is made of a uniform gray stone. The people travel in neat little rows, dressed in gray robes, and hurrying about their jobs for the order must be maintained. When the ‘sun’ rises, the people of Automata begin their day, and when the ‘sun’ sets, they return home. Every day they maintain order and are ruled over by the Council of Order. But Automata holds a secret beneath its perfect streets.

There is a large, underground criminal activity to Automata that is located underground. Here, the Council of Anarchy rules, where there are fighting pits to the death, gambling, stealing, cheating, and more. This Council of Anarchy is what is holding Automata back from shifting to Mechanus, and the guard captain of Automata would like nothing more than to wipe out the infestation of chaos and shift the town.

Plague-Mort

Considered to be a festering boil on the Outlands, this gate town leads to the Abyss and is as grotesque as many find the Abyss. This town is constantly shifting into the Abyss, and just as soon as it does the town reforms and the Arch-Lector, the ‘ruler’ of Plague-Mort if you can call him that, is in charge of ensuring that this gate town gets shifted over quickly, failure would involve a horrendous existence in the Abyss and the demons who would spend their time torturing the Arch-Lector.

Plague-mort appears to be gray ruins, dirty hovels, and open sewers around the grand and gilded palace of the Arch-Lector. Grime and filth cover the streets, and bodies are a common sight as those who live here don’t take kindly to insults, even simple misunderstandings can get a creature killed. One of the few reasons for visiting this town, especially for traders who value their lives and not getting robbed every night, is that Market Row, a relatively nice street full of shops with gilded facades, has high-quality weapons at strangely cheap prices.

The Dwarven Mountain (7th - 8th Ring, near Glorium)

Situated in the icy mountains in the Outlands, this realm is the home for several dwarven deities and is where many dwarven petitioners head to in their afterlife. There are no set towns inside of these mountains, but rather the halls dedicated to dwarven lines and dwarven gods. Outsiders, like travelers, traders, or anyone not a dwarf, are often treated with great suspicion and many dwarves have little to no interest in talking to anyone that isn't a dwarf.

The dwarves spend their days mining the mountain, gathering ore and gems from the Outlands and shaping into beautiful works of art, deadly weapons, and more. Thanks to the dwarven gods who inhabit this realm, the dwarves never tire, instead, they are filled with the joy of their work 24/7, they dig through the ground happy in their afterlife and when they tire of mining, they leave for their feast halls where they drink their dwarven ale and join in on the songs of praise for mining and living in the mountain.

Each stone, gem, and treasure found bring a petitioner dwarf one step closer to becoming one with the realm, and the dwarves guard their gems closely. Outsiders who touch a gem without permission ruins the quality of the treasure and the dwarfs take such insults against them badly.

Ironridge

There is a small town settled on the outside of the mountain where traders are expected to go if they wish to trade with the dwarves, this town is not controlled by the dwarves but is rather a settlement that sprung up thanks to some stubborn humans who wouldn’t take no for an answer. This town is full of guides to the Dwarven Mountains, traders selling the wares of dwarves, and is constantly fighting against the bitter cold of the ice-capped mountains.

Semuanya’s Bog (9th ring, near Curst)

Far out from the Spire, this realm exists past the gate towns and is full of swamps and boglands. The petitioners who call this home are the lizardfolk who focus on their great loves of hunting and eating other creatures. The lizardfolk don’t care about travel and trade, and any who arrive here are often seen more like a meal than anything else. Some people think that they might control the lizardfolk, that they can rule through power but most of them often end up never being heard of again.

Tvashtri’s Laboratory (8th ring, near Sylvania)

Home of the god of science and artificers, Tvashtri has a realm located on the inside of grassy hills. The laboratory is set inside the hills of this realm, and on the inside is filled with tools, gears, magic, technology, and more. Many consider that this is the second-best place for magical weapons, the best being the Dwarven Mountains, the second-best library, the best being Thebestys, and so on. The best part of Tvashtri is that everything is located in the same building and is overseen by the tinkering petitioners of Tvashstri.

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 a circle 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.

Factions & People

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 alert the guards that you are hiding in their barn.

Powers

There are a few deities that have made their realms on the Outlands, their need for neutrality making this plane a natural fit for them. None make their realms too close to the spire and they are limited as to what sort of influence they can impose on their realms, of course, them being limited doesn’t mean their power is restricted. They are still powerful gods, but their realms are limited from being too extreme. Massive blizzards, blazing hot heat, or volcanoes bursting with magma are far too extreme for this plane, and thus their realms are more moderate than the other realms located on the Outer Planes. Though, this fits the true-neutral aligned powers who are typically more subdued than their counterparts.

Encounters

Dragon Bandits - The party is set upon by the dragon bandits, an eccentric group who believe themselves to be dragons in human form and that the nullification of the Outlands has stopped them from transforming. Their hideout is in the ancient bones of some giant behemoth, maybe a dragon. Their threat is simple, hand over anything that sparkles and they won't have to unleash their draconic wrath upon you.

In Hiding - The party has been tasked to journey into the 2nd ring and find someone who is hiding in one of the small cities there. Their target is a warrior of renown and has ran into a section of the Outlands where wizards can't track them.

Mimir Merchant - A merchant is selling mimirs for only 2,000 gold pieces. These strange silver skulls have recordings and knowledge of the planes gathered by planeswalkers, though some of it isn’t always correct. These skulls can be seen most often with new arrivals to the planes who use the mimirs as guides, and they only function while floating around their owners like ioun stones. This merchant seems to be selling them very cheap and there is some concern that the mimirs might be stolen, or worst, have the wrong information in them.

Walking Castles - While traveling through a dense forest, the thunderous sound of trees topping and splintering can be heard in the distance. Looking around, the party can see a castle barreling through the forest, its massive legs snapping trees like toothpicks. With an increase of belching smoke, the castle picks up speed and it seems to be charging straight towards the party.

Resources & Further Reading

Manual of the Planes (1st edition)
For more information on the Outlands.
Planescape Campaign Setting Box Set (2nd edition)
For more information on creatures, locations, and inhabitants of the Outlands.
A Player’s Primer to the Outlands (2nd edition)
For more information on the gate towns and locations.
Manual of the Planes (3rd edition)
For more general information on the Outlands.

Like what we are doing here?
Support us on Patreon!

You’ll get early access to deep dives, our Homebrew Hoard, Monster Thursdays and more!Follow us on Twitter to keep up to date on everything we talk about!

May 18 The Planes: Outlands