Welcome to the Outlands
Source: A Players Primer to the Outlands p.2
Sigil was alive. At least, the Cage seemed alive, what with the shove and bustle of life pulsing through its streets. A body couldn't turn around in the city without bumping into humans, modrons, tanar'ri, fiends, devas, bariaur - just about every known type of being (and a few of the unknown kind, too). There were petitioners, planars, and, of course, the ever-present (and ever-clueless) primes.
It's easy to spot primes who're new to the planes - they've got an addle-coved look on their faces. Fact is, a group of 'em stood flat in the middle of the road like a ghoul's breakfast, the rest of the multiverse flowing around them (and a berk or two picking their pouches for loose jink). They'd heard of the endless planes where a cutter could find things he'd never even dreamed of, but now, having made it to Sigil, they didn't know what to do next.
The group's fighter unfolded the large map they'd gotten from a sage in Shadowdale. 'Course, the map was next to useless in this case - after all, few sages in the Prime know the dark of the planes. "Okay," said the basher, his eyes roaming the map. "There should be a door-thing to Glorium around here, somewhere.... "
"No, you fool!" snapped the rogue. "That's the gate-town for Gladsheim. We're going to Bytopia. Where's its gate-town?"
"Don't know," said the basher, looking over the map,
"but how far can it be?"
Just then, a low hiss cut magically through the crowd, tickling their ears and making them turn around. The whisper snaked back to a peddler and his stand in a nearby alley - an alley that wasn't there a minute before. The peddler grinned at them. They tumbled to the hint and moved slowly toward his stand.
The peddler was a short cutter - not short like a gnome or a dwarf but more like a tall body that'd been twisted down into a humped shape. The primes, though, were 'more interested in the glittering objects that danced in the air about him. Silver skulls, leaves, disks, and multi-pointed stars shone and spun like bright moons around a dead world.
"So, you're looking for the chant, are you?" asked the peddler. "Looking for... information?"
The basher nodded, watching the sparkling objects. "About the Plane of Concordant - uh, I mean, the Outlands."
The peddler let out a barking laugh. With a palsied hand, he reached up and snatched one of the skulls out of the air. He offered it to the fighter like a piece of fruit. "Ask," he said. "Point and ask."
The basher carefully took the skull in his hands, barely holding onto it for a second before letting it go. It floated up and hung in the air, slowly turning to face him. He pointed at the silvery skull with a cautious finger. "Okay, uh, what's the gate-town for Bytopia?"
Clicking softly, the skull said nothing for a few seconds. Then it began to speak, giving the quick chant on the town of Tradegate. The peddler smiled, and a sale was made.
The primes moved away from the stand, passing the skull back and forth among themselves as they bumped their way through the crowded streets of the Cage. The rogue took a last look around, but the peddler, his wares, and the alley itself had disappeared.
Using this Booklet
This booklet is a handy travel guide to the Outlands, one of the many Outer Planes. The Outlands can be dangerous, and cutters new to the area need to
know the dark of things - where to go, who to see, and what to do. 'Course, often more important is who and what to avoid, and that's here, too.
The first part of the booklet is a general introduction to the Outlands. It talks about the mimir, a new magical item that could become a cutter's best friend. Then, it gives an overview of the Outlands itself: how the place works, how to get around, and how to handle magic.
The bulk of the booklet is a more detailed look at the gate-towns and other locations that a cutter might want to explore (or avoid). While these sections don't tell a body all he might like to know, they'll most likely spare him from too quick a death.
All of this material is for players to read, consult, debate, and interpret. Some of it is further expanded upon in the Planescape Campaign Setting, and some of it is brand new, revealing locations not covered in that product. This booklet also contains rumors (adventure hooks) that a DM can use to craft his own adventures in the Outlands.
New to the Planes, are you? Thought so. It's that look of wonder in your eye. The uncertainty in your step. That, and the "bob me" sign someone's stuck to your back.
A Word of Warning
The chant in this booklet and CD is treated as coming from sources in the Outlands. Some of it might be misguided, misinformed, or just plain wrong. What's more, the DM can modify or ignore material to suit his own Planescape campaign. Players who slavishly follow the information in the booklet or CD shouldn't flap their bone-boxes if their characters get stuck in a bind. Pointing to a reference in this product doesn't overrule a DM's decision, berk. As far as the planes are concerned, let the Clueless beware, and pity the poor sod who treats the chant as the absolute truth.
The Mimir
The Mimir (pronounced mih-MEAR, and also called the Well of Knowledge or the Speaking Skull) is a minor magical item available for sale in Sigil. Basically, it's a device that gives answers to spoken questions, as long as those answers have been recorded by the mimir's creator. Mimirs can shed light on any number of subjects that are dark, but the most common type gives a brief tour of the Outlands and its gate-towns.
Mimirs come in many forms - disks, cubes, leaves, stars, sunflowers (popular with druids), human and animal skulls, and plenty of other shapes. They're all made of an unknown silvery metal, which might be what makes 'em work. The metal shines and reflects light with a rainbow hue. If a body looks close, he'll see fine lines drawn in tight patterns over its surface.
To hear what a mimir's got to say, its owner just points at it and asks a question. It'll click for a few seconds, searching for any chant it has on the subject.If it finds any, it'll speak up, giving the answer in an instructive, conversational tone.
A mimir can also tell a body where he stands in the Outlands, but only in a general way. It can't give exact distances or location, but it'll say which ring outward from the spire he's standing in. That's an important thing to know, berk, because the closer a body gets to the spire, the more magic drops away.
Mimirs only work on the Outer Planes. If brought to the Inner, Astral, Ethereal, or Prime Material Planes, they'll just babble a load of gibberish. Take it back to the Outer Planes, though, and it'll work again.
Certain spells can block a mimir, too. A dispel magic will temporarily stop it from working, and spells such as feeblemind will make it babble. It won't work in a silence 15' radius or a dead magic zone, but it recovers instantly if taken out of the spell's reach.
These devices don't often get lost. They float naturally, and follow their owners just like ioun stones. 'Course, that means it's easy to mark a new prime - he's the one with the skull bouncing along behind him. For this reason, most folks keep their mimir in boxes, backpacks, or sacks. But they've got to take it out to use it. A mimir won't work unless it's floating freely, whether in air or in water.
No one knows the dark of where mimirs come from, but they're commonly for sale in Sigil and the gate-towns, usually from peddlers or berks in taverns. Some say they come from the chaotic good planes, but many a sod who's found their chant barmy or out of date has sworn they were spawned in the pits of Baator. Most mimirs sell for about 2,000 gold pieces, but a sharp cutter has a better chance of getting one by trading for another magical item. One mysterious peddler in Sigil who sells mimirs often takes other magical items in trade, including cursed ones.
An Overview of the Outlands
The Outlands are known to the Clueless as the "Plane of Concordant Opposition." (Fact is, they get most of the planar names wrong, which is a sure way to mark a prime.) Just one of many Outer Planes, the Outlands are still a very unique place. For starters, it's got entrances to every other Outer Plane, making it a central clearing-house for all sorts of planar beings. And then, of course, there's the spire. A body'd have to be blind to miss that - it rises up out of the middle of the Outlands, infinitely tall, with the city of Sigil hovering on top.
The spire's a good example of how primes worry too much. They always want to know how something that's infinitely tall can have something else on top of it. But that kind of thinking just drives a berk barmy. In the planes, things are the way they are, and it's best just to leave it at that.
Another problem is that primes figure their out-of-touch universe is the center of everything. When they found the Outlands - a plane connected to all other Outer Planes - they had to cobble up a quick reason why it couldn't be the center of the multiverse. So they called it the "Plane of Concordant Opposition," the idea being that the Outlands are opposed to the other planes.
Nothing is further from the truth, berk. The Outlands (sometimes just called the Land) are at the center of all things, with gates leading to the other planes. A traveler headed for one of those planes just has to use the right gate. 'Course, creatures from the other side can come through the gates, too, so a berk's got to watch his step.
The gates see a lot of use in both directions, so folks figured it'd be a good idea to build towns around each one. These settlements are known as gate-towns, and each is described later in this booklet. Funny thing about gate-towns, though - they reflect the mood of whatever plane their gate leads to. r example, the poor sods in Bedlam are half-barmy (some would say more than half) just from living next to the Gate to Pandemonium. Even the town itself can take on the mood of a plane, buildings and all.
Fact is, if the mindset of a town gets too morally and ethically aligned to its plane, it'll get sucked through the gate. The whole burg just disappears from the Outlands and moves to the other plane. If the town of Excelsior gets too good and too lawful, for example, then it'll join the choir on Mount Celestia.
What happens next depends on the town. For some places, another copy just pops right up out of nowhere, taking the place of the original. Other towns, though, won't be copied. They'll have to be rebuilt by any cutters willing to lift a hammer. In any case, when a town's sucked away, the gate stays. 'Course, it might be a bit worse for the wear, but folks can't really say. Even a planar doesn't know the dark about everything.
But remember, berk - the gates work both ways. If a town can go through, it can come back out. Parts of the Outer Planes that don't measure up morally and ethically with the rest of their plane can break off and slide into the Outlands. For example, if a paladin built his home on evil Baator, it just wouldn't work. Sooner or later, his place would drift back to the Land (and good riddance, the baatezu would say). This usually only happens to spots on the upper levels of the plane - the stuff farther down is pretty well anchored. And given the endless nature of planes, such swapping back and forth is minor.
Besides the gate-towns, the Outlands have a good number of other spots a traveler should know about. Some are just small villages, but some are the realms of powers who like the unaligned, free-wheeling nature of the Land. 'Course, a truly evil power setting up shop in the Outlands suffers the same problem as the gatetowns. That is, Loki can create a citadel there and fill it with malicious berks, only to have it eventually slip into his native plane. This means that most of the powers of the Outlands are neutral, or, at least, amoral - beyond the ethical and moral definitions of most planars.
So, you want to know why the Outlands have both day and night when there's no sun or stars in the sky? What are you - clueless?
Moving Through the Outlands
Between the gate-towns and other populated areas, the bulk of the Outlands is pretty much open, empty space. Here and there, a traveler'll run into sharp-toothed mountains, rolling hills, windswept badlands, and forests of all kinds of vegetation. But these places've turned their backs on the "normal" rules for topography, geography, and climate. (Fact is, the Outlands map in the Planescape Campaign Setting boxed set is more suggestion than reality; DMs can mix and match terrain as they seefit.)Also, with chunks of the Land always breaking off or adding on, long-term structures like roads don't usually last too long. A body has to make it on his own.
But there's another way for folks who don't feel like walking: taking a gate from Sigil. The city's got a number of magical portals that lead to the gate-towns and some even go farther, right into the Outer Planes. These gates are real handy, but they tend to move around. Smart cutters'll find themselves a local guide.
Those who do cross the Land on foot often complain that it drives 'em barmy. Journeys take a random amount of time - as Outlanders say, "It takes as long as it takes, no more or less." A body can walk from Rigus to Ribcage in a few days, only to find the return trip takes several weeks.
For gaming purposes, though, figure that it takes about three to eighteen days to move between nearby points - for example, a trip from Hopeless to one of its neighboring gatetowns, Torch or Curst. For longer trips, just add up the pieces. So, a body going from Hopeless to Ribcage must first get to Torch (three to eighteen days), and then press on to Ribcage (another three to eighteen days). Even if he tries to avoid any contact with Torch, the trip'd still take from six to thirty-six days.
Here's another example: A body wants to go from Hopeless to Thoth's Estate. (Folks who've been to Hopeless know why all the sods in these examples would want to leave.) First, it'd take three to eighteen days to reach the River Ma'at, then another three to eighteen days to follow it downstream to Thoth's Estate. By the way, Thoth's Estate and the city of Thebestys are the only spots that don't follow the travel rule - they're really considered to be one area, and it takes little or no time to go between them.
The Clueless usually think that riding a horse'll make a trip faster. Not so. It'll take the same amount of time, no matter how a body goes. Then again, sods who get lost in the Outlands might appreciate a horse - to eat. (Some planars do talk of a growing herd of camels, and another of buffalo, that've been brought into the Land and left to go feral.)
Magic in the Outlands
It's happened plenty of times: A prime makes it to the Outlands, gets herself into all sorts of trouble, and whips up a powerful spell or two to save her skin. Trouble is, if she's not standing in the right place or doesn't have the right key, the spell's likely to fizzle. The dead-book's full of the Clueless who didn't know the dark of how magic works in the Land.
Here, the strength of magic depends on how far a body is from the spire - the center of the plane. (Any berk who still has to ask how an infinite plane can have a center is in the wrong universe.) The direction away from the spire is generally known as ringward or outward (toward the ring of the Outer Planes), while the direction toward the spire is called spireward or inward.
The Outlands are divided into concentric circles, though the borders of the circles aren't marked in any way. As a body crosses these borders, magical abilities drop away. In the farthest circle ringward, all magic works normally (as normally as it ever does in the Land). But as a body moves closer to the spire, more spells are locked out, until at the spire itself no magic works at all (except for Sigil, of course).
These circles are known as rings or layers, depending on where a body's from. Natives of Sigil call them rings, and count outward from the spire to the rim. Bashers from the Outer Planes tend to think in layers, and so that's what they call the circles, counting inward from the rim to the spire.
The table above sums up how magic is affected on each ring and layer. It's not just spells, berk - all spelllike abilities get knocked out, too. For example, a beholder's disintegrating eye is treated as a wizard's disintegrate spell, which is sixth-level. Neither'll work within the fifth ring or fifth layer. These restrictions apply to magic for both wizards and priests.
All of the gate-towns sit in the outermost ring layer, where magic isn't affected (except by the normal restrictions of the Outlands). Most of the other important sites are found in the sixth, seventh or eighth ring outward, since that's where the powers of the plane usually set up shop. Here's why: Too far from the spire, their domains could slip into another Outer Plane; too close, and they couldn't grant their worshipers all the magic they'd like.
There's one other thing that's pretty important about the rings and layers - they move. The sodding borders slide back and forth across the Land, so locations can fall into a range of different rings. A patch of ground'll be in the sixth ring one day and in the fifth the next. 'Course, a piece of land almost never moves more than one ring or so from its original spot. Bigger changes usually take place only if a nearby gate-town goes tumbling off into an Outer Plane.
Since the borders between the rings aren't marked, most berks aren't sure of where they are until they try to cast a spell and it fails. If a cutter's lucky enough to have a mimir, it'll tell her what ring or layer she's standing in, but it won't give the location of the next nearest ring or layer.
Travel between rings or layers takes just as long as trips between towns. From the ninth ring, a body'd go for three to eighteen days to reach the eighth ring, and then another three to eighteen days to reach the seventh ring. Just wandering around the Outlands crossing rings can really eat up a cutter's time.
Travel time between rings is separate from travel time between specific locations. That is, a body going from Curst to the Palace of Judgment takes the normal amount of time, no matter how many rings she crosses along the way.
The spire's another story - it's infinite, so it's not treated as a specific location. A body walking from Curst to the base of the spire'd have to cross a number of rings to do it, at three to eighteen days each.
Spell Keys
Even if a body's standing in the right ring or layer, she still might find that some of her spells don't work. That's just the way it is on the planes. But don't give up yet, berk - a spell key might set things right.
A spell key is a special item, method, or even another spell that'll allow a particular spell to be cast. Without the right key, a spell could putter out halfway through or not even work at all. They only work for wizard spells, though (priest spells use the mysterious power keys).
Cutters have to tumble to the nature of spell keys on their own. A lot of that stuff is dark to most folks. But the kinds of spells that need keys are pretty well known:
- Divination spells that contact powers and creatures in the Inner Planes.
- Elemental conjurations that summon creatures or effects from the Inner Planes.
- Ethereal-based spells that need access to the Ethereal Plane.
- Energy Plane spells that need access to the Negative or Positive Energy Planes.
- Shadow magic spells that need access to the Shadowfell.
- Spells of any type that conjure, contact, or tap energies from the Inner Planes, the Ethereal Plane, or any of the Demiplanes. These spells (like dismissal or drawmij's instant summons) might work just fine in the Outlands, but if a body wants to use them to reach one of those other planes, it'll take a spell key.
By the way, any berk who figures on using psionic abilities to duplicate these spells or reach the Inner Planes, Ethereal Plane, or Demiplanes is out of luck.
Power Keys
Power keys are clerical in nature. Like spell keys, they're used to boost certain spells on a particular plane. 'Course, as there aren't a lot of powers or pantheons in the Outlands (not as many as on some other planes, anyway), there aren't many power keys, either.
Fact is, the current chant says the Land's got no power keys at all. But cutters keep looking all the same. Here's the dark of it, though: If there were any power keys, they'd have to be created by a very high-up blood - in other words, the DM.
A Tour of the Outlands
The rest of this booklet shows a cutter just what he might expect to find in his travels across the Land. First, there's a good look at each of the gate-towns (on pages 8 through 27). There, he can get the dark on a number of subjects: a general description of each town and its people; who's in charge of the place; where and how to use the gate; interesting sites to take in or avoid; and the current chant from the streets about what's really going on.
Then, a cutter can read about various other locations in the Land (on pages 28 through 32). These spots include small villages, camps, realms and domains scattered across (and under) the surface.
Welcome to the Outlands, berk. Try to live long enough to learn a thing or two.