Outlands

The **Concordant Domain of the Outlands**, also known as **Concordant Opposition**, was the center of the Great Wheel of Outer Planes. It connected to all other Outer Planes and was truly neutral in alignment. Other names for this plane were the **Outlands**, **Godsland**, and **Friendly Opposition**.

The Outlands was the exception to many of the rules governing the Outer Planes, the first being its lack of alignment or true neutrality. It was an infinite plane, yet it had a definite center (the Spire with Sigil on top). The properties of all the other Outer Planes were mixed together in the Outlands. Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos existed here in all their forms, but they were less able to affect each other due to the neutralizing effect of this plane.

## Description

While there was no sun in the Outlands, the plane still had day and night cycles.

## Geography

This plane defied description by changing the perception of those who entered, becoming a completely new and yet familiar plane with each visit. Typically on the first visit the plane appeared as a larger version of the visitor's homeland. (A farmer would see vast farmland, a scribe would see a huge library for example.) Subsequent visits would reveal a different face but demesnes remained in the same spatial location—a city on one visit might be a forest with inhabitable trees on the next—chaotic variation but with the same order and placement. Deities could not fully control what visitors saw and heard in their realms, but they could influence the appearance to represent their proclivities.

The Outlands had a neutralizing effect on the randomness of weapons and spells, reducing all healing and damage to the minimum possible while having no effect on strength or magical bonuses. In addition to this, magic itself was gradually neutralized as you approached the center of the plane (which appeared as a huge mountain, tree, fountain, tornado, tower, column, etc.). At about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) out, high-level spells ceased to function. Every 100 miles (160 kilometers) or so, lower level spells would begin to fail, until finally at 200 miles (320 kilometers) from the center even first-level spells would not function. This applied to divine magic and the powers of the gods as well. Therefore, this ring around the center of the plane became a meeting place, bazaar, and common ground used by every intelligent species of the Outer Planes including greater deities of differing alignments. Moving in closer to the center, at about 100 miles (160 kilometers), all chemical reactions ceased to function and even the gods could not get any closer to the center of the plane.

The Astral Plane connected to the plane of the Outlands by color pools, which were never closer than 600 miles (970 kilometers) from each other. In addition, Yggdrasil, the World Ash, extended a branch to one of the realms in the plane.

The Outlands connected to all the other Outer Planes via portals. According to one early scholar, these sixteen *portals* were always seen as white disks of various sizes laid into the ground and were found at the 1,000‑mile (1,600‑kilometer) mark in a ring around the center of the plane. Each disk could send travelers to any plane they concentrated on. If a group used the *portal*, the destination was determined by the majority. Beings of a chaotic nature would sometimes be taken to the wrong destination. However, all later reports from visitors to the Outlands instead reported the existence of sixteen gate-towns leading to the other Outer Planes, as described below.

## Notable Locations

### Gate-Towns

Around the outer edge of the Outlands were sixteen evenly spaced settlements that were each constructed around a *portal* to one particular Outer Plane. For that reason, each gate-town shared many characteristics of the plane to which it connected.

The sixteen gate-towns were:

Excelsior
A beautiful, well-defended city with a kind population, it connected to Mount Celestia.
Tradegate
A star-shaped city that bristled with commerce and constant activity, it connected to Bytopia via a complex trade system with a bariaur known as the Master Trader.
Ecstasy
A peaceful, pastoral town, it connected to Elysium.
Faunel
A ruined city, but bristling with life, it connected to the Beastlands.
Sylvania
A constantly partying town where music played day and night, it connected to Arborea.
Glorium
A fishing village built at the edge of a fjord, it connected to Ysgard via two different *portals*. Another branch of Yggdrasil led to a cavern near the city.
Xaos
Also known as aXos, sXoa, oasX, and all other permutations, it was an ever-changing city that connected to Limbo.
Bedlam
A fan-shaped town built haplessly on the slopes of the Maurash hill, it connected to Pandemonium.
Plague-Mort
A diseased, ruined, and decaying town, it connected to the Abyss.
Curst
A bleak, dusty city organized in rings, it connected to Carceri.
Hopeless
A large city with a single entrance and organized as a spiral, it connected to Hades.
Torch
Built on the slopes of a range of volcanoes and surrounded by a disease-ridden marsh, it connected to Gehenna.
Ribcage
A mid-sized settlement, beautiful, but oppressive, located at the bottom of the Vale of the Spine, it connected to the Nine Hells.
Rigus
A huge military encampment, it connected to Acheron.
Automata
A perfectly ordered city, it connected to Mechanus.
Fortitude
A mid-sized, well-ordered city with an oppressive population eager to enforce the law, it connected to Arcadia.
## Inhabitants

Although the Outlands had no known native species or races, members of all intelligent species could be found here meeting in dead magic zones, trading goods, or traveling between planes, often in service to the higher powers. All manner of demons, devils, spirit legions, einheriar, planetars, devas, rilmani and slaadi could be found here, for example.