The Outside

On the fringes of creation is a place so thoroughly alien that it defies all conceptions of logic. This place is called the Outside, and the furthest depths of it are still unknown. While the Outside is technically part of the excess, it differs so greatly from the regions of space nearest the Argent, that they're colloquially considered to be two separate places.

Geography

Physical space in the Outside is warped, across all realities. Manual locomotion remains the method to move from one point to another, unlike the other realities. Unlike the rest of the excess, however, direction is tenuous and space seems to be spliced together at random. An unsuspecting pilot could sail straight forward and wind up going in circles, or go in the exact opposite direction, or even randomly cross through a spatial tear, spat out in an entirely different section of the universe. A telltale sign of the Outside is the presence of these spatial tears, known as wormholes.
While even less is known about the Outside on the Surreal and Wretched realities than the material, it is widely presumed that the respective laws of those realities are also bent or rebuked.
There are countless other anomalies, but they're all so inconsistent that no conclusive statements could be made. Extreme time dilation, forced astral projection, and zones where the ethereal and material overlap are all examples of such claims.

Localized Phenomena

The biggest difference between the excess and the outside is how the fundamental laws of the universe twist. Most infamously, magic behaves entirely differently than it does in the excess.
According to any faithful of Icae, magic from this realm, appropriately called 'Outsider Magic', disturbs the resting pool of magic known as the Tide. The exact ramifications of this, however, vary depending on who is asked.

Fauna & Flora

Beyond the strange and alien magic, the Outside is known best for its strange and frightening inhabitants. Creatures native to, or sufficiently transformed by, the Outside are called aberrations. Aberrations are only unified in their distinctly different biology, and their fundamental incompatibility with the Tide. Beyond this, aberrations can take on any form and exhibit all sorts of abilities. Some are no smarter than beasts, others are smarter than even ancient dragons. Others still seem to be as brutish as a beast, yet display extreme intellect in a narrow set of applications, proverbial idiot savants.
The physical forms of these aberrations are as inconsistent as their intelligence. Some appear approximately humanoid, though typically with differing amounts of limbs, or mutations such as tentacles or extra eyes. Others bear resemblance to other creatures of the Argent, such as the ixitxachitl, which bears striking similarity to a manta ray. Others still are entirely alien, such as the infamous beholder or the grotesque gibbering mouther.
The flora of the Outside is doubtlessly as varied, however, given that the vast majority of what is known about the Outside comes from contact with creatures native to the Outside, the collective knowledge of the alien flora is not well known at all. Whether Outsider plants even disturb the tide as creatures do is unknown.

Type

Galactic Quadrant

Location under

The Excess

Related Myths

• Not His Sword