The City
The city was constructed by a coalition of elves, gnomes and humans when it became apparent that The Nightmare would devour their world during the period that has become known to the inhabitants of the city as The Last Years.
The city was constructed around the old town of Night’s End, and some still call The City by that name.
Fragments and the Arcane Matrix
The city itself is held in place by major pylons, connected directly into the Arcane Matrix which powers and controls the city’s plane-hopping abilities.
The city is surrounded by other lands that have been added to the outskirts via the use of extending pylons. These lands are generally called “fragments”.
Destroying a major pylon would be a great calamity that might rip apart the entire arcane construct of the city and destroy the city and sur-rounding fragments.
Destroying a minor pylon will violently disassociate the fragment that it contains. If proper rituals are performed at all associated pylons, a fragment can be gently disassociated. This is usually done if the fragment runs out of a non-renewable resource (and the fragment was only there for that resource) such as a mine.
When displacing into a new plane, the city squeezes into the new world, replacing no terrain, but bordering many areas on the new world. The fact that going through the city is likely to be much faster for things on the opposite sides of the world is used (or abused) by the city merchants to set up new trade routes. This is always with short-term profits in mind, seeing as how “The Nightmare” is assumed to be soon following, forcing the city to flee again.
The Goodhood
In the early days the outer planes did not yet understand of the insidious spread of The Night-mare, and many gods with worshippers in The Old Lands or similar planes found their realms overrun.
Those with worshippers in the city found a place to run to. Though diminished in power, these gods reside in a divinely attuned pocket dimension tied to the Arcane Matrix, and thus the city.
While the gods of the outer planes cut their connection to their worshipers, the inhabitants of the city can keep the connection with the resident gods during the gloaming.
A few gods have joined the Godhood since then, either their realm was overrun despite pre-cautions, or when they found themselves unable to abandon the worshippers of a favoured world.
Some of the gods walk the city in the form of avatars, while others remain separate, communicating only through their chosen priests, but all have found themselves lowered; both in explicit power, as well as in standing as they have become, in their entirety, merely another voice among the powerful on the city council.
Maps
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The City
The City Council
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