The Concordant Domain of the Outlands

The Outlands was the exception to many of the rules governing the Outer Planes. While there was no sun in the Outlands, the plane still had day and night cycles. It was an infinite plane, yet it had a definite center (the Spire with Sigil on top). 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.
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. Around the outer edge of the Outlands were sixteen evenly spaced settlements that were each constructed around a portal to two particular Outer Planes.

Type

Dimensional plane