Xoriat

Beyond description or comprehension, Xoriat is aptly called the Realm of Madness. Not only do its alien geometry and unspeakable inhabitants seem like the product of a madman’s nightmare, but any who visit Xoriat risk finding their minds shattered by the experience.
Xoriat has been likened to a stack of translucent parchment, an apparently infinite connection of layers and dimensions. Its inhabitants exist on multiple layers simultaneously. Massive, drifting entities too large to notice visitors to the plane; free-floating rivers of milk-white liquid; rains of blue globes falling from unseen heights, only to burst and release horse-sized ticks when they strike another object—such are the madness-inducing features of Xoriat. Gelatinous worms wriggle from layer to layer, wending through tentacled vegetation encrusted with orange moss, all suspended above an amoebic sea. Over this mad realm the daelkyr are absolute masters.
Like Dal Quor, Xoriat’s last time of being coterminous to the Material Plane was a disastrous period of warfare. Over nine thousand years ago, Xoriat became coterminous, and the daelkyr sent their minions into Khorvaire to conquer it. Before the orc and hobgoblin druids known as the Gatekeepers managed to alter Xoriat’s orbit, the mind flayers and lesser minions of the daelkyr had decimated the hobgoblin Empire of Dhakaan. The Gatekeepers’ magic was less cataclysmic than the giants’ attempt to close the connection to Dal Quor, however; Xoriat moved quickly away from its coterminous position but is sure to return one day.
Xoriat has the following traits:

• No gravity.
• Highly morphic.
• Mildly evil-aligned.
• Wild magic.
• Distorted Time: Time on the plane of Xoriat fl ows differently from time on Eberron. One minute in the Realm of Madness is equal to one hour on the Material Plane. So, adventurers from Eberron who visit Xoriat for one hour return to Eberron to find that sixty hours have passed.

Geography

Coterminous: When Xoriat is coterminous to the Material Plane, madness literally bursts forth upon the world. For reasons unknown, the Shadow Marches is somehow “close” to Xoriat, and the natives of the Realm of Madness were able to enter Eberron there during Xoriat’s last coterminous phase. Throughout the Shadow Marches, magic went wild, time flowed strangely, and the daelkyr warped native creatures into monstrous aberrations.
The intervention of the Gatekeepers during Xoriat’s last coterminous phase altered the plane’s orbit, and Xoriat has not been coterminous again since then. Dimensional seals (see page 272) keep the plane away, but various forces seek to break their power so Xoriat can draw near again.
Remote: Xoriat’s remoteness has no known impact upon the Material Plane.

Fauna & Flora

Xoriat Inhabitants: Daelkyr, mind flayer, Pseudonatural creatures, Rukarazyll, wyste, Kaorti, Odopi, shrieking terror, voidmind creatures.

Alternative Name(s)

The Realm of Madness

Type

Dimensional plane