Introduction a Brief Note on the Planes

Introduction

“Looking for work? You won’t find any in Eris. We’ve all got too much to do!”

-L’rauka “Big Jim” Vuvuzela, Owner of the Chip Beef Saloon

Welcome to Eris, basher! Headquarters of the Concordant Opposition Society and sometime home to some of the most renowned adventurers in the multiverse, this place is the definition of happening—largely because, without the collective belief of all those sword-and-spellslingers, it wouldn’t exist at all!

Like the Society that calls it home, Eris is in many ways a paradox: a fixed point in the eternally malleable Outlands; a home for the homeless; a place of rest for the restless. Eris is both whatever you need it to be and absolutely not at all what you asked for. It’s charming, that way.

But charm can only take you so far. Compared to Waterdeep or even Neverwinter, Eris is little more than a fortified shantytown organized around a single purpose: to provide support for the ongoing work of the Concordant Opposition Society. Somehow it all works, but people are damned if they know why or how. Perhaps, some say, it all works because it has to—because life on the Outlands is hard enough even without basing your entire livelihood around adventurers. Others perceive an invisible hand—no, not the free market—guiding events, as the unseen founders of the Society work their mysterious will through well-placed reward-feedback structures and the tacit enforcement of basic social norms. In the end, who can really say?

A Brief Note on the Planes

Stripped down to its most essential nature, a plane is just a framework for being. And much like the nature of being, that framework consists both of a conceptual component and a physical reality. In other words, everything that has ever been or ever will be has existed on a plane; a planeless entity is, by definition, a contradiction in terms, much in the same way a planet cannot exist outside of spacetime or the way the universe cannot have an “edge” or the way a painting cannot exist beyond its canvas. The point, which may be both obvious and overstated by this point, is that everything that is requires both a conceptual and a physical place for that is to manifest. This is where planes come in.

Three points must be addressed here. First, and most obviously, not everything that is has to manifest that is in a similar way. The rules of reality in the Abyss, for instance, are markedly different from those in Mechanus, and the beings that exist as a function of those rules will also be markedly different. Thus, while every being in the universe views every other being through their own idiosyncratic frame of reference, none of those reference frames are universally valid. In other words, as some of the Clueless used to say, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

Second is the notion that every permutation of the boring old physical world called the Material Plane—be it the world of Krynn, or Athas, or Greyhawk, or even Earth—exists in the same Material Plane. This is because, unlike almost every other plane in existence, the Material Plane exists purely as a function of physicality; concepts have no power here unless someone acts on them. Thus, while a dream may literally become a reality on one of the Outer Planes, a dream on the Material Plane cannot be instantiated without the volitional exertion of energy by the dreamer. What separates all these subcomponents of the Material Plane is the Phlogiston, a massive ocean of bright, combustible pseudogas that separates the Crystal Spheres of

2 Sample file each Material Plane from one another. A berk ordinarily requires a special ship called a Spelljammer to get from one Crystal Sphere (and its appurtenant iteration of the Material Plane) to another, but some say there are other ways to accomplish such a journey.

A third point, equally as obvious as the first, is that reality is infinite. What is less obvious is the full meaning of that statement: everything that can happen has happened, in one version of existence or another. While the beating of a butterfly’s wings in one iteration of reality may ultimately lead to the hurricane that causes a particular individual to rise to heroic heights, that same butterfly may have been gobbled up by a hungry sparrow in another—saving the victims of the hurricane, but leading the otherwise-heroic individual to go into chartered accountancy, instead. All of these versions of reality are “true” from their own reference point—the product of an infinite number of variables stretched out across an infinite amount of time and executed by an infinite number of iterations of the same set of wills.

There are sixteen known Outer Planes, plus the Outlands and the city of Sigil (pronounced “sih-GILL”—don’t look at us, we didn’t write it that way). Detailing each of them is far beyond the scope of this document; go check the D&D 5e PHB or the DMG (or older versions of the Manual of the Planes) for that information. But because Eris, the subject of this guide, sits by default on the Outlands (see the “Using Eris in Your Game” section, below), a brief description of that infinite plane requires a little discussion. But first…

The Secret of Transcendent Harmonization, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Self-Efficacy

All this infinity business—it’s all rather a bit much, don’t you think?

The founders of the Concordant Opposition Society thought so too. That’s how they eventually stumbled upon the secret of transcendent harmonization—a ritual that collapses an individual’s wave function across the entire spectrum of infinity into a single singularity: the Awakened form of that individual.

An Awakened “person” is technically a gestalt entity formed by ripping every version of that person out of their own realities and melding them into a single physical and conceptual form at a single point in time and space: the chambers of the Tower of the Archon, in the city of Eris, on the plane known as the Outlands.

The process of transcendent harmonization sacrifices the infinite power of the Awakened individual’s own quantum immortality, converting the infinite potentiality of all the individual’s infinite permutations into a singularity of efficacy and actuality. In other words: while, prior to transcendent harmonization, the versions of the individual could theoretically do anything, the combined strength of all those individual permutations can actually accomplish anything.

This process is both infinitely painful and infinitely enlightening. Some say that, just prior to death, you see your life flash before your eyes, with all your mistakes and all your successes neatly laid out before you like a banquet; imagine that, but multiplied infinitely by every mistake or success you could have made added in. Some have described the process as drinking from a firehose where the hose is also on fire; others, sulking about being ripped from their own realities by one version of themselves with a little more gumption—or a little more selfishness—have called it, “The worst decision I never made.”

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One thing is certain, though: once Awakened, a person cannot go back to sleep. Nor can they fully and cleanly separate the individual permutations of their many different lives into a clean timestream; at best, they can just choose one reality to represent their arbitrary “prime” existence and try to make the best of things. This isn’t to say that the Awakened don’t have memories, of course, just that, at best, the collapse of one’s own quantum waveform renders their pre-harmonization past all a little hazy. (This also means that, unfortunately, they can’t simply draw upon their own infinite memories to figure out a solution to a problem—the mortal mind simply isn’t vast enough to sort out the signal from the noise.) For the Awakened, no better phrase describes their new existence metaphorically—if not literally—than the observation that, “You can’t go home again.” You certainly can— the Society’s whole purpose is to send Awakened out into the different permutations of reality for one reason or another, which generally involves re- writing an Awakened individual “back” into a reality—but your definition of “home” will never be the same. How can you find peace in your former existence when you know that the woman who was/is your wife in your “prime” reality was/is also the one who killed your family (and vice versa) in infinite other realities? Good luck sorting that cognitive dissonance out, and enjoy sleeping with one eye open!

Perhaps this is why most Awakened choose not to dwell in the past. The collapse of an individual’s waveform leaves only one course open: forward. (Well, that’s not quite true—they could also simply choose to do nothing, although.)

And perhaps that, when you come right down to it, is why the Society creates Awakened in the first place. Which brings us to…

The Outlands

While there are infinite permutations of the Prime Material Plane, the same is not true of the Outer Planes or the Inner Planes, which are already infinite, thank you very much. The Outlands is the hub of the Great Wheel, the paradoxically objective center of the infinite planar multiverse. Known as the Domain of Concordant Opposition to the Clueless back on the Prime Material Plane, the Outlands stretches out infinitely, both literally and conceptually, from the base of the infinitely tall mountain known as the Spire.

The Outlands is a highly morphic plane that consists largely of morphic plains (along with rivers, streams, meadows, swamps, deserts, and the occasional mountain or two), and is unique among all the Outer Planes in that one can begin a journey on horseback in Mount Celestia, for example, and then literally ride on horseback all the way to the Abyss itself. It’ll take time, sure, but what matters is that it’s possible here on the Outlands.

At the center of the Outlands is the Spire, the Axle of the Great Wheel. Weather permitting, the Spire is visible from pretty much anywhere on the Outlands—as is the great torus of Sigil, the City of Doors, that spins around the infinitely high summit of the Spire. Getting to the Spire is a simple matter of walking there; no magic functions at the Spire, so teleportation or magical flight are not practical ways of reaching the mountain. (Although one can certainly teleport to Sigil—good luck figuring that one out!)

In the Outlands, you can either be traveling Ringwards, towards the sixteen gate-towns, or Spirewards; there’s also counterclockwise or clockwise (although some use the terms “widdershins” and “turnwise”).

Radiating out from the Spire are nine concentric bands known as the Ringlands, each defined by the amount of magic possible there. At the furthest ring, where the sixteen gate-towns sit, all magic is possible, but the closer you move to the Spire, the more and more limitations you encounter—

4 Sample file starting with the strongest magic and moving on down to mere cantrips—until, at the base of the Spire, no magic exists at all. Gods are not even really gods there, but shiny, vulnerable mortals. (Perhaps this is why you rarely find gods walking Spirewards.)

The sixteen gate-towns each sit between 900 and 1000 miles Ringwards from the base of the Spire, and each one contains a portal to its respective Outer Plane. The gate-towns generally present like a less extreme instantiation of their respective Outer Plane, and the closer a gate-town’s inhabitants drift towards the alignment and existentiality of its Outer Plane counterpart, the greater the risk that the gate-town will simply break off from the substance of the Outlands and be shifted in its entirety to its counterpart. (The gate-towns of the Lower Planes, and particularly the one corresponding to the Abyss, have a frightening habit of doing just this—best not to buy real estate there unless you’re willing to go along for the ride.)

Beyond the gate-towns lies the Hinterlands. No one really knows what’s out there, and it’s possible that that’s just because nothing interesting is out there. A berk could spend the rest of his life walking out into the Hinterlands, the Spire firmly in his rear-view mirror, and would still never cover more than eighteen days away from the closest gate-town—and because most folks figure that’s a right piss-poor way to spend a life, nobody tries to.

In the Outer Planes, concepts matter. Nowhere is that more literally true than in the Outlands, where each separate gate-town, ring, and locality is separated from each other by a literal space of three to eighteen days. In this way, a topographic map of the Outlands is less useful to travelers than a subway map showing the strong conceptual stopping points. In other words, a journey from the Spire to Excelsior, the gate-town leading to Mount Celestia, doesn’t just require a three-to-eighteen-day hike: it requires nine separate three-to-eighteen day hikes from one ring to the next. (The sole exception to this rule is teleportation, but even that has its limits on the Outlands—a teleport or plane shift spell can never get you closer than the Sixth Ring outwards, and a teleportation circle can never be closer than the Fourth Ring outwards.)

Moreover, topographic maps of the Outlands are outdated almost as soon as they’re made. The whole place is constantly shifting under the effects of the collective beliefs of the planar entities that make it up, and what was a prairie on Tuesday may be a vast, sandy desert by Wednesday. Only observation and belief can render anything “permanent” in the Outlands, and only for so long as that observation and belief persists. Fortunately, some things are more observable—and some beliefs more difficult to dispel—than others.

Eris: A Bird’s Eye View to the Golden Apple

Eris is relatively new to the Outlands. Little more than a decade old—like the Society that calls it home—Eris overlooks the great River Ma’at from atop the Calamity Mesa, a quarter mile distant and five hundred feet above the River’s edge. Surrounded by a ten-foot high wall comprised entirely of magically-raised stone—courtesy of the Society’s druids, sorcerers, and wizards—the city itself is part shanty-town, part company-town, part castle- town, and part party-town. It arose out of the various castles, villas, temples, and fortifications built by the Society’s founders and the first cohorts of Awakened adventurers to call the city home; over time, it has grown to attract a large following of Planars (beings not native to the Material Plane (“Primes”) and not merely the spirits of the dead (“Petitioners”)), approximately 5,000 of whom now also call the place home.

Though far smaller than Sigil, Eris is remarkably cosmopolitan in its makeup. The collective conflicts between the beliefs of its inhabitants, in a way, give Eris a conceptual strength far greater than that of most of the other settlements on the Outlands. Moreover, because everyone in Eris recognizes that there is always someone stronger, faster, more magically adept, and above all more willing to commit violence than they are, a kind of peaceful détente exists to keep relative order in this conceptually orderless place. For that reason, although there are no law enforcement officers, no tax collectors, and no official civil servants here, everyone more or less works symbiotically. 5 Sample file

Obviously, a “normal” city on the Prime would never function this way, of course; only the incredible concentration of adventurer wealth and of spellcasting power enables the city to function so peacefully in the absence of a functioning government. A single casting of Mold Earth, for instance, can accomplish an hour or more’s work in six seconds, and the less said about more powerful spells, the better. Suffice it to say that, in Eris, magic has freed up sufficient manpower to enable most of the populace to pursue whatever trade their heart desires, making Eris a nearly post-scarcity city—so long as the delicate dance of symbiosis continues, anyway.

Inequality still exists, as well, although, uniquely across the Planes, it exists largely as a function of meritocracy, rather than familial ties. The Awakened and the inner circle of the Society make up the top of the social and economic pyramid, and, indeed, form the entire raison d'être for the rest of the city to even exist. What makes Eris remarkable—unique, even, across all the Planes—is that, here, wealth actually does seem to “trickle down” from the Awakened to the Planars who’ve journeyed here to serve them. The taverns, magic item vendors, healers, spellcasters, and even the laborers and farmers of Eris can all expect to make a fortune doing business with the Awakened. Unfortunately, that also means that the cost of living in Eris can be exorbitant—but the Society subsidizes a significant portion of this living expense for most, allowing practically anyone with a dream, a talent, and the desire to work hard in dangerous conditions to make a comfortable living here. Further complicating the picture is that the Awakened and the Society are responsible for Eris’s defense; Eris maintains no standing army, and the Planars who call it home aren’t generally willing to die for it (although, since most of them aren’t native to the Outlands, they wouldn’t really “die” in battle here anyway). Nevertheless, the simple truth remains that some people here live like literal kings, while others barely scrape by, even with the Society’s subsidies. So it goes.

This economic inequality is best illustrated with reference to the various districts within Eris, which run the gamut from the very poorest to the very wealthiest. Thus, a brief overview of these districts—and the significant landmarks surrounding Eris—will be helpful.

The River Ma’at All great cities require rivers. Well, that’s not quite true—Eris is no great city, and even if it was, the great greasy grey-green River Ma’at is more of a useful way to move supplies and to dispose of sewage than it is as a drinking source. Further upstream, in the direction of Semaunya’s Bog, lies Thoth’s Estate and Thebestys, with Thoth’s Great Library open to all peaceful visitors; downstream, the River passes closer to the gate-town of Excelsior before eventually evaporating into a salt flat. Upstream, the River regularly overflows its banks, depositing rich, fertile silt for the neighboring villages to grow crops in. Not so near Eris, where the mighty River is much shallower and slower.

A pair of massive barges regularly travels between Thoth’s Estate and Thebestys, hauling travelers, food, and supplies between each locale. Each trip takes—you guessed it—anywhere from three to eighteen days, although neither barge ever takes longer than the other to make a particular leg of the journey. Twin bariaurs from Bytopia command these barges: Captain Glen Gary captains the barge Ka, while Captain Glen Ross commands the barge Ba. The brothers don’t acknowledge the other’s existence, let alone talk to one another, and because both their personalities and their ships are practically identical, many berks never realize that there’s two separate ships involved.

The Calamity Mesa The red sandstone Calamity Mesa rises sharply above the River Ma’at and the surrounding lowlands. Near Eris, the Mesa lies about 500 feet Spirewards from the River, a Eris sits on the Ringward edge of the Mesa, relatively close to the widdershins edge. The edges of the Mesa form a nearly 90 degree angle with the ground near the River Ma’at, and while the rough sandstone can be ascended by a skilled and dedicated climber, it’s much

6 Sample file easier to take either the switchback stairs cut into the Ringward or the widdershins edge of the Mesa. The apex of both of these routes are manned by paid watchmen, whose only real job is to watch those who climb the switchback stairs—and, if need be, bar the gates, light the beacons to summon the Awakened, and then run like hell.

Spirewards from Eris lies the Garden—the druid-enhanced farmland that mostly keeps Eris fed—and the Devil’s Wood. Clockwise from Eris, the Mesa descends for miles and miles before eventually disappearing entirely at the River’s edge again.

Portside If living cheaply on a fetid, sluggish riverbank is your thing, then Portside is undoubtedly the place for you. Here, life revolves around the heavy labor of actually getting supplies unloaded and packed up to Eris and then loading up barges for the return trip. (Eris is, shockingly, a net importer of goods by a large margin, but there is some demand for the magic-enhanced textiles and tools produced by the Merchant Quarter.)

Living conditions here range from truly wretched to modest; the further away from the actual river’s edge you are, the nicer the accommodations, although no one who calls Portside home lives comfortably. The best restaurant around by far is Big Daddy Flamingo’s House of Crayfish, but anyone who’s ever actually smelled the River may rightly question the hygiene of eating anything that comes out of it. Big Daddy Flamingo—who, yes, is an actual flamingo—doesn’t take kindly to that kind of talk, though.

Portside is also home to the only real alternative to taking the switchback stairs up the Mesa to reach Eris: the massive steel cable-car system known as the Sky-lift. The Sky-lift can transport more than a ton of freight or passengers relatively safely up the Mesa—a distance of a little less than 1400 feet overall—in about twenty minutes, depositing traveler’s safely in the Merchant Quarter of the Mesa. A pop-and-pop pair of Fire Giants mans the Sky-lift. Bill, the chatty one, does most of the heavy lifting, while his husband William, who designed the system, keeps it in working order. The giants charge five silver pieces per passenger or a gold piece per two-thousand pounds of non-sentient cargo. (They reason that the risk in transporting passengers is significantly greater than the risk in hauling freight.) They’re quite friendly, although William is a little shy around strangers.

The Merchant Quarter Most of the non-agricultural products made in Eris are fabricated and sold here; the high number of spellcasters in town mean that these products are generally magically-enhanced in some way, and the craftspeople generally take great pride in their work. The living conditions in this area range from poor (near the wall by the edge of the Mesa) to wealthy (near the Hidden Ward and especially the Iron Quarter). If you want an extended shopping montage, this is the place for you.

District 22 (Phil M.)

A compound of buildings known as District 22 lies near the center of the Merchant Quarter. Arguably the heart of District 22 is the Broken Curse: a two-story tavern featuring a large bar, stocked with mead and ale and the occasional wine bottle, with a menu covering a wide range of what most races would consider good home cooking. The first floor contains common room seating (six 4-seat square tables and four 6-seat round tables, allowing a total of 48 people), a small stage for the occasional bard, and the Bounty Board: a posting board near the doorway where Dispatch Managers can post jobs, if any Awakened are available. The second floor contains four meeting rooms, open for Dispatch Managers and Awakened to discuss jobs or other goings-ons in the city of Eris. The owner, a hill dwarf by the name of Bolar Stoneshard, is definitely what you would call a people person. He’ll drink and

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