City of Light and Darkness

Guide to the City

The City is all that is known in this plane. It fills a sphere approximately twenty miles in radius. Outside that sphere nothing exists. People can walk into it, and appear to vanish in the dark, but no matter how far they walk or think they walk, the moment they step back, they are outside. In the dark, you can run into other people and it appears to be large and expansive, but the moment you turn around, you are back in the city. You can move laterally around the edge while in the dark, but it is very hard to do so accurately. There are tales of people -- and things -- that live out in the dark. Scary tales. It is rare for people to step in there willingly.

The top third of the city is air. At the very top a magical ball of fire burns fiercely, so that the land on the top of the city is at hgh temperatures. Anyone in sunlight takes 1d6-1 fire damage every minute. The sand and rock is divided into sections by walls averaging fifty feet in height; each compound housing a Tiefling House. They are the masters of this world, and their palaces, desert gardens and ranches with heat-loving ceatures cover the surface. Some compounds are ruined, some are too perilous to enter, but no-one but Tiefling and their most honored servants (gold-torced eladrin, mainly, but with some dwarf, elf and dragonborn) walk on this level.

The next levels (hundreds of them) house the majority of the rest of the city. Levels are not entirely fixed -- there is no 17th level, for example, but the rules for each section of th city are well known to all local people. All races (except Tiefling lords and the Human mobs) live in these sections, but there are controlled access points between several levels. In the top tier (10 levels or so) only gold and siler-torcs are allowed to walk freely. Iron-torcs must be escorted and un-torced people are executed on sight. Tieflings rarely descend below the fifth level. The next twenty levels allow all torcs, but untorced people must be escorted. This rule is pretty relaxed close to the boundary with the final seventy tiers, where everyone can travel freely. In this section, especially lower down, torced people are envied strongy and never travel except with heavy protection.

The lower third is rarely spoken of. It is where Humans were exiled to after their attempt to overthrow the city and summon evil gods millenia ago. Many Tieflings belive that it would have been better to have exterminated them, but some hope for redemption for them one day. Humanity is not allowed outside this region, with very few exceptions, and the border to their realm is guarded by Tiefling-led torced guards. It is also common for Tiefling doctors and specialists to spend time in this area, especially if they need to deal with the frequent plagues that can devastate the region.

Several houses are known to guard gates to other worlds. Some are commonly used and well-known. Some are less well known. The most commonly used gates are:

• The Great Cold Lands: They provide meat (deer and mammoth mostly) for the upper classes; Tiefling and gold-torcs.
• The Sea: Nets are cast through this gate and fish are dragged through.
• The Shop: The shop has gates into many worlds, but you cannot travel through the shop, only go there with items to buy and sell. The shop servants are an invisible race, known only to have tentacles and hgh voices.