General

Some would say the Outworlds survived the Shattering of the Hegemony more easily because they had less far to fall. Others would say that it is because the Outworlds had already gained a measure of independence before the Hegemony destroyed itself, so the chaos that the Linked Worlds dissolved into failed to bleed past Gateway. Still others would say that the Outworlds are settled by a hardier, stronger breed, who stayed together under stresses that the softer inworlders were unable to tolerate. In any event, for whatever reason, there is no arguing that the Outworlds have kept their loose alliance together while the inworlds have fragmented. The Outworlds themselves are situated in the Omphalos Dust Nebula, close enough together that sublight travel between habitable planets is possible without devoting a lifetime to the prospect. However, travel off of the known routes is dangerous and only the most experienced (and profit-seeking) pilots will try it, in search of new worlds. If the Outworlds could be said to have a capital, it would be Crux, from which jump gates connect to most of the other systems. However, Crux in no sense governs the other outworlds, though planetary representatives do gather there to arrange treaties --- or, as most Outworlders would describe it instead, come to agreements between neighbors. The Outworlds are neighbors rather than allies, with many understandings but few legal contracts.

Date and Time

Timekeeping among multiple systems is difficult to keep synchronized, given the disparity in local planetary rotation. The current method of timekeeping dates back to the Alliance, and nearly everywhere uses it from historical inertia. ``Year'' and ``day'' are local terms, dependent on planetary rotation and revolution. Places with inconveniently sized days may also have something like a local ``cycle'' to keep track of workday-sized chunks of time. ``Hour'' and ``minute'' are standard terms (there are sixty minutes in an hour). Also standard terms are ``tick'' (twenty-four hours) and ``zed'' (365.25 ticks). Local time would generally be something like ``Winter 15, 14:30'' --- most places have month-like chunks, and local time which counts from 0 (midnight) to whatever number of hours the day ends at, truncating the last hour before midnight to be an arbitrarily short number of minutes. Standard time is of the form 1873.178.13.09 AS (zed, tick, hour, minute). The date, as of when you were last paying attention, was 2778.073.12.00 AS.

Money

While the metallic currency of the Inworlds (Asters) is often used when dealing across worlds or with complex situations, the people of the Outworlds are more prone to the barter of goods and services than the maintenance of actual currencies. Though the more organized of the outworlds do support paper/metal currencies for their own populations these are often difficult to convert and almost impossible to use offworld.

Languages

The lingua franca of both the inworlds and the outworlds is Integral, an elegant language which allows for enough shading of meaning to write poetry, and enough precision that legal documents can be written in only a few pages and understood by normal humans. Most outworlds also have a local dialect, which is comprehensible to outsiders when spoken slowly, but is otherwise difficult to follow (Language skills are one point. A true language, such as Tinooranthi, requires eight levels for full fluency; a dialect only requires three levels.). Nonesuch and Crux do not have local dialects.

Planets

• Nonesuch Accidentally named by Praetor Silas Cole (``Habitable planet in the dust nebula? There's nonesuch.''), Nonesuch is in the unenviable position of being closer to the inworlds than it is to the rest of the outworlds. The jump gate between Nonesuch and Crux was deliberately disabled during Shattering of the Hegemony, with the understanding that if the Hegemony went completely to hell, it might take Nonesuch with it, but not so easily the rest of the outworlds. The alternative, severing Nonesuch from Gateway, would cut the outworlds and inworlds off permanently, or, at least, until such time as jump gates can again be constructed. The gate between Nonesuch and Gateway is jealously guarded by the ships of Mighty Klothos, Blacklord of Gateway, and no ships are permitted to pass through which are not under the control of her pilots. While Klothos's ships are dominant in the Nonesuch system itself, the rest of the outworlds refuse to permit them in the rest of Omphalos, and they are considered fair game in the dust-shrouded nebular routes. Nonesuch itself is a somewhat indeterminate place, too inworlder and technology-savvy to be a true Neighbor, too sympathetic to the outworlds to be a true Linked World; rather than just be middling, however, they have chosen to be eccentric. Nonesuch is governed by a seven-person Fools' Council and a Congress. The Congress is chosen by lot, each to serve a six-year term, and the Council is elected from among the Congress at the end of the six years time.

• Sparta The richest in raw mineral resources of the Outworlds, and home to some of the most impressive physical scenery, Sparta is otherwise not the most hospitable of planets. Though its year is shorter than most, a native Spartan would assure you that it seems much longer. Functions that were performed in the original colonies by technology (desalination, heavy metal purification of cropstock) have been to a large extent supplanted by mages trained in the Guild of Skalds. Sparta is divided into fifteen Dominions, each of which is ruled by a Warden, all of whom are constantly jockeying to expand their territory. However, the Guild of Skalds is empowered to declare a temporary military Truce in order to deal with an emergency, and there is an emergency in effect more often than not.

• Bastion The Bastion system contains a single gas giant with six moons of more-or-less habitable conditions. Bastion's mages are some of the most adept at long-range translocation, allowing the moons some measure of shipless commerce. The innermost moon, First, also boasts some working gas-skimmers for harvesting from the giant it orbits; the outermost, Sixth, is home of the self-named Morlocks, who have tunneled nearly to the center of their small rock and cultured all manner of lithofungus. Third is the only unsettled moon, having once held a Hegemony base until the moon lost its atmosphere during the Shattering. While many hopefuls have tried to salvage what they could from its ruins, most technology is too vacuum-welded to be of much use.

• Crux While Nonesuch was the first founded of the Outworlds, it is Crux which was the ``first Outworld.'' Nearly every religion, magical philosophy, and school of philosophy has a devoted group of adherents, and nearly all of them are reflected in the Cruxan Parliament. While many of the other planets boast powerful mages, being trained at the Rosicrucian Academy is usually sufficient to impress even an inworlder.

• Pierogi The ``jewel of the Outworlds'', Pierogi is a glorious world of beauty, wonder, and endless possibility. Additionally, Pierogi-born mages appear to be stronger than those nearly anywhere else. The particular talent of ``gathering,'' joining together the power of more than one mage to perform a larger task than any one could do, was developed on Pierogi and has been honed to a fine art. Pierogi is ruled by the Farseer, a particularly powerful precognitive gatherer.

• Lendt For the past several centuries, Lendt has been trying to live up to the reputation of its most famous native daughter, Janina Megaera, captain of the Inopportune Moment. One part pirate, one part bard, and three parts rabble-rouser, Captain Megaera and her crew never found a situation that ``couldn't be improved by a good sharp shake.'' Since the mysterious disappearance of the Inopportune Moment long ago, many Lendtians have taken it upon themselves to be self-appointed meddlers, and a Lendtian is the most likely outworlder to be seen off-planet. Lendt itself is politically organized by city or village rather than anything larger, but custom decrees that anything that half of the population agrees to (as counted up by city) the rest can be held to.

• Creek A wet planet that ranges from warmish rain forest to chilly swamp, barely an inch of Creek exists that is not a home to one ore more of its innumerable amphibioid species. The Creekan wise women have learned to tame many of the creatures, and for the smaller ones, sorting them into those that can be used for their medicinal properties and those which can be used for poisons; one of Creek's main exports is its alchemical compounds. Most prized are the Tears of Fire, said to be obtained from ``dragons'' in the high jungle.

• Rupert's Hole Discovered by famed nebula prospector Rupert ``the weasel'' Milhouse, Rupert's Hole was the only planet in history to be owned by a single person. Having been swindled out of his ``rightful'' profits for discovering Creek, Milhouse refused to give the coordinates or navigation logs for Rupert's Hole to anyone until the day of his death. He moved large minimally manned construction vessels, after carefully sweeping them for tracking devices, to his new planet with himself at the helm and no one allowed on the bridge. While the construction workers reported an ideal habitable planet ripe for the picking, every single one of them was shipped back once the work was done with no one the wiser about the location, and each was paid quite well to keep his mouth shut about what was built. Given that not a one of them talked, the payment must have been quite large indeed. Unfortunately, after a life lived on the edge, prospecting for new worlds and finally hitting it big, Rupert never sired any children to whom he could leave his vast fortune. The coordinates of the planet were uncovered by Hegemonic investigators mere seconds after Rupert's death by natural causes. When the first Hegemonic colony ship arrived, it was surprised to find not the typically imagined pleasure palace of an eccentric man who hated the world, but a simply and efficiently organized town, devoid of people, ready for the first settlement. Though no evidence has yet been discovered, to this day no one believes that's all that the weasel built...

• Gateway Gateway is not part of the Omphalos Dust Nebula outworlds, but is the only inworld that outworlders would consider a neighbor, albeit not a very good one, as it shares a jumpgate with Nonesuch.

Map

(pdf version here)