Dendradis
Location: Outlands / Spirelands / The Spire
Tanber Downs, a Guvner eavesdropper, lanned me some fascinating chant about a Spire-town:
A few days back I was busy listening in on bubber down at Euphoria’s Gate—you know the one, that bub-house in the Lower Ward—hoping that their screed may have something of value. Well I came across something that may be the biggest tall tale of them all or a goldmine of discovery. Now this bubber claimed to have returned from a trip to the Spire and decided to look at an oddly shaded patch of stone through his trusty spyglass. Oddly enough it seems he saw a rilmani town carved into the Spire itself. This town is located well above the ground—he said “a body would be hard pressed to climb there”—and of course ye can’t fly at the Spire now—and there is no visible way up or down.
Upon learning of this discovery I decided to contact my Fraternity colleagues and discuss this bit of dark. We came to some interesting hypotheses as to how the town may be approached, what its purpose is, and what should we do about it.
How would that town be reached? Well Addius Ambessor claims a pulley system could be lowered to raise up visitors (or ril’—oh, rilmani, that is to say) or hidden handholds or footholds in the rock may be used to reach it. Tolon Leong claimed that he thought he saw steps carved into the Spire on his last trip there but he’s not sure if he’s remembering his trip to the Great Spire or his trip to Centerspire in Bytopia (the addled old buzzard always mixes those two up). Tasha Immuriel says a cave system may reach into some inner passage into the Spire and thus the ril’ enter the carved city in the Spire from a distance. The mage Tazakaza the Grey claims that perhaps they found a way to a tap magic at the Spire, something that even gods can’t do, and fly up there anyway.
As to why, well most of us agreed that a raised city gives a good vantage point, a wonderful view, and protection from all but the most persistent (or airborne) invaders. But Tazakaza has a theory that sounds a bit barmy, he claims the Spire keeps magic and other powers from working by draining the power to fuel Sigil’s portals. According to this theory the ril’ have found a way to maintain their powers at the Spire. An unlikely but reasonable assumption. After all, not enough is known about the ril’. I personally think it may be the Auromach’s kip.
What should be done about this? Not much. Perhaps interviewing others who have been to the Spire and ask if they have seen anything and possibly fund a return expedition to the Spire.
The Dark of Dendradis
Dendradis, the enigmatic vertical city of the rilmani, is a sight to behold, even for a well-travelled planewalker like meself. Nestled against the Spire, that impossibly tall mountain at the heart of the Outlands, Dendradis is a testament to the rilmani’s reverence for balance and their unique role in the cosmos. Let me paint you a picture of this marvel.
Imagine a city not spread across the land but woven inside a fissure in the Spire itself. Towers and bridges of crystalline structures, stretch up and across the inside of the chasm, forming a lattice that’s both bewildering and breathtaking. This ain’t no ordinary city; it’s a living sculpture, a masterpiece of balance and architecture that defies the natural order.
The rilmani have always been a secretive lot, preferring the company of their own kind over the meddling of outsiders. Dendradis is one of their largest settlements, a community that clings to the Spire with the tenacity of a barnacle to a ship’s hull. The city’s design, with its crooked towers filling natural crevices and its maze of corridors and ramps, work halls and dormitories, scrying chambers and libraries, serves a dual purpose: it’s both a habitation and a sanctuary that protecting a massive secret entombed within the Spire.
Chant goes, and mind you, any chant concerning the Spire can be as treacherous as a fiend’s promise, that Dendradis covers a colossal corpse, a body so vast and ancient that its origins are lost to time. Some speculate it’s a dead god, others whisper of a visitor from beyond the multiverse, but the truth is guarded jealously by the rilmani. This secret is the heart of Dendradis, a mystery wrapped in a crystalline city.
Visitors to Dendradis are rare, and those without an escort find themselves quickly escorted out, with as little fuss as possible, by the ferrumach rilmani, the city’s guardians. Navigating Dendradis requires more than a keen sense of direction; it demands respect for the rilmani’s culture and an understanding of their unwavering commitment to neutrality. The city, with its interweaving structures and hidden depths, is a physical embodiment of the rilmani’s philosophy: balance in all things, secrecy in their duty, and a profound connection to the cosmic equilibrium represented by the Spire.
Source: Joshua Jarvis and Jon Winter-Holt
Canonical Source: While this entry originally called ‘ril-town’ was written by Joshua in the 2e days, the rilmani burg of Dendradis in Sigil & the Outlands [5e] meshes with it rather well, so I’ve combined the two.
