Rilmani Overview

Every great region of the Outer Planes has its native race: baatezu in the hells, tanar'ri in the Abyss, clockwork beings on the plane of perfect order. The rilmani belong to the neutral planes at the center of it all and champion true neutrality throughout the multiverse.

People often ask what a neutral race could possibly stand for. The rilmani answer plainly, setting aside their usual evasions: balance. Existence depends on opposing forces holding each other in check. Without darkness, light means nothing; if light swelled until no darkness remained, light too would cease. Remove one outer plane, and the whole wheel of planes would break. So whenever one side gains too much ground, the rilmani help the weaker side until things even out, occasionally directly but usually by steering others toward solving their own problems. They do not all agree on the best methods.

At a glance they pass for human far more easily than archons or baatezu, yet their skin has a metallic sheen and their eyes shine with pearly, opalescent light. Their presence overwhelms lesser beings, much as a deva radiates peace or a tanar'ri dread; theirs is a palpable aura of vigilance, restraint and power.

Six kinds are known, each with its own entry: the gold aurumachs, silver argenachs, copper cuprilachs, iron ferrumachs, lead plumachs and quicksilver abiorachs.

All rilmani can use, at will, continual light or continual darkness, dismissal, hold monster, teleport without error and polymorph self, and know alignment is always in effect. Most can gate in their fellows, as described for each type. Innate telepathy lets them speak with any intelligent being, and with unintelligent or ordinary animals it works as empathy. Telepathic psionics cannot attack them, though psychokinetic and psychometabolic powers can harm them. Only enchanted weapons injure them, and they have no particular weakness to silver or cold-wrought iron. Other attack forms affect them in particular ways, which vary by type.

They move freely to the Astral and any Outer Plane, but can enter the mortal worlds only when a being of similar standing is being summoned there; a mage calling up a glabrezu, for instance, opens a window a rilmani can slip through. One does not always come, but there is always the chance that one will tag along to watch. No spell can summon a rilmani directly.

Most live near the great spire at the planes' center, in the zones where magic fails partly or completely. Those regions cannot be reached from the Astral, which may be why nobody has devised a summoning spell for them. Rilmani visit the busier lands farther out but rarely stay.

Once a century, the wisest and strongest of each type gather at the spire in a council of balance to judge the state of the cosmos. Every viewpoint is heard: argenachs press for covert help to threatened causes, while cuprilachs and ferrumachs name powerful extremists who must be removed. Because neutrality is the most passive and reactive of outlooks, the council takes action only against the most dire threats.