One of my colleagues found a planar map in the University of Sigil’s Arcane Sciences Department that was fascinating. For centuries this elven wizard charted all summonings that were licensed in Sigil. Points on the map noted where the summonings were from, as in this case, all of the summonings led to Sigil.

Centuries of summonings, thousands of spells cast, from angelic monkeys from heaven, to demon lords, to elementals of the basic elements to elementals of the quasi-planes where elements merge and react to become something new. There was a clear gap.

At first we thought it was Ravenloft but it was not. It turns out some murder elementals and mist demons are brought forth from the plane. For a while we wondered if we could summon a trapped mortal out from Ravenloft but none of us had the arcane acumen to begin to create such a spell.

No, this was a hole, where nothing was summoned out.

I was unable to leave Sigil but I interviewed countless travelers who had been near the gap and here are the facts that I can corroborated by more than a few trustworthy travelers, pilgrims and petitioners.

Gods are reticent to go anywhere near this place and Clerical spells work at a deficit, even to the most favored psychopomp or saint.

Magic is weakened here. At first I thought this was just a magic null zone but this turned out to not be true. One merchant who had travelled around this zone several times to avoid Githyanki pirates, told me that magic could work just as powerfully here as anywhere. However, to allow magic to work, one had to feed it with life energies. Only wizards whose towers are right on the border of this place and whose morals are flexible have discovered this.

Psionics seems to work well and children born near it are more often born with psionic abilities. I even met one such child, a daughter of a gun born on an elven Armada ship who could pyrokinetically light candles with her mind.

Having put these pieces together I have decided that I have, in fact, discovered this place and so I will name it. There is a word in the trade tongue that means a lack, a hungry, angry lack that makes folk thirsty to the point of murder. I chose this word because it sounds very much like a word that means gateless or doorless among the Sigil street urchins.

Athas.

Athas: To be without resources or doors, thus inspiring murder and rage.

Adapted from The Gatecrasher’s Song, a planar wanderer’s journal.

There are those who say he found his way to Athas and that is why he was never seen again. Among many gatecrashers who follow in his tradition, to be Athased is to be stranded in a faraway plane without sufficient resources to make your way back to Sigil or even the Outer Planes.