I would see this as a double-edged sword, but I have a minor suggestion for Outlanders.

Could there be a skill that could be invoked to know how long a person has been away from the cities? Obviously staying away from civilized roads and small villages would be difficult, but the bigger cities, the Inn, and the Imperial lands could be sensed. The reason I ask is in choosing groupmates. While not everyone has a "know alignment" spell or supplication, it would seem possible that an Outlander of the wilds would be able to smell the stink of the civilized. The benefit of this would be a greater discernment in choosing who to travel with. I wouldn't want to travel with a law-abiding city-dwelling human, but if I couldn't tell from looking at him and he decided to be deceptive, it would make it more difficult in knowing. It could be balanced out by not knowing which city was last visited, and after a certain amount of time away from a city, the smell of it would fade. The arguments against this could be that the skill would not be useful enough to spend time coding, or that it would overtly frustrate existing Outlanders because it is already hard enough to find a group. Still, worth a shot suggesting. Thanks for any feedback! :)

I tend to think this situation is more condusive to solving through roleplay. If it is important enough for you not to group with such individuals, you can say "You want me to travel with you? You're not one of them snivelling lapdogs of the Spiremen, are you?" or something of that nature. If they choose to lie to you and group with you anyways, or whatever, I think that's all part of the intrigue of a roleplaying game. I'd hate to see those kinds of situations removed as a possility because of a skill. Also, I see no problem with many Outlanders spending plenty of time with people you hang in civilization a lot that aren't particularly "city folk" .. you hit the nail on the head in saying that it can be difficult enough for some outlanders to find groups without scratching off the list some generic warrior who roleplaying in the Inn with some heralds all day yesterday, if you know what I mean.

I still think it's a cute idea, by the way, Outlander "smelling the stench of the cities" on people and such, but I definately wouldn't want anything that had any expectations hooked onto it such as "can't group with that person."