So please feel free to share if you have a good idea or campaign set in Post FW sigil. But lets not turn this into another debate about the canoninity of the story or if it was good for the game.
Ashy
im asking what individual DMs have done and what they would like to see done. The topic has been broached before but it usually ends in a debate about the merits of Faction War as a product.
ashy
You can find a more thorough discussion >>>here<<< on page 5 of the boards.
The thread is called Alternate Outcomes of the Faction War
Here is also a piece on the Harmoniums fate after faction war.
I never actually ran FW as a module, instead I started my current campaign about 5 years or so post FW and hit the ground running from there. When the campaign finished I plan on writing it all up and bundling it with my notes, campaign fiction, and player notes etc and putting it on the net for folks. Even if just as an idea mine for people to tap, it'll be out there eventually.
I'll reply later on some of changes post FW I've used; the ones differing from the Planewalker stance anyways. Or if I can nudge some of my players that are on the boards here as well they might could do it for me. *nudges Clueless*
And Ashy, weren't you associated with PS3e at some point in the past? I've heard your name pop up before, just can't remember where.
. I did some quick & dirty sketches / mindmaps of what Sigil might look like "nowadays", but always got stuck at one point: it's just hard for me to imagine the LOP first radically changing the social order, but then again letting everything slip and just kind of become "like the old days, just a little bit different" again [e.g. factions being no more "factions", but still wielding power, sects taking the place of factions and filling the gap left by them ...].
Your solutions?
I too remember that cutters name Shemeska. It was on the request for help in the ps3e project... Brandon Hollingsworth I believe the chantbroker told me his name were... Wasn't he the moderater of the Old Planewalker.com??? or was that Ashenbach the tiefling.
Actually I'm running a pre FW campaign atm, one that involves the downfall of Factol Mallin of the Mercykillers. Oooo, the intrigue. I'm disappointed that Mallin's disappearance didn't make more waves in PS or at least in later PS materials... like Darkwood actually selling Nilesia to the fiends under the control of Mallin [MUAH-HA-HAHAHAHA-HAHAH..]
As factioneers start regaining the courage to return to Sigil, they're going to find a wreck of a city, with Dabus striving constantly to rebuild things, and the berks in the Hall of Speakers trying desparately to restore political order. Enter the PCs (both parties) and a few VoidCorp agents, who are happy to offer support, in exchange for signing a little contract...
As the campaign goes on, Sigil is going to absorb more and more technology and more futuristic ways of doing things from "the largest Prime we've ever seen", while the magic level in Star*Drive steadily rises. By campaign end, Sigil is going to be thoroughly modernized, and will operate as a trade nexus for the Planes, as well as for the Orion and Perseus arms of the Milky Way. (It's also the Multiverse's biggest crossroads, and the easiest way to get there from here, even within the Orion/Perseus Prime.)
- The Golden Lords should get much more political power then before, at least as a temporary arrangement. Maybe there is a natural law in Sigil saying that ruling bloods succumb to the effect of fanatical belief? The Golden Lords would eventually end up following the dogma of their primal belief, and become rivaling "Kings of Sigil", advocating their belief as the most important.
- A focus on the Outlands as the new trade hubs of the outer planes. Sigil doesn't hold as much trust as before, and as long as many of the portals in Sigil remains out of focus, traders should seek alternate ways to carry their goods.
- Other city-alternatives to Sigil should get a boost in trade as well. Union is an example, but far from the only one. Consider it a sort of desentrilization of business.
- Since Sigil is such an unbiased and central place in the Planes, I really plan to reset its former glory and "splendor" to maybe even greater heights in the future. I'm just looking for that perfect organizational model, and I don't think doing it through guilds enitices me enough.
The Lady said:
"This city tolerates your faction no longer. Abandon it or die."
I really don't understand why the writers of FW wrote that. It kills one of the coolest things about Sigil: The rule of belief.
Originally posted by taotad
The Lady said:
"This city tolerates your faction no longer. Abandon it or die."
I really don't understand why the writers of FW wrote that. It kills one of the coolest things about Sigil: The rule of belief.
Ah but did she mean they had to abandon their beliefs or just the factions that organized those beliefs and garnered political power from those adherants?
She was vague, and the metaphorical devil lies not in the details but in the vagaries of any notion. She never clarified that edict and the factions mostly left Sigil, though some disbanded entirely, and others stayed but released their claims to official power. Thus far these varied solutions seem to have pleased Her Serenity.
. To the victors go the spoils ...Personally, I think the Lady left her edict as vague as it was on purpose. There was obviously no reason to clarify it more, if it's true that she's satisfied with the results. She didn't actually mention belief at all, either. Maybe she had no motive other than letting the factions know they'd been bad. Maybe she did. Who knows? Maybe any other motive she had won't have any effect for thousands of years.
Maybe she just got jealous. The Factions weren't exactly paying much attention to her during their little war.
Originally posted by mrgoat
No. She showed up with a Dabus, the dabus "spoke". Presumably, she was the one directing it what to say. After all, last time a dabus disobeyed Her, some bad things happened.
Yeah, that Aoskar business was nasty. I warned him. I told him, 'Hey, don't mess with the Lady.' But he was sure he had it all worked out. Man, I wish I hadn't sold him that potion.
Originally posted by mrgoat
No. She showed up with a Dabus, the dabus "spoke". Presumably, she was the one directing it what to say. After all, last time a dabus disobeyed Her, some bad things happened.
Personally, I think the Lady left her edict as vague as it was on purpose. There was obviously no reason to clarify it more, if it's true that she's satisfied with the results. She didn't actually mention belief at all, either. Maybe she had no motive other than letting the factions know they'd been bad. Maybe she did. Who knows? Maybe any other motive she had won't have any effect for thousands of years.
Personally i think it would be fun if all the factions just somehow dramatically missinterpreted the rebus which the dabus spoke. I mean look at the post FW lawyers and you know that it could happen.....
what i had heard, once upon a time, was that FW was going to be the first part in a long term 3 part cycle which would of course incorporate all of the PS rules of the multiverse, and would end back right where it started (ala unity of rings) with the original factions from the PS campaign set and most of the factols (how the hell was skall mazed? he never spends time in sigil, sruce got mazed....good thing we have lhar right there to take his place back, oakright makes a perfect darkwood the sequal. karin was mazed? why do i think through sheer laws of chaos the first thing he will do is walk right through the portal out? darius might be able to imagine his way out, vergrove on the other hand may just ascend now with the extra belief, the free league and the anarchists would just find new leaders somewhere: c'est la vie....admittedly pentar, nilesa, and terrence are a bit harder to figure but they were all pretty charismatic leaders who would quickly take charge of their factions again....or reconstitute them...
what gets me is the end of faction war....first the daughters of light becoming much more of sect almost to the point of having faction status.
then the loss of the organizational structure that factions brought to people in the city, without it you just have INDIVIDUAL barmies running around...but it was outright stated (and implied) when talking about the great upheaval that her serenity prefers to have groups of barmies as they are easy to manipultate. i mean we all rememeber what happened the last time there were too many free thinkers running loose.
ashy
As far as Nilesia, its important to remember that she's still alive but somewhere in slavery on the lower planes. She might pop back up eventually. She's driven enough, and just as barmy to survive and make her way back to Sigil.
In fact one of the first things I did in my current campaign, about a year ago, was reintroduce Nilesia to Sigil. Less than a month after her return she was flayed in public for killing a dabus during a psychotic episode in which she demanded The Lady return Darkwood to her for 'justice'. A year later after this however, both in and out of game, Nilesia has been seen in Sigil by numerous people apparently very much alive. So the question then remains is it her now? Was it her then? And who might have faked her death and why, or why impersonate her now.
There's tons of stuff to play around with with the Factols. I had an NPC that was geased or otherwise forced to enter Terrance's maze to attempt to force him to reveal the location of the corpse of Aoskar within the Astral. It was interesting to describe how Terrance's maze looked in comparison to another maze that the PC's themselves had to enter at one point, forced to do so by the same individual that had compelled the visitor to Terrance's maze.
That's Justice!!!
Originally posted by ashramry
...what i had heard, once upon a time, was that FW was going to be the first part in a long term 3 part cycle which would of course incorporate all of the PS rules of the multiverse, and would end back right where it started (ala unity of rings)
So the actual date of Planescape being cancelled, left the community in total chaos.
Capitalism always had a great sense of timing :D
If true, it seems that the lady was plain out bored with life at the time, and decided to shake up her little glass world, just to see the factions fall like snow before they settled again.
With great power comes great responsibilty... bah!
Originally posted by Shemeska the Marauder
As far as Nilesia, its important to remember that she's still alive but somewhere in slavery on the lower planes. She might pop back up eventually. She's driven enough, and just as barmy to survive and make her way back to Sigil.
well shemeska id love to hear about what the dark is for nilesia in a private email if you wouldnt mind.
Also good thought on the Darius thing. Ive been wracking my bonebox trying to cipher a way to somehow restore the campaign much closer to the defult box set and to retrieve the important berks from exile.
QUOTE]Originally posted by taotad
So the actual date of Planescape being cancelled, left the community in total chaos.
Capitalism always had a great sense of timing
If true, it seems that the lady was plain out bored with life at the time, and decided to shake up her little glass world, just to see the factions fall like snow before they settled again.
*nods* well the only things constant in the universe are the blood war and change....despite what the sods from mechanus might say.
ashy
Hee hee. Just wait till Primus hears about that. *giggles some more and dispatches a particularly useful Argenach disguised as a Formian to go tell Primus*
Basically the last significant organized stronghold of the old-school MKs is the Vault on Colothys. During the FW the Harmonium recalled most of their troops posted there to Sigil. Once the Lady closed off the Cage an Anarchist agent provoked a coup in the Vault that resulted in the MKs taking sole control, but cut off from Sigil as the portal to the Barracks had changed once Sigil was opened back up.
Now they have been manipulated by the Anarchists into seeking "justice" against the remaining factions (esp. the Sodkillers and Sons of Mercy) for the death of Nilesia and their swift fall from power. Recent killings of some minor guild officials in the Cage have been linked to the Red Death, as they start making their move to reclaim their stolen place in the rightful order of things.
Of course Nilesia isn't really dead, since the Arcanoloth who bought the lot of prisoners quickly realized who she was. Who knows what will happen when she is put back in charge of the Mercykillers as the puppet of a fiend?
I'm also thinking of making the fall of the Mercykillers a central plot in my campaign, involving the PCs in the death of Mallin and getting them caught up in the growing divisions in the faction.
I imagine a guild for almost everything.
You've got a musicians guild, a trader guild for almost every possible goods possible and/or impossible, a magician guild for every possible school of magic etc, etc.
That would make it too chaotic, so after a while they'll start organizing into larger more sentralized guilds, trying to coordinate their efforts.
Another threat to all this is the possibility of the Thieves Guild stepping up for power and acting more and more like a mafia in a modern city. Why not?
There is no big government to stop them except fractions of lesser ones. Maybe post-fw could become some sort of dark ages for Sigil, keeping the entire city under the iron heel of oppression.
I see three fractions of powers that should possibly rise to take more control of the city in an interim period until the situation stabilizes:
- The Golden Lords: They have the funds, they have the will. They'll probably not directly intervene in the politics, but sponsor people they like. The Lower Ward can expect much of their property to become warehouses for their trading enterprises.
- The Thieves' guild: Threatening and cajoling people to pay part of their earnings for protection. The guild will probably use the period to expand their spy network so that their influence will rise.
- The Former Factions: They are dying, but still hold the social networks to affect the city on larger a scale.
It is a good idea for a more organized criminal element to emerge, possibly with some dark and mysterious (and egotystical and dog-headed) figure that runs things from the shadows. There would definitely be multiple guilds of thieves, though. Otherwise it would be like having just one faction, and that is no fun.
"Why dirty my claws when it's far easier to bob a man on paper than to lift his purse or crash his kip?"
The problem with a large thieves guild in Sigil is that like it's been said before, there's lots of small territorial ones already. Heck theres even an entire district in the Lower Ward, the Garianis district, that is more or less run by Sigil's own variant of a smalltime mafia.
And besides the territorial groups of thieves there's always been the Takers *chuckle*, and there's groups of thieves not bound to a territory, but associating along racial lines across Sigil. Rule-of-Three is rumored to run a very prolific thieves operation from time to time, all of his people being Tanar'ri or Tanar'ri blooded.
The most powerful crimes in Sigil are often those that aren't really against the law but instead exist in that fuzzy area involving legal extortion, manipulation, etc.
Which is more profitable, a group of tieflings in the Market ward lifting purses every week and getting scragged by the City Watch, the Sons of Mercy, or the Sodkillers when caught? Or pushing Autochon the Bellringer into a deal with the Temple of the Abyss, and then when he was cursed when his deal went sour, offering to protect him for essentially his servitude and a hefty share of his guild's profits. "Besides, there's the added benefit of breaking a proud man to your whim and call..."
Besides, the Sodkillers and the Minder's Guild would bludgeon any organized thieves guild in Sigil if its raised its head too high. The powerful and elite of The Cage would pour jink into seeing them exterminated and hung at the Tower of the Wyrm, the courts be damned.
Anyway, I don't think post-FW Sigil was meant to be as interesting as before. There's a note towards the end mentioning that subsequent releases will focus more on the planewalking aspect of the setting (though there's a frustrating note after that which hints that they still had long-term plans for the cage that we'll never see now).
What you do have in Sigil is a power vacuum, and I suspect that's where most of the action would be. Some of the old faces might get some ambitious new ideas.
The Lady's also going to have to start paying more attention to the various temples in Sigil now that the factions have been run out of town and they've got the belief market more or less cornered. What exactly would she do if too many people turned to worshipping good-aligned gods and Sigil began drifting towards the upper planes?
Originally posted by overtrick
What you do have in Sigil is a power vacuum, and I suspect that's where most of the action would be. Some of the old faces might get some ambitious new ideas.
*NODS* In my upcomming post fw game i have determined that the politics of the city is now run by a democractically elected council (even the fomrer anarchists agreed to this as they assumed the system would be corrupt and heaveyhanded) of nine members. the process is too complex to explain now...but essentially everyone had one vote (even if they chose not to use it or simply ballet stuffed by claiming to be others).
Rhys made the list of course. as well as a few surprises. Shemeska somehow bribed, cajoled or cheated her way to the council.....and uh...that other arcanaloth also somehow got a seat (though no one will admit ever voting for him). the LG holies all see the fact that two loths got in as a sign that sigil is now being run by evil, and the rhetoric and prosylitizing is getting out of hand.
Originally posted by overtrick
The Lady's also going to have to start paying more attention to the various temples in Sigil now that the factions have been run out of town and they've got the belief market more or less cornered. What exactly would she do if too many people turned to worshipping good-aligned gods and Sigil began drifting towards the upper planes?
sigil doesnt slide or drift. even if everyone in it were of one belief or alignment (unlikely) sigil is immune to that sort of thing
ashy
Originally posted by ashramry
[BRhys made the list of course. as well as a few surprises. Shemeska somehow bribed, cajoled or cheated her way to the council.....and uh...that other arcanaloth also somehow got a seat (though no one will admit ever voting for him). [/b]
*chuckle* In my own game I had Estevan with a seat originally when the campaign began, but a year into the game I held elections. He kept his seat, and Zadara the Titan took the seat vacated by Jeena Ealy. Shemeska wasn't on the ballot, but it's widely assumed that she controls the votes cast by Cirily, and possibly one of the other council members. A'kin would have sat on the council but he declined the position.
I actually had one of my players cast a write in vote for Fell.
Council meetings have been fun to RP, and some of the issues that have been discussed and voted on have had an impact on the PC's, and of couse they get to speak their mind since they own property in Sigil. Thats one of the stipulations I placed on getting to place a vote for council members; one vote per person for a tax paying property owner. Value and amount of property doesn't matter, thus Shemeska and Jeremo don't own half the votes in the city among themselves. :DOriginally posted by ashramry
sigil doesnt slide or drift. even if everyone in it were of one belief or alignment (unlikely) sigil is immune to that sort of thing
Of course it doesn't. But I always thought that was because of the Lady rather than some physical law. I suppose I should go check the books and refresh my memory.
Originally posted by Shemeska the Marauder
*chuckle* In my own game I had Estevan with a seat originally when the campaign began, but a year into the game I held elections. He kept his seat, and Zadara the Titan took the seat vacated by Jeena Ealy. Shemeska wasn't on the ballot, but it's widely assumed that she controls the votes cast by Cirily, and possibly one of the other council members. A'kin would have sat on the council but he declined the position.
yeah, estevan got a seat in my game as well...and now you begin to see most peoples apprehensions about the council.....
Originally posted by Shemeska the Marauder
*
I actually had one of my players cast a write in vote for Fell.
damn....i know its been asked before...but shemiska, if you ever come live in North Dakota, i want in on a game!
ashy
You'll have me with this warm fluttery feeling inside during the Xmas holidays now. Either that or its just the Firewine talking, one or the other. ;)
The Minders Guild has become a force of power, it's to biggest employers being Estevan as he tries to make good of the power vacuum, but this has been difficult for him because of the current trade confusion he is trying to remedy, and the Golden Lords as they try to muscle in on the his business.
Also the Daughters of the Light have become to some extent Sigil's new law, as they try to wipe the factions out of Sigil and rectify the chaos that covers it. The Anarchists doing if you ask them. They have met some stiff resistance from some small Harmonium groups that are still precent in the Cage, which has progressed to a sporadic guerilla war.
There is also currently an mass exorcise from Sigil as its citizen have lost faith in the Lady, as well as the current shortage of good in the city. They'll be back.
But me, I’m just playing in the ashes
:D
i really want to make the power struggle between the individual golden lords to the forefront, as other groups like the minders guild, the priesthoods, the daughters and the faction remnants all vie for more power with them.
i picture the squabbling between varius golden lords to be comparable to the war of the great houses in drow cities...very silent and behind the scenes up until the point they explode...when of course they lady may have to step in and teach the beligerant mortals a lesson.
ashy